Forum:CT:TOR Fansite agreement

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:TOR Fansite agreement

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was Do not sign the agreement. Toprawa and Ralltiir 19:39, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

BioWare has set up a fan site program for their upcoming game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. This includes a fan site kit (which is probably not all that interesting), but also an agreement with BioWare that basically allows them to acknowledge us on their website. Which means traffic, more contributors, etcetera.

Now here's the issue. The agreement (found HERE) has some interesting points. Essentially, we would have to add disclaimers on how we are not affiliated with BioWare or LucasArts and so on. Furthermore, all media supplied through the fan site program would have to be made exempt from CC-BY-SA (as far as I understand the text). We would have to make it very clear that the, uh, stuff in question is not freely distributable. What do you think? Is this kosher? A closer relationship to one of the bigger Star Wars products in the next couple of years sounds great to me, but the agreement we have to sign off on might not be compatible with the very nature of our site. Read through the agreement and have a think. --Imperialles 05:21, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

Sign the agreement

  1. Imperialles 05:21, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

Do not sign the agreement

  1. To prevent the inevitable wiki-lawyering in this area, see my comment below for rationale. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 18:13, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  2. Per my reasoning below. Nayayen—TALK 21:00, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  3. It's kind of annoying that they would expect us to bend over backwards for their stuff. We should be fine under fair use anyway, but someone could contact them if people are worried. ~ SavageBob 21:15, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, that's the problem - their materials aren't fair use. Cylka-talk- 21:48, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
      • Sorry, Cylka, but I think you misinterpret fair use. See below. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 04:47, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
        • Yes, I did have it a bit mixed up. Thanks for clearing it up for me. Cylka-talk- 17:05, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  4. Per the points below. Cylka-talk- 21:48, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  5. Unless we can get something worked out, which I don't see happenning.--Jedi Kasra (comlink) 21:51, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  6. Signing would make Wookieepedia a TOR-Fanside, I don't think that this is aceptable for a free encycopedia. Gulomi Jomesh 22:18, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  7. Having read it, considered it, read the discussion, considered it further, and read the reasons against signing and considering it even more, then I gotta vote "No" on "Proposition 247" signing the fansite agreement. We're not a fansite, we're an encyclopedia, and our use of materials seem to contradict their terms and conditions. It sounded good at first glance, but once you get beneath the chocolate coating, there looks to be some legal loopholes and other entanglements that we may find ourselves inexplicably enmeshed in. Trak Nar Ramble on 06:39, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  8. Per Fiolli below, as he seems to understand it best. I of all people would LOVE for the Wook to have access to this Fan Kit. But as it stands, I cannot support the signing of this agreement. If clarified or modified, I could be easily swayed, but we should not sacrifice our work in other areas of Star Wars for the promotion of this game. Nor should we be subservient to the will of Bioware. We have had good relations with LFL in the past and I hope the hammer doesn't fall on us if we refuse the agreement, but at the moment its far too unclear for me to support it. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 06:55, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  9. The agreement is completely incompatible with our site, in multiple different ways. I can't see any realistic compromises that would be both acceptable to the TOR people and compatible with our site's nature, mission, and legal framework. jSarek 08:41, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  10. Grunny (Talk) 08:43, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  11. JangFett (Talk) 17:27, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  12. Per everyone. The terms of the agreement go against everything we are as a free encyclopedia. Furthermore, as per Nayayen's comment below, we may not even be able to claim fair use if we use too much of the fan kit (see wikipedia:Fair use#Amount and substantiality and wikipedia:Fair use#Effect upon work's value). I'm not saying we shouldn't use anything from it, just that we should be careful how much we do use. —Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 17:48, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  13. Per everyone. It would be nice if we could come to a special agreement with BioWare, but as their fan site agreement stands, we simply can't abide by it. OLIOSTER (talk) 17:50, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  14. Per all of them ^ - JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 21:45, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  15. Seems like the best solution at this point in time. CC7567 (talk) 22:54, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  16. Per Fiolli and everyone else. SoresuMakashi(Everything I tell you is a lie) 23:18, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  17. Frankly, they will be the ones in trouble if they decide to press this. Nobody on the Internet is going to take their side if they decide to be legal bullies. And they need Wookieepedia far more than Wookieepedia needs them. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 23:55, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  18. The agreement is completely and laughably unworkable. It's not set up for a site like us at all. Havac 07:09, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
