--- Clark Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > However, I dont want to say you can never refer to > an outside source. I think you can refer to an > outside source as long as it is free and available to > everyone, like the SRD. > > This could be, IMHO (though Alec disagrees), a > sufficient OGC designation: > > "All content contained in this product that is > contained in the System Reference Document is hereby > designated as Open Game Content pursuant to the Open > Game License."
Clark's right that I disagree, but I just wanted to explain why, and why my disagreement apparently isn't that important. I think that if XYZ use an OGC designation like the above and the original OGC publishers doesn't consider it acceptable, and if XYZ end up in court arguing about it, XYZ is likely to lose the argument. Requiring people to look through a large body of work like the SRD and then compare that to every single line/page in XYZ's work to see what is OGC in XYZ's work seems fairly unclear. I think all that would need to be done to convince a judge or jury that it is unclear is to randomly choose 5 pages from XYZ's work, give them to the judge or jury along with the complete SRD and ask them to figure out what is OGC on those 5 pages of XYZ's work. Remember the requirement of clearly identifying OGC is not solely about making it re-useable. In fact it is primarily about identifying which parts of a work that the author of that work doesn't actually have a full (or perhaps any) copyright interest in. Now as for why my disagreement appears to be unimportant, at least as concerns the SRD & WotC. >From various reports on this list, a number of publishers are doing something at least similar to what Clark listed above. So apparently WotC isn't going to challenge such a declaration. So while I still think such a declaration wouldn't last through a court challenge, if WotC isn't challenging it there's really nothing to worry about. alec __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
