Regardless, the license specifically says it should be the copyright notice from your OGC which is included in the section 15.
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I never actually noticed it in the license (or atleast no one has emphasised it that much), but I do see where it says that the copyright notice is intended to reflect the OGC, and not to whole product itself.
On the other hand, because the license specifically mentions that the copyright notice is to reflect the OGC in a product that it is actually unnecessary to state something which is clear. Since everyone knows that the copyright notice is attached to OGC, therefore it is unnecessary to include "Open Game Content from..." at the start of every s15 entry. If the OGC declaration is clear enough, that is enough to identify what the copyright notice applies to.
Don't disagree with that solely because you're stuck on your interpretation.
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Arguably this would mean that what's listed in Section 15 does not include your PI, but I attribute this to extremely sloppy draftsmanship in the license which at times treats PI as a subset of OGC and at times says explicitly that OGC and PI are totally separate.
Re: some of the products you have named, some of those companies have vague OGC/PI declarations to begin with, and aren't even following the "clearly identified" OGC portion of the license, so I wouldn't hold those up.
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Most of the companies I did mention, specify (or clearly identify) what is and is not OGC. Only Mongoose in that list is vague on the OGC (ie "all game mechanics and content derivitive of OGC or the SRD). Many companies do use a laundry list of terms that makes it look like they simply took the PI section of the OGL and reprinted it.
Malhavoc actually specifies which chapters are OGC, but doesn't even identify the "everything else" as PI. The rest of the content is either left vague or presumed to be that third type of content.
There was one product I reviewed that threw their OGC and PI declaration in the s15. There were even a number of products which didn't even put a copyright notice in s15 for their OGC.
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Also, of the ones you named, did you look at their section 15 entries. Some, probably used Spike's declaration style ("OGC from Book X"). I know several companies who used to do that, and again, that is at least partially consistent with my reading which says:
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Only Mongoose from the products I have seen have used that in their s15. I don't know of how many others out there also specify it.
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Industry trends are generally only used to interpret vague clauses and not to interpret things which are explicit. Now arguably #2 above is a little vague given the way OGC and PI are clumsily handled in the license. But #1 above is actually quite explicit.
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The problem in this case is that because many people do their OGC/PI declarations and s15's differently than everyone else, when something conflicts with the letter of the contract, you do have to take a look at what industry trends tend to be.
Essentially, if you're trying to figure out how to interpret the terms of the OGL, and you believe it means "A", while others in practical usage believe it means "B", while still others believe "C", and then there is even some who believe it should be "D", but no one has tried using your "A", should you still use "A".
The fact that the OGL is likely never to go to court literally makes your "A" purely academic, and not representative of how others interpret the license.
-- Scott http://www.sbroadbent.com. News, Reviews, Gaming! _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
