01-18-2021, 03:19 AM
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
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