Talk:The Four Horsemen

Does anyone know if Riders of Dhuum are bosses or just regular monsters? My outdated video card doesn't display the boss auras, and my group got wiped out before we could defeat any of them so I'm not sure if there's a morale boost. -- Gordon Ecker 05:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Metallica
There is a metallica song called the four horsemen (Kill 'Em All), and theres the biblical four horsemen, I don't know how to put this into the article though. I'd think ANet would be referencing metallica rather than the bible, looking at the other cultural references :p Skuld  11:19, 10 April 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm sure it's a reference to the song, especially when you look at the Male Warrior's guitar animation :) LordKestrel 11:30, 10 April 2006 (CDT)
 * Now let's guess to whom that song by Metallica is referring... It all comes down to the Bible in the end. ;) --84-175 (talk) 12:35, 10 April 2006 (CDT)
 * I meant that :D Skuld  12:39, 10 April 2006 (CDT)

non-repeatable?
Is this quest non-repeatable, or is the icon missing? (see also Talk:Terrorweb_Queen). Foo 08:17, 18 April 2006 (CDT)

Copyright Issues
I am sorry to say, but the walktrough section is entirely copied from [|here].
 * Why are you sorry to say that? - 01:34, 29 June 2006 (CDT)
 * I am sorry because it is quite a good description :)

