Goodman Games

Hey everyone,

I know the boards here are "gaming" and "DCCRPG" related, but I was reading the papers the evening while having my 'morning' tea and I came across an article that I think we should all be aware of as I think it might cause a bit of grief for us all. If I'm wrong then no harm done, but this could be big. I figured this is the best place for the thread, but moderators should move it to a better spot if there is one... or remove it if they don't think its important.

I found the following article in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19766747

The US Supreme Court just made a landmark decision concerning copyrights, and the reason I think it is a concern is that they mention the works of J.R.R. Tolkien...

I haven't found the specifics of the case yet, so I don't know which parts of Tolkien's works (if any) are no longer public domain... but last time I checked mithril as a cool metal for armor was his invention. I'm not a literary scholar or anything, but I don't recall any previous authors using the word or concept. Are we going to have to start paying someone for the right to use that term, or any of the others from his work that have found their way into the general gaming population?

elf, dwarf, hobbit, orc... I could be mistaken, but didn't the modern pop culture versions of these words start with his work?

I would be very curious if the legal department at Goodman Games had any thoughts or advice on this issue.

I'm no lawyer either, but according to the wikipedia entry on mithril:

The name mithril or similarly spelled variations (mithral, mythril, and others) is present in other fictional contexts like role-playing games, video games and books since the Tolkien Estate did not trademark the term.

I may move this to General instead of 3PP.

Tortog wrote:elf, dwarf, hobbit, orc... I could be mistaken, but didn't the modern pop culture versions of these words start with his work?

I think that "Hobbit" is the stinker. Most of the other words in LotR were probably used enough elsewhere that the Tolkien estate wouldn't be able to lay claim to them. (Maybe balrog and a few others, but those aren't really used much in RPGs.)

@ finarvyn> Moving the tread... Fine by me.

I should say that I'm not a lawyer either, but I did some more research yesterday though I didn't get a chance to post. I discovered that until this Supreme Court decision, as far as copyright is concerned:

a) books are governed by the copyright laws in place at the time of publishing; unless someone has bought up the rights to the information and re-published more recently. Even then, I think it's only the derived work that has the copyright.

b) everything radically changed in 1976... prior to this year, most books are available for others to use as inspiration for derivative works.

What makes this Supreme court decision so interesting is that they have set the precedent that information that was thought to be public domain is no longer "fixed". Someone could come along years later and pull something out of the public domain even if folks have been using it... and they might be liable for years worth of back-dated royalties.

Where this case intersects with Tolkien's work is with the Silmarillion; it was published by Tolkein's son in 1976 after his fathers death... The problem stems from the fact that the 1976 copyright law wasn't actually ratified and signed into law until 1978. As far as I can tell, because the concepts of mithril, elf, dwarf, hobbit, and orc were published before 1976, they are in the public domain, but anything published in the Silmarillion is now off limits without paying for permission.

The bottom line is this: I think we're all going to need to be much more careful about where we draw our inspiration from.

Wow, let me see what I can help clarify here because I think you misread the article:

Tortog wrote: I should say that I'm not a lawyer either, but I did some more research yesterday though I didn't get a chance to post. I discovered that until this Supreme Court decision, as far as copyright is concerned:

a) books are governed by the copyright laws in place at the time of publishing; unless someone has bought up the rights to the information and re-published more recently. Even then, I think it's only the derived work that has the copyright.

Prior to the 1976 copyright act, copyright had to be actively renewed, and the length of time was different. For our purposes here, that is the only significant change. Works in the public domain then are still in the public domain now, and things copyrighted before 1978 had their copyright extended to 75 years if they were not already in the public domain. Works like the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings have never been out of copyright. New works published by an author after 1978 have a new copyright in line with international treaties of the time: life of the author plus 50 years. The Sonny Bono copyright act in 1998 basically extended these numbers to 95 years (to keep corporations happy) and life of the author plus 70 years (to be in line with new international treaties). For practical purposes, everything published before 1923 is in the public domain (at this moment, the new Supreme Court decision makes a few changes, and music publishing has it's own confusing nightmare of copyright laws that are completely different).

Tortog wrote: b) everything radically changed in 1976... prior to this year, most books are available for others to use as inspiration for derivative works.

