On 2 Mar 2005 at 8:32, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > They > threaten me, saying they'll sue me under the OGL for breach. They > aren't a party, but claim to be a third party who automatically > benefits from the OGL (just as, they claim, anyone in the world, be > they a contributor to an OGL product or not, can be a third party > beneficiary simply by declaring PI outside of an OGL-covered work). > They try to sue asserting OGL rights to PI protection which I have > supposedly violated.
However, IIRC, third party beneficiaries of a contract must be denoted as such in the contract. Also, (again IIRC) licenses do not have "third party" portions. In short a license is nothing more than written permission of the owner of a bit of property allowing somebody else to use that property in exchange for considerations. In the case of the OGL, this license grants certain usage rights to material marked as open content, so long as that user abides by certain conditions set forth in the license. This license is cumulative and addative (thus open game content can be garnered from multiple sources, and you can add to it, and those sources follow the life of the content (via the Section 15 statement). Remember, a license is the granting of specific rights to a specific person under specific conditions. Thus in your example, DC cannot use the OGL, because it is not the entity who granted the rights or set the conditions of the OGL. However, If you use that quote from them within open game content (through fair use terms), you had damn well better make sure that it is not released into OGC, and that you do have the proper copyright and trademark use clauses at the beginning of the product... Hmm... I did just think of a possible way that they might use the OGL against you, but not though the PI portion. Part of the OGL is an agreement not to use trademarks and such of others without permission of the owner. Thus while they could not sue for breach of the OGL (they do not have that right, not being a party of the OGL), they can sue you and then use the OGL as evidence for their case, especially if they espouse a wider definition of "WORK" than you do. TANSTAAFL Rasyr (Tim Dugger) System Editor Iron Crown Enterprises - http://www.ironcrown.com E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
