Yes, of course. We had already been in regular contact with LA/BS and informed Markus and Tobei about this before the project was published. Even though we started the first discussions in a constructive and communicative manner, we have so far not been able to achieve any result. We hope that will change because we want to work on a consensus that will enable everyone to continue to use the Mitraspera game world that we all know and love! From our side, further discussion is planned, just as we would like to continue to make all content available to Live Adventure.

With this association we want to make up for something that has long been overlooked. So far, all those involved had collaborated on the game world project without any formal and detailed agreements between Live Adventure and the volunteer authors about the use of their works.

In this regard, there have always been conflicts or quarrels that have so far been fortunately resolved and have not led to a break in the game world. But for the planned redirection under Burgschneider GmbH, this is understandably not a bearable and legally secure condition. Given professional company standards and corresponding plans for the future, it now seems necessary to work through this topic once so that we can continue to deal fairly with the works created for and by all sides.

We, the association, want to actively help to create a stable basis, especially given that substantial rights to plot, backgrounds, and NPC concepts lie with authors who are members of the association. In our opinion, this association is the best possible solution, as this is the best way to guarantee non-profit status and thus offer the possibility that the rights of the authors are protected, but at the same time their work can be used by anyone for events, stories, etc. 

The shortest answer would be: Because we think it is the right thing to do!

We want Live Adventure to be able to organise events in full legal security. At the same time, however, we also see the creative legacy of many people endangered if everything that was created on a volunteer basis is now to either be deleted from the game world or become the intellectual property of a company.

We are aware that some content was created or provided by the authors for use in Live Adventure events and the authors also agreed that it would be used there. However, this is not the same as transferring all usage rights exclusively, which we deem quite unnecessary.

If we had not taken this step, we would have had to accept that a company that had for many years not been involved at all in the creation of the game world suddenly presents itself as the undisputed exclusive owner of all rights or that the legal situation remains uncertain for everyone involved.

However, we see Mitraspera as a joint project by many people. The freedom of everyone having access to everything and that the world can be used to organise events, develop history, and keep Mitraspera alive, should be available to everyone (and thus also to Live Adventure, as organiser of events) and not to individuals.

Mitraspera is our baby. Many have actively contributed to making the game world what it is today. We did it voluntarily and enthusiastically. And we want you all to be able to enjoy the result of our work. We want to make our work freely available to you and we do not want anyone to restrict this will.

No, the association does not act on behalf of Live Adventure or Burgschneider. We are an independent non-profit association and only speak or act on our behalf and that of our members. We strive, now and in the future, to communicate as clearly and transparently as possible in order to prevent such confusion.

It is, however, important for us to make clear that the association does not inhibit in any way, whether or how its members or supporters want to work for Live Adventure or Burgschneider, be that as employees, game facilitators, or NPCs.

In fact, we were very happy when it was announced at the team weekend earlier this year that there were plans to convert Live Adventure into a gGmbH (charitable limited company).

We loved the idea of Mitraspera to be managed by a non-profit organisation. According to the latest developments, and as Markus Böhm himself mentioned in one of his videos, this endeavour is likely to not be successful, also due to the corona-related, difficult situation. We have therefore decided to take action ourselves.

Still, before the association was even founded, almost 1.5 years have gone by in which many authors have tried to find common ground with Burgschneider for the consistent world and how to deal fairly with the content. However, the ideas of who has the rights to use the relevant Mitraspera content and how it should be made available to the community still differ.

In this regard, we strive to establish a dialogue with the Burgschneider company and hope for an agreement. Because we are certain about one thing above all: Mitraspera has always been a joint project and it should remain so!

No, we don’t want to prevent that. On the contrary! Live Adventure is welcome to continue using the background of Mitraspera, just like everyone else! Because we are very well aware that only a professionally organised company like Live Adventure can organise a great event like ConQuest. And in order to enable the campaign game and many other events, it must be possible to gain income from the commercial use of licences, for example for other commercial organisers or licenced Mythodea products.