Nope. Derivative works were still derivative works, even back then. If they were unauthorized, you could be sued for them. A famous example is National Comics Publications vs Fawcett Publications. National felt Captain Marvel was derivative of Superman, and filed suit in 1941. The case was decided in their favor. Sometimes rights holders let things slide they could probably win, other times they win when it's questionable something really is a derivative, but the definition has not significantly changed in the last couple of centuries.

Tortog wrote: What makes this Supreme court decision so interesting is that they have set the precedent that information that was thought to be public domain is no longer "fixed". Someone could come along years later and pull something out of the public domain even if folks have been using it... and they might be liable for years worth of back-dated royalties.

Um, in some ways. I read it as specifically related to things that were still under copyright in other parts of the world but not here. So if the rights holder is in Germany, where the work is still under copyright, but it was in the public domain here, Congress could pass a law declaring it is still protected by copyright. This does not mean they could take say Dracula out of the public domain and award the book rights to someone.

Tortog wrote: Where this case intersects with Tolkien's work is with the Silmarillion; it was published by Tolkein's son in 1976 after his fathers death... The problem stems from the fact that the 1976 copyright law wasn't actually ratified and signed into law until 1978.

Nope, this doesn't affect any of Tolkien's works at all. His first published work was in 1936 and never went out of copyright, so it is still protected until 2031 under current law.

Tortog wrote: As far as I can tell, because the concepts of mithril, elf, dwarf, hobbit, and orc were published before 1976, they are in the public domain, but anything published in the Silmarillion is now off limits without paying for permission.

Those terms, aside from hobbit, are not trademarked and are therefore available for anyone to use. Trademark is different than copyright. You can't copyright a name, but you can trademark it to protect it. They did do this for hobbit, which is why Dungeons and Dragons had to switch from Hobbit in the original white box rules released in 1976 to using the term halfling in 1977 during the 6th printing. They also had to remove the term ent, which is also protected by trademark. The other terms/concepts: elf, dwarf, and orc, were all mythological constructs at least a thousand years old, and can't be trademarked or protected by copyright. In fact, elves were used in the same "modern pop culture version" before Tolkien, in works such as "The King of Elfland's Daughter" by Lord Dunsany. Dwarves have been used consistently in fantasy and folklore for just as long, only were more common and used basically identically to how Tolkien used them. You can look at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for an example.

Tortog wrote: The bottom line is this: I think we're all going to need to be much more careful about where we draw our inspiration from.

Not really, people should be just as careful as before, but this really doesn't change anything that affects fantasy roleplaying games.

bhandelman wrote: I read it as specifically related to things that were still under copyright in other parts of the world but not here. So if the rights holder is in Germany, where the work is still under copyright, but it was in the public domain here, Congress could pass a law declaring it is still protected by copyright. This does not mean they could take say Dracula out of the public domain and award the book rights to someone.

A real world example of this is Peter Pan, which is still under copyright in Britain, but not in the US.

Thanx for the info... I knew there would be folks out there with a a better grasp on this stuff than I have. I can't escape the irony though... for years now I've been listening to folks in the business world b!tch and complain about China stealing intellectual properties and other patents. How can we get upset over this kind of stuff if we as a Nation aren't willing to respect the copyrights of other countries?

Aaaaand with that we should probably move this thread to 'general'

Tortog wrote:Thanx for the info... I knew there would be folks out there with a a better grasp on this stuff than I have. I can't escape the irony though... for years now I've been listening to folks in the business world b!tch and complain about China stealing intellectual properties and other patents. How can we get upset over this kind of stuff if we as a Nation aren't willing to respect the copyrights of other countries?

Aaaaand with that we should probably move this thread to 'general'

Well, it's a bit more complex than that, isn't it? I mean, China's IP "theft" centers mostly around computer software and DVDs. That's different from, say, someone taking IP that's solidly in the public domain and then "re-IPing" in an almost retroactive fashion. Think of it like this...

