Villains & Vigilantes Creators Win Rights to Game

[mephron]

http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/371 ... win-rights

So basically FGU has been selling V&V stuff illegally, and Jeff Dee and Jeff Butler are the real owners.

As Bob said, I believe, that Looney Tunes was originally a V&V character, I thought he might have some interest in this!Brazil has decided you're cute.

[Rev Dark]

V&V was the second RP I played - and still holds up despite being prone to character creation abuse.  Great to hear this - they deserve the full fruits of their labors,

[Bob Schroeck]

I do indeed have some interest in it, Geoff. Thanks for the heads-up. And I've sent a congratulatory note to Jeff.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Logan Darklighter]

Wow - I had no idea this had been going on. But this is great news and congratulations to Dee and Butler!
I found something interesting that might have some connection to other publishing shenanigans near the end of the article: 

The case could have an impact on Bizar's other games. All of them originally were released in the late '70s and early '80s, long before electronic publishing rights were anticipated by most publishers. In the 2002 case Random House vs. Rosetta Books, the New York state court of appeals ruled that unless a publishing contract explicitly grants ebook rights to the publisher, those rights are retained by the author. Even a contract that gives a publisher rights "in book form" would not be interpreted to cover ebooks. The court ruled, "[T]he law of New York, which determines the scope of Random House's contracts, has arguably adopted a restrictive view of the kinds of 'new uses' to which an exclusive license may apply when the contracting parties do not expressly provide for coverage of such future forms."

Note that this is Random House, the same publishing company that is trying to put one over on new writers with horrible contracts as detailed in this thread here - 

http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/top ... round-here

I wonder if Random House got ruled against because of the way certain contracts work/are written and was hoping to establish precedent on terms favorable to them and stuff like e-publishing rights etc. with the stuff detailed by Scalzi. If so, it's backfired on them. 

[Ebony]

I didn't realize this was going on either, but it's cool that they've managed to get the rights. I've met Mr. Dee; he's a pretty cool dude. Even if we were both at a horrible money pit of a convention. (Pro Tip: You cannot have the attendance of a convention in its tenth year of existence in your first year, even if you throw 80 grand at it.)
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[LilFluff]

While I never played Villains & Vigilantes, I'm pleased to hear about this. I first heard rumors of questionable activities while trying to search down a copy of the Other Suns boxed RPG from the 80s, which had also been published by FGU. (Found a partial copy. Other Suns was definitely an early 80s game, all sorts of interesting ideas buried under a crust of unnecessarily complex rules such as a dozen random gen stats + a dozen derived stats, etc. etc.)
So I'm glad to hear that at least one other game's creators got the rights back.
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Bob Schroeck]

Just got a note back from Jeff yesterday, in which he told me:

We have all of our rights back now, except for the right to print physical copies of Original and Revised V&V. We've been in no hurry to take action to force Scott Bizar to stop publishing all V&V material with the exception of those titles, given that he's filed for an appeal, but a lot of people are urging us to move to shut him down immediately. We're exploring all of our options.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.