They have permission to

[ZombieX9]

Sorry to bother. I would like to know if the site www.rederpg.com.br has the permission to publish comics of The Order of the Stick.
His webmaster Marcelo Telles says that he has, but I would like to confirm. If anyone wants to speak with him, I can pass his e-mail.
The translator name is "Nibelung" and he has a few The Order of the Stick trips here http://s241.photobucket.com/albums/ff133/oots/

[dakiwiboid]

If I were you I'd send a PM to Rich Burlew about this! Those translated strips certainly look a bit suspicious to me.

[ZombieX9]

What is the Rich Burlew´s username or e-mail?

[Nerd-o-rama]

The Giant. Look at who posts all the new strip threads.

[Meek]

Brazilian?

[Heroic]

Oh... I sense a whooole lot of trouble coming up :smalleek:

[Haruki-kun]

Supposedly, it's not allowed. That is, according to the GITP FAQS, I think.

[Heroic]

Should I tell The Giant?

[Haruki-kun]

Probably someone should.

[Heroic]

OK, I will

[ZombieX9]

Thank you, Hero 1.0.

I´ll wait and see what happens.

[Heroic]

I'll let you know when he replies.

[OverWilliam]

Did you post a link to this thread?

[Heroic]

I will give a link to this The Giant answers me. I'll give credits to ZombieX9, obviously.

[tenguro]

I have belkar as my IM image, should i change it or is it safe to have it as my IM image?

[Zakama]

It would be nice of you to take it down. I don't know if Rich can do anything about it, but it IS copyrighted. He'd do it for you.

[Kreistor]

It would be nice of you to take it down. I don't know if Rich can do anything about it, but it IS copyrighted. He'd do it for you.

Copyright isn't the problem here. It's Trademark. Rich had the OotS characters Trademarked. Trademarks have very different rules that apply to them.

To protect his Trademark, Rich must rigorously defend the use of his images. He must go after anyone using them for anything. If he allows anyone to get away with it, he loses his trademark and then anyone can use his images.

So, yes, you must stop using any image created by Rich for the comic.

[tenguro]

ok thanks I thought that since it was just an AIM icon it didnt matter, but I thought wrong so thanks alot, sorry about that Rich.

[V Junior]

Oh...

My cousin W (name protected in case anyone knows him) has got a panel from OOTS as his MSN image (or he did, I haven't seen it recently). Should he take that down? I mean, W may be wild, but he'd never break the law.

As for the translated strips, those need to go down.

[bluish_wolf]

ok thanks I thought that since it was just an AIM icon it didnt matter, but I thought wrong so thanks alot, sorry about that Rich.

Um... he wasn't talking to you. I don't think any judge in any country would consider using a Belkar avatar trademark infringement or trademark dilution. Even the really anal ones.

[tenguro]

It seems like it was directed towards me. Oh well, I changed it anyways I like Belkar, but I dont wanna trouble Rich any.

[heyitsbrian]

From what I understand, as long as you aren't claiming that they are yours or otherwise somehow profiting off of them, it should be fine to use images for things like AiM icons, or backgrounds, just as long as you don't claim that they are yours. They're great free advertising, as long as you don't say that you drew it or it's yours. Hell, I'm surprised that the Giant doesn't already have a series of 'approved' AiM icons and MSN 'whatevertheyuse's linked on the site.

As for the translated images, they're stolen for sure, but it does breed the idea for the comic to be translated into other languages. Obviously the people that run this site like it enough to translate the first(?) 97 strips, and although I don't speak this language (looks Spanish, but could be Portuguese I suppose), I think that we all can assume that it's well received. Why not just ask them to continue translating and just have it posted on an alt-site, like giantitp.com/comics/espanyolaoots.html. They could link back to this site, maybe even generate a little bit more traffic back here.

Eh, just my two cents.

[ZombieX9]

Yeah, is Portuguese from Brazil.

About the idea. How they say? "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

[Jaysyn]

It seems like it was directed towards me. Oh well, I changed it anyways I like Belkar, but I dont wanna trouble Rich any.

