On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, Brad Thompson wrote:
> Um, Kal, I understand your logic here, but this is a very dangerous move.
> Copyrights are automatic until ruled otherwise by the courts. If the
> original publisher of the OGL never comes forward to dispute the copyright
> on the person who closed that material, you'll be left twisting in the wind.
> You don't have the authority to dispute it for him.
Agreed. That's why I mentioned it would take "time, effort and risk"
to push something open. I also think this is far less likely to be
abused because someone would have some pretty compelling reasons
before putting themselves in such a position. My opinion is the
other side is much more likely to be abused since producers could
have short sighted profit incentive to stake out extensive closures.
I also want to mention is that since everything is new,
no domain modifications of open content have been closed.
So now people think I don't want to do mecha or super heros.
I'm going to be first mover on D20 psionics and stake out IP
claims there. You can see how quickly major chunks can
be carved out and there will be little new interest in
working with "open content" in a few years.
On the other hand, if in general most things are kept open,
new comers will be able to participate and make gamers happier
and the market bigger. You may have to compete a little harder
to earn dollars from gamers but isn't that a good thing?
Cheers,
--Kal
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