Food For Thought: Keeping It Legal

sxc
It's always good to know that you're blog isn't stepping on anyone's intellectual property rights toes, so thanks to Bryce963 on Dissenting Dice for this helpful post on keeping the right side of GW's legal team!

On a similar note, for anyone looking for free stock photos, I can recommend stock.xchng. No need to sign up and its very easy to follow their minimal rules.

Happy blogging!

7 comments:

  1. there is a lot of grey that is not covered in there. What GW tries to enforce, and what is legal are two separate things.

    One example. GW does not want their youtube embedded videos put up on blogging sites. They cannot enforce this legally, but I have it first hand what they want.

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    1. Is there any way of knowing if the hawks are circling a blog?

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    2. Hey guys, thanks for your comments. I'm certainly no legal expert and thankfully I haven't needed to be so far! I can believe there is a large tricky grey area around what is enforceable and what GW/whoever would want if they could choose.

      GW in particular seem to be very active in pursing any perceived IP violations, and I have read somewhere that they have people who check up on the online community's activities (not sure if this is true or not!). I'm trying to play it fairly safe!

      Personally, I see the work you guys do on your blogs, as well as many other's efforts, as massively beneficial in promoting the hobby. It's free advertising for the companies, right?

      The amount of traffic that you generate clearly shows a huge appetite for information. Why doesn't GW make the most of this? I'd really like to understand why GW doesn't invest in proper advertising and bringing in more people to the hobby...

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    3. Why pay someone when we do it for free! On a more serious note, we have seen a huge increase in traffic over the past few weeks and the issue of legal IP policy is now becoming a constant itch in the back of my mind.

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    4. Free is good for GW, sure, but I think really only benefits players already invested in the hobby. I can only imagine how many new players there might be if GW tapped into even a tiny percentage of say computer gamers who are already interested in sci-fi or fantasy!

      I can understand your concern over IP. Some blogs avoid rumours because of this risk, this one included! I'm cautious about putting up images and artwork with proper credits. Perhaps some proper legal advice from a professional lawyer would help you (i.e. not me!)? I mean, if the rumours are wrong, what could happen? Not much I guess? But what if they're right?

      I don't know, it's everyone's choice what they put up on their blog (within the T&Cs), but I do this in my free time for fun and want to avoid any legal hassle!

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    5. I'm sure Natfka could comment on this more than me. I presume (from my reading of their IP policy) that anything put up as "rumours" is fine. It's the images that seriously run the risk. Whether they need to be hosted independently and then linked I'm not sure even qualifies as a breach of IP but overall, it's still pretty dodgy. I guess at the end of the day it's always best to remove your site out from a hosted blog onto an independent server space.

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    6. Yeah, an independent site presumably makes it harder for your site to be bought down as soon as the host is approached by GW whilst the dispute is reviewed! Natfka's insights are of course welcome!

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