The doctrine of Fair Use covers minor, non-profit uses of art like that.

[Heroic]

No reply yet, sorry.

[Mc. Lovin']

I dont think Rich comes on that much, you should try WampaX, or one of the other mods

[Heroic]

OK, will do that.

[Nibelung]

I'm the one who translate the strips. I already started it in this forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3243444&postcount=41) already.

I was planning to ask the Giant to host it here after i finished the Dungeons of Dorukan arc (the first book), but in the way some people ask me if they could use my translation.

RedeRPG was the first *big* site to host it. And i told to Marcelo Telles that the Giant isnt for or against fan translation. I said it based in a entrace in the FAQ (http://www.giantitp.com/FAQ.html#faq14a):


Q: I speak a language other than English. Can I translate the Order of the Stick for my game site?

A: At this time, the translation program is on indefinite hold. Some of the existing translations apparently suffered from accuracy issues, and all suffered from a lack of support from the translator, most of whom faded away after translating only a fraction of the strip's run. Also, there was no promotion or advertisement by the translators in their native language, resulting in a great deal of work for very, very few hits. Please do not contact me regarding translating OOTS into your native language until such time as I decide whether to continue the translation program.

Maybe i read it wrong, but since the question was also about "translate the OotS for my ste", and the Giant didn't told something like "No, the OotS can only be viewed on giantitp.com", i suppose that he just didn't was making promotion/adversiment in the main page for it.

By now, i knew 3 sites that hold my translations (Ordem do Graveto.blogspot (http://www.ordemdograveto.blogspot.com/), Inominattus (http://www.inominattus.com/?cat=8) and RedeRPG (http://www.rederpg.com.br/portal/modules/soapbox/column.php?colID=14)) and a discussion forum (http://spellrpg.com.br/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=53) [Edit: Someones already deleted]. I can talk to the owners of this sites and tell them to delete it too, if necessary.

Anyway... i get 93 strips in 7 months. I can do it in 1~2/week without problem, and i received a lot of good feedback about my job. Well, im open for negociations or a simple and plain "stop it now".

[The Giant]

Stop it now.

The translations you are distributing use and alter my artwork, which is a violation of my copyrights on that artwork. Whether or not you are making any money off of the translations or using them for any commercial purpose is not relevent. You are using the entirety of the art for every installment between a certain time period, with stated intent to continue doing so until the whole of the work is reproduced. Since the sites in question are not using the artwork for criticism or review or one of the very few true "Fair Use" exemptions, my lawyer has advised me that these sites are posting your translations in violation of my legally-registered copyright. Not to mention the trademark implications, which are frankly even more restrictive.

The section you quoted of the FAQ indicates that I was not willing to give approval for a translation, so you presumably hoped that it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission and post them first. However, the portion of the FAQ you really should have paid more attention to was this:


Q: Can I repost one of the comic strips to another site? Can I alter the image and repost it?

A: Definitely not. The digital image of each strip is protected under copyright law, and reposting it or altering it without permission is going to almost always be a copyright violation. I need to be very careful with my intellectual property in order that I might be able to earn profit from my work--which in turn will allow me to create more of it. If I discover a site that is reusing my art, I will ask them to remove it, and I won't feel bad about doing so.

So in essence, am I for or against fan translations? I am against any use of my artwork by anyone other than me or my licensors, not counting certain pieces of artwork I have made avaialble for promotional use (link banners, book cover shots, etc.). If you want to translate the TEXT and put it, in script format, on your website, you can do that. But you can't use my artwork to do it.

If it makes you feel any better, you are not the only person I need to shut down. A half dozen sites in various languages have recently been brought to my attention, and my legal advisor is helping me draft cease-and-desist letters to all of them. It would probably be a good idea for you to tell the websites distributing your translations that I have asked that they be taken down, before they get any such letter.

