> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Bryce
> Harrington
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 1:37 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] Let's Pause, and Take a Deep Breath...
>
>
> 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.
Yes. But as this is about as close as Ryan has ever come to offering legal
advice, it's no surprise that he erred on the conservative side. If you
follow the "anything you find" criterion, you WILL be safe. He also added
the "unless your lawyer tells you otherwise" loophole. I thought his advice
very responsible, even if more restrictive than it has to be. That advice
has basically zero chance of landing Ryan in court, and zero chance of
landing you in court if you follow it. A looser standard will expose you to
more risk, but not Ryan (since he never advocated it).
> 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?
Ignoring for the moment that Ryan IS the Foundation at this time AND a
Wizards VP... It is not within the Foundation's power to declare what is and
is not PI. Only Wizards can do that. The SRD will remain property of
Wizards, not of the Foundation.
And every word IS potentially protected, aside from what is released as OGC.
What Ryan said was, "The SRD does not contain any Product Identity." That
means that everything within it may soon be OGC; and everything else from
Wizards is not OGC. It sounds like a conscious strategic decision to strip
any protected IP completely from the SRD, so that there will be no chance
for anyone to "force open" valuable IP. If it's in the OGC, Wizards has
chosen to release it. I expect that this "IP stripping" has added
considerably to the time it has taken to produce the SRD.
> Finally, is it correct to say that the OGF is interested *only* in
> promoting non-fan, non-hobby game developers?
Fans are -- shall we say, discouraged? Yes, discouraged by the OGL and the
STL. There are serious legal ramifications to these licenses, and the OGF is
not in a position to pretend otherwise.
> 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?
Three choices:
1. Get legal advice.
2. Avoid anyone else's IP in any way possible.
3. Ignore the consequences and assume the risks. But do so with your eyes
wide open. You could lose all time and resources you put into this effort.
There's a small probability that you could even find yourself at risk due to
violations by others. Suppose you put up fan stuff that is really popular,
but for which you don't actually have rights. Now suppose that I make use of
that stuff in a really popular COMMERCIAL venture. And then suppose that I
get sued for my violation of someone else's IP. Well, if I can point at your
violation and plausibly claim that I thought it was OK because of your
violation, I can sue you in turn.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Martin L. Shoemaker Consulting, Software Design and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.MartinLShoemaker.com
http://www.UMLBootCamp.com
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