This second "Beer Coaster Proclamation" draws on a successful campaign from 1988 in which a number of well-known game designers demanded the author's name be written on the box cover, a practice widely accepted today.

At the beginning of April, the SAZ started a petition on change.org that has been signed by more than 4200 backers to date. The demand reads: "Accept game designers as authors and the SAZ as a negotiating partner!"

Meanwhile, the board of the Fachgruppe Spiel (the association of game publishers) has invited representatives of the SAZ for talks in Berlin on July 8. We appreciate this backing away from the former statement of the Fachgruppe Spiel: "Therefore an objective discussion between the representation of the game designers and the representation of the game publishers is ruled out." The goal of the SAZ still is to form an agreement with game publishers on minimum standards in contracts with game designers, and to obtain the official recognition of game designers as originators and the SAZ as their representation.

In the elections for the board, Ulrich Blum and Hajo Bücken were newly elected as 1^st chairman and 2^nd chairman, respectively, and Christian Beiersdorf was re-elected as treasurer. Hajo Bücken's election marks his return to the board after a long time: He was the first chairman of the SAZ in 1991.

Some press news about:

Börsenblatt
TricTrac Deutschland
Initiative Urheberrecht
Spielbox
Spielwarenmesse
Jugamos Tod@s

Therefore, on April 8, 2013, the SAZ went public with an open letter, a legal opinion and a signature campaign on the platform change.org in order to promote its claims. Meanwhile, the petition has been signed by more than 3,300 supporters worldwide.

In contrast, the reaction of the Fachgruppe Spiel to the open letter was really startling. They refer to the Game Designer Association as a group of "suppliers" with whom they cannot conduct negotiations, for reasons of antitrust law. The Fachgruppe restricts the basic intellectual property rights regarding games to possible individual cases and demands jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis. This shows a strange interpretation of copyright law. To the contrary, what is correct is that the copyright law applies automatically and individual works do not require legal evaluation. We are greatly disappointed by this peculiar interpretation by the Fachgruppe Spiel; instead, we would be very happy with a common procedure to solve pending problems.

At the same time, with this response, the member companies of the Fachgruppe Spiel jeopardize the prior relationship of trust that has existed with the game designers; in the past, the companies had actually concluded license agreements with game designers regarding the production and distribution of the designers' works in a good spirit of mutual understanding. It is within the company where the question of the level of creative content and thus the suitability for the company's product line might arise. This responsibility cannot be taken away from the publishers by any court.

Therefore, the Game Designer Association (Spiele-Autoren-Zunft e.V.; SAZ) will continue resolutely advocating for the Fachgruppe Spiel and its member companies to acknowledge intellectual property rights regarding games, and the SAZ will continue the signature campaign on change.org.

You can find more information about the subject here and some more in German here.

The initial point was discussion papers on the subject of Minimum Standards in Contracts and a Code on matters of intellectual property rights regarding games, which the SAZ had presented to the Fachgruppe Spiel, the federation of the game companies in the Association of the German Toy Industry. The SAZ represents more than 400 game designers from Germany and other countries and is their representative organization.

The Fachgruppe Spiel principally puts the game designers' status as originators into question and thus rules out any further objective, factual discussion with the SAZ, within the meaning of § 36 UrhG (German Copyright Act). This is all the more bewildering since the member companies of the Fachgruppe Spiel continuously enter into contracts with game designers regarding the rights of use of their works, thus de facto acknowledging their authorship; and the companies also demand relevant declarations of authorship from the game designers. That shows that the reality looks different.

The legal opinion Games and the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights reduces the argumentation of the Fachgruppe Spiel to absurdity. In the open letter, the board of the SAZ calls on the Fachgruppe and its members to reconsider their position and to return to the negotiating table. It is clear that without the game designers and their works, the companies would have little basis with which to conduct business.

The SAZ is also curious about the reaction from the German Cultural Council on this subject. The SAZ has been a member of the Council since 2008; the Fachgruppe Spiel only since the beginning of 2013.

Parallel to the open letter, the SAZ has started an online signature campaign, with which everybody who is interested can support the claims of the SAZ.

Link to the open letter to the Fachgruppe Spiel and its member companies, the legal opinion "Games and the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" and the petition (online signiture campaign).

The following companies are members of the Fachgruppe Spiel: Asmodee, Amigo, ASS, Clementoni, Goliath, Habermaaß, Hans im Glück, Hasbro (MB, Parker), Hutter Trade (Huch &friends), Jumbo, Kosmos, Mattel, Noris, Piatnik, Ravensburger, Schmidt-Spiele, Selecta, Winning Moves, Zoch.

Spiele-Autoren-Zunft e.V. (SAZ)
Office / Mrs. Marion Cerny
Rinnenbachstr. 8

73760 Ostfildern
Germany

All other communication data like email, fax and bank account remain unchanged.

In January 2013, the SAZ became a member of the Inititiative Urheberrecht (Initiative for Copyright Law). Here, trade unions and other organizations representing the interests of originators and performing artists work together. The initiative sees itself as a discussion forum that pools all areas of creative work, and actively advocates the interests of all those who engage in creative work. The SAZ considers the initiative an effective consortium for bringing the interests of originators to the public's attention.

