Re: [Ogf-l] Open Game Content Logo

[woodelf]

Markus Wilkinson wrote:
> Well, I've certainly learned that there isn't a standard
> "Open Game" logo which the Open Gaming Foundation (OGF) has 
> recognized.  I don't know who is on or who owns the OGF, 
> but may I suggest that the OGF sponsor a logo competition?
>
> The winning logo would then become the official open game
> logo recognized by the OGF.  What do you say?
>
> 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.

-Nat

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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Doug Meerschaert wrote:


woodelf wrote:

Neither of those clauses in any way necessitates, or even implies, 
non-OGC, non-PI content. Why refer to a "work containing OGC"? 
Because it also has PI, and both "parts" are covered by that clause. 
Likewise for the necessity to indicate OGC--just because, if a work 
only contains OGC and PI, it would be slightly redundant to identify 
both of those, doesn't mean that there is some 3rd bit. And, again, 
if the work that the license refers to is allowed to be a subset of 
the physical work, that, too, would explain the necessity of 
identifying both OGC and PI, without necessarily allowing the license 
to *cover* non-OGC non-PI content.



But, again-- what would the difference be?

If "Big Book of Stuff" has Chapters 2, 3, and 4 delcared to be Open 
Gaming Content, and ten names Product Identity, does it matter if 
Chapters 1 and 5 are "non-OGC non-PI covered by the OGL" or "seperate 
works in conjunction with a work covered by the OGL."


I'd have to go do a very careful re-reading of both the WotC OGL and, 
more importantly, the D20STL. It might not make a difference. It 
certainly wouldn't make a difference most of time. But, while most of 
the prohibitions in both licenses includ "in conjunction with" or 
similar terms, i seem to recall that some of them only appear to apply 
to the covered work. So, if there is material that is outside the 
covered work, but part of the physical object, it might not be subject 
to those prohibitions.


Furthermore, if there is no 3rd type of content within a covered work, 
then it becomes much trickier to sensibly chop a work up into lots of 
little pieces. Let's say you have a chapter of feats, and all the feat 
names are PI, and all the feat mechanics are OGC, and nothing has been 
said about the flavor text describing the feats. Is it sensible to refer 
to what is essentially every other paragraph of a chapter as "a work", 
in the vein of copyright definitions? If not, then maybe you really 
can't chop things up that way.


Now, personally, i don't *like* the interpretation that there is no 
non-OGC non-PI content in a covered work--it wasn't until i had the 
"third type" of content explained to me that i was willing to even 
accept the license as viable--but i'm not yet convinced that, should it 
ever come down to a court to decide, that that third type is actually in 
the license.



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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 9/5/2005 5:21:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



<>




I'm not sure where your trademarks are, and whether they are part of 
the text of the work.  So I have no idea how to answer this.


My opinion about this section of the license, as far as this thread is 
concerned, is limited to what is required of declarations for 
licensing compliance.  At least in this thread I'm not willing to 
venture a strong opinion about what happens to your IP if you fail to 
exercise appropriate cautions over your declaration.  I could 
speculate, but I don't think that's a useful contribution in the 
context of this particular thread which is already complicated enough.


Should've been clearer: any trademarks only appear in the credits of 
this hypothetical work. [I forget that some people trademark all sorts 
of stuff that i (1) would never dream of trademarking and (2) question 
the validity of trademarking. Some of it for good reason mind you--it's 
just not the way i want the world to work.]



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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Doug Meerschaert wrote:


woodelf wrote:

Find me anything in the license itself that supports this [the third 
type of content]. 



Section #7. "... in a work containting Open Gaming Content..."

Section #8: "If you distribute Open Game Content You must clearly 
indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing are Open 
Game Content."


Now, there are certain things that have to be OGC, possibly including 
all game rules in your product.  But the license makes a lot more 
sense when you realize that non-game rule content doesn't have to be 
PI or OGC.


Neither of those clauses in any way necessitates, or even implies, 
non-OGC, non-PI content. Why refer to a "work containing OGC"? Because 
it also has PI, and both "parts" are covered by that clause. Likewise 
for the necessity to indicate OGC--just because, if a work only contains 
OGC and PI, it would be slightly redundant to identify both of those, 
doesn't mean that there is some 3rd bit. And, again, if the work that 
the license refers to is allowed to be a subset of the physical work, 
that, too, would explain the necessity of identifying both OGC and PI, 
without necessarily allowing the license to *cover* non-OGC non-PI content.



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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Tim Dugger wrote:


Let's take a magazine as an example of my interpretation.

Using my interpretation, the whole magazine is covered by the 
license. The magazine declares three articles as OGC. It then 
declares the names of characters and place names used within the 
articles as PI.


So what is the rest of the magazine? Under my interpretation, it is 
non-open (closed) content (meaning that it cannot be re-used - even 
through the fair use clauses available in copyright law if you are 
using the OGL). It doesn't have to be declared because it is not 
OGC, nor is it PI. It is the default state of content (caveat - content 
based upon the SRD or other OGC works is automatically open, and 
is required to be declared as such) within the covered work.


 

So, a magazine that has a single OGC-containing article coudn't use 
trademarks anywhere in the magazine to indicate compatibility or 
co-adaptability. It couldn't have an article in that issue about "New 
Races for ShadowRun(tm)"?


Which points to some other problems with the WotC FAQs, and reasons why 
i'm disinclined to accept any of their answers as being trustable. 
Namely, they don't want you to be able to get around the restrictions by 
breaking the content into two separate physical books which are sold 
together as one economic unit. Which makes sense. But they've since 
claimed that a "web enhancement" is just as much a part of the original 
work as something that is physically bundled with it. Despite the fact 
that it is freely available to people who don't have the physical work, 
is perfectly useable without the physical work, and might enjoy a 
separate copyright. Because, again, they don't want people to make an 
end-run around the restrictions. Of course, if you have two 
clearly-separate physical works, one of them could use the WotC OGL 
and/or D20STL, and the other could not, and thereby 
perfectly-legally--if somewhat awkwardly--perform that end-run they 
don't want. And they've made it quite clear that they don't want to 
prohibit a magazine having some WotC OGL-using articles, and some 
"regular" articles. So, how do you set up a *consistent* set of rules 
for defining "a work" that includes a boxed set or bundled books, 
excludes books bundled together, includes a physical product and a 
digital product that are explicitly designed to work together, excludes 
two products that are designed to work together, includes a single 
physical work made up of multiple logical works internally which may or 
may not have separate copyrights, excludes a single physical work 
comprised of multiple logical works internally which may or may not have 
separate copyrights, and handles other format variations that haven't 
actually been witnessed yet?


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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

For now, let's assume that we have one work, a book.  Let's assume 
that it is wholly non-derivative.  Let's assume that the person who 
wrote the book applies the OGL to it, and says, "This book, in its 
entirety, is a single work covered by the Open Gaming License".  Let's 
assume that the guy has no Product Identity.  How much of the book 
must be OGC?  In my opinion, 100%.  As soon as you pick a "work 
covered by the license", that "work covers by the license contains 
only OGC and PI, or, if there's no PI, then it contains only OGC".


Then a declaration that just says "the text is 100% OGC", and doesn't 
say anything about the art, layout, trade dress, etc., is invalid?


I write an RPG. I use the WotC OGL, and declare "The entirety of the 
text of this work, save the index , table of contents, and credits, is 
Open Game Content." In your opinion, are you saying that my company 
trademark has just been declared OGC, because it wasn't declared PI? Or 
that it is automatically PI, because it wasn't declared OGC? That if i 
merely want others to be able to continue to use my trademark as they 
could under conventional IP laws, rather than be extra-restricted as 
they would be if it were PI, i have to explicitly include some sort of 
mini-license or permission?

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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Tim Dugger wrote:

By my reasoning, the license would not include the following clause 
--
8. Identification: If you distribute Open Game Content You must 
clearly indicate which portions of the work that you are distributing 
are Open Game Content.

--
if the whole work were considered OGL just by applying the license 
to the work. To put it another way, "Why do you have to clearly 
indicate which portions of the work are OGC if the whole work is 
considered to be OGC just by putting it with the license?"
 

Because the work, as far as the license is concerned, and the work, as 
far as the consumer/reuser is concerned, might not be the same unit.


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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Tim Dugger wrote:


On 4 Sep 2005 at 16:05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 


If this is the case, then there's no such thing as the "third type of
content" and a whole bunch of stuff has been published under the OGL
using an incorrect interpretation of the license. I wonder if the fact
that WotC hasn't taken any steps in the past five years to correct
this misinterpretation would work against the company if it tried to
start enforcing this interpretation now.
   



I view it as squares and rectangles. All squares are rectangles, but 
not all rectangles are square.


You have a "work", as defined by Ryan to be an entire product from 
cover to cover. In this "work" you are required to declare what is 
OGC, and to declare what is PI. However, there is nothing in the 
license that says "the entire work IS OGC unless it is declared PI".


My interpretation is that the work contains OGC, PI, and anything 
else not declared by the first two. That "anything else" is still bound 
by the OGL, especially where the OGL superceeds copyright law. 
That "anything else" can include such things as public domain 
material (such as the names of the Norse Gods).


If the entire work were considered to be OGC, except for what was 
declared PI, then there would be absolutely no reason to declare 
what is OGC, as it would be implicit that if it is not declared as PI it 
would be OGC. However, this interpretation fails because it is 
possible to incude public domain material (such as the names of 
Norse gods) in a work. Since the names are public domain, they 
cannot be declared OGC nor PI because the contributor does not 
own the rights to declare it as one or the other, and if a work 
contains only 2 types of content (OGC & PI), then it would be 
impossible to use any public domain material within a covered work.


Thus, any work which included such would be in violation of the 
OGL
 

Alternately, you can declare "Thor" as PI or OGC. And someone would 
therefore be required to not use, or make OGC, respectively,"your" 
version of the word "Thor". They could, alternately, choose a different 
source if one were available--like, oh, say, PD. Since "authority to 
contribute" is not explicitly defined, and exactly what you are 
prohibited from WRT PI is not explicitly defined, and what authority, if 
any, you need to declare PI is not explicitly defined, it seems 
perfectly reasonable to me that you could declare a PD element as either 
OGC or PI, and thus force those who derive from it to treat it as such. 
And equally reasonable, and in no way a contradiction, to say that those 
very same people could instead cite the PD--rather than your work-- as 
their source for those specific elements.


Let me use an alternate, and hopefully less-muddled, example. Let us 
suppose for a moment that the vitality/wounds system in Spycraft is 
closed content, that the same system in Uneathed Arcana is OGC, and that 
the Star Wars D20 game had been released under the WotC OGL and the 
vitality/wounds system there had been declared PI. Further, assume that 
the systems are identical (rather than nearly-identical). I believe that 
you could cite Spycraft and UA in your Sec.15, and use the 
vitality/wounds system. The fact that it is not available to you via 
Spycraft doesn't prevent you using the identical content via UA. 
Moreover, IMHO, you could cite UA and Star Wars D20 in your Sec.15, and 
still use the vitality/wounds system, verbatim from UA, even though that 
would be identical in content to using it verbatim from Star Wars D20.  
That is, the power of the prohibitions of PI is only as great as the PI 
is unique. Likewise, the requirements of OGC are only as powerful as the 
OGC is unique--if you can reasonably invent the content in a way that 
makes you legitimate creator/owner, the fact that it *could have been* 
copied from or derived from someone else's OGC doesn't make it necessary 
to designate it OGC itself. As a concrete example of this, the starship 
construction system in T20: it could have been derived from the existing 
D20 System OGC. However, it actually was derived from the existing 
MegaTraveller/Traveller: tNE rules. Therefore, they were not required to 
make it OGC, and chose not to. Perfectly legitimately and legally, IMHO.



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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Doug Meerschaert wrote:

Nope.  Anything not identified as required in Section #8 and also not 
noted as Product Identity is "third type of content."


Find me anything in the license itself that supports this. Sure, 
there're discussions on this list--mostly attempts to make sense of 
seeming contradictions; there are Ryan's [the author or at least 
impetus] postings; there's the WotC FAQ. But is there anything in the 
license itself that actually says that? I've long suspected that that 
was the intended meaning of the license, but that a mistake was made 
along the way, and it doesn't actually say that. I'd be genuinely 
surprised if an IP attorney, with zero previous contact with the 
license, and without prompting or leading questions, would conclude on 
reading it that it both applied to the work as a whole (as opposed to 
some subset work) and allowed non-OGC non-PI content.


And, yes, that might undermine the various prohibitions of the WotC OGL 
and the D20STL. OTOH, most of those prohibitions are phrased to include 
"in conjunction with" type prohibitions. Even if only half the chapters 
of a book are covered by the license, i'd say it's a pretty safe bet 
that breaking the license's rules in another of the chapters would be 
construed as doing so "in conjunction with" the covered work.


And i have no idea what happens in a court of law if there's a contract 
dispute and the author says "i intended the license to mean X" and a 
witness says "i knew the license was supposed to mean X, so used it that 
way" and the defendant says "i don't know what he intended, the license 
clearly means Y, and that's what i did".



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Re: [Ogf-l] Any work covered by the license

[woodelf]

Tim Dugger wrote:


On 4 Sep 2005 at 17:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 


So you're saying that Ryan's interpretation is correct and that Lee's
interpretation is wrong.
   



hehe... You know, I am not sure anymore

Seriously, I do think that the entire product is a "covered work", so I 
guess that yes, I am agreeing with Ryan in this instance (will 
wonders never cease...).


However, I don't seem to recall Ryan stating whether there are only 
2 types of content in a covered work or three (maybe I missed that 
part).
 

Does it matter? Doesn't the license have to stand on its own as a legal 
document? If we have to bring in the author (well, impetus for 
authorship--i believe Ryan's said that lawyers drafted the final 
license, based on his impetus and various internal discussions at WotC) 
to figure out what the license means, is that really valid?


In hindsight, I am thinking that perhaps the license is missing a 
definition for something that should perhaps be called "Proprietory 
Content" (PC) that cannot be used by others and falls under normal 
copyright except as prohibited by other portions of the license (such 
as declaring compatibility), and define it as all content not declared 
as OGC or PI. If it had such a definition, then this discussion would 
not be taking place.
 

Yep. And the fact that it doesn't is part of what makes me think that 
one of 4 things is true:
--There is no third type of content *as far as the license is 
concerned*--but the license need not be applied to the entirety of the 
work as generally considered. [Ignoring all discussions about the 
license, and pronouncements by Ryan and WotC, this seems to me to be the 
most internally-consistent reading. It only requires that some of the 
clauses be redundant--perhaps there for emphasis--rather than that any 
portions be ignored or glossed over.]
--The license does apply to the whole work and there is no third sort of 
content. [Perhaps because the actual drafters (the lawyers) willfully or 
unintentionally misunderstood Ryan's intentions.]
--The license authors were incompetent, or at least lazy/sloppy. [This 
interpretation is supported by the numerous simple grammar/punctuation 
errors that muddle up what could otherwise be perfectly-sensible clauses.]
--It is simply too hard to mix virally-open content and conventional 
copyright law and powerful trademark-like protections, and account for 
the vagaries of current publication and various media. [Open-content 
license? Easy. Trademark licensing? Easy. Content licensing? Easy. 
Dealing with books and magazines? Easy. All of the above, at once, plus 
handling "web enhancements" and boxed sets and multiple books in a 
line--all while dealing with a content that has an ambiguous status WRT 
conventional IP laws? Not so easy. I mean, we don't even know for 
certain how much ownership/protection RPGs enjoy before you introduce 
the WotC OGL. And i'm fairly certain that, while virally-open licenses 
have been tested in court at least a bit, the concept of other 
restrictions "tagging along with" the open content--restrictions that 
are actually tighter than conventional IP law--hasn't. Not to mention 
the fact that the smaller the bit of text, the less applicable copyright 
is, yet the WotC OGL, like all "copyleft" licenses, rests on 
copyright--so how much power does it have when it starts to talk about 
small chunks of text that, were they not embodied in a larger work, 
wouldn't enjoy copyright protection? Copyrights isn't about ownership of 
ideas, it's about reproduction of presentations of those ideas. But the 
WotC OGL wants to talk about ideas, it seems.]



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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Which I later clarified repeatedly by adding "and the original material"
to my statements. Honestly, Lee, although you are indeed correct that I
hadn't clarified my intent to join the two points in my original response,
I had stated this clarification a number of times at this point so harping
on a miscommunication I've since clarified is just running in circles.
 


"A is true because of X."
"No, A is true because of Y."
"You're right--i misspoke. A is true because of X&Y."
"No, X is irrelevant. A is true because of Y, and X could be false and A 
would still be true."

"That's what i said: A is true because of X&Y.

That's roughly the miscommunication that's going on--your clarification 
still includes the part others are objecting to. Until you acknowledge 
that X [ownership of the license itself] is wholly-irrelevant, he's not 
going to drop the point. And i agree with him. If you disagree with 
that, you'll need to support that claim. We all agree that Y [ownership 
of the material and trademarks] gives them a special advantage, so you 
can stop clarifying/supporting that point. What's needed is support for 
"A [special power/rights in the marketplace] is true because of X 
[ownership of the WotC OGL]" *independent of any other factors*.



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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

Ryan S. Dancey wrote:



In my opinion, you'd do well to do some research into how copyright 
law defines "work" before continuing this chain of logic.
 
Ryan


I can't speak for others, but it's not *my* definition of work that is 
at question--it's WotC's. They're the one claiming that several books 
bundled together constitute "one work" and, IIRC, that a "web 
enhancement" and the hardcopy book it supplements constitute "one work", 
while simultaneously either defining the articles of a magazine as being 
separate works, or turning a blind eye to magazines. I just think 
they're being inconsistent in their stance--that a magazine is no more 
separate works than a web enhancement and a book, or multiple books are. 
Given that most of the "web enhancements" i've seen are quite explicitly 
designed to work on their own, and some even have their own credits, 
etc., i'd say they're just as distinct as an article in a magazine. Is 
there explicit caselaw on that specific point?





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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

All that is required to backup Woodelf's point is that one find ANY 
OGL covered article, promo, ad, etc. in a WotC magazine to bring their 
own FAQ into question.


Lee


um, neither Polyhedron nor Dragon has been owned by WotC for quite some 
time. I'm not claiming that either of these incidents occurred to a 
WotC-owned work, just that WotC turned a blind eye.

