<<
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'd be interested in knowing how you came to that interpretation.
It is my opinion that, if and only if, there was no declaration of what
is Open Game Content in the work should the whole work be presumed to be
OGC.
What we need here is a history lesson of the OGL. I'd give that history
lesson, but I don't have the time to look through the archives to find
the important milestones of the development of the OGL.
<<
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.
>>
Unless I've been asleep, and things have changed, it was a general
consensus on the list that you could have three types of content in an
OGL work. Open Game Content, Product Identity, and Regular Copyrighted
material.
Alot of people (whether they are "lazy" or don't want to go to the
trouble of identifying all their sections of OGC) tend to say, "all text
in this work is released as Open Game Content. We reserve the following
sections as Product Identity: ..." (or some such).
The following is what I can, and did put in a product:
<<<<
Declaration of Open Content:
The following sections of this document are hereby released as Open
Game Content:
All grey shaded boxes, not including the box on this page, Chapter 2:
Wrestling Skills, and Chapter 4: Combat.
Declaration of Product Identity:
The following terms are reserved as Product Identity:
Wrestle RPG, Nuke, Rage, Atom Bomb, Meltdown, Kidd-line, Kidd-rana,
Brain Strangler, Brain Crusher, Three Pillars of Compassion, Buddha's
Embrace, Big Game Takedown, Tranquilizer, Embrace of Greatness.
>>>>
Only content in the selected sections (gray shaded boxes and specific
chapters) are released as Open Game Content. The rest of the product
remains as copyrighted material. I only actually declared terms as
Product Identity which actually appeared within the particular sections
of OGC that (at the time), I didn't want to release. Each of the terms
were identifying names for characters and the flavor names of feats some
of them had. I don't have to declare the rest of the product as Product
Identity because the rest of the product doesn't appear within sections
of OGC.
<<
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.
>>
Many have done the above. One example I'm looking at right now is AEG's
mimi-modules. Their declarations say: "All material in the module with
a gray background is Open Game Content, except for the proper names of
NPC's and may be used pursuant to the Open Game Licence. (More
continued...)"
When it all comes down to it, it could be proven that it has become an
industry standard for identifying Open Game Content, if enough people do
it in a particular way. As I look at my copy of Sword and Sorcery's
Creature Collection, I see they declare OGC in a similar fashion. That
makes 3.
<<
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.
>>
--
Scott
Fantages Studios: http://www.fantages-studios.com
Publisher of Wrestle, the Fantages Game System and The Rya'mier Campaign
Setting
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