@Riot, What Legal Concerns Do Have About Discussing Story With Us? (If Any?)

Impetual·Feb 5, 2015·11 votes·1,140 views

I just think it would be nice to clear this kinda thing up quickly.

There are some Riot comments that seem to indicate that there may be potential legal ramifications to certain kinds of posts that Rioters might make regarding content.

Riot, can you discuss with us what, if any, legal issues you are worried about happening through your interaction with players on your forum, and possible solutions to those problems?

Or at the very least, how we can make constructive posts that you can respond to without making you guys worry about legal issues?

13 Comments

AriafluxFeb 5, 20152 votes

Btw they said the same thing about champion concept before. I took it to mean that, basically, whatever champion you don't want to see, submit a concept of it.

I really hope they can explain this better.

ImpetualFeb 5, 20151 votes

Yeah, that's kinda why I made this post. It'd be nice if they shared what their legal restrictions are so we can make posts based on that.

MotajoFeb 5, 20151 votes

{quoted}I took it to mean that, basically, whatever champion you don't want to see, submit a concept of it.

evilcackle.gif

redniwediSFeb 5, 20152 votes

The way I understand it it's about ownership. Whoever submits the idea is the legal owner of it, and so Riot would need you to sign your rights away if they wanted to use your idea.

Celeste BenalFeb 5, 20152 votes

{quoted}

The way I understand it it's about ownership. Whoever submits the idea is the legal owner of it, and so Riot would need you to sign your rights away if they wanted to use your idea.

Actually this is probably it exactly. CCP has the same issue with submitted alliance logos. The original creators of those logos could potentially sue for use. The issue there was that alliances wanted to use their own player created logos for swag like t-shirts, lighters, coffee cups, etc. But for CCP to use the logos in their IP, they needed the legal rights, which meant the alliances then couldn't use them. The issue still hasn't been resolved.

In Riot's case, a player-created skin has huge legal and monetary concerns since each skin is purchased using an amount of RP that can be directly valuated as rl cash. The creator would in all likelihood be entitled to a percentage of the cash value of each skin sold.

I have no doubt Riot is well aware of the legal ramifications of using player-submitted content, and are understandably wary around using anything that could possibly be construed as coming from outside the company.

CupcakeTrapFeb 5, 20154 votes

It's one thing for a player to create a logo and for a company to then use that logo to sell merchandise. I think it's quite another for Riot to talk with the community about what they'd like to see in their game or its story, and use that discussion to develop League of Legends.

If Riot is planning to terminate community interaction because of legal fears, then I think they need to have a serious conversation with their legal team. Telling your client to shut down discussions with your userbase is a big deal. Now, sure, sometimes lawyers will tell clients, "Doing X might have some kind of risk attached to it; I'd have to research it some more to be sure. Anyway, X doesn't seem very important. So just don't do X." If X is, say, displaying a cigar in a character portrait, it's reasonable that the only pushback would be a request to make sure that they really can't keep Graves' portrait as is. If X is a fundamental part of their developmental model, then one would expect Riot to say, "Yeah, uh, why don't you do that research and see what you can come up with. Is there a risk there? If there is, how much of a risk? And what could we do to mitigate that risk?"

It's sort of the legal version of the old joke about a patient telling a doctor "it hurts when I do this", and the doctor responding, "okay, then don't do that." If the patient triggers the pain by, I don't know, standing on one foot and spinning around with a mouthful of cinnamon, the doctor is probably right to question the importance of investing time in solving this problem. But if the patient says it hurts whenever they try to pick something up in their right hand, any decent doctor will take the time to see what's going on and what can be done, because not being able to pick up objects is a pretty serious disability. Given the importance of community interaction in the Riot model, I'd say this is more like the latter than the former.

ImpetualFeb 7, 20151 votes

Why not make players agree to some kind of contract that gives Riot intellectual property to anything posted on the forums? Easy Fix!

Then they can actually start talking to us about story again!

The MormonatorFeb 5, 20152 votes

They have to come up with original content to them. That's why they will never read fanfiction or acknowledge it because it would mean that they could be either sued or forced to recognize the author if that something similar eventually did become actual lore.

CupcakeTrapFeb 5, 20154 votes

{quoted}

They have to come up with original content to them. That's why they will never read fanfiction or acknowledge it because it would mean that they could be either sued or forced to recognize the author if that something similar eventually did become actual lore.

Well, you say that, but:

{quoted}

I've read all of Factions and had a good time doing so.