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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/24/2005 3:43:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



<>




Almost all of them are protectable, but only as collections of items.  
The case law on recipe books covers this type of copyrightability of 
collections of otherwise uncopyrightable elements.  Also, things like 
names may be copyrightable insofar as they are attached to a very 
specific character description.  A character name (or spell name, 
etc.) removed from its corresponding description and not presented 
inside the collection of other names that originally appeared with it 
would not be copyrightable (although it could be trademarkable).


Lee


themes? poses? plots? storylines? concepts? I can see that some of those 
*might* be trademarkable, but copyrightable? Is there *any* caselaw 
saying that a concept can be copyrighted, distinct from the expression 
of that concept, even as a collection? Because, by default, we all know 
that copyright gives no prtection to ideas, only their expression, and 
those things sound an awful lot like ideas to me.




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Re: [Ogf-l] PI declarations

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/12/2005 11:03:33 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


On 12 Aug 2005 at 13:47, Spike Y Jones wrote:

> I don't recall bibliographies being specifically banned by the OGL.

But other people's trademarks and such are, and that can very
definitely include book titles, and company names.

The OGL forbids you from indicating "compatibility or co-adaptability" 
with other companies' Trademarks, neither of which a Bibliography 
does. They are just fine for OGL books.
 
Chris Pramas

Green Ronin



It also forbids you from using PI, period. And while it's hard to 
trademark the title of a single book, lots of companies have been 
claiming their book titles as PI.


Also, "compatibility and co-adaptability" is a pretty vague, reaching 
phrase. I'm not sure a bibliography couldn't be interpreted as 
qualifying. If i were being very careful, i think i'd avoid any 
bibliography entries that included PI.



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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


So, apparently several books sold bundled together are one work, but a
single issue of a magazine is multiple works. Or Dragon is in a lot of
trouble.]
   



Dragon is licensing directly from WotC, if I'm not mistaken. Dragon
doesn't need to follow the OGL or d20 STL at all because it is getting
direct permission from WotC to use its open content AND PI.

 

I'm talking specifically about its use of the WotC OGL. I'm fairly 
certain that there have been several issues of Dragon with 
OGC-containing articles. None of those issues has had the WotC OGL 
applied to the whole issue. If not, Polyhedron/Dungeon *definitely* had 
individual articles governed by the WotC OGL, without licensing the 
entire magazine.




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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

Doug Meerschaert wrote:


woodelf wrote:

And, while picking a license may be complex, at least the licenses 
are readable and clear. I don't see anything like the 
still-unresolved ambiguity over exactly who has authority to declare 
IP, what can be declared IP, and what the scope of said declarations is.



Kindly, then, show me the Creative Commons explanation for the 
following related questions:


* Does my website with advertisments count as commercial use? * What 
if I'm paid for something else and I use it in a matter of my primary 
course of work? * What if I sell it but give all of the profits to 
charity?  All of the gross to charity?


I'll rely on the well-established legal definitions of "not-for-profit" 
(which i don't know, but which should be relatively easy to suss 
out--the IRS is pretty explicit about these things).




In comparison to the above, the OGL's reliance upon legal copyright 
standings for declaring OGL and PI is hardly worth wondering over.


I don't understand this statement. Are you saying that the WotC OGL 
builds the authority to declare PI upon copyright law? How is that 
possible, given that almost everything in the exemplary list for PI is 
not protectable by copyright? Not to mention the fact that it took *how* 
much discussion, including trained legal professionals, to sort out 
whether the lists in the OGC and PI definitions in the license were 
exemplary or definitive? And i still don't see anything in, say, the 
WotC FAQ on the license that expresses that understanding in   plain 
language for others to benefit from the fruits of that discussion. Nor 
is there any way, IMHO, to find out about the "third type of content" 
allowed when using the WotC OGL, save for digging through the archives 
of this list--and even around here we're not 100% in agreement that 
there *is* a 3rd type of content under the license.







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Re: [Ogf-l] Interesting comments about Creative Commons license

[woodelf]

Ryan S. Dancey wrote:

I wish the CC license system was not designed around such a complex 
licensing strategy.  That's an echo of part of what Dvorak is trying 
(albeit badly) to say in his article.  Its so confusing that a pretty 
intelligent guy, who has been in the IP wars as long as I've been an 
adult, had unanswered questions about it


One of the reasons I did not believe it would be useful for Open 
Gaming is that the license structure is so complex that I feared many 
people who might otherwise want to try Open Gaming publishing would be 
unable to do so due to license complexities.  Worse, the existance of 
the varient CC licensing structure meant that nobody could be told 
simply "it's a Creative Commons license" - because that doesn't mean 
anything specific.  CC doesn't grant any specific rights, or impose 
specific limitations.  Someone who thought they understood a CC 
license from some other project might make very big mistakes if a 
different set of CC terms was used for the System Reference Document.


And this is worse than the fact that you can't say "this is D20 System" 
because it doesn't mean anything specific? Even "this uses the D20STL" 
isn't a terribly useful statement, if you're curious about the content, 
rather than the legal status.


And, while picking a license may be complex, at least the licenses are 
readable and clear. I don't see anything like the still-unresolved 
ambiguity over exactly who has authority to declare IP, what can be 
declared IP, and what the scope of said declarations is.


Actually, i'll even take a stronger stance. The only way to figure out 
what the WotC OGL means is to read it (complete with lots of ambiguous 
clauses due to grammar errors and typos), or spend a bunch of time on 
this list. I've never even read the fine print on most of the CC 
licenses--i read one of them in toto the first time i discovered 
CC--because they have handy summaries of what they do. The WotC OGL 
doesn't actually say that there can be content in my work that is 
neither OGC nor PI--i have to figure that out somehow. If i want to use 
a CC license, the very name of the license tells me almost everything i 
need to know about it, and picking a license is a clearly-explained 
series of mostly-binary choices: i do/don't want people to be able to 
make commercial works with my license; i do/don't want derivative works 
to be required to use the same license; etc.


I really don't see why it's all that likely that someone might think the 
rules regarding a book that says "This work released under the Creative 
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license" are exactly the same as those 
governing a book that says "This work released under the Creative 
Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license". If that scares them away, i can't 
believe they'd even consider wading through the terms and implementation 
of the WotC OGL. For the WotC OGL to be merely no more complicated to 
implement than the CC licenses, it would need a plaintext summary, 
something along the lines of "To use this license, designate what 
material you want others to be able to use as OGC, designate the 
material that you want to make sure no one uses as PI, and anything left 
is still protected  by copyright."


Oh, and any plaintext interpretation of the license should be clearer 
than the WotC FAQ, or the license itself should be cleaned up:


*Q: If something is clearly identified as both Open Game Content and 
Product Identity in the same work, what is it?*


A: Product Identity.

*Q: If I identify something as Product Identity, then in the future I 
distribute that material as Open Game Content, does the material 
become Open Game Content?*


A: Yes. By doing so, you will be relinquishing your claim that the 
material should be considered Product Identity.


Now order of operations matters on designation? So i can render all my 
own previous PI declarations null and void just by inadvertently missing 
them in one work? Even if the deriver has access to those previous 
works? [mind you, i personally rather like this interpretation: it 
implicitly says that if i have two sources for something, one of which 
claims the content as PI and one of which does not, the latter trumps; 
the prohibition is on reuse, not use. But that seems like an awful 
narrow interpretation of PI, especially considering how WotC uses the 
terms in their own works.]


My other complaint is that none of the CC license varients allow an 
easy mixture of open and closed content within a readable scope of 
work.  They all depend on chapters, segments or appendices to 
segregate open and non-open content.  Obviously, that would not have 
worked for gaming.


Huh? I'll accept "would not have worked the way the WotC OGL works" or 
"would not have worked the way you want it to", but, IMHO, almost all 
the problems with the WotC OGL stem precisely from the attempt to mix 
open and non-open content in an indescriminate matter, and, even if i 
weren'

Re: [OGF-L] Who can declare Product Identity (Third Party Beneficiaries?)

[woodelf]

Chris Helton wrote:
My godyes! If you violate the definitions of
Product Identity under the OGL then you are violating
copyright and trademark lawas too. You can't use the
IP (intellectual property) that doesn't belong to you.
 

Not necessarily. The PI definition allows things to be identified as PI 
that cannot be subject to copyright or trademark protection. Frex, i can 
declare "the stance of the characters in the cover illustration" as PI. 
You almost certainly can't trademark a stance, on its own. You certainly 
can't copyright it. So, if i drew a completely different character in 
the same stance, i might be in a circumstance where i'm violating the 
terms of the license, because the stance is PI, but, absent the WotC 
OGL, i wouldn't be in violation of any IP laws.

In a less-esoteric vein, i could PI a musical work too short to meet the 
current [ridiculously-short] standards for copyrighting music. Again, 
reusing that bit would, absent the WotC OGL, be perfectly legal. 
There're plenty of ways to violate the PI clauses of the WotC OGL 
without even getting close to violating conventional IP laws.

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Re: [OGF-L] Who can declare Product Identity (Third Party Beneficiaries?)

[woodelf]

Chris Helton wrote:
But what you said above is what I am tryign to say.
You don't have to be bound by the OGL to make a
declaration of PI. Basically if something has been
copyrighted or trademarked, that makes it a viable
Product Identity as the OGl defines it. Which means
that it is of limit. As long as something meets the
definition of Product Identity by the OGL it is PI.
One of the things that Darklord seems to be missing
are the uses of the cunjunction "and" in the license.
These definitions of PI are not either/or, but instead
they are a list of different objects.
 

So, let me see if i understand you rightly. You're saying that
1) anything that is (A) on the PI-example list and (B) declared as PI, 
is PI, even if the work is not governed by the WotC OGL
2) declaring a trademark or copyright is tantamount to declaring
3) therefore, if it has a copyright notice, and is on The List, it's PI, 
as far as anyone working under the WotC OGL is concerned

Is that a reasonable restatement of your position?
Would it make any difference to you if the guy behind the license told 
you that the list of things in the PI definiton is exemplary, not 
definitive--it's a list of things that *can be* PI, not a list of things 
that *are*?

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Re: [OGF-L] Who can declare Product Identity (Third Party Beneficiaries?)

[woodelf]

Chris Helton wrote:
Can you please quote the section of the OGL where it
says what you are trying to say it says? You can
believe my reading or not, however the OGL supports
what I am saying about Product Identity. Issues of
back cover blurb fonts and the such are nothing but
nigglings to try to prove a point by moving to its
illogical extreme. Definitions of whether or not
Product Identity existing outside of the OGL is
irrelevant, if you are publishing under the OGL that
is the legal definition that you have to use.
There is nothing in the license itself that says
anything about having to declare PI, that is defined
by section 1 of the license. 

Look, dismiss my interpretation all that you want. All
that I am doing is basing this only on my reading of
the document at hand. Frankly, as a publisher, I would
rather have a conseervative interpretation that
doesn't bite me on the ass than something that can
open me to potential liability, with the end result of
having to destroy product or open myself to possible
litigation.
I'm not asking anyone to take my definition of the
OGL, and I don't really care if you don't. However,
you have not created any reasonable doubt to cause me
to have to rethink my interpretations.
 

It is generally agreed, that the definitions of PI and OGC in the WotC 
OGL are (1) what *can be* PI/OGC, not necessarily what is [except for 
the "anything already declared OGC" part], and (2) exemplary, not 
definitive. So, it's not saying that those things automatically *are* 
PI, but that they can be PI. Ryan, the guy behind the license, has said 
as much. That is certainly how most publishers are using it.

Now, i agree with you, however, that that isn't what the license 
actually *says*. My honest opinion of the license? Read literally, it is 
self-contradictory, vague, and impossible to abide by as a result. Read 
in the spirit of the various clarifications offered by the WotC FAQ, 
Ryan Dancey, and various members of this list, and with generous 
acceptance of the intended use of the license, you get the current state 
of D20 System publishing. Only through consensual interpretation is teh 
license functional. It is, AFAIK, an unanswered question what happens if 
you get into court and both parties to a contract agree to treat a 
contract as saying one thing, when it actually says another.

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Re: [OGF-L] Who can declare Product Identity (Third Party Beneficiaries?)

[woodelf]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
However, there's nothing saying explicitly that PI has to be declared 
by anyone in particular.  I was thinking that you had to be a party to 
the contract to declare PI, but then I asked myself this question: can 
a third party beneficiary declare PI without actually being a party to 
the contract or an assignee.

Ugh!
This discussion festered up in the wake of an observation about 
whether you are bound by the PI in the SRD if you don't quote OGC from 
the SRD and include it in your Section 15.

Thoughts?  Comments?
Yeah, one: i'm not convinced you're bound by the PI declaration in the 
D20SRD even if you directly use material from it, since i'm not 
convinced it's a valid PI declaration. Nor am i convinced that it's an 
invalid PI declaration--though i lean more in that direction.

But, on your specific question: If, as i am all-but-convinced, PI is 
defined as being a subset of OGC, then any PI declaration that does not 
include OGC is meaningless--saying "all the stuff that looks like this 
and is part of OGC is PI; there is no OGC" pretty much answers the 
question on its own. Just like the D20SRD PI declaration, in a fair 
world where how much lawyer you could afford didn't matter, a PI 
declaration in a work with no OGC (whether or not it has a WotC OGL 
attached) would be meaningless. That's IMHO, and IANAL.

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Re: [Ogf-l] Poisons

[woodelf]

At 7:41 -0500 10/16/04, Jonathan M. Thompson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a book that is full of poisons for d20?
Toxicant.
It does a great job with real-world poisons.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#24 Law of Americanthropomorphism
Americans in Anime appear in one of two roles, either as a really nasty
skinny 'Bad Guy' or a big stupid 'Good Guy'.
First Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the big dumb
Americans are the American translators. (Sometimes referred to as the
Green Line Effect.)
Second Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the American
translators are the American editors and censors.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Creative Commons alternate copyright system

[woodelf]

At 5:24 -0700 10/16/04, Mike Kletch wrote:
I thought that the following article might be of interest to those on this
list.  It sounds very similar to the system founded under the OGL.  I wonder
then how they plan to overcome many of the accountability and referencing
issues that are discussed so frequently on this board.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-10-12-creative-commons_x.htm
Mostly, they just avoid them in the first place. Keep in mind, the 
Creative Commons licenses are a collection of licenses, rather than a 
one-size-fits-all approach. And they've been around for at least a 
year or three. Anyway, the WotC OGL has two masters: it is both 
trying to be a copyleft *and* an extra-strong protection for some 
sorts of IP. The problems with referencing under the WotC OGL come 
primarily from the trademark restriction clause, something that none 
of the CC licenses have--they just rely on normal 
copyright/trademark/patent as being strong enough.

Most of the other problems we've discussed on this list stem from the 
WotC OGL being poorly worded, leading to ambiguity in various areas. 
The CC licenses are clearly and un-ambiguously worded.

Finally, the multiple-license approach is a very different way of 
addressing users' differing ideas on how they want to share. The WotC 
OGL caters to different users by allowing the user to decide what to 
share and what not to. This is good. But the specific implementation 
leads to the practical issue of documents with some open content and 
some not-. With the CC licenses, all your content is equally open, 
and you simply pick the license that makes it the degree of openness 
you want. That is also good, but in a different way.

So, in summary, the majority of the issues over the WotC OGL that 
have been discussed here simply are non-issues for the CC licenses. 
Most of them are *not* inherent to open-content development in 
general (which is part of why we haven't been able to draw upon the 
large body of experience with open-content licenses in the software 
world all that much when framing these discussions).

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#24 Law of Americanthropomorphism
Americans in Anime appear in one of two roles, either as a really nasty
skinny 'Bad Guy' or a big stupid 'Good Guy'.
First Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the big dumb
Americans are the American translators. (Sometimes referred to as the
Green Line Effect.)
Second Corollary - The only people who are more stupid than the American
translators are the American editors and censors.
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Re: [Ogf-l] How much is "too much" for derivative works?

[woodelf]

able, 
but reuse is restricted rather than forbidden (nobody can stop you 
from telling a story you have memorized, but they might be able to 
stop you from making money off of the performance), and (2) and (1) 
are generally ownable and protected in both media, the former as IP, 
the latter as property. We'll leave (1) out of this, as it's pretty 
clear that stealing a physical object is wrong, and should be 
regulated (and, even if you disagree with that, it's a different 
kettle of fish from IP). So the court has just said that you can't 
derive from (2), no matter how small a bit. Well, what does that mean 
in the book world? You can't photocopy/scan a book, no matter how 
small of a bit, for inclusion in your new work. OK, seems reasonable. 
Except...

I grab Arcana Unearthed (which i legally own) off the shelf. I scan a 
page (using legal software). I chop it up until all i have left is 
the word "spell". I then use that image in place of the word "spell" 
wherever it occurs in my text. The final work is set in the same 
typeface as Arcana Unearthed (which i legally own) and at the same 
size as the scanned word, and output to PDF. The PDF is then 
security-protected to prevent cut-n-paste. And then i send the PDF to 
the printer, who prints my book. So, you can't tell by visual 
inspection that i've sampled the word 'spell'. You can't tell by 
interacting with the book in any way. Even if you have access to the 
PDF, since it's copy-protected you can't discover by trying to select 
some text and noticing that the word 'spell' doesn't select. But, 
according to this ruling, i'm in violation. At least if i tell anyone 
that's what i did. And even though i *could've* gotten to exactly the 
same place without sampling. It seems to me that our first-order test 
should be based on the final work, and any questions of how the 
creator got to that point shouldn't even come up except to counter 
that evidence (such as in defense of seeming plagiarism). IOW, if you 
can't identify the infringement just by listening to the song, there 
isn't one, even if the creator acknowledges samlping a source, or 
somesuch.

Likewise with texts: if you have both texts to compare, and can't 
identify the infringement, there isn't one.

