There is an author blatantly ripping off the Mystara setting for her line of fiction. Amazingly enough, she has been getting away with it for years (oh, and stealing art and maps too while she's at it.
+Timothy Brannan has the details here and here at the Other Side Blog and more at the Mystara Facebook Page.
I'm surprised Wizards dropped the ball on this one for as long as they have.
Just adding my voice to increase the volume...
Wow that is terrible.
ReplyDeleteThanks. NOT what I wanted to be doing today, but hey.
ReplyDeleteHonestly they dumped this IP years ago.. and from the article it sounds like the books are actually well written.. If this was Forgotten Realms or a campaign they actually gave two cents about it might be more of a foul..
ReplyDeleteIt's copyright infringment, it is "IP theft" (if you want to call Mystara IP), and worst of all it being unoriginal. Is it really difficult to write somehting new?
ReplyDeleteIt's copyright infringment, it is "IP theft" (if you want to call Mystara IP), and worst of all it being unoriginal. Is it really difficult to write somehting new?
ReplyDeleteWotc and Hasbro have not forgotten about Mystara as IP either:
ReplyDeletehttp://company.wizards.com/content/capcom-announces-return-dungeons-dragons-chronicles-mystara
While I think it is a matter of good taste for content creators to credit their sources and be upfront with their audiences, there's no theft going on here - copying is not theft.
ReplyDeleteIt is "intellectual property" infringement, but as I can see no way in which state grants of intellectual monopoly are morally justifiable to begin with, I'm hardly concerned with the illegality of this.
Thus, at worst, I think this is simply a matter of distasteful behavior. If I were concerned, I'd simply post a review on Amazon (and/or elsewhere) saying that the author didn't credit her sources, that interested people might check out other Mystara websites and products to find out more about the setting, and leave it at that.
Surprising that a movement so heavily based on copy pasting old things and calling them something different would get so butthurt over this. Maybe she should copy-paste the OGL at the last page of her book?
ReplyDelete@cirsova I don't think OSR means what you think it means.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think Cirsova pretty much nailed it.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the whole explicitly acknowledging sources in the introduction to said works.
ReplyDeleteCirsova is talking through his ass.
Very confused over how taking a specific instance of artistic expression and reusing it with no or minimal changes (like the paintings she stole without recompense on her covers, or the map) and then claiming you are the creator is in any way equivalent to Lamentations, ACKS, or Swords & Wizardry, with new text, new art, and citations of sources.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering how anyone equates one with the other - I don't know.
Cirsova or zerohero, you or anyone else from YDIS wish to explain?
Yeah, new art, like John William Waterhouse's 'The Magic Circle'.
DeleteI'm totally for reporting her to Hasbro for infringement, but I find the Bodysnatchers point and shriek to be a bit of an overreaction from a borrower community. Maybe try to teach her to borrow better?
Yeah, she should cite her sources, and she should've put the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in the right spot.
tracy's response to bruce heard (from Tracy Allen's Facebook page)
Deletebruce: "Dear Tracey, I noticed that your Witchcraft Wars books are based upon material that is copyrighted and owned by another company. You seem to have based your works on the World of Mystara, which is a published fantasy setting for the D&D Game, currently copyrighted and trademarked by Wizards of the Coast, based in Renton Wa."
trace: "No Bruce the work is all original, any similarities are purely coincidental. I'd never even heard of the World of Mystara before you mentioned it. "
anyone wanna buy a bridge?
She sounds like a pretty lousy person. I'm just wary of something like this turning into harassment. With social media the way it is, something like this can easily turn into some really scary and dangerous stuff.
DeleteAh ha ha ha she didn't even bother to change the names. That is HILARIOUS.
ReplyDeleteLOL OK now I gotta call bullshit.. Its a blatant ripoff and saying she hever heard of it is outright deception.
ReplyDeleteThereks always the off chance the author in question is writing tales based on a game she played in years back where the DM had a slightly mangled map and
ReplyDeletenever mentioned mystara. It was "the known world" to a lot of folks who didn't know it was called mystara. But...
I have a feeling that it might be exactly this - 30 years ago she played in a D&D game for a while, and assumed (why not) that the world was the original creation of the DM.
DeleteIt is just the [mangled] map and the place names? If there is nothing else 'Mystaran' about it, if the content of the books is original, then I feel a little sorry for Tracey Allen here
It's not just that though. She's said it's all original work *even when confronted with evidence that it's not.* She's also nicked a cover from a Werewolf RPG supplement (painted by Clyde Caldwell) for another of her novels. Seriously folks, did none of you witness the Shipman fiasco? Started the same way.
DeleteI know some people want to try and play, "Let's assume some possible excuses." but folks did the same for Shipman, and they were utterly wrong there too. She's a thief, and even if she didn't start that way, she's certainly proven that she doesn't mind being one after being shown that her work ain't original. Tracing a map, using a bunch of identical names, copying a Werewolf RPG cover, then lying and saying, "All original!" when confronted...
She nicked the Expert Set map & names - it's cheesy, but if that's all she did it's a pretty minor copyright infringement. Sounds like she didn't use the Mystara Gazetteers?
ReplyDelete