Q&A with Dustin Clingman

[Yaztromo]

Perhaps Dustin can help solving this ( viewtopic.php?p=35893#p35893 ) mystery?

[TheMystic]

Recently, I listened/watched the great Blackmoor historical coverage that Aldarron gave on Lord Gosumba's Twitch broadcast. His mastery and explanation of the history of Blackmoor is really something. Kudos to him for giving more sunlight on the legacy of Dave, his players and Blackmoor.

While I have not completed the entire discussion (it's 2+ hours in total), there was one thing I wanted to comment on.

The question was posed: "Does Dave Arneson or Dave Arneson's family own Blackmoor?"

Daniel Boggs' response was: "...Dave's daughter owns the materials that Dave created, and WoTC owns the published content (DA series, etc.)

When Dave and I started talk about publishing Blackmoor again for 3rd Edition D&D, the question of his ownership came up.

It was Dave's contention that he had not executed key documents transferring ownership of Blackmoor to WoTC and that he reserved those rights for himself. I'll be honest, it was at relatively early stage of my career as a business owner and I was a bit naive.

I accepted Dave's assertion at his word and began to invest into the project.

I can't recall the precise reasoning, but I remember reaching out to Wizards for something. I believe that I might have asked them if they wanted to do some co-promoting at GenCon.

The Brand Manager of D&D replied: "What makes you think you can publish a 3rd edition D&D using Blackmoor?"

I'll save some of the details for a later telling of the full story, but let me affirm the following. Based on my personal observation of the documents as well as my General Counsel's evaluation, the following was true:

- Dave conveyed any and all interest in D&D and Blackmoor when he was bought out by WoTC
- WoTC is the sole owner of the Blackmoor copyright and trademark
- Zeitgeist Games was allowed a license to produce Blackmoor materials and we further affirmed the ownership of Blackmoor to WoTC in those materials.

It was my fault for not confirming the legality before we started the project, but we got lucky for a couple of reasons that I'll hold on to for a later story.

In the end, I'm glad it worked out the way it did. If we hadn't proceeded and I wasn't out a bunch of money, I would have looked for other project and the motivation to work out the license with Wizards would not have taken place.

Happy to take some questions on this, but hearing an opposing viewpoint, I wanted to set the record clear.

POSTSCRIPT EDIT: To clarify my comments a bit more around ownership. It's possible that the comments on stream referred to First Fantasy Campaign materials, rather than the component elements of Blackmoor Supplements, DA1-4, etc.

It is possible that some elements of those works might potentially fall in ownership to Dave's family. If you're familiar with those materials, you might also note that it includes terms like "Hobbit" and others that certainly did not belong to Dave or Judge's Guild at the time of printing.

For clarity, most proper names, places, events and terms were identified in the above agreement I mentioned. I even used those when I requested a special license from WoTC so we could name the facility at Full Sail after Blackmoor. Please see: https://www.fullsail.edu/about/full-sai ... -on-campus

The different rooms are all named after specific locations in Blackmoor and it's such a wonderful homage to Dave. The Blackmoor Castle model is also there as well as some other key artifacts.

Best,
Dustin

[aldarron]

Thanks Dustin - that's terrific information and thanks much for the Kudos. Honestly I find the rights situation a little bit murky and as with many things I said in the stream, I was trying to cover a whole lot of ground in a succinct fashion. Even so there were dozens of things I wanted to say more about but knew there was only so much time!

Yeah, what I was trying to convey was that it is my understanding that Wotc owns all rights to the setting and characters as presented in the DA material, and as is found in Supplement II Blackmoor. I *think* the Arneson family has the rights to the distinctive aspects of Blackmoor as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign booklet by Judges guild, which is much more limited in scope. Likewise I *think* Zeitgeist holds the rights to materials uniquely developed in the DAB books, but it is all rather entwined. And then there is "Blackmoor" related material out there that's someone elses entirely, like the Blackmoor and Temple of the Frog references in Andre Norton's Quag Keep.

But I'm no lawyer and I'm very sure you know much more about it than me! Does that sound about right Dustin?

[TheMystic]

Sorry to take so long to respond.

