I think you can understand how "anything you find" paints a bit too
broad of a swath... For example, many creatures in D&D have names and
derivations from obscure literature or folk mythology, and therefore
would be legal to use, yet would be time consuming to verify.
I would not expect it to be difficult for the OGF to obtain from the
Trademark and Copyright offices a list of the registered (and refused)
trademarks and copyrights for TSR and WOTC. Since PI is such a key
selling point for the OGF, it only makes sense for it to obtain and
provide this information. Certainly it would not be in the OGF's
interest to scare potential publishers away by hearing that every word
in every TSR/WOTC product (give or take) is potentially protected. The
expense and burden of purchasing and indexing all of those products
would be a strong disincentive to use the D20. So it seems logical that
the OGF should make an effort to obtain or produce a document to save
its developers that hassle, doesn't it?
Finally, is it correct to say that the OGF is interested *only* in
promoting non-fan, non-hobby game developers? I know that there are
amateur game developers who might wish to provide free game materials
for D&D, and place them online for others to share. They might wish to
use D20 or they might wish to use a different license, but either way I
think they need to be attentive to licensing concerns. What would your
advice to them be, given that they most likely lack the ability or
desire to seek out legal advice?
On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
> From: "Bryce Harrington" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
> > Sorry if this has been asked and answered already, but is there a list
> > of PI items for TSR/WOTC products available? I browsed through the OGF
> > and WOTC sites but didn't see such a thing at hand.
>
> No there is not. You should assume, unless your lawyer tells you otherwise,
> that anything you find in a published WotC product is a copyright or
> trademark. Or both.
>
> The SRD does not contain any Product Identity.
>
> Ryan
>
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