At 11:45 -0800 2/17/03, Alex de Morris wrote:
hmmm... on first glance, looks ok. The WotC OGL forbids using trademarks without permission (even in ways that woul normally be legal without obtaining prior permission). But those aren't trademarks. [frex, just did a trademark search on "beholder"--closest i find is a dead trademark for "The Beholder", a web-comic, formerly owned by Nabisco. ] You're referencing a core rulebook in an acceptable manner. You're not reproducing copyrighted text (single words/titles can't be copyrighted). You're being careful not to contribute material to OGC that you don't have authority to contribute. I don't think you're afoul of the D20STL, in any flavor, because (1) neither of those are defined terms and (2) you're using them without changing their definitions, even if they were defined terms. Looks ok to me--doesn't even look like you need to get permission, just to do that. Opinions? Any with a law background care to weigh in?> And then assuming you (not you, Jonathon, but thegeneral you) get such permission (I have no idea how likely that is), be EXTRA CAUTIOUS in your OGC declarations to make sure you exclude those monsters. You have no authority to contribute, and thus no power to declare them OGC; but a misstep on your part has the power to create a lot of confusion in derived works.If, say, we used the following in our little product:Beholder (60 hp, MM) Mind Flayer (hp 44, MM). And then in the OGC/PI declarations, state: "None of the following terms, creatures or names are OGC: "Beholder, Mind Flayer, etc..." Would that be a way of handling it?
--
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
"Sorry, but I'm an old-fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men
dig up the corpses, and women have the babies." --Buffy
_______________________________________________
Ogf-l mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
