I'm in the process of secretly rebuilding my board "Mugen Hall." About ten minutes ago, I have learned that a few of my former members are attempting to "recreate" the board. But, I don't want to tell them that I'm secretly rebuilding the board elsewhere. I do know it's going to fail because I'm the one who came up with the concepts, themes, and ideas for the board.

My board died due to a bunch of abnormal circumstances that were out of my control. Those former members were responsible for a fraction of the drama that had taken place.

None of them were able to come up with or plot out the concepts of Mugen Hall. It took me a few weeks to come up with and refine the concepts and it took me months to refine everything.

I do know the names of the members that are attempting to do this. But, I have the feeling they're not just going to "recreate" the board. I have the feeling that they're going to steal my concepts, themes, and ideas as well. I consider all of that as my intellectual property.

Right now, I'm pretty ticked off...

What should I do if that is the case?

That sucks, but in my opinion there's nothing you can do until you know for certain that they've copied your ideas, because you can't accuse someone of plagiarism based on a feeling.

However, if they have copied your stuff, I think you're well within your rights to contact them privately and tell them about your concerns. Be polite though, because nothing puts a person in defensive mode like a hostile attack, even if they know that they are in the wrong. Give them a chance to remove any offending material on their own. If they still go ahead and create the board, using your ideas, report them to Invisionfree, and let them deal with it. If they really have plagiarized, their board will be deleted. I've never actually reported anyone myself, but I have heard of people who have done so successfully.

Sorry Xing,

I only have one thing to say about your situation. "Public Domain". If you closed your board down and such, then people are basically free to spin off from the idea and concept which might have originated from you unless you specifically have a copyright for it. Unfortunately, since you did not, there is no action that you could really take against them.

Also as I understand it your RPG is based off of the flash series known as 'XIN' so it'd be basically improbable to even get a copyright for it, since your site it's self was a derivation from another subject matter and thus the content not entirely yours.

Regards,
Viera.

Eh, we "compromised." They agreed to leave the concepts, ideas, and themes I had implemented. The board is still technically up. It's not closed off. It's somewhat still functional.

I had only retained the key elements of XIN such as the Pillar system, the corporate punishment system, and the combat physics. My board is pretty much the extension of the plot. I maintained those key elements. But, everything else in regards to Mugen Hall belonged to me.

Ah.

I thought by closed you meant you had taken everything down completely. Well it's always good to see that people can come to compromise. Glad you worked everything out.

But the thing that annoys me the most is that the people who brought up the idea of "reviving" my board are some of the worst role-players I have ever seen. The one person who brought up the idea has no business running a board.

Viera, that is incorrect.

"These factors have reinforced the false notion that "freely obtained" means "public domain." One could argue that the Internet is a publicly available domain, not licensed or controlled by any individual, company, or government; therefore, everything on the Internet is public domain. This specious argument ignores the fact that licensing rights are not dependent on the means of distribution or consumer acquisition. (If someone gives a person stolen merchandise, it is still stolen, even if the receiving party was not aware of it.) Chasing down copyright violations based on the idea that information is inherently free has become a primary focus of industries whose financial structure is based on their control of the distribution of such media....The distribution of many types of Internet postings (particularly Usenet articles and messages sent to electronic mailing lists) inherently involves duplication. The act of posting such a work can therefore be taken to imply consent to a certain amount of copying, as dictated by the technical details of the manner of distribution. However, it does not imply total waiver of copyright."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

IF and other hosts will respond to reports of stolen material, and sites with stolen material often cannot advertise at directory sites (like RPGD) if you show evidence for it.