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Me and a few friends have been working on a new skirmish level tabletop game and we hit a snag, we want to bring people in to help with art design and sculpting and alpha rules testing, but were worried about having our ides ripped off, i know it sounds stupid and kinda big headed, but we've put a fair bit of time into this and are unsure how to proceed.

legal gag, copyrighting the rules and a company name. but a level of trust among a team is paramount

The proper way is to hire a lawyer who is experienced in that area if you want legal advice on protecting your own new works and hopefully avoiding infringing on something that is already established.

Although it will come across as raining on your parade, it is unlikely that you will be creating something really new unless you have actually played every single tabletop game out there. A free check could be explaining in broad terms what the game includes and someone could point out whether there is something that currently exists that you might want to look into.

For example, if the game was giant fighting robots someone could point you to Battletech, something about WWII could return Flames of War.

danp164 wrote:
Me and a few friends have been working on a new skirmish level tabletop game and we hit a snag, we want to bring people in to help with art design and sculpting and alpha rules testing, but were worried about having our ides ripped off, i know it sounds stupid and kinda big headed, but we've put a fair bit of time into this and are unsure how to proceed.

For art the most important thing is to document your work thoroughly. Copyright, at least in the US, is assigned to you the moment you create something, you don't have to take any legal action to do it (though there are benefits to registering it IIRC). If you are concerned about someone stealing your ideas then you need to keep a complete record of concept art/all finished work/etc with dates so that if there is any question about who had the idea you can prove that it was yours.

For the rules there's nothing you can do. Game mechanics can not be copyrighted. On the other hand your game mechanics aren't innovative anyway, so nobody is going to steal one random element if they haven't already stolen it from someone else already.

In both cases you should ask yourself whether this is a serious business or a hobby project. If it's a business, you need to find yourself a lawyer who works with IP law and accept that legal expenses are just part of having a business. If it's just a hobby project then you just have to accept the risk of someone stealing your work and being unable to afford the legal costs of stopping them.

Anyone who you feel has access to information which could compromise a business should really be in on the top floor themselves so they have a vested interest in the projects success. In other words if you want someone like that you are looking for another partner not an employee.

Ask someone who's gone through this whole process before, no doubt they will have the most experience in the field.

For example, if it was myself, being very familiar with MWG, I would query Matthew, the creator or Dark potential, as to what to do in this situation, most likely during one of his live broadcasts.
It took him about 10 months to get his game published, which is just coming out now, not including the few years of merely thinking about it and throwing ideas around.

At this level - you will need to deal with issues like an NDA as well as basic levels of copyright (though keep in mind...much will not be protectable at the "idea" stage of things).

Bringing in art design and sculpting, you will also need a work for hire agreement of sorts. Under normal situations - if you bring in an artist to draw something for you...they keep the copyright. Work for hire can be done under contract or salary - but you need to have a contract which will define the transfer or rights.

Lawyers will be able to address both contract issues as well as the issues relating to an "idea" and a copyrightable expression of that idea.

This is something people always forget. Technically when someone photographs your wedding, you (the people in the wedding) don't own the photos. The photographer does, and they don't make their money off the photographing a 6 hour event, it is when they sell you touched up professional photos for hundreds of dollars. You can't legally even post your wedding photo on Facebook or make a copy of it as technically you have to rebut prints from the copyright holder!

One of the key things is to negotiate ownership of the photos so at the end of the event, all the photos are owned by you, not the photographer. Many will do this but at a high cost. Trust me, it is worth it.

You think it is bad you can't get your wedding photos? Imagine if your game is based around core art and the artist sues you and wants some of your profits because you didn't establish copyright ownership agreements.

You will probably be commissioning artists to fill out your publications or to sculpt your minis. The trick is negotiating a contract which you own the copyrights, they are paid fairly for their work and they can't come back later and try to "alter" the agreement by excel sizing their ownership of stuff. In addition you probably will want NDRs not to post your art or whatever on their blog or art portfolio until approved to not spoil your potential leaks.

