24
votes
Accepted
Is there any reason why quoting a D&D 5e spell in its entirety would not qualify as "fair use"?
Just FYI, a normal user was the one who revised your post using their edit privilege. “Site mods” usually refers to the diamond moderators, none of which have revised your post prior to this meta. ...
- 36.3k
22
votes
Accepted
What's our stance on Piracy?
It's a bad look to openly talk about using pirated materials here, and so easily avoided. As a poster, one should studiously avoid it. As stewards of the site we should actively discourage it.
This ...
- 243k
20
votes
What's the proper way to address possible copyright infringement in posts?
It's not necessary for us to police copyright law to this degree. In this instance you're even policing Blizzard's copyright harder than Blizzard itself does.
The comments were removed and not acted ...
- 36.3k
19
votes
Accepted
Should we refrain from posting answers which rely on unreleased content?
Posts with unverifiable quotes are poor posts - not illegitimate ones
We should treat these types of poor answers the way we treat any on the poor answers - through voting; not through censorship.
...
- 207k
16
votes
Accepted
Should we be including a whole copyrighted stat block?
No we shouldn't. It doesn't look like the restoration was deliberate though, but instead just an edit conflict while the OP was only trying to add a new paragraph. (I've noticed the automatic edit ...
- 243k
16
votes
Accepted
Can non-open-license rules be discussed, or not?
You'll notice, if you look around the site, that most of your concerns aren't reflected in our answers. Rules are discussed, quotes are posted, and knowledge is transferred. Copyright-enforcing mods ...
- 243k
16
votes
Accepted
What is the policy on linking to non-official sites?
You may link to non-official sites. It's fine. We have for a long time facilitated links to d20srd, d20pfsrd, Fate SRD, dandwiki and so on, where none of those are official. There's no problem here.
...
- 36.3k
15
votes
GIFs, pictures and Copyright
Going to echo doppelgreener here:
It's not necessary for us to police copyright law to this degree. In this instance you're even policing Blizzard's copyright harder than Blizzard itself does.
Clips ...
- 346k
14
votes
Accepted
Trying to contact a user for permission to print an answer in a book
The fast way
Content on RPG.se is already licensed for reuse. You can immediately reuse anything on RPG.se so long as you follow the license conditions.
If after reading that you’re not sure how to ...
- 243k
14
votes
Quoting paid sourcebooks - copyright infringement?
Only quote as much as is needed
As has always been our guidelines, we should only quote as much of the paid sourcebooks as is required to sufficiently support our answers. Sometimes a question ...
linksassinMod
- 30.6k
13
votes
Is recommending an online character generator ok?
Recommending an online generator is OK.
There's nothing inherently wrong with recommending a tool. Keep in mind, though, that link-only answers are bad: you should be explaining in your answer post ...
nitsua60Mod
- 101k
13
votes
Can I include a screenshot of a diagram to support my answer?
About Fair Use, as I understand matters
I am not a lawyer, and I am certainly not your lawyer. This represents my understanding of the issue, not specific legal advice.
The Fair Use doctrine, which ...
- 346k
12
votes
Accepted
How are we defining Fair Use Images with respect to the function of the Stack?
We don’t define Fair Use; a court does. Until something has actually gone to court, there are only the would-be plaintiff’s arguments why it doesn’t qualify, and the would-be defendant’s arguments why ...
- 346k
12
votes
Accepted
Can we quote parts of novels in our questions and answers?
Yes, it falls solidly into the “fair use” exception to copyright claims. There is no difference between novels and game books as far as this goes. Just do not quote excessively; quote enough to ...
- 175k
12
votes
Accepted
Avoid just copying text into the tag wikis
The most universally convincing argument I've heard for not pasting into tag wikis is simply that tag wikis have a pretty specific purpose (clarifying the sort of question they should be attached to), ...
- 53.2k
12
votes
GIFs, pictures and Copyright
No
"Should we formally disallow merely illustrative pictures for they can
put us in very hot copyright waters or have some requirements as to
their usage?"
No, we do not need yet another ...
- 42.4k
11
votes
Accepted
Is it OK to downvote for “low effort” when the only way to answer quickly is piracy?
Downvotes happen
A question or answer can be downvoted for any reason. In a perfect world, it should not be, but taking the risk of asking or answering means that sometimes voters dislike a question ...
- 190k
9
votes
Is it OK to downvote for “low effort” when the only way to answer quickly is piracy?
So, we have some material which is not legally available in electronic format and it is thus impossible to ctrl+f search it unless a lot of scanning and turning the images into text is done. That is ...
- 34.6k
8
votes
What's the proper way to address possible copyright infringement in posts?
Option 1: It's your copyright
Contact Stack Exchange. Except the link about notifying copyright infringement goes to the terms of service which don't tell you how to do it. So I would contact their ...
- 207k
8
votes
How should this question about content in a site that includes piracy be handled?
Copy pasta: Creative Commons License allows for redistribution of content.
In this case, the content could be copied wholesale as it's CC-BY-SA. That wouldn't direct traffic to the pirate site, and ...
- 33.4k
8
votes
Is there any reason why quoting a D&D 5e spell in its entirety would not qualify as "fair use"?
I am not a lawyer, but I have been dealing with Fair Use and its local variations in the media a few times.
You are correct that there is no fundamental reason a full spell definition couldn't be ...
- 53.9k
8
votes
Quoting paid sourcebooks - copyright infringement?
If we become a place that helps people get away with not purchasing game materials we will hurt small content creators far more than we will hurt Wizards of the Coast.
We absolutely cannot allow a ...
- 144k
7
votes
Is it OK to downvote for “low effort” when the only way to answer quickly is piracy?
Yes, it's fair to downvote a post — period, full stop. Anyone can downvote for whatever reason they like.
Why are “wrong” votes allowed though?
It's a necessary feature of the site's functioning. To ...
- 243k
7
votes
Is there any reason why quoting a D&D 5e spell in its entirety would not qualify as "fair use"?
Up front: I am not a lawyer; my knowledge comes solely from reading about this topic in for-a-lay-audience sources. The following is my understanding, and in any event I think a reasonable way to ...
- 346k
7
votes
D&D 5th Edition Wikia - favicon
Very probably not copied
I took a look at the two icons, zoomed to 1600%. I looked especially at the edges of the lines to see if there were matching aliasing patterns. An icon can be recoloured, but ...
- 243k
6
votes
Accepted
D&D 5th Edition Wikia - favicon
They are not necessarily the same.
RPG.SE meta's favicon is a gray d20 outline. I'm not able to upload the .ico file here, but it has a MD5 hash c7f81da9029121051950ae912546a092.
The engl DND5 wikia'...
- 31.4k
6
votes
Illustrations in questions and answers—legit or not?
Yes, but
Your stipulations as to the use of the material in positing this question essentially leads to you asking if the use of images specifically permitted as Fair Use is permitted by site policy. ...
- 67.1k
5
votes
Should we refrain from posting answers which rely on unreleased content?
I think the bigger issue is that we can't verify the accuracy of any quotes used.
We mostly can't verify whether quotes came from a leaked copy of the content, an early access copy with an NDA a la an ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
What's the proper way to address possible copyright infringement in posts?
'Moved to Chat' isn't bad.
So, it sounds like you are confusing 'my comments were deleted or moved' with 'my comments were deemed unuseful'. Those aren't the same thing. Your comment, presuming it ...
- 67.1k
4
votes
What's our stance on Piracy?
As usual, this is being made way more complicated than it needs to be. As already cited,
What's our policy with answers advocating piracy (accidentally or not)?
Links to "D&D Tools&...
- 175k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible