The Business: Sooner Or Later, Someone's Going To Fuck Up The Trend Of Republishing Foundational Works

For all the good stuff coming out about Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, sooner or later someone was going to fuck it up. You are here.

(That press release from the Arneson Estate is here.)

I can't call who's at fault here, nor do I want to; if this ends up in court--and it may--let the lawdogs and the secular priest sort it out.

That said, failing to provide sufficient receipts proving legal authority to the acknowledged owner/controller is a very bad look. No, it doesn't matter if Party A and Pary B as individuals don't like each other. No, it doesn't matter what Party A prefers; Party B does, and I would not be surprised if Party B prevails due to some combination of IP law and Estate or Contract law.

The other thing to note is that this sort of stupidity is far too common in Tabletop and has been since the 1970s. We just didn't hear about it as much until The Internet let all the disconnected hobbyists come together to share all their Just So stories. There may be enough here for the YouTube Lawyers to cover it on their livestreams, especially if the two parties continue to shit on each other in public.

Expect more of this to go on if this gets published. The names of the old timers are Brands to themselves; you better believe that folks who shouldn't will capitalize upon it.