"Yeah, what I was trying to convey was that it is my understanding that Wotc owns all rights to the setting and characters as presented in the DA material, and as is found in Supplement II Blackmoor. I *think* the Arneson family has the rights to the distinctive aspects of Blackmoor as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign booklet by Judges guild, which is much more limited in scope. Likewise I *think* Zeitgeist holds the rights to materials uniquely developed in the DAB books, but it is all rather entwined. And then there is "Blackmoor" related material out there that's someone elses entirely, like the Blackmoor and Temple of the Frog references in Andre Norton's Quag Keep.

I mentioned in my clarifying comment that when the license was negotiated between ZG and WoTC, we identified all of the names and terms that we wanted to use for the 3rd edition setting. This included all the NPCs(The Great Svenny et al), Places of note and more. We further had to affirm that WoTC was the owner of those terms.

It would be very hard for me to say that there is anything distinctive such that it could be considered owned by Dave's family. Certainly, it could be said that they may lay claim to the copyright of the Judges Guild Materials, but were they to commercialize those documents again, I would expect it to result in an issue with Wizards.

It's also true to say that ZG owns our special contributions and NPCs (meaning me at this point).

Some fans really wanted a very faithful rendition of Blackmoor for the 3rd Edition. Had we been even more faithful to the original setting, I'm convinced that we might have done just fine, but the plan that Dave and I had was different.

We both knew and agreed that Blackmoor could get us started and that we wanted to create a new world that would be free of Blackmoor. We had ideas/plans to transition many of the core unique elements of Blackmoor 3e into another world that Dave was ideating about all the while.

I asked Dave at one point - "Do you worry that we're tinkering too much with the formula? Will players like this iteration of Blackmoor?"

His response was to say - "This newest work we're doing in the world is just 'A Blackmoor'. There are many Blackmoor and infinite stories to tell within them..."
( Please note that I am paraphrasing from memory of something that happened almost 20 years ago at this point)

He then went on to remind me about the Blackmoor with dinosaurs and Nazis and how much fun they had in "that" Blackmoor.

This memory has warmed my day. Thanks for the question that prompted it back to front of mind.

Dustin

[Havard]

Thanks for posting about this Dustin!

Your first post about Blackmoor ownership was very useful in that it confirmed more or less my understanding of how things worked, probably based on things you and maybe some of the others working on d20 Blackmoor have told me. This confirmation should probably help put a lot of speculation to rest.

However, I had no idea that you had to negotiate for the rights to Blackmoor. I had always assumed that this was part of the settlement that Peter Adkinson negotiated with both Dave and Gary just after WotC bought TSR, so it is very interesting to learn that the real story was more complicated.

I mentioned in my clarifying comment that when the license was negotiated between ZG and WoTC, we identified all of the names and terms that we wanted to use for the 3rd edition setting. This included all the NPCs(The Great Svenny et al), Places of note and more. We further had to affirm that WoTC was the owner of those terms.

This is also interesting. It makes sense that WotC wanted to get any such unclarities out of the way so that deal would be beneficial for them as well. This also helps explain what the limitations of ZGG was when it came to the type of material you could cover in your books. Do you have this list of terms still available? I am sure many fans would be interested in seeing what items WotC claims the rights to

It would be very hard for me to say that there is anything distinctive such that it could be considered owned by Dave's family. Certainly, it could be said that they may lay claim to the copyright of the Judges Guild Materials, but were they to commercialize those documents again, I would expect it to result in an issue with Wizards.

Dave once mentioned that Bob Bledsaw Sr had reverted the rights of the FFC back to Dave. However, if this was just a gentleman's agreement with no written agreement, it would be hard to prove this.

It's also true to say that ZG owns our special contributions and NPCs (meaning me at this point).

That makes sense.

Some fans really wanted a very faithful rendition of Blackmoor for the 3rd Edition. Had we been even more faithful to the original setting, I'm convinced that we might have done just fine, but the plan that Dave and I had was different.

We both knew and agreed that Blackmoor could get us started and that we wanted to create a new world that would be free of Blackmoor. We had ideas/plans to transition many of the core unique elements of Blackmoor 3e into another world that Dave was ideating about all the while.

I for one am very happy with what we got!

Will we ever see more of that other world you mention? How much would we have to bribe you to get you back into the tabletop industry?

I asked Dave at one point - "Do you worry that we're tinkering too much with the formula? Will players like this iteration of Blackmoor?"

His response was to say - "This newest work we're doing in the world is just 'A Blackmoor'. There are many Blackmoor and infinite stories to tell within them..."
( Please note that I am paraphrasing from memory of something that happened almost 20 years ago at this point)

He then went on to remind me about the Blackmoor with dinosaurs and Nazis and how much fun they had in "that" Blackmoor.

