On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 09:58:36 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>I find it hard to believe that the intent of the license is to limit
>itself to copyrightable or trademarkable properties.  If it was
>meant to do that, then there would be no reason to have a laundry
>list of things that are and are not copyrightable.

I think we're going back over a discussion that you and Alec had at 
length, but the laundry list in the definition of Product Identity 
describes the kinds of content that might be capable of serving as an 
identifying mark, depending upon the manner in which they are used in 
a work.

For something to be legitimate Product Identity, it has to be one of 
these things: "product and product line names, logos and identifying 
marks".

Some people are reading the subsequent laundry list to mean every one 
of those things is "their stuff," but there still has to be something 
unique, identifying, and "ownable" about anything declared as Product 
Identity.

I'll agree with your comment that this stuff is non-trivial. While I 
was looking for Alec's comments on identifying marks, I found a 
comment by Ryan Dancey that's worth quoting:

"[T]he current environment of mixed-rights d20 products probably 
represents the most extensive development of any commercial market 
that freely mixes exclusive copyrights, derivative works, 
mixed-rights derivative works, and original licensed copyrights in 
one product."

None of it is easy. If I were ever faced with a decision of whether 
to take an OGL conflict to court, find a way to compromise, or back 
down entirely and pulp a product, I don't think I'd ever pick door 
number 1.
-- 
Rogers Cadenhead, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 07/02/2003
Weblog: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench


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