White Wolf Applying License to Indie Games

Enigma23 writes "White Wolf, Inc. has decided to enforce a licensing system upon those who run their games in their World of Darkness. Here is the full text of the license. The Licensing process will force those who have not already joined the Camarilla, White Wolf's official fan club, to pay a yearly $20 fee. They're not going to go after games that don't charge money for the event, but the wording is such that they can legally sue those who don't comply even if they only charge enough money to cover costs. The practical upshot is that technically the WW Stormtroopers could raid your house merely if everyone chips in a few quid for pizza. This is evidently doubly so if anyone in your gaming group is under the age of 18, which is against the membership policy of The Camarilla. There is a further discussion on RPG.net about the various issues involved." The BoingBoing discussion is interesting, as well.

Comments

This seems pretty silly

[cpt kangarooski]

It's a dismal failure as a trademark license, given that 1) gamers are likely only engaging in nominative uses, which are perfectly legal and desirable anyway, and 2) there doesn't seem to be a quality control and auditing system, which actually jeopardizes WW's rights. They seem to be engaging in naked licensing, which is pretty bad.

In the copyright realm, it's also pretty lousy. You can't copyright game rules (you need a patent for that), so all they can stand on is the setting. Merely playing the game doesn't involve reproduction, distribution, preparing derivative works, or actionable public display. You could argue public performance based on the setting, but I think it'd be insulated by fair use, if not estoppel.

Personally, I'd ignore the hell out of them. Of course, the d20 license is stupid too -- if you're careful, it's perfectly legal to make unauthorized modules and such for the commercial market.

Re:And people wonder why I don't play Storyteller.

[cpt kangarooski]

Bah. Real men play GURPS.

I said it before and I'll say it again

[Digital Vomit]

From the article: "In brief, White Wolf is requesting that those who wish to charge players to play White Wolf games (beyond standard fees at a convention) obtain a license to do so from us. We request this both in order to ensure we can provide a consistent level of support and play experience to those fans looking to play our games and in order to protect our rights in terms of trademark and so forth.

"Q. All I charge my players is a share of the fee the facility where we play charges us. Do I still need this license?

"A. Yes. Even though you aren't making a profit, you are still collecting and disbursing money -- money earned through the use of White Wolf games and settings."

I said it before and I'll say it again: We need to seriously fix the problems caused by the notions of "Intellectual Property" soon or it will destroy our society faster than we think. Sure something like this is unenforceable and would be laughed out of court, but not until after having financially destroyed some poor gamers.

And sooner or later some idiot judge (it seems like there are no other kinds these days) is going to side against common sense and start giving corporations the power to actually force their customers to do things like this.

I know some people out there are going to somehow take this as a pro-piracy rant, or switch into "IP makes the world go round" mode, but this kind of crap has gone way, way too far for far too long. Intellectual Property laws have to be seriously reworked. If we keep going the way we've been going for the past few decades. We're going to self destruct as not only a nation, but as a society.

Re:Cross posting:

[cei]

But isn't the point of this that they're cracking down on people charging to play games? By doing so, they're creating a service that incorporates use of the trademark, aren't they? I know, probably a stretch. Just trying to pre-guess what angle they're using.