James Lowder

What we owe to those who came before us — and those who come next: Letter from the Editor The editor reflects on the legacy of his resilient ancestor, Francis Lowder, and the current duty of journalists to speak truth in challenging times.

From the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Chris Quinn, who is apparently a cousin. This is a sharp piece of writing and a timely political statement I certainly endorse. Francis Lowder is my second great-grandfather, and the picture includes my grandfather and uncle. I have Francis's GAR medal.

Highest recommendation for Raymond Biesinger's 2025 book, 9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off. It's a chatty, narrative-based primer for artists and writers on the various ways your work can be stolen and options for responding. The emphasis on creative community is especially welcome right now.

Wide black and white illustration by Morelock aka @morelockarts.bsky.social. It shows a sequence of events from left to write, stretched over many years, where authors write stories which children then read, then when they're older they bring their own interpretation of what they read into their games, then one of their players takes their interpretation of that into writing a book of their own, and then a whole new generation reads that book and so on...

⚔️Ah, the long conversation between S&S fiction and gaming!🎲
Read James Lowder's fascinating history, illustrated by @morelockarts.bsky.social, in issue five of New Edge Sword & Sorcery: newedgeswordandsorcery.com/product-cate...

More about the unintended release here: www.axios.com/2025/12/22/6...

WATCH: The 60 Minutes CECOT Segment I was sent the CECOT segment anonymously in a group chat.

The Reich-suppressed 60 Minutes segment on CECOT aired in Canada. Watch it here:

Public Domain Day 2026 | Duke University School of Law January 1, 2026 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1930 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1925! By Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle[1] CC BY 4.0 Please note that this site is only about US l...

On Betty Boop and Nancy Drew--as with Mickey Mouse and other characters, it's important to note what is and is not Public Domain and how trademark can complicate things.

Public Domain Day 2026 | Duke University School of Law January 1, 2026 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1930 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1925! By Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle[1] CC BY 4.0 Please note that this site is only about US l...

Betty Boop, Nancy Drew, The Maltese Falcon, Eliot's "Ash Wednesday," L'Age d'Or, Animal Crackers, Der blaue Engel, several Gershwin compositions, "The St. Louis Blues" as recorded by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong--all these and more entering the Public Domain in the US January 1, 2026.

Top games to gift in 2025 Gaming expert James Lowder shares his top picks for 2025 games, including two-player, family and role-playing games suitable for players of all ages and skill levels, with his favorite game taking the...

My 16th annual Games to Gift segment ran this morning on the Public Radio show "Lake Effect" here in Milwaukee. Link to the segment archive, which includes my PDF notes. Over the years I've covered 200 to 300 tabletop games in the segments, with well over 50,000 words of associated text in my notes.

U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”

The GOP Reich knows their base.

Never trust what should be a public good to the market.

Republicans Prove Irony Is Dead With Vote on Condemning Fascism Republicans hate being called fascist, and yet ...

There is no bottom to this hole.

Your favorite band has a new single? It might be AI With AI music generators widely available, scammers are uploading songs to the pages of inactive artists and dead musicians. Spotify says it is cracking down, but the practice persists.

"The platform admits it is fighting against a ceaseless torrent of AI slop. Spotify says it has removed 75 million 'spammy' tracks from the platform just in the past year."

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.