A letter from Chaosium
When I had completed the first Tales of Terror book, I sent Chaosium a couple of complimentatary copies to get their comments. The first one I received was a pleasant letter from Lynn Willis, who said he had enjoyed the book.
Then, I received a letter
from Greg Stafford, president of Chasoium.
"Are you aware," he wrote, "that you have violated international copyright and trademark laws wih this publication?"
Uh, what?!?
"It is illegal for you to produce any material which uses our trade marked game without express written permission from us. This is usually granted after a suitable license has been granted, along with an advance payment and subsequent royalties. To my knowledge, we have granted no such license."
"Please don't panic." (You are kidding, right?) "I do not desire to make a big fuss about this. However, I am obligated by law, to protect my rights."
I ran around for a while like a headless chicken, then settled down and composed a reply.
"Your letter has me rather concerned," I wrote, understating things somewhat. "I did not apply for a licence as I was not aware that I needed one, Tales of Terror being a non-profit publication. I thought I had any obligations covered by the note on page 1, but obviously not."
There were a couple of other paragraphs, mostly sheer grovelling and not very pretty. And a few days later there was another note from Chasoium.
"Thanks for your prompt reply to my letter. I hope it did not scare you." (Hmmm.) "If you have made this a private printing, with no profit or potential for profit, there is not much we can do. You ought to have asked first and then properly listed our TM. *sigh*"
"Anyway, please don't reprint it without permission. If anyone asks what you did to a Call of Cthulhu item, please tell them to contact me."
Phew. Mark Morrison suggested that Chaosium's response was a compliment - if Tales of Terror had looked rather more amateur then they would never have been involved.