Now, as to amount sampled: that's still basically the same question. 
Because the court is saying that there is a minimum threshhold to be 
considered infringing if you reuse a compositional element, but there 
is no minimum if you reuse a recording. Making it trivially easy to 
sample such a small bit that it is not identifiable, yet technically 
violating.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Universe is governed by the complex interweaving of three things:
matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest.  -- G'Kar
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Re: [Ogf-l] Copyrightability of games

[woodelf]

we have a disconnect between what a clerk in the
copyright office thinks it means, and what a professional in the hobby
gaming industry thinks it means.
As the general trend is to enhance creator's rights at the expense of
the public's right to re-use their work, and courts have seemed
increasingly willing to listen to the argument that the law should be
used to "protect" the rights of creators, it seems extremely reasonable
to me to believe that if such a case was litigated the court would be
all ears as to a discussion about exactly how "stretched" the term
"game" has become.
Here's the one part that confuses me, but it may just be my poor 
memory causing the confusion: do i remember rightly that you agree 
with me (and others) that things have swung too far to the creators' 
rights end of the spectrum, and you think that, frex, recent 
copyright-term extensions are Ungood? I don't understand why, if you 
believe IP laws have gotten too far-reaching, you seem to continually 
argue to support them? Much of the law is a matter of reflecting 
popular (or at least powerful) opinion--so why not do your damnedest 
to sway the opinions of the powerful content creators?  Why not use 
every resource to argue that the current situation is flawed, rather 
than simply acknowledging it? You certainly have enough respect in 
the RPG world that if you consistently said "this is the way it 
should be", it would have weight. In much the same way that you said 
"it's good to release the D&D3E rules engine under an open-content 
license", and a lot of people that were initially skeptical of 
open-content development (such as WotC, if i understand you 
correctly) were swayed. And now, i'd say it's a reasonable 
generalization to say that most producers in the RPG world believe 
mechanics are protectable, where before a significant %age believed 
they weren't; most people think that system licensing of RPGs is 
good, where before most were very protective and proprietary. If, as 
you often say, you consider the current expansion of creator's 
rights, and/or loss of public rights, wrong, why not fight against 
it, and try to change it?

--
woodelf<*>
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Copyrightability of games

[woodelf]

At 17:29 -0700 9/14/04, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
I think that if you had a game comprised of real-world objects, like
historical military simulations, that's an argument that would probably
be hard to overcome.  But if those objects are mostly non-real objects
(fantasy, sf, horror, etc.) I think the argument is going to collapse
because the individual components themselves are copyrightable, just
like characters in a book or a play.  You don't see lightsabers anywhere
but in Star Wars because the lightsaber "component" is copyright.
But is that  an issue of copyright or trademark? Other than name, how 
is Thundarr's sword not a lightsaber? What about the various energy 
swords in SF fiction and RPGs (Metascape comes immediately to mind)? 
Other than the name, you *do* see lightsabers all over the place.
--
woodelf<*>
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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Re: [Ogf-l] D20 OGL

[woodelf]

At 15:20 -0400 8/12/04, DarkTouch wrote:
I like the 'closely parallels' line and think it would be funny if there
were specific key points where they differed in presentation that would work
as key markers for WotC to check and see if you were copying out of the SRD
or the Player's Handbook. Granted a developer would have to be stupid not to
recognize the cut and paste advantage of the SRD but it'd still be funny.
There is. And apparently it has succeeded in being subtle enough that 
it's not obvious: one of them always uses "you", while the other 
always uses "your character" (right now, i forget which is which, and 
i don't feel like checking because it doesn't really matter).
--
woodelf<*>
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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Re: "unclaimed trademarks"? (was: Re: [Ogf-l] D20 OGL)

[woodelf]

At 13:52 -0400 8/12/04, Doug Meerschaert wrote:
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 12:25:17 -0500, woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 Furthermore, i thought that the title of a single work was, perhaps
 with exceptions, not trademarkable--only series of works could
 benefit from trademark protection.
Hence, the definition of "trademark" in the OGL.
[(f) "Trademark" means the logos, names, mark, sign, motto, designs
that are used by a Contributor to identify itself or its products or
the associated products contributed to the Open Game License by the
Contributor]
A very liberal reading of this could even conclude with "System
Reference Document" being considered a trademark.
oh, right, the definition of trademark in the WotC OGL. Forgot about 
that--in part because you just said "trademark," unqualified, so i 
immediately thought of regular trademark laws. Even in the context of 
this list, i think it'd be a good i dea to be clear that you're 
referring to that, rather than to trademarks in general, when such is 
the case.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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RE: [Ogf-l] D20 OGL

[woodelf]

At 13:43 + 8/12/04, Daniel Marshall wrote:
The source I assume is the book that I would be getting the terms 
from.  And where would that designation of open content be found? 
Beginning of the book?  End of the book?
Yes. Usually on the credits, table-of-contents, or title page. Since 
you are required to reproduce the license in the book, too, the other 
common place is on the same page as the license. But it could be 
literally anywhere within the book--there's no requirement to put it 
any particular place.

And does that mean that I can't use anything from Wotc?
Short answer: yup.
Long answer: With the exception of Unearthed Arcana and a couple 
monsters (in either MMII or FF--i forget), none of WotC's books have 
OGC in them. However, WotC *has* released the D20SRD, which can be 
found, among other places, at <http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/>. 
All of it is OGC, and the content very closely parallels that found 
in the D&D3.5E PH, DMG, and MM.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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"unclaimed trademarks"? (was: Re: [Ogf-l] D20 OGL)

[woodelf]

At 10:41 -0400 8/12/04, Doug Meerschaert wrote:
And don't forget that trademarks--even unclaimed ones, like the mere
title of a single book--are  given special protection by the OGL.
Huh? How can you have an unclaimed trademark? I understood that one 
of the requirements of trademark status is that you notify and 
defend? How can you do that without claiming the trademark? Do you 
just mean a trademark that appears somewhere without a TM or R after 
it?

Furthermore, i thought that the title of a single work was, perhaps 
with exceptions, not trademarkable--only series of works could 
benefit from trademark protection.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#29 Law of Melee Luminescence
Any being displaying extremely high levels of martial arts prowess
and/or violent emotions emits light in the form of a glowing aura. This
aura is usually blue for 'good guys' and red for 'bad guys'. This is
attributed to Good being higher in the electromagnetic spectrum than
Evil.
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Re: [Ogf-l] courtesy & OGC

[woodelf]

At 14:06 -0500 8/6/04, Maggie Vining wrote:
Regardless of what is currently considered polite, my take on it is that
companies and indviduals should aim toward not expecting to directly inform
others when they use OGC.  Wizards doesn't and I think they like it that
way.  Isn't that part of why there is an OGC in the first place, to make use
of other people's content easier?  It's inconvenient for the people using
the content, and some companies my prefer to remain ignorant of how their
OGC is used.
Except for the "prefer to remain ignorant part" [which may 
nonetheless be true], you are absolutely correct: that's the whole 
point of the license. There was never anything stopping you from 
asking permission to reuse--there still isn't. The whole point of 
open-content development is to eliminate the asking permission step 
by explicitly giving it. Don't waste the creator's time and your 
effort over asking about OGC. Notify if you feel like it, but there's 
no need for that, either. Save asking permission for those times when 
you want to reuse something that isn't OGC.
Instead I suggest that if you use someone else's content it might be better
to approach them in person, like at a convention, rather than in writing.
"Hi, I'm Maggie.  I really enjoyed your "Product X" and I used some of your
open content in my "Product Y"."  Then take the next steps from there.
Writing *might* be interpreted as some kind of notice which requires action
on the part of the recipient: "Hey we are using this content, speak now or
forever hold your peace".
So? Why is that bad? If there *is* a legitimate mistake in the OGC/PI 
designations, that's their chance to say so. [Though it's unclear to 
me that they'd have any legal weight, so you might only need to 
oblige the "correction" out of respect, not legal necessity.]  If 
not, they've got nothing to say, and it doesnt' matter whether they 
don't say it now, or don't say it later. The reuser already has 
permission to reuse the OGC, sans PI, and it is only incumbent upon 
her to follow the terms of the license. It is, conversely, incumbent 
upon the issuer to make accurate and clear OGC/PI designations--if 
you feel the need to contact someone because one of those is unclear, 
they have failed their duty under the license. In which case i say, 
forget them: either don't use their content at all, or follow 
whatever the designations actually say--if you follow the designation 
as accurately as possible, in good faith, they've made their bed and 
can lie in it. Maybe it'll persuade them to make a clearer 
designation next time.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Congratulations!  You've finally realized that the woman in your heart
isn't the woman of your dreams.  --If Lucy Fell
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Re: [Ogf-l] compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

At 5:52 +0100 8/2/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: "woodelf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 > Out of curiosity, is theirs updated for the latest release?
I don't know, I'm afraid. I just flagged this up *in case* it did 
what you need. It just
says 3.5. Is there more than one 3.5 SRD?  Perhaps you could contact 
The Other Game
Company and see if they have the information you want.
Yep. There're at *least* two versions of the "3.5" version of the 
D20SRD. [which is yet *another* naming convention problem with the 
D20SRD, even more problematic than the genericness of its name.] The 
damn thing needs some version controlling (since every version, from 
"gentleperson's agreement" through the current, has *exactly* the 
same name), or something (such as distinct names--there are at least 
3 versions of the Sec.15 entry for it, after all).

 > Anyway, i
 may or may not be "reinventing the wheel"--my PDFs came out at about
 the same time as The Other Game Company's, in the first place. And
 mine are much more eyeball-friendly, IMHO. Not to mention, IIRC,
 theirs don't cover everything--primarily the player-oriented stuff,
 right?
I knew that someone had done some but couldn't remember who. The 
ones by TOGC were the
only ones I could find on Google. I recently looked through your 
website but couldn't find
them. Is there any chance you could post the link?
__
You need to go to our company website: 
<http://www.tiltingatwindmills.net/>.  I actually haven't had access 
to the website in my .sig for more than a year now, so i can't fix 
problems with it--or delete it. I suppose i should delete the link, 
but last i checked it was just fine, and at least this way i have my 
personal stuff online *somewhere*.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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If we can just hit this bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall
like a house of cards. . . Checkmate! --Zap Brannigan
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Re: [Ogf-l] One or many licensors?

[woodelf]

At 13:02 -0400 8/1/04, Doug Meerschaert wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 08:42:47 -0500, woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 So, personally, i'm about ready to give up on these discussions. The
 license is broken, perhaps fatally.
If the license were broken, it wouldn't be used.  It is used; ergo, it
not only isn't broken, but it doesn't even really need to be fixed.
Could it be clearer?  Yes.  Are there a few issues that would be nice
to add?  Yes  (Namely, explicity being allowed to note where OGC comes
from.)
I have a hypothetical license. It has two clauses, one of which says 
"The undersigned agree to abide by the terms of this contract, so 
long as both parties are US citizens." and another of which says 
"This license may not be altered."  Two people who are not both US 
citizens decide to use the license, acknowledging that it technically 
is not valid, but both agreeing to abide by the terms of the 
license--but without any additional provisions being formally added, 
because that is explicitly forbidden.  Should it go to court, it 
would, by the very letter of teh license, be deemed unworkable. Yet 
the two people are clearly using the license. I realize this is a 
fairly contrived example, but what i'm trying to point out is that 
simply using the license does not eliminate the possibility of it 
being fatally flawed. If everybody agrees (explicitly or implicitly) 
to just work around the broken bits, or turn a blind eye to them, or 
whatever, it might simultaneously be legally broken, and perfectly 
useable--because some formal part of the legal license is being 
sidestepped through other-than-legal means.

I contend that that is where we are at with teh WotC OGL: several of 
the provisions are sufficiently problematic that (1) we cannot come 
to one accepted interpretation and/or (2) while those on this list 
can, that interpretation doesn't make sense in light of how WotC has 
used the license. And then there are the areas that may or may not be 
broken (how PI behaves, and whose PI you are beholden to) that 
everybody has simply agreed to an interpretation on (avoid all PI you 
are aware of, rather than push the issue).

Or, to put it another way: would you prefer to sign a lease that says 
"Rent is due on the 1st of the month" with a landlord who says "don't 
worry--i won't actually come pounding on your door so long as i get 
it by the 5th", or sign a lease that says "Rent is due no later than 
the 5th of the month"?
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/

If we can just hit this bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall
like a house of cards. . . Checkmate! --Zap Brannigan
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Re: [Ogf-l] One or many licensors?

[woodelf]

At 13:03 +0200 8/1/04, Peter Brink wrote:
On Sunday, August 01, 2004 4:01 AM,
Doug Meerschaert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 16:00:25 +0200, Peter Brink
 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 What does the list say?
 Collectively?  "Hire a lawyer."
That is probably good advice :-), but isn't this particular question
so central to the use of OGL that there ought to be a good and known
answer to it?
Yes. Along with three or four others. But there isn't, and all our 
yammerings on this list won't create one unless (a) WotC revises the 
license and (b) everybody uses the new license. B might happen, but i 
haven't seen any evidence that A ever will.

So, personally, i'm about ready to give up on these discussions. The 
license is broken, perhaps fatally. Everybody knows this and is, for 
the most part, carefully staying away from the broken bits. Nobody in 
this industry is likely to press a suit over the matter except WotC, 
and nobody is likely to stand up to them. So we're not likely to get 
a definite answer any time soon. We'll just all continue to operate 
on the legal fiction that our collective interpretation has some 
legal validity (despite the fact that we can't even reach consensus). 
And, personally, i'll use the license as best i can, fully aware that 
my understanding of it (heck, all our understanding of it) could be 
flat-out wrong. Based on discussions on this list and the few actual 
legal minds who've weighed in, i strongly suspect that not even WotC 
is interpreting the license correctly.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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If we can just hit this bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall
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Re: [Ogf-l] compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

At 5:50 +0100 7/30/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Oh, I thought he wanted a general idea of what was new. If he does 
want a PDF version of
the 3.5, there is already a 3.5 SRD PDF download available from The 
Other Game Company.
Here is where you can find it:

http://www.theothergamecompany.com/stuff-handout.htm
This is in 9 PDFs (arranged like PHB chapters) but that should be ok 
for most people to
use, shouldn't it? There is no sense in reinventing the wheel if you 
can get one premade
here.

Unless Woodelf needs the data for something else. Over to you, Woodelf.
Out of curiosity, is theirs updated for the latest release? Anyway, i 
may or may not be "reinventing the wheel"--my PDFs came out at about 
the same time as The Other Game Company's, in the first place. And 
mine are much more eyeball-friendly, IMHO. Not to mention, IIRC, 
theirs don't cover everything--primarily the player-oriented stuff, 
right?

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"Why are these terrible things always happening to me?" " Karma!
"  --Cordelia and Xander
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Re: [Ogf-l] non PI works

[woodelf]

At 11:12 -0500 7/29/04, Maggie Vining wrote:
I was wondering if there are any open games out there that have no product
identity.  Is anyone in the process of creating such a game?
Zilch? I don't think so. None in the game itself? Probably 
several--look at Freeport, for starters. Our own Four Colors al 
Fresco will only have the company name and perhaps a couple other 
such things declared as PI (the credits page in general won't be OGC 
or PI).
--
woodelf<*>
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"Why are these terrible things always happening to me?" " Karma!
"  --Cordelia and Xander
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

At 11:58 -0400 7/29/04, Doug Meerschaert wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 00:19:50 -0500, woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 I've got all three versions on my harddrive already. Plus a couple
 more minor iterations in between (i believe i have 5 complete
 versions of the SRD, plus one pre-release version). 
Do you have MS Word, or Open Office?
Try saving both RTF files as the appropriate office file, and run
"compare changes" on it.  You should get the changes highlighted, and
then all you have to do is go through and update the pre-marked bits.
hmmm.. hadn't thought of that. (In large part because i wasn't aware 
either piece of software had that feature--i knew MSWord could track 
changes to a single document, just not that it could compare two 
documents that you arbitrarityl told it were related.) I may have to 
instalf Open Office and give that a try.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"Why are these terrible things always happening to me?" " Karma!
"  --Cordelia and Xander
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Re: [Ogf-l] compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

At 7:22 +0100 7/29/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
There is a full list on the WotC website called the "D&D v.3.5 
Accessory Update Booklet"
available from the following page:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a
I'm not sure if someone has done a *SRD only* version of this but 
I'm sure you can work
out what is new in the 3.5 SRD from this download.

There are actually a lot of changes. Check out the skills as some 
skills have new names
and some have been merged or removed completely.

Many other smaller things have been changed all throught the PHB.
Sorry--i should have been clearer. I initially based my PDFs an the 
3.5E-concurrent release of eth D20SRD. I'd now like to update their 
content to match the current release of the D20SRD, i.e. the new 
psionics, etc. Problem is identifynig the "etc.".
--
woodelf<*>
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[Ogf-l] Re: compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

At 22:22 -0400 7/28/04, Joe Mucchiello wrote:
At 10:15 AM 7/28/2004 -0500, woodelf wrote:
I'd like to finally update my PDF versions of the D20SRD to reflect 
the latest release, but there is one massive hurdle: no version 
tracking on the source files. I have no idea which files have 
changes, and no easy way to locate where the changes are in the 
files. Has anybody put together a list of what was changed with the 
latest release (or, actually, what has changed since the 
D&D3.5E-concurrent release, if there's been more than one in the 
interim)? I know the new psionics material was released, and that 
simply replaces the old psionics material. I've heard mention of 
possibly some new info on epic-level stuff--new feats? Is that it? 
Anything else?
The psionics release include changes to a bunch of unrelated files.
That was my recollection. Do you know which ones (either for certain, 
or even just probably)?

I have three version of the SRD on my hard drive (one 3.0 and two 
3.5 releases). If you are desperate I can zip them up and send them 
to you so you can determine the differences yourself. But wait until 
you are desperate to ask. :-)
I've got all three versions on my harddrive already. Plus a couple 
more minor iterations in between (i believe i have 5 complete 
versions of the SRD, plus one pre-release version).  Problem is that 
they're RTF files, and using DIF on RTF files is relatively useless, 
at least in this case: it brings up tons of bogus hits due to minor 
variances in how MSWord (or whatever they're using) outputs the RTF. 
Wading through all the changes something like DIF reports isn't much 
better than just going through the files manually. Problem is, while 
i can easily notice gross changes (new sections, new classes, 
probably even new feats), any subtle changes (different numbers, 
frex) are likely to be missed. And that'd still require going through 
all the files just to check. Frex, were there any changes to monster 
stats with the "psionics" update?--i remember some comments about 
incorrect stats in the initial 3.5E release.

Unless somebody actually knows what was changed, the tentative plan 
is to strip all the formatting out, converting to plain text, run DIF 
to identify where to look for changes, then go back to the source 
files and compare, sentence-by-sentence, manually to identify the 
exact changes. Which is *not* an efficient or easy process, and may 
or may not work.
--
woodelf<*>
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[Ogf-l] compiled list of D20SRD changes?