• How would people of any Christian faith handle Israel re-claiming the IP rights to Jesus, God/Jehovah and any other character in the Bible? Especially once they declared the Roman Catholic version of the Virgin Mary violated their retroactive trademark/copyright? I mean, what would happen if every church on every corner had to pay royalties to the state of Israel all of a sudden?
• Considering I'm writing Transylvanian Adventures and all, I've been neck deep in this stuff and I got to say I'm okay with IP going into the public domain at some point, especially after it's been inactive for an extended period of time. Case in point, Dracula. Or Frankenstein. Two things near and dear to my publication. Another case in point, Alan Moore's The Watchmen. That book would've never happened with stricter IP that kept the characters Moore used out of the public domain. Yes, Alan Moore pulled supers out of the public domain to write the Watchmen. As well as with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Having copyright pass from heir-to-heir in this day and age is tantamount to establishing a noble class of IP. Why should I have to pay Stoker's great-great-great-great-nephew a royalty for using Dracula? Did he have a hand in writing that work of fiction? And how does that distant descendant lay a greater claim than another relative? 300 years from now, do we still want Bill Gates and Steve Jobs' descendants getting free money from operating systems or device trademarks that are no longer in use, development or otherwise? Talk about winning a Sperm Bank Lottery... Essentially we're wanting to create a class of divine right, noblisse oblige Paris Hilton's who do nothing but squat on a mummified ancestor's good idea. While we're at it, I'm laying a stake on Robert Louis Stevenson, Ambrose Bierce and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If I can draw any line of inheritance to any of those, I guess I can claim I've got skin in the game too.
• Copyright laws in other countries can be really weird. Forcing the US to acknowledge all IP laws in the world would be like forcing all the states in the union to recognize the drinking laws of the driest county in the Union. Imagine if New Orleans had to observe the no-drinking standards of Pikeville, Tennessee. It becomes a race to the lowest common denominator. Sure, the laws of Great Britain might not be so bad. But what about a country like Uzbekistan where they might pass a law that all copyrights belong to the dictatorial state. Does the US award the copyright ownership of Windows 7 to the Supreme President and All-Father of Latveria?

I see no harm no foul as long as the characters are no longer being actively used by the IP holder and/or a specific amount of time has passed. Having IP exist in perpetuity to whoever controls it is crazy, IMO. Because corporations can live forever and they can't really create IP. People do that on behalf of the corporation. A corporation with no people in it creates nothing. It does nothing. It becomes a glorified jar-under-the-mattress for investors. I think a person has to control IP. Not a thing. I'm in the minority. But whatevs.

IP is a funky thing. As a creator of a metric ton of IP, I appreciate the protection of copyrights. But I also recognize that for new art to emerge old art needs to be able to be composted in the collective unconsciousness. I mean, if some dude from Norway held the IP to the Nordic Gods, Stan Lee wouldn't have Thor. He would've also been sued by the descendants of RL Stevenson for the Hulk.

Part of IP, in my opinion, is protecting the now. But it should also be letting go of the past as well. Again, IMO.

smathis wrote: I think a person has to control IP. Not a thing.

Corporations are people. Hadn't you heard?

IP is a social/legal construct just like the corporation. And, just like corporations, the rules that were set up centuries ago and occasionally updated decades ago aren't quite right for today's day and age. They also aren't nearly as universal as folks think. For example, it is my understanding that in Germany a certain types of creator (including game designers) cannot simply sell all IP to their creation. All they can really do is a form of license. So, there is no way for a corporation to have an ironclad claim of pure "ownership" on an idea that does even better than expected. This is quite different than the U.S. where many corporations make IP ownership a dealbreaker clause in their contracts.

We need to re-imagine IP to better align with the goals of making creative work worthwhile by giving credit and payment to inventors and their supporters in this digital era, while also recognizing that you can't unring the bell on digital communities and the possibilities of people easily sharing what they have with each other.

I don't have an answer, but this removal of IP from public domain wouldn't be an issue if the overall period of protection wasn't so extended.

mythfish wrote:Corporations are people. Hadn't you heard?

Well played!

What's the banner-ad say?

"I'll believe corporations are people when the State of Texas executes one"?

meinvt wrote:I don't have an answer, but this removal of IP from public domain wouldn't be an issue if the overall period of protection wasn't so extended.

+d7!

smathis wrote: Well, it's a bit more complex than that, isn't it? I mean, China's IP "theft" centers mostly around computer software and DVDs. That's different from, say, someone taking IP that's solidly in the public domain and then "re-IPing" in an almost retroactive fashion. Think of it like this...