All of this requires a good employment lawyer and finance people who can really document everything to protect you.

Before you do anything else, if youa re going to try and making money at this.... make a BUSINESS PLAN.

Worry about copyrights and gag orders later.

For UK Copyright you just need to include this at the beginning of your work/book.

Copyright © [Your name]
Published by [name or company]
[Full address]
First Published [Year]

Without limiting the right under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

Another thing you can do is compile everything into a Word doc (if you haven't already), put the dat on every page, print if off and then post it to yourself. The date (copyright as well if you put it in) and the Royal Mail stamp on the envelope (long as you don't open it) help prove that it is your work.

Many of the above comments are solid. Things you absolutely need to do:
* Make sure you get signed NDAs, with solid definitions of what is protected.
* Make sure you get signed work-for-hire agreements so that you own the output of other's work.
* Hire a real lawyer to give you this advice.

 stormwell wrote:

Another thing you can do is compile everything into a Word doc (if you haven't already), put the dat on every page, print if off and then post it to yourself. The date (copyright as well if you put it in) and the Royal Mail stamp on the envelope (long as you don't open it) help prove that it is your work.

That's a myth and doesn't work. You would be just wasting paper.

The documents you will need are a "Non Disclosure Agreement and a "Non-Compete" agreement.

Also, depending on your country look into IP ownership. In the US the correct term is "Work made for hire"; not sure about the UK equivalent.

clively wrote:
The documents you will need are a "Non Disclosure Agreement and a "Non-Compete" agreement.

It is highly unlikely to get a non-compete from a fantasy/sci-fi artist. The vast majority of those who work freelance will work for dozens of different companies (all competitors) at the same time. For that matter, almost any freelance contractor will not agree to a non-compete agreement (or at least they shouldn't). Because of the nature of the work they do, and the general terms within non-compete agreements - you will not normally find anyone whether it is the artist, sculptor, editor or game designer who will not have their vocations seriously impacted in a negative fashion by a non-compete agreement.

I used to use them for my salaried employees - but the particular industry was large enough that if my employees ceased to work for me for whatever reason...they could continue to find gainful employment without working for a competing company (something which would be hard to do in this particular industry).

Mario wrote:

 stormwell wrote:

Another thing you can do is compile everything into a Word doc (if you haven't already), put the dat on every page, print if off and then post it to yourself. The date (copyright as well if you put it in) and the Royal Mail stamp on the envelope (long as you don't open it) help prove that it is your work.

That's a myth and doesn't work. You would be just wasting paper.

Additionally, a creator could send himself or herself a copy by special delivery post (which gives a clear date stamp on the envelope), leaving the envelope unopened on its return
(ensuring you also know what is inside each envelope in case you do this more than once). Alternatively you could lodge your work with a bank or solicitor. It is important to note, that this does not prove that a work is original or created by you. But it may be useful to be able to show the court that the work was in your possession at a particular date.

Source: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-essential.pdf (page 16)

 stormwell wrote:
It is important to note, that this does not prove that a work is original or created by you. But it may be useful to be able to show the court that the work was in your possession at a particular date.

This is the key point. Mailing alone doesn't determine copyright, but if it comes down to a dispute between two people over who had the idea first the person who can bring supporting evidence for their claims of when the work was done is a lot more likely to win the case. Mailing sealed copies, if done in a way that has credible security, provides evidence that supports your claim of "I created the concept art before X date". And if X date happens to be before the start of your involvement with the sculptor who stole your idea...

First of all Thanks for the replies, its been a great help. For most of the design process up to the art side of things we've been able to rely on people in our group to help who we trust, obviously taking what we want to do a stage larger means bringing in people we don't necessarily know, while were good at creative writing and rules organizing, we don't have a graphically artistic bone in any of our bodies. The over-riding advise seems to be forethought, planning and eventually talking to a solicitor, the first two we got down, the last one.... well we never intended this to be something that would be a short term thing and were not dependent on this for an income, so it gives us plenty of time to suss everything out, but thanks again for all the advice.