As always, I sort of hate having to come down on people who are doing something (at least obstensibly) out of love of the comic, but it is very, very difficult to make a living off of creating free intellectual property when you don't have a studio/publisher/agent/major corporation in your corner. I unfortunately need to be fairly strict with what I can or cannot allow in order to maintain my ownership of these characters. I imagine a few people will think less of me for coming down on these translations, but there's nothing I can do about that.

-------------------

Now, as far as AIM images or such: if you are using it for yourself and not distributing it in any means, then you're OK. After all, the icon only appears when someone is IMing with you. It's not posted on a website for all to see. If you want to put Belkar as your AIM icon, go to town. If you want to post a set of OOTS icons for AIM on your webpage for people to download, expect an email from Mr. Jones and Mr. Rodriguez.

[SPoD]

As for the translated images, they're stolen for sure, but it does breed the idea for the comic to be translated into other languages. Obviously the people that run this site like it enough to translate the first(?) 97 strips, and although I don't speak this language (looks Spanish, but could be Portuguese I suppose), I think that we all can assume that it's well received. Why not just ask them to continue translating and just have it posted on an alt-site, like giantitp.com/comics/espanyolaoots.html. They could link back to this site, maybe even generate a little bit more traffic back here.

If you had been around the site before, say, 2005, you would know that Rich experimented with having fans translate the first 40 or so OOTS strips into other languages, and then subsequently took them all down. it turns out the translations were lousy, mangling the jokes (and even D&D terminology) and Rich hadn't known because he doesn't speak those languages. I doubt that he would ever be willing to officially endorse a translation ever again, due to the amount of time and money it would take for him to verify its accuracy and quality. He can't just let them keep on doing it and give it the seal of approval, because what if it sucks? (No offense to the translator, I don't speak Portugese.)

And as far as traffic, well, you may have noticed that the server has all the traffic it can handle! Though in all seriousness, Rich has stated before that because there are no ads on his site, traffic doesn't make him money, it costs him money. Only merchandise purchases make him money, and anyone who came to this site unable to read English at all would be pretty unlikely to ever order an OOTS book, seeing as how they are printed in English. So you'd be pretty much asking him to set up and maintain an entire extra website with its own bandwidth bills for an audience that is highly unlikely of ever contributing to his financial bottom line.

I'm pretty sure Rich has made a conscious decision to not endorse his comic being put into another language, and I don't see these comics appearing on these websites as accomplishing anything for his business other than making him annoyed.

EDIT: Giant Ninja'd!

[Nibelung]

Stop it now.

[The rest of Giant's post]

No problem, man. I'll enter in contact with the responsiblefor the sites and we will put it down. Anyway, thanks for the response.

[ZombieX9]

http://www.justice.org.uk/jshrn/JUSTICE-logo.jpg

[ZombieX9]

One more site without permission.
http://www.ordemdograveto.blogspot.com/

The owner:
http://www.blogger.com/profile/14785925566322464209

Owner´s e-mail: [email protected]

[Nibelung]

I already pointed this site in my first post. And i already tell him to shut the site down (as any portuguese speaker can comprove reading the last comment in the "more recent" strip).

All the other sites already get it out sa soon as i infomed about this topic.

[Edwazah]

Sorry, but I HAVE to post a comment.

I'm sorry for you giant... I really love OOtS, and I'm reading it since 2005, I don't miss any episode... sometimes I enter more than 5 times in the same day just to know if there is any new comic.

But I'm from Brazil and I have to say this to you.

I'm not a lawyer but I know if you want to sue (I'm not saying you will or you want to) someone in Brazil for this, you can't.
You need a trademark registered here. And also, in Brazil we have billions of "fansubber" who sells Anime with subtitles in Portuguese.... well, those ones you can sue because they're selling copyright things, but just to release a translation, for those who doesn't understand English in Brazil, you can't.

I don't think they will continue to translating the comics because you told to stop it, but if I could, and had a better English, I was translating with or without your authorization to do it, and you couldn't stop me.