[woodelf]

I'd like to finally update my PDF versions of the D20SRD to reflect 
the latest release, but there is one massive hurdle: no version 
tracking on the source files. I have no idea which files have 
changes, and no easy way to locate where the changes are in the 
files. Has anybody put together a list of what was changed with the 
latest release (or, actually, what has changed since the 
D&D3.5E-concurrent release, if there's been more than one in the 
interim)? I know the new psionics material was released, and that 
simply replaces the old psionics material. I've heard mention of 
possibly some new info on epic-level stuff--new feats? Is that it? 
Anything else?
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#17 Law of Transient Romantic Unreliability
Minmei is a bimbo.
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RE: [Ogf-l] Seeking Open and/or easily licensed systems etc.

[woodelf]

At 23:41 +0100 6/16/04, GRIM wrote:
true ogl: WotC OGL, DRL, OOGL, Creative Commons Licenses
easy use, but no reuse: Fuzion, Fudge.
inexpensive use, but no reuse: various GoO licenses; probably others.
System-wise, we have:
D20 System, Action! System, Dominion Rules, Four Colors al Fresco,
probably others, released under a true ogl.
Fudge, Fuzion, Tri-Stat, and probably some others, released under an
almost-open paradigm. And i've heard rumors that Fudge may be
released under a true open-content license in the near future.
*
Got links and non-acronymed names for these? :)
Wizards of the Coast's Open Games License. 
<http://www.opengamingfoundation.org>
Dominion Rules License. <http://www.dominiongames.com/drl.html>
October Open Game License. <http://www.rpglibrary.org/oogl/oogl.html>
Creative Commons: <http://creativecommons.org/>, specifically, the 
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: 
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/>
GoO: Guardians of Order: they have an assortment of licenses of various sorts.
ogl: open game license; any license for open-content game 
distribution. Not to be confused with [WotC] OGL, "the" [WotC] Open 
Games License.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Juliet is AAAHHH THE SUN!" *FOOM!*
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Re: [Ogf-l] Seeking Open and/or easily licensed systems etc.

[woodelf]

At 12:28 +0100 6/16/04, GRIM wrote:
Help me out for a resource I'm putting together.
I have the Open biggies,
The OGL, Action!
I have the 'fairly open' licences such as Magnum Opus, Fuzion et al as
well, the ones that are 'easier' to publish for.
Can anyone offer some more obscure or differing versions of licensable
systems, with web links?
A little unclear here--are you looking for licenses, or systems? You 
list some of each.

licenses:
true ogl: WotC OGL, DRL, OOGL, Creative Commons Licenses
easy use, but no reuse: Fuzion, Fudge.
inexpensive use, but no reuse: various GoO licenses; probably others.
System-wise, we have:
D20 System, Action! System, Dominion Rules, Four Colors al Fresco, 
probably others, released under a true ogl.
Fudge, Fuzion, Tri-Stat, and probably some others, released under an 
almost-open paradigm. And i've heard rumors that Fudge may be 
released under a true open-content license in the near future.

Magnum Opus is really an imprint--you can license their system and/or 
trademarks without using Magnum Opus to print the resulting product. 
You might even be able to print non-Tri-Stat, non-BESMD20 stuff 
through them, though i don't think so.

Anyway, our Four Colors al Fresco will be 100% OGC, released under 
the WotC OGL and the appropriate Creative Commons license. The 
version on the web is currently released under the OOGL, but only 
because i haven't gotten around to changing the legal text on the 
website--it's our intention to dual-release, with the Creative 
Commons license replacing the OOGL, as the OOGL's creator has 
suggested. Maybe i'll get around to fixing the legal text before 
Origins, but i doubt it. It'll certainly be updated shortly after 
Origins.
--
Nat Barmore
on behalf of The Impossible Dream

Imagination is more important than knowledge.  --Albert Einstein
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 15:28 -0400 6/1/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 6/1/2004 2:32:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<<--PI follows the "white-out" method for interpretation purposes--you
can't get it from that source, but if you can legitimately get it
from some other source you're in the clear>>

The "get it from somewhere else" method really adds a lot of weight 
to the notion that PI must be "owned" to be declared (my reading of 
the PI definition).  You can't gain PI protection over things which 
are not copyrightable, aren't trademarked, and aren't patented, and 
you don't need to "get them from somewhere else" because if they 
aren't copyrighted, patented, or trademarked, then they are by 
definition in the public domain.  Unless "ownership" implies 
something other than "having secured rights to the material via 
normal IP law", then when people PI stuff that isn't copyrighted 
then you can insert it right back in.
I disagree. I think Ryan (and Clark?--i forget who all has taken this 
position now) is right that PI might not require ownership of any 
sort to be valid PI. It just might not be effective.  I don't think a 
PI declaration has to be effective to be valid--why you'd bother 
making an ineffective PI declaration is another matter.

<<--given those two, i don't care whether or not there are standards
for the declaration of PI, because it is trivially circumvented.
 >>

Well, one area of concern is if people try to PI formulae that are 
unique to them.  If they are unique, but not ownable, then they 
can't be PI'd (if ownership is determined as above).  In which case, 
you would, at worst, have a text where that section was not OGC, but 
since it's not copyrightable, then you should be able to reinsert it.
And that's one place where "PI is always valid but not always 
effective" differs from "PI must be ownable": by that interpretation, 
if it's moderately unique the fact that it can't be owned might not 
prevent circumvention, if there is no other source for it. Whereas if 
PI claims over non-ownable material simply are invalid, then, as you 
say, the material would be effectively public domain. Mind you, i'm 
not taking a stand over which situation is better, just pointing out 
one of the few places they differ.

<< It only comes up when it is blatantly obvious,
such as claiming as PI something that never appears in the work>>

By one school of thought, if the OGC/PI declaration is part of the 
covered work, then the PI declaration could be self-referential, in 
which case you could PI something that only appears in your PI 
declaration.  And thus the d20 SRD (no illithids in there, right?).
Hmmm...never thought of it like that. But a good point--since we 
don't have hard-n-fast rules on what constitutes "the work", i can't 
definitively say that the OGC/PI declarations are in some sense 
"outside of" it.  Seems pretty sketchy to me, however. And still not 
valid *if* the "PI is a subset of OGC" theory is correct, since the 
PI declaration hasn't been identified as OGC (except, perhaps, for a 
few 100% OGC works, depending on the wording of their 
declaration--frex, i explicitly excluded the ToC and credits pages 
when designating the OGC in my otherwise-100% OGC prettied-up 
D20SRD). And perhaps valid but ineffective if PI protection is, 
basically, the "white-out" interpretation, and only mono-generational.
--
woodelf<*>
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"Grave robbery?  That's new.  Interesting." "I know you meant to say
gross and disturbing." "Yes, yes, yes, of course.  Terrible thing.  Must
put a stop to it.  Damn it."  --Giles and Buffy
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

c muscle to prevent any 
challenges).  So, i'd say it is not an unreasonable stretch to say 
that WotC's interpretation of the license is at odds with the 
drafter's intent. I don't know, not being a trained legal 
professional, whether this is due to ambiguity in the contract, a 
poorly-constructed contract that doesn't say what Ryan intended it to 
say, or some other factor. But what if WotC's interpretation is 
correct, according to the letter of the license, yet we can 
demonstrate that the license was drafted with the specific intent to 
match Ryan's interpretation? As a general principle of US law, which 
interpretation is favored?

Where the license is vague, you should either stick to the single 
most conservative (i.e., the one least open to any attack) reading 
of the document to make yourself unassailable.

or...?
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"Grave robbery?  That's new.  Interesting." "I know you meant to say
gross and disturbing." "Yes, yes, yes, of course.  Terrible thing.  Must
put a stop to it.  Damn it."  --Giles and Buffy
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 12:22 -0400 6/1/04, DarkTouch wrote:
They're perfectly valid questions.. but as soon as you start 
throwing out the term: 'Hypothetically' then I'm going to tune you 
out because you're not really doing it. You're just talking about 
doing it and haven't given me a reason to care. Engadge my 
interest.. show me a real product that I might sometime buy.

And what if the very reason it's currently hypothetical is because he 
hasn't figured out how to make it work, legally, yet?

--
woodelf<*>
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 15:20 +0200 6/1/04, Peter Brink wrote:
Has anyone (but me :) noticed that the definitions in section 1 are not all
separated by a ";" as one (I) would expect to be the norm in English. A, B, C
and E are terminated by a ";"; D and G by a "."; and F is not properly
terminated at all. Should we assume that this is a typo? Does it change the
meaning of any of the definitions?
It's obviously not to the benefit of anyone issuing an OGL that the license is
so obscure. I mean, we have all the questions brought up by Lee the other
day, we have "potation" - why in earth does one include such an obscure term
in a contract of this type, it beats me - and now this semicolon thing.
I know for sure that if I issue an OGL here in Sweden and end up in court (in
Sweden) the unclear language and the other less than certain points of OGL
would not be to my advantage in the court room.
Honestly, isn't time to sort all these questions out, write an FAQ (an
unbiased one...) and help building confidence in the license?
Oh, we've noticed. Some consider it a non-issue--the intent is clear 
enough. Some (myself among them) consider it a significant issue--not 
so much the between-clauses punctuation as the intraclause 
punctuation. Given that the interclause punctuation clearly doesn't 
say what it ought to, and the fact that the intraclause punctuation 
sometimes doesn't make sense and sometimes makes sense but doesn't 
say what the clause seems to be intended to say, it is reasonable to 
suspect that the intraclause punctuation also isn't as intended. But 
who knows what is intended.

As for a FAQ, i've been wondering this for some time (and may even 
have asked it here already--if so, and if i got an answer, my 
apologies, but feel free to repeat yourselves, as i've obviously 
forgotten it): would a FAQ have any legal weight. IOW, if the FAQ 
says something that either is not included in the license at all, or 
contradicts the current wording of the license (but which the license 
would mean with, say, a bit of punctuation clean-up), does it have 
any legal weight? If i follow the FAQified interpretation of the 
license, and someone challenges me on it by holding the literal 
interpretation of the license, do i have a leg to stand on? Even if 
the FAQ is written by the author of the license? Or is a legal 
contract only as good as the contract itself (nevermind any 
understandnig the users might have)? Is the safest legal course to 
stick to the letter of the license, even in the face of  known 
discrepencies, until the license itself is fixed?
--
woodelf<*>
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"Grave robbery?  That's new.  Interesting." "I know you meant to say
gross and disturbing." "Yes, yes, yes, of course.  Terrible thing.  Must
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 10:56 -0400 6/1/04, DarkTouch wrote:
As a native english speaker who doesn't speak for the rest of the native
english speakers, I never noticed the 'typos' nor did I really care.
I can't remember for certain whether i noticed the horrible 
punctuation the first time i read it, or not until someone raised a 
point that got me to do a close reading of a clause, but it has 
caused me much frustration. I'm not sure which bugs me more--the 
clauses that are ambiguous because of their punctuation, or the 
clauses that have a very clear meaning, but that meaning appears to 
be at odds with the intended meaning (and changes of only punctuation 
could bring the clause into line with that perceived intended 
meaning).
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"Grave robbery?  That's new.  Interesting." "I know you meant to say
gross and disturbing." "Yes, yes, yes, of course.  Terrible thing.  Must
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 10:20 -0400 6/1/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 6/1/2004 9:22:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<


I think that since Section 1 clearly seems to list off different 
definitions and since they are interspersed with elements like "(b)" 
I think it's clear that they are separate definitions in spite of 
minor punctuation problems.

I'm more concerned about the internal punctuation and organization 
of each definition.  That stuff could be substantially clearer.
But the sloppy interclause punctuation lends creedence to the idea 
that the intraclause punctuation doesn't say what the author(s) 
intended it to say.

<< I mean, we have all the questions brought up by Lee the other
day,>>

Most of those questions were pretty vast in scope and implication. 
For instance, if you have to "own" PI to declare it, and the 
definition of "own" is inferred to be "the PI declarer has a valid 
copyright, trademark, or patent claim to the materials", then that 
has big implications for what can be PI'd.  It might prevent, for 
example, PI'ing untrademarked short phrases used in isolation 
instead of as part of a collection of phrases (i.e., you might be 
able to PI a spell list, but not individual spell names).

For instance, I have now seen about 5-6 publications under the OGL 
that use the phrases "hero points" and "power points", and in some 
of those the phrases are OGC and in some they are PI.  Those usages 
would instantly come into conflict if something derivative of these 
works was creative.  That's not theoretical, it's a very practical 
fundamental concern, and anyone who declares the concern as bogus is 
off-base and deems the concern unwarranted ONLY because they haven't 
considered releasing such a product.

One of the other points I raised: If you have to obey all the PI 
declarations for everything in Section 15 it has huge implications 
compared to a situation where you have to obey the PI declarations 
of people you derive directly from.

I think some of the questions I raised the other day would be VERY 
likely to come up in any litigation regarding the OGL which claimed 
breach of contract for use of PI.
I'm comfortable with Ryan's pronouncement on the matter, since it 
accords perfectly with the license; it's from the author of the 
license; and it lays out a practical, workable interpretation of PI:
--PI declarations only have weight if you see them [my words, not 
his]--if you're a step or more removed from the PI declaration, it 
doesn't apply to you
--PI follows the "white-out" method for interpretation purposes--you 
can't get it from that source, but if you can legitimately get it 
from some other source you're in the clear
--given those two, i don't care whether or not there are standards 
for the declaration of PI, because it is trivially circumvented.

I am also confident that, while a legal technicality, the idea that 
PI protection is mostly just making it not-OGC and thus technically 
PI is meaningless outside of OGC, is the most-consistent 
interpretation of the license. Or, skipping straight to the result: 
if it doesn't appear within OGC anywhere, the PI declaration has no 
weight. I'm not gonna even bother double-checking that fact in a work 
when i want to use some OGC, however--i'll just not use their PI and 
avoid the whole issue. It only comes up when it is blatantly obvious, 
such as claiming as PI something that never appears in the work (as 
OGC or otherwise), and when the item claimed as PI is a common term 
that clearly predates the PI claim (such as "d20" an the latest 
revisions of the D20SRD).

 I actually have more concerns over "compilation" in that it is 
unclear whether that refers to compiled software or a 
compiled/collected work (like a volume of articles) or both.  I wish 
that had been more specifically detailed.  I'd say that, in context, 
I'd probably assume the former was the correct interpretation.
Huh, never thought about that one. I guess i just assumed that it was 
referring to the things like short-story collections when it referred 
to compilation, since the license is primarily addressing written 
works, not software.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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gross and disturbing." "Yes, yes, yes, of course.  Terrible thing.  Must
put a stop to it.  Damn it."  --Giles and Buffy
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Re: [Ogf-l] Section 1 Definitions

[woodelf]

At 9:49 -0400 6/1/04, DarkTouch wrote:
Personally,
If I were you then I'd just give up. Don't even bother releasing anything
using the OGL in Sweden. I'm not a lawyer but honestly, if you're at a point
where you are analyzing the use of semi-colons then it is time to suck it up
and realize the license is just not for you.
He's not "analyzing" the use of semicolons--he's simply making an 
obvious observation to anyone with a basic grasp of English grammar: 
the license is a grammatical mess. It's sloppy. I don't know, for 
certain, how much legal effect that has, but grammatically it has a 
very significant effect.  Semicolons have a distinct meaning--they're 
more akin to a period than a comma. Join two things with a comma, and 
they're basically one thought. Join them with a semicolon, and you 
have two distinct, but related, thoughts. Makes a huge difference in 
the list-like definitions, especially.

I've only ever released something small time... but that is more than enough
to know that the license does what it needs to do for the very basics. In
other words, if you are using it the way it was intended to do. The weird
stuff you try to do with it, the less valid it becomes and the more the
discussion shifts into the hypothetical.
I'll reiterate something i said previously:
At 15:34 -0500 4/11/04, woodelf wrote:
Finally, let me illustrate the ambiguity of the grammar in that 
clause. I've put together a few possible, reasonable, alternatives 
to that clause, all of which change nothing but commas and 
semicolons, all of which are grammatically unambiguous in their 
meaning [applying it to actual law might still be fuzzy], and each 
of which means something slightly different.

