The Shadowrun Situation

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Wow. What a pompous tool.

[Koumei]

Goddamn it, I went past the /ignore to read that tl;dr of drivel. And he dares use a Sister as his avatar.

How big a donation to the site to have it changed (and locked) to a penis?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

[Guyr Adamantine]

As to whom I know and do not know? Are you sure about your statement as fact or is it a presumption on your part. I am glad you are entertained I am as well. You know nothing but your own erroneous speculations as does everyone else. Furthermore, my “facts and proof” are not imagined, but very real. Unlike the pundits here, my information is private, reliable, and unimpeachable. Therefore, please continue with what you all are doing. I will continue to sit back laughing and enjoying every bit of it. Oh, I don’t take in of this personally, because it is expected. Last thing, pushing the ‘ignore’ button is a coward’s way out, especially when they cannot face someone’s point of view that completely disagrees with their own.

Crissa, investigating and research is all part of my job. I am well versed in data collection, analysis, and host of other things. This includes developing profiles and personalities on people as part of human relations and resource analysis. I am very good at what I do. That is how I have amassed my information and know how to push buttons to get the reactions from others.

Proofs have yet to be shown. Your credentials have no value on the internet, only your contribution.

Guyr Adamantine, thank you for the picture, it is perfect. I am using it now for my avatar. I will credit it to you in my signature.

Not my creation. Just remove my name from the credits, please.

[Maxus]

Thankully, I developed my Ignoring skills practicing on Shadzar. I have no temptation to look at Caldazar's posts that I can't suppress after a moment.

So, that Loren L. Coleman. Boy, he's a scumbag, ain't he?

And that's being kind. The level of mismanagement has to be intentional. I don't think anyone can be so stupid they take something around a millions dollars (from a company he started) and build a house with it, and not report about a hundred thousand dollars to GenCon, by honest mistake, and function in a business capacity in any way.

If your financial savvy is so poor you can't figure out you shouldn't take money that isn't yours, and can't check to see if it's yours or not, you shouldn't be allowed to handle money.

Of course, as things shape up, it looks like Stoleman shouldn't be allowed to handle money anyway.

[Ancient History]

Yeah, the "private, unimpeachable" sources comment annoys the hell out of me, if only because an unimpeachable source doesn't exist. Bills and Coleman (and their wives) would feed him this line of crap, but they lie through their teeth on a regular basis and wouldn't show some random internet cockhopper any documents anyway. Most of the "owners" don't have clue one what's going on in the company and, again, wouldn't show any proof to a random internet dicksplash. Jason Hardy, as mentioned, doesn't know jack and probably wouldn't talk to him even if he did, because Jason likes to play his cards close to his chest most of the time. Peter Taylor, John Dunn, Jennifer Harding, and/or Stephen McQuillian could shed some light on the subject, but I doubt our resident fuckwit would listen - I mean, he ignored McQ in this very thread.

Which leaves...who? Herb Beas? Who knows nothing of Shadowrun?

Now the only question is whether this is the same shitstain from Cheapassgamer.com forums.

[BeeRockxs]

Randall Bills says that paying people for their work is something that he doesn't necessarily have to do, but that people are welcome to take him to court over.

100% wrong.
Randall just said that according to copyright law, a freelancer can not withhold his copyright to force the company to pay him.

[Maxus]

Why does the freelancer feel the need to force the company to pay him? In what kind of company would "Not being paid for your duly completed job" be considered a legitimate job risk and a thing people would feel the need to research the grey areas of?

[BeeRockxs]

Why does the freelancer feel the need to force the company to pay him? In what kind of company would "Not being paid for your duly completed job" be considered a legitimate job risk and a thing people would feel the need to research the grey areas of?

What does that have to do with what Frank lied about?

[Username17]

Why does the freelancer feel the need to force the company to pay him? In what kind of company would "Not being paid for your duly completed job" be considered a legitimate job risk and a thing people would feel the need to research the grey areas of?

What does that have to do with what Frank lied about?

What did I lie about?

Randal Bills said that he could, and by extension would use and sell work that people had written that the author did not want him to use after he (Randall Bills) had failed to pay the author money according to contracts that had previously been agreed upon by both parties. He elaborated that if he (Randall Bills) broke the contract, that the only recourse left to the authors he was stealing from was to take him to court - something he welcomed them to try.