I don't think we should take it as a given that Riot cannot consider ideas from the community for fear of "being sued". (Look at League's Champions and skins. Now tell me that they believe they can't use ideas from other sources without being sued.) I was delighted to read that Jaredan enjoyed reading Factions Lore.

It's common to see remarks from authors that they don't read fanfiction because of "legal reasons", but I've never seen anyone point to solid case law that would support such a lawsuit. People get sued for stealing entire stories, sure; if I go republish Harry Potter as a "new" book, J.K. Rowling can (and should) sue me for blatantly copying-and-pasting her work. Even if I make some changes, arguably, I'm still stealing the book.

Here, we'd be talking ideas in the abstract, not actual stories. What legal theory, exactly, do you think would support a lawsuit on that basis? IP law may be broken, but it's not THAT broken. "Hey, you made a sexy schoolgirl music video where they dance in the halls. You're going to get sued by Britney Spears." That would be ridiculous. The media has conditioned people to except ridiculous things from the legal system, but they get really quiet when you ask them to stop insinuating and actually point to a case where something ridiculous happened. They just report on lawsuits being filed. Well, anyone can file any lawsuit. Riot didn't refund RP after a Champion rework? Sure, you can file a lawsuit for that. It sure won't do anything, but you can file. You could even sketch out a legal theory for such a suit. Here, I'm not convinced that you could even make a non-sanctionable legal argument that incorporating community ideas about Bandle City in the abstract into a story would be a violation of IP law.

But I'm no IP lawyer. If there is some kind of risk like that, then surely it can be mitigated, perhaps with a disclaimer saying that whatever ideas we post here we license to Riot. I think that's already in the ToA, but you could plaster it on Narrative discussion threads, too.

TL;DR: I have a strong suspicion that Narrative is under some mistaken impressions about what they can and can't do. It's possible that they haven't had a really good talk with their legal team about it yet. And if their legal team is any good, they'll be able to not only advise them of risks, but explain to them how they can proceed while mitigating risk to acceptable levels.

The MormonatorFeb 6, 20152 votes

I'm no expert on this sort of thing, simply stating my opinion and sadly and I can't give a much more detailed response. I'm going to assume you've read the most recent pinned post about what Champs we want to hear more about.

As Jaredan and others have mentioned in other threads, in addition to ongoing new Champ / ChamUp support we're currently focused on developing things like world building, longer storylines, R+D, etc. Nevertheless, going back and developing the stories and backgrounds of the characters we all love – and fixing things that are just broken from a narrative point of view – is really important to us. The stories for many champs need some love, and we want you guys to have a voice in helping us determine where we need to focus our attention.

Please don’t offer up specific story ideas – legally, we just can’t use them (the same reason I don’t read fan-fic – it’s a can of worms from a legal POV).

So, as much as Jaredan does read Fanfiction, it seems that others on the "Story Team" (If that's what we can call it) do not for legal ramifications.

I'm not sure about their legal team, but I have to assume that they've been told "something" regarding the content that they release and its origin. Legally, Riot may not WANT to give out any kind of recognition for someones fan work that ended up being used in the game. Simply because that person is not an employee and legally it would be too much of a hassle, not to mention if that person demanded some form of payment beyond recognition is when the legal fight comes in. For example, lately I've been seeing a lot of people claim to have originally thought up the idea for RekSai and demand that Riot recognize their efforts towards its production. Or, it's someone claiming that void fizz was a fan made idea and that they deserve recognition as well. With how many people play this game and if you're using the basic concepts already found in the game. I'm sure that every new skin and champion that ever comes out will be something like a skin or champion that some fan already created themselves. The odds are just not in the favor of originality when you have 30+ million people participating in a game and brainstorming ideas for it. Sorry I can't provide something more insightful than that.

DotintheparadoxFeb 5, 20151 votes

With how the rest of Riot works, it's just personal pride, they don't think our ideas deserve merit, because they're "Fanon", and they're the paid writers.

If you want proof, just remember Void Fizz was a fan concept, and the original artist gets royalties for it.

CriomhthannFeb 6, 20151 votes

The problem isn't legal, it's logical.

Logically speaking, it's not possible to discuss a story you aren't (and have no intention of) making.

SolideusFeb 6, 20151 votes

Posting stories for Rioters to read is a no-no. That can't be used at all for risk of copyright-trouble, even if it takes place in their IP. Even single specific ideas can't be used a lot of the time. More holistic discussions can help, though.