I really don't understand why you guys from USA are so rednecks with this kind of things, USA could be a problem country with these things, but many other countries are not. Maybe, if you try to sue someone from Brazil for translate a FREE cartoon, published in Internet FOR FREE, and they are publishing FOR FREE on any site, they will laugh in your face, seriously!!

I know it's not easy for you to keep this, but try to understand, that's the only way for some people in other countries.
I'm a really fan of your work, and I can't wait to go to USA someday just to buy your books, because they are not sold on amazon.com but, isn't everybody here who understand English.
I can also tell you that I never saw anything about you being sold in Brazil.... actually, I fell happy when I find someone who knows your job.

I also use a sign picture of Elan in one Forum, and I did this picture with your Elan pictures from some strips and you can't forbid me to do it, at last in Brazil, and I will not stop to use that image, well, at last until I change for a new one.

You should think and worry with things that is more dangerous for you than this, actually, this is not a problem, it's something to help your work but, if you don't see this way... I'm sorry, I'm not here to judge you, I just feel sorry for my friends who started to follow your strips by the translation, because they don't speak English... and in the end, I will translate for they your comic... verbally, but I will translate it.

I didn't want to be rude in any part of this post, If I was, I'm sorry, my English is not so good :)
And I don't want any trouble for that guy, who I even don't know or ever talked with him, actually I think he did a GREAT job, because translate something for Portuguese is very complicated, because we have gender for words and he found a solution regarding V's lines....

Well... that's it, sorry for these words, but I had to say this.

regards!!
Ed.

[Fighteer]

Unfortunately, Edwazah, the issue isn't one of Brazilian law per se. Regardless of your feelings in the matter, any use of Rich's work by anyone in violation of his copyright that is allowed to stand unchallenged potentially weakens his own ability to profit from it. And I'm pretty sure that international copyright law, not Brazilian law, governs use of these types of works when the author is in a different country. You may want to study law yourself before speaking authoritatively about the subject.

So the situation comes down to this: would you rather read OotS in English, or not at all? Because if the legal and financial burden on Rich becomes too great, he'll simply stop producing it. And he already said that publishing your own translation in script format is fine, as long as you don't copy or alter the strips themselves.

[Nargrakhan]

I'm not a lawyer but I know if you want to sue (I'm not saying you will or you want to) someone in Brazil for this, you can't.
You need a trademark registered here.

The legal term you're looking for is territoriality. And aye... it does hamper things. However Brazil is a signatory member of TRIPS, so whatever legal team The Giant has is not toothless, per se...

In any case, the reason why illegal activity to anime (and especially hentai games) from Japan happens without a huge stink, is because the Japanese property holder doesn't do anything about it. Strange as it may sound: quite a number of them could careless what happens outside of East Asia, so long as their trademark holds in East Asia. Things work differently there. Of course when a DOMESTIC publisher has the rights, then the DOMESTIC publisher fights the legal battles. So for example Mediaworks - the original holder of Sister Princess - doesn't do snot when Americans fansub the series. However ADV - the North America holder of Sister Princess - will send you nasty letters. When ADV's license expires, then no one will bother anyone.

[Justin_Bacon]

I'm not a lawyer but I know if you want to sue (I'm not saying you will or you want to) someone in Brazil for this, you can't.

Obviously you're not a lawyer, because otherwise you'd know that Brazil is a signatory to the international treaties governing copyright law. And I can assure you that duplicating and distributing copyrighted artwork without permission is in violation of those laws.

Please educate yourself regarding the reality of copyright law before spreading disinformation like this.

[Nargrakhan]

Obviously you're not a lawyer, because otherwise you'd know that Brazil is a signatory to the international treaties governing copyright law.

Well so is Commie China... but look at the copyright laws they violate. :smallwink:

[David Argall]

any use of Rich's work by anyone in violation of his copyright that is allowed to stand unchallenged potentially weakens his own ability to profit from it.


