Talk:Settlers of Catan/copyright and fair use

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This thread discusses copyright and fair use, in the context of the Settlers of Catan game suite.

Regarding the Settlers of Catan pages:

  • Massive additions and restructuring underway.
  • All images originate from an open source implementation of Settlers of Catan. The developer has sanctioned this Wikipedia effort. The game is distributed at SourceForge under GPL licensing.
  • Read this body of legal evidence that the contents of the Settlers of Catan pages constitute legal use.
  • Please see the Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Copyright page for the following policy statement: It is not the job of rank-and-file Wikipedians to police every image for possible copyright infringement.
  • See also Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image_guidelines and find the part that this article might violate, before removing any part of the Settlers documentation.

~ stardust 02:49, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

These cards are obviously copyrighted, they're published by a company that markets them. They cannot stay here. RickK 04:24, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Likewise, the jungle tile is copyrighted. This is what Mayfair has to say about that: "Feel free to copy this image and attach it to cardboard to create your own Jungle Tile!" Same with the volcano tile. At the point that Mayfair itself distributes its images freely, with the recommendation that people put them in play, whereas the Settlers of Catan article is merely informational and intended to fuel interest and sales to boot, perhaps you need to find bone to pick somewhere else!
~ stardust 20:40, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Just because they have released the tiles for your personal use as a valued customer, doesn't mean they have released the image for inclusion in a comercial online encyclopedia. Based on what is on this page right now, I could print out my own copy of the game and play it, and not pay Mairfair anything. I don't think that's what they had in mind when they said, "Feel free to copy this image and attach it to cardboard to create your own Jungle Tile!" Gentgeen 22:44, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
First of all the bulk of the game tiles have not been made available. But anyone who knows the rules and doesn't mind playing with paper pieces, or investing the time and effort, can create the game from scratch. Even the original Wikipedia entry with its primitive sample board gave enough information. The rules of the game is the intellectual property in question. At that point, precisely which games may be explained in this free, nonprofit online encyclopedia? Chess but not Settlers? Go but not Monopoly?
~ stardust 00:10, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Also, particularly since Settlers a fairly difficult to find, people would expect to find out about its availability on an informational page. It is the same as the listing of hostels on the hostels page. Most people don't go to the hostels page without thinking, hey maybe I can find out where I can find a cheap but safe hostel, huh? The same is true of Settlers. People who know about it and love it already own the standard set at a minimum, and many of those who find out and try out new variants of it end up buying physical copies of the expansion sets. An encyclopedia is about information that people want. It is not the business of any encyclopedia to worry about what people will do with the information that they obtain therein. ~ stardust 00:18, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

From the source of your images[1]:

IN ORDER TO USE THE SOFTWARE "S3D", YOU MUST OWN A BOARD GAME COPY OF SETTLERS OF CATAN (TM). IN ORDER TO USE THE SOFTWARE "SEA3D", YOU MUST OWN A BOARD GAME COPY OF SETTLERS OF CATAN (TM) AND ALSO A BOARD GAME COPY OF SEAFARERS OF CATAN (TM), ALONG WITH ANY FIVE OR SIX PLAYER EXPANSIONS IN EITHER CASE, IF YOU USE THOSE MAPS IN THE SOFTWARE.

DISCLAIMER In accordance with the wishes of Klaus Teuber, as expressed through an email sent to the webmasters at http://www.wannagame.com, THE AUTHOR has complied with the following items:

1. All references to "Catan" and "The Settlers of Catan" have been removed from THE WEBSITE and from any products or electronic versions offered on THE WEBSITE.

2. Any references on THE WEBSITE to these trademarks and Mr. Teuber's games are not licensed by him and this site is in no way connected, authorized, and/or tolerated by Mr. Tueber or KOSMOS.

3. The software offered for download on this page is an illegal and no way licensed version of the board game "The Settlers of Catan" by Klaus Teuber. Klaus Teuber has not given permission for the programming and is not responsible for the subjects of the game at all. Although, THE AUTHOR hopes he likes it.

all these images are illegal, by statement from their source.

