On 4 Sep 2005 at 16:05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > If this is the case, then there's no such thing as the "third type of > content" and a whole bunch of stuff has been published under the OGL > using an incorrect interpretation of the license. I wonder if the fact > that WotC hasn't taken any steps in the past five years to correct > this misinterpretation would work against the company if it tried to > start enforcing this interpretation now.
I view it as squares and rectangles. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are square. You have a "work", as defined by Ryan to be an entire product from cover to cover. In this "work" you are required to declare what is OGC, and to declare what is PI. However, there is nothing in the license that says "the entire work IS OGC unless it is declared PI". My interpretation is that the work contains OGC, PI, and anything else not declared by the first two. That "anything else" is still bound by the OGL, especially where the OGL superceeds copyright law. That "anything else" can include such things as public domain material (such as the names of the Norse Gods). If the entire work were considered to be OGC, except for what was declared PI, then there would be absolutely no reason to declare what is OGC, as it would be implicit that if it is not declared as PI it would be OGC. However, this interpretation fails because it is possible to incude public domain material (such as the names of Norse gods) in a work. Since the names are public domain, they cannot be declared OGC nor PI because the contributor does not own the rights to declare it as one or the other, and if a work contains only 2 types of content (OGC & PI), then it would be impossible to use any public domain material within a covered work. Thus, any work which included such would be in violation of the OGL Note: Yes, I know that the specific implementation/description/representation of a Norse god would belong to the person who wrote/published it, but the name itself could not be OGC nor PI as it rests in the public domain. 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