The key word here is "potentially". As a practical matter, the damage is likely trivial, and can easily be a profit for the writer.
After deducting pay for a translator and other costs, the likely profit from a Portuguese edition of OOTS is below the cost of sending out a cease and desist letter by some lawyer. So it is unlikely our writer would ever bother with it, and loses nothing.
Moreover, OOTS is run on the theory that free is profitable. You read the strip for free, but buy the books [which definitely worked in my case as far as Origens and SoD are concerned.] We can see where the translation produces interest in the original, and in the books or other stuff for sale.
We can see this on a large scale in Japan amine, where there are open conventions of pirated stuff, which are largely regarded as luring people to see the "real originals".
So there is a major chance the most profitable action is to just ignore the violation of copyright.

[monty]

Profit isn't the point, though. If I remember my copyright law correctly, you can't just ignore a violation, or you lose the copyright.

[David Argall]

That is Trademark, not copyright. He would have to defend any symbol he used to identify this as his product. But the product itself is copyrighted and does not need to be defended.
The idea is that the trademark is supposed to be a small item used by the customer to identify the product. But if you are not selling anything, you don't need a trademark, and so you have to show your interest in keeping it. If you don't know of a violation, it likely is not confusing the customer and so is harmless.

The copyrighted product is something far larger that may sit on the shelf for a decade, say until somebody wants to publish the book or make the movie. You can easily overlook a violation that does you major damage.

[monty]

Did you even read the Giant's post on the first page?


Stop it now.

The translations you are distributing use and alter my artwork, which is a violation of my copyrights on that artwork. Whether or not you are making any money off of the translations or using them for any commercial purpose is not relevent. You are using the entirety of the art for every installment between a certain time period, with stated intent to continue doing so until the whole of the work is reproduced. Since the sites in question are not using the artwork for criticism or review or one of the very few true "Fair Use" exemptions, my lawyer has advised me that these sites are posting your translations in violation of my legally-registered copyright. Not to mention the trademark implications, which are frankly even more restrictive.

Etc.

"violation of my copyrights"
"trademark implications"
Sounds bad to me.

[Nibelung]

Anyway, i already stopped to translate directly Rich's art, since himself ask for it. Now i just distribute imageless text (http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff133/oots/OotS-000.gif). Since i'm not using Rich's art, it's ok. Right?

[monty]

I think just the image is copyrighted, so you should be fine. You'd have to ask the Giant to be sure, though.

[Revanmal]

If you want to translate the TEXT and put it, in script format, on your website, you can do that. But you can't use my artwork to do it.

Yes, he can use text translations as long as Rich's art isn't modified.

[Rutee]

Copyright isn't the problem here. It's Trademark. Rich had the OotS characters Trademarked. Trademarks have very different rules that apply to them.

To protect his Trademark, Rich must rigorously defend the use of his images. He must go after anyone using them for anything. If he allows anyone to get away with it, he loses his trademark and then anyone can use his images.

So, yes, you must stop using any image created by Rich for the comic.

-From Wikipedia
"It is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential. This is designed to prevent owners from continually being tied up in litigation for fear of cancellation."


Hence, in theory, the /site/ is very bad, but an avatar or an AIM Icon shouldn't be a problem. I'm hardly expecting to specialize in trademark/copyright law however, so.

[Admiral_Kelly]

*Scrubbed*

[Forealms]

Why are you so petty? Why not just let things be? Your copyrighting digital-made stick figures. Why do you care if someone uses 'your' artwork for something else?

1. Why do you care?

2. Apparently you don't think it's his artwork, as you put quotations around "your". It is his artwork. He started drawing the OotS years ago, and, unless you haven't noticed, he has a storyline using characters from the very first strips. It is not like he is randomly drawing stick figures and calling it artwork. He is not making a new character for every strip. He has made a set of characters that are unique, that are his.

3. As Rich himself has said, OotS is a primary source of income. As such, he has copyrighted and trademarked it as he saw fit. If somebody were to put his comics on their own website, it is illegal. If someone were to do so, it could draw attention away from his website, leading to less visitors and less merchandise sales. He would lose an entire source of income. Therefore, he can't allow anyone to take advantage of his webcomic. And you call him petty?

