>> And therein we come full circle to the great debate. Can you lock down mechanics? Green Ronin seems to think you can. Monte Cook seems to think you can PI phrases like "gold" if what one listmember told me was true ("gold" as a magical weapon property). Other industry insiders disagree. I'd say you could PI them as ideas and language _except_ there's the clause about ownership of the PI. If people are really concerned about publishers using the OGL
to claim PI on terms couldn't they just use the principle of PI against
itself? Is there anything stopping someone from using an "Anti-PI" PI licence to stop publishers that cripple
OGC from reusing their content. What I mean by this
is:
1) Author concerned about non-crippled OGC writes new
rules.
2) The author then deliberately cripples their own rules and
publishes this "Anti-Crippling Content" ACC in the same way as the
SRD.
3) They write up an Anti-Crippling Licence (ACL) and publish
it separately.
4) The author then publishes their proper product and refers
to the ACC and ACL in their section 15.
5) The section 15 entry of the ACL includes a PI
licence that allows anyone to use any PI in the product it
contains under the terms of the ACL. It also includes the URL of a website
dedicated to uncrippled content.
People already seem to have proved that PI licences are legal.
They also seem to have proved that you can put anything you like in a section 15
entry and that people have to reproduce it word for word. So the only principle here is can you attach a
separate Anti-Crippling Licence to a PI licence?
If this is legal then those people who don't like PI can club
together and hire lawyers to write up the ACL. The ACL can state that it is
a special PI licence that allows anyone that prints that licence to use any PI
in any other product that carries a copy of the ACL. Effectively the ACL can
give PI the same legal status as OGC (as long as the licence is
used)
Obviously lawyers would be needed to make sure that the
document does not look like an attempt to put further terms and conditions onto
the OGL, however as it *only* affects PI issued in the ACC nobody need use the
ACL unless they want to take a stand against crippled content themselves.
As any hypothetical ACC is not (fully) OGC itself I don't
think that it would be illegal to do this. However IANAL and I'm sure that at
least one lawyer would be needed to look at this.
Once the ACL was produced the people that want to really get
rid of crippled content could pool their time and write some fantastic
rules that were so good other people would love to use them - something as
useful and readily available as the SRD is. This content would be crippled as
OGC but reenabled as ACC. As I understand it as long as this content was all new
there would. If people really wanted to put their money where their mouths are
they could put together ACC versions of the core rulebooks that could be used
with the OGL and ACL (but not with the d20STL as they have character creation
rules and stuff).
I have previously been told here that one reason publishers
obey the OGL and d20STL at all, is to get access to the SRD and use
the so if the quality and quantity of Anti-Crippling
Content was as good as the SRD then publishers that would
normally sit on the fence on the subject of PI would have a sound
business reason to obey the ACL as well as the OGL.
If good content required the listing of the ACL in the section
15 then it would trickle down to infect other products that were based on it.
The anti-crippling brigade could even get their own logo
designed. Perhaps one that says "We never publish crippled OGC", maybe with
a key or other symbol of openness. Using the logo and printing the ACL in
products would act as a legal declaration against the use of PI.
*If* publishers already don't publish crippled content
then perhaps they should make an open declaration on their products. A
standard "anti-crippling logo" would help them.
*If* some publishers (professional or
armature) dislike it so much that they want to throw a spanner in the works
of publishers that do use it then perhaps someone will take
up this idea and do something with it.
*If* customers out there really care about this issue then products
that carry this sort of message will benefit from an increase in sales (as long
as they are good products in themselves).
Eventually, if all these "if"s came true the number of publishers printing
crippled content would go down.
The "pro-cripplers" would have to go to all the trouble of
pulling out and replacing crippled content in ACC work. Because that
content was crippled they would have to get lawyers to ensure that they had
fully removed all the PI terms. Or they would have to not use any of it. Just
like we have to do with their work now!
The "anti-cripplers" would be able to freely use the work of anyone
who printed an ACL as well as any non-crippled content that doesn't carry a
ACL.
The fence-sitters would eventually get to the point where they wanted to
use some crippled content in an ACC and would have to either go to the same
trouble as the pro-cripplers or give in and join the anti-cripplers. The easiest
way would be to give in and renounce PI forever and this would be a one way
street. It would sort of act like an anti-crippling virus spreading from
publisher to publisher until they all used it.
I'm sure that there is the odd legal glitch in what I say (as IANAL) but I
am equally sure that the legally aware people on this mailing list could see
legal ways to tweak my arguments so that the glitches are
removed. On the other hand if there are not any authors out there that
*really* want to fight against crippled content then you won't see this subject
on the mailing list again. I wait to be convinced that the people that dislike
crippled content are actually prepared to *do something about it* instead of
just moaning about it.
;-)
David Shepheard
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