Speaking as the philosopher that I am, I really don't see a difference... If we are going to operate under the paradigm that IP is to be strongly protected from infringement, then stealing is stealing; we have laws to prevent it, so do they. We would respect their laws, even if it is distasteful, if we're to act honorably.

• How would people of any Christian faith handle Israel re-claiming the IP rights to Jesus, God/Jehovah and any other character in the Bible? Especially once they declared the Roman Catholic version of the Virgin Mary violated their retroactive trademark/copyright? I mean, what would happen if every church on every corner had to pay royalties to the state of Israel all of a sudden?

Let's all agree to leave religion out of this, copyright laws are complicated enough without adding an extra serving of f**ked up.

[*] Considering I'm writing Transylvanian Adventures and all, I've been neck deep in this stuff and I got to say I'm okay with IP going into the public domain at some point, especially after it's been inactive for an extended period of time. Case in point, Dracula. Or Frankenstein. Two things near and dear to my publication. Another case in point, Alan Moore's The Watchmen. That book would've never happened with stricter IP that kept the characters Moore used out of the public domain. Yes, Alan Moore pulled supers out of the public domain to write the Watchmen. As well as with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Having copyright pass from heir-to-heir in this day and age is tantamount to establishing a noble class of IP. Why should I have to pay Stoker's great-great-great-great-nephew a royalty for using Dracula? Did he have a hand in writing that work of fiction? And how does that distant ancestor lay a greater claim than another relative? 300 years from now, do we still want Bill Gates and Steve Jobs' descendants getting free money from operating systems or device trademarks that are no longer in use, development or otherwise? Talk about winning a Sperm Bank Lottery... Essentially we're wanting to create a class of divine right, noblisse oblige Paris Hilton's who do nothing but squat on a mummified ancestor's good idea. While we're at it, I'm laying a stake on Robert Louis Stevenson, Ambrose Bierce and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If I can draw any line of inheritance to any of those, I guess I can claim I've got skin in the game too.

I'm right there in the trench next to you on the all of this, but I highlighted the part I wanted to address. In my work with 'mutations' I have discovered that it is quite a trick to come up with original work. The research available on the IP concept of mutations and mutants in the context of the FRPG environment is staggering. In the end I decided it's impossible not to cross paths with older material, all I can hope to do is put a sufficiently different spin on it. You are quite correct about how the structure of the laws creates an elite IP class, but this mechanic is quite common... and nothing new. The Masons started out as a trade guild trying to protect there technical data, look where they ended up.

[*] Copyright laws in other countries can be really weird. Forcing the US to acknowledge all IP laws in the world would be like forcing all the states in the union to recognize the drinking laws of the driest county in the Union. Imagine if New Orleans had to observe the no-drinking standards of Pikeville, Tennessee. It becomes a race to the lowest common denominator. Sure, the laws of Great Britain might not be so bad. But what about a country like Uzbekistan where they might pass a law that all copyrights belong to the dictatorial state. Does the US award the copyright ownership of Windows 7 to the Supreme President and All-Father of Latveria?[/list]

I see no harm no foul as long as the characters are no longer being actively used by the IP holder and/or a specific amount of time has passed. Having IP exist in perpetuity to whoever controls it is crazy, IMO. Because corporations can live forever and they can't really create IP. People do that on behalf of the corporation. A corporation with no people in it creates nothing. It does nothing. It becomes a glorified jar-under-the-mattress for investors. I think a person has to control IP. Not a thing. I'm in the minority. But whatevs.

Again, It may be distasteful, but if we want them to honor our IP laws we must do likewise. Otherwise there's no real point in having them.

IP is a funky thing. As a creator of a metric ton of IP, I appreciate the protection of copyrights. But I also recognize that for new art to emerge old art needs to be able to be composted in the collective unconsciousness. I mean, if some dude from Norway held the IP to the Nordic Gods, Stan Lee wouldn't have Thor. He would've also been sued by the ancestors of RL Stevenson for the Hulk.

Part of IP, in my opinion, is protecting the now. But it should also be letting go of the past as well. Again, IMO.

