Re: [Ogf-l] Opening Closed Games
In my non-lawyer opinion, I would suggest that youdo you own thing rather than try to resurrect theseworks. With that most important thing said, let meoffer some suggestions to you.Are you sure the author is the original copyrightholder? If he created the game as a "work for hire" then he might not own the game, the originalcompany would. Of course, if that company doesnot survive, then the ownership would probably revert to him/her.Personally, I feel that copyright law in our countryhas a problem in that an out-of-print book cannotbe printed by anyone but the copyright holder.I personally feel that an out-of-print book shouldbe reproducible for private use only. But that is notthe law.I'd suggest that you start from scratch and create agame with the same flavor but that does not violatethe original author's protected material.Mark --Mark WilkinsonTower Ravens[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sep 6, 2006, at 8:29 PM, Exile In Paradise wrote:Dear Open Game Gurus,I would like to discuss a real-world issue I amwrestling with.I am a collector and fan of a game system publishedfrom 1980-1994 by a publisher that is long sincegone. Last year, in an net forum, the copyrightholder himself stated that he has no interest in the"games" anymore, but is continuing to develop the"setting" for his own undisclosed purposes.The original publisher has been approached severaltimes since 1994 and asked if they would considerreleasing the games as (in order) public domain,GNU open documents, Creative Commons, and OpenGame License. Each time, and for each license idea,the answer has been "no" or silence.Meanwhile, every (rare) newcomer to the game asksthe same three questions:FAQ#1: "who owns the copyrights?"FAQ#2: "where can I get the books?"And when they find the books are so rare theynever even appear on eBay anymore, the famous:FAQ#3: "can someone send me PDFs of the books?"With the publishers own admission of apathy regardingthe "games", and being tired of not being able to fully discuss or republish parts of the games atwhim, the idea has occurred to me to try to write,publish, and distribute Open Game versions of thecopyrighted games.The setting and trademarks are not considered here.The setting is unmistakable anyway, so its a giventhat a new setting that allowed the same situationswould have to be created. Also, its a given that allartwork and trademark terms would have to be avoidedlike the plague. The name of the company and some oftheir product names are some of those very termswhich is why they are not listed here.For years the Linux software community has excelledat opening "closed" software... by recreating theclosed program as a work/play-alike open version andreleasing that. The excellent FreeCiv project is one example of many... its a look and play alike version of thecopyrighted game "Civilization" by Sid Meier.I am wondering if the same ideas the Linux folkshave used would work for opening closed/out-of-printtabletop games? The OSRIC project leads me to believe so.Here's my thinking that I hope you can all providea sanity check for:According to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Officememo (FL-108), game "rules" cannot be copyright,only the specific "_expression_" of the rules. Myunderstanding is that the difference is this: Therules to a game like baseball cannot be copyright.Only my specific description of baseball rulescan be. Anyone else is still free to write theirown description of the same game in their ownwords.So, if I go line by line through the text, and rewrite the "mechanics" into my own words, andreorganize the whole thing (based on my ownprejudice of how it should have been written ;)I should be able to release the result to theweb under an open game license and be reasonablysure I haven't actually broken any law?I realize I could still be exposed to a lawsuitfor doing so since Americans can sue each otherfor no reason at all, much less with cause, butif my understandings of things are correct, Ishould have a fair chance of winning my side ofthe case should it come to open legal battle.If this whole house of cards still stands up,then there are some specific places that arenot very clear that I could use some advice on.One is numeric data in tables. The game I aminterested in "opening" is heavily based on numerictables. I realize I can't copy them verbatim, butthe table data is part of what makes the mechanicswork. For example, if I want to check to see if someonehas scored a hit during an attack, I have tocross-reference the tables to find part of the result.So, are the tables considered *mechanics* or part ofthe rules then?Also, what are the issues around reducing the tablesdown to formula through regression or other analysis,and then using the formula to recreate the tables?If you can prove you have the formula, does it helpin court?An example of this issue would be the ExperiencePoints table from a popular fantasy game.I have seen several formula published that willexactly re-create the XP table.
Re: [Ogf-l] OGC contamination?
