Persona 3 Staff Review Issues
You’re probably wondering what happened to the Persona 3 review. Well, here’s the deal.
Despite the fact that CactuarJoe is the author of the review, Firemyst, the owner of RPGamer, has ordered that it be taken down. We’ve agreed to temporarily remove it while we look into the legality of his claim that he owns everything that we wrote there. Of course, we do not believe he does, seeing as how we were led to believe that reviews etc. were still our property and that not once in our time there were we corrected. Furthermore, during my time as a member of the administration, I was allowed to tell new staff members that without being corrected either.
At any rate, we will be working to smooth out the legal differences with RPGamer, and hope to be able to present our shared work to you in the near future.
H-bomb:
If Mikel didn’t pay you, the whole NDA is just BS anyway. Without pay, he can host it all he wants, but you’re also allowed to globetrot the thing if you want. Let him take it to court and get laughed right out of the building.
21 August 2007, 1:23 pmAngel0886:
Le sigh. I hope things work out for you guys, I really do. There is no reason to have to pull CJ’s review. I mean.. the score isn’t even the same!
21 August 2007, 2:13 pmDuke Gallahan:
Well, if it was part of Joe’s contract (if it’s a part of RPGamer) that he couldn’t post his staff reviews elsewhere, then I could understand it being taken down, but if there was nothing explicit about redistribution, I think it is his own work to do as he pleases with.
21 August 2007, 9:22 pmrandar23rhenn:
I hope you get this worked out ASAP, i was about to reread the review 🙁
21 August 2007, 9:30 pmtylerwillis:
I don’t recall signing anything that gives away the copyright to what I wrote. Believe me, I wouldn’t have touched the reviewer position with a 10 foot stick if that had been a requirement.
I’m not a lawyer, but the best of my knowledge is that the copyright stays with the creator of the work unless certain rights are explicitly given away. Even then, the remainder of the rights stay with the author.
Mikel is just trying to underhandedly sabatoge your efforts. He’s afraid – and well he should be.
I’ll keep watching Random NPC. I know that I have way too much on my plate to offer to help regularly, but if ya’ll ever need a guest spot or something that I might handle, shoot me an email. I’d be much more willing to help ya’ll than I would be to RPGamer.
22 August 2007, 3:35 pmDerek Roku Cavin:
Yeah, that was pretty much what we were thinking. We wouldn’t have signed those rights away either.
22 August 2007, 5:12 pmAngel0886:
I wouldn’t have knowingly signed away any rights to my work either, reviews, eds or otherwise. News and media I can understand. Personal writing I cannot.
23 August 2007, 12:17 amAngel0886:
And since I can’t edit posts:
I wouldn’t have told other staffers to sign the NDA either. Not without explaining what it said in layman’s terms first.
23 August 2007, 12:19 amDuke Gallison:
I might give up rights to my reviews if I were paid, but if not, then I would want to keep exclusive rights to them. One of the complexities of becoming a staff reviewer, I suppose.
23 August 2007, 12:34 pmDuke Gallison:
By the way, I *finally* got this game today (I ordered from RosenQueen, whose employees are unfortunately a bit on the incompetent side and can barely speak English), will start tonight, and will post impressions then.
23 August 2007, 2:21 pmDuke Gallison:
Having disliked the first two Personae, I can honestly say that the third installment is a *major* improvement, and excels as both a high school simulation and RPG.
24 August 2007, 2:38 pmDerek Roku Cavin:
I haven’t had much time with P3 yet, but I’m enjoying it a lot more than P1 as well. (I haven’t been able to play P2 yet)
24 August 2007, 8:53 pmAurean_Mentat:
Well, I enjoyed P3 so much that I was actually motivated to go find a copy of Nocturne at a game store. While I haven’t played either of the two earlier persona games, I don’t know if I should….. P3 is just so good.
26 August 2007, 8:09 amDuke Gallison:
I personally wouldn’t, since I found the first to be one of the worst RPGs I’ve ever played and the second to be mediocre. Persona 3 completely blows them out of the water in my opinion, and I don’t think you’re really missing out all that much if you skip the first two games.
26 August 2007, 3:01 pm