Steve Jackson vs. White Wolf
Jack Gavigan
White Wolf
flame war, and my views on it. If you don't want to read my opinions on
the matter then I strongly suggest you hit Q, or whatever now. On the
other hand, if you are interested in the current dispute, then I would
ask you to read it. Particularly, I'd like to see replies from both
Steve
and Stephan, but other replies are welcome. Please flame to my email
address and not in public. ]
Having read both Steve Jackson's original posting to the net and Stephan
Wieck's reply, along with a lot of comments and replies from other people
on various mailing lists and newsgroups, and I's just like to add
voice my
opinions on the matter.
First of all, I think I should say that I think it was rather stupid
of
Steve to move the entire dicussion onto the net, and the tone and manner
of his letter, which was little better than a flame, further compunded
the "sin". Disputes between companies should not be aired over the
net,
and, to me, Steve Jackson's letter looked like an attempt to
a) discredit Stephan Wieck personally, and
b) embarass Stephan and White Wolf, in an attempt to get them to
cooperate with SJG, in order to prevent further embarassment from
further flaming from Steve Jackson on the net...
Needless to say, I consider this to be inexcusable behaviour. There are
plenty of ways of resolving disputes such as this, without resorting to
flaming and insulting another games company and it's president on the
Internet. I don't care if you start spouting about Free Speech, &c., &c.
This sort of disagreement benefits noone in the end. it reflects badly
on the industry and it reflects badly on the hobby as a whole.
So, having said that, I will now move on to the actual content of the
respective letters. First of all, I get the impression, although I may be
wrong, that Steve is mainly annoyed at Stephan for not returning any of
his faxes. Now, I personally find this quite ironical, as my own
experience
(and, after asking around a few acquaintances, this seems to be something
that quite a few people would agree on), is that Steve Jackson himself is
terrible when it comes to replying to letters, while expecting immediate
replies to messages which he himself sends out. My own personal experience
with this was around twenty months ago, when I sent in, to Steve Jackson,
a proposal for a GURPS product. Three months later, having received no
reply, I sent in a followup letter, repeating everything I'd said in the
original letter. Still, there was no reply. I ended up phoning SJG from
Ireland (Had a look at trans-Atlantic phone charges recently?) and finally
got an answer from Loyd Blankenship. More on this particular episode
later.
My point here is that I think that Steve may have been expecting just
a bit
too much from both Stephan and White Wolf. White Wolf has plenty of other
projects to be working on, and I would guess that Wraith would have
been
going into final production around the time that Steve says he was sending
his faxes, and so on... Without knowing the content of the faxes, or,
indeed, the details of the whole dispute, I can't be certain, but it may
well be the case that White Wolf were simply too busy at the time to reply
to what they considered to be frivolous and time-wasting questions. One
thing I am sure about is that the personal disagreements between Steve
and Stephan - the issue of whether Steve called Stephan a liar olr not,
for example - sure didn't help things, or encourage Stephan to jump to it
when Steve's fax arrived. Certainly seeing something like this in an open
posting to the Net wouldn't exactly endear me to Steve if I were the
person being referred to:
"Lost it," eh? Verrrrrry professional, Mr. Wieck. This is the
way a REAL company president acts, don't you think?
In a case like this, it is impossible to say who is in the right and who
is in the wrong - Perhaps it _was_ unreasonable of Stephan Wieck to not
reply to Steve's faxes... The truth will never be known.
In any case, my personal suggestion would be that Steve Jackson should put
together a comprehensive list of all the questions he wants answered, and
should send it off the Stephan, who should, in turn, collect answers
to
all these questions and reply directly to Steve, with the list of answers.
Then Steve and his staff can go about putting together a new
manuscript for
GURPS Mage. Unfortunately, this seems very unlikely, due to the fact that,
with his posting to the Net, Steve Jackson widened the rift between SJG
and White Wolf to the extent that Stephan Wieck wrote:
Certainly, we will be doing everything possible and reasonable to
end our business relationship with Steve Jackson Games. I have no
desire to do business with someone who launches public attacks
against me or the company that I am proud to be part of.
And, I ask myself - "Can I blame him?".
I can't help but have the suspicion that this may be what Steve
Jackson
wanted all along - to annoy Stephan and White Wolf into exasperation at
first, and finally into breaking off the agreement, in an attempt to
gain PR on the public front. _IF_ this was Steve's original intention
(and I'm not saying it is, only that I _suspect_ it may have been), then
it does seem to have worked quite well, at least, at first. There were
plenty of messages basically supporting Steve and saying to WW -
"Well?! What have you got to say for yourselves, eh?!".
Stephan answered these calls with an open letter of his own in which, I
think, he unequivocally let us know exactly what was happening as far as
White Wolf is concerned - ie. he's going to do "everything possible
and
reasonable" to end WW's "business relationship with Steve Jackson Games."
I don't think that this leaves any room for double-talk.
I'm now going to make a few comments on the issue which led to White
Wolf's
rejection of the GURPS Mage manuscript - ie. that it copied too much
from
the original WW book. This seems to have been based on some kind of a
communications problem between SJG and WW. And before you start saying
that the communications problem was WW's fault, because they refused to
answer Steve Jackson's faxes, may I briefly point out that the faxes
sent
by Steve which weren't answered were sent AFTER WW rejected the Mage
manuscript. There is also the issue of White Wolf changing their minds on
several issues - whether SJG could do "place" sourcebooks; doing sampler
sourcebooks; etc. It seems to me that White Wolf were in a position to
dictate to Steve Jackson what he could and could not do, and I don't
really see why he is complaining about it, if that was the way that his
contract with White Wolf was structured - everyone knows that verbal
agreements aren't worth the air used to say them. (I would say "..aren't
worth the paper they're written on." but they're not. Written on paper,
that is... ;) You MUST have it on paper.
Then, Steve moves onto explaining how he argued with WW in an attempt to
get them to reconsider their judgement of the GURPS Mage manuscript:
We pointed out that at the beginning of the very first project,
GURPS VAMPIRE, they had surprised us by requiring that we write
new chapter-intro vignettes. "Mark Rein-Hagen doesn't want his
stories re-used." So Jeff Koke wrote all new vignettes, and
they're very good. But Jeff and Mark had gone over the whole
VAMPIRE book to decide which non-rules sections could be copied,
and which would have to be rewritten from scratch. Wasn't it
unfair, we asked, to change the rules after MAGE was finished,
when we'd done just what Mark Rein-Hagen had personally
supervised
on VAMPIRE?
Well, no. They didn't think it was relevant. Steve Wieck didn't
want to admit that any instructions we had had from Mark
Rein-Hagen
affected the current question at all.
