<<This seems to go back to the "white-out" theory of PI - where it's a method
of "whiting it out" of blocks of Open Game Content... instead of the "list
of verboten terms" theory of PI.
>>
I think your two categories, verboten terms vs. "white out", are what's at issue. I created a sample contract involving "Thor" to try to explain that I felt that the PI list was sort of a list of forbidden terms. You get my stuff, but only if you agree to prohibit yourself from publishing stuff on the PI list.
Ryan clearly thinks it must be closer to the "white out" reading of the contract, and that if you white it out and can then plug it back in from anywhere else other than the source from which it is PI'd you can circumvent the PI declaration altogether.
If you write up a story about Lucas Luckaby but don't publish it with intent to affect commerce, then you can't claim it as a trademark. If you OGC the story but PI the name, then my buddy can write a one paragraph story about Lucas Luckaby (a different character, same name), I can source the name from him, and recreate your document, start to finish, and circumvent your entire PI declaration over your character's name.
<<The OGL for work one grants me a license to use BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ. The
PI designation simply says, in effect, "AEIOU from this work are NOT among
the things you can use" - different from "you cannot use the letters AEIOU
at all" - because the OGL simply *doesn't apply* to AEIOU, as they're not
OGC (see Section 2 of the OGL).>>
Right, but do you feel it doesn't prohibit their insertion into OGC? I'm guessing you don't. The "white out" method doesn't prohibit it. Only the "verboten terms" viewpoint of the license embraces that prohibition.
<<Thus, by combining works 1 and 2, we could get a completely licensed, OGC
version of the alphabet... using the license to use the consonants from work
one and the license to use the vowels from work two.
>>
This would effectively neutralize most protections many people have assumed they had with PI. It wouldn't really be useful at all past about one generation -- people could easily circumvent it.
Lee
