<<Basically anything which could be said to stand by it self is a work.
A sub-rule of a game rule is not a work because it is dependant upon
its "parent" for making sense.
>>
The rule doesn't have to make sense in isolation, provided that it is surrounded with enough text to make it a stand-alone work.
If there's enough information that it could make up a letter in Dragon magazine, etc. it matters little whether it would constitute a complete game system.
In general, though, your notion that the work must be able to stand on its own to be a work instead of an odd word or sentence is a good one. I think of works as "commercial units" which are defined, if at all, based on context and based on the industry.
<<Since the OGL does not provide any definition of the term "work">>
And since it's really a term of art more often than not even in copyright law.
<<are stuck with the (varying) definitions of our respective copyright
laws.
>>
See my previous posts on "derivative works" and "translations" for comments on why I think we should infer a standard copyright law definition for this term of art.
<<So as far as I'm concerned a collective work (such as a magazine)
would not be "tainted" by OGL of it contained one or more works which
were licensed under OGL.
>>
And thus the reason I posted it.
I also think that probably (and we might want to get an IP lawyer to chime in here), a single long article with descriptions of several characters, a poem, and a couple pages of rules, that also has 4 images embedded may actually, in itself, constitute a compilation of sorts. Particularly with regards to the combination of the images (which are individual works) and the text.
Sometimes sub-dividing the text into sub-works may be up to a judge to decide. I imagine if you _explicitly_ note that you consider it a compilation, if it's at all logically supportable, I am guessing that a judge will give you a break in certain circumstances.
Clearly a poem inside an article would be a work within a work.
Hopefully, enough people are chiming in, that whether I'm right or wrong, some people at least see my point and some of the interesting issues that it could potentially raise about license usage and restrictions.
Lee
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