Arelith

So, recently I was asked about some elvish lore and took a moment to break out some old Dragon magazines I have. In them, Roger Moore (not that one) wrote a series of articles about Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes and Half-Orcs, collectively known as The Point Of View articles. (For those interested, they were followed up with Gods articles, the first appearance of the various minor deities in the pantheons, but I digress...)

In reading it, I got lost in reading ALL of them, as they present a great reference point of playing the various other races. I enjoy them immensely, and thought that others might as well. I was thinking of transcribing them to General Information, but I am entirely unsure if they'd fall under Fair Use (seems unlikely). I DID find out that you can find them, legally, on an archive website, and nearly fell down that rabbit hole, but, again, I digress.

So, Forum Brain Trust, is this something I can do? The articles themselves date back to circa 1982 (!), and I certainly would credit Mr. Moore if I did post them. Since you could find them online, I'm inclined to think it wouldn't be a problem. Conversely, I do not want to take the effort to transcribe them if they'll just be taken down.

Advice?

I'm not fluent on things like this, but "Fair Use" refers to laws regarding copyrighted material, and their use by parties that do not own it, for monetary gain. Example being - Creating a movie review on YouTube. If you are critiquing the movie and giving valuable feedback, it is considered Fair Use to use clips from the movie itself, and also monetize the views you get on the video. So you're making money on it while fairly using clips from the film. Posting the film to YT and trying to monetize it without any form of editing or feedback is of course infringement.

So, copy and pasting some articles to another forum while also citing the author has nothing to do with Fair Use. It's public information, and as long as you properly cite everything and do not claim ownership, it is not plagiarism, and would seem more like research to me.

So again, this is not legal advice, I'm not an expert. But from a layman's perspective, if you properly cite and credit the articles you're posting, I don't see why it would be a problem to simply post them to an internet forum.

Anyone else reading, feel free to correct the above if needed!

Considering that sites like realmshelp.net have collections of articles and much sourcebook material - including Dragon magazine - and the fact it's from years ago and nigh-impossible to find nowadays, I think you're fine.

... besides, if we seriously cared about breaching trademarks or copyright or what have you we certainly wouldn't have added heads ripped from KOTOR, etc.

Half-forgotten cool lore deserves a good ole necro for the sake of the geeks, think this scene is more lax as long as it's not fresh produce with serious market value like 5e books and the creators are duly credited.

Feel it's wise with the Dragon magazine to remember most of it is not FR specific.

And elves, especially their outlook, varies wildly between settings and often conflicts.