In January 2013, the SAZ also became a sustaining member of the Institut für Urheber- und Medienrecht (Institute of Copyright and Media Law). The institute considers itself a bridge between science and practice in the field of media. Through its publications, events and academic contributions, it actively promotes the development of the full range of communication law. In this context, the SAZ wants to raise the experts' awareness regarding game designers' interests in terms of intellectual property rights.

Since 2008, the SAZ has been already a member of the Deutscher Kulturrat (German Cultural Council), specifically the Sektion Soziokultur und kulturelle Bildung (Socio-Culture and Cultural Education Section).

We award the Munich publisher HANS IM GLÜCK

This publishing company has set an example through its exemplary presentation of the authors with text and picture on the package. This level of presentation recognizes the authors' role as originators and increases their visibility to the public and to players. Therefore, this publisher deserves our acknowledgment.

So you’d like to propose a game idea to Pegasus?

We would love to see your extraordinary and innovative ideas. Sorry, but just at this moment we cannot take any more new game ideas, because we already have a lot of them just now. We are very sorry about that and will announce here when this circumstance changes again.

October 12th, 2012 / Executive Board of the Game Designer Association (SAZ)

• Alle 23.59 del 20 Dicembre 2012 by Benedetto Degli Innocenti
• AsteDroids by Matteo Boca
• Calamity by Valerio Zini and Isabella Amoretti
• Dead End by Andrea Guerrieri and Roberto Pancrazi
• Endheart by Max Crotta
• Masque of the Red Death by Orin Bishop

Link to the website of the organizers

One of the key points is the liability regarding the rights of third parties. In this context, one needs to know that over 1,000 new games are released every year; consequently, no designer (and no publisher either) is actually able to fully examine whether a parallel development might already exist somewhere in the world or has just come on the market.

Example Asmodee: The French company demands the designers assume all liability and grant the company the continued distribution of a work even if it is subject to allegations of an infringement of intellectual property rights. In our opinion, a contractual commitment providing for the sale of games that infringes on the rights of a third party is legally void because one cannot demand or stipulate the impossible. But even if you consider that the allegations might come to nothing, the publisher's signal is clear: The designer is supposed to take on the full responsibility that the company can sell the entire print run, even if there are legal obstructions.

The game designers are not against taking on responsibility; this is part of any authorship. In the case of gross violation of due diligence or even of clear plagiarism, the author has to be liable, of course. But the publishers refuse to include in the contracts their own responsibility to check the market and to create accordingly fair arrangements if a serious issue arises.

The Ravensburger Spieleverlag acted in a similar way. In some points of the new license contract for game designers, the publisher has accepted the reasons given by the SAZ, e.g., in terms of liability; however, the publisher refuses to declare its own duty of checking and thus its co-responsibility. Regarding this and other key points, the company unfortunately remained inflexible during the discussion that took place in early September 2012 at the urging of the SAZ.

This new Ravensburger contract is virtually a perfect example of how the former trusting collaboration with designers is virtually rescinded. This is all the more unfortunate as the previous contract was discussed thoroughly twelve years ago, in the course of a workshop involving the SAZ. At that time, the participants came to largely acceptable arrangements, which set a standard in the game industry.

For example, the new Ravensburger contract penalizes the designer with a one-percent reduction in royalties if his game is advertised on TV. Nowhere in the world has this been done before. Other publishers make it a condition that the game be suited for TV advertising, or they are at least content if they are offered "gems" that have such a potential. It is quite bizarre that Ravensburger makes the designer pay for the company's natural obligations, such as promoting the game.

Ravensburger now stipulates that the title of the game does not become a part of the work and belongs to the company when the contract expires. With this, they clearly stand against the prevailing legal practice (which is possible, however, due to the freedom of contract definition). The list of setbacks which are to the designers' disadvantage is too long to be listed here completely. The detailed comments by the SAZ – regarding the reaction to the discussion in Ravensburg of all the objectionable points in the revised contract version – have unfortunately remained unanswered as yet.

The game companies and their association, the Fachgruppe Spiel, have gotten concrete suggestions from the SAZ regarding fair minimum standards (see below). For some resolution, the parties involved should come to the table. A positive example, we think, is the standard contract that the Verband Deutscher Schriftsteller (Association of German Writers) and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) agreed upon years ago. We don't ask for more or less than FAIR PLAY, in order that designers and publishers continue to see each other as partners.

• 11-Point List for Minimum Standards in Contracts between Game Publishers and Game Designers

• Code on Matters of Intellectual Property Rights With Respect to Games

October 08, 2012 / Executive Board of the Game Designer Association (SAZ)

Subsequent Notices:

• Please note as well the editorial and the report on page 61 of the current SPIELBOX edition 5/2012 related to this theme.
• After talking with the Ravensburger Spieleverlag early October, the SAZ published a further press release on October 12th "Back to Fair Play" which brought the two sides expressed willingness to contimue the talks.