Personally, I don't get Steve's argument here - he seems to be saying
that,
because Mark R*H supervised GURPS Vampire, GURPS Mage should be alright...
I'm sorry, but am I missing some huge point here? I don't get the logic.
Jeff Koke and I pointed out that ALL our previous books had made
extensive use of material from their White Wolf originals . . .
that was the point of the license. "Not this much," was the
reply.
True. They'd been vetoing originality right and left, and
approving
duplicated material. MAGE contained more duplication than the
earlier
books, and with less internal editing by our writer; the MAGE
disks
they sent us were much more cleanly written than the sources they
supplied for earlier books.
It seems to me that Steve virtually admits that White Wolf were right to
reject GURPS Mage on the grounds that it copied too much from the original
WW product when he says - "MAGE contained more duplication than the
earlier
books...". Apologies if it looks as if I'm taking this quote out of
context
by omitting the bit about internal editing, but, in my opinion, internal
editing doesn't really affect whether you've basically copied stuff word
for word, or not. Let me give an example - If I'm doing GURPS Mage,
and I
copy two sections - section A and section B - verbatim from WW's Mage, and
I put section A _after_ section B, I'm still not changing the fact
that
both sections were copied verbatim.
There are then some mentions of "misunderstandings" on SJG's part
regarding
Bob Schroek's discussion with Phil Brucato about "EXACTLY which parts
of
his outline would be rewritten and which parts would use the MAGE text."
and about the Werewolf Companion. I would again attribute these to a lack
of communications btween the two companies. I'm not syaing that White Wolf
didn't simply use "misunderstanding" as a euphemism for "We've changed our
mind", but if they did, then it would seem that Steve Jackson really has
noone but himself to blame, having omitted to get these agreements in
writing.
To touch briefly on the matter of personal insults in this whole thing.
Steve Jackson wrote:
(Now you're asking: Did I really call Steve Wieck a liar? Well, I
sure put his nose out of joint. We were on the phone. He made a couple
of very self-serving remarks, with the stilted, repeated phrasing and
the tone of voice that I last heard from the Secret Service guys as
they lied about raiding us. I pointed out that what he said didn't mesh
with facts I possessed. He stormed "I don't like being called a liar."
I was amazed. All I could say was "Don't lie, then." In my
experience,
the louder someone tells you they're honest, the more you have to watch
them. Honest people just don't lie, and everyone notices. Their reputat-
ions take care of themselves. On the other hand, sometimes a cool black
shirt covers a really thin skin.)
Unfortunately, I don't view this particular paragraph with much liking,
simply because Steve, like many a politician, doesn't actually answer
the question "Did I really call Steve Wieck a liar?", _even though_ he
asks it _hemself_!!!
Stephan Wieck writes in his letter:
"Steve Jackson did specifically call me a liar..."
Personally, I am inclined to believe Stephan, simply because Steve hasn't
actually said "No, I did not call Stephan Wieck a liar."
Moving on once more to a paragraph near the end of Steve Jackson's letter:
The point is that we won't bear this in silence. We won't mislead
people by saying that everything's all right, and we won't let
White Wolf get away with it either. Our distributors, and our
retailers, and our players, will know exactly how White Wolf
treats us in exchange for the thousands of dollars of our money -
OF YOUR MONEY - that have already gone into their coffers on this
licensing deal. (And we're about to write them yet another big check.)
All this stuff about the money - I would assume that the deal meant
that
SJG would pay White Wolf a set amount for each product SJG published,
which was based on White Wolf's stuff - ie. there would be a set amount
for GURPS Vampire, another amount for Vampire Companion, and so on, with,
perhaps SJG paying White Wolf a set amount for each unit sold, so,
basically, the more copies of GURPS Vampire sold, the more White Wolf's
eventual fee would be. This would mean that, if GURPS Mage is never
published, SJG will never have to pay for it. On the other hand, if SJG
signed an agreement whereby they have to pay White Wolf for the license
to publish GURPS Mage whether they actually pay it or not, then I'd say
that they were pretty stupid, and, in either case, I think that Steve
should stop whining about the money aspect - ie. I think that the mention
of money in the paragraph quoted above has no place there whatsoever.
Moving on once more, Steve wrote:
"It would be nice to believe that White Wolf wants these books
to come out, and wants them to be good. But Steve Wieck told
me, months ago, that he wished this license had never been
granted. (No, I wasn't recording him, but I believe him.)
There sure weren't any congratulations from Atlanta when GURPS
VAMPIRE won the Origins Award this year."
I think it should be fairly obvious that Stephan Wieck sure as hell wishes
_now_ that the license had never been granted, but his own personal
opinion
should have had no real effect on whether GURPS Mage got printed or
not. If
Steve Jackson feels that White Wolf violated the terms of their agreement
with SJG, then he should take it to court, not whine about it on the Net.
Because, to me, that is what Steve's whole letter comes across as - a
flame
directed at White Wolf and Stephan Wieck in particular, in which he whines
about various things, and includes a lot of stuff which basically has
nothing to do with the matter whatsoever - the stuff about the money, for
example.
Stephan Wieck's reply is, on the other hand, open, professional, and
unequivocal in it's declaration of his intentions. There is only one thing
I would pick up on, and this is it:
I did not, nor would I ever condemn the character of a former White
Wolf employee. I did suggest that Steve Jackson take with a grain
of salt anything he may hear from a former employee who may
have left with bad feelings towards myself or White Wolf.
However, the few people who have left or been asked to leave
White Wolf, I still hold in high regard, no matter what the reason
they are no longer with White Wolf. I have even put in positive
words on their behalf when they interviewed with other gaming
companies (I would say something more here, but I won't. Ask me
in e-mail).
Jana Wright, who works for Wizards of the Coast posted a message to the
vampire-l mailing list saying that she had been present when someone from
White Wolf (I can't remember whether it was Stephan or not, and I'm afraid
that I have since deleted the message), phoned WOTC to tell them not to
employ Lyndi, because her husband was a felon.
Now, obviously, there is a lot more to this that I have written down
here,
and I'm not witholding that information - I simply don't know it. However,
I think that the Lyndi in question is one who left White Wolf in unusual
circumstances, according to what _I_ have heard. I have absolutely no idea
whether I am correct or not - I may be totally wrong, and I feel that it
may be a good idea were Stephan to clear up this matter for us, by
means of
another open letter. I simply feel that it might help to clear the air
slightly. Personally, the matter doesn't actually concern me in the
slightest - I just think that it would be a good idea, that's all.
