I have a question: which are the licenced aspects of the game belonging to Hasbro? Tap and untap only?
I know changing mechanics is quite complex for a game, but I have read here that low profit was the reason behind CCP's choice of stoping production. So, would be ever possible to ged rid of hasbro's slice of the pie?
Here is a link to the Patent .
It is an interesting read.
On the right tab you can download the .PDF with the Patent Application.
Having worked in the European Patent Office in the Hague, that brings back memories...
BTW, the game system is iron clad.
Funny fact (obviously done by the Blue Blood's manipulation) the Ventrue are written as Venture in the description of the clans.
Also the whole thing about the illustrations is quite amusing.
Cheers!
Tiago,
> Brum wrote:
> Funny fact (obviously done by the Blue Blood's manipulation) the Ventrue are written as Venture in the description of the clans.
> Also the whole thing about the illustrations is quite amusing.
>
Well, that explains the old "Venture Justicar" misspelling. Maybe it was also their manipulation that resulted in the Ventrue Justicar card awarding the Tremere Justicar title....
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@pckvtes
BTW: Regarding the "patent," it looks like it was filed June 22, 1994. The typical patent tends to last for 20 years, which means that it should lapse in 2014. (Wikipedia mentions a 1997 patent date, but the earlier patent might fall under the category of the old 17 year rule, so hopefully 2014 would still be the lapse date).
That of course assumes:
A. Some new function or discovery does not allow WotC to extend the patent (happens a lot in pharmaceuticals, seems less likely to happen with CCG's)
B. Would not cover "trademarks" such as DeckMaster (and maybe "tapping") or the "copyrights" of the WoD source material
If someone is an expert on IP, maybe they can confirm whether in just a couple years, the patent portion will no longer be a hurdle (which makes things slightly easier since WotC seemed to be the major bottleneck).
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@pckvtes
> Brum wrote:
> Here is a link to the Patent .
>
> BTW, the game system is iron clad.
>
I'm not a lawyer but I'm not sure that the Deckmaster patent(s) -- there are three of them -- aren't overly-broad, and hence stifling innovation. At which point, someone who wished to enter into a legal battle with Hasbro should begin their campaign.
Personally, I really DO think the Deckmaster patents are overly-broad and could be smashed into nothingness with a proper legal challenge, but I have zero dollars with which to conduct a legal battle.
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
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> KevinM wrote:
>
> > Brum wrote:
> > Here is a link to the Patent .
> >
> > BTW, the game system is iron clad.
> >
> I'm not a lawyer but I'm not sure that the Deckmaster patent(s) -- there are three of them -- aren't overly-broad, and hence stifling innovation. At which point, someone who wished to enter into a legal battle with Hasbro should begin their campaign.
>
> Personally, I really DO think the Deckmaster patents are overly-broad and could be smashed into nothingness with a proper legal challenge, but I have zero dollars with which to conduct a legal battle.
>
Especially since we would have to do this in a country where money wins over being right most of the time.
> johannes wrote:
> Especially since we would have to do this in a country where money wins over being right most of the time.
>
Is there really country where this is not true ? I doubt...
Money tends to win in countries that use Adversarial Legal systems (US, UK, UK Colonies). AFAIK France uses at least some Non-Adversarial Court proceedings, where the entire point is not to present a case from each side and then decide but the point is to have all of the truth found and the Judge/Jury decide the outcome (there is no arguing/conjecture about the nature of the truths found). It changes the role of the Government representatives from "antagonists" to the defence and basically the Court's Investigators.
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Brum wrote:
>
> BTW, the game system is iron clad.
>
> Cheers!
> Tiago,
>
Many thanks!
I know the game is unlikely to change, I was just wondering abouth the future of the game knowing even the company with all the thematic support of the game couldnt make money enough. It makes me think, as many, that WOTC is the most significant part of the problem, or, at least, that is a part of the problem what will be constant in time.
So the next thought-step would be how to deal with it, and there are two choices, either deal with it, as WW did until CCP refused to, or to change the parts of the game that are making the game expensive enough to discontinue it. I know that it's somewhat paradoxical to think about kepping the game while thinking about changing it's mechanics, but if the mechanics are part of the problem, then in order to solve it, perhaps it's necesary to evaluate them.
But, heck, I love the mechanics of the game, so I know not-so-many are looking at them as part of the trouble, and they are, because it's in terms of them that the game becomes more expensive and that was the issue with CCP, so it must be taken in count, at least for the sake of realizing it.
> Erol wrote:
> So after 2014, what can happen actually? Is the game free from legal infringements?