However, it is important to us, at least in relation to the content created by volunteer authors, that the Mythodea community can also access the content freely and unhindered. Of course, we cannot make available any content which belongs to Live Adventure. In many cases, however, it is near impossible to separate one from the other, which is why we so urgently strive for a constructive and amicable solution. It is our understanding that this is a household not easily broken up, so we would rather that everyone can partake equally.

Clearly no! Like you, we want Mitraspera to continue as a game world and project for many. We love the world as much as you do and we don’t want it to be sabotaged. Apart from that, we are very grateful to the Burgschneider company and its shareholders for supporting Live Adventure in an economically difficult phase and thus saving the game world and ensuring its continued existence. Some of our members may not always have the same opinion as the Burgschneider company, but so far we have at least always found ourselves in a constructive and fair dialogue.

Definitely not! The costs for the association are borne by its members and the sustaining members. Due to its non-profit nature, the association is not allowed to give any donation to members or other persons. And so our members are not interested in having their intellectual property capitalised. Rather, the association and its members want to ensure that the previous Mitraspera background remains freely available to everyone.

We have no interest in making money by granting licences or issuing usage rights. Mitraspera e. V. is a non-profit association with no view to gain. Also, the association is not meant to organise role-playing events. It is our wish to keep the contents of the game world Mitraspera available for the whole Mythodea community free of charge or any other restrictions. We absolutely even want to support Live Adventure GmbH’s quite comprehensible corporate interest to produce surplus on major events in order to be able to pay for the costs of promoting the hobby during the rest of the year.

We want to be in contact with all campaign game parties! We warmly invite you to the project and want to work with you on an equal footing. But nobody has to participate if they cannot identify with the project or are not convinced of it. However, we would like to have the opportunity to discuss this in a dialogue. If you did not receive any information from us before the project was published, then we are very sorry. We are happy to include you in our mailing list. http://kampagneninfo.mitraspera.org/

We definitely don’t want that! We communicated openly and clearly from the beginning that we definitely plan to grant Live Adventure GmbH the rights of use (i.e. those of all authors who want to make their content available to the association so that it is freely available to the entire community) and therefore do not want to take it away. The continued existence of the Mitraspera game world is not a problem at all from our side – after all, we want that too! Our statutes even provide for active participation and influence of Live Adventure/BS in the association. We want Mitraspera to continue – for everyone! So we hope that we can resolve all the conflicts that come with it through constructive talks.

If there can really be no compromise with Burgschneider at all, which would be very sad, we would like to find an agreement under which major Burgschneider events, campaign/settler events and the campaign game can continue without the consistent game world of Mitraspera breaking under that strain.

The association was founded primarily by former/current authors and some members of the Mythodea team as a first foundation for joint work. However, how exactly such a situation would be dealt with is decided by all association members in a general assembly and not by a small, fixed group. So we do not have an answer to this at this point.

It is by no means our intention to impose anything on anyone. We currently stand up for the authors’ rights to their content and to point out the existence of the Mitraspera project. And everyone is free to participate, to criticise, to ignore it, to show us another way, or to do something completely different. Because if there is a better way, one without conflicts and uncertainties, we would very much like to go this one. Because we also just want Mitraspera to continue to exist and to remain an exciting game world for the Mythodea community.

We certainly do not intend to damage or even disrupt the campaign game in Mitraspera in any way. Many of the authors in the association have promoted, supported, and even created the campaign game through active support, the Mitrasperan Herald, agreements as VB, as a team member at the events, or in other ways. We are all big fans of the campaign game and not only want to preserve it, we also want to keep it in its existing form. So if there is anything we can do to address this concern, please tell us how.

We would communicate with BS and inform them that we would like to support them in compliance with the background and your wishes as an author or with your cooperation as authors, to write the world/history in such a way that it fits and everyone is satisfied.

This is the task of the background committee of this association, in which of course a position is reserved for reprentatives of major events! After all, we don’t want to exclude anyone, we plan to work together. To this end we have, for example, already sent our polite, objective, and constructive annotations and suggestions regarding the intended changes to the Mythodea campaign to Live Adventure.

No, this is by no means our goal! Rather, we strive for fair and constructive cooperation with LA/BS in every respect.

