James Lowder

Calling all writers, SFWA or not! You might be eligible to join a class action lawsuit. Deadline: September 1, 2025.

Also--

Writers, unite! You do not need to be SFWA to be eligible for a lawsuit under the LibGen & PiLiMi Pirated Books Class - but you do need to act soon!

Deadline: September 1, 2025.

Read more about it here, and spread the word widely: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

Generative AI--the thief that keeps on stealing.

It's Breathtaking How Fast AI Is Screwing Up the Education System Thanks to a new breed of chatbots, American stupidity is escalating at an advanced pace.

"Everybody who uses AI is going to get exponentially stupider, and the stupider they get, the more they’ll need to use AI to be able to do stuff that they were previously able to do with their minds."

Trump fires director of U.S. Copyright Office, sources say Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter was appointed to the post by now former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who herself was fired by President Trump earlier this week.

The Reich can't have the USPTO getting in the way of the AI company intellectual property smash and grab.

Well, so far the only tabletop gaming professional I've seen defending the tariffs is someone whose most notable accomplishment in the industry is being the subject of a Rascal News article where their former employees and clients accused them of various predatory abuses. That scans.

Lost manuscript of Merlin and King Arthur legend read for the first time after centuries hidden inside another book For centuries, an intriguing sequel to the tale of Merlin has sat unseen within the bindings of an Elizabethan register. Cutting-edge techniques have revealed it for the first time.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

OpenAI urges U.S. to allow AI models to train on copyrighted material The tech giant behind ChatGPT urged the Trump administration to let go of “unnecessarily burdensome” regulations on artificial intelligence.

The techbro smash and grab AI campaign continues, with the latest push a tacit admission they have been stealing work all along.

Moms for Liberty renews its fight against social and emotional learning The conservative group views the widely used educational approach as a “Trojan horse” for indoctrination, and it’s training parents to help root it out.

The Reich and its supporters cannot tolerate empathy. It gets in the way of their aspirations for atrocities.

Author photo of James Lowder at a gaming convention.

WELCOME JAMES LOWDER!
@jameslowder.bsky.social will have a brand new article in one of this year's issues. See other contributors, cool art, exclusives and more: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

Of course they are.

If you're putting together your Gary Con schedule, I'll be presenting An Insider History of D&D Fiction on Saturday at 3. It's a free event. Tickets here: tabletop.events/conventions/...

Thomson Reuters' AI copyright win blows a hole in AI industry’s fair use defense Thomson Reuters' AI copyright win blows a hole in AI industry’s fair use defense

The "fair use" AI scraping defense takes a hit.

This includes use in the "walled" official roleplaying game GM aides and art assistants being hawked by some companies in tabletop circles right now. Be sure your contracts and IP licenses strictly preclude any generative AI use, even in programs a publishing partner promises will remain "limited."

A.I. Art Generated With Text Prompts Cannot Be Copyrighted, U.S. Rules Art generated by A.I. from a text prompt cannot be copyrighted, according to new guidance from the U.S. Copyright Office.

Another US ruling confirming you have no claim to copyright protection for your work if you use generative AI. If you're publishing your work or licensing your IP to an outfit feeding their releases into AI, they are potentially undermining your legal protection through the output text or art.

GAMA Expo panelist update. Good stuff!

Tuesday, 5–6 pm:
Building a Long-Term Creative Career in Tabletop
Panelists: Mike Elliott, Bruno Faidutti, Marissa Kelly

Wednesday, noon–1 pm:
Licensing and Transmedia Essentials for the Tabletop Market
Panelists: Nicole Lindroos, Mike Pondsmith, Elisa Teague

Contact Hasbro accounting if you spot anything. They replied right away when I contacted them, and we should be able to sort this out.

TSR/Wizards of the Coast fiction authors, double-check your latest Hasbro royalty statements. Three books for which I should be paid are missing from my audiobook section, another anthology included in error. Royalties for one print/ebook also tallied incorrectly. Mistakes go back several reports.

Designers, Dragons, and More Bundle Adventurer! For a third time we've resurrected the January 2015 Designers, Dragons, and More Bundle, a fine collection of .PDF ebooks that chronicle the history and highlights of the tabletop roleplay...

Bundle of Holding featuring Shannon Appelcline's essential TTRPG history series Designers & Dragons, along with a terrific Gen Con history from Robin Laws and both Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games: The 100 Best. If you missed the bundle the other times it's been offered, now's your chance.

Overlooked No More: Karen Wynn Fonstad, Who Mapped Tolkien’s Middle-earth She was a novice cartographer who landed a dream assignment: to create an atlas of the setting of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

Nice NYT article about fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad. I had the opportunity to work with her at TSR as editorial support on The Forgotten Realms Atlas. Very happy to see her and her work getting this well-deserved attention.

Casual Viewing | Will Tavlin A decade before Airbnb persuaded homeowners to transform their homes into hotels, Netflix convinced its users to turn theirs into mini Netflix warehouses. Customers who held onto their DVDs for longer...

Essential reading. Netflix is a case study in tech bros remaking an entire creative market to eliminate both quality as a goal and the possibility of longterm shared success for the people doing the work. Their hyper-predatory Trickle Up vision for the economy doesn't end with media, of course.

Public Domain Day 2025 is Coming: Here's What to Know A new crop of copyrighted works enters the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025. Here's what it all means.

In anticipation of Public Domain Day 2025, a good piece on what's entering the public domain and why—including, yes, Buck Rogers! (That pained groan you just heard is the reaction from all the post-1984 TSR alum to the mere utterance of the name.)

Happy Hogswatch!

James Lowder James Lowder has worked in fiction and hobby game publishing for more than three decades. He is the editor of the award-winning anthologies Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games, available in pri...

Some of the segments from previous years are housed here:

Top games to gift in 2024 Gaming expert James Lowder shares his top picks for 2024 games, including two-player, family and role-playing games suitable for players of all ages and skill levels, with his favorite game taking the...

The 2024 edition of my Games to Gift segment ran on Milwaukee Public Radio yesterday. (Fifteenth year, somehow.) Games covered include Adventure Party, Forgery, Life in Reterra, Wyrmspan, Hard Rock: 1977, Devil's Dandy Dogs, and more. The archive page includes my full PDF write-up.

If you're putting together your potential schedule for Gary Con, I'll be presenting "An Insider History of D&D Fiction" on Saturday afternoon. Details here:

'Our big fear': How Trump’s plan to privatize USPS could have 'disastrous consequences' President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration is considering major reforms to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that include privatizing the agency, according to a new report.The Washington Post...

Privatizing the USPS would be especially damaging to creators and indie publishers, as well as anyone working or living in rural areas. www.alternet.org/trump-privat...

So this just went public …

Check your account settings for DMs.

YouTube video by Reading D&D Aloud Appendix N in Dungeon Crawl Classics with James Lowder- Ep 32

@benriggs.bsky.social and I chat about DCC and Appendix N, and the interplay of fiction and TTRPG rules, on the latest episode of Reading D&D Aloud.

I've written for and edited works on the academic fringe (Hobby Games: The 100 Best, The Munchkin Book, etc.) I come from the game/game-related media side as a creator and editor, but have a Master's in English from UW–Milwaukee and a BA from Marquette (English & History). Some teaching, as well.