Also, if you take a piece of artwork and alter it slightly, it becomes a separate and different piece of original artwork and is not subject to the copyright of the original artist. I can print photos of the Mona Lisa with an arrow through her head, in the press all over the world, and the owner of the artwork cannot touch me. It is my piece of artwork and the original artist/owner has no claim to my work whatsoever.

sauromatian wrote:
Based on that logic, we can't photograph items for sale on eBay (which would also make the Noble Knight thread moot, were it true). From a site for international IP law:

http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/ip_photography.htm
"Taking photos to accompany a review or critique
In most countries, copyright material may be used for criticism or review. For example, if you are taking photos of cartoons for a book which reviews, critiques or analyses the works. Just like for the exception of news reporting, you will usually be required to identify the copyright work and the name of the artist.

Taking a photo of a copyright work to advertise its sale
If you photograph a painting or other artistic work for the sole purpose of advertising its sale, for example, in an auction or sale catalogue, then you will usually not need prior authorization."

I think there's some confusion of the issues here. If you're selling your own item that you purchased and you place a photo of the item on Ebay, or in a newspaper or wherever, sure you can take a photograph of the item to sell it.

But let's say you scan the cover of your favorite D&D book, or take the image off of someone's website and begin printing it out like a poster and selling multiple copies of it, then it is definitely not. Nor can you reprint the books for that matter and sell your reprinted material. Nor can you make duplicates of the Core Rule CD Rom sets and begin reselling those duplicates.

A copy of the Thieves World novel was not being sold here, nor was there a review or a critique of it in the magazine as far as I can tell. Of course, I can only understand a percentage of the material, as it's in a different language . There wasn't a list of original art for sale in the magazine, either.

Also, other art lifted from D&D books were used in an article later in the issue, and this again does not look like a review, but new ideas for spells, etc. One piece in particular I recognize is a Doug Chaffee illustration from the 2e PHB of which the copyright is held by WotC/Hasbro now. The other art looks to be as well.

The only ones that looks legit to me are for the reviews of the rpg games.

I know it makes your magazine look cool and raises up the quality level to use professional looking art, but you have to have permission to use it and compensate the copyright holder, assuming they allow you to use it in the first place.

Think about it this way...there are those reviews in that issue about various OSR rpg products. Ask Troll Lord Games on Castles & Crusades/Crusader Magazine why on their covers they don't just re-use without his permission a cool looking Larry Elmore image taken either from his site or from a scan of the cover of some Dragonlance module. I mean, that's a magazine with articles and reviews, right? So it should be fair use? Ask them if they can splash Walter Velez' cool looking original painting from Thieves World on their next issue...see what they say.

Guys, you should seriously consult an attorney about this, or at the very least pose these questions to professionals in the industry.

mbassoc2003 wrote:The piccies are good, some of them of things i've never seen, and you can copy and paste into Google Translate when you want to read something that looks particularly interesting. And they're free!
If a board member has the passion to write it and then give it away for free, I'm gonna at the very least download it and take a look through. Besides, one day Adobe will translate PDF s on the fly, and I'll be able to read magazines like this in english no matter what language the author writes in. By then maybe these won't be up for download anymore.

Best I download them then eh

Isn't "DM" a trademark of WotC?

aia wrote:
The DM of the mag title stands for DIRE MINOTAUR  and not for Dungeon Master...  

I remember a trademark for Dungeon Master but not for DM...  

AD&D = accidental death & disability