You have a right to specify what, specifically, is open game content and what is not open game content. An easy way to handle this, for example, would be to put game stats (closed content) in grey boxes and narrative (open content) without boxes. Then you simply state that "all material in this product is contributed to open content except for material enclosed in grey boxes." Viola. Done.Mark --Mark WilkinsonTower Ravens[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sep 5, 2006, at 9:04 PM, Vicki Potter wrote: Hi. I have an issue I hope folks can help with. We have a new modern horror game out with its own system. A company that has done a few horror supplements for d20 Modern is interested in reworking some for our proprietary system. However, those supplements were originally published as Open Game Content, as in "Everything in this product is Open Game Content." Some people in our company are concerned that re-publishing the fluff text with our mechanics will result in our mechanic becoming 'contaminated' and becoming Open Game Content. I maintain that, since the fluff text will be published again by the original publisher, that company can publish it without having to do so under the Open Game License. In other words, the text published with our licensed system would be 'closed', even though identical text published elsewhere would be 'open.' That being the case, the OGL would appear nowhere in the product and thus none of the material, including the licensed mechanics, would be Open. One alternative that's been suggested would be for the publisher to make some small changes to the text and then publish it with the licensed mechanics. That exact text would never have been Open in the first place, so it should not be an issue. However, if OGC can contaminate other material, then even one sentence that was not changed could still be considered OGC and possibly result in problems. I would rather not take this approach if it can be avoided. Some of our people are having a hard time with this, and I would appreciate any corroboration or correction. Thanks. Vicki Potter Editorial Minion Tabletop Adventures www.tabletopadventures.com___Ogf-l mailing listOgf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.orghttp://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l ___ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
Re: [Ogf-l] Open Game Content Logo
Doug:Thanks for the background on the OpenDie logo and for theadvice you gave. Lawyers sure make it hard for decent, honestfolk to do business together. Seems they exist to stir up malcontent then profit off it.MarkOn Aug 13, 2006, at 8:28 PM, Doug Meerschaert wrote:Markus:We* had quite a discussion about the whys and why-nots of using theOGL or just making a new license. (A good portion of it, as Clarknoted, happened here.) We decided to use our own license because,quite simply, the OGL wasn't intended to protect trademarks. There is*no* way to make a logo mean anything with just the OGL. You couldtake an OGL-only license, release only the logo and the OGL itself asOGC, and there'd be nothing anyone could do about it.___ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
Re: [Ogf-l] Open Game Content Logo
Markus Wilkinson wrote: ... I'll even add an icosahedron to my logo to see if you like it better that way. I know i'd probably like it less. Unless what you're really looking for is a D20-System-but-we-can't-say-that logo, i'd say shy away from icosahedrons in a logo designed to identify OGC-containing products. heck, i'd also think it preferable to apply terms to the logo that allow it to be used with, frex, the Creative Commons and maybe EABA licenses. I appreciate the input. I definitely don't want to say 'D20-System-but-we-can't-say-that-logo'. I'm afraid that I've been too vocal in the past about not liking the d20 system (of course that was in context to the game we developed, but everyone accused me of talking generally). I had to create a whole website to clear the issue: http://www.towerravens.com/univ-omnigamer.php?page=1 I'd rather not have an icosahedron on the logo (which is why the one I made doesn't have one), but I'm more interested in a community standard than what I personally want. In the end though, I think the only thing that will pull this group together enough to discuss adopting a standard logo is the cancellation of the d20 System license. It is a more volatile topic that I originally supposed. So, I'm going to politely drop the subject, not call anyone names, and not get my feelings hurt. Mark ___ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
Re: [Ogf-l] Open Game Content Logo
Maggie: I'll take 2c whenever I can get it. I'm glad you like our website. I've googled you and BWR and read up a bit on what you are doing (though your web site is down). I'm very impressed and wish you the best of luck. I'm an 'aerospace education officer' in the Civil Air Patrol. Educational outreach is near to my heart, and I hope you are successful. Let me try and explain what I'm trying to get out of an OGC or OGL or OpenDie or whatever logo. Our product 'Operative Online' is going to include several games. As you probably know, character creation programs are verboten under the d20 license. Operative is a character creation program on steroids. Thus, I'm not allowed to indicate that Operative is compatible with d20 products. However, I can establish compatibility with OGL products. Thus, I need some branding that indicates our compatibility with OGL products. I'm not an industry expert either. Anyone who says so is not to be trusted. Like BWR, our company started in 2001. We published our first product in 2003, a 320 page sci-fi RPG (no license), called Universe. It was pared down from the original 700 page manuscript, which the distributors wouldn't touch with a halberd. Our second product was a children's version of the game called Kid Universe. It was published just this year and came in around 68 pages. Don't know what we'll do next. Not a lot of money in publishing which is why we're doing more with Operative. Maybe bring in a few bucks selling ad space. We're solvent and will be in the industry for a long time--maybe even longer than TSR, but they achieved an iconic status we'll never see. Mark On Aug 12, 2006, at 5:38 PM, Maggie Vining wrote: I like your website a lot, Mark. I hope to have something like that for BWR someday. Just my 2c again but I don't see how you would benefit from an OGC logo, instead maybe focus on producing more of what you already have and in time your products will go hand-in-hand with your online community as well as a reputation for being modifiable. That is how I plan to do things with BWR, to focus on the BWR logo for identification and make all of our games and services free, open, online, and easily modifiable so that in a sense the BWR logo will be a type of open content identifier. Again that is just my 2c, biased by how I intend to do things. I am no where near to being an industry expert, fyi. Maybe someday I'll get an award for being the slowest. : D Maggie ___ Ogf-l mailing list Ogf-l@mail.opengamingfoundation.org http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