Secondly, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, under what Wikipedia articles are not, #20: A resource for conducting business other than the business of creating a great encyclopedia. Just because someone else is doing something, doesn't make it right. Gentgeen 00:40, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The S3D statement says nothing about images that a private individual creates with their own illustration and image editing software. Images like this one Image:soc-bank-usa.jpg are without a doubt not covered by any copyright. It is an private person's illustration. If I sketched the picture of a settlement by hand, scanned it, tweaked it with Photoshop, and posted it here, would that constitute copyright infringement? Of course not. Secondly, the fact that plenty of other Wikipedia pages include links to commercial entities such as the database of hostels proves that it is permissible to include such links here. We are not comparing the policies of other web sites to those of this online encyclopedia. We are judging what falls within the guidelines of this site, based on what the site already includes.
~ stardust 01:05, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Did you read the statement? Your hero, Klaus, has tracked the author of the software you're taking these images from and threatened him with legal action to protect Klaus's copyright. To keep his program up, all refrences to "Catan" or "Katan" had to be removed from the site. Wikipedia is much larger and well known than some little freeware version of his board game, so he will find this page soon. Our options will be either keep the images and remove all refrances to "Catan" on the entire encyclopedia, includind deleting this page, or deleting all the images. which do you prefer? I prefer not having any images.
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is the policy of this project. The difference between the Hotel listings and the stores to buy Settlers from is that they are not ADVERTIZING, where your store refrences are. You are making it the official position of this article that you should by this game, and buy it from these particular locations. Gentgeen 01:22, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
As for sketching by hand, etc: yes, that would be infringement; your version would be a derivative work and your copyright over it would only be partial. Salsa Shark 01:30, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Explain to me how the image on the Settlers of Catan, 5 to 6 player expansion page is not likewise a derivative work that is illegal.
Firstly, Teuber has not taken any leagal action against S3D. Secondly, you have not answered my question about which images a copyright can cover, even if Teuber were interested in pursuing a copyright infringement case. The image above, the image below, the photograph of Teuber posing with his game, are DEFINITELY not covered by any copyright.
Image:Soc-thumb-allmaps-usa.jpg
Secondly, the link to the hostel listings and reviews search engine is THE EXACT SAME THING as the link to Mayfair's listing of retailers. If you want to argue about listing the physical storefronts, that gets into question of providing information that people want. If you believe that the presence of such information makes it the official position of the article that people should buy the game from those rare known locations, which was DEFINITELY not my intent (no one is getting any commission here), then the article will state explicitly that this is not the case.
~ stardust 01:36, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)


From Title 17, § 101. Definitions, of the United States Code[2]:

"Copies" are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "copies" includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.

A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work".

To "display" a work means to show a copy of it, either directly or by means of a film, slide, television image, or any other device or process or, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to show individual images nonsequentially.

"Literary works" are works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords, film, tapes, disks, or cards, in which they are embodied.

"Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works" include two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art, photographs, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, and technical drawings, including architectural plans. Such works shall include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned; the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.

From Title 17, § 102. Subject matter of copyright: In general, of the US Code:

(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:

(1) literary works;

snip

(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;

From Title 17, § 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works, of the US Code:

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

snip

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly;

snip

So, based on the United States copyright code, which I'm using because the servers on which Wikipedia exist are in Florida, we do not have the right to distribute copies (ie the Settlers of Catan article page) of any derived work from a copyrighted work, like Settlers of Catan, without the permission of the copyright holder. The source of your images admits he is distributing them illegally, so he is not able to distribute them under GNU GLP. Additionally, significant portions of the page's text are now basicly a derived work of the game rules, which are literary works under the copyright code, so we can't distribute them either, without express permission of the copyright holder. And I don't think any court in the world will accecpt digitizing every piece of a game as "fair use".