I would like to say that I have never had any problems in my dealings with
White Wolf. On one or two occaisions, there have been
misunderstandings,
and stuff about which I wasn't amazingly happy about, but these things
are
a part of all business relationships, and, were the truth to be known,
were
as much, or even, more my fault than White Wolf's.
On the other hand, I'm afraid that I can't really say the same about Steve
Jackson Games. I mentioned earlier that I sent two letters to Steve
Jackson,
outlining an idea I had for a GURPS product. In these letters, I outlined
an proposal for a sourcebook, which I would write myself, and included
with
the proposal a signed declaration which basically said I copyrighted the
idea, but accepted that Steve Jackson Games, did not bring any obligation
upon themselves by simply reading my proposal, that if, having read my
proposal, they decided to actually publish something inspired by it, I
expected them to get back in touch with me, and that I would rely upon
my copyright to the idea to protect me legally.
The proposal outlined an idea I had for a sourcebook called GURPS
Celtic,
which would allow GURPS GamesMasters to run Celtic adventures, set in
a
Celtic culture, or simply incorporate aspects of Celtic Myth and Legend
into their games to enhance them.
Having received no reply to either of my letters, in which I expressly
requested a reply whether or not my idea was accepted, I phoned up
Steve Jackson Games and spoke to Loyd Blankenship, the then Managing
Editor at SJG. He told me that, to his knowledge, Steve hadn't received
my letters, as, if he had, Loyd would have had to look at my proposal.
So, I outlined my proposal verbally over the phone. Loyd told me there
and then that my proposal wouldn't be accepted then, at least, because
the GURPS schedule of releases for the next five years had already been
decided upon, and he basically said "Come back in five years and we might
accept your idea."
Fair enough. I forgot about the whole thing and got on with other
projects.
It wasn't until about a month ago that I heard that Steve Jackson has
someone working on a GURPS Celtic sourcebook. I believe that the
person
working on it is a freelancer who started work on it at Steve's
suggestion.
I am not certain about this, and I am, at present trying to get in
contact
with this person, in attempt to find out more information.
However, I am very angry to say the least to find out that an idea Loyd
rejected almost two years ago is now being developed by Steve Jackson
Games,
and I personally believe that my idea was, to put it bluntly, stolen.
Unfortunately, I have no records to back up my copyright to the idea, due
to the fact that I never got a written reply from SJG. To put it very
simply, I believe that my letters were received at Steve Jackson
Games,
alright, and, that, someone, somewhere along the line decided to basically
take the idea I had, and use it, without crediting me - that is to say
that
the decision to contract one of SJG's regular writers to do GURPS Celtic
was taken, and my rights to the idea were simply ignored.
Needless to say, I therefore take any complaints by Steve Jackson about
fairness and so on with a huge pinch of salt.
I'm going to move towards a wrap-up by touching on the subject of
professionalism.
In his letter, Steve basically _implies_ (ie. he doesn't actually _say_
it, but I interpret his meaning as saying) that Stephan Wieck is
"petty,
jealous, childish and unprofessional".
Personally, I view Steve Jackson's actions in stating this as being
unprofessional, whether or not Stephan is these things. Solid business
relationships are not the outcome of slanging matches like this.
At the start of his letter, Steve said:
After talking to him (Stephan Wieck), I don't think the relationship
between the companies can GET any worse, so there's no reason not to
tell my customers what's happening.
I think that Steve was totally wrong - the relationship _could_ get worse,
and by flaming White Wolf and Stephan Wieck on the Net, Steve ensured that
it _did_ get worse.
I would ask both Stephan and Steve to set aside their personal
differences,
and to forget about what has happened recently, and to simply set them-
selves to working in a professional and business-like manner to fulfilling
their original aim of there being GURPS versions of all the Storyteller
games. Surely this isn't impossible, although it may seem like it at
the
moment - I feel that this thing has been blown WAY out of proportion,
partly due to it spreading onto the net. However, public
recriminations and
blaming each other for what has gone wrong will do absolutely no good.
I think that Steve Jackson's staff should go about putting together a list
of questions which they require to be answered in order to go about
putting
together a new GURPS Mage manuscript, and that Stephan should answer those
questions in writing. Then, there can be no complaints of people going
back
on their word or whatever.
I'd just like to finish up by saying that I consider myself to be a
professional, in that I can effectively put things behind me. For example,
although I personally believe that I was hard done by Steve Jackson
Games,
I can't actually prove it, and therefore, I have no real reason for not
working with Steve Jackson in the future. Were he to come up to me and
say "How would you like to write GURPS XYZ?", I would not refuse on the
grounds that he had stolen my idea once before. Furthermore, whether
Stephan Wieck has been unprofessional, etc, etc. in his dealings with
Steve Jackson is a moot point to me when it comes to my dealings with
Whie Wolf. I have had no problems thus far, and until I do, my opinion of
Stephan Wieck will not change simply because someone else, no matter
who
they are, flames him.
I just wish that this whole episode had never actually happened,
because,
as I said before, it reflects badly on both the companies involved, on the
industry and on the hobby as a whole.
My personal opinion on the actual GURPS/Storyteller products
themselves
is that I think the fact that, for example, GURPS Vampire won the
award
at Origins reflects positively, rather than negatively on White Wolf.
Basically, no matter how you look at it, GURPS Vampire and GURPS Werewolf
are simply White Wolf's original games under a different rules system, and
I'd be damned proud of the fact that White Wolf's original ideas were
still good enough to win awards even under a different game system.
I'm not really a supporter of the entire GURPS Storyteller line as an
idea, simply because I feel that if people want to play Storyteller, they
should buy the original game, and that it kind of signifies the end of
GURPS - ie. that SJG are scraping the barrel if they have to license other
companies' games in order to keep on releasing GURPS stuff.
In any case, whether I like the GURPS stuff or not is a moot point - what
matters is that both Steve and Stephan start being positive as opposed to
negative about this whole thing, and that they try to work out something
so that they can finish what they started - ie. the rest of the GURPS
Storyteller line gets published to both their satisfaction.
I'm posting this to the vampire-l, werewolf-l, mage-l and GMAST-L
mailing
lists and to the rec.games.frp.misc and alt.games.whitewolf newsgroups.
If anyone wants to post it anywhere else, I would encourage them to do
so.
Yours sincerely,
/> John 'Dodger' Gavigan
/<
O[\\\\\\(O):::<======================================-
\<
\> John Gavigan - csc...@cent1.lancs.ac.uk
dod...@iii.net
"How could I be this way when I pray to God above?!
I must love what I destroy, and destroy the thing I love.."