>
No.There's an enormous amount of World of Darkness/White Wolf/CCP intellectual property wrapped up in the game.
Some would be potential trademark issues - try promoting a game as existing in the World of Darkness without hitting a WoD trademark.
Others would be potential copyright issues, and some of those copyrights could exist with WotC (Hasbro), not just WW. For example, who - if anyone - owns the copyright on the various V:TES discipline symbols? Clan symbols? Can WotC (Hasbro) claim copyright on portions of the rulebook that have persisted? Can you reprint Villein, Enkil Cog or Fee Stakes without infringing copyright? Clearly, in the case where WW licensed the game from WotC, it would be relatively easy to have a blanket "You can use this stuff - it's cool" clause.
You could get into complicated issues with derivative works, if anyone cared to object to Advanced vampires on those grounds. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work has pointers to a lot of the case law. (Obligatory "It's Wikipedia, so look at the citations/authorities too" disclaimer.) There are also arguments that this can happen if you create a 'new' work to get round the copyright that exists in the previous work. (e.g. a fairly mechanistic re-writing of the rulebook) That gets very murky, very quickly.
Whether you'd actually get bothered by anyone on this is anyone's guess. If you start making money, the chances of being bothered go up. If you start watering down a trademark, the chances go up. (See the stories of various, say, movie houses and animation studios that have to chase down children's charities and hospitals about unauthorized use of brand icons to liven up an area - if they don't, and they're aware of it, they can lose the enforcability of the trademark in many jurisdictions. Patents don't generally 'wear away' like that, but trademarks can. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademarks#Maintaining_rights )
I doubt much happens in 2014 - that sounds like speculation to me
What I do find interresting though is all the FFG games that use a variety of different words for using and rotating cards by 90 degrees - is that not an easy was around the tap/untap mechanism?
You know when playing AGOT LCG everytime you rotate a card and say "exhaust" somewhere a hasbro shareholder screams ...
Btw, WotC with regard to Magic: The Gathering has announced legal actions against counterfeit/proxy cards: Why We Care About Counterfeits While MtG with a different much higher values for individual cards and different secondary market, I just wanted to remark that WotC is looking at these issues. The first sentence in the article reads:
>
> Recently we at Wizards of the Coast have taken action against a number of individuals creating counterfeit Magic: The Gathering cards and claiming they are proxies.
>
> jaz000 wrote:
> I doubt much happens in 2014 - that sounds like speculation to me
>
> What I do find interresting though is all the FFG games that use a variety of different words for using and rotating cards by 90 degrees - is that not an easy was around the tap/untap mechanism?
>
> You know when playing AGOT LCG everytime you rotate a card and say "exhaust" somewhere a hasbro shareholder screams ...
>
They couldn't copyright the ability to simply rotate a card or card like item to the right. The name and function is what they have a CP on.
Call it something else even though it has the same function and you're fine.
It isn't a "way around" anything. If they want to be douche bags and attempt at locking down a VITAL mechanic in card games, kudos to each and every person which sticks it to them.
> Nac wrote:
> I have a question: which are the licenced aspects of the game belonging to Hasbro? Tap and untap only?
>
Tap, untap, the fact that the cardbacks say "Deckmaster", possibly the game mechanics in general, possibly the Discipline and Card Type symbols, possibly any art leftover from the WotC days...
Non-Camarilla
Tap (and untap) keywords, Deckmaster symbol.
Discipline symbols, discipline names, cardtype symbols (maybe blood / pool symbols) are WW/CCP's.
The old rulebooks have that at the beginning, iirc.
I just found this topic and therefore read some parts of the patent linked in the first posts.
It appears to me that the trading part of the deckmaster patent (the fact that cards have a value due to scarcity) is an important one.
So what about print on demand? The way I see it, it is clearly outside of this?
I am no lawyer but I post here so maybe someone can explain a little bit how the things works?
> Timo wrote:
> It appears to me that the trading part of the deckmaster patent (the fact that cards have a value due to scarcity) is an important one.
>
> So what about print on demand? The way I see it, it is clearly outside of this?
>
1) You can still trade cards that were printed on demand. Prices of cards in small numbers may still be prohibitive when you factor in minimum orders, postage, exchange rates etc.; card text may change and a collector may want all varieties (but The Powers That Be would rather not keep selling Up Yours with its old pre-errata card text); there could be promotional versions with alternative artwork (I would pay good money for an official copy of Ossian with Josh Feuerstein's artwork ) etc.