  19. Cavalier OneFarStar(Squadron channel) 08:31, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
  20. Jonjedigrandmaster (Jedi Beacon) 02:11, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
  21. Nice idea, but not realistically doable under these terms. Pranay Sobusk ~ Talk 11:14, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
  22. Per everyone else. Grand Moff Tranner Imperial Department of Military Research (Comlink) 12:16, February 23, 2010 (UTC)
  23. --Loneshark1138 Incom (Comlink) 19:44, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Stuff not being distributed freely has not stopped the Internet thus far. I'm gonna read through the agreement in more detail later tonight before I decide to take a ride on the awesome bandwagon, but it does seem rather enticing. It looks, from the basics, to be a pretty good deal, though. Might be a good idea to take the plunge, however, I'm from the school of not signing anything until I've read the fine print. Trak Nar Ramble on 05:26, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • The agreement is currently only viewable for registered members of the Tor site. As not everyone might have an account there, I copied the agreement to a subpage of mine (can be deleted after this TC is closed). Pranay Sobusk ~ Talk 11:05, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • Hmm, is it a problem that JMAS and I have already uploaded several new versions of images from the fan kit? I used my own site to get the fan kit (and I'm not putting any of it on there which is okay with the agreement on that end). I discussed it with Tyber yesterday and I think we should be fine with using them without the disclaimer under fair use. Nayayen—TALK 13:16, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
    • You are technically not allowed to use those images on Wookieepedia until Wookieepedia signs off on the agreement. --Imperialles 14:40, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, very much a problem; the license specifically forbids you using those images for anything *but* your fansite: "You acknowledge and agree that you may not sublicense, assign or otherwise transfer this license or any of the Fan Site Materials to any third party ..." jSarek 08:41, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
  • I will be the first to admit that I am not always the best at understanding legal jargon so it is quite possible that I have misinterpreted something, but there are a few things that give me pause. If I have misinterpreted anything, I would appreciate someone explaining it to me.
    • The term “Fan Site” shall mean a personal, non-commercial web site, created by you, that is freely accessible to the public without charge and dedicated solely to promoting the Game. - The Wook won't solely promote TOR. Will this be an issue?
    • The license granted herein allows you to reference the Game; conduct electronic correspondence with players of the Game; in general, reference the ideas, experiences, and characters contained in the Game; - We pretty much do this already with the games, so what is the advantage? Or will it be considered infringement if we do this without the license?
    • You shall not use on your Fan Site or display any materials, images, trademarks, trade names or any other intellectual property of LICENSOR not contained in the Fan Site Kit. - "LICENSOR" includes LucasArts, so technically we can't abide with this regulation.
    • It seems to me that we would need to have someone patrolling these "Fan site materials" articles very often in order to make sure that they are in compliance with the regulations. Or we may have to severely limit access so that they won't become non-compliant, i.e. vandals/noobs removing disclaimers. Because we are a well-known site, we may be under more scrutiny than other sites so we would really need to stay on top of this.
    • The last thing to consider is the quality of these "Fan site materials." Will the Wook suffer greatly if we don't have them? Are they worth sacrificing CC-BY-SA for them? We already have a high traffic site. Do we need the exposure that Bioware's site would give us? It may be worthwhile to wait a while and see what exactly these "materials" will consist of. Cylka-talk- 13:45, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
      • I could potentially contact the Community Manager fellow over at BioWare and ask if he could clarify a few of those points. Would that be alright? --Imperialles 14:40, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
        • That would be great, Imp. I just want to make sure that we don't end up creating all sorts of problems for ourselves. Cylka-talk- 15:00, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
          • I agree. That said, the license agreement cannot legally preclude any application of the four fair use defenses, as that is unlawful. There are a few phrases in the agreement that seem to indicate that they do not want fair use to ever apply to their work. Remember, in United States copyright law, it is the alleged violator who has to prove innocence, not the other way around. If there is a legal way to have these things qualify as fair use, we are fine. Still, we should absolutely contact someone and talk it through. We have had a good relationship with LFL personnel in the past. Perhaps we should mention this to them. After all, we do an excellent job promoting them and sponsoring growth of their enterprise. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 15:07, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • "You shall not place or allow to be placed on your Fan Site any inappropriate materials including, but not be limited to: [...] Advertising or other commercial messages or materials." That could be a problem, considering that Wikia forces ads on us. —Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 16:54, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