I asked Tarosian over at User_talk:The_King_Tarosian if he got permission to use that text, but judging from Skuld's last question for him, it might be a while before we get a response. --68.142.14.84 06:09, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * It should be made clear that the issue here is not permission as you stated on Tarosian's page. The issue is referencing. If he did copy it from there, then we need to list that as a reference (or I'll just rewrite it myself having done it). We do not need anyone's permission for a post placed on a public forum. It's just good style to list them as the source that is all. It may be that Tarosian was one of the people who helped compile that thread and as such needed to give no credit, I don't know. Either way, there is no permission to seek. --Karlos 11:06, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * No, it is the only issue. Just because it's public doesn't mean we can reproduce someone else's text without permission.  That's like saying a song on the radio is free for everyone to copy as they please.  Whether or not we provide credit, without permission (or a license, which I guess is the same as permission) the only way to use it is if it's fair use, which it's not.  This is not like copying someone else's map where the artwork is owned by ANet and the mapper is only stating a fact ("the boss is here").  --68.142.14.71 11:41, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Unless you can provide a legal statement on Guildwarsguru.com that states that content in their forums is subject to copyright laws, then you are making stuff up. Yes, believe it or not, stuff you post in public forums does NOT belong to you. You would need to specifically state any copyright issues in order for others to be bound by them. This is not what you personally feel is copyright laws, this is what IS copyright laws. Now, what is wrong, is for someone to read it there, then come here and post it as his work. That is an obfuscation of credit as well as obfuscating the source of the information which helps in validating it. --Karlos 11:52, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * You do not need to put a copyright notice on anything for you to own the copyright if you are the creator of the work. I think you're the one who has obscure "feelings" about copyright law.  The work being available to the public or being on an Internet forum is completely irrelevant.  The only reason some forums say things like "all comments are owned by their respective posters" is to attempt to shield themselves from liability.  --68.142.14.71 12:29, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * My understanding (I'm not a lawyer) is that a copyright exists on all original documents the moment they are published, even if the text isn't marked as copyrighted. The absence of a copyright notice does not mean it is in the public domain.   I'm not aware of court cases to test the full limits of copyright law; but I would expect it to cover public postings in chat forums and message boards.  --161.88.255.139 13:05, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * If the content came from that person, then no one is questioning that they should be credited. The issue here is one of "permission" not "recognition." Whom should we ask for permission to republish this information, the author or Guru? My belief is that, when the author submitted the work through Guru, THAT copy on Guru became subject to Guru's laws (in my view, public domain). And as far as I know Guru does not have any laws or regularions against copying content off the forum and placing it elsewhere. The medium through which you presented your work is extremely relevant. If you record a new song through Sony, you can bet they will have rights to reproduce and make money off that song, even if you hate them. If you call in a radio show and voice your thoughts, even though they are your thoughts, that radio station can replay them and put them in sound bites and even give them to other stations to replay them, even though they are "your" words. So, the medium here is EXACTLY what we are talking about. I have fired Inde at Guru a message about this issue, hopefully we'll hear from him here on if he messages me, I'll let you know. --Karlos 16:47, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * You are plain wrong. If you're a music artist, you have a contract that says who owns what.  An artist usually has to sign a contract because they don't have enough money to afford studio time, marketing, or large scale CD production or shipping.  Labels pay for those things and in return usually abuse the hell out of the artist by saying we own your work, we'll pay you a pittance in royalties, you owe us $x for what we've done, and you also have to make two more albums for us.  That situation is infinitely more complex than this.  For a radio interview, a radio station always has to get permission from the interviewee before airing.  This might be implicit as in "hey, I want to interview you for my show," "sure."  In general, the interviewer owns the copyright of interviews.  This is not cut and dry; the law does not specifically address interviews.  I will look up and cite court cases if you care.
