Brad,
One of the reasons this point is included seems to be to keep it to the
_least_ legal complication. To wit: If I develope a system for running a
circus and you create a supplement so people could run acrobats in my
setting, and Doug uses your rules in his supplement on theives and conmen
but I didn't get "Barnum & Baileys" permission to use their name and now it
is in both of your works because I used it. Now _you_ are responsible for
removing content that I shouldn't have had in mine to begin with. By asking
permission beforehand it will avoid a possibly ruinous rewrite of a system.
I don't like the additional work anymore than anyone else but I like
reprinting my work even less.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Brad Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Shouldn't we limit the OGL so that the least legal legwork possible needs to
be done beforehand? As it stands, the author must initiate a request and
wait for a response. If we simply followed trademark law, the owner of the
mark would need to initiate a response only if they didn't like the usage.
If there is no offense, there is no legal response, and the total amount of
work done by both parties is nil.
If we leave it as it is, BOTH parties will need to employ their legal
representatives in order to grant permission. This places an active burden
on the owner of the mark to loosen their control, something they are loathe
to do because of the potential for unintended side effects. They must make
a decision now that will stand for a great length of time. They are much
more comfortable sitting back placing that decision point as far in the
future as possible, since that is the cheapest and most flexible for them.
application/ms-tnef