In 24 hours, I will blank this article and list it under Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, unless you reply with a relavant argument, ie Supreme Court ruling, International Treaty to which either Germany or the United States are signatory nations, or other articles of the United States Code. Gentgeen 08:37, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please READ THE FOLLOWING, as per the Wikipedia:copyright issues page (now in italic)

FAIR USAGE. The doctrine of "fair usage" means that the matter which was under copyright was neither copied nor adopted, but that the uncopyrightable underlying idea was used, since a theme or idea is not copyrightable.

What the Devil is this about? I really, really, don't want to be involved in this debate (forced into reading it by having responded to RickK's dyspeptic comment at Village Pump); but the page cited does not contain the string "fair usage" according to my text editor's search; it has lots of "fair use" references, none of which looks like that; and of course the text given above is absolutely not a definition of fair use or anything even beginning to resemble one. At least I now know what sort of thing has upset R's stomach so badly. Dandrake 19:33, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)
You replied to a portion of old discussion quoted here, which includes a completely wrong definition of fair use which was refuted in later discussion. I've set all of the quoted portion to italic to reduce the chance of others doing the same. Jamesday 22:59, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
What I don't understand is what "which images we must omit" is about -- I can't think of any situation in which any image in the 'pedia should be "omitted." Would someone please enlighten me? -- isis 11:26 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
I was thinking of album cover thumbnails & sound clips -- wiouldn't a a CD or paper version of Wikipedia, even if sold at-cost, have to omit those? -- Tarquin
No, no way, never, huh-uh. -- isis 11:40 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
The only possible time such an image might have to be omitted is in a commercially sold reproduction of Wikipedia (that weakens our "fair use" position but probably wouldn't destroy it), and since we don't plan on ever doing that, it shouldn't be a problem. If we made a paper reproduction distributed in accordance with our educational purposes, the same fair use rights would apply to that.
With all due respect, I must dissent from that opinion: Under Fed.R.Evid. 1001, for example, any copy of the 'pedia is interchangeable with any other (and/or the "original" -- whatever that means in this context), so whether we charge for our efforts in producing a particular copy or not is immaterial. I've just realized what's been bothering some Users about the videotape covers: They don't understand what a copyright on the packaging means. I should have caught on sooner and told them the fact they were missing to ease their minds: A copyright on a videotape cover design prohibits anyone else's making a videotape cover/box/package with that same (or too much like it) design, but it does not prohibit anyone's taking a picture of it to show to anyone (commercially or not) when talking about the content of the tape in that box. If it did, the copyright laws would be unconstitutional, and those statutes are intended to further the 1st Amendment, not violate it. -- isis 20:20 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)
Sounds like the matter is resolved (but Isis, note that we're dealing internationally here -- 1st amendment is a local thing) -- Tarquin

Read the excerpt above from the Wikipedia and copyright issues page. The copyright on Settlers of Catan protects Mayfair from anyone producing a physical, boxed game suite with the same or similar design as a product for the mass market. It does not prevent anyone from sharing illustrations of any degree of likeness to the physical product.

The maps referenced by the copyright laws you have cited are things like world maps or city maps, sold for profit by the copyright holder. If Map Company A decides to produce and sell a map of Boston, it is free to do so. If Map Company B decides to produce and sell their own map of Boston, it is also free to do so. Map companies put fake, nonexistent alleys in their maps to try to catch other map companies that COPY their work exactly, down to the fake alleys. Without these fakeouts, there is no infringement case.

Now all the game maps in the Settlers documentation are unique layouts that were randomly generated, and have not been published by anyone anywhere. Sure they were generated following the rules of the game, but I am allowed to use the rules of the game in the making of my personal set of illustrations. If I designed a new variant of the game on a new board with catan tiles, the Mayfair copyright would not bar me from sharing my new idea with everyone else. This is protected by the First Amendment, which is quite relevent enough in the United States.

Furthermore, almost all of the text in the article is my own, plus some bits of the original article. Explaining the rules of a game is protected by the First Amendment as well. Sure since it is about a copyrighted game, it is 'derivative' of the rules, but sharing ideas is not barred by any copyright law anywhere. IMPLEMENTING the same idea for commercial profit IS illegal. The dissimination of information in the Settlers documentation, with images that I have made myself, in words that I have written myself, is far from illegal.