Agreed, especially the part I emphasized, and your last statement definitely appeals to my inner Buddhist. I don't have any answers either except to say that I think the trail that leads to a solution starts with the 'copy-left' idea put forward in the computer industry. I'm not in the computer world, though many of my friends are, so I've only been tangentially aware of the Open Source movement. The other day I watched a great documentary on the rise of that movement called "Revolution OS" and I think a lot of the stuff they're talking about in the computer industry could be applied to the entertainment industry.

----

As far as Texas executing a Corporation, it used to be possible! I clipped the following from Wikipedia on Corporations-

In the United States, government chartering began to fall out of vogue in the mid-19th century. Corporate law at the time was focused on protection of the public interest, and not on the interests of corporate shareholders. Corporate charters were closely regulated by the states. Forming a corporation usually required an act of legislature. Investors generally had to be given an equal say in corporate governance, and corporations were required to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters. Many private firms in the 19th century avoided the corporate model for these reasons

When corporations misbehaved, they got the axe!

Tortog wrote:

smathis wrote: Well, it's a bit more complex than that, isn't it? I mean, China's IP "theft" centers mostly around computer software and DVDs. That's different from, say, someone taking IP that's solidly in the public domain and then "re-IPing" in an almost retroactive fashion. Think of it like this...

Speaking as the philosopher that I am, I really don't see a difference... If we are going to operate under the paradigm that IP is to be strongly protected from infringement, then stealing is stealing; we have laws to prevent it, so do they. We would respect their laws, even if it is distasteful, if we're to act honorably.

Don't see a difference? Hmm. I do. I think there's a solid difference between setting up laws that protect against the piracy of software and DVDs versus allowing a distant, infinitely removed descendent of William Shakespeare the right to retroactively claim copyright against his great-great-great-uncle's-great-grandfather's-nephew's plays.

Tortog wrote:

• How would people of any Christian faith handle Israel re-claiming the IP rights to Jesus, God/Jehovah and any other character in the Bible? Especially once they declared the Roman Catholic version of the Virgin Mary violated their retroactive trademark/copyright? I mean, what would happen if every church on every corner had to pay royalties to the state of Israel all of a sudden?

Let's all agree to leave religion out of this, copyright laws are complicated enough without adding an extra serving of f**ked up.

Yet the point stands. If we're talking about people going back in time to claim copyright on whatever they can trace a lineage back to, the Bible would be at the top of my list. If my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather wrote the Book of Revelations, you better believe I'm laying some smack-*** claim on that and then suing the authors of the Left Behind series for copyright infringement.

Tortog wrote:

[*] Considering I'm writing Transylvanian Adventures and all, I've been neck deep in this stuff and I got to say I'm okay with IP going into the public domain at some point, especially after it's been inactive for an extended period of time. Case in point, Dracula. Or Frankenstein. Two things near and dear to my publication. Another case in point, Alan Moore's The Watchmen. That book would've never happened with stricter IP that kept the characters Moore used out of the public domain. Yes, Alan Moore pulled supers out of the public domain to write the Watchmen. As well as with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Having copyright pass from heir-to-heir in this day and age is tantamount to establishing a noble class of IP. Why should I have to pay Stoker's great-great-great-great-nephew a royalty for using Dracula? Did he have a hand in writing that work of fiction? And how does that distant ancestor lay a greater claim than another relative? 300 years from now, do we still want Bill Gates and Steve Jobs' descendants getting free money from operating systems or device trademarks that are no longer in use, development or otherwise? Talk about winning a Sperm Bank Lottery... Essentially we're wanting to create a class of divine right, noblisse oblige Paris Hilton's who do nothing but squat on a mummified ancestor's good idea. While we're at it, I'm laying a stake on Robert Louis Stevenson, Ambrose Bierce and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If I can draw any line of inheritance to any of those, I guess I can claim I've got skin in the game too.

I'm right there in the trench next to you on the all of this, but I highlighted the part I wanted to address. In my work with 'mutations' I have discovered that it is quite a trick to come up with original work. The research available on the IP concept of mutations and mutants in the context of the FRPG environment is staggering. In the end I decided it's impossible not to cross paths with older material, all I can hope to do is put a sufficiently different spin on it. You are quite correct about how the structure of the laws creates an elite IP class, but this mechanic is quite common... and nothing new. The Masons started out as a trade guild trying to protect there technical data, look where they ended up.