[monty]

Hey, here's a question for you, Burlew,

Why are you so petty? Why not just let things be? Your copyrighting digital-made stick figures. Why do you care if someone uses 'your' artwork for something else?

If you don't like it, I can't change your opinion, but how would you feel if someone said your art wasn't worth copyrighting? It's his intellectual property; let him use it how he wants.

[Randugulf]

People tend to get anal about direct threats to their livelihood.

[Admiral_Kelly]

After reading over my post, I have to admit that was close to trolling and stupid of me to have said. I apologize for my inappropriate behavior.

The thing that gets me though is that Burlew is the only one up-tight about copywrighting his works. I do not know of any other webcomic author who is like that.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Girl Genius is a registered trademark of Studio Foglio, LLC. Agatha Heterodyne, Transylvania Polygnostic and all Girl Genius art, characters, design elements and logos™ & ©2000-2006 Studio Foglio, LLC., All rights reserved.

All content & images are © Blind Ferret Entertainment.

Copyright 2001 - 2007 Brian Clevinger. Some images are property of Square-Enix.
The Foglios, Ryan Sohmer, even the freaking sprite-comic guy copyright their artwork (although the last would probably get into an altercation with Squeenix if he ever actually asserted copyright.) All webcomic artists with half a brain copyright their work, and will presumably take steps to enforce it. These are just the second through fourth on my bookmark list. It's not just Rich.

[Lord Iames Osari]

After reading over my post, I have to admit that was close to trolling and stupid of me to have said. I apologize for my inappropriate behavior.

The thing that gets me though is that Burlew is the only one up-tight about copywrighting his works. I do not know of any other webcomic author who is like that.

That's the prerogative of those other authors, then. Rich is well within his rights here. Order of the Stick-related merchandise is his sole source of income.

Now, you may not be a student of economics, so let me illustrate the situation for you.

Keep in mind, none of these pictures are based on actual numbers, but they are based on valid economic principles.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD.png

Here is a fairly typical baseline Supply-and-Demand graph, representing the market for Order of the Stick-related merchandise. The supply curve represents the quantity of OotS merchandise the producer (Rich, in this case) is willing to produce at any given price. The demand curve represents the quantity of OotS merchandise the consumers (you and me) are willing to buy at any given price. As you can see, the two curves intersect. This intersection determines how much OotS merchandise will be produced and consumed, and at what price.

Let's go ahead and shade in Rich's income, as determined by that intersection.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD-1.png

Looks like a pretty healthy chunk of income, doesn't it?

But this assumes that Rich is the sole producer of OotS merchandise. If he yields to your criticism and ceases to his assert his exclusive rights to OotS and OotS merchandise, other people will start producing OotS Merchandise as well. Let's look at that graph.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD-3.png

Now, you may ask why the green area, Rich's income, has shrunk so much. That's because the new market price has been set by the people pirating his work and selling it for less than Rich would accept on his own. There may be some people still willing to buy OotS merchandise at Rich's price, but there probably won't be many, and so Rich will be forced to lower his own prices and output in an attempt to compete.

So, in other words, if Rich took your advice and stopped being "petty" and "uptight," he stands to lose a substantial chunk of income to theives who have done nothing to earn the profits they'll make.

You are, in essence, advocating that Rich allow himself to be robbed. You are a proponent of theft.

[RyanD1207]

That's the prerogative of those other authors, then. Rich is well within his rights here. Order of the Stick-related merchandise is his sole source of income.

Now, you may not be a student of economics, so let me illustrate the situation for you.

Keep in mind, none of these pictures are based on actual numbers, but they are based on valid economic principles.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD.png

Here is a fairly typical baseline Supply-and-Demand graph, representing the market for Order of the Stick-related merchandise. The supply curve represents the quantity of OotS merchandise the producer (Rich, in this case) is willing to produce at any given price. The demand curve represents the quantity of OotS merchandise the consumers (you and me) are willing to buy at any given price. As you can see, the two curves intersect. This intersection determines how much OotS merchandise will be produced and consumed, and at what price.