To do this, we needed to gain a better understanding of copyright and usage rights of such a unique large community project with the support of a specialist lawyer. Because not only we, all authors and organisers, but also LA/BS need legal security to be able to continue organising events.

For starters, we are in contact with lawyers simply because there are fully qualified lawyers, business people, and judges already in our ranks. But our members were presented with licence agreements drawn up by specialist lawyers, which penetrated very deeply into the complex field of copyright, usage and trademark law. Since our own experts did not see themselves as specialists here either, we checked our legal opinion on these documents and the objectives associated with our association’s purpose and sought professional advice. Because we were reluctant to make a claim such as “the Mitraspera game world is a joint project of all authors” without being able to represent it with conviction.

Update: In the meantime we have felt compelled to engage a specialist lawyer, because we had to react to a voluminous lawyer’s letter from BS/LA. As of now we are only defending ourselves and sincerely hope to be able to get back to the negotiating table, but sadly, we cannot be sure this will happen.

The concrete plans for this association have only emerged in the past few weeks (update: decision to found: June 20, 2020; founding date: June 28, 2020), although for years the idea to organise the content of the voluntary authors into such a construct has been coming up again and again. We were very happy with the idea that Burgschneider announced at the beginning of the year. Namely, to try to have Live Adventure be converted to a gGmbH, a non-profit GmbH (charitable limited company).

We really liked the idea that Mitraspera could be managed by a non-profit organisation, and it hasn’t left us since. Unfortunately, the corona pandemic has made the conditions for Burgschneider extremely difficult and at the current time it is not certain whether and when this project can still be implemented. That is why we have now taken action.

Every association member can participate in the association and its task forces, every active member has a vote in the general meeting. And membership in the association is also open to anyone who contributes to the content of the game world. So you are very welcome to have a say! But to found an association and to make it function, it needs a basic number of people and above all a small amount of preparatory work that was done by the founding members so that a basic structure exists.

They have laid the foundation on which you can now build and which you can and should actively use. Do you want to be part of the background committee or determine who manages your content? Absolutely! Do you want to be on the board? Here we go! You want to work on a specific project in a task force, e.g. contribute to the homepage, PR, game mechanics, plot backgrounds? Yes, please!

The association is based on democracy and we look forward to working with your input and improving the association. How everything is regulated at the time of the start and how it can be adapted and changed can be seen in our statutes and in the committee regulations on our homepage.

This is not the task of Mitraspera e. V., which focuses on the content. Organising events is not part of the statutes and therefore not our intention. We leave the organisation of events to the major event organisers and the countless great and motivated campaign organisers.

First of all, the association speaks for its members and their interests in relation to the content of the Mitraspera game world. At the moment we are a group of active and former authors, campaign organisers, artists, team members, and players, who have joined forces and hope that we can convince even more people of our association’s work.

No, this list does not exist, yet. In general, we encourage all volunteer authors to determine for themselves what content they have created for the Mitraspera game world. Because this is not only important for the association, but also for the provision of usage rights for Live Adventure.

Regardless of this, it should be the task of the members of the plot committee elected by the members and the campaign organisers to get an overview of the content, determine the usage rights and then make these things available to the community. However, the founding members of the association have created a lot of in-depth and essential backgrounds and plots of the game world and were therefore able to start on a very solid basis.

But the collection will only really become well-rounded when many other authors support the project.

No, there is no obligation to do that. But because we aim to collect, sort, manage, further develop, and provide the contents of the game world Mitraspera, it would make sense for you to provide your content, irrespective of whether you want to become an active member, a sustaining member or no member of the association at all. An exclusive transfer of usage rights is not necessary for this, since the association also makes the content available to everyone free of charge.

You too have contributed to the world of Mitraspera and made it bigger, more diverse, and more exciting. Like every author, you can also make your work available so that everyone can access it and use it for events, stories, etc. Together wie will make sure that your content can be used on any event, that they are available to the community, and are at the same time subject to the protection of the association.

The campaign organisers together with, among others, the Tribe VBs and the player representatives have the opportunity to elect two of the seven representatives of the background committee. In addition, they can of course also be active members or sustaining members themselves. In addition, there is the possibility, whether member or not, to work in task forces on specific topics and to design projects that are then brought before the background committee in order to expand and shape the world together.

