Filing a Rights Inquiry Responsibly
If you are a copyright owner, tabletop publisher, freelance author, or authorized legal representative, here is how to file an inquiry with TheCrazyGM, what information is required, and how our operators investigate each case.
This guide explains how rights complaints and inquiries are submitted and handled on TheCrazyGM. It provides operational transparency into our review queue, but is not formal legal advice. For formal statutory matters or legal questions, consult qualified counsel.
Anyone wishing to submit a rights inquiry must use our dedicated Rights Reporting Form. To protect our creator community from automated spam, fraudulent claims, and malicious harassment, our intake requires the following baseline standards:
- Platform Account Gate: You must be signed into a verified platform account. This guarantees a secure, reliable communication channel between you and our review team, and prevents anonymous abuse.
- Affirmative Good-Faith Attestation: You must check an affirmative statement confirming that you have a good-faith belief the disputed material is unauthorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law, and affirming the accuracy of your submission under penalty of false representation.
- Filing Capacity: You must specify your legal authority—whether you are the direct copyright/trademark owner, an authorized agent, or legal counsel.
- Electronic Signature: You must type your full legal name as a binding digital signature affirming your authority to act on behalf of the rights holder.
To ensure swift and fair triage, please ensure your claim addresses legally protected material under United States copyright and trademark law:
| Actionable Claims (We Investigate & Restrict) | Non-Actionable Claims (Generic / Unprotected) |
|---|---|
|
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Unprotectable Game Mechanics: Under 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), copyright does not protect functional rules, mathematical algorithms, or procedures. If a contributor has rewritten all prose and renamed all proprietary terms, the underlying numeric mechanics are not subject to takedown.
When completing the reporting form, providing clear, structured coordinates enables our operators to act quickly:
- Record URL: The exact public URL of the reported content on TheCrazyGM (e.g.
https://thecrazygm.com/ogl/pf1e/monsters/reported-beast/). - Target Coordinates: Providing the system (
pf1eordnd5e) and record type (monster, feat, spell, item, etc.) helps operators immediately identify the database entry. - Specific Material at Issue: Quote the exact sentences, creature name, or paragraphs that you claim infringe your work. Generalized claims across entire libraries cannot be triaged effectively.
- Rights Basis & Source Citation: Name your original publication, publication year, author/company name, and whether a formal copyright registration exists.
TheCrazyGM is committed to fair, transparent community moderation:
- No Automated Bots: No automated script or classifier removes content or determines infringement. Every report is examined by an authorized human operator following our public Triage Runbook.
- Reversible Protective Restriction: If your complaint presents a credible, supported claim, the operator may transition the record to Temporarily restricted while facts are reviewed. This suppresses the record from public compendium views, preserving the status quo while facts are gathered.
- Contributor Notification & Remediation: The contributor is promptly notified with a unique Case ID and given the opportunity to respond. Where an issue can be cured—such as renaming a creature to an original term and rewriting expressive lore—we encourage cooperative remediation via our recovery process.
- Append-Only Audit Trail: Every action, timestamp, and communication round is permanently recorded in an append-only event log.
Reviewed by Eco.