- Sting, 'Moon Over Bourbon Street'
-----===*===-----
Sue and Sean
>In these letters, I outlined an proposal for a sourcebook, which I
>would write myself, and included with the proposal a signed
>declaration which basically said I copyrighted the idea, but accepted
>that Steve Jackson Games, did not bring any obligation upon
>themselves by simply reading my proposal, that if, having read my
>proposal, they decided to actually publish something inspired by it,
>I expected them to get back in touch with me, and that I would rely
>upon my copyright to the idea to protect me legally.
You canNOT copyright an idea. You can only copyright the expression
of it. Had I received such a query, I would have rejected it too.
You are obviously unfamiliar with the business of writing.
> <description of rejected GURPS Celtic proposal deleted>
>It wasn't until about a month ago that I heard that Steve Jackson has
>someone working on a GURPS Celtic sourcebook. I believe that the
>person working on it is a freelancer who started work on it at
>Steve's suggestion. I am not certain about this, and I am, at
>present trying to get in contact with this person, in attempt to find
>out more information.
>However, I am very angry to say the least to find out that an idea
>Loyd rejected almost two years ago is now being developed by Steve
>Jackson Games, and I personally believe that my idea was, to put it
>bluntly, stolen. Unfortunately, I have no records to back up my
>copyright to the idea, due to the fact that I never got a written
>reply from SJG. To put it very simply, I believe that my letters were
>received at Steve Jackson Games, alright, and, that, someone,
>somewhere along the line decided to basically take the idea I had,
>and use it, without crediting me - that is to say that the decision
>to contract one of SJG's regular writers to do GURPS Celtic was
>taken, and my rights to the idea were simply ignored.
You have no rights to an idea. If you think you do, quit whining on
the net and sue. You use the word "stolen." You are accusing SJ
Games of a crime. Why don't you take legal action?
Had you obtained and read the SJ Games Writers' Guide (what a concept)
you would have seen the waiver on the back which you should have
signed, which reads in part "I ... fully understand that SJ Games may
already have in its posession or under development similar ... [stuff]
... bearing a resemblance in ... [various ways] ... to my submission,
and that said other works may be published in the future after my
present submission has veen evaluated and reajected. I hearby agree
that ... I shall have no claim or recourse, legal or otherwise,
against SJ Games."
You, sir, are not qualified to comment on the professionalism of
anybody in the business or writing.
--
Susan and Sean (order optional) That which does not kill me
S & S Enterprises often hurts a whole lot.
sa...@netcom.com
Anders Gabrielsson
: [ This is a _very_ long posting about the current Steve Jackson -
: flame war, and my views on it. If you don't want to read my opinions on
: the matter then I strongly suggest you hit Q, or whatever now. On the
: other hand, if you are interested in the current dispute, then I would
: ask you to read it. Particularly, I'd like to see replies from both
: Steve
: and Stephan, but other replies are welcome. Please flame to my email
: address and not in public. ]
doesn't take this is a flame, as it is not intended to be one.
: First of all, I think I should say that I think it was rather stupid
: of
: Steve to move the entire dicussion onto the net, and the tone and manner
: of his letter, which was little better than a flame, further compunded
: the "sin".
I agree with this, to a certain extent. I think it was good that SJ told us
his view of what's going on, but I think it was done in a very bad way. He
should not have flamed SW and WW, even if he was very frustrated with the
situation.
Disputes between companies should not be aired over the
: net,
: and, to me, Steve Jackson's letter looked like an attempt to
: a) discredit Stephan Wieck personally, and
: b) embarass Stephan and White Wolf, in an attempt to get them to
: cooperate with SJG, in order to prevent further embarassment from
: further flaming from Steve Jackson on the net...
I'm not so sure that this was his intent. I haven't met either SJ or SW in
person, nor had any sort of business dealings with them (except for buying
some of their products), so I can't really comment on their personalities, but
to me it seems that SJ was very angry and frustrated when he wrote the letter,
and I don't think he was quite so "rational" as you seem to imply. I don't
think he sat down and calmly composed a letter that would do as much damage as
possible to SW and WW, but rather vented his anger. I think it was a mistake
to do this publicly.
: This sort of disagreement benefits noone in the end. it reflects badly
: on the industry and it reflects badly on the hobby as a whole.
Though this is true. Where to lay the blame is another question. I don't
think only one side has done wrong here.
: So, having said that, I will now move on to the actual content of the
: respective letters. First of all, I get the impression, although I may be
: wrong, that Steve is mainly annoyed at Stephan for not returning any of
: his faxes.
I'm not sure I agree with this; to me it seems that SJ is annoyed (at the
very least) with WW changing the rules of their agreement. I don't know if
this is true, but SJ obvioulsy does.
[poster commenting on SJ not replying to letters himself]
I don't think this is quite the same thing. SJG and WW has (or had?) an
agreement, a contract. IMO this makes them obliged to communicate in quite
another way. I don't know if WW was deliberately ignoring SJ, or if SJ really
was pestering SW with already answered questions. Either way at least one of
them was behaving unprofessionally, IMO.
: My point here is that I think that Steve may have been expecting just
: a bit
: too much from both Stephan and White Wolf. White Wolf has plenty of other
: projects to be working on, and I would guess that Wraith would have
: been
: going into final production around the time that Steve says he was sending
: his faxes, and so on... Without knowing the content of the faxes, or,
: indeed, the details of the whole dispute, I can't be certain, but it may
: well be the case that White Wolf were simply too busy at the time to reply
: to what they considered to be frivolous and time-wasting questions.
I think that they should at least have told SJ that they thought they had
answered those questions, and that they were busy with their other products. I
don't think ignoring SJ was the right thing to do, unless they had already told
him that they had answered his questions before.
One
: thing I am sure about is that the personal disagreements between Steve
: and Stephan - the issue of whether Steve called Stephan a liar olr not,
: for example - sure didn't help things, or encourage Stephan to jump to it
: when Steve's fax arrived.
From what I've heard SJ can be quite "indiplomatic" at times, like his
letter shows. If part of his accusations are true, I really can't blame him
for getting angry with SW. I don't think that's an excuse for calling someone
a liar, *unless you really think he is* a liar. I don't know whether SJ had
reason to call SW a liar, but I think he thought he had. I can understand if
SW took offence at this, but if he had behaved as badly as SJ says, then I
think SJ was right in saying what he said.
: In any case, my personal suggestion would be that Steve Jackson should put
: together a comprehensive list of all the questions he wants answered, and
: should send it off the Stephan, who should, in turn, collect answers
: to
: all these questions and reply directly to Steve, with the list of answers.
: Then Steve and his staff can go about putting together a new
: manuscript for
: GURPS Mage.