At the current time, the position for the representative of the major event organiser is still vacant on the background committee. Hopefully we will be able to fill this in the course of the discussions with Live Adventure/Burgschneider.

The next election of the background committee will then take place at the next general meeting of the association, which should take place later this year if possible. Then, active members can be put up for election to the background committee, which we would also be very happy about! A lively exchange and a democratically elected body that is accepted by everyone is very important to us. At the moment we have filled the positions from the founding assembly so that the association is able to act.

Furthermore, the name, structure, and duties of the background committee are currently subject to constructive discussion, including open criticism and many suggestions. We would appreciate more input on the matter!

These can be viewed and downloaded here on the homepage, as can the board regulations, which regulate the tasks and election of the background committee.

€ 10 for active members per year and at least € 5 (more as voluntary donations) for sustaining members per year.

When the association was founded, the intention was to offer an active membership to anyone who has contributed something to the game world Mitraspera (be that campaign game texts by campaign organisers, NPC characters or guides, writing plot for events, to name a few). Since then we have realised that there are many people who have helped shape the community project Mitraspera through their own dedication in other ways or who would like to do so in the future and would therefore like to play an active part in the association.

So it didn’t take us long to decide that we want to have a very broad understanding of the term “active member” and give anyone who is interested the opportunity to participate in the association’s work. This is why all members get access to the same information, may give their opinions wherever they want, and join any task force.

A sustaining membership is best suited for those who want to support the project without being active themselves. Unlike active members, sustaining members do not have a vote in the general meeting, but that does not mean that they are any less important! Especially the sustaining members support us by taking part in the association and through their contribution allow us to implement extensive projects or to use convenient tools.

Yes! You can fill out the application and print it, sign it by hand, and then take a (good) photo or scan it and send it to. If you do that, you do not have to also send it in by post. We are looking forward to getting mail from you, no matter whether it’s digital or on paper!

With the central aim in mind to keep the game world of Mitraspera as a community project in order to be able to offer access easily and free of charge, we understood early on that the Mitraspera e. V. should be a non-profit organisation. In our case this means that our statutes are designed in such a way to determine that all action taken has to align with the idea to serve the community and that the members of Mitraspera e. V. must not act in any way that will provide them personal or financial gain.  

It has to be noted that this self-understanding as an organisation with a non-profit aim and the official registration as such with the revenue office do go hand in hand, but are by no means the same thing.

To act with a non-profit aim does work in essence without the registration. The latter mainly offers certain benefits concerning taxes (donation receipts, a different tax bracket, exemption from the federal income tax). Nevertheless and in accordance with our statutes we aim to register as a non-profit organisation with the revenue office just so that everyone is on the same page.

We have started the registration process in the manner asked for by the revenue office by first registering the society, opening a bank account, and once those two steps were done, applying to be registered with the revenue office. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic and subsequently overworked government offices in combination with delays caused by holiday short-staffing, the process has taken months. We just recently received a reply from the revenue office.   

In order to be registered we now have to adapt our statutes in accordance with the feedback we received. They ask for fine-tuning in some places. At the moment we are busy implementing those changes, because we believe it to be paramount to end up with clean-cut statutes that clearly state our intentions. 

Until this process is complete, we of course are not accessing any of the benefits, such as giving out donation receipts. All this, however, does not change the fact that as an organisation we have given ourselves a non-profit aim, and this aim will not be influenced by any dealings with the revenue office.

Donations to the association are possible at any time. The general meeting democratically decides on the utilisation of the donated funds. The board only has a small budget for administrative tasks (see the statutes) and incurred expenses. Furthermore, the association being non-profit, no financial bonuses for members are allowed. Basically, we’re all doing honorary work.

It is important to note, however, that donations can only be made irrespective of the membership fee. As of now, the yearly fee for active members is 10 € and 5 € for sustaining members. If a sustaining member wants to support the association by giving 50 € per year, they may simply transfer 45 €.

Right now, Mitraspera e. V. has no reason to pile up any fortune that goes beyond covering our incurring expenses. Therefore we recommend getting in touch with the board when thinking about donations exceeding 50 €.