Paramount forcing scanned FASA Trek material off Net (Pen&Paper)

Since I am clearly so lacking in the necessary cognitive skills, why don't you explain it then, that I may bow down and genuflect before your gifted illumination.

 

Just the dry facts:

Basically scanning whole books/character sheets and uploading them online and redistributing wouldn't count as fair use. However scanning a handful of pages and then commenting and criticizing the content would (likely) count as fair use.

More on Fair Use

COlumbia University Fair Use Check List

 

I was reviewing some of the old material online this weekend. So, it's still there (at least on the sites that I looked at).

If you want legal copies, look on eBay. I bought some stuff for the ST Tactical Combat Simulator for a good price.

 

^^^ Too many assumptions are being made.

Are they only shutting down sites that scan every single pixel of every single printed page of a copyrighted work? If so, then that would be understandable for the property owners to take action. What you describe is piracy, flat out, and that's obviously wrong and shouldn't be condoned.

If they're targeting sites that have any kind of FASA material (not complete works), either in text or graphic form, that maybe limited down to a couple of reference snippets, when all such materials' copyrights have been appropriately cited, then that's a different story entirely.

This is not a black and white issue - there are shades of gray in this situation which seem to be getting ignored by a lot of people. Do we know for a fact that Paramount is going after anyone who has ever used FASA-based materials, no matter how miniscule? Is this a series of isolated incidents or more scorch-and-burn? Can we be fact-based, or is that too much to ask? There is simply not enough information to really tell what's going on.