Where precisely did I lie or misrepresent his position? Randall Bills stole creative work from people and his latest missives on the subject boil down to "See you in court, I'm going to keep selling your words and art without honoring the contracts, fuck you."

-Username17

[Maxus]

I wouldn't put much past CGL. If they're looking up the exact issues of copyright laws re: getting paid for your work, they're looking for an angle.

That aside, I flipped back and found that post earlier. Yes, you're right. Randall Bills did say he found out the freelancers can't withhold copyright to force payment.

But it it's still relevant that this is even an issue to begin with.

[Ancient History]

Frank used a touch of hyperbole, but he was accurately reflecting the worst-case scenario. CGL (and FanPro before them, and apparently FASA before them) have been chronically delinquent in paying freelancer, to the tune of months or years and up to thousands of dollars. One tactic for freelancers was to withdraw copyright on their drafts, preventing the company from selling the books until the writer is paid. Randall Bill's assertion is that the freelancer has no ownership of his or her work, and that in the event that the company is late in payment their only option is to sue the company for breech of contract. The insistence that the freelancer does not own their work means that the company has even less incentive to pay the freelancer on time, or ever.

Now keep in mind, most freelancers are paid by-the-word (or by-the-piece for artists), and that is a miserable payscale 1-4.5 cents per word, average is 3 or 3.5 cpw. That's what Lovecraft would get for a Weird Tales story in the late 20s/early 30s. Your average freelancer is going to get maybe a couple hundred bucks per book they work on, going into the low thousands if they write a substantial chunk of the book - and they're not paid right away. It takes weeks or months to write drafts, after which they are submitted, edited, proofed, laid out, proofed again because no one did it right the first time, and then sat on before being sent to the printers. After getting back from China, the books are made available on the street...and the freelancer still has to wait, by their contract, 30 days net before they can even think about seeing a check. It can seriously take six months between finishing a piece and turning it in before your contract says you can be paid your pittance - and then you wait, because they never pay on time. Ever. So you keep working, and the amount you're owed piles up, and eventually you complain...

...except now, you have no recourse except a lawsuit. CGL can keep you waiting for your payday forever, and you have no bargaining position to get the money they owe you. Won't write for them? They'll grab a BattleTech hack - those guys don't expect to be paid anyway, apparently. Send Randall a bunch of emails? Fuck, he doesn't answer most of his mail anyway, and Jason's been known to deliberately ignore people looking for their fair compensation. Your only prayer is to hold the drafts you're currently working on hostage in the hope they'll pay you (fat chance) or else sue them for breech of contract.

It is not a warm and welcoming environment for freelancers.

[BeeRockxs]

Why does the freelancer feel the need to force the company to pay him? In what kind of company would "Not being paid for your duly completed job" be considered a legitimate job risk and a thing people would feel the need to research the grey areas of?

What does that have to do with what Frank lied about?

What did I lie about?

Randal Bills said that he could, and by extension would use and sell work that people had written that the author did not want him to use after he (Randall Bills) had failed to pay the author money according to contracts that had previously been agreed upon by both parties. He elaborated that if he (Randall Bills) broke the contract, that the only recourse left to the authors he was stealing from was to take him to court - something he welcomed them to try.

Where precisely did I lie or misrepresent his position?

You lied and misrepresented in the "and by extension would" part, as wall as the "something he welcomed them to try
You state as fact what is only your off-base opinion.
All Randall said was that curiously, the "pulling books from the shelves" thing CGL did in the past was something they, by the law, actually did not have to do.
Oh, you also lied in saying that CGL would not get more product to print, and would not get printed by any printer in the US, among other things.

[BeeRockxs]

...except now, you have no recourse except a lawsuit.

You never had a different recourse. Work-for-hire copyright law is not a new thing.

[Ancient History]

T'be fair, the fact that CGL did find another printer stupid enough to work for them boggles the mind, and CGL is still hideously behind schedule on...everything SR.

[/edit]Well at worst you could still terminate your contract, but then it gets dicey.

[mean_liar]

Here is a fat baby:

[souran]

...except now, you have no recourse except a lawsuit.

You never had a different recourse. Work-for-hire copyright law is not a new thing.

Except that they did, before they could withhold copywrite, which is what they did and would do as the situation demanded.

