The Big Fear About the "Disclaimer"

I think the real danger is not that TSR is going to publish your submission against your will, but that TSR is going to accept your submission, then refuse to publish it (possibly shutting down the official TSR sites), and because of the above "disclaimer", you won't be able to send it anywhere else. TSR already claims you cannot distribute anywhere else, but TSR's claims to that effect are on shaky legal ground: i.e., you cannot distribute stuff because it contains references to "hit points" or "inches". However, if you release your material with the above disclaimer, TSR has a _legal_ way to keep you from putting it anywhere else, because you just _said_ that it may not be published anywhere that TSR doesn't like.

mobius@Mercury.mcs.com (Rob Repp) writes: It is my belief that this disclaimer may, in effect, create a contract between the writer and TSR, which releases all copyright from the author to TSR. That is, as the writer of a derivative work, you will surrender all copyright to TSR. (Normally, TSR would have no copyright to material written by you, which is derivative of TSR works, because you maintain the copyright to your original elements. INCLUDING THIS DISCLAIMER may mean that you LOSE THAT COPYRIGHT.) Thus, this being the case, TSR may publish your material, in part or in full, for profit, and you will have NO LEGAL RECOURSE. That is, you will receive no payment for your work should TSR decide to publish it. I make no claim as to intention on TSR's part, but it may still, independently, be the case, and could affect YOU at a later date.

OK. Australian common law (and presumably its American equivalent) has held that for a contract to be upheld both parties must be compensated for what they offer into that contract. There are a few exceptions to this rule (contracts `under seal', I think), but this is not one of them. Anyway, compensation must be `sufficient', but not necessarily `adequate'. Sufficient means that it must have some recogniseable, quantifiable character. In other words, `my undying love' is not sufficient, because it is ambiguous. Adequate means such that it is of equal value to the other thing. A copy of the Complete Fighters Handbook is adequate compensation for the Complete Thieves Handbook. Therefore, I could buy a bridge from someone for one dollar, and it would be considered enough. That is, sufficient, but not adequate. Therefore, if the allowance to upload material to ftp.mgpn.com (is that right?) is considered to be sufficient, that is, quantifiable, then there may exist a contract, which, in exchange, gives TSR the right to publish that material. That is, TSR gives the author permission to upload, and the author transfers the right to publish. The right to publish, in this case, is not restricted, and is in effect the copyright, or a liscence to permit TSR to use that copyright. Now, there are a number of things that might prevent this: * US law may have a minimum standard of adequacy * The right to upload may not be sufficient * There may be issues of misrepresentation or mistake to consider * Contracts may not be possible over the Internet Another interesting thing about contracts is that they may also include that one party *will not* do something, as well as do something. Therefore, it is possible to form a contract that says you will not publish that material separately. If the disclaimer gives TSR copyright, then it probably does this as well.