This would be ideal, if not, as the situation now is, very likely.
Unfortunately, this seems very unlikely, due to the fact that,
: with his posting to the Net, Steve Jackson widened the rift between SJG
: and White Wolf to the extent that Stephan Wieck wrote:
: Certainly, we will be doing everything possible and reasonable to
: end our business relationship with Steve Jackson Games. I have no
: desire to do business with someone who launches public attacks
: against me or the company that I am proud to be part of.
If what SJ wrote was true, and I am not taking his word for it, then I think
there was very serious problems even before SJ posted his letter. If things
were as bad as SJ says, I think it would have been difficult to salvage the
agreement even without his public letter.
: And, I ask myself - "Can I blame him?".
No, not really, unless what SJ wrote was (partly) true. In that case it
seems to me that WW wanted to end this agreement before SJG did.
: I can't help but have the suspicion that this may be what Steve
: Jackson
: wanted all along - to annoy Stephan and White Wolf into exasperation at
: first, and finally into breaking off the agreement, in an attempt to
: gain PR on the public front.
I don't think so. What kind of PR would SJ or SJG gain from breaking this
agreement? This seems far too unlikely; SJG making an agreement with WW,
publishing a few products, just to be able to break the agreement (that makes
money for them) to gain PR? No way, especially as SJG have several other
similar agreements with other companies. It would certainly not be in their
best interests to make it look like they were difficult to get along with.
_IF_ this was Steve's original intention
: (and I'm not saying it is, only that I _suspect_ it may have been), then
: it does seem to have worked quite well, at least, at first. There were
: plenty of messages basically supporting Steve and saying to WW -
: "Well?! What have you got to say for yourselves, eh?!".
For good reason, I think.
: Stephan answered these calls with an open letter of his own in which, I
: think, he unequivocally let us know exactly what was happening as far as
: White Wolf is concerned - ie. he's going to do "everything possible
: and
: reasonable" to end WW's "business relationship with Steve Jackson Games."
: I don't think that this leaves any room for double-talk.
Except for the fact that he didn't refute any of SJ's accusations. If he
had done so, it would certainly have made SJ look extremely foolish. As it is,
I think SW didn't do a very good job of defending himself or WW. He did not
adress any of the specific points that SJ mentioned, which makes you wonder if
SJ wasn't right after all.
: I'm now going to make a few comments on the issue which led to White
: Wolf's
: rejection of the GURPS Mage manuscript - ie. that it copied too much
: from
: the original WW book. This seems to have been based on some kind of a
: communications problem between SJG and WW. And before you start saying
: that the communications problem was WW's fault, because they refused to
: answer Steve Jackson's faxes, may I briefly point out that the faxes
: sent
: by Steve which weren't answered were sent AFTER WW rejected the Mage
: manuscript. There is also the issue of White Wolf changing their minds on
: several issues - whether SJG could do "place" sourcebooks; doing sampler
: sourcebooks; etc. It seems to me that White Wolf were in a position to
: dictate to Steve Jackson what he could and could not do, and I don't
: really see why he is complaining about it, if that was the way that his
: contract with White Wolf was structured - everyone knows that verbal
: agreements aren't worth the air used to say them. (I would say "..aren't
: worth the paper they're written on." but they're not. Written on paper,
: that is... ;) You MUST have it on paper.
Just because WW had legal possibility to change their minds about what sort
of books SJG would be allowed to do doesn't make it alright for them to do so,
IMO. If they didn't want SJG to do "place" books, why not say so from the
beginning. I think this was a bit unprofessional.
: Jeff Koke and I pointed out that ALL our previous books had made
: extensive use of material from their White Wolf originals . . .
: that was the point of the license. "Not this much," was the
: reply.
: True. They'd been vetoing originality right and left, and
: approving
: duplicated material. MAGE contained more duplication than the
: earlier
: books, and with less internal editing by our writer; the MAGE
: disks
: they sent us were much more cleanly written than the sources they
: supplied for earlier books.
: It seems to me that Steve virtually admits that White Wolf were right to
: reject GURPS Mage on the grounds that it copied too much from the original
: WW product when he says - "MAGE contained more duplication than the
: earlier
: books...".
But he also says that WW had been rejecting parts that weren't copied! I
don't know the details, but it seems to me that SJG got the impression that
WW wanted them to use the original text. There seems to have been a failure of
communication, all right. Both sides seems to have made assumptions about how
this should be done without bothering to check/communicate these assumptions.
: There are then some mentions of "misunderstandings" on SJG's part
: regarding
: Bob Schroek's discussion with Phil Brucato about "EXACTLY which parts
: of
: his outline would be rewritten and which parts would use the MAGE text."
: and about the Werewolf Companion. I would again attribute these to a lack
: of communications btween the two companies. I'm not syaing that White Wolf
: didn't simply use "misunderstanding" as a euphemism for "We've changed our
: mind", but if they did, then it would seem that Steve Jackson really has
: noone but himself to blame, having omitted to get these agreements in
: writing.
Personally, I don't think WW (possible) changing of their minds was very
professional. If they had agreed to let SJG do things a certain way they
shouldn't change their minds *without a good reason*. Perhaps there was such a
reason, I don't know. If there was, they haven't told us, nor does it seem like
they told SJG.
: To touch briefly on the matter of personal insults in this whole thing.
: Steve Jackson wrote:
: (Now you're asking: Did I really call Steve Wieck a liar? Well, I
: sure put his nose out of joint. We were on the phone. He made a couple
: of very self-serving remarks, with the stilted, repeated phrasing and
: the tone of voice that I last heard from the Secret Service guys as
: they lied about raiding us. I pointed out that what he said didn't mesh
: with facts I possessed. He stormed "I don't like being called a liar."
: I was amazed. All I could say was "Don't lie, then." In my
: experience,
: the louder someone tells you they're honest, the more you have to watch
: them. Honest people just don't lie, and everyone notices. Their reputat-
: ions take care of themselves. On the other hand, sometimes a cool black
: shirt covers a really thin skin.)
: Unfortunately, I don't view this particular paragraph with much liking,
: simply because Steve, like many a politician, doesn't actually answer
: the question "Did I really call Steve Wieck a liar?", _even though_ he
: asks it _hemself_!!!
I don't like this paragraph either, but I do think SJ answered the
question. He writes "All I could say was "Don't lie, then.""
Unfortunately I haven't got time to comment the rest of this post right now,
but I'll be back, hopefully tomorrow.
Anders
Steffan O'Sullivan
>
>It wasn't until about a month ago that I heard that Steve Jackson has
>someone working on a GURPS Celtic sourcebook.