"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic; and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines, to the extent such content does 
not embody
the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "

"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic, and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art, and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic, and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor,
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines, to the extent such content does 
not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "

"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic; and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines; to the extent such content does 
not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License; including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
And we have no idea whether one of these, or some other meaning, is 
what the clause is acutally supposed to say, because right now it is 
fairly ambiguous in meaning. And in a very real and practical-minded 
way: all these discussions of what can and can't be PI, which PI you 
have to pay attention to, etc., stem back to ambiguities in the 
license, and several of those ambiguities are just a punctuation 
clean-up away from being resolved. Heck, if the punctuation was 
clearer, we wouldn't be having discussions of what the license says, 
we'd be having discussions, grounded in a shared understanding of the 
license, of what to do with it or how to get it changed.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Ogf-l] "Stealing" OGC

[woodelf]

At 2:04 -0700 5/31/04, Clark Peterson wrote:
 > Valid point. As with a lot of things, if you take
 any position but
 the most-extreme (at either extreme), it is a
 somewhat-arbirtary
 position, often without objective support for why
 your position is
 valid and one just a little bit to either side of
 yours is not.
I dont know about arbitrary, but I agree with your
point. How about instead of arbitrary we just say
unsettled. I do believe my position is correct and is
not arbitrary. I have what I believe is objective
support for it. But reasonable minds can certainly
differ on the topic and it is unsettled in that no one
has said definitively what is right or wrong. (by the
way, this is not to buy into the "scary grey area"
debate, which I dont agree with, but simply to say
that reasonable minds can differ on things and not be
arbitrary in their positions or disagreements).
Fair enough. Sounds like a semantic issue to me, but if you prefer 
"unsettled", i'm ok with it. I was just going for "no one, absolute, 
incontrovertible, objective truth".
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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I'm not poor, I just own a very select group of money. Only the crispest
bills and clinkiest bits of change are fit to grace my pockets. --Paul
Mather
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Re: [Ogf-l] "Stealing" OGC

[woodelf]

At 20:23 -0700 5/29/04, Clark Peterson wrote:
Problem is that you will have people with the hacker
mentality that anything less than 100% open is
unacceptable, so clarity of designation isnt
necessarily the problem.
Besides, you can see how people disagree on clarity,
particularly people who are just fence sitters who
like to bitch and moan and who dont actually use the
license. Some of them think stuff is unclear or
"crippled" (I use that term because it has been used,
not because I like it) that to people who actually use
the license dont think it is unclear or crippled at
all.
Valid point. As with a lot of things, if you take any position but 
the most-extreme (at either extreme), it is a somewhat-arbirtary 
position, often without objective support for why your position is 
valid and one just a little bit to either side of yours is not. [Not 
to attack your position, just observing that the only positions that 
don't lead to ambiguities are "all information must be free" and "you 
own everything you write down", more or less.]
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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I'm not poor, I just own a very select group of money. Only the crispest
bills and clinkiest bits of change are fit to grace my pockets. --Paul
Mather
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Re: [Ogf-l] "Stealing" OGC

[woodelf]

At 18:13 -0500 5/29/04, Moses Wildermuth wrote:
There have been occasions where, like woodelf and clark,

Just to set things straight, this quote was from me, not Clark.
Woah! you're absolutely right. Mind you, the message i posted doesn't 
say i was quoting Clark--it says that Clark said some stuff, none of 
which was quoted, and somebody said some stuff that i didn't 
attribute. But i still was sloppy, and should've cleaned it up, at 
least by removing Clark's name.
--
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MY NEXT CHARACTER IS GOING TO BE A KICKBOXING NINJA MASTER CHEF WHO
MEMORIZED THE LIBRARY OF F***ING CONGRESS WITH TWO MACHINE GUNS AND AN
ATTITUDE! SCREW ALL OF YOU --Flizbap
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Re: [Ogf-l] "Stealing" OGC

[woodelf]

At 10:10 -0700 4/26/04, Clark Peterson wrote:
 > Honestly I have felt quite strongly to give away for
 free huge chunks of a
 particular publishers OGC, just because they went to
 such lengths to
 obfuscate what is and is not OGC and 90% of their
 product is obviously OGC
 to anyone who knows what to look for.  I haven't
 done it, though I still
 have no real reason not to.
And that, right there, is why publishers will continue
to do what you dont like. becasue many are afraid that
some spiteful joker will do what you are proposing;
sort of an "i'll show them by giving it all away" idea
(how that is rational or reasonable, I dont know, but
we find it in gamers).
you, then, are part of the problem.
But note the hacker mentality of his reasoning: *because* the OGC has 
been obfuscated, it "should" be made freely available. If you make 
the OGC designations clear and non-crippled, this doesn't come into 
play. IOW, the solution to preventing spiteful republication is not 
making it more difficult, it is making it *less* difficult.

I, too, have felt the urge he describes, though i haven't acted on 
it. And it is only those books that use the WotC OGL yet [seem to] 
deliberately fight the concept of reuse that make me want to do it. A 
book with clear OGC designations, and with non-crippled OGC, would 
never get that reaction from me.
--
woodelf<*>
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I'll say a prayer for him tonight.  -- Ivanova
He's agnostic.  -- Franklin
Then I'll say half a prayer.  --Ivanova
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Re: [Ogf-l] what is OGC?

[woodelf]

At 12:21 +0200 4/12/04, Peter Brink wrote:
On Monday, April 12, 2004 6:07 AM woodelf wrote:
 Have we ever actually definitively answered the question of what
 constitutes "a work" for purposes of the WotC OGL? While it of
 course makes more sense for it to be defined as you say, so that
 aggregate works like magazines don't have to abide by the license
 restrictions /in toto/, is there any evidence of this in the
 license itself? Or any evidence against it?

Well, I guess "work" is defined differently in different
jurisdictions. A full proper definition would fill several pages of
text, so let me give you a few examples of what IMO constitutes a
work:
   *   A role-playing game book
   *   A role-playing game rule description
   *   A spell
   *   A monster
Basically anything which could be said to stand by it self is a work.
A sub-rule of a game rule is not a work because it is dependant upon
its "parent" for making sense.
But who decides what is a "rule" vice a "subrule"? For that matter, 
who decides what "makes sense" on its own? If your definition were 
correct (that a work has to "make sense" standing on its own), i'd 
argue that a significant number of D20 System supplements don't 
qualify, and the OGC-only portions of them most certainly don't.

And don't forget WotC's pronouncement that a book and its web 
enhancement are "one work" for purposes of the WotC OGL. Ditto two 
books shrink-wrapped together.  For whatever legal weight that has.

Since the OGL does not provide any definition of the term "work" we
are stuck with the (varying) definitions of our respective copyright
laws.
So as far as I'm concerned a collective work (such as a magazine)
would not be "tainted" by OGL of it contained one or more works which
were licensed under OGL.
Agreed. So two or more works, stand-alone in content, written by 
different authors, and in the same physical object, are distinct 
works, but two works, stand-alone in content, written by different 
authors, and in two different objects/locations are the same work.

or, in short, we have contradictory pronouncements from WotC, and the 
license itself doesn't give us a definition, so, no, i don't think we 
actually know what a "work" is in the context of the WotC OGL.
--
woodelf<*>
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"It is unlikely. I predict there is scope for even greater mistakes in
the future given your obvious talent for them."
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RE: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 9:36 -0600 2/17/04, Gillispie, Bryan W. wrote:
I don't think PIing anything that the OGL allows you to PI is anymore
unethical than applying copyright or trademark protections to your work.
Whether something follows the spirit of the OGL or not is a
philosophical question and not a legal one and your mileage will vary on
the answer to that question. As designed the OGL allows for the PIing of
just about anything.
A little bit inconsistent here: do you want to apply ethical or legal 
standards?  You're right that PIing anything PIable is perfectly 
legal, just as the application of trademark and copyright and patent 
are.  That's not to say that following the law is always ethical: 
what about the company that claims to own a patent for "streaming 
technology", but is only pursuing small companies, not Real Networks, 
Apple Computer, or Microsoft?  From an ethical standpoint, if they 
truly believe they own this technology, they should be at least 
talking to all users of it, not just those they can easily bully. 
Or, what about patents on human genetic alterations?  Those are, 
apparently, legal (well, until challenged in court), but it's not at 
all clear-cut that they are ethical.  In the realm of trademark, i 
don't see how it's ethical, after all these years, for WotC to claim 
"Player's Handbook" as a trademark, even if it should turn out to be 
legal.  Disney and the RIAA have made ethically-questionable but 
probably-legal claims in the realm of copyright.  And so on.

 If those who would reuse OGC don't like the way the
OGL is designed then don't use it.
...and don't be one of "those who would reuse OGC"--there's not a 
whole lot of OGC floating around out there outside of the sphere of 
influence of the WotC OGL.  That's precisely why these conflicts 
arise: the group of people who either believe in open-content 
development as an ideal, and/or want to use the D20 System, is larger 
than the group that is 100% satisfied with the WotC OGL.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#1 Law of Metaphysical Irregularity
The normal laws of physics do not apply.
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Re: [OGF-L] OGC in Crooks

[woodelf]

At 9:47 -0400 4/12/04, DarkTouch wrote:
1. A feat as per MSH had more in common with a skill check than a 
D20 feat if I remember correctly.

Yep. In fact, IIRC, "feat" was the term the game used in stead of 
"skill check". The thing closest to feats that MSH had is the "power 
stunt".

2. What makes something a 'feat' is very context oriented. A D20 
feat is a D20 feat because the word 'feat' is used to describe a 
specific set of circumstances and data. Yes, White wolf's "Merit" 
(to take an example off the top of my head) is very similar to a 
"d20 Feat" but it is called a Merit and has different fields to 
describe what it does. The concept is almost identical, but context 
changes it.

Similarly.. how many games have spells in them? A whole ton. Most of 
them have ranges, levels, area of effect.. but only the D20 version 
has that particular set of fields in that particular order and calls 
them 'spells'. If I were to create a new game that gave PCs access 
to 'spells' I could.. I could even have most of the same fields.. it 
is just about the presentation and uniqueness. I probably would have 
Close(25+5/level) as a range for instance.
Yeah, 'cause then you'd risk infringing on Ars Magica.  ;-)  Sorry, i 
realize that's not true. But the spells is one of the areas (along 
with skills) where D&D3E most clearly shows part of its ancestry is 
Ars Magica.

Anyway, I was responding to "But isn't the very idea of a FEAT a 
mechanic that is derived from the SRD?" So i guess it depends on how 
you interpret "very idea of a FEAT". I read it as saying that the 
basic idea: a special ability, generally binary in nature (you either 
have it or you don't) gained as your character gains in experience, 
was derived from the D20SRD. But if you read it to mean "a special 
ability, gained through experience, generally binary in nature, and 
characterized by game rules categorized into "Benefit", 
"Prerequisite", and sometimes "Normal" and "Special" categories," 
then, yes, i suppose it's derived from the D20SRD. OTOH, while those 
particular headings aren't always used, there are very few binary 
abilities in any RPG game that *couldn't* be written that way. Unlike 
spells, monsters, or several other game widgets in D20 System, i'd 
say feats are just barely widgetized, and are much closer to being 
simple statements of rules.  So i'd say that the latter, narrower, 
reading is unwarranted, and almost meaningless, and teh former, 
broader meaning illustrates that a "feat," is pretty much found in 
tons of RPGs, and the only elements of it that are unique to D20 
System are the name "feat" and some artifacts of formatting.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"It is unlikely. I predict there is scope for even greater mistakes in
the future given your obvious talent for them."
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 11:38 -0700 4/13/04, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 09:58, woodelf wrote:

 Ditto, in hte US: it is impossible to patent game rules according to
 the law (and despite the fact that it has happened at least once).
That's an incorrect statement.  There are lots of game patents.  Many
are patents on the >mechanics of the game< not a physical mechanism.
 Other than the likely-spurious M:tG patent
Which has passed the most stringent review available at the PTO,
resulting in an >expansion< by the PTO examiner of the claims asserted
by WotC.  The legal consensus I've been a party to is that the patent is
very strong and very likely defensible.
Oh, ok, news to me. I'm still not convinced that it "should" deserve 
a patent, but since i don't run the world, that doesn't really 
matter. So, apparently games can be patented in the US.

There are additional patents you might want to consider, such as:

#6,623,010, "Method of building a deck of collectible cards" issued to
Warren Holland (Decipher CEO)
#6,719,292, "Card game", (an 8 card "stud" variant)

#6,719,290, "Storytelling and idea generation game" (the related patents
list on this one is extensive, by the way)
etc.
OK, i was wrong. I guess that explains why the USPTO circular saying 
you can't patent game rules isn't easily found (or perhaps even 
there) on the USPTO website anymore.
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Re: [OGF-L] OGC in Crooks

[woodelf]

At 8:11 -0700 4/12/04, Fred wrote:
--- woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 At 9:10 -0700 4/9/04, Fred wrote:

 >But isn't the very idea of a FEAT a mechanic that is derived from the SRD?

 Well, earliest use of the term for a special power your character has
 that i'm aware of is Marvel Superheroes. And, apparently, the
 specific mechanism (gained with level increases, etc.) in D&D3E is
 pretty much taken from an identical mechanism in RMSS. So, in short,
 no. I'd say the concept of feats, as presented in D&D3E, predates
 D&D3E, and thus can't be derived from the D20SRD.
Do you mean CAN'T be derived from the SRD, or MIGHT NOT be derived from the
SRD?  I've been writing up feats for years now, and I've never heard of RMSS,
so if I can't derive them from the SRD, where have I been deriving them from?
You've probably heard of "Rolemaster", just not the acronym 
("Rolemaster Standard System"--effectively the 2nd ed, i believe). In 
any case, i wasn't aware that the feat mechanism in D&d3E was taken 
largely from RMSS, i'm just taking that on faith from someone who's 
actually familiar with RMSS (considering that Monte Cook apparently 
did a lot of work on RMSS before going to WotC). Nonetheless, in much 
the same way that if i pick up a copy of Spycraft and derive 
something from it, and along the way use some mechanics that 
originate in the D20SRD, my new mechanics are not, ultimately, 
derived from Spycraft, they're derived from the D20SRD--whether i 
know it or not--i don't think it's reasonable to claim someone must 
be held to the strictures attached to the D20SRD if an idea/mechanic 
is not original to the D20SRD. But, i probably should have been 
clearer. What i should've said is that
"I'd say the concept of feats, as presented in D&D3E, predates D&D3E, 
and thus are no more derivative of the D20SRD than is the concept of 
rolling a die and adding your skill and attribute to it to see if you 
exceed a target number. You might have derived from teh D20SRD, but 
there is no reason to assume this, just because it's 'a feat'."
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 15:54 +0200 4/13/04, Peter Brink wrote:
On Monday, April 12, 2004 6:29 PM Lizard wrote:

 > > Games for example have a weaker protection in Europe as compared
 > to the US. Game rules can not be patented, nor can they be
 > copyrighted as such. The higher demand of originality also makes
 > a lot of game rule descriptions non-copyrightable.
 This is ALSO true in the US.
Hmm, I was under the impression that games could be patented in the US, but if
that's not true then I was obviously wrong. I ran a query at
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html once and came up with quite a few hits
(more than 10 000) when searching for "games" so I honestly thought games
could be patended in the US.
But then if games cannot be patented how could one license the game mechanics?

Besides, in the EU game rules and any methods and proceedures related to them
are explicitly excluded from the patentable subject matter:
For example, from the Belgian Patent Law we can learn that:

   "Art. 3.-1. The following in particular shall not be regarded as
   inventions within the meaning of Article 2:
   (1) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;

   (2) aesthetic creations;

   (3) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing
   games or doing business, and programs for computers;
   (4) presentations of information."

In the US Patent Law there is no such rule (as far as I can tell), this is the
difference in the patentablity of games I was thinking of. It is aperantly
possible to patent a game in the US, it might be very unlikely that you would
succeed but you could try - in Europe it's impossible to patent game rules.
Ditto, in hte US: it is impossible to patent game rules according to 
the law (and despite the fact that it has happened at least once). 
Generally speaking, only physical objects/devices/mechanisms can be 
patented WRT games in the US. There used to be a circular stating 
this in so many words, with useful examples, but i'm not finding it. 
However, if you look at 
<http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspcd21/schedd21.htm> and 
<http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspc273/sched273.htm> you'll 
see that everything there is about a physical object/device. The game 
rules are not what's patented, but the board, or playing paddle, or 
other physical component is. Other than the likely-spurious M:tG 
patent, i'm not aware of any patents on "...rules and methods 
for...playing games..." in the US, either. All those hits you got for 
games? Probably every one of them is a patent on a physical component 
of a game (a new ping-pong paddle, or whatever), and i see nothing in 
Art. 3.1 of Belgian Patent Law that would prevent that.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 13:57 +0200 4/12/04, Peter Brink wrote:

If it appeared that I was claiming that one could use some one else's
trademark in *any way one wanted* I apologize, because that is not
quite the case. What you are allowed to do is to use another trademark
as a reference to indicate compatibility.
As in the US.

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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 12:20 +0200 4/12/04, Peter Brink wrote:

Quite so, the law changes and IP law has been put under great stress
the last 10 years or so. However I do not in fact refer to "old"
standards; plots, concepts, names are not copyrightable in Sweden, in
our present time, and they probably will not in the future.
My point is that, while the black-letter law still says those things 
can't be copyrighted, if you look at actual caselaw, more and more 
things are being ruled ownable.  Has an actual plot been ruled 
copyrightable yet? I doubt it--but some things almost as nebulous 
have been.  And there are cases pushing the bounds every day.

Games for example have a weaker protection in Europe as compared to
the US. Game rules can not be patented, nor can they be copyrighted as
such. The higher demand of originality also makes a lot of game rule
descriptions non-copyrightable.
According to what law there is on the matter, games probably can not 
be copyright or patented (save if there are actual physical 
components) in the US either.[0] Unless the first directly-on-point 
case to get to the courts has lots of money on the side of the 
game-patenter or -copyrighter, and not much money for the opposition. 
:-(  Problem is, the USPTO has been granting patents on lots of 
things lately that are almost certainly explicitly denied patent 
recognition ("one-click shopping", compression algorithms, 
"tapping"). But until it actually goes to court, or Congress steps 
in, we're not likely to have a reconciliation (changing the laws or 
revoking a bunch of patents).

I think this, like your talk of derivative works, is comparing the 
/de facto/ situation in the US with the /de rigeur/ situation in 
Sweden/EU.  If there is a difference, i think it mostly boils down to 
laxer enforcement--or, more precisely, enforcement more in favor of 
large IP-owning corporations--in the US; the actual laws are *very* 
similar.

[0] Ryan, among others, has made a very convincing argument that, 
should a case about RPG copyrightability go to court today (or any 
time in the last decade or more) it would be ruled that an RPG, 
including the mechanics, can be copyrighted, at least as a total 
work. Right now, i'm glossing over that possibility, but it shouldn't 
be discounted--given both the current climate WRT IP, and the unusual 
composition of RPGs (game rules, fiction-like creation, and more, all 
interwoven), he is quite possibly right. It just hasn't happened yet.
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] The Myth Of Closed Content?

[woodelf]

At 7:43 -0700 4/12/04, Fred wrote:

Mechanics are not listed in the long list of things that you can 
declare as PI.
Go dig around in the list archives. Look for a [series of] post[s] 
from Alec on the topic of what can and cannot be PI. Alec has a law 
degree and, IIRC, specializes in IP law. He concluded that the list 
of what may be PIed is exemplary, not definitive. I don't remember 
the legal basis for this, but i know it convinced me--and seemed to 
convince Ryan, one of the drafters of the license and someone who was 
previously on the "if it's not on the list, you can't PI it" side of 
the debate.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 16:56 +0200 4/9/04, Peter Brink wrote:
Do note that I didn't say that the idea of PI *as such* is immoral,
but rather that the idea of allowing one party in a contract to make a
claim of ownership to entities for which one cannot claim ownership
(according to IP laws), is immoral.  It is like stealing from the
public domain. What cannot be copyrighted (or otherwise protected) is
free for anyone to use. Trying to restrict the other party's use of
such entities in a adhesion contract[1] is in my opinion immoral
because it is unfair, unreasonable and not the least - unlawful (in
Sweden). In most cases such provisions in a signed contact would be
unlawful as well.
Most of the entities listed in article 1.e in the OGL are either not
copyrightable as such (concepts and plots are two good examples) or
lack the required level of originality to be eligible for copyright
protection (such as names).
Keep in mind that i agree with you. In fact, i think that some 
elements of IP that currently can apparently be owned also shouldn't 
be ownable. However, your argument isn't very strong, because it 
seems to proceed from the premise that what is IP (vice non-ownable 
ideas) is in some way inherent, or self-evident. This is simply not 
the case: copyright and patent are legal constructs, and taking the 
standards of IP from 20 yrs ago (as you appear to be doing) is no 
more obvious or sensible than taking those of today, 20 yrs from now, 
or 250yrs ago. IP, like any other legal construct, can evolve and 
change.