~ stardust 09:03, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)


The US is a signatory to all the major international copyright conventions, which in fact are based on US and German copyright laws; therefore, the parts of US Code Title 17 can be taken as basicly applying worldwide, as the major differences are on how long copyright holders retain their rights, all of which are decades away from expiring in this case. Gentgeen 09:18, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Broader participation starts

Ok, let's start at the top.

1) The photo of Teuber is jointly copyrighted by the person who took the photo, and the owner of the copyright to the Catan box illustration. Do we know who took the photo? This seems like a possible infringement. It's also somewhat immoral to reproduce the image without giving due credit to the photographer and to the artist who created the box illustration.

2) The Catan official maps are, IMO, fair use for us and for all downstream redistributors, as they are very small thumbnails and hence of reduced quality, etc. However, stardust, you should add a fair use rationale should be added to the image description page, as discussed in wikipedia:image description page.

3) The example layout will be jointly copyrighted by stardust (responsible for the unique layout depicted), and the owner of the copyright to the tile illustrations (eg Teuber). This will be fair use for us, but I'm not sure if it'll be fair use for all our sublicensees. In any case, we need a fair use rationale again.

4) The tiny images each of lumber, wool, etc, might be fair use: they're much less transformative than some of the others, but they're a smaller proportion of the total work. Again, fair use rationale needed.

5) The bank image I think is worth removing simply because it's unclear as to what it is, or what it means, and I don't think it'll help the reader very much. After all, it's only illustrating a stack of tiles, and the reader will know that. So I'd say delete anyway - we should only make use of fair use when we have to, and I don't think we're helped by this one.

6) The "building costs" image I don't know about. Stardust, did you make this entirely yourself, or is it a copy of an equivalent image from the rulebook? Could you add some detail to the image description page to say which? :)

7) The little pictures of houses, etc, look fine. Tiny images, very little creative input in a cuboid, for example. Mind you, if you can copyright silence.... but no, I think these are fair game.

8) The text is, as far as I can tell, a rewriting of the rulebook in stardust's own words. So that's fine from a copyright POV. That said, some of it goes into rather more detail than I would personally consider necessary for an encyclopedia, which I feel should be taking a higher level perspective. But that's a seperate question, one of style, so let's deal with that seperately.

So, some work on adding to the image description pages would essentially resolve this issue, I expect. Could you do the honours, stardust? You've put in a fair bit of effort defending your uploads here, so I hope it's not too much to ask for you to help resolve the issue to everyone's satisfaction? Martin 19:45, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have organized an exhaustive body of evidence and legal precedence pointing to the images and textual information in this article being legal on my user page. Sorry, getting fed up with this make-shift forum system, and the uninformed people in it.
I am still working on the game suite's documentation. Some images will go in, and some will go out. Once I have finished, I will check through the images ultimately included, and add more descriptive information. Rest assured that no images will come from any official documentation that is packaged with the game suite. In fact, my personal copy of the Settlers Almanac is physically in another state, because I lent it to my brother.
~ stardust 22:05, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
OK, I'm willing to accecpt the current version, without the building costs card (which is a redrawing of the same card from the game{resource symbols on the left, picture of what you're building on the right}), but this article is now no longer an ecnyclopedia article, but is a game guide and should be moved to Wikibooks - Game Guides, which dosn't exist yet, but could incorporate the wikibooks:Computer Game Walkthroughs page. Gentgeen 01:37, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The convention in all western cultures is to write equations from left to right; that convention falls within the public domain. The game uses circles on its Building Cost Card, as well as a tabular format, while this image uses miniature cards, and a floating format. Please, either contribute to the unfinished sections or go somewhere else.
~ stardust 15:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

For convenience of reference, copied from my comments at Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements:

  • The game pieces and such appear to be a simple case of fair use in the context of our article describing the game, not a candidate for copyright infringement. This applies to both the online and print Wikipedia. The concept of transformative use is key here - the Wikipedia is not a game. Nor can thumbnail sized images of game maps and pieces infringe when used in this context.
  • Please read fair use and some of the cases which link to that article, notably the transformative use discussiion and fair use analysis in Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation and the full decision it links to. These game components don't come close to being copyright infringement.