 * The medium is irrelevant. The author of a copyrightable work owns it unless he specifically hands over the copyright to another, he releases it to the public domain, or if the work is a "work for hire" (for example, a program coded by an employee for this employer, and even further, any tools he coded to get the job done).
 * I own the copyright on this comment I'm writing right now. It's on the wiki and anyone can read it.  I've licensed it to the wiki under the CC license, and the wiki is prodiving the comment to everyone who reads it under that same license.  But I still own the copyright on this text.  No one else can use this comment for commercial purposes but me, since the CC license forbids commercial use.  In fact, everyone in the world can do whatever they want with this comment as long as the CC license allows it.  I can do anything at all I want, since I own it.  Beyond fair use, other peoples' use of this comment hinges around the fact that the text below the edit box basically says "by submitting this, you license it out under the CC license."  On the other hand, GWG has no such agreement.  When signing up or when posting, nowhere does it say GWG owns the comment or that the submitter licenses it under any license.  If Inde says "GWG owns the copyright" on that post then Inde is absolutely and legally wrong.  If Inde says "GWG gives us permission to use the text" he has no right to do so.  --68.142.14.71 18:22, 29 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Forgive me if this is entirely formatted wrong since it's my first time using a wiki. Actually, anonymous user, I said neither. GWG does not own the content, it's public domain being a forum. GWG "encourages" you to ask the original poster to use the content. Most are very happy to be recognized and will gladly work with you. There is the rare occassion where a user does not want their content posted in an official sense. I commented to Karlos that even for Guru's own article section we seek permission from the original poster to put it up. If the user fails to respond, I put it up but am more than happy to take it down or adjust it if they contact me. Because, as you said... "The author of a copyrightable work owns it unless... he releases it to the public domain." Posting on a forum is public domain.
 * Everyone tries to interpret copyright law, I've been subjected to this more times than you can count. While the original author does "own" a copyright on their work, it would never fly in a court of law.  Why?  First off you have not filed for a copyright on the material. Since it's not registered, if someone were to truly want to pursue action they would be paying all court costs out of their pockent and could not recoup that since they didn't file. How do I know for certain?  I've just had to file a lawsuit with a client of mine who is using my copyrighted work. Throw all the court cases you can at me because I'm living through it right now. (It is in no way connected to Guild Wars Guru, I do advertising and graphic design.) Of course this goes to far, most talk such as this is just accusations and legal jaron flying every direction.
 * I have responded to Karlos that you are welcome to use any material that you find in the Guru forum's since this is public domain. People generally post with the intention of sharing this information to the community and once they find out that people want it even more widespread, embrace it with open arms. I strongly encourage all you Wikians to contact the original poster and politely ask if you can copy the content over here. As I said, they are usually flattered and more then willing to work with you. Guild Wars Guru is very open with the sharing of content and I have not seen a problem on this Wiki before where a link was not given to the original or a note of credit. I will not be sending any cease & desist or vulgar posts to you asking you to remove content. We love you guys and are more than happy to help with the sharing of information to benefit the community.Inde 22:02, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Well, Inde posted himself, so I don't need to post his reply. I hope this calms our zealous anonymous user. --Karlos 22:30, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Posting on a forum, on Usenet, on a blog, or wherever does not make your post public domain. As soon as a copyrightable work is set into a fixed form, the author automatically holds the copyright.  Fixed roughly means recorded in some physical manner.  There needs to be something you can point to and say "this is the work."  For our purposes, text being saved to a database (or hard drive, ultimately) somewhere is sufficient as it can be retrieved and viewed.  It can be sitting on a hard drive in a shoebox under your bed and no one but you could even have seen the work, but you'd own the copyright (though of course it would be impossible to prove infringement for such a case, since no one's seen it to infringe on it).  This is US code, title 17, section 102.  If you look it up, you will notice the only requirements are that work needs to be original, needs to fall under one of the (very broadly interpreted) categories of copyrightable works, and that the work needs to be fixed.  That's it.  Nothing about the specific medium of the work.  Nothing about being published.  The author doesn't even have to be in the US or be American, though his nation needs to be a Berne Convention member (section 103, maybe a later section).


