I recently had a very interesting telephone conversation with Jim Rose at Avalon Hill. Originally I had called to discuss the possibility of Monarch/Avalon's doing some printing for GPG. Early in the conversation, however, Jim took me by surprise when he asked, "What's your position on copyrights?"

Rapidly trying to shift mental gears, I asked him what exactly he was referring to. In a nutshell, he was concerned about Scott Hamilton's Aide de Camp program. ADC is a program that allows the user to input boardgame graphics onto the computer screen. This feature allows people to play larger boardgames through the mail or via computer bulletin board without having to leave the game set up somewhere. It can be played right on the computer. ADC does not, however allow for any system mechanics, only graphics, so one must actually own the game being played.

Apparently however some people are not only inputting the graphics, but are creating ASCII text files of the rules of various Avalon Hill games. They are then uploading them to bulletin board systems where anyone can download the file and play without having to own a copy of the original game. This phenomenon is of great concern to Jim and the legal staff at Avalon Hill, because it is a clear copyright violation. He then indicated that Avalon Hill was going to take legal action against people and BBSs that allow this violation.

I could see his point. When a person goes to the trouble of designing a game, and then a publishing company goes through the additional headaches and expense of producing it, they frankly deserve all the profit they can get (and let me assure you, there isn't much). People who are doing what Jim described are thieves - no ifs, ands, or buts.

However -- and this is where we began to disagree -- is the number of people doing this deed (and the corresponding accomplices who download the files) having a large enough effect on sales to justify legal retaliation? That inquiry is, of course, unquantifiable, varying from perhaps to maybe. The folks at Avalon Hill think the answer is irrelevant. They see it as a weakening of their copyrights.

There is a business principle that I learned from my father. The purpose of any business is to make money. Anything that gets in the way of that purpose is unnecessary and unwelcome. Now there is no end of views on how to accomplish prosperity, but the way the principle applies here is: if it's not costing you anything, don't spend money to fix it. In my opinion -- and I expressed this rather firmly to Jim -- it is a mistake for Avalon Hill to pursue these people aggressively.

Here's why. Let's say that HPS software has sold 5000 copies of ADC (I have no idea what the actual figures are). Of those 5000 copies, how many of them are ever actually used? How many of those that are used, are used for Avalon Hill games? Of those, how many actually have access to a BBS that supports wargaming?

Of those, how many have access to a scanner with OCR software, or are going to take the trouble to key in an entire rule book? Of those that actually do, how many others are going to download it who don't already own a copy of the game? 1 think you can see that by this time we've boiled it down to an awfully small number resulting in practically no effect on Avalon Hill's overall sales.

What's perhaps even more important here is that after punishing a few copyright violators, a great deal of bad will among the rest of ADC users will have been created. More honest folks, in an effort to stay out of trouble, may no longer use the program at all, causing repercussions to the sales ofADC. I think that this policy is a bad thing all around.

Ultimately, this conversation lead to a policy here at GPG. For purposes of Aide de Camp (only), GPG expressly grants permission to duplicate the graphics in its games for use with Aide de Camp. You may freely input the graphics and upload them anywhere you desire. We would, of course, prefer that you don't upload our rules as well, but we won't send a posse of lawyers after you if you do. As far as we are concerned, ADC is the best source of free advertising we could imagine.

What's more, we would appreciate it if those who do input our graphics would send us a copy. We will make these files available free of charge to anyone who provides us with a blank disk and return postage.

We at GPG want to sell magazines, and anything that helps us do that is fine by us.