Honestly, the law actually does rely on things like industry standard practice and precedent.

Randal Bills comments indicate that somebody, probably a member of a legal team but who knows who, has indicated to him that they can press a claim that all freelancers are work-for-hire and therefore do not actually hold the copywrite on what they produce.

The thing is, just because thats the position that CGL has adopted publicly does not mean any of the following things yet:

1) That CGL WILL in the future use this reasoning to change their buisness practices or operate in any differnt way than they are now. Plenty of companies have issued statements to the effect of "We didn't LEGALLY have to do fuckall but as we are not corporate shills we so obviously are we decided to do thing X that everybody thought we were obligated to do." Maybe Randal was just trying to save face. The industry is doing shitty as a whole right now and the big boss just got caught with his hand in the till. They are worse off than white wolf publishing and that has to be embarrassing.

2) Even if CGL does use stick to this reasoning, and does get involved in a situation over it, there is no guantee that this reasoning will hold up in court. In that case the fact that they previously acted as though free lance writers held copywrite and the fact that other companies producing similar works do not seem to using this to run roughshod over people doing similar work WOULD serious hurt their argument. However, I am no definitive expert either but the thing is, If this argument had been tried in court before and succeeded it would have rippled through the industry already and it would not be shocking to people who have been doing this for a while like Ancient History or Frank Trollman. Now they could win and who knows maybe CGL just found the loophole that makes nobody ever want to work as a freelance writer anymore.

3) Finally, there is nothing that says that CGL couldn't get into a copywrite violation sitatuion and then defend themselves using some totally different logic. Seriously, what fucking creditials does Randal Bills have to say "the law works this way, we know it does, and we can use it to shaft whoever we want." He is not the leader of one of the megacoprs IN shadowrun. He is not rupert murdoc or george soros. It was dumb for him to say that, or at least aggrivating but has CGL used there new inteprtation to do buisness differently yet?


To act like this is settled one way or another would seem to be jumping the gun just a bit.

[Maxus]

fat baby

I agree. That is one fat baby.

[TOZ]

Three cheers for the fat baby who saved Christmas.

[TheFlatline]

...except now, you have no recourse except a lawsuit.

You never had a different recourse. Work-for-hire copyright law is not a new thing.

The fact that CGL is reminding it's freelancers publicly that they're over a barrel and can do naught for it is a pretty douchenozzel thing in and of itself.

[Crissa]

If you haven't paid for the work, pushing 'work for hire' in court is a pretty losing deal.

However, I can only give secondhand knowledge from other writers and animators who also work under that type of contract.

-Crissa

[TheFlatline]

If you haven't paid for the work, pushing 'work for hire' in court is a pretty losing deal.

However, I can only give secondhand knowledge from other writers and animators who also work under that type of contract.

-Crissa

Actually that's a good point. If the contract says "you retain no copyright to anything you write", and then CGL doesn't, you know... *pay* you, then they've broken the contract, and any stipulations in it don't apply. You might be able to argue you still have copyright at that point.

The contract would have to say "you retain no copyright to anything you write, even if we breach contract or never pay you".

At that point, I wouldn't fucking sign it unless I had a gun to my head.

[Wageslave]

The contract would have to say "you retain no copyright to anything you write, even if we breach contract or never pay you".

At that point, I wouldn't fucking sign it unless I had a gun to my head.

However many people don't read what they are signing nowadays, so they may sign into such a thing with out realizing it....sad but true.

[Crissa]

I don't think that contract would really hold up in court, either. Judges get persnickety on unreasonable terms.

-Crissa

[Caldazar]

Yeah, the "private, unimpeachable" sources comment annoys the hell out of me, if only because an unimpeachable source doesn't exist.

In your mind, it does not. However, in the real world, it does. You should really get out of the mindset of the Shadowrun era Bobbie. I believe your outlook would be brighter.

Bills and Coleman (and their wives) would feed him this line of crap, but they lie through their teeth on a regular basis and wouldn't show some random internet cockhopper any documents anyway.

First: You know, you are quick to disrespect people and call them names. I do not know if you are married or have a woman in your life; but how would you feel if someone started calling your loved one names on a regular basis? Would you be happy if some website starting posting many ugly things about your spouse or girlfriend? Piss you off to no end, would it not?