 * Of the different "types" of intellectual property in US law, only patents have to be registered to afford protection to the owner. Registering a copyright is not necessary unless you want to claim infringement in a lawsuit, though there are other benefits to registering.  This means that you can not register, have someone infringe, then register and deal with it.  Even though you end up registering if you want to bring a lawsuit against someone for infringement, your intellectual property is still protected from the moment you created the work, not from the moment you registered it.  If you had some sort of patentable IP, showed it to people, waited a year, and decided to patent it then, you can't get a patent even though the term for a patent is 20 years since you have to register within a year or you lose patent rights.  Contrast with copyright, where the owner can register at any time within the term of copyright, which begins the moment the work is fixed.  Off the top of my head I cannot cite law for this.


 * That's enough of copyright 101. This all means the user who made the post on your forum could the register the copyright for his post and sue.  However utterly unlikely this is, we have the choice of letting the situation slide since we're relatively assured it just doesn't matter or instead getting permission.  Here's where I state my personal opinion: it's his work and since he did not give permission, we should not use it.  It just so happens the law agrees with my opinion for this.


 * As for court cases, I was referring to ownership of interviews, since Karlos brought it up. --68.142.14.71 22:51, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * My stand remains unchanged, when the user posted his walkthrough on Guru, he put it in public domain. Now, he has not, in that thread or any other, stated that he would like this work to NOT be copied, redistributed or retold in any way shape or form. The admin from that site also assures us that his site itself offers no such restrictions. Therefore, your opinion, while noted, will not affect this wiki's stand on posting content from Forums.
 * What you are suggesting can bring back this wiki 10 years, if you pause to think about it. This means that whenever any update comes out (and ANet never say where they put new quests or bosses, for example) and someone posts that info in a forum (thats where it usually surfaces), we as a wiki (and the number one resource about this game on the net) CANNOT post that information in the wiki until we contact that poster and ask his permission.
 * All the copyright laws you quoted do NOT apply to content provided in public domain. Are you disputing that Guru's Forums are public domain despite Inde's assertion that it is?--Karlos 23:01, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Gah! What a bloody mess.  AFAIK (note, not a lawyer/legal scholar/other expert), the only person who can raise a copyright claim is the copyright holder himself/herself or their agent (attorney/agent/etc...).  So unless that is what is happening here with Mr. anon, then this is really pointless.  --Rainith 23:05, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Is it? Does this mean we can just copy slabs of text/pictures from the GWGuru threads and vice versa? I think that the rule here should be that unless you've got permission from the original forum poster you should not post other people's stuff here. I think we lose credibility if the wiki is a collaborative project of burglars who take stuff from other sources without them knowing. --Xasxas256 23:16, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Oh Karlos, you are so full of it. Back up your idea that anything posted in a public forum is in public domain with some citations, or admit the anon is right. And he is, just go read the related codes, anon even gave you the title and section numbers, just look it up.  And Rainith, we abide laws because we agree with them, because we think ultimately the laws will benefit ourselves an other people, not because of the fear of getting caught in violating them. I doubt the author of the guru article will be able to afford to sending a IP lawyer our way, but that does not make us innocent if we just blatantly copy his work here without permission. -- Ledrug 23:29, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * To Karlos, it is not in the public domain unless the poster says it is. Simply posting it somewhere, no matter where, does not implicitly do this.  There is no notice on GWG saying "if you click post, you release your text into the PD."  Did you miss where I said this already?  To Rainith, as I said, we have the choice of infringing on his copyright even if he almost certainly won't do anything about it.  I stated my ethical belief is this is wrong, not because the law says so, but because we're using someone's work without permission (or even credit).  What the law says is it's wrong without permission.  --68.142.14.71 23:32, 29 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Do you mean to say that all the material in public domain right now (e.g. The Bible) was placed there by their authors? Do you have the case number for God vs Johnson in which God gave that permission? Or did Johnson win?
 * I have Inde's statement that this is public domain vs your false assertion that nothing enters public domain without the author's approval. Like I said, forums are a huge resource for us that I refuse to shut down until legal issues arise other than your opinion that all of these internet forum sites are in violation of copyright law all the time. And yes Xasxas, we have been copying pieces of text and images from forums for a VERY long time, something I do not like personally, but it is very much a part of content on the wiki, especially new content. The original green weapons were all filled in from forums first, and then verified by contributors LONG after that.
 * Anonymous, credit was given to the thread, check the article. --Karlos 00:14, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Anything in the public domain was specifically either placed their by the authors or the copyright term (author's lifetime plus 70 years, or 95 years from creation if owned by a corporation) expired. About using information from a forum: what you can't copyright are facts.  If someone says some boss is at some location and has a certain elite, there's no issue.  What you can copyright is a particular expression of those facts, so you couldn't copy and paste a paragraph describing all this as long as there is some creative merit to it (a plain list wouldn't do, but a description of the boss valiantly defending itself with eviscerate under the shade of the tree by the zone point to somewhere would).  An easy rule of thumb is you can't copy the prose but you can extract the information from it.
 * Some might consider giving credit to be ethical justification to warrant use, and I would probably agree if someone attempts to contact the author for permission and fails to get a response. Copyright law does not agree.  --68.142.14.71 00:44, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I question that this very basic description of the quest qualifies as "creative prose." More importantly, I refuse to back down on my stand that content taken from free, open forums is game for this wiki unless the author of the content states explicitly that he is against further distribution. The forum's moderator is here voicing the same opinion. If you honestly believe we are breaking copyright law feel free to contact User:Gravewit on his talk page and voice your concern to him as the site owner (and the one liable). I am sure if your concern is legitimate that Gravewit would be most troubled. I, however, do not see the concern as valid, do not see the quest walkthrough as "creative work" and believe as Inde does that posting it there is public domain. I would just rewrite the walkthrough, but I think this is an important precedent. The forums have always been a valid resource for us, and I refuse to close them down for the wiki. --Karlos 01:48, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * From my perspective, Ledrug, Xasxas, User:161.88.255.139 (Barek while not logged in?), and presumably the original anonymous poster are agreeing with me, Rainith didn't voice a clear opinion either way, and Inde supports you. I think I'd rather remove the infringing material from the article and have you go to Gravewit for intervention on what is so far a consensus on the topic.  --68.142.14.71 02:10, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Tallying the few opinions of people who have participated in this thread is not considered a vote. If you want to start a vote, check out Category:Votes on how you could do that. In addition, this is my stand as an admin. I do not find copying content from open forums to be a violation of copyright laws. I believe this is within the realm of what those sites do, what we do and what ANet expects all those sites to do. I am more concerned with policy than this specific incident. This is just where the battle is taking place. As I said, there is very little originality in the post in question itself. I am suggesting that you go to Gravewit as I know that I will not budge on this issue as an admin because of the grave consequences it will have on our wiki's ability to be up-to-date post game updates coupled with what I believe is a very flimsy concern over imaginary rules binding open forums of discourse. --Karlos 02:27, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * No, it's not a vote, but a vote is not necessary for everything. How many issues have been decided without votes rather than with?  Also, I find it curious neither you nor Inde have actually supported your "it's in the PD because it's on a forum!" view with... anything.  It's actually a little hard to show the opposite because, well, it's not true and so you won't find "works posted to the Internet are not in the public domain" in the law.  But, feel free to look at US code title 17, section 201, where it says that, barring bankruptcy, tranferrance of copyright must be voluntary and requires conveyance.  As I've been trying to drive home, this means someone needs to agree to put their work into the public domain.  I request that you, or anyone, point out the law which (in effect) says that posting an a forum releases the work into the public domain.  I'll give you a hint as a head start: the phrase "public domain" only appears in sections 104A and 303, chapter 2 deals with tranferrance, and chapter 3 deals with term of copyright.