stardust, you clearly do understand fair use - nice job on collecting the cites as well. Jamesday 01:48, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ahh, I read elsewhere that some (maybe all?) of these images were taken from a GPL'd clone of Settlers of Catan? Again, Stardust, it'd be really good if you could indicate this on the image description pages involved. I don't think there's a rush - but please don't forget this - otherwise we'll end up having the same discussion in a years time.... Martin 02:40, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The GPL is not the GFDL, and they're not compatible with one another. How big an issue that is I don't know, and we could probably get permission from the game maintainer to use them under the GFDL. Pakaran 02:43, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, of course, we'd need an explicit GFDL grant - but that probably wouldn't be hard to get. Martin 02:57, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's not that big an issue (though we'd want to do it). You can make fair use of GPL and GFDL works as well as others and the fair use analysis is largely comparable in this case. Jamesday 20:06, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
There is still the problem that the developer of the port is not allowed to use the name "Catan" and has acknoldged that his port is an unlicenced and illegal implimentation of the game. I don't see how we could use images from this source, and I don't think he can release it under GFDL without any front-end or back-end text to that effect. Gentgeen 08:20, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
While Jay (the sole developer of S3D) is bound by trademark laws not to use the name "Settlers of Catan" in connection with any of his software, private citizens can extract images from his freeware (ha trust me, I have his permission... AFAIK only two or three people have the code required to do so), put it through alterations, and name and describe the new images with the protected trademark "Settlers of Catan" under a fair use relationship between said private citizen and Mayfair Games/Klaus Teuber (i.e. writing an informative entry on a trademark-protected game for educational purposes... distinct from creating a similar physical box set, and selling it in stores under the protected trademark). That is, it is a question of a fair use relationship only between the trademark holder, and the person who cites the trademark in an article; S3D and its avoidance of trademark conflicts falls out of relevance. Trademark laws are designed to protect the commercial, market value of a name, not to restrict private citizens from mentioning it in their free, not-for-profit written work. Two words, transformative use. I can take a photograph of a giant pile of generic facial tissue, slap it onto a blog (not that I keep such a thing), and refer to it incorrectly as a pile of Kleenex, in an entry explaining how I was crying my heart out over how many people are a waste of oxygen in this wide world. Don't tell me that Kleenex's legal team is going to come knock on my door over trademark infringement.
~ stardust 15:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
While I agree with your fair use analysis, your trademark analysis is not really where we want to be. Passing off is the problem Jay might have. It's not problem in this article to show a picture which isn't a picture of an actual Catan piece BUT we do want to clearly indicate what the image is actually of and if it is representative rather than exact, we should say so, in order that we don't mislead people into thinking they are seeing something they aren't seeing - that's in part because we want to be accurate. Since the article is about Catan, it's preferable to use real images from Catan where fair use permits that. Mayfair games might reasonably be unhappy with us if we describe a different work as theirs, particularly if, in their opinion, it doesn't meet their production standards or view of how their implementation of the game should look. There's no great urgency about this (the online Wikipedia is legally safe because of the CDA, though you aren't) but it should be done.Jamesday 20:00, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You're argument is flawed. I, as a theoretical web user, could not go to your hypothetical blog, download the image of a box of Kleenex, and bypass their buisness, that is selling facial tissue. However, I can go to this page for the rules, go to the images stored on the wikipedia's servers for the game pieces, and bypass Mayfair's buisness, namely selling games. Kleenex isn't loosing money, Mayfair might be, so they are more motivated to try to stop it. Gentgeen 15:32, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