I do agree that it's reasonable to allow the licensor to limit the
licensees access to content for which the licensor hold the copyright.
I have no problem with Closed Content as such.


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Re: [OGF-L] OGC in Crooks

[woodelf]

At 9:10 -0700 4/9/04, Fred wrote:
--- "Steven \"Conan\" Trustrum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 At 11:26 AM 4/9/2004 -0400, Steven \"Conan\" Trustrum you wrote:

 >Feats are "derived" mechanics, and thus can't be closed by anyone except
 >WotC. The names yes, any fluff accompanying them yes, but not the
 mechanics.
 Sorry, I should amend that: feats using new mechanics not derived from the
 SRD may be closed.
But isn't the very idea of a FEAT a mechanic that is derived from the SRD?
Well, earliest use of the term for a special power your character has 
that i'm aware of is Marvel Superheroes. And, apparently, the 
specific mechanism (gained with level increases, etc.) in D&D3E is 
pretty much taken from an identical mechanism in RMSS. So, in short, 
no. I'd say the concept of feats, as presented in D&D3E, predates 
D&D3E, and thus can't be derived from the D20SRD.
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] what is OGC?

[woodelf]

At 20:59 -0400 4/11/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

But you can publish game mechanics in a volume that contains an 
OGL'd work where the game mechanics aren't released as OGC.

Consider that a magazine or other fanzines may have a single 
advertisement or article that is a covered work.  The magazine as a 
whole is not a covered work.  If the magazine has 10 articles, and 
only article 10 is a covered work, then the mechanics in articles 1 
through 9 are not OGC, and they are not PI, since they do not appear 
in a covered work.

Note also that it doesn't say that mechanics are OGC.  It says 
mechanics (in the covered work, since this license only applies to 
the work it covers)
[snip]

Have we ever actually definitively answered the question of what 
constitutes "a work" for purposes of the WotC OGL? While it of course 
makes more sense for it to be defined as you say, so that aggregate 
works like magazines don't have to abide by the license restrictions 
/in toto/, is there any evidence of this in the license itself? Or 
any evidence against it?
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RE: [Ogf-l] The Myth Of Closed Content?

[woodelf]

At 18:37 -0700 4/11/04, Michael Cortez wrote:

This definition by Lee, I think is fairly complete in defining that such a
thing exists.  The closed content is simply the stuff that is not part of
the "defined/covered work" -- which may or may not be different from what
the US Copyright office usually defines as a "Work."
It's my belief that the OGL clearly defines that a "covered work"
constitutes what has been indicated as OGC/PI and nothing more.
Actually, it seems to me that if you take this tack (reconciling the 
two parts of clause 1(d) by asserting that the license doesn't apply 
to "regular" closed content), you're where Alec ended up a year or 
two ago: the license only applies to OGC, and thus can only apply to 
PI if PI is a subset of OGC. Or maybe it doesn't apply to PI at all, 
which would be silly, but logically consistent with clause 1(d) (if 
logically inconsistent with several other clauses and sections).

So when you take a book, and declare all stat blocks as OGC, and all names
as PI, you have essentially created a definition of the "covered work" -- a
new, slightly different term of the art, defined by the OGL itself.
The "Work" as defined by US Copyright now contains 3 types of content, OGC,
PI, and stuff not covered by the OGL (ie, closed content).
The "covered work" as defined by the OGL consists solely of the OGC & PI
defined above (stats and names) and is completely mute on the remaining
text, art, etc.
Its my personal belief that is essentially describes what most publisher
believe, if however in a much more complicated manor.  Additionally, I don't
think it's necessary to actually indicate what exactly the "covered work"
is, because IMHO it is defined quite clearly as whatever has been marked as
OGC/PI.
In which case i can use PI, so long as i use it outside of the 
portions of my work defined as OGC or PI.  (The trademark 
compatibility/coadaptability restriction is still in force, because 
i'm forbidden from using it "in conjuction with", not merely in, a 
covered work).
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] what is OGC?

[woodelf]

e Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic, and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art, and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic, and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor,
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines, to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License, including translations and
derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
"(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic; and includes the methods,
procedures, processes, and routines; to the extent such content does not embody
the Product Identity, and is an enhancement over the prior art; and any
additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor;
and means any work covered by this License; including translations and
derivative works under copyright law; but specifically excludes Product
Identity. "
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] The Myth Of Closed Content?

[woodelf]

At 11:31 -0400 4/11/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

This topic has been debated on this list (among others) for years
now. Hundreds of books have been published using the OGL. Is there
even one publisher (the people who have their money on the line,
and who hopefully have consulted with actual lawyers about the
finer points of the license) out there who doesn't believe in the
interpretation of the OGL that there are three types of content (Open,
closed, and PI)? Are there any drafters of the license who don't
believe in the existence of closed content? Can you point to any
statement from WotC in an FAQ or in a list debate where they state
that they interpret the OGL to not include the possibility of closed
content?
With the Devil's Advocate hat on:
But how much legal weight does that have? If a legal contract says 
one thing, and everybody who's using it agrees that it actually means 
another, what happens when someone comes along and insists on 
sticking to the letter of the contract? I definitely accept that the 
license was intended to recognize three sorts of content. But i'm not 
yet convinced that, taken on its own, with no knowledge of the minds 
of the creators, it actually *does*. I find it a bit implausible that 
it's just coincidence that almost every new person to this list comes 
in with the same misconception: that there are only two sorts of 
content under the WotC OGL (PI and OGC). Yes, you can interpret the 
license in a way that is compatible with "regular" closed content, 
and some sections make more sense when you do. But others make more 
sense if there is only OGC and PI. And, in any case, it's 
interpreting the license to match that condition [3 types of 
content], rather than finding clear recognition of "regular" closed 
content in the license itself.

And, at the most extreme, if this is all just a legal fiction, with 
everybody agreeing to pretend the license means this when it actually 
doesn't, it doesn't strike me as all that implausible: it is 
precisely the publishers who benefit from the existence of simple 
closed content under WotC OGL-licensed works.
--
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Re: [OGF-L] OGC in Crooks

[woodelf]

At 11:35 -0700 4/9/04, Fred wrote:

There is a line.

Clearly:

Setting information can be closed.

"Fluff" text can be closed.

Illustrations can be closed.

Basically, anything that isn't a rule can be closed.
So the starship construction system in T20 "can't" be closed, and 
it's only that no one has challenged it that keeps it that way? 
Despite the fact that it predates D20 System by quite a few years?
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 13:44 -0400 4/10/04, Joe Mucchiello wrote:

But in the case of renter/rentee, there is still the monetary 
consideration vs roof over my head consideration. Thus both parties 
receive SOME benefit from the contract. The clause we're talking 
about removing is the only benefit the source licensor gets out of 
the OGL (PI and Trademark restrictions). If the reformation of the 
OGL Peter seems to think might happen gives the OGC owner nothing in 
return for granting free world-wide use of the material under the 
license then the license no longer grant consideration to the owner 
of the OGC and thus is not a valid contract. (Remember the owner we 
are discussing in this thread is releasing something completely new 
to OGC and not a single word of it is derived from some other OGC 
work.) In the normal case, you use the OGL to gain access to the 
upstream OGC. If you are the source licensor where is your 
consideration if the PI and Trademark restriction clauses are void? 
I'm disagreeing with Peter's assertion that the downstream users of 
the material get a free ride and source licensor gets nothing.
So almost every open-content license is invalid? After all, the 
licensor in all of those schemes already owns the material, so 
they're getting nothing out of the license (usually the only 
requirements are that (1) open content remain open and (2) the 
original creator get some sort of benefit).
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 7:31 -0400 4/10/04, Joe Mucchiello wrote:
At 11:54 AM 4/10/2004 +0200, Peter Brink wrote:

Someone making an offer with terms that are unlawful has to accept the
risk that those terms are ignored by the other party. It's as simple
as that. The rule is simple (in Sweden): one cannot trade a benefit
against a restriction which is unlawful. The restriction is simply
removed and the benefit remains. If I accept the offer I'm not doing
so in bad faith - I'm accepting the deal as it stands according to the
law.
That is stupid. You are saying that in Sweden I can end up in a 
contract where the other party gets a benefit and I get no benefit. 
That is a strange concept. Where is the quid pro quo of this 
arrangement? I would think the court would just terminate the 
license.
I dunno if you can nullify an entire contract that way, but you 
certainly can nullify clauses in the US. Frex, there are some local 
ordinances to protect renters. One of those, at least, explicitly 
overrules leases, even if both parties take the lease on good faith, 
both parties are happy with it, and neither party knows about the 
ordinance. Heck, as i understand it, the renter and landlord could 
add a clause to the effect of "The undersigned are aware that 
[blahblahblah ordinance] requires the landlord to give the renter no 
less than 24hrs notice before entering the premises, and agree to 
overrule this to only 12hrs." and it'd *still* be 24hrs notice 
required. The law says that nothing in the lease can change it to 
less than 24hrs. And i believe it's even been challenged and held up 
in court [not sure on that last part, however].  In any case, the 
point is, it certainly seems possible for legislation to deem certain 
elements of a contract invalid in the US, but i have no idea what 
would happen if large portions of a contract were nullified in this 
way.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 11:53 +0200 4/10/04, Peter Brink wrote:

Sorry, but this is a quite correct interpretation of the situation in
the EU. You do not have to ask anyone for permission to create a work
nor do you need to ask for permission to publish your work. If the
work is a "derivative" work then you may later face legal troubles
though.
Well, heck, if you don't care if it's legal or not, there's nothing 
stopping you in the US, either. You might have trouble finding a 
publisher that'll take the financial risk, however.

One of the troubles you run into when discussing copyright matters
across the Atlantic is that the term "derivative" has different
meanings in the EU and the US. Another one is that the EU is divided
into two legal traditions, the common law tradition (represented by
Ireland and the UK) and the civil code tradition to which the rest of
the EU belongs.
A "derivative" work according to most EU legislations is generally
speaking a transformation of a work in which the "outer" form is chang
ed but the "inner" form remains the same. Adaptations, translations
and abridgments are good examples of such works.
The major question is then: when does a new works "inner" form cease
to be (too) similar, that is when does the new work cease to be an
adaptation, instead becoming an independent work?  And on the other
side of the scale, when is the inner form of a work so similar that it
cannot be considered an adaptation but rather is a plagiarism?
An addition to an existing work for example, need not be a
 "derivative" work it may very well be an independent work.
Now of course different legislations have different rules for finding
out just when a work is an independent work and when it's an
adaptation. ;)
The black-letter law in the US agrees with what you're describing as 
"derivative". Most of the  examples of derivative-work suits that 
Ryan and other's have brought up on this list also start from that 
point, and are about the question of something's "inner form" 
changing enough to be original, vice derivative. The laws just aren't 
that dissimilar (which isn't surprising, given that most of the EU, 
as well as the US (and others) signed onto international standards a 
decade or three ago, making copyright law fairly standard across most 
of the "first world". AFAIK, the only significant difference left is 
duration, and variance in court interpretations (such as where those 
lines between "derivative", "plagiarized", and "original" are).)

Anyway, it's precisely because "derivative" in the US seems to be 
mostly about changes of form, not content, that i've questioned right 
from the start the use of the term in the WotC OGL, and the claim 
that supplements for an RPG qualify. IMHO, based on legal precedent 
(what i've seen of it, of course, and given that IANAL) there is 
nothing "derivative" in making a work "compatible" with another, but 
with ohterwise wholly-original content. But there is also precious 
little directly-on-point caselaw, because in most creative endeavors 
works are all equally "compatible" or "incompatible". Or the 
"compatibility" treads on areas clearly eked out by trademark and 
character copyright--or at least proper nouns. Not the fairly 
nebulous idea of game rules. Personally, i consider the fact that 
Parker Brothers can't stop Monopoly clones (same game, different 
graphics) as evidence that something mechanically compatible with an 
existing RPG is in the clear. Likewise, the examples of literature 
infringement suits make me believe that when you start making it 
compatible with a particular setting (and thus using lots of invented 
proper nouns) that you're likely to run into trouble.

In summary, from what you've described, and the fact that the EU and 
the US have agreed to the same international treaty(correct term?) on 
copyright, i don't think that the differences in the black-letter 
definition of "derivative" are that great. Rather, i think the WotC 
OGL is just as much at odds with tradition in this country as in the 
EU. But only a court case will actually answer the question.
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re[6]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 21:44 -0400 4/9/04, Joe Mucchiello wrote:
At 05:14 PM 4/9/2004 -0500, woodelf wrote:
Let's take a random D20 System book, released under the WotC OGL, 
off the shelf. Now, clearly, i can abide by the terms of the WotC 
OGL if i want to reuse the material, right? But what if i don't 
like those terms. Am i forbidden from reusing the material 
according to the bounds/terms of standard copyright (i.e., 
according to Fair Use, plus reuse of any material in the book that 
can't be copyrighted)? If not, why not?
3. Offer and Acceptance: By Using the Open Game Content You indicate 
Your acceptance of the terms of this License.

Now, granted you cannot be forced to accept a license but likewise 
you do not have the right to just use the material normally. So one 
could interpret any use of OGC declared material wherein the OGL is 
also contained as an obligation to read the terms of the license and 
abide by them, or ELSE not use the material. In this regard it 
becomes similar to the shrink wrap licenses found in software. The 
difference here is you "could" see the license before using the 
material the question is are you obligated to look on back page of 
the book for the OGL?
For sake of argument, assume that some of the material can be clearly 
reused under Fair Use doctrines, or because it is clearly not ownable 
(pure math formulas, and teh like), and so on. In fact, we'll be 
generous and assume that even the creator/copyright-holder agrees 
that Fair Use would apply to these bits, and so a court case isn't a 
potential problem [yes, i'm aware that the odds of free reuse being 
clear-cut like this in the real world are pretty much zero, and of 
the creator admitting to it being even less]. So we have material 
that can be reused even if there were no license attached. It seems 
to me that you are not using "the Open Game Content" if you use it in 
this manner--because outside of the license, there *is* no "OGC". 
You're just using some content, which happens to also be designated 
as "OGC" according to this license that you're not using.

Of course, in the real world, things are a lot iffier--you can 
certainly reuse some material and say "i'm not using the license, 
because i can use this material according to the doctrines of Fair 
Use", but you may or may not be correct. But this was all just an 
analogy, anyway, to an actual formal 2nd license. I see no reason 
why, if i can release identical content in the form of two digital 
files, each with a different license, i can't simply merge it all 
into one file.

What about this: a website. The content appears on one or more 
distinct webpages. The licenses each appear on their own webpage. If 
you go to the WotC OGL page, it has links to all of the pages that 
have content licensed under it. If you go to the CC license page, it 
has links to all of the pages that have content licensed under it. 
Does it matter if the pages these respective license pages link to 
are actually the same pages, or merely identical pages? Why or why 
not? What if they are the same pages, but referenced differently (via 
symlinks), so that the end user doesn't realize they are the same 
page?

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re[6]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 10:57 +0100 4/9/04, Mike Dymond wrote:

Other than the fact that the OGL expressly forbids you from doing 
what you talk about!

Two documents each with their own license, fine.

One document with two licenses, each of which is actually covering 
different parts of the document, fine.

One document with two licenses, with both licenses covering the same 
content, not fine! Clause 2 expressly forbids that:

"No terms may be added to or subtracted from this License except as 
described by the License itself. No other terms or conditions may be 
applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License."

Let's take a random D20 System book, released under the WotC OGL, off 
the shelf. Now, clearly, i can abide by the terms of the WotC OGL if 
i want to reuse the material, right? But what if i don't like those 
terms. Am i forbidden from reusing the material according to the 
bounds/terms of standard copyright (i.e., according to Fair Use, plus 
reuse of any material in the book that can't be copyrighted)? If not, 
why not? If so, then it is clearly possible for the very same text to 
be accessible under multiple governing rules, despite the WotC OGL. 
If this is the case, then why can't one of those sets of governing 
rules be another license? I am *not* adding to or subtracting from 
the license. I am not adding terms or conditions to the use of the 
OGC--the OGC is still governed by the rules of the WotC OGL. It is 
*also* separately, *not* simultaneously, governed by two other sets 
of rules (Fair Use, and the other license). "Not simultaneous" in the 
sense that you basically abide by one set or the other, as a reuser 
(much as you give up rights you'd normally have under standard IP law 
(such as using trademarks) by abiding by the WotC OGL). There is no 
OGC outside of the WotC OGL. Therefore, another, separate, license 
*can't* add terms or conditions to the [re]use of OGC, because for 
the other license, OGC doesn't exist.

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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 9:27 -0700 4/8/04, Lizard wrote:

He's not. He's releasing one copy under one license and one under 
the other. That both copies happen to have the same text is a minor 
technical point. :)

In other words -- two files, two licenses, same words.
Actually, i'm thinking one file, two licenses, clearly indicating 
that they are exclusive (use one *or* the other)--see my other posts.
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re[3]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 12:26 +0100 4/8/04, Mike Dymond wrote:
Hi

 >>  1) we'll be releasing Four Colors al Fresco simultaneously under at
 >>  least two ogls: the OOGL, and the WotC OGL. Best of both worlds:
 >>  real-world functional reuseability, and supporting the "better"
 >>  license.
According to the OGL you are not allowed to do this:

Para 2
"No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game 
Content distributed using this License."

So this is where the fact that the license is owned by WotC may 
become an issue. Certainly if you did what you suggest then none of 
the OGL will have any effect, as you are clearly in contradiction of 
clause 2 and then clause 12 will cut in and force you not to use the 
license at all. However by that time you will of already done so and 
they (WotC's lawyers) could very easily claim that you knew that you 
where not allowed to do what you did but you proceeded in order to 
simply gain benefit from the WotC name at the top of the OGL. 
However you are now in breach of copyright because the license 
cannot be applied to your work and they could sue you for damages!