After giving it substantial thought and looking up some information, I am going to (temporarily) vote no on this measure only because of the legal issues that would ensue. I think we would almost have to go through Wikia to do something like this, and I am not sure that we can adequately accommodate all that BioWare and LFL want for "fan sites." Plus, most sites that they talk about do not operate anything like ours, as our organization has grown far beyond casual fans hyping upcoming products. Furthermore, we cannot sacrifice CC-BY-SA without consent of Wikia, and there is no guarantee that a high traffic site like ours would be benefited by a simple fan kit. For smaller, independent users, this is excellent as their primary focus would invariably be about the game. Our focus is on the entire Star Wars universe and we—whether we like to acknowledge it or not—support and promote it by our very presence. Depending upon correspondence between us and those at Bioware and LFL, I could be easily swayed otherwise inasmuch a benefit is presented for us. That said, I don't want to sound elitist, like they need us and we don't need them. Absolutely not. Instead, I just simply do not see a benefit from us partaking in something at this point that impedes our mission or ability to act independently. I do not feel that our site should become subservient to an agenda of advertising an LFL product any more than actively and unbiasedly reporting on what exists. Inadvertent advertising is fine for independent individuals who are pumped up about the game and are simply talking about it. My largest concern is properly honoring copyright laws, while still allowing our site to be the best non-LFL–sponsored Star Wars encyclopedia out there and not compromising our standards and integrity—which I feel we do a very good job at maintaining. Perhaps someone from Wikia could help discuss this as well, since it potentially effects the larger organization. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 18:13, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

  • I think I'll have to agree with Fiolli on this one. Just to be safe, I think we should delete the versions (per Imp) that JMAS and I have uploaded until this can be sorted out. Selfish as it sounds, I personally don't want to be responsible for anything that might happen to Wookieepedia, me or my site which I used to get the fan kit images and which I am not using the materials or [exact] disclaimer on. Just to clarify, I did not use Wookieepedia to get the fan kit. Unless they can/want to make a special exception for Wookieepedia/Wikia, the Agreement looks incompatible with Wookieepedia and Wikia as a whole (per Cylka's points above). Nayayen—TALK 21:00, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • Well, I would have to agree with Fiolli also. I don't see a way for us to be able to honor the regulations of both Wikia and Bioware. Like Nayayen said, the only solution would be if we could come to some special arrangement with Bioware. I, for one, would like to have access to their fan site materials since we strive to include all SW materials on our site, but as it stands now, I can't support signing the agreement. Cylka-talk- 21:48, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
  • Unless anyone can think of a reason not to, I'll revert the current fan kit images back to the previous, non-fan kit versions. Nayayen—TALK 23:26, February 20, 2010 (UTC)

Even for legal-speak, this agreement is horribly worded, so maybe some of you guys who seem to understand it better can answer this for me: is this saying that all websites on the internet can only use TOR images, etc. from this fan site kit, assuming they sign the agreement, meaning that using a piece of concept art in a website banner (for example) wouldn't be allowed? Or, alternatively, does it just apply to website's that want to be recognized as TOR fan sites by the TOR website? - Brandon Rhea Alliance Starbird (talk) 00:44, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