Yeah. But I'd even say that was different too. The Masons are a guild that got wildly... well... wild. In my mind, that's different from people logging on to Ancestry.com to find out if they have a relative in the distant past with some original work they can lay claim to. The Masons were trying to protect something that they created and had a vested interest in protecting. The latter case is just a bunch of people wanting to win a Sperm Bank Lottery so they can hire a bunch of lawyers and not have to work anymore.

Tortog wrote:

[*] Copyright laws in other countries can be really weird. Forcing the US to acknowledge all IP laws in the world would be like forcing all the states in the union to recognize the drinking laws of the driest county in the Union. Imagine if New Orleans had to observe the no-drinking standards of Pikeville, Tennessee. It becomes a race to the lowest common denominator. Sure, the laws of Great Britain might not be so bad. But what about a country like Uzbekistan where they might pass a law that all copyrights belong to the dictatorial state. Does the US award the copyright ownership of Windows 7 to the Supreme President and All-Father of Latveria?[/list]

I see no harm no foul as long as the characters are no longer being actively used by the IP holder and/or a specific amount of time has passed. Having IP exist in perpetuity to whoever controls it is crazy, IMO. Because corporations can live forever and they can't really create IP. People do that on behalf of the corporation. A corporation with no people in it creates nothing. It does nothing. It becomes a glorified jar-under-the-mattress for investors. I think a person has to control IP. Not a thing. I'm in the minority. But whatevs.

Again, It may be distasteful, but if we want them to honor our IP laws we must do likewise. Otherwise there's no real point in having them.

Srsly?

I mean, there's a reason the US is having problems with China in regards to IP protection. A multi-national race-to-the-bottom like this would all but invalidate any serious IP law in the known universe. We're not talking about a situation where "all ships rise here". We're talking about draining the bathtub so we don't hurt Mongolia's feelings.

Tortog wrote:

IP is a funky thing. As a creator of a metric ton of IP, I appreciate the protection of copyrights. But I also recognize that for new art to emerge old art needs to be able to be composted in the collective unconsciousness. I mean, if some dude from Norway held the IP to the Nordic Gods, Stan Lee wouldn't have Thor. He would've also been sued by the ancestors of RL Stevenson for the Hulk.

Part of IP, in my opinion, is protecting the now. But it should also be letting go of the past as well. Again, IMO.

Agreed, especially the part I emphasized, and your last statement definitely appeals to my inner Buddhist. I don't have any answers either except to say that I think the trail that leads to a solution starts with the 'copy-left' idea put forward in the computer industry. I'm not in the computer world, though many of my friends are, so I've only been tangentially aware of the Open Source movement. The other day I watched a great documentary on the rise of that movement called "Revolution OS" and I think a lot of the stuff they're talking about in the computer industry could be applied to the entertainment industry.

I work in software and I have mixed feelings on the Open Source and Copyleft movements. On one hand, they're a godsend. I seriously could not function in almost any capacity on a daily basis without them. On the other hand, I also wonder how these guys pay their bills. And I've seen more than a few Open Source solutions that I'd depended on go up in smoke spectacularly due to what I'd call funding issues.

So while I love, love, LOVE them. I'm always a little nervous for them. And wish there was some way they could monetize their IP through non-traditional rights systems without resorting to, well, charity. Some have. And god bless them. I hope they continue to have success.

Tortog wrote: As far as Texas executing a Corporation, it used to be possible! I clipped the following from Wikipedia on Corporations-

In the United States, government chartering began to fall out of vogue in the mid-19th century. Corporate law at the time was focused on protection of the public interest, and not on the interests of corporate shareholders. Corporate charters were closely regulated by the states. Forming a corporation usually required an act of legislature. Investors generally had to be given an equal say in corporate governance, and corporations were required to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters. Many private firms in the 19th century avoided the corporate model for these reasons

When corporations misbehaved, they got the axe!

Too bad that would never happen in today's world. Corporations misbehave now and they get a billion dollar bailout.

Once again proof that we ignore the wisdom of our elders at our own peril.

Speaking of which, the lifespan of their copyright laws was SIGNIFICANTLY shorter than the current laws. Maybe they were on to something there too?

Just sayin'.