One rule of business that should never be broken, attacking a spouse, something you need to learn quickly because I can guarantee you that will haunt you in the end.

Second: Loren and Randal liars, including their wives? By your own admission, you have not had much interaction with Randall, let alone with his wife. How can you quantify your statement as fact? Is it because they do not respond to you in an email in a period of your likening? Alternatively, do you have verifiable proof that Randall & Tara Bills lied to you? What about Loren? What proof, hard factual proof do you possess that supports your accusation he and Heather are liars? Is it because they said something you do not like or you read into what they said, taking it out of context to make it into a lie? This sounds like the case where you called Jason a liar and he called you on it and proved he did not lie to you. You took it upon yourself to take snippets of what he said, again, out of context, and turned it into something it was not. You are good at that.

Third: Are you not capable of having a conversation without insulting people? Not that I am insulted. This is what I expect from you when challenged on the veracity of your information. You lash out like a wounded animal. One can never win any sort of argument or debate when one resorts to name-calling. It is petulant and childish. It’s disappointing that someone with your writing ability must resort to this type of behavior. You should think about it. It is unbecoming.

Fourth: You are correct sir, neither Loren nor Randall would give out information to just anyone. Neither would any company owner regarding matters of this nature. Again, the information I possess is private, reliable, and unimpeachable.

Most of the "owners" don't have clue one what's going on in the company and, again, wouldn't show any proof to a random internet dicksplash.

Again with the language! Pardon me while I correct you on this intellectually incorrect statement. The owners know exactly what is going on and very involved. However, one of the owners or group did give out information to some random internet person to use as disinformation and discredit people.

Jason Hardy, as mentioned, doesn't know jack and probably wouldn't talk to him even if he did, because Jason likes to play his cards close to his chest most of the time.

You really have a hard-on for Jason. We both know it is because you did not get the job as Shadowrun Line Developer. Man up and admit it. You might feel better. Jason doesn’t play at keeping his cards close to his chest. He knows exactly what is going on and does not reveal proprietary information to the public because they have no right to know about the inner workings of the company, regardless of what people think.

Stephen McQuillian could shed some light on the subject, but I doubt our resident fuckwit would listen - I mean, he ignored McQ in this very thread.

There you go again with the language. The reason I won’t take the word of this said individual is he jumped ship to join in with Sandstorm believing CGL was going bust so he tied himself to the very same people who are doing the best to steal the rights to produce Shadowrun and BattleTech from CGL. Therefore, I do not trust the word of someone that turns on those who were supposed to be their friends. He is a turncoat, traitor if you please. Therefore, he is untrustworthy.

Did you know that DSG tried to buy the company from Loren and Randall for a mere pittance of what the company is actually worth? When refused, he decided it was time to leave, thus had his dad call in the marker on his investment sans loan. You people sit here and believe Loren is so evil and doing things underhanded. The one, who is actually acting in this manner pulling strings in the background and releasing information, is not Loren or Randall. Would you care to venture who is acting in this manner?

Which leaves...who? Herb Beas? Who knows nothing of Shadowrun?

Are you certain of this? Would you stake your reputation and livelihood as a writer this is true? Think about it before you answer, because assuming is the mother of all screw-ups.

Now the only question is whether this is the same shitstain from Cheapassgamer.com forums.

Ahahaha…you are batting a thousand with your language. To soothe your worries, even I avoid Cheapassgamer.com.

Now, after having said all that Bobbie, go back and look all my posts in response to yours or anyone else, and tell me what is missing. I’ll save you the trouble, since you probably won’t. My responses to you are respectful. Strong about certain issues? Sure, but respectful nonetheless. Why? Because I don’t let this become personal. I have far more invested in all of this than you ever had. I won’t take this personal because it’s not worth it. Frankly, that goes against my nature. Were some of my posts overboard? Sure they were. I meant to be. Yet, they were not personally aimed at any one person, but at the actions and message, not the messenger.

Additionally, if you or anyone else takes the time to notice, the tone of my responses are not the “character” that came in to bust chops and stir up the hornet’s nest. You and the rest want dialog, I’ll give it to you. However, I will only give those the time and effort if they remain even keeled and respectful. I am sure there are many things concerning the issues at hand we can discuss without resorting to being personal and hateful. Would you not agree? I most certainly hope so. Who knows, it may be worth your time in the end. Think on that for a while.