 * If you want me to cite an overwhelming pile of support of my view from outside the law or court cases, I can. To start, a couple things quickly Googled up: Wikipedia with Public_domain and a random forum's rules (search for "public domain").  Lastly, to inspire you to actually think about what you're claiming, what does a forum being "free and open" have to do with anything?  Why isn't the wiki material public domain?  Why aren't the non-forum articles on GWG?  Why aren't the articles on cnn.com?  Why aren't songs on the radio?  What's the difference?  None of these things are free as in beer to provide, even though they're all free as in beer for the user.  They're all open in that anyone at all can use them.  I hope your answer isn't "because all those sources say they own the copyright" since I've already pointed out you don't need to register your copyright with the copyright office and you also do not need to put a copyright notice on anything (well, not since more than a decade ago).  --68.142.14.71 13:31, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * You seem to miss the difference between a "site" and a "forum." CNN.com is a site, GWG articles are on the site. These are no different than articles posted in the news paper. GuildWiki is a site, but we allow anyone to redistribute our content and build on it as long as they do it for free and list their sources (see our license). The key difference in my understanding is that difference between a site and a forum. When you post in an open forum that says all content is free for all to read and redistribute, then it is safe for anyone to forward this content in other forums. The onus is on you (as the author) to say I am reserving my copyrights to this work (in which case, the forums usually remove the post or will mark it very clearly). All the stuff you keep throwing at me does not show me that you have applied any of it on internet forums. Just now we cited Guru forums on the issue of titles. Do you realize how much it would have delayed the info if I had to contact Loki in-game and get his approval to use his post? --Karlos 13:48, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Edit: Of interest is this paragraph on the wikipedia entry that reflects my beleifs:
 * ''(Almost) everything written down is copyrighted
 * Another complication is that publishing exclusively on the Internet has become extremely popular. According to U.S. law, at least, an author's original works are covered by copyright, even without a formal notice incorporated into the work. But such laws were passed at a time when the focus was on materials that could not be as easily and cheaply reproduced as digital media, nor did they comprehend the ultimate impossibility of determining which set of electronic bits is original. Technically, any Internet posting (such as blogs or emails) could be considered copyrighted material unless explicitly stated otherwise.
 * Blogs (like forum postings) are (technically) copyrighted work, but no one treats them as such. The set of laws you keep tossing out is one that I believe ha snot caught up to the modern world. Again, weighing the harm vs the benefit, I find that adopting the policy would be disasterous for the wiki. --Karlos 13:54, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I know that there are oustanding issues that you guys are arguing back and forth with but just to put this specific topic on this article to rest -
 * Katamari "I have no problem with [GuildWiki] using it as I am not able to keep it updated as much as I'd like to. I just wish that the core information remains intact so that it will not contain any false or unecessary information. In fact, last time I checked the wiki uw faq, it seemed much more informative than my own so I'm not exactly sure what I'd be able to contribute :P"
 * Just asking does wonders for alleviating contention and drama. ;) Again, you are welcome to use the information from Guru and I encourage you to ask the original posters as they are, the majority of the time, flattered and more then welcome to work with you. Inde 14:13, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Disasterous? How so? If a person feels that information found on a forum is valuable enough to bring to the wiki, either
 * a) Ask for the posters permission to reproduce it in the wiki; or
 * b) Take note of the facts presented in the forum post, and rewrite them in your own words in the wiki.
 * It seems to me bad form (regardless of legality) to just start copying forum posts with out asking the poster for permission. Like Inde as shown, its really not hard to do a) and part b) everybody has learned to do since their first report they had to do in school.  Its really not that hard.--Chrono traveller 14:19, 30 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Katamari giving permission resolves this specific instance, though I agree with Karlos when he said the real issue here is policy. As for the law "not catching up," the issue raised was about ease of duplication.  Not about medium of presentation.  The spirit of the law is you make it, it's yours.  There is no heated debate over whether or not blogs should be copyrighted, there's debate over how do you handle copyright when it's so easy to reproduce work.  This applies equally to books and music.


 * Crono is absolutely correct when he says this will not harm the wiki in any way. Karlos has yet to present a reasoning for why a forum post is public domain.  --68.142.14.71 18:33, 30 June 2006 (CDT)