Yes this is extreme and I do not think that they would actually do 
this. But why take the chance?
Because i don't think they'd have a leg to stand on. I'm not adding 
further terms--i'm adding options. I'm saying "Here's some stuff i 
wrote. I own the copyright. However, i'll let you use it, provided 
you abide by these rules. Or, you can use it if you abide by these 
other rules." Remember, the WotC OGL is a non-exclusive license--it 
doesn't prevent *me* the copyright-holder, from doing whatever i want 
with the work. Including releasing it under a [non-exclusive] license 
of my choosing. What i'm doing is no different than what WotC does, 
by releasing the same content under the WotC OGL, as the D20SRD, 
while simultaneously publishing the content in a closed form, in the 
form of the D&D3.5E core rulebooks.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 9:23 -0700 4/8/04, Lizard wrote:
Peter Brink wrote:

What would make the OGL into a true safe-harbour is dropping the PI
and the trademark regulations


Which would then make it utterly useless. You'd see not one 
commercial company using it.

The OGL was designed to allow commercial publication by cordoning 
off non-rules related material. Remove that, and you kill the entire 
OGL market. No commercial publisher would touch it.
You don't think a well-constructed recognition/designation of mixed 
open/closed content would suffice?

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re[5]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 15:10 +0100 4/8/04, Mike Dymond wrote:
Hi D20

 >>  So using the Four colors example I see three separate documents...

 >>  1. The original source document that is unlicensed and is protected by
 >>  copyright. (This is your original doc without third party OGC)
 >>  2. The OGL licensed document.

 >>  3. The document that is licensed under any other license.

That looks fine to me. The confusion has arisen out of the use of 
the word 'simultaneously'. To me that implied that you would release 
one document with two licenses attached (which is not allowed). To 
release two documents each under it's own license seems OK. However 
nobody could draw on both documents in order to create a new 
products as this new product would have to carry both licenses and 
that would not be allowed (at least not without some very precise 
indications as to which content which license applies).
Why not? The WotC OGL is non-exclusive--it explicitly does *not* 
restrict me from doing other things with the content. Why can't i 
have a book with, say, two appendices. Appendix A contains the WotC 
OGL, with a properly-updated Sec.15, and declarations of OGC 
("Everything in this book, save Appendices A & B, and the title and 
credits pages, is hereby designated OGC, as per the OGL") and PI 
("This book contains no PI"). Appendix B contains the appropriate 
Creative Commons license, and appropriate declarations of scope 
("Everything in this book, save Appendices A&B, and the title and 
credits pages, is hereby released as open content, under the terms of 
the CC ... license").

There is no reason that creating two identical documents, one of 
which has the WotC OGL and OGC/PI declarations appended, and the 
other of which has the CC license and declarations attached, is any 
different. It's still exactly the same content. I'm just being 
succinct.
--
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Re: re[2]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 9:24 +0200 4/8/04, Peter Brink wrote:
On Thursday, April 08, 2004 2:11 AM woodelf wrote:

 Now, actually, my solution is a bit more complex than this:
 1) we'll be releasing Four Colors al Fresco simultaneously under at
 least two ogls: the OOGL, and the WotC OGL. Best of both worlds:
 real-world functional reuseability, and supporting the "better"
 license.


Nice touch, but why the OOGL? Didn't the FSF claim that OOGL was a
copyright infringement? Anyhow, the folks who wrote OOGL are now
recommending the Creative Commons Attribution - Share-alike license,
according to their own webpage. Personally I find the CC license
superior to the OOGL - but your mileage may vary.
Doh! Yeah, i'd completely forgotten about that, and will probably use 
the appropriate CC license instead.

And, heck, we could always do all three--we're already complying with 
the most stringent of them (the OOGL).

As for the FSF complaint: the author of the OOGL responded, pointed 
out that reuse of legal documents is perfectly legal and common 
practice, and reiterated that the OOGL is not a "modified" GNU 
documentation license, but a whole new beast based upon it and not 
pretending to be it in any way, shape, or form, and, AFAIK, he hasn't 
heard from them again. It was either an honest misunderstanding, or 
they were just blowing smoke and gave up when their bluff was called, 
IMHO.

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re[2]: [Ogf-l] Re: Releasing a new system under the OGL

[woodelf]

m players, they probably will.  Frankly, as much as i hate 
to admit it, the highest likelihood for any Cool New Ideas(TM) from 
my game to get propagated and significantly effect the next 
generation of RPGs is through them getting tangled up with, or at 
least influencing, some much-higher-profile system, like D20 System 
(or GURPS, Hero, Storyteller, etc.--but those don't participate in 
open-content development).

Now, actually, my solution is a bit more complex than this:
1) we'll be releasing Four Colors al Fresco simultaneously under at 
least two ogls: the OOGL, and the WotC OGL. Best of both worlds: 
real-world functional reuseability, and supporting the "better" 
license.
2) we'll be utilizing the WotC OGL in line with what i consider 
"true" open-content development: the entire work (possibly including 
art, though that's "decoration", not "content") will be OGC, save a 
few trademarks and the like; there will be no PI (unless, just to be 
clear, i list the company trademark as PI--knowing full well that 
that is completely redundant and unnecessary); and the entirety of 
the content will be freely available online in a useful format 
(probably HTML or the like).

Oh, and i don't understand your worries: so what if WotC still has 
control over the license? So what if they can change it. The license 
says, plain as day, that you can use any version you like, in 
perpetuity. So if they change it, it needn't affect you--just keep 
using the existing one. Due to that clause, there is no need 
whatsoever to be worried about future revisions of the WotC OGL 
affecting you directly, in a business sense (they can still have 
other ramifications). The only concern should bewhether or not the 
current license is acceptable--if it is, then it doesn't matter what 
any future version says.[2]

[0] Not that i mean to presume that title if i haven't earned 
it--whoever deserves it should have it, or i could share the title. 
But i digress. Wait, is it a digression if it's a footnote? It 
doesn't derail the actual topic, and can easily be skipped over. On 
the other hand, i've cleverly tricked you into popping down here to 
read it, so i suppose it *is* a digression of sorts, even if it's 
on-topic and usefully expands the bit footnoted. Well, in any case, 
i'll let you get back to useful discussion, back in the main 
paragraphs.
[1] Of course, i *really* want it to be at least a cult it, if not 
wildly popular, *and* start a whole new "branch" of RPGs, novel and 
awesome, which revolutionizes the concept of RPG. Hey, i can dream, 
can't i?
[2] I'm ignoring the possibility of enforcing version-compliance 
through the D20STL. I'm not sure that can be done, but even if it 
can, it's a non-issue for someone publishing their own game under the 
license.
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RE: [Ogf-l] How to go about releasing a system under the OGL

[woodelf]

At 8:52 -0500 4/6/04, Gillispie, Bryan W. wrote:
Talk to Morrus at www.enworld.org about putting it in his downloads
section and then just hop onto the forums and let everyone know about
it. If it's free I can almost guarantee a lot of the members there will
at the very least check it out.
Hmmm...if you're gonna go that route, wouldn't RPGNet be a better 
option? It seems to me that if it's not D20 System, EnWorld is a 
sub-optimal place to give it exposure.
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Re: [Ogf-l] OGL - definition 1g

[woodelf]

At 21:54 +0100 2/25/04, Peter Brink wrote:
Lee, I'm relying on the definition. The definition includes "use". 
1.g reads:
"(g) "Use", "Used" or "Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format,
modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game
Content." It's circular!

What possible meaning could use have in 1.g, other than... "use". :)

That's why I wondered if it wasn't a typo.
At 16:45 -0500 2/25/04, jdomsalla wrote:
It's my understanding (and this is a draftsman trying to make sense of
legalese, so if wrong, I'd welcome learning such is the case) that when you
find capital-U Use, this is the definition as given in 1g, while little-u
use would be the dictionary definition, the same manner the capital-D
Distributing is defined in 1c.
Therefore, you could read 1g to mean: "Capital-U Use includes the dictionary
definition of use and also includes copying, Distributing, editing,
formatting, modifying, translating, or otherwise creating something else
with it."
So are the lawyers here finally rubbing off on me, or did I farge that all
up?
At 15:56 -0600 2/25/04, Gillispie, Bryan W. wrote:
It does seem circular but it's not really, at least to me it's not...any
of you law types correct me if I am wrong though! :)
This is how it unfolds in my mind:  the words Use, Used and Using are
license terms and are independent of the same words in the dictionary
and have no meaning outside of the license. The license has to give
those words meaning and they are being given a definition in section 1g.
You're both missing his point, partly because Peter accidentally used 
"circular" in his later post. Going back to his original post, you'll 
see that the question is, is use, in the layperson's sense, governed 
by the WotC OGL. The "use" in the definition of "Use, Used, or Using" 
is, precisely as you say, not the formal license term, but rather the 
common term (or possibly the general legal term).  If this is 
correct, then the license includes "use" (layperson's term) in "Use", 
which would mean that when you take a WotC OGL-governed bit and put 
it in your game (i.e., use it), you are "Using" it, and thus subject 
to the terms of the license.  Now, based on everything that has been 
said by Ryan and others, this is certainly not the intended meaning. 
But i concur that it at least looks like the license could be 
construed to apply to those who merely use governed works for their 
home game, with no republishing, rewriting, or redistribution 
involved. It's not circular (that'd only occur if the definition of 
"Use" included "Use", rather than "use"), but it is overly-broad.
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Re: [OGF-L] Compatibility Declarations & OGL Scope

[woodelf]

ed in another,
independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered
Trademark.
It doesn't say you agree not to use PI in a covered work; it says you 
agree not to use PI.  So, even if the license only covers the OGC, i 
don't think you could use PI elsewhere in the work. It's only 
trademark compatibility/co-adaptability that is explicitly scoped to 
the work with OGC, and which might therefore be circumventable if the 
license truly only applies to the OGC.

So, you tell me? Is there one interpretation that actually agrees 
with all of the above? 'Cause i don't see it.

Ideally, it would be great to have 3 types of content plus 
prohibitions against compatibility, plus protections against PI 
infringement past one generation of copying, however, some of these 
things seem like they just must be mutually exclusive of each other. 
I am pretty sure that this problem was not intended when the license 
was drafted.  And I desperately want to see that there is a way to 
resolve these anomalies without a redraft of the license.  I just 
haven't been swayed that all these things can be true simultaneously.
Well, i'm not about to persuade you--my opinion of teh license is at 
least as contradictory as yours, and probably moreso.  Frankly, i 
don't think it could survive a court challenge intact--something has 
got to give for the license to make sense.  Right now, i think we're 
all just operating on a mutually-acceptable creative interpretation 
of the license.

As for PI reuse: the line has to be drawn somewhere. Drawing it so 
that all PI is included is nonsensical.  Drawing it so that all PI in 
works you derive from is included makes some sense, but raises the 
problem of finding out about PI, since you can't "pass on" PI, so if 
a work is out of print but listed in the Sec.15, you're stuck.  Even 
if none of the content you're actually using comes from that 
"missing" source. Drawing the line to only include works you're 
working from doesn't seem to be what was intended by the drafters 
(well, except Ryan, who said that's what it's supposed to be), but is 
the most sensible in the sense that the burden on reusers is 
reasonable. If you don't knowingly use content from a work (i.e., 
derive directly from it), you aren't required to be aware fo PI 
declared in that work, either. Which does, admittedly pretty much gut 
the PI clause of any strength. But that might very well be what the 
license says.

[oh: IANAL. duh. my legal opinion is therefore pretty much useless. 
Hopefully, my logic is not useless.]
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Re: [Ogf-l] Product Identity does not mean "Everything that's not OGC"

[woodelf]

At 5:46 -0500 2/23/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, woodelf wrote:

 Perhaps a strict, literal reading of the license would forbid
 licensing PI.  I don't know. It certainly wouldn't be the spirit of
 the license, which is to forbid additional restrictions--letting you
 use something that you can't otherwise use can hardly be considered
 further restricting your rights.
Except that the OGL provides a specific exception to this "no
additional restrictions" spirit: "You agree not to Use any Product
Identity...except as expressly licensed in another, independent
Agreement." And just before the "No other terms or conditions may be
applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this
License" there's the line "No terms may be added or subtracted from
this License except as described by the License itself," which would
include the use of separate PI licenses. No contradiction in letter or
spirit.
doh! that'll teach me to be sleepy and not reread the license closely 
before posting.
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] Product Identity does not mean "Everything that's not OGC"

[woodelf]

At 3:52 -0500 2/23/04, Scott Broadbent wrote:

(*) Virtually none of the terms declared as product identity in the 
last SRD releases have appeared anywhere within the SRD.
I don't know about the most-recent release, but the one before that 
(the initial 3.5E-compatible release) didn't have a single PIed term 
in the entire work.  I say this with some confidence, having 
formatted a PDF of the whole damn thing, and thus worked through it a 
sentence at a time. [not disagreeing, just emphasizing: it's not 
"virtually none" it's "none".]
--
woodelf<*>
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
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Everything explodes. Everything.
First Corollary - Anything that explodes bulges first.
Second Corollary - Large cities are the most explosive substances known
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these cities, sometimes referred to as "The Matchstick City".
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Re: [Ogf-l] Product Identity does not mean "Everything that's not OGC"

[woodelf]

At 4:09 + 2/23/04, Faustus von Goethe wrote:
Exactly! Which is why I'd like people to start making it perfectly 
clear - PI is *not* a subset of OGC.  Exactly the opposite. "PI is a 
set of content that is specifically excluded from OGC." Doug said it 
well;
Here's the problem:
The license says explicitly that PI "excludes" OGC (and possibly vice 
versa--i don't feel like double-checking, and it's not relevant to 
this particular discussion).
The license says that it applies only to a set of OGC.

These statements cannot both be correct.  If it only applies to the 
OGC, then PI must be a subset of OGC, or it is literally meaningless. 
If PI is distinct from OGC, and not meaningless, than the license 
applies to non-OGC content.  Now, Clark and Alec have put forth very 
well-supported arguments in the past that reading PI as a subset of 
OGC (and "excludes" therefore in the sense of "the legal properties 
of OGC do not apply to PI" rather than "PI is logically 
non-intersecting with OGC") is (1) the "easiest" reading of the 
license, requiring few-to-no creative interpretations of its clauses 
and (2) the only way to make the license valid (that is, without need 
of reformation due to insoluble internal contradictions or conflicts 
with established law).

Now, you do raise a good point about the degree to which the 
properties of OGC apply to PI, vis-a-vis PI licenses, and i'd love to 
hear Clark's (or anyone else's) answer on that point.  Perhaps, as 
you say, a strict, literal reading of the license would forbid 
licensing PI.  I don't know. It certainly wouldn't be the spirit of 
the license, which is to forbid additional restrictions--letting you 
use something that you can't otherwise use can hardly be considered 
further restricting your rights.
--
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RE: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 17:17 -0800 2/17/04, Clark Peterson wrote:
 > Anything else might be a copyright violation. It's
 far from
 clear-cut, where RPG mechanics are concerned. Not
 that it's a good
 idea--just that it's not clearly illegal.
Spoken like a true intellectual in an ivory tower.

Let's put it this way--its clearly illegal enough to
people who actually have to decide whether or not to
do it that NODBODY IS DOING IT.
In part because of the relative ease of using the WotC OGL, and the 
relatively minor costs associated with it.  There were a fair number 
of people doing it when it was the only way to have compatibility 
with D&D.

To repeat, for guys sitting in their rooms debating it
with nothing on the line, it is "up in the air" and a
"grey area" "needing to be resolved by the courts."
For people actually putting time and money into a
project, it is clear enough.
He is partially right, I will concede. There is at
least some argument that D&D is more like poker and
thus the "game rules" arent copyrightable. I wouldnt
bet on that, though, and neither is anyone else
currently.
Well, unless you count Palladium Fantasy.  I'd say that, if WotC's 
belief/claim that RPG mechanics can be owned is valid, the Palladium 
games would be clear-cut infringers. Unless you have to use 100% of 
the mechanics before it's an infringement.

Hey, maybe woodelf would like to infringe on WotC's
copyrights and he could serve as the test case! That
way we could all find out!
Well, point of order, i have no interest in infringing on 
copyrights--that is, i'm not gonna start copying verbatim text. What 
i question is whether the underlying mechanics can be protected.  I 
know you know this, but there might be others here who don't.

Or, maybe, when he puts his money where his mouth is
he too will concede that it is just enough clearly
illegal that it isnt worth trying.
Actually, i'm just enough of an idealist, and just gutsy/stupid 
enough, that i may yet do it. I'd've been a *lot* more comfortable 
doing it before the WotC OGL and D20SRD, however, because i suspect 
that if it were to go to court today, the number of people using the 
license would be trotted out as evidence that "all these people" 
implicitly accept/agree to WotC's claims of ownership.

Also, it probably depends a great deal what you'd expect for a "test 
case".  I'm certainly not about to produce a huge verbatim copying of 
a significant chunk of anyone's works, whether i respect them or like 
their works, or not--that *is* clearly copyright infringement, and 
i'd consider that morally abhorent. So it'd have to be something that 
reused a significant chunk of the underlying mechanics without 
reusing large swaths of text. However, that then gets to the 
definition of "significant chunk".  Frex, what if i have a game that 
uses the use and replenishment mechanics from the SAGA system, but 
uses standard playing cards? In fact, it's conceivable that Four 
Colors al Fresco could be considered infringing on SAGA, if you 
accept the argument that RPG rules, at least in toto, are ownable. 
Though, if it is, it's by accident--i didn't consciously emulate 
SAGA, and i'm not even sure i'd bought or read it when we first came 
up with the mechanics of Four Colors al Fresco.  But, frankly, i'm 
not sufficiently enamored of any WotC products to have any motive 
except test case, and that's not good enough for me.  Or, more 
specifically, the ways in which i'd like to infringe, if i could, are 
IP that i neither contest, nor have the basis of any kind of argument 
to question.  Frex, i'd love to publish my "Arcane Space" setting, 
which has nothing in common with D&D (of any version) mechanically, 
but uses illithids, beholders, and a number of other unique IP 
elements owned by WotC. But i know it'd be infringing, and don't have 
any reason to challenge that IP. So, while i'll gladly put my money 
on the line in a test case, should one come up, i rather doubt one 
will occur, 'cause most of the stuff i want to do is nothing like D20 
System. And, when it comes to doing D20 System stuff, i don't care 
enough to take a stand.  That is, if it were to come down to not 
publishing a D20 System product or risking a lawsuit, i'd just not 
publish it. But if it were to come down to not publishing, say, Four 
Colors al Fresco or Dread, or risking a lawsuit, i'd probably take 
the lawsuit (assuming, of course, that i sincerely believed i was in 
the right).
--
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RE: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 14:51 -0800 2/17/04, Clark Peterson wrote:
 > As for the generosity of free PI-reuse, and wanting
 attribution
That isnt why I PI'd stuff in RR. I PI'd it because we
wanted to protect important setting content. If you
want to see how I handle attribution, when that is
importnat to me, see how we did Tome of Horrors where
we wanted to credit each individual original author.
So dont set up and knock down the straw man of
"attribution" when that wasnt the reason behind why we
did RR's license.
i'd actually completely lost track that an RR widget was the original 
source of this discussion, and thought we were only talking in the 
abstract, about the advantages and disadvantages and results of 
PI-with-license for widget names.

