Rogue Games

When forming Rogue Games, one of the things both the Rogues wanted, was to be fan friendly. Games are meant to be played and enjoyed, and game ideas should be shared. To allow and encourage this, we have created this policy stating what can and cannot be done with Rogue Games’ intellectual property.

It Is Important That You Realize That:

Rogue Games reserves the right to change this policy without notice.

The contents of this policy are in no way meant or intended to be a license of any nature.

Most uses of our intellectual property without a license is an infringement. However, Rogue Games is unlikely to object to any infringement if it adheres to this policy.

We reserve the right at any time and without notice to insist that you cease or alter your use of our intellectual property. We want to emphasize this point and ask you to keep this in mind at all times when using our intellectual property. We do not want anyone to feel ambushed if we asked them, for example, to remove an adventure they posted on the Internet.

What Is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property is property that is intellectual (as opposed to tangible/physical) because it deals with concepts and creations you can't physically touch. It is property, because it can be bought, sold, and transferred from one person to another. For Rogue Games, we're concerned with two main areas of intellectual property: copyright (the right to copy a work) and trademarks (the names and logos used to distinguish one company's products from another's).

Why the policy?

Short answer?

The lawyers.

Long Answer?

Rogue Games needs an Intellectual Property Policy because the laws governing intellectual property require that we must make a visible effort to actively police and protect our rights or risk losing them. If Rogue Games loses control of our intellectual property rights, we lose the ability to create the games Rogue Games loves creating. Unauthorized use of someone else's intellectual property (by an individual or a company) is not only dishonest, but against the law.

To put it more bluntly it is theft.

We are proud of our creations and are very protective of our rights. This is why we will continue to seek to prevent any unauthorized use of our intellectual property, if necessary by legal action, if it does not comply with the intellectual property policy set out here.

The Attitude Of Rogue Games

Rogue Games is owned and run by two people who were fans and freelancers long before they decided to form their own game company.

More than anyone we understand the desire of gamers and fans to share material, create their own material and share it with others. We remember when we were young gamers and when we wanted to share our ideas. It is because of this we want to make sure we layout what can and cannot be done with our intellectual property.

How this Intellectual Property Policy fits into all this

The aim of this policy is to give you a set of guidelines on what can and cannot be done with Rogue Games’ copyrights and trademarks. Follow this policy and everything should be fine - you get to do what you want, and we keep our intellectual property.

Please note, that even if you follow these guidelines, we can't promise not to object to some or all of your website, fanzine, MUD, live roleplay establishment, or whatever. Rogue Games reserves the right to take action, without notice, if we feel it's necessary to do so. This document is not a waiver of our rights, nor a license of them.

What you can do with Rogue Games' Intellectual Property

Rogue Games only stops people from using our intellectual property if we must do so in order to protect it (provided that use is by and for hobbyists). Rogue Games is a games company; we want people to enjoy our games as much as we do.

You can do a lot of things with our intellectual property without having a formal license. There are some general principles that you must keep in mind, and there are things that you definitely cannot do.

PLEASE NOTE that any work you create using our intellectual property is not "owned" by you. It is called a "derivative work" and those parts based upon our intellectual property do not give rise to their own copyright. Please bear this in mind when using our intellectual property.

General Principles

Please make it clear that your use is unofficial by including some wording to the effect that, for example, "This website is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Rogue Games, Inc."

Please do not change our trademarks in any way (e.g., stretch or deform them)

Please make the origins of the intellectual property very clear. By this, make sure that from a brief review of your material people know that you are unofficially using Rogue Games' intellectual property (and not your own intellectual property or the intellectual property of a third party).

Anything you post or write must contain the following:

This web site is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Rogue Games Inc. Rogue Games, the Rogue Games logo, Colonial Gothic, the Colonial Gothic logo, New World Almanack, Thousand Suns, the Thousand Suns logo, 12°, the 12° logo, Shadow, Sword & Spell, the Shadow, Sword & Spell logo, Encyclopedia Galactica, Kitchen Kombat, the Kitchen Kombat logo, Fourth Millennium: Future Imperfect, the Fourth Millennium: Future Imperfect logo are TM and/or © Copyright Rogue Games, Inc 2006-2009. Used without permission. No challenge to their status intended. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners.

What you can do

You can create websites, write articles, create house rules and share these rules either on websites or in fanzines and magazines. If you have any questions, please email legal@rogue-games.net.

What you cannot do

Other than a few exemptions, Rogue Games is not obliged to let anyone use its’ intellectual property at all, and accordingly we always insist that our intellectual property is treated with the respect that we feel that it deserves.

If you are using or want to use our intellectual property and you do not have a written license with us, you must not:

• Use Rogue Games' intellectual property in relation to any commercial activity.

• Use our trademarks in respect of your domain name.

• Use our intellectual property in relation to any third party products or third party intellectual property.

• Alter our trademarks in any way.

• Use any of our intellectual property without appropriately crediting the intellectual property and using the appropriate disclaimers in accordance with this policy (see above).

• Create, distribute, or use any material that is not consistent with the functionality, atmosphere, and parameters of the games created and published by Rogue Games.

• State that anything that you create using Rogue Games intellectual property is "official."

• Create, distribute, or use any material that is derogatory, obscene, or offensive.

• Create, distribute, or use any material that devalues any Rogue Games product in any way.