On Sat, 3 Sep 2005, Tim Dugger wrote: > So we would have the following: > 1) OGC > 2) PI > 3) Non-OGC, Non-PI Material > > For #3, it is neither OGC nor PI, and is covered by normal copyright > law, except where it is superceded by the limitations from the OGL. > > Would that be a better way of phrasing it?
I think a better way of phrasing your concern about public domain text and other things that may creep in is: The "covered work" consists of the Open Gaming Content plus the Product Identity minus any text that the publisher doesn't have the authority (i.e., ownership rights) to contribute. This means a book could contain four types of text: 1) Open Content 2) Product Identity 3) Text that is within the covers of the book but is not within the declared bounds of the covered work (also commonly referred to as the "third type of content") 4) Text that is mistakenly declared to be OGC or PI, but which actually isn't covered by the strictures of the OGL > Okay, now back to the core question. The issue being discussed is > as follows: > > Lee has stated (and he can correct me if I get this incorrect) that in > his opinion, if you apply the OGL to a work (any work), that it is > automatically 100% OGC. You then need to declare what portions > are PI, and declare what portions are OGC, and that the work is > made up of only those two types of content. Just be careful here: When Lee talks about "a work," he probably means that as something distinct from "a book." That is, he's of the school that says "the covered work" isn't the equivalent of "the product," because "the work" can mean an individual OGL-bound article within a larger magazine that isn't bound by the strictures of the OGL. > However, the way that I view it (i.e. my opinion) is that when you > take a work (any work) and apply the OGL to it, that you > automatically end up with two types of content. The first being that > which must be declared OGC (i.e. any mechanics or other material > derived from the SRD or other OGL sources (presuming that those > other sources made their declarations correctly and you are using > those sources properly). The second type would be content type #3 > that I listed above. > > At this point, you would then expand the OGC declaration to include > anything else you want to be OGC. You would also make your PI > declaration for anything you want to mark as Product Identity. > > By my reasoning, the license would not include the following clause > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 8. Identification: If you distribute Open Game Content You must > clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing > are Open Game Content. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > if the whole work were considered OGL just by applying the license > to the work. To put it another way, "Why do you have to clearly > indicate which portions of the work are OGC if the whole work is > considered to be OGC just by putting it with the license?" You can also read Section 8 the other way around: "If you distribute Open Game Content, you must clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing *aren't* Open Game Content." Read this way, what it refers to is the fact that you have to clearly denote any PI that falls within the declared OGC, lest it be considered Open. Since the work consists of OGC and PI, if you accurately declare one (e.g., "The OGC is all of the following ... with the exception of these specific words...") you've effectively identified the other. Spike Y Jones _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