>
>Loyd rejected almost two years ago is now being developed by Steve
>Jackson Games, and I personally believe that my idea was, to put it
>bluntly, stolen.
I proposed GURPS Celtic to Steve in about 1987, and I know it was
proposed by at least two other people before 1990. It's been on his
mind for a long time - he didn't steal your idea.
--
-Steffan O'Sullivan s...@oz.plymouth.edu Plymouth, NH
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you
have tried to make it precise. -Bertrand Russell
Anders Gabrielsson
Continued from my last post
[whinings about Mr Gavigan's proposed GURPS Celtic book]
I really can't see why you post all these details when you've just called
SJ's comments about the money going to WW whinings. This is exactly the same
thing. You could have made your statement about feeling cheated by SJG in
about five sentences. This is not a flame, I'm just saying that this part
(IMO) decreases your believability quite a lot. At least I can't but wonder if
you're not writing this just because you're pissed at SJG and SJ personally.
I'm not saying that you are, but it seems possible.
: In his letter, Steve basically _implies_ (ie. he doesn't actually _say_
: it, but I interpret his meaning as saying) that Stephan Wieck is
: "petty,
: jealous, childish and unprofessional".
:
: Personally, I view Steve Jackson's actions in stating this as being
: unprofessional, whether or not Stephan is these things. Solid business
: relationships are not the outcome of slanging matches like this.
I agree with this. Once again, I think SJ did a big mistake in posting
such an angry letter to the net.
: At the start of his letter, Steve said:
: After talking to him (Stephan Wieck), I don't think the relationship
: between the companies can GET any worse, so there's no reason not to
: tell my customers what's happening.
: I think that Steve was totally wrong - the relationship _could_ get worse,
: and by flaming White Wolf and Stephan Wieck on the Net, Steve ensured that
: it _did_ get worse.
I think he meant that the relationship between the two companies just
wasn't working. It seemed to him that WW were actively trying to prevent
GURPS Mage from going to the presses.
: I would ask both Stephan and Steve to set aside their personal
: differences,
: and to forget about what has happened recently, and to simply set them-
: selves to working in a professional and business-like manner to fulfilling
: their original aim of there being GURPS versions of all the Storyteller
: games. Surely this isn't impossible, although it may seem like it at
: the
: moment - I feel that this thing has been blown WAY out of proportion,
: partly due to it spreading onto the net. However, public
: recriminations and
: blaming each other for what has gone wrong will do absolutely no good.
: I think that Steve Jackson's staff should go about putting together a list
: of questions which they require to be answered in order to go about
: putting
: together a new GURPS Mage manuscript, and that Stephan should answer those
: questions in writing. Then, there can be no complaints of people going
: back
: on their word or whatever.
This is a very good suggestion. The only way we'll ever see these adaptions
is if SJ and SW try to work out their differences. *If* this whole mess is
founded in one or the other trying to stop the project I think it's a lost
cause, though.
: My personal opinion on the actual GURPS/Storyteller products
: themselves
: is that I think the fact that, for example, GURPS Vampire won the
: award
: at Origins reflects positively, rather than negatively on White Wolf.
: Basically, no matter how you look at it, GURPS Vampire and GURPS Werewolf
: are simply White Wolf's original games under a different rules system, and
: I'd be damned proud of the fact that White Wolf's original ideas were
: still good enough to win awards even under a different game system.
: I'm not really a supporter of the entire GURPS Storyteller line as an
: idea, simply because I feel that if people want to play Storyteller, they
: should buy the original game, and that it kind of signifies the end of
: GURPS - ie. that SJG are scraping the barrel if they have to license other
: companies' games in order to keep on releasing GURPS stuff.
I really don't agree with these last statements. I'm no big fan of the
storyteller system, but I think the WoD is a pretty good idea for a rpg world.
I can see that some people would rather use GURPS than storyteller, so they
would probably try to do conversions of their own. I really don't like the
idea of having to use a certain system just to play in a certain world. People
buy GURPS Vampire, for example, just because they *don't* want to play
storyteller, but want to play in WW WoD.
Secondly, I can't see why licensing other gaming worlds is the last way out,
as you seem to think. Many players like GURPS and uses it to play in worlds
created by other companies, so why not make an official adaption? The original
company will make more money, as they will reach those who like GURPS and
doesn't want to make their own adaptions of the original game rules. They will
also (probably) buy some of the original company's background material.
Anders
jne...@carleton.edu
>
>>In these letters, I outlined an proposal for a sourcebook, which I
>>would write myself, and included with the proposal a signed
>>declaration which basically said I copyrighted the idea, but accepted
>>that Steve Jackson Games, did not bring any obligation upon
>>themselves by simply reading my proposal, that if, having read my
>>proposal, they decided to actually publish something inspired by it,
>>I expected them to get back in touch with me, and that I would rely
>>upon my copyright to the idea to protect me legally.
Just to back up what S&S were saying: You are profoundly confused about
professionalism in writing. Any time a cover letter of this sort passes under
my editorial nose, it goes straight into the trash -- as does, *unread*,
whatever it is covering. Just give it a *tiny* bit of thought, from the
publisher's point of view, and you should be able to figure out why. If
publishers were to be bound by the sort of idiocy that you were attempting to
impose through your letters, they would quickly recognize that it is in their
self-interest NEVER to read ANYTHING that arrived unsolicited on their
doorstep. Think how that would make the professional freelancers feel...
Fortunately, law and custom are most definitely on SJG's side in this matter.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
(and freelance writer)
Charles Staley
: Thus spake dod...@iii1.iii.net (Jack Gavigan):
Perhpas we can ressurect some Celts to take up this legal action......I
mean after all, any works centered around Celtic Myth and lIfestyle are
in effect the ideas od the original Celts........They should sue Steve
Jackson Games too....:)
: You, sir, are not qualified to comment on the professionalism of
: anybody in the business or writing.
I agree. Just because a person comes up with an idea does not change the
fact that there are others in the world that could have also come up with
the same idea before them or at the same time. Copyrights protect the
expression of an idea. You write a Celtic Sourcebook, and submit it to a
company. If they print that copy and then refuse to ackowledge your
work, then you could conceivably sue if you can prove the dates of your
work, etc. etc.. A patent is what is aquired to legally control an
idea, but patents tend to apply to idea's for physical items and ideas.
Trying to patent (or trademark for that matter) a Celtic Sorucebook idea,
is just as laughable as TSR trademarking the word Nazi in their Raiders
of the Lost Ark game.......
Avatar
Ken & Jo Walton
looking for. I've emailed him a long reply of our dealings with SJG over GURPS
Celtic, but for the rest of you, here's a "brief" summary.