TRANSFORMATIVE USE: An image of facial tissue cannot be used to blow your nose. The images in the Settlers of Catan article cannot be used to play the game. To build a two dimensional, makeshift copy of the game, one would have to make one's own images for the 37 tiles, 37 chits, use separate dice, make images for the game pieces in different colors, on top of printing the few images that are included in the article, not to mention playing with teeny tiny resource and development cards. We already answered this question in our examination of fair use; the article in no way allows someone to bypass Mayfair's business. While not being an advertisement, the article does raise awareness of the game (being an encyclopedia entry and all, with education and awareness in mind!), which is likely to boost Mayfair's business. Let's hope your next comeback is not another blatant fallacy.
~ stardust 15:44, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I agree with the analysis of stardust in the preceding paragraph. It neatly explains the core of why these images in this article are fair use. Jamesday 20:00, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

< Settlers of Catan

[edit] Discussion from talk page

This thread has been moved from stardust's user talk page. It also discusses copyright and fair use, in the context of the Settlers of Catan game suite.

Regarding the Settlers of Catan pages:

  • Massive additions and restructuring underway.
  • All images originate from an open source implementation of Settlers of Catan. The developer has sanctioned this Wikipedia effort. The game is distributed at SourceForge under GPL licensing.

Please see the Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Copyright page for the following policy statement:

It is not the job of rank-and-file Wikipedians to police every image for possible copyright infringement.

If you so choose, see also Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image_guidelines, and point to the part that's violated by the contents of the Settlers of Catan documentation, before removing any part of that entry.

~ stardust 02:49, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please rethink those cards you have uploaded and added to articles. They're copyrighted by the manufacturers and marketers, and I don't think posting them here, especially in such large quantities, is "fair use". RickK 04:30, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

See above regarding the origin of these images. Is the sample image of the settlers of catan bank copyrighted? Or the image of that particular standard board configuration? Does a photograph or illustration of someone reading The Return of the King, or people playing chess, or people playing settlers, constitute copyright infringement? Are we concerned with origin or with likeness? If the images were further processed to be fuzzier or smaller, would they still pose a concern? If there is a gradient of fuzziness, where is the line drawn?
~ stardust 05:06, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
None of those circumstances are what I'm talking about. Chess is not copyrighted. Pictures of people palying Settlers are not copyrighted. The cards are. RickK 16:29, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Tell me, what is the motivation behind your quest? To prevent Mayfair from charging Wikipedia with copyright infringement, when in fact they distribute these images for free themselves? As I've posted on the article's Talk page, "Likewise, the jungle tile is copyrighted. This is what Mayfair has to say about that: "Feel free to copy this image and attach it to cardboard to create your own Jungle Tile!" Same with the volcano tile. At the point that Mayfair itself distributes its images freely, with the recommendation that people put them in play, whereas the Settlers of Catan article is merely informational and intended to fuel interest, and sales to boot, perhaps you need to find bone to pick somewhere else!"
~ stardust 20:45, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Take a deep breath. Cool down a little bit. RickK is just suggesting that the images are under copyright, and the copyright holder, Mayfair Games, has not released them under GNU_FDL, thus we can't realy have them here. Mayfair releasing them for personal use in a copy of their game that you bought is different than them releasing them for comercial use, which is what this project is. Gentgeen 21:43, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I would suggest (as I have before) that the image descriptions give exact details as to the origin of the images. stardust has said that they are from the GPL game at sourceforge, so that should be OK. --snoyes 22:36, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
See Talk:Settlers of Catan, the images are acknoldged by the source website to be illegal, and to have been objected to by the game's designer. Gentgeen 00:52, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The implementation is acknowledged to be unlicensed. The images are privately created illustrations. Do not make blanket changes to the document, such as removing all the images, including those beyond question. That is an explicit violation of Wikipedia guidelines.
~ stardust 02:24, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Really? Who says? RickK 08:10, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

STOP UPLOADING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL!!!!! RickK 08:16, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)


If you continue to upload copyright material without permission, it will ultimately result in your account being blocked. By uploading material without permission, you put Wikipedia in serious jeopardy and create a lot of work as other more constructive editors work to undue the damage you are doing by breaking the law. Daniel Quinlan 08:28, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