That all sounds a lot like Dave for sure

This memory has warmed my day. Thanks for the question that prompted it back to front of mind.

Thanks for sharing! And thank you for continuing to visit us here and support this community

-Havard

[Rafael]

Great to see you are keeping around, Dustin. Havard and I are, in the end, here today because you summoned us from the lonelinesses of our basements, back in '04/'05, to the old ZGG forum. Nobody has forgotten that.

As to the copyright situation, I think the conversation on the topic has always been somewhat "backwards": Multiple people or "legal persons" sharing rights of use, copyright, or authorial rights is not a rarity - it's usually the norm. The question is whether they can work independently from one another without violating each other's respective rights, especially in the case of Arneson's works. It might not seem so, but from a legal point of view, this is super-interesting:

For example, could WotC really claim exclusive usage rights of Arneson's works related to the IPs they own? And how would Arneson's example translate to other authors like him if WotC couldn't make that claim? Linked to this is also the question about when a certain (legal) item stops being a derivative of its earlier model: Say, to name the simplest of examples, after which point would Havard's version of Blackmoor be fully owned by him despite the connection to material that is the IP of someone else?

We've had rulings on this stuff, and we've had the lobbying of Disney and similar companies, over the years - but until a ruling on Youtube fan videos from a few years ago, these questions were never really tested in court. I, for my part, would love to see such a test happen, especially in connection with D&D.

[aldarron]

Hi Dustin, 

I have a question about Sahaugin/Sar-aigu - whenever you can get to it.

Basically I find it really curious that Sar-aigu are prominently featured and even renamed in ZG products.  Obviously this wasn't necessary.  You could have just made up a new monster or whatever.  So there seems to be some reason Sahaugin were chosen.  I've long speculated that while the name and some of the characteristics were created by Steve Marsh, the original entry in Supplement II Blackmoor represents a mash-up by Tim Kask of Marsh's Sahaugin write up and another similar type of monster written by Dave Arneson.  Maybe that is why you guys used them?

Just wondering if you have any thoughts or insights on this.

[TheMystic]

For example, could WotC really claim exclusive usage rights of Arneson's works related to the IPs they own? And how would Arneson's example translate to other authors like him if WotC couldn't make that claim? Linked to this is also the question about when a certain (legal) item stops being a derivative of its earlier model: Say, to name the simplest of examples, after which point would Havard's version of Blackmoor be fully owned by him despite the connection to material that is the IP of someone else?

Hi Rafael - Thanks for the kind words. A bit hard to believe that was almost 2 decades ago!!!

On your comment above, I think a distinction needs to be drawn between the copyright of a specific book/module and the associated terminology/branding. When we approach WoTC about Blackmoor, they were able to produce compelling evidence of the Blackmoor Trademark belonging with them and that the terminology in the modules (for example) was under their copyright.

Derivative works only become a challenge when someone seeks to use trademarks (which are protected) or explicit intellectual property controlled by copyright. 

I'm not a lawyer, but I do agree it would be interesting to see some of this challenged. That said, it's in WoTC's interest to prevail and they likely have more resources to hold out longer than those who might want to bring this challenge.

---

Hi Dustin, 

I have a question about Sahaugin/Sar-aigu - whenever you can get to it.

Basically I find it really curious that Sar-aigu are prominently featured and even renamed in ZG products.  Obviously this wasn't necessary.  You could have just made up a new monster or whatever.  So there seems to be some reason Sahaugin were chosen.  I've long speculated that while the name and some of the characteristics were created by Steve Marsh, the original entry in Supplement II Blackmoor represents a mash-up by Tim Kask of Marsh's Sahaugin write up and another similar type of monster written by Dave Arneson.  Maybe that is why you guys used them?

Just wondering if you have any thoughts or insights on this.

Hi aldarron!

The Sar-aigu got an extra bit of attention in The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor. It's hard to recall the specifics, but I remember in reviewing some of Dave's notes that he had written a small bit about them and it was widely felt that they helped flesh out and bridge some of the origins of Blackmoor Dungeon. 

My memory fails me a bit here, but if I recall correctly, we read some of Dave's writings and discussed those with him, which resulted in the Sar-aigu getting some special love. If I come up with anything else, I will definitely share. 

Best,
Dustin