Copyright Information For This Site

If you believe that anything you see on the Web is public domain and free for you to use, or that anything created by a private citizen instead of a company is free for you to use, READ THIS PAGE.

Any original work is copyrighted to its creator at the moment of creation. That includes the email you wrote yesterday, or the drawing you doodled while on the phone. It also includes EVERYTHING ON THIS SITE.

Copyright means that the creator of the work has the right to control how it's used. Only the creator has the right to allow something to be posted on the Web, or printed in a magazine, or read over the radio. That is true of EVERYTHING ON THIS SITE.

Copyright is a right guaranteed by law. The right of a creator to control how his or her works are used is recognized around the world. It is illegal for you to republish ANYTHING ON THIS SITE without the permission of the person who created it. Taking something without permission is still illegal even if you put up a credit or attribution to the original creator.

Every page on this site includes a copyright notice for all text and graphics. If you wish to use anything that you see here, you must contact the person who holds the copyright for it and receive his or her permission to use it. If you just take and use something without getting permission, you are BREAKING THE LAW.

What you can do without permission:

You can download a copy of something you see here to your computer for your own individual, personal use. That means you can keep a copy of a picture or a piece of text on your home computer and look at it whenever you want. Or you can print out a copy to refer to.
You can link to any page on this site. You can bookmark any page on this site.
NOTE: If you're linking to this site to advertise one of the games which have a home here, we recommend you link to to that game's main page.

What you cannot do without permission:

You cannot take any page from this site and republish it on your site.
You cannot take any element from this site and republish it on your site. IE, you can't take a picture, or a background, or three paragraphs of text or anything else and put them up in your own Web pages.
You cannot link to a picture on this site to display it on your own site through use of the IMG SRC tag.
You cannot take any element from this site and republish it in a different form - put it in a magazine, print pamphlets, put it on a T-shirt, put it on a MU*, etc.

But if I ask for permission, the answer will probably be no...

Not necessarily. For the text, we do not allow people to republish anything in Web format. The purpose of the Web is to publish your own unique creations and LINK to things that others have done. If you like something on this site, link to it, don't steal it. Another reason to link instead of swipe is that these pages are updated to add new information, correct errors and update URL links. By linking you can make sure that visitors to your site get the most current information, and you save yourself the work of doing the updates yourself.

We HAVE on many occasions allowed people who obeyed the law and asked for permission to republish material in non-Web format. Copies of Saidar's information on role-playing are available on many MU*s. Another document she created was given out as a prize for a fanzine contest.

Many of the artists whose work appears on these pages are also willing to grant people permission to use their work if they are asked and people follow their useage guidelines. Those who have stopped granting permission have generally done so because they're sick and tired of having to chase down the people who break the rules.

What will happen if I do take something without permission?

We have found dozens of instances where people had stolen something from these pages. If the work is someone else's, we notify them so they can handle the situation as they wish. If the work is our own, we write and ask that the stolen material be removed immediately. If the request is ignored, we do not hesitate to contact the service provider. Most service providers require their users to obey the law, and will remove offending pages from their system.

Copyright theft has some larger consquences that you may not have thought about. A lot of artists start out allowing people to use their work provided they request permission. After enough people abuse that generousity by stealing instead of asking, some stop allowing anyone to use the work. And a few stop posting new work at all - why go to the bother of creating something and generously sharing it with the community if that community is only going to turn around and stab you in the back?

Why should I care?

The people who've contributed to this site are all ordinary people, like you. No one got paid for anything on this site. The only reward they get is having control over their own creations. If you like something enough to want to use it, you should have enough respect for the person who created it to do them the courtesy of letting them keep that control.

Where can I find out more about copyright?

Here's a list of some URLs you can check out if you're interested in reading more about copyright or what to verify that what is said above is correct.

Web Pages and Copyright

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use (a fairly in-depth site with links to other info).

Intro to Copyright

11 Copyright Myths

Web Links and the Law

Updated: 20 August, 2003
Installed: November 1, 1998

Unless otherwise noted, all page design and text on this site are © Rhonda Peters (1998 - current) or Melissa Kell (2001 - current).

Please feel welcome to link to this page, or print a copy for your personal, individual use. Any other use, including, but not limited to: republication on another Web site, inclusion in a printed or televised publication, or inclusion in MU* online news or information files requires the permission of the author

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