What you meant was that the Prevailing Wisdom was approximately right,>> Which is what "largely on target" means, at least to me. Largely on target is not the same as "precisely on target". It's off a little in my opinion. There are 3 types of content in lots of works containing OGC, but frequently the parts that aren't OGC or PI aren't covered at all by the OGL except tangentially (in the no compatibility declarations clause). <<Are you sure you're not just arguing to argue? >> Dude. If you back and check the archives, you'll see that I've had the same position on this for a LONG time, and it hasn't wavered much. The distinction is largely academic. The only time it matters is in a question of whether someone has standing (under the OGL, not traditional IP law) to bring a suit regarding something in a work that that's listed as neither OGC nor PI. The other thing is, my interpretation opens up the people who slap the OGL on a whole book, list that book's copyright in Section 15, etc. to a potentially nasty surprise in court. A court if, it agrees with me that covered works are 100% OGC+PI would then be left to its own devices to determine whether undeclared areas of a work are OGC or PI. This latter area is not likely to come up at law, so it's largely moot. It is, at best, for most purposes, a technically nuanced distinction that COULD matter a lot, but in practice probably won't. I don't think that the
differences are largely moot. I think that what happens with the "third content"
changes the way that the OGL works.
My personal opinion is
that:
1) OGC is licensed to other publishers
(and encourages people to use the OGL instead of "fair
use"),
2) PI is protected by the OGL (and gains
additional protection),
3) Third content material *must* comply
with compatibility clauses in the OGL (but doesn't gain any protection under the
OGL).
I believe that all three types of content
are covered (in different ways) under the licence, but that a publisher can
only gain protection, from the OGL, for the first two
types.
If work that is not OGC or PI is *not*
part of the covered work then it can not be forced to comply with the
compatibility clause. You acknowledge that the OGL *does* connect to
things "tangentially", so those parts of the work/product/whatever must actually
be part of the "stuff" covered by the licence for this to be
true.
I'm not arguing this for the sake of it,
as I respect your opinions a lot. However, I think that if
you dismiss the existence of a third type of content people will
misinterpret that and think that they can claim "fair use"
or make compatibility claims outside of OGC and PI areas. (I don't think
that you think people are able to do either of those things, but I think that
people will infer that you do think that from your statements that "covered
work"=OGC+PI )
David Shepheard
Webmaster Virtual Eclipse Science Fiction Role Playing Club http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/ http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/ |
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