Community Event / Creation Requests to FD!

[Bikky]

Hopefully an admin will sticky this.

I think a thread of requests for FD might be needed. With so many people making so many things around Elite and the Elite universe, it might be wise to start asking permission if you're doing more than a one off personal item. The idea came about because of Psykokow's mug.

It would be a simple way and save people continually bombarding them for these requests. Vote to say if you like the post or not, If lots do, it might just get stickied and used, if not it will fall into the almanck of time.

A simple basis of request and yes/no.

e.g. Psykokow posts
Do I have permission to make these <pic of said mug> and sell them at cost price no profit.

It costs £x for the mug, £y for the transfer, £z for postage, and I'll charge £x+y+z.

FD reply, yay or nay

 

[Michael Brookes]

If you're trying to trade with the Elite IP you need to contact us directly.

Michael

 

[Bikky]

Thanks Michael

That's an answer in itself

 

[JohnStabler]

I just thought I'd add my thoughts on this.

To be fair to Frontier Developments, they've been incredibly generous to the community in letting people us their intellectual property. Lave Radio itself has benefited from some of the conecpt art that was produced as part of the Kickstarter campaign.

Generosity has a cost, however. Quite often it can be hard for a company to challenge egregious infringements on their IP if they have been permissive in the past. Therefore I must commend FD on their positive attitude.

I'm a big fan of open source and permissive licensing. However, I am against people exploiting other people's hard work or damaging creative people's ability to earn a crust, no matter how innocent their intentions. We all have bills to pay and families to feed.

Fair use can be a grey area. I would encourage people to think hard before making use of other people's work. If unsure, ask permission. I would really hate for FD to be put in the position where they must start aggressively defending all instances of their IP.

 

[DigitalDuck]

The stance of most businesses is, "As long as you're not making money off it, we welcome the free advertising."

It seems to be the case here too, but also what everyone else said.

 

[Alien]

I hope Michael won't mind me repeating this, but he has stated to me personally, that with regards to Fan Fiction, it must be stated it is Fan Fiction and in no way officially supported by Frontier Developments, and that Fan Fiction will not receive support from Frontier Developments.

Michael didn't state this to me, but I am hypothesizing that it is also regarded that Fan Fiction will not be sold for a profit or ideally, at any price.

I have asked Ashley a few times now about getting help with Fan Ficition, with regards to guidelines, etc, and Ashley has stated he will see what he can do.

Michael or Ashley are welcome to correct anything I just said if I got things wrong here.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

The stance of most businesses is, "As long as you're not making money off it, we welcome the free advertising."

I would change that to, "As long as we're not losing money off it." If Frontier produce a mug, but someone else is undercutting them by selling it at no profit, then that's really not cool.

 

[DigitalDuck]

I would change that to, "As long as we're not losing money off it." If Frontier produce a mug, but someone else is undercutting them by selling it at no profit, then that's really not cool.

Well, that goes without saying... but yeah, that too.

 

[Mobius]

was there a motive in starting this thread as the Sticky: [PLEASE READ] Elite: Dangerous Media Usage Rules sits only a few threads up from this in plain view for everyone to read.

 

[Flavio]

I would change that to, "As long as we're not losing money off it." If Frontier produce a mug, but someone else is undercutting them by selling it at no profit, then that's really not cool.

I agree that FD should not lose any revenue by the actions of their fanbase. May I suggest that if you do produce something (with approval) then a donation is made?

 

[Mobius]

I agree that FD should not lose any revenue by the actions of their fanbase. May I suggest that if you do produce something (with approval) then a donation is made?

ah you mean like pledging a large amount of money to contribute to the creation of a game that no financial backer will financially benefit from.

 

[Flavio]

ah you mean like pledging a large amount of money to contribute to the creation of a game that no financial backer will financially benefit from.

Not quite, I was primarily thinking about those people that might produce a t-shirt for themselves with the elite logo on it as that will take away the sale and therefore revenue of said shirt in which case they should send in a contribution but will be cheaper to produce by themselves rather than getting the official one.
And it was a suggestion that people might wish to do rather than something that FD implements.

 

[Michael Brookes]

I hope Michael won't mind me repeating this, but he has stated to me personally, that with regards to Fan Fiction, it must be stated it is Fan Fiction and in no way officially supported by Frontier Developments, and that Fan Fiction will not receive support from Frontier Developments.

Michael didn't state this to me, but I am hypothesizing that it is also regarded that Fan Fiction will not be sold for a profit or ideally, at any price.

I have asked Ashley a few times now about getting help with Fan Ficition, with regards to guidelines, etc, and Ashley has stated he will see what he can do.

Michael or Ashley are welcome to correct anything I just said if I got things wrong here.

That is essentially correct, fan fiction should be labelled as such and cannot be sold.

Michael

 

[Mobius]

really don't understand why this thread was created, no body is selling anything that im aware of, and regarding printing one owns t-shirt, again no body is making a profit from that and if anyone is worried that FD have lost a sale, I say nope as I wasn't going to buy one anyway as im getting one in the premium boxset.

 

[Bikky]

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Everyone seems to be posting about doing this or that around the ED universe. And I'd envisaged FD receiving hoards of requests about am I OK with all the bits and bobs.

I must of been tired (hmm I was out cold last night before 9pm so probably)

 

[Mobius]

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Everyone seems to be posting about doing this or that around the ED universe. And I'd envisaged FD receiving hoards of requests about am I OK with all the bits and bobs.

I must of been tired (hmm I was out cold last night before 9pm so probably)

it states in the media usage thread that permission is needed, and to be honest a hand full of people out of the 25000+ backers wanting to do fan fiction stuff isn't enough to be considered a hoard.

im sure FD are ontop of whats going on with fan fiction and if they wanted it stopped they would say, at the moment its all good free publicity,
the only people that will be making money from the elite fan fiction are those that have had their kickstarters promoted on lave radio.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

it states in the media usage thread that permission is needed, and to be honest a hand full of people out of the 25000+ backers wanting to do fan fiction stuff isn't enough to be considered a hoard.

im sure FD are ontop of whats going on with fan fiction and if they wanted it stopped they would say, at the moment its all good free publicity,
the only people that will be making money from the elite fan fiction are those that have had their kickstarters promoted on lave radio.

agree with you there and if you look on the elitestories forum you'll see the fan fiction section is currently locked until i can come up with acceptable guidelines, the first being that the 'fan' part of it means no cash is earned by anyone because of it.

in that regard i would separate the writers packs from being fan fiction as they follow different rule sets, fan fiction doesn't have to follow the canon as the writers packs do and can be a bit more liberal in its interpretations of the way things work.

the writers pack books also help make the canon as anything in an officially licenced work is going to be viewed as reference material in the future.

saying all that, if you are a fan and want to write for an official book i encourage you to get involved in the crowd writing project elitechronicles - or post it on the elitestories.co.uk forums and I'll put a page up for you when the new site is ready.