First of all, we are *not* regular writers for SJG. This is the first thing
we've done for them, and the first major thing we've written for any outside
company. We've done bits and pieces for Warhammer (and if you want to know
how *not* to be treated by a company email us) and Heroquest (ugh) and we are
probably best known in Britain for our "Into The Dark Continent" series of
storytelling card games.
In August 1992 we sent a list of ideas for GURPS worldbooks to Steve Jackson
Games. One of the things on the list was for a Mabinogion (Welsh mythology)
worldbook. In October we got a letter from Loyd Blankenship saying he liked the
idea of the Wales sourcebook, but could it be "expanded outward a bit into an
entire Celtic sourcebook?" We got to work and produced a complete plan for the
book, sent it off with an Evaluation Waiver form and waited. In April 1993 we
had a reply. They more or less liked our outline but wanted some points
clarifying and said when they got those those they'd send a contract. *We were
never given any suggestions or ideas by either Loyd or SJ.* The plan and ideas
came entirely from our own research into Celtic mythology and culture, and was
intended to be a historical sourcebook with a leaning toward the fantasy end,
in much the same style as GURPS Vikings, China, Japan etc.
We clarified the points (including writing one long chapter which Loyd
wanted to approve) and sent them off. In June 1993 we received another letter
from Loyd saying they were cutting back their publishing schedule and couldn't
promise to publish before 1995-96 so would we accept $150 kill fee. We said, OK
but if you still want it in 1995 let us know. There the matter rested.
In December 1993 we got a letter from Steve Jackson. Loyd had left the company.
Steve asked us to revamp the plan to change the emphasis from history to myth.
All he said in the way of suggestions was "Just describe it as though all of
Celtic myth and romance is true." We revamped our plan, took some stuff out,
put some new stuff in which we'd had ideas for but hadn't fitted in the
original conception, and sent that off. SJ approved of it and we got a contract
in May.
There was never any suggestion that we were re-writing someone else's project,
no pressure to include particular ideas, or concepts. The whole project, apart
from SJs suggestion of a slant to make it more commercial, has been our idea
and our work from beginning to end.
If Jack sent a proposal to SJG without an Evaluation Waiver, it probably went
straight in the bin, since that's what it says will happen in the Writer's
Guidelines. And as to the originality of a Celtic sourcebook for roleplaying,
AD&D published one last year, there's a new French game called Celtic Realms
which bears more than a passing resemblance to what we're doing (and I've never
even *been* to France! Spooky! :-) ) Pendragon now has Celtic magic and an
Irish sourcebook, Shadowrun has an Irish sourcebook, and heavens above, Robin
of Sherwood's dad is Herne the Hunter!! (I think copyright on Celtic mythology
ran out some time ago....)
I'm not saying anything about what Loyd and/or Steve did or did not do as
regards GURPS Celtic. They can stick up for themselves. We have no
complaints about how we have been dealt with, which has been friendly but
professional. But what we are producing is an original piece of work, not a
plagiarism of someone else's.
Please cross-post any replies to frp.advocacy as this seems fairly adversarial
and anyway we can only afford the huge amounts of .misc at the weekend.
Ken & Jo Walton.
--
|====== The Honourable and Worshipful Company of Adventurers =======|
|=================== Trading into Magellanica ======================|
| Opinions expressed *are* those of the company. |
+---------------> Hold fast to that which is good <-----------------|
Jim Lai
> Disputes between companies should not be aired over the net,
You realize this is nothing compared to the viciousness that goes on the
the Wall Street Journal. I glanced through a recent Bill Gates interview
and recalled one competitor quoted as comparing getting one particular
MicroSoft product to getting AIDS. Gates at least had the grace to shrug
it off in public.
> I don't care if you start spouting about Free Speech, &c., &c.
> This sort of disagreement benefits noone in the end. it reflects badly
> on the industry and it reflects badly on the hobby as a whole.
The above quote in the WSJ didn't hurt Microsoft's sales. Do you honestly
believe the average gamer is going to change his or her gaming habits due to
a particular action taken by a gaming company? I doubt it happens often
enough to count for significant market share.
I for one don't want to be under the false impression that the "industry"
is a cozy, happy family when it is not.
> Without knowing the content of the faxes, or,
> indeed, the details of the whole dispute, I can't be certain, but it may
> well be the case that White Wolf were simply too busy at the time to reply
> to what they considered to be frivolous and time-wasting questions.
They could at least have told him so. One can only presume that WW did
not consider the licensing fees sufficient to warrant better support in
overseeing and approving the development of a derived product.
> It seems to me that White Wolf were in a position to
> dictate to Steve Jackson what he could and could not do, and I don't
> really see why he is complaining about it, if that was the way that his
> contract with White Wolf was structured - everyone knows that verbal
> agreements aren't worth the air used to say them.
Technically, that interpretation gives one license to lie all one wants
--- verbally. Is it then any wonder that Mr. Jackson was allegedly
perturbed by Mr. Wieck's alleged question re "is this conversation being
taped"?
> Then, Steve moves onto explaining how he argued with WW in an attempt to
> get them to reconsider their judgement of the GURPS Mage manuscript:
[explanation deleted for brevity]
> Personally, I don't get Steve's argument here - he seems to be saying that,
> because Mark R*H supervised GURPS Vampire, GURPS Mage should be alright...
> I'm sorry, but am I missing some huge point here? I don't get the logic.
Simple. SJG was following procedure set up during the Vampire conversion
under Mark. Apparently Mark was a cool guy. When Mage came along, WW said
the old procedure wouldn't do, but apparently didn't inform SJG until
-after- rejecting the manuscript. If the notice had been earlier, it
could be argued that quite a bit of work could have been saved on SJG's
end, and perhaps an Origins release might have been possible. According
to SJ's post, WW showed apathy in this latter regard. Poor product support.
> It seems to me that Steve virtually admits that White Wolf were right to
> reject GURPS Mage on the grounds that it copied too much from the original
> WW product [...]
If you follow the -letter- of the contract, yes. SJG was asking for
consistency. If they didn't want _any_ material copied, they should have
been stricter from the start. The obvious question is: why should the
interpretation have become stricter without prior explanation? To use
legal-ish terms, the process used for Vampire set a precedent for SJG's
expectations.
WW appears to be poor at providing support when it comes to conversions of
their products. Nothing Mr. Wieck has said has changed my impression of this.
> Bob Schroek's discussion with Phil Brucato about "EXACTLY which parts of
> his outline would be rewritten and which parts would use the MAGE text."
