On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > If the legalese is too vague, consider this. Tim, tomorrow you start a brand > new company. You release a product. You don't use the OGL. But you write > inside the front cover, "I feel that I am allowed to declare all my > characters > and poses as Product Identity as that term is used under the OGL, but my work > is not covered by the OGL." First, is this binding over anyone, since nobody > will have you in their Section 15.
Unlike copyrights, trademarks, and patents, Product Identity of the sort described in the OGL has no legal existence outside of the OGL. The OGL serves, in many ways, as a replacement for or an addition to existing copyright, trademark, and patent laws and practices -- but only within the context of the license. Let's take a more ridiculous example. Say someone publishes a novel that has nothing to do with gaming. Say someone else publishes a different novel that has nothing to do with gaming, and he uses a similar font for the back-cover blurb. Can the first publisher complain about the second publisher's Product Identity breach? I'd say no, since neither product is publisher under the only license in which the concept of Product Identity exists. Now how is that different from the situation where one publisher is party to the license but the other one isn't? Spike Y Jones _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
