When you write a book, the book, taken in aggegrate, and including the names therein, is subject to copyright, making you the "owner" of the text in aggregate.
It seems reasonable that the PI designation goes hand in hand with the "ownership of the text in aggregate" allow you to designate certain portions of the text that others may Use (1g of the OGL; Use = copy, modify, format, translate, or derive from) - that's the OGC - and other portions of said text - even small portions that in and of themselves would not stand up as copyrightable material as stuff others may NOT Use (copy, modify, format, translate, or derive from) - either as "not OGC" or as "PI."
It seems to me reasonable that a character name might be "ownable" under the terms of the OGL only as "part of a larger copyrighted work owned by the PI declarer."
It also seems to me that if the name can possibly be sourced elsewhere, the PI designation is useless... because, as noted in my previous post on Section 7, PI designations (at least under my reading of Section 7) do not say, "you cannot use the word, 'name' in your work" but rather, "you cannot copy, et al, or derive from MY version of 'name' in your work" - making anything that is not a distinctly original name, (i.e., "Joe Q. Fighter" is not distinctly original and could probably be derived independently - but "Yuwoanpal Eidke" is distinctly original) valid, but worthless PI (as it can be circumvented).
In other words, PI protection under the terms of the OGL seems to be no stronger than standard copyright protection... if I can duplicate your "research" of public domain sources, I can duplicate your results. You get the idea (I hope).
At any rate, I will watch with mild interest the rest of the arguments about the "ownership/PI" issue on the list, but until I feel I have - or someone else has - something new to contribute, will remain silent.
--The Sigil
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