A small addendum:

https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com ... s-for.html

With this new set of laws bound to threaten the entire modern concept of "fair use", I as a European would probably refrain from creating anything video- or podcast-related for the entirety of 2019. Great times to curate one's own stuff, but really bad times for wanting to get into the "professional fan" business.

Internet companies such as YouTube have made billions by building a content platform that users have loaded with stolen content and copyright violations. They managed to achieve this by relying on a U.S. law that places the burden of defending copyright and requesting the removal of illegal content solely on individual copyright owners, who can't possibly police the endless stream of content being uploaded every minute.

This law is what has allowed many Internet companies to operate with impunity for many years. But now that the EU is proposing a law that shifts the burden to where it belongs, on the companies hosting the content, serving it up, and profiting from it, YouTube wants to cry foul and scare content creators into being its unpaid political lobbyists.

I am unsympathetic and unimpressed. These companies have been glorified crime syndicates for over 20 years, and while we have all benefitted from their impunity, it is unfair to copyright owners and costs them a fortune.

YouTube's scare tactics are a clever attempt to claim that all "small" Internet companies will be unable to operate, and it will no longer be able to support individual content creators. But these are outright lies. Small businesses are exempt from the proposed law, YouTube already has filtering technology it will be able to use to help ensure compliance, and YouTube's businesss model is so dependent on content creators to generate revenue that the company will have to absorb the burden and costs.

It won't be easy, but it has the resources and means to do this, and while it will pass some of the costs on to users, the company has operated all along with the full understanding that laws in certain jurisdictions could change and dramatically affect its operations and business model. In business, this is what we call risks and threats. Your job is to manage, mitigate and prepare for them. But when you build your platform with such reliance on a single law and a sweeping disregard for copyright, you've assumed an extremely high-risk position. Tough luck.

No, Finarvyn, I don't think you've stirred up new controversy. As I've been learning much more about the origins of D&D, it's abundantly clear that many people played a role in its development, both literally and figuratively.

Dave and Gary played the biggest roles, and Dave was clearly the innovator and the person who created the initial game and concept that would become D&D. His players were also instrumental in helping establish fantasy role playing and how the game is played and judged to this day.

Gary seemed to drive much of the more formal process of codifying rules, publishing the game, and building a successful business around it. Others also played roles on that side.

Of course, things got much more complicated once different ideas, visions and especially money came into play, and the two co-creators parted ways. The rest is sometimes ugly and is subject to debate, but you can't deny the crucial role that both Dave and Gary played. I hope the forthcoming documentaries will also enlighten more people about the roles played by those first Blackmoor players and other lesser-known individuals who had a hand in the game's early history.