<<I'm curious: If a company declares something OGC in one book, can they later on in another book declare it PI? And what does that due to the people who want to use it? Is it OGC or is it PI content?
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I'd say it's OGC if you use a version of the content with the OGC grant or it's PI if you use a PI'd version.
As a parallel example: let's assume I design a video game that's got only one level in it. I put it on the net and give it away for free. Then I take the same game, add 40 levels to it, and sell it for $29.95. In one form the agreement for the core product and fist level is that you pay nothing. In the other version, I add something and then have different terms -- you don't pay the $29.95, then you get nothing. The same code is, in a way, being distributed in two different packages with 2 different sets of terms and conditions.
<<Essentially, WotC declared d20 as OGC in the 3.0 SRD. Now they are trying to close that. I thought that had been argued to death as not possible. The reverse was, but not closing something. You could always open it more, never close.
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I'd say they can close off you ability to use their PI if you leverage the 3.5 SRD, but if you use the 3.0 SRD then you aren't necessarily subject to the PI declaration.
<<Most of the stuff declared as PI in there were never in the original SRD, So it is not an issue. I'm not sure what their legal department is trying to do with it... There is something funky up.
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This raises my question from a few weeks ago. If PI is defended only against direct derivation, then their PI is not a useful defense past the first derivation. If the author of an OGL product de facto makes an agreement individually with everyone in their Section 15 via the person immediately before them in the IP chain (acting as a proxy for all the other vendors in the sublicense) then their PI is valid for all subsequent iterations. In this latter case, then the PI clause will spread virally as more people switch over to the 3.5 SRD.
<<That also begs a question: Can you PI something that you never use in a product except in the PI designation? That would just seem weird, but it is what they are doing with 'Red Wizard of Thay' and others in that list.
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I don't have the license in front of me, but I don't see why you can't. At worst all you'd have to do is include a one paragraph box at the end of the work printing all of your PI catch phrases and then declare that box and all the terms in it as PI. Since that'd be the highest technical hurdle I can imagine, I don't think there's a problem with this type of PI declaration. But I'd have to check the strict language of the license to be certain.
I'd say that it's a pretty smart thing to do. If you have a wide reaching PI declaration that covers a lot of your important PI then you can use that PI declaration again and again and it'll protect you from inadvertently leaving out a PI declaration on one of your important characters, phrases, or marks.
Lee
