Essentially, if Wizards trademark various aspects of their work, like Mind Flayer or Illithid, just as Jedi, Hogwarts, Quiditch are, then you can't use them.
A trademark is "any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof used by a person in commerce to identify and distinguish his or her goods, including a unique product from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods or services." Copyright only protects the work as a whole, and legally stops people from reproducing material in it. Copyright doesn't protect titles, names (including domain names on the web), short phrases, and slogans, familiar symbols or designs, mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or colouring, mere listings of ingredients or contents. Also not protected by copyright are: ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, devices, etc., as distinguished from a description, explanation or illustration. Copyright provides the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the work in copies; to prepare derivative works based upon the work; to distribute copies of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending; and to display the work publicly. Copyright protects the work as a whole. Matthew ----------------------------------------- Matthew Hodgson Creator and Editor in Chief Magia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.magia3e.tk -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Nate & Camille Jones Sent: Monday, 17 February 2003 10:19 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Ogf-l] Monsters removed from the SRD & Copyrights One thing that isn't fully settling with me is the monsters removed from the SRD (i.e. beholder, yuan-ti, displacer beast). I understand the difference between the SRD and PHB, DMG and MM etc.. and its role in clearly defining what source material we can and can't use. But SRD is, to my understanding, to protect WOTC's IP, artwork and creative prose from being mistaken for OGL material. Now correct me if I am wrong, but TSR/ WOTC has no copyright registered on the creatures Beholder, Carrion Crawler, Yaun-Ti, Githyanki, etc. These creatures have been available for use in D&D since the original fiend folio at the latest. So how does this exposure to the public for over 20 years with no claim by the company of ownership over these monster till now hold up (and the only claim being removal from the SRD). Are these monsters public domain just like any fantasy creature or have they been till now and WOTC finally snatched up key marketable monsters to copyright for their new miniature game..hmmm? If these monsters are general enough in their idea and name then they cannot be legally guarded by WOTC. I clearly remember hearing that part of the whole reason for the OGL was because game mechanics (i.e. math, dice etc etc), heroic adventurers and mythical monsters couldn't be copyrighted. Likewise, supposedly TSR pulled monsters from all over the years, losing track of what was original and what wasn't. This basically made it impossible to determine where (if any) IP existed in the general D&D material. This brings me to a second observation: The OGL and SRD gives us a safe harbor by saying you can use this stuff without getting into any legal trouble. Then the d20 license goes a step further and says "hey, you can say you work with D&D if you don't do these things... X, X, and X". But then anything beyond this falls into normal copyright laws. So obviously if you use copyrighted names and events from the D&D books (such as the Greyhawk wizards for example), you are facing the same kind of legal exposure as if you were if you used copyrighted names from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. But what seems to be overlooked is that you may use common language and mathematics to make anything you want that plugs onto the SRD material w/o infringing on copyrighted WOTC's IP. So if one wanted, you could use the Wounds/ Vitality system in a supplement to the PHB since that system is just a modification to the SRD rules (no different then Spycraft's varitions to the SRD). Wounds and Vitality have nothing to do with the copyrighted or trade marked materials in the Star Wars RPG. I would be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this :) Nate _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
