Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Not always.
I remember when TSR,
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Okay, you could've stopped here.
I remember when the 'net was fairly new, and TSR sent out C&D's to every online RPG FTP site they could find, demanding that all their content be removed, and nobody could post D&D adventures or character classes or anything like that because it infringed on their trademarks.
Had a friend who managed UCB's gaming FTP sites... he sent them back a nasty letter saying "we don't put content related to your crappy RPG on our servers. This is for Starfire, Ars Magica, Traveller, and White Wolf materials; nobody at Berkeley cares what you do because nobody here thinks D&D is worth playing." (Okay, that's not an actual quote, and the paraphrase is probably a bit stronger than what was really sent--but he was able to send them a letter saying "take your C&D and shove it; nobody here plays your games.")
TSR's attempts to control players' use of their materials is probably a big part of why they got bought out. (And yeah, they announced that people were supposed to each buy a copy... but they
knew how it actually worked in play.)