> and about the Werewolf Companion. I would again attribute these to a lack
> of communications btween the two companies. I'm not syaing that White Wolf
> didn't simply use "misunderstanding" as a euphemism for "We've changed our
> mind", but if they did, then it would seem that Steve Jackson really has
> noone but himself to blame, having omitted to get these agreements in
> writing.
If those employees didn't have the authority to make such approvals, then
they shouldn't have claimed to make them. If this was the case, intentionally
or not, SJG was technically misinformed and thus lied to. Also, would these
agreements have been binding if they had been taped? If Mr. Wieck had final
overriding say, perhaps he should have been more involved. Sounds like the
organizational structure at WW is a bit messed up. It sounds like WW is
trying to cover up for goofs made along the way that escalated out of hand;
it seems a bit too late in the game to be applying damage control. I don't
think it'll affect WW's sales directly, though I don't see another company
lining up to license one of their products for conversion any time soon.
All the above is merely my unprofessional, speculative opinion and should
not be taken as a reflection upon either company nor the ethical foundations
of their presidents. Take it with a grain of salt. Heck, take two, they're
small. Oh, and my purchasing habits aren't about to change because of this
spat (and no I'm not telling you what I buy because I'd hate to have to
apologize for the fact it became public and I'm sure you all have better
things to worry about).
GrimJim
Marvin P. Collins
"open" letter from someone elses account? I think the entire situation is
a fiasco. IMOHO i think that SteveW was suprised or upset that the Gurps
Storyteller series was as much of a success as it has turned out to be. I
think we all know that flaming is not the proper was of getting what you
want and SteveJ was wrong in flaming SteveW.
What it boils down to is this:
1)WW and SteveW got their feelings hurt because their licsense was as
popular in another form as the original
2)SJG and SteveJ were frustrated with not being able to get their product out
3)We the members of the gaming community are the ones who will ultimately
suffer
Both sides need to sit down and get specific languague hammered out so
that this dispute can be solved in a mutually beneficial manner. Keep the
lawyers out for as long as possible, and then get a legal contract. To
both companies and both men involved, try to get this back to an amicable
and professional level. this means that once this is resolved, no little
why this was late or why we did this notices in any future releases. It's
funny when you do it to the SS but like a festering boil when you do it to
someone else in the community
Philip R. Hammar
> A patent is what is aquired to legally control an
> idea,
Patents only cover specific implimentations of ideas and derivitive work
from the imp[limentation. Ideas are free.
Phil
Bill Oliver
>Thus spake dod...@iii1.iii.net (Jack Gavigan):
>
>of it. Had I received such a query, I would have rejected it too.
>You are obviously unfamiliar with the business of writing.
>
Um, well, before you get too far up on that high horse of yours, you
might take a look at Buchwald vs Paramount. You can't copyright a
simple idea, but you can copyright the merest sketch expanding on one.
And get millions for it.
billo
Jack Gavigan
: I proposed GURPS Celtic to Steve in about 1987, and I know it was
: proposed by at least two other people before 1990. It's been on his
: mind for a long time - he didn't steal your idea.
Well, then, I was totally wrong. I apologise to both you and Steve
Jackson, and to Ken and Jo Walton (who are currently writing
GURPS Celtic), for any offense my post may have caused.
To Ken and Jo Walton and everyone who flamed me -
See? I _can_ admit to being wrong.
John Gavigan
-----===*===-----
Jack Gavigan
A long post, which basically further enhanced my conviction that my
idea for GURPS Celtic wasn't ripped off by Steve Jackson Games or
anyone else.
I've learnt some interesting things about a few people, as a result
of this whole episode, and I don't regret posting what I did. I've
learnt a few things about who to avoid in the industry. Interesting
info, indeed . . .
John 'Dodger' Gavigan
-----===*===-----
Jack Gavigan
: Just to back up what S&S were saying: You are profoundly confused about
: professionalism in writing. Any time a cover letter of this sort passes under
: my editorial nose, it goes straight into the trash -- as does, *unread*,
: whatever it is covering. Just give it a *tiny* bit of thought, from the
: publisher's point of view, and you should be able to figure out why. If
: publishers were to be bound by the sort of idiocy that you were attempting to
: impose through your letters, they would quickly recognize that it is in their
: self-interest NEVER to read ANYTHING that arrived unsolicited on their
: doorstep. Think how that would make the professional freelancers feel...
Well, that's very strange, because, basically my cover letter was a copy
of a submission form from another roleplaying company, with one or two
minor alterations, such as the name of the company I was submitting my
idea to.
John Gavigan
jne...@carleton.edu
> Well, that's very strange, because, basically my cover letter was a copy
> of a submission form from another roleplaying company, with one or two
> minor alterations, such as the name of the company I was submitting my
> idea to.
I'd be curious to know which company, and which "minor alterations" you mean.
From the way you described the letter, it sounded like you completely changed
the basic meaning of such forms, i.e., "In exchange for reading my submission,
I recognize that you have no obligation whatsoever to me, and I sign this to
demonstrate that fact and protect you from litigation."
You would still have a basis for suit, I would imagine, if it could be clearly
shown that a publisher had wilfully and obviously taken your material and, say,
published it under someone else's name. I can't imagine any situation in which
this makes financial sense for a publisher, however.
In the Paramount suit someone mentioned, does anyone recall if there had been a
disclosure form?
WinningerR
>In the Paramount suit someone mentioned, does anyone recall if there >had
been a disclosure form?
The Paramount case (Buchwald v. Paramount) was misrepresented earlier.
Basically, the facts were these:
1) Art Buchwald sold a story treatment to Paramount Pictures. The standard
contract he signed included a clause that said something to the effect
that "if we make a movie from this story, we will pay you $X and X% of the
net profits."
2) Paramount took the idea to Eddie Murphy, who agreed to star in the
film. A couple of screenplays were commissioned.
3) Paramount later informed Buchwald that the project was dead and gave
him permission to sell the treatment elsewhere.
4) A few months later, Eddie Murphy is in a movie that bore some startling
similarities to Buchwald's treatment. Buchwald can no longer sell his
treatment elsewhere (no one wants to release what appears to be a xerox of
a forthcoming Eddie Murphy film -- at this time, Murphy was still a big
star).
5) Murphy's film does not give Buchwald credit for the story. Paramount
does not pay Buchwald anything.
5) Buchwald sues. In court, his lawyer establishes an unbroken trail of
script rewrites, etc. that leads directly from Buchwald's original
treatment and the early screenplays to the final shooting script of the
Murphy film.
Contrary to popular opinion, the case had nothing to do with copyright
infringement or "theft of an idea." It was a simple breach of contract
case.