<<The fact that the four
words used together don't exist anywhere outside a WotC copyrighted work
only goes to show that it's a stretch to think that the use in your one
paragraph story is not derivitive of WotC's copyrighted work. >>
If I said, "New Jersey is the gray waste of Hades", it would not, to my knowledge, under Title 17, ever be understood of as constituting a derivative work.
<<
Mon, 4 Mar 2002 - RE: [Ogf-d20-l] Converting from OGC to non-SRD
systems..
Sun, 4 Nov 2001 - RE: [Ogf-l] multiple licenses
>>
I'll review them, thanks.
<<I never said that WotC could claim a copyright on 4 words, but they
could claim a copyright on their _expression_ of the "Gray Wastes of
Hades".
>>
How? Have you any case law which supports a notion that 4 words in sequence are copyrightable? A trademark? That might work as a trademark. But I seriously doubt that 4 words in sequence, if used in another work, could be grounds for a successful claim of copyright infringement.
Re: intent of use, I have already said that a court _might_ grant some limited copyright protection to a name paired with licensed text. I have never even heard of any such thing outside of the OGL where 100% of the text was licensed, but not the name of the character, and the character's name was not trademarked. That's pretty ground breaking.
But I do know that potentially uncopyrightable things when used in unique combinations can be granted copyright status, so maybe the name / text combination would retain sufficient copyright to grant separate ownership of the name even when the text was licensed and such ownership would allow for a PI declaration.
The problem is: OGC is not PI and PI is not OGC. The ownership of the copyright is to the combination of PI + OGC. There is no ownership of the PI by itself. And you have to own the PI to declare it as PI. You don't. You own the PI + OGC in combination which together form a copyrightable work. The PI (if it's a name) is, in itself, not something that can be owned separate from it's context unless it is trademarked.
Lee