2) The patent also notes that while most probably will, not all trading cards necessarily have collectable status. "Many, if not all, of these trading cards have collectable status, i.e., have limited availability and have a financial as well as game-playing value."
3) Patent law is not the only source of intellectual property issues in V:TES. There are a variety of issues involving patents, trademarks, and copyright. (And possibly other forms - some jurisdictions recognise design rights as a separate thing, though in the US they appear to be mostly another form of patent.) Non-legal people often use "copyright" to refer to all of them indiscriminately, but they're potentially very different.
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
> I would pay good money for an official copy of Ossian with Josh Feuerstein's artwork
>
Heh, I was actually thinking just the same yesterday!
Finnish Politics!
> Timo wrote:
> So the patent is not void by PoD
>
PoD won't void a patent. It might present a non-infringing method of going about things, it might not.
> Timo wrote:
> and the fact that it ends in about 9 month does not make the deckmaster system free?
>
The patent expiring would allow you to do things that previously required a licence for the patent. However, it wouldn't necessarily do things like:
- let you use the Deckmaster name (trademarks are not patents)
- use any copyrighted works that Hasbro may still have copyright over (which might include card texts or some parts of the rules)
- create derivate works thereof (which can mean you can't circumvent any issues by just rewriting the relevant text)
- reprint any art where the rights are owned by Hasbro or the original artist
And all the same issues with CCP, who may or may not be more amenable to negotiations. For example, clan icons, the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle trademark.
> Timo wrote:
> So the patent is not void by PoD and the fact that it ends in about 9 month does not make the deckmaster system free?
>
I think the issue is that they made the game, leasing the ip from ww for the source material. Then they sild rights tothe game to ww, with a plan in place to be allowed to use the game for X amount of time. After X amount of time, ww, then owned by ccp, was to renegotiate. They were unsucessful.
Independant of that, the patten of tap mechanics, on the deckmaster patten, will lapse next year.
As far as i see it, something called jyhad or even probably vtes is still based on ccp's property but a game made by richard garfeild, at that time for wotc.
Two things will make this relevant for a game using those rules: a big favor being asked by garfield, or hasbro smiling and saying pod can happen if we remove thier trademarks from our cards, and maybe change the name.
Of course wotc hasnt made this game since the mid 90s, so thier "brand" attachment should be nil to minimal. So, maybe we erase deckmaster after the patent is gone, and they give us a thumbs up with no contract nonsense or resources being allogated to us.
Ccp is entitled to a cut for the ip they own, but the devil is hasbro owned the game, not just tapping.
Also, ccp owns all clan and sect logos. Hasvro owns the "tap" logo we dont use anyway.
Who owns the pool skull, trisnakes, blood drop, and discipline symbols predating bloodlines? All after that are ccp, i think.
And thus, Johannes saying not to expect anything until mid 2014. We dont know, and we can always ask nicely later.
Im not a fan of ccp, but i also dont dislike them, so im completey nuetral when i say they will probably be happy to see us in print, and they are smaller than hasbro so small royalties are good for them, whereas hasbro are the folks to impress.
So, as of the patent lapse, we can all design card games where you turn a card sideways, but because our game is owned by seperate enteties, its not a certain thing who gets to decide if we are allowed to use the same rules.
So, another "game" would be able to, and if they are useable for vtes at the descretion of vekn, cool. But we need a hail mary to reprint some cards, do advanced stuff, reuse art, or have vtes trisnake backs. Hail mary here being someone in wotc pulling for us or Garfield wanting to help.
> ReverendRevolver wrote:
> So, another "game" would be able to, and if they are useable for vtes at the descretion of vekn, cool. But we need a hail mary to reprint some cards, do advanced stuff, reuse art, or have vtes trisnake backs. Hail mary here being someone in wotc pulling for us or Garfield wanting to help.
>
lately, i've been thinking that an all-new game keeping most of the core mechanics and feel might be the better way to go. Vtes as it stands currently is basically one gigantic set of five thousand cards; Print on Demand is really the only viable way to handle that kind of volume (not to mention the amount of cards that are either wallpaper or cornercase). even looking at how the basic sets have been released with alternating camarilla/sabbat/independent themes, distribution of the current game moving from where we are now seems arduous at best and nightmarish at worst.
I think the game would do well in the LCG format, but certain game elements would need to be condensed in order to accommodate the new format.
Ive thought about this qs well. Im up in the air on legality. We need some staples easier to get, but what can we legally do to print freak drives, eyes or argus, or govern?
Its certainly harder to sell a whole new game, but who knows.