For the law, as relevant to the United States, where the servers are located, please see Talk:Settlers of Catan. Gentgeen 08:52, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Read the excerpt above from the Wikipedia and copyright issues page. The copyright on Settlers of Catan protects Mayfair from anyone producing a physical, boxed game suite with the same or similar design as a product for the mass market. It does not prevent anyone from sharing illustrations of any degree of likeness to the physical product. This is protected by the First Amendment, which is quite relevent enough in the United States.
~ stardust 08:54, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The First Amendment has nothing to do with copyright. You are not attempting to express free speech, but commercial exploitation. RickK 08:58, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It does in the context of fair use. Since the Wikipedia documentation generates no profit for anyone, and does not take away from the profit that Mayfair Games and Klaus Teuber gain from the sale of physical boxed sets, no commercial exploitation is involved.
~ stardust 23:46, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8[3]:
(The Congress shall have Power) To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
That clause in the constitution has never been amended. The last time I checked (about 45 minutes ago), US Code, Title 17, was the copyright law as approved by the United States Congress, and it has never been overturned by a court decision. Gentgeen 09:09, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Read the excerpt above from the Wikipedia and copyright issues page. The copyright on Settlers of Catan protects Mayfair from anyone producing a physical, boxed game suite with the same or similar design as a product for the mass market. It does not prevent anyone from sharing illustrations of any degree of likeness to the physical product.
The maps referenced by the copyright laws you have cited are things like world maps or city maps, sold for profit by the copyright holder. If Map Company A decides to produce and sell a map of Boston, it is free to do so. If Map Company B decides to produce and sell their own map of Boston, it is also free to do so. Map companies put fake, nonexistent alleys in their maps to try to catch other map companies that COPY their work exactly, down to the fake alleys. Without these fakeouts, there is no infringement case.
Now all the game maps in the Settlers documentation are unique layouts that were randomly generated, and have not been published by anyone anywhere, for profit-generating sales of any kind. Sure they were generated following the rules of the game, but I am allowed to use the rules of the game in the making of my personal set of illustrations. If I designed a new variant of the game on a new board with catan tiles, the Mayfair copyright would not bar me from sharing my new idea with everyone else. This is protected by the First Amendment, which is quite relevent enough in the United States.
Furthermore, almost all of the text in the article is my own, plus some bits of the original article. Explaining the rules of a game is protected by the First Amendment as well. Sure since it is about a copyrighted game, it is 'derivative' of the rules, but sharing ideas is not barred by any copyright law anywhere. IMPLEMENTING the same idea in physical form for commercial profit IS illegal. The dissimination of information in the Settlers documentation, with images that I have made myself, in words that I have written myself, is far from illegal.
~ stardust 09:03, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

However, the copyrightable portions are not under copyright protection unless the registration process has been completed. A search of US Copyright Office records reveals that no such registration has been completed for the Settlers of Catan game suite.

This is not true and illustrates your complete lack of understanding of copyright law. Copyright is implicit, no registration is required for ownership of material to exist. In addition, you don't even need to put "Copyright" or © on the work for it to be copyright. This is not exclusive to the United States.
It is also probably not fair use. The amount of your copying is substantial and goes well beyond the amount necessary for writing articles about the game.
Daniel Quinlan 23:27, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)
Your response indicates that you did not visit the link to the US Copyright Office, nor read the sentences regarding the portions of a game which are copyrightable, but must be registered.
It also indicates that you have not examined the factors for determining fair use, to which I have also provided a link. Image thumbnails for non-profit, informative purposes are fair use beyond a doubt. The largest image on the page is the standard board layout, with is a layout randomly generated by me and previously unpublished, thus if anyone holds the copyright on it, I do. Even if I provided a map scanned from an official source like the Settlers Almanac, I have provided several precedents that point to it being fair use. See also Martin's image-by-image analysis of fair use on the Settlers of Catan discussion page. Your two sentence response contains absolutely no research and/or original argumentation. I would be interested to see if you can demonstrate, by pointing to precedents as I have, that the total quantity of representations included in the Wikipedia documentation outweighs all of the above circumstances that point to fair use.
~ stardust 23:46, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The article contains thumbnails, but you're uploading much larger images of cards. I'll check out the link to the US copyright office later. Daniel Quinlan 00:14, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
I don't have administrative controls to delete images I've uploaded that end up orphaned after the articles have been completed. So the body of images that I have uploaded includes some degree of overkill, that only time will correct. Did you have a point here, other than to admit you haven't looked at the body of research I've posted?
~ stardust 01:13, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the complement on my user talk page. I do have on quibble slightly with your fair use analysis, though: As Wikipedia is a free, open content encyclopedia, we encourage commercial companies to help us redistribute our material, possibly for a fee. So although Wikipedia is not-for-profit, and therefore could in theory take full advantage of fair use, we like to steer a slightly more conservative course in order to preserve our freeness.

