<<You've run afoul of the "secret" 3rd sort of content in a work
covered by the WotC OGL: closed content. The license is quite obtuse
about this, but there are actually 3 sorts of content in a work
governed by it: OGC, PI, and Everything Else. Anything not declared
OGC or PI is, by default, Everything Else. >>
I have always had a problem with this interpretation. The license applies at the level of the work. I think the language of the license is written so as to assume a default status of OGC for the work as a whole, provided that it would be eligible as OGC under the OGC definition.
I think that, if you handle your own OGC and PI declarations appropriately rather than sloppily, then it might be possible, with a strict reading of the license, to have certain content which you are not allowed to declare as either OGC or PI if you aren't the owner of that content, but are using it under some sort of licensing agreement. Even this exclusion is unclear to me. It seems that since the license applies at the level of the work, it slurps up everything as OGC except that which you define as PI.
" 'Open Game Content' ... means any _work_ covered by this License... but specifically excludes Product Identity."
I know others here have suggested a different interpretation. But they may also believe that you can apply the license piecemeal, picking and choosing paragraphs throughout the work to define as OGC while defining nothing as PI.
De facto you may end up with a work where somebody did this, but I'm not sure that it is the intent of the license that this is how one should handle it.
Perhaps I'll check the archives on this, but I figured I'd get my advocacy for the devil out of the way early this morning.
Lee
