(Message edb:467)
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 10:37:11 PDT
To: L5RINFO@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
From: Edward Bolme <edwardb@FRPG.COM>
Subject: Re: [L5RINFO] Dave, Mindy, Ree Re: T-Shirts
Return-Path: owner-l5rinfo@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
Delivery-Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 13:42:11 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211
Importance: Normal
Reply-To: Legend of the Five Rings Discussion List <L5RINFO@ORACLE
***.WIZARDS.COM>
Sender: Legend of the Five Rings Discussion List <L5RINFO@ORACLE.
***WIZARDS.COM>
In-Reply-To: <c4.3a1163f.264e52d2@aol.com>
> I am offended at the no-holds-barred approach that Mindy suggested by
> claiming that anyone selling a t-shirt related to L5R would be stopped by
> "the man."
The question is not whether "anyone selling a t-shirt related to L5R would
be stopped" but whether the person in question is violating copyright law.
If you are using our copyrighted material for profit without a license, yes,
our lawyers have to come after you. Negligence of this sort led to aspirin
becoming a public domain name instead of a trademark. Xerox, Coke, and
Kleenex have fought very hard to maintain their brand names. The same goes
with intellectual property rights.
If you are using our art or logos, yes, we care. A lot. Anyone would. If you
are using original art, and stuff that's reminiscent of our stuff without
being a copy, we're not going to stop it. A classic case is the "Scorpion
Children" button. Great button, very L5R, yet nowhere on it did it use any
trademarked material (well, except for the name "GenCon"). Even the Scorpion
mon on the short was fuzzy and unrecognizable, though still reminiscent of
the real mon. If someone had been selling shirts like that, we would have
had no reason (nor desire) to stop them.
> > There is no other game that supports its fans the way L5R does. None.
>
> Sadly, as much as they do, I miss the days when there was more support...
> when fans weren't ridiculed and given snappy responses by Mindy or Ed...
Name a time when I have ridiculed a fan.
> Speaking of t-shirts, I bet if everyone that won a RtV tournament
> ripped off
> their shirt to reveal a Shadowlands mon, or pulled out a homemade
> terrible
> standard, that would instantly break Ed and Mindy's "formula" for
> determining
> who wins, just because it falls outside of their perfect view.
Speaking of being ridiculed...
If there were a way to track this reliably, I'd be all over it. The catch,
of course, is that it skews results in its own way. Everyone plays the
bandwagon deck and wears the bandwagon shirt. I am not sure that's the way I
want to go.
The simple fact is that L5R is bigger now than it has ever been. The bigger
it gets, the less impact an individual fan can have, but we do our best to
keep the total fan influence constant.
> Yet, we can
> look back at John Wick and GenCon '97 to see that he almost let the fans
> plunge the Empire into 1000 years of darkness.
That was not just John. That was the whole company, with John as the
frontman. Just like now, it's the whole company with me as the frontman.
> Now, we guide the story somewhere as long as it makes Mindy and Ed happy.
This cracks me up. Go ahead an explain this one, please.
> Now, it's come into it's own, and the people in charge are
> practically p*****g on anyone that falls out of line with their vision.
Again, back up these accusations with some evidence, please. As it is, these
charges are about as easy to respond to as "have you stopped beating your
wife yet?"
> Ikoma Hikaze, honorable Lion historian
BTW, you sign as an Ikoma, and your email reads Akodo. Which is it?
****************************************************************************
The L5R Home Page: http://www.wizards.com/L5R
To unsubscribe from this list send mail to listserv@oracle.wizards.com with
the line 'SIGNOFF L5RInfo' as the body of the message.
Contents (c)1999 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All rights reserved.