Oh, one more thing... Wikipedia is not a democracy! :) It's more of a cryptocracy: nobody's quite sure who's in charge, but somehow decisions get made... Martin 02:25, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] From Poss. Copyright Infringements

  • Image:Soc-bank-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-bank-euro.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-yearofplenty-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-yearofplenty-euro.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-soldier-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-soldier-euro.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-roadbuilder-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-roadbuilder-euro.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-monopoly-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-monopoly-euro.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-chapel-usa.jpg, Image:Soc-dev-chapel-euro.jpg. Copyrighted game cards from the Settlers of Catan game. RickK 04:29, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • And yet again more cards uploaded by User:Stardust. This user needs to be made to understand what copyrights mean. RickK 08:20, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • Please read fair use and some of the cases which link to that article, notably the transformative use discussion and fair use analysis in Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation and the full decision it links to. These game components don't come close to being copyright infringement. Jamesday 01:41, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • I agree. Keep. --Chuck SMITH 01:48, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • We cannot afford to take risks; delete. Morwen 08:05, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
    • Please read this copyright and fair use summary before you vote. This discussion has closed at Talk:Settlers of Catan/copyright and fair use. ~ stardust 09:12, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. I haven't looked at this issue in depth but a quick reading of user stardust's user page indicates some fundamental misunderstandings about copyright law, so I'm not willing to trust this user's judgement. --Imran 16:33, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Media:Soc-thumb-allmaps-usa.jpg, Media:Soc-bank-usa.jpg, Media:Image:Soc-bank-euro.jpg, Media:Soc-dev-yearofplenty-usa.jpg, Media:Soc-dev-yearofplenty-euro.jpg, and on and on; source page admits it is an illegal violation of copyright. See Talk:Settlers of Catan for previous discussion. Gentgeen 01:08, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • The game pieces and such appear to be a simple case of fair use in the context of our article describing the game, not a candidate for copyright infringement. This applies to both the online and print Wikipedia. The concept of transformative use is key here - the Wikipedia is not a game. Nor can thumbnail sized images of game maps and pieces infringe when used in this context. Jamesday 01:41, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • We cannot afford to take risks; delete. Morwen 08:05, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
      • The risk here is simply of a baseless copyright infringement claim. Game reviews, descriptions and guides, including in published book form without any license from the publisher of the game concerned, are very well established as routine fair use. Indeed, the independent ones are sometimes better received than those bearing the "official" moniker, when both exist, because the unofficial ones, in the computer game context, often contain details of cheat codes and such which aren't in the officially blessed version. Would be nice to have some licensed images from the Mayfair Games version of the game, though, and I gather that stardust is also pursuing that route. Jamesday 21:35, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Please read this copyright and fair use summary before you vote. This discussion has closed at Talk:Settlers of Catan/copyright and fair use. ~ stardust 09:12, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Keep. --Chuck SMITH 01:48, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Entire second paragraph and beyond, blatant violation

The entire second paragraph of the article is lifted verbatim from the entire third paragraph on [4], and then subsequent paragraphs of the article were lifted whole from the same source and barely edited at all. When I went to check out the other source, I was astounded to discover that I had read all of it before. If there is any limit to how much you can lift verbatim from another source without a copyright violation, then I am certain this article exceeds it. Aumakua 03:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


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