Stelek wrote:They aren't official GW dexes, so putting them into the official AB file takes the official files and makes a mockery of them. Why aren't these files unofficial and not part of the official package? Because mkerr wants it that way? BOLS wanting something isn't a reason to change course. How awesome will the community thank them for their 'lists' if GW shuts down this project? You should know doing anything outside of what has always been the standard can get GW's attention. Haven't you noticed how GW has been acting lately? Probably the worst time to add gimmicks.
They're under "Community Lists", the idea of which was to include any non-GW lists that are used by the playing population. The BoLS lists just happened to be the first ones to test this with as they are, at least as far as I am aware, the community lists with the widest playing audience. It was nothing to do with Mkerr - take your personal issues with him out of this debate. As to AB being "official", you know better than anyone that at no time has GW given it's full blessing to the files - they are tolerated due to an understanding, part of which includes the delay on releasing new codexes into the files, and as far as I am aware there is no requirement for the files to be restricted purely to GW printed content. Send me proof otherwise and I'll happily review my stance.
Stelek wrote:As far as spending money on legal advice goes, it's better to spend the 100$ for an hours worth of advice than risk everything, no? I don't run this place anymore, and I've spent the money before and I have done so again--why haven't you?
Personally, I haven't spent money because financially I can't afford it right now. I have a family, a car, a mortgage, and a lot of financial commitments. I pay what I need to to keep the site going (new hardware as required, taking time out from my own business to spend on working on the site and dealing with issues - for instance, taking time on this particular issue out of my work and having to cancel some freelance projects to do has cost me in the region of £350 alone this weekend). $100 might get you an hour in the US - here in the UK that would get me much less with a copyright solicitor, and I've called the solicitors I use and they don't have a slot available with their copyright specialist for at least another 2 weeks; they also suggested that I'd be looking at around £500 - £1000 in order to look into this due to the time required for research outside of the time I would spend in a face-to-face meeting. I don't have that sort of cash lying around in my wallet right now - do you?
From your blog I see you had advice on taking advertising on your own site - this is entirely different to the how the AB40k site operates, and bears little resemblance from a legal standpoint. I've already had an informal chat to a friend in our company's legal dept. On top of that, you also seem to have ignored the fact that US law doesn't apply here - the AB40k site is in the UK, the files are distributed from the UK, GW is in the UK, so UK law applies. Did you ask your lawyer directly about the AB40k files situation? Is he/she fully conversed in UK copyright law?
Stelek wrote:Your experiences in life are similar to mine, only real difference is I don't deal with trade sales but I have dealt with GW legal.
As have I - last August I had cause to call them about use of wording on various marketing materials and products I was working on. They were very friendly, very easy going, and were able to give me the advice I needed very clearly - and I had no issues with distributing my products inside GW HQ at Warhammer World to both my event attendees and the GW staff themselves, with the full blessing of GW legal. If I feel it's necessary I'll ring them and try to get a clear answer from them, but I doubt it'll be as simple as that. I'm at WHW again in August and I could see if I can arrange a face to face meeting with members of their legal dept, should the need arise.
Stelek wrote:They aren't really pleasant. If they decide you've gone too far, you know they won't stop at the BOLS files. They'll tell you to stop completely. It's their heavy handed way. You should know this just from dealing with trade sales. GW isn't a pleasant company to do business with.
My personal experience has been quite the opposite. Were you dealing with the US or UK legal dept? How long ago was this? Were you as confrontational with them as you appear to be from your blogs and your earlier posts in this thread?
Stelek wrote:Move the files to an unofficial status and if GW pitches a fit, you can say they are separate and just remove them from hosting.
I looked through the site and didn't see any polls or anything about this subject, so it's not like you asked people before you did it. You are the current keepers of the AB40k files, but your duty isn't to your own wants it's your duty to be as neutral as possible.
I thought our duty was to provide as much as possible for the gamer in order for them to make full use of the AB software? Making widely used community driven lists fits into that remit, does it not? It's not our wants we're dealing with here, it's the wants of the community that plays the game. Yes, we could have run polls, but very few AB users actually use know of this site so the polls would not have been representative of the general AB 40k playing population. By putting the files in we felt that it would enhance the usefulness of the files, and for those players that didn't want to use them they could simply ignore the option.
Other than the rants posted by you along with some of the replies you've had, and the post from Styx, I've seen nothing in the wider community about this being an issue. What I have seen is some posts on a newsgroup (rec.games.miniatures.warhammer if you're interested) from 3 people who were happy to see those lists included (one had mentioned that it would be useful if they were in there, and I pointed out they already were). If you can provide links showing widespread outrage then I'd be interested to read what everyone is saying.
Also, do you realise how much slower things will be if we have to run polls every time we make changes to the files that affect how they work? And what happens if the poll results make it so that it's not possible to get the files to match the codex lists? If you give people the ability to halt progress you will end up with problems because there are a large number of people who are confrontational by nature and cannot help causing trouble if given the opportunity - this shows up every day on sites across the web, and there's plenty of historic sociological evidence to back this up. It's human nature.
Stelek wrote:When the guys who write 'free' game codices that replace the main games rules want to be included, and you don't agree to that request--everyone will cry foul (as they should). If you do agree to it, GW will banhammer you so fast you won't be running this site anymore. You have to realize what a dangerous path this is you've taken.
Nobody is writing anything that replaces the main game rules. The BoLS lists build on the existing rules to bring in expansion lists that widen the game playing experience - those players still need to have the rules from GW, and their inclusion will have no more effect on GW sales than the AB40k files do anyway. Nothing is being removed to fit these in, and they do not affect the GW codex or expansion lists. For instance, I'd personally be happy if the team included options to enable other non-GW changes to the core files to allow players to use some of the larger community FAQs such as INAT in order to make it easier to create lists for those events as these are also often used as house rules for other events or clubs (for instance, my own club uses INAT in many cases as they FAQs are very thorough), or the Throne of Skulls event FAQs (which while they have the Warhammer World backing and in turn GW itself, they are still not core GW rules). I'm just using these as examples of where non-GW augmentations are highly beneficial to the playing community and do not detract from GW in any way; in fact, would you not agree that these events do more to promote GW, and in turn increase sales, than detract from them?
Stelek wrote:If the AB files go down, the hobby will be worse off for it. Is that a risk you should be taking on behalf of the tens of thousands of AB users who depend on you to not take risks and incur GW's wrath?
I agree that the loss of the AB files would be very bad. The team are currently discussing how to deal with this, and we'll announce it when we've decided what to do. I do however think your fears are based in paranoia and a deep personal hatred of members of BoLS - you need to step back and take an unbiased look at what is going on around you. You also need to consider that you do not have all the facts at hand - you are basing your views on irrelevant discussions with your lawyer about your own site which do not apply to the way the AB40k site works, and provide no evidence to the contrary to back up your claims that you have some sort of inside knowledge on how the GW legal dept view the AB40k project in the present climate (emails or letters from 3 years ago are not fully relevant because the business position of GW has changed radically over that time).
If we decide to move the community lists out as a separate file it will be because we have based that decision on the views of the maintainers and of mature posts like those from Styx, not because you or others have tried to demand it through abusive and, to put it frankly, childish methods (and I'm glad to see that at least some readers of your blog feel the same way). If we decide to keep them in, then I hope you will respect that and not feel the need to persecute either the team as a whole or as individuals. I would also hope that you stop your slanderous comments on your blog about members of this team and any other individuals, and remove those that you have already made.