Let's go ahead and shade in Rich's income, as determined by that intersection.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD-1.png

Looks like a pretty healthy chunk of income, doesn't it?

But this assumes that Rich is the sole producer of OotS merchandise. If he yields to your criticism and ceases to his assert his exclusive rights to OotS and OotS merchandise, other people will start producing OotS Merchandise as well. Let's look at that graph.

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k177/LordIames/Miscellaneous/SD-3.png

Now, you may ask why the green area, Rich's income, has shrunk so much. That's because the new market price has been set by the people pirating his work and selling it for less than Rich would accept on his own. There may be some people still willing to buy OotS merchandise at Rich's price, but there probably won't be many, and so Rich will be forced to lower his own prices and output in an attempt to compete.

So, in other words, if Rich took your advice and stopped being "petty" and "uptight," he stands to lose a substantial chunk of income to theives who have done nothing to earn the profits they'll make.

You are, in essence, advocating that Rich allow himself to be robbed. You are a proponent of theft.

I literally created an account just to say this. OWNED

[Edwazah]

Please educate yourself regarding the reality of copyright law before spreading disinformation like this.

You don't know me so, don't talk to me like this. I'm not a stupid.

My father have some characters with copyright in Brazil and we had to register it in USA too, or someone could "steal" his art. That's why I told this... and I'm telling about a lawyer laugh in his face because we have several things like this in Brazil, people who sues some internet site for reproduce people image and goes nothing.

I didn't see the 2nd page when I posted that.... I don't want to get Giant angry and I really don't want to him to stop to publish oots.


Also, he told he doesn't want changes in his arts so, if he translate the pics and publish in one site WITHOUT change anything in the art... so he will be allowed to do that... right? so, translate the strips are ok? Oo'

That doesn't make any sense for me.... Oo'

[Lord Iames Osari]

Edwazah, I believe the text in the word bubbles is being counted as part of the art. It's also quite possible that translating certain sections will result in a Portuguese text that is much longer than the original English, requiring a new, bigger word bubble to be created on top of the old one, as well as over the surrounding scene. That would certainly qualify as alteration of the artwork.

[Edwazah]

we have bigger and smaller texts too but they change only the font size :smallsmile:
It's easier and the art isn't changed.
Perfect, doesn't? hehehehe

[Mauve Shirt]

Stop arguing! Do as the giant requests and stop translating unless it's in script format!

[Edwazah]

Stop arguing! Do as the giant requests and stop translating unless it's in script format!

read back all the posts and post again, ok? :smallwink:

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Check out Darths and Droids (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/darthsanddroids/) to see how scripts can be done. You can add stuff like Panel 1, or Sound Effect, to clarify what the script means, but as the Giant says, you can't just delete the words in the speech bubbles, and substitute your own.

[The Giant]

For the record:

1.) OOTS and all of the characters are Trademarked. Note the little "TM" by the words "The Order of the Stick" above the comic, as well as the longer trademark notice on the inside of all four books. I'm still waiting for the paperwork to come through for it to be a Registered Trademark; I'm told that could take years. It also cost me a small fortune, so yeah, I intend to defend it when I see a violation.

2.) Whether or not the system is in place to prosecute international violators in a convenient manner is beside the point. The system exists nonetheless. The fact is, I have asked that the translations be taken down, and that should be enough for anyone who purports to support what I'm doing here with OOTS.

3.) Yes, almost every webcomic author who sells serious merchandise or makes a living off of it has a copyright notice and most have trademarked their characters/title as well. It's not just me, but frankly, I wouldn't care if it WAS just me. Peer pressure is not going to compel me to give up my legal rights.

At any rate, this topic is done now. I've made my statement, and I'm not likely to change my mind on this one, so there's nothing else that needs to be said.