In any case, I didn't mean to construct a strawman.  Maybe i simply 
misunderstand your motives for PIing things and then licensing them, 
or maybe it's justa  semantic issue and i'm using the wrong words, so 
let me state what i *thought* was the situation:
--Certain names/terms/etc. are valuable to you, as they are tied to 
significant unique creative expression, specifically the Scarred 
Lands setting
--You don't want to unintentionally give those away, due to error or 
a legal re-reading of the WotC OGL and the nature of open/closed 
content, or any other such thing, so you mark those items as PI, to 
make it crystal-clear that others can't reuse them
--You create a bunch of spells with PI elements in their names.  As 
per the 2nd point, you don't want to just give them away, or open up 
the PI to arbitrary reuse.
--However, you want people to be able use those names with those 
spells, so you put in an explicit license that boils down to "you can 
use the name of the spell, even though it's not OGC, but only to 
identify that specific spell". [i hope i got that right, since i 
don't have the book in question to double-check.]

Is that correct? If so, isn't one of the motives for allowing people 
to reuse the your spell names so that the name sticks with the spell? 
And isn't the point of that basically free advertising for your 
setting? Which doesn't work unless they provide some sort of 
association to your works--i.e., roundabout attribution.  If that's 
not the case, i guess i don't understand why you'd give away the 
PI-containing names at all (well, and not just make them OGC--my 
conclusion is predicated on you valuing your IP elements which you 
designate as PI, as you've said repeatedly).

 > Because when you're forced to change the name,
 you're undermining one
 of the virtues of open-content development: credit
 where credit is
 due.
That is only one of the "virtues" and nothing stops
you from crediting the source. That is a lame
argument. Attribution is as much the issue for the
re-user as for the original author.
For example, lets say there was "Clark's Cool Spell"
and I PI'd the name and the content was OGC.
You could rename it to Karl's Cool Spell and use the
same OGC content for it.
Here is where your argument falls apart. According to
you, now "attribution" is ruined.
No it isnt.

You could easily put in your legal section:

[Name of Book that has Clark's Cool Spell], section 15
info.
Name of Your product, section 15 info.

Note: Karl's Cool Spell is based on Open Game Content
found in [Name of book that has the spell], originally
written by Clark Peterson.
Hmmm...good technique.  I guess i was letting the "you can't 
attribute things properly, because of trademark/PI restrictions" 
argument dissuade me from even looking for a way around the 
limitations of attribution, so i hadn't really thought very hard 
about it.  Thouh i'm not sure that what you're suggesting would 
always work--see below.

So you can still attribute sources if YOU THE REUSER
want to do so.
For example, I just did a product where my author used
5 or 6 rather obscure internet OGC sources. They had
bad section 15 designations. So, though I was forced
to use their section 15 by the license, I also added a
section called: "OGC in this Book" where I said "This
book uses Open Game Content from some unique sources
that deserve further designation." Then I went on to
list them.
Just because the license requires you to mimic the
section 15 doesnt mean you cant further elaborate.
Don't you either need special permission, or violate the WotC OGL, 
given that most company names are trademarks?  Or do you just use the 
name of the work, and rely on readers to locate the product, should 
they be interested? Or, for that matter, isn't reuse of PI, save to 
reproduce a Sec.15 entry, forbidden, and don't most people list their 
book titles as PI? That's been my experience, at least.

--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED

RE: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 9:03 -0800 2/17/04, Fred wrote:
--- "Gillispie, Bryan W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 If those who would reuse OGC don't like the way the
 OGL is designed then don't use it. 
Anyone who wants to reuse OGC MUST use the OGL.

Anything else would be a copyright violation.
Anything else might be a copyright violation. It's far from 
clear-cut, where RPG mechanics are concerned. Not that it's a good 
idea--just that it's not clearly illegal.
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 9:24 -0500 2/17/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
a) added control over their IP
b) additional recognition beyond Section 15
c) sometimes are looking to allow the purchaser of a volume using 
their OGC to easily pick out which creatures or spells come from 
which book (something which is not normally allowable due to the "no 
compatibility declarations" restrictions in the OGL)

"C" is often to the benefit of the person purchasing the products 
(so they know where to get something specific that they want to 
borrow).  The other two are entirely reasonable with a friendly 
license for the PI.
How is a PIed name with reuse any better at this than a 
freely-reusable OGCed name? I agree that accurate attribution of 
reused content is great for the consumer *and* the original producer, 
but i don't see how the PIed name helps the matter.  Yes, with an 
OGCed name, they can just change it.  Well, they can give a spell a 
new name even if the name is PIed, too.
--
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RE: [Ogf-l] PI Spell Names

[woodelf]

At 8:22 -0600 2/17/04, Gillispie, Bryan W. wrote:
Actually he isn't a jerk and isn't stopping you from using his open
content. What the author is doing is 100% on the up and up and is
ALLOWED by the OGL. Furthermore, the author has included a license to
use his PI for FREE! He just wants to ensure that he gets credit for his
creation, is that wrong or unethical?
In part, i agree with you: the fault is primarily in the license, for 
being too ambiguous, or possibly too generous, in what can be PI. 
But i don't accept "hey, it's legal" as blanket protection for doing 
anything--sometimes, what is legal is not moral.  And vice versa. 
The correlary being that it's possible to do what's legal and still 
be a jerk.  Which may or may not be the case in this case.

As for the generosity of free PI-reuse, and wanting attribution: It 
seems to me the best way to do that is to make your spell name OGC. 
And somehow include attribution in it--either fold it into the 
spell's name (whether explicitly: "Joe's Game Design's Cool Spell", 
"Cool Spell, by Joe's Game Design", or implicitly via, say, an iconic 
character: "Aratan's Cool Spell"), or attribute it explicitly: 
provide a license to use your trademark, in limited circumstances: 
"You may use the phrase 'Originally appearing in The Big Book of Cool 
Spells', but only as annotation to unaltered spells from this work". 
The latter solution would support the spirit of open-content 
development better than the WotC OGL does, by providing an 
attribution chain--you'd get both reuse *and* credit, unlike the 
current license. PI-with-free-reuse is a cludge, trying to do 
something that open-content development does naturally--provide 
attribution for unchanged works--while also retaining extra control 
that is, IMHO, anathema to open-content development.  I know i, for 
one, will rename spells (etc.) rather than use PIed names, permission 
not withstanding.

In most cases 99% of what you want to reuse is reusable. Is it a pain to
have to go through and take out the PI? Yes, but if you want to use the
stuff so badly why not just take what was offered and create the rest?
Some of the things I have reused have had various pieces of them PI'ed
so far it hasn't been a problem to come up with a name for some
character, feat, spell, etc. Who cares it has a different name? The meat
of what you want has been freely given! I have never understood why ppl
get so hung up on NEEDING the name that was PI, I am starting to think
that the basic reason is because it is off limits.
Because when you're forced to change the name, you're undermining one 
of the virtues of open-content development: credit where credit is 
due. It makes it that much harder to figure out what came from where. 
It's not about the effort involved in renaming, it's that some of use 
believe in open-content development not because it makes our lives 
easier so much as because it makes the products better, and gives a 
chance to reward those who make good stuff, by reusing it.
--
woodelf<*>
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Re: [Ogf-l] Crippled Section 15 Notice

[woodelf]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, jdomsalla wrote:

 A source I'm drawing from has the following S15 entry:

 [Product Name] and the above designated Product Identity are Copyright
 [Year], [Publisher].
 Now, is it just me, or is there a problem with putting this line into my
 material?  After all, the "above designated Product Identity" is going to be
 *my* Product Identity, and I don't see this line doing anything except
 causing issues.
Not to mention that it's probably not true in the initial product, 
either: without seeing the PI declaration, i'm willing to bet that 
much of it isn't eligible for copyright protection in the first 
place, being names or short phrases, ideas, or other elements that 
are legitimate PI or possibly potential trademarks, but not 
copyrightable.

--
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re: [Ogf-l] RE: Independently Designed OGC/PI Clashes

[woodelf]

At 14:29 +0100 7/1/03, Mike Dymond wrote:
However there is a third situation. Company B knows of Company A's 
material and really likes the place names and character names that 
Company A has created but does not like any of the new rules. So 
Company B does not need to include A in their section 15 but they 
still go ahead and use all the PI that Company A invented.

Now according to you that is perfectly valid as Company A and 
Company B do not have a contract between them! If anyone questioned 
them Company B could also fall back on the argument of 'I was not 
aware of Company A'. And according to you they are now doubly 
protected!
Well, that depends.  PI *is* OGC, so if they reused some of the PI, 
they, by definition, reused some of the OGC, so they have to include 
the product in the Sec. 15.  If none of the PI appears in OGC, it's 
not really OGC, and there's no need to designate it PI, and you're 
reduced to copyright/trademark for protection anyway--which probably 
isn't sufficient to prevent reuse of names.

Basically, it sounds like you're expecting PI to give you *greater* 
control over your IP than copyright does.  I don't think this is 
possible, within the confines of the WotC OGL.  PI can give you 
copyright-level control over stuff that you can't normally copyright, 
but i don't think it can give you any more control.

So to me the question comes down to this concept of independent 
creation. In the above example I think that a Judge would ask 
Company B to PROVE that they could not possibly have copied the work 
from Company A.
And Company B would respond that they don't have to, because simple 
terms, however unique, can't be protected by copyright.  And, since 
they didn't cite the work in their Sec.15, they are not claiming the 
priveleges/restrictions inherent with the WotC OGL.  So they can just 
bypass the whole mess and rely on "regular" IP laws to determine what 
they can and cannot reuse.  I think if you are right, and there's 
someone who actually wants to do what you're suggesting (steal names, 
and maybe concepts, but not actual copyrightable expression), there's 
a powerful disincentive from using the WotC OGL, since they have 
greater access to the content by avoiding it.

Yes, i'm aware that this scenario directly contradicts what i said 
above.  Partly, that's the perils of the WotC OGL: it's ambiguously 
worded in several dangerous ways, and i think it tries to apply 
concepts to a realm where they don't function (viralness to closed 
content).  Partly that's because, IMHO, the only interpretation that 
gives you any chance at protecting single words is if only PI that 
you are aware of is verboten.  If you have to avoid all PI, aware or 
not, there's a significant incentive to just forgo the WotC OGL 
entirely, and the originator loses all control.  If it's only known 
PI, there's already a mechanism for enforcing restrictions, because 
PI is OGC, so they can't reuse it without citing in the Sec.15, so 
they have a harder time claiming lack of awareness. Add a chain of 
derivation to the WotC OGL (or the print equivalent of comments in 
code), and you'd pretty much have the problem licked.

--
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Re: [Ogf-l] "D20" as Product Identity

[woodelf]

At 10:48 -0800 2/4/04, Fred wrote:
--- woodelf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 [i seem to have forgotten to send this, and while theoriginal thread
 is long-since dead, i'd say it has some relevance to current
 discussions, so i'll still make my point.]
 At 14:23 -0700 7/23/03, Fred wrote:

 >Can you give an example of PI in some actual work that is trivial to
 >circumvent?
 "d20".  -- I simply take the term from, say, Palladium Fantasy.
Please cite the actual work where this is declared PI, and why the fact that
it appears in Palladium Fantasy makes it trivial to circumvent the PI clause
of the D20 license.
Yes, you can use the term without worrying about copyright, but that's not
germaine to the discussion.
D20SRD, latest revision: "The following items are designated Product 
Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 
1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the 
OGL, and are not Open Content: ... d20 (when used as a trademark),..."

The WotC OGL also requires you to not use trademarks, even when such 
use might otherwise be permissible. "D20" (without qualification) is 
claimed as a trademark in the D&D3.5E books.

However, "d20" appears in numerous RPG books prior to the publication 
of D&D3E, or the release of the D20STL, etc.  In none of these works 
was it claimed as a trademark.  Therefore, the term is already out 
there, effectively in the public domain. Assuming the "eraser" theory 
of PI is correct, as Ryan himself pointed out, any PI claim that is 
made on a term or phrase that is too minor for copyright protection, 
already in the common lexicon, and couldn't merit trademark 
protection is probably pointless--i can just go get the term from a 
source that doesn't declare it PI (such as one not released under the 
WotC OGL).  The claim i was respodnig to wasn't that the PI clause, 
in toto, could be circumvented, just that the PI [declaration] itself 
could be.

--
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[Ogf-l] re: d20 as PI

[woodelf]

At 15:08 -0500 2/4/04, Benjamin Durbin wrote:
WOTC's ability to trademark the term "d20" is enhanced every time a 3rd
party publisher claims "d20-compatibility."
Such claims are obviously intended to trade upon the goodwill of the "d20
System" trademark.
Yep. Which is why i always refer to the "D20 System", when discussing 
the stuff in the D20SRD and/or D&D3E books, never "D20".

Though, on the flipside, i think you can also use "D20" specifically 
to challenge the validity of the "D20 System" trademark, since, it 
seems to me, if there is that much risk of confusion with an 
established, mundane [in the RPG world] term, then perhaps "D20 
System" is insufficiently unique to merit trademark status. And, for 
that matter, just because "Budget Host" is trademarkable doesn't mean 
that either "budget" or "host" is, even in the realm of hotels.
--
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Re: [Ogf-l] "D20" as Product Identity

[woodelf]

[i seem to have forgotten to send this, and while theoriginal thread 
is long-since dead, i'd say it has some relevance to current 
discussions, so i'll still make my point.]

At 14:23 -0700 7/23/03, Fred wrote:

Can you give an example of PI in some actual work that is trivial to 
circumvent?
"d20".  -- I simply take the term from, say, Palladium Fantasy.
"Hero Points"  -- my source? any game that uses them and predates 
D&D3E (i think i have several on my shelves).  Or, the article for 
introducing the same to AD&D that appeared in Dragon 15-20 years ago 
(i could go upstairs and find it if i really had to).

In both cases, the term was not claimed as a trademark, so i can make 
whatever use of it copyright allows--and since copyright simply 
doesn't apply to such short phrases, the terms are effectively public 
domain. As they should be.
--
woodelf<*>
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In dreams begins responsibility.
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Re: [Ogf-l] "compatible" claims

[woodelf]

At 18:26 -0500 2/2/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 2/2/2004 3:22:14 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Not a single one of the half-dozen odd SRD-variant games I have includes
a "this is what's different" page. 

Mutants & Masterminds, page 10 sidebar: "Under the Mask: What's Different?".
Spycraft, Introduction, p 8: "What's Different". Also, the rest of 
the introduction talks about the nature of the game, thus implicitly 
highlighting some stylistic differences (the above section basically 
talks about mechanical differences).

Arcana Unearthed: "A World of Possibilities". About 2/3rds of the 
introduction is devoted to differences from the D&D3E core rules, 
both stylistically ("Themes") and mechanically ("New Concepts"). [The 
rest is how to roll dice and an overview of chargen.]

--
woodelf<*>
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Transylvannia Hills, 90210
Hellrose Place
Beverly Hills by Night
Diablare: Melrose
Rage across Baywatch ? (love them Rokea...)
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[Ogf-l] "compatible" claims

[woodelf]

Snagged this from a discussion on EnWorld:

Originally posted by Bendris Noulg at 
<http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=75351&page=1&pp=25>
There's a false assumption in this statement, however.  For 
instance, does M&M worry about being seen as compatible?  No, of 
course not.  If anything, I enjoy the freedom of stating outright 
that a product [i]is not[/i] compatible but is still run on the same 
game engine.
You know, that raises an interesting question: what about claims of 
*non*-compatibility? If i put on my book "This game product is not 
compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition." am i in the clear 
with the "no trademarks for compatibility/co-adaptability" clause? 
Assuming this is a true claim--i'm envisioning a game book that is 
derived from the D20SRD, but is sufficiently far removed that making 
it work with most other D20 System products would be arduous, at 
best. Thus, this would be a truth-in-advertising warning, so that 
those who recognized it as D20 System (such as by reading the Sec.15) 
wouldn't then just assume it was "same old, same old", get it home, 
and be frustrated with not being able to slot it into their 
Spycraft/Midnight/Greyhawk/whatever game. 

Yes, i'm aware that this would also be sneaky backhanded advertising, 
using someone else's trademark to possibly get the customer's 
attention. But is it forbidden by the letter of the WotC OGL?
--
woodelf<*>
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"The box said "Requires Windows95 or better." So I bought a Mac.
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Re: [Ogf-l] Ryan Dancey: Origins Bummer

[woodelf]

At 6:04 -0800 1/27/04, David Bolack wrote:
At 10:14 AM 1/22/2004, you wrote:
In all the years I've seen of Ryan's online presence, it's been a
rare occurence to see him be completely wrong.  I've also never
seen him behave irrationally on a mailing list.
I'd say speak your mind, but beware the other people who might not
have Ryan's restraint.
Wrong: in matters of economics? Not so far.
Oh, what the hell. I'll be tacky.

Rolling Thunder.
Huh? Quick websearch doesn't seem to turn up anything relevant.
--
woodelf<*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#37 Law of Extradimensional Capacitance
All anime females have an extradimensional storage space of variable
volume somewhere on their person from which they can instantly retrieve
any object at a moment's notice.
First Corollary (The Hammer Rule) - The most common item stored is a
heavy mallet, which can be used with unerring accuracy on any male who
deserves it. Other common items include costumes/uniforms, power
suits/armor, and large bazookas.
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