Quick clarification for everyone: If we do it properly, we absolutely can apply the four fair use defenses to how we use any material from the fan kit on the wook. In other words: the materials themselves are not fair use, but our use of them can be. Again, it can be, but it easily could not be. That said, we need to make sure that we are abiding by all other aspects of the law for where fair use will not apply. I think we are getting too intimidated by legal gobbily-gook that is not too much different from other laws we encounter with other materials. Let's take the time to double check, but proper usage of the materials can still qualify as fair use if we handle it right. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 04:50, February 21, 2010 (UTC)

  • Fiolli's right. Fair use is not something the creator of intellectual property determines or declares; it's something the law recognizes for everyone. Content creators usually want to limit the use of their images as much as possible (the better to make you pay them for them), but fair use allows these copyrighted works to be used without pay in certain circumstances. The question then becomes whether we're in the fair use zone if we use this stuff, and whether or not Bioware wants to try to enforce their "must be a fan site" stance. Lucasfilm as a whole has been very loose with fair use enforcement (and much of our image use on this site probably goes beyond the realm of fair use), but Bioware may be a different animal. ~ SavageBob 06:15, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
    • The thing that I can see is that Bioware want people to sign the agreement like I and (I assume) JMAS have to get the improved fan kit version images. If we have them uploaded here, people can get them without having to sign the fan site agreement themselves. They can still get the previous versions from the TOR website like we had previously. Correct me if I'm wrong, but allowing people to get some of the fan kit materials without signing the agreement (ie. getting them from uploaded versions on Wookieepedia) contravenes the fourth doctrine of fair use of what "The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work [is]." I know some people may not know what is in this fan kit so, it is pretty much all the concept art, screenshots (eg), avatars and some of the wallpapers they have on the TOR site already AND some (2 or so for each) images from the timelines. The timelines are the crucial ones because they are better versions than those you can get from the TOR site: compare this version from the timeline and this version from the fan kit, both about 1200x600. However, the example I linked for the screenshot above must have been downloaded from the TOR site. The fan kit version of that (in the fan kit: planets>tatooine>screenshot04) is the same size (1600x1000) but is actually worse because it has a TOR logo on it. So, we only want those few versions of the timelines on Wookieepedia as they are better quality than is normally available (hence, we have uploaded them). We are technically providing those fan kit versions (that you can only get in the fan kit) without people having to sign the agreement. Assuming that having people sign the agreement has some value to Bioware, we are affecting the value of that by providing them without signing. This isn't like a panel from a comic, you might get two pages' worth of panels from a 32 page comic; you'll still want to buy the comic. With some of us already having established that we don't want to sign the agreement and why, I think this is how using [certain] stuff [that we are using] from the fan kit is not fair use. That was only a bit long-winded :P Nayayen—TALK 16:15, February 21, 2010 (UTC)
      • Nayayen is correct in that we could easily be standing against the fourth fair use defense. We still, however, could very easily work with what is given and make it qualify as fair use. This is what we do with movie screen shots and synopses of Hyperspace products. That said, the real question regarding the fourth defense (effect on market) then becomes the amount of their work we employ. What I mean is that if we are using five or six images and nothing more, there would most likely be no discernible change in their market for the entire kit and the intent it offers. Additionally, we need to consider that any other site who posts these images could easily have them siphoned from them, as well. Also regarding the fourth defense: Is our action of using those images altering their market for a free product that only comes with some stipulations? Their product is essentially free. If you advertise for them, they give you a fan kit. In many ways, that's the crux of it. If anything, it helps promote their work by having it visible on a high-traffic site like ours. Of course, we should not claim that as a defense up front, but it is the truth. Just some things to consider. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 04:27, February 22, 2010 (UTC)
  • Are we a fan site? Yes. Are we solely dedicated to TOR? No. Do we cover every aspect of TOR as it's released? Yes. That makes us a TOR fan site by my way of thinking. - JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 06:41, February 21, 2010 (UTC)