----- Original Message ----- From: "Spike Y Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:16 PM Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] what is OGC? - It's PORTIONS of your workaccording tosection 8
> On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:24:06 -0400 > "Martin L. Shoemaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > << I _NEVER_ said that OGC is everything in a covered product. I > > said it was everything in a covered product that is not PI. >> > > > > Has an IP lawyer versed in the OGL told you this? If not, please > > consult one before you keep repeating this. PLEASE! Publishers > > with money on the line have paid good money to their IP lawyers > > and seem to have all reached the conclusion that there are three > > kinds of content: OGC, PI, and traditional copyright material. > > Your dogged insistence to the contrary may be seriously > > misleading people. > > No need to yell at Lee; he's in total agreement with you, but the two > of you are using different terminology. > > You say that there are three types of content, OGC, PI, and > traditional copyrighted material. > > He says that there are two types of content *within a covered work,* > OGC and PI, but that a product (he likes to use the example of an > issue of a magazine, but books and other things would also count) and > "a covered work" are not the same thing, and that a product can > include material that is outside of the covered work, and which is > therefore not OGC or PI, but which is still covered by traditional > copyright, trademark, and other IP laws. > > Your "traditional copyrighted material" is equal to other people's > "closed content" is equal to Lee's "material not a part of the > covered work and therefore not dealt with in the license except in a > few tangential places." Lee's definition and designation is the most > accurate, but "closed content" is the most commonly-used term for > this third category of material. > > Spike Y Jones Actually Spike, I've been talking to Lee a lot on this while trying to work out *exactly* what he is saying and I believe that Lee is saying that people are getting their definitions of OGC and PI wrong and failing to live up to their obligations under the OGL. Maybe I am misunderstanding Lee here, especially as I am not a lawyer or a professional publisher. However, he does seem to be differing on how things become "closed content". I get the impression that he believes that you have to come up with a OGC/PI definition that specifically excludes portions of your game product from the "covered work". If you do not specifically mark content as Product Identity it becomes Open Game Content by default. Most other people seem to believe that if you do not specifically mark content as either OGC or PI then it is, what they call "closed content" or what Lee calls content outside the "covered work" by default. One thing Lee said in all of this, that I do agree upon is that anyone "Using" [1] OGC to make a product that doesn't clearly identify that content as OGC is probably in breach of the OGL. However, I think that Lee believes that if you "Use" any OGC then your whole "covered work" is a derivative work. My belief is that if I Use one spell then my sub-spell is the only derivative thing in my product. I see the word "work" as being similar to the word "water" here. Water can be a gallon or a drop and water plus water is still water. I think that the same is true of work. That it can mean your whole product, all the bits done by one author, all the OGC, all the bits covered by the licence or any other sub section of the total work. I think that whenever we talk about work we are using the word as our own subsection of a total product. How many people for example think of the ISBN number, the shrink wrap or the price sticker as part of their work? But how many paying customers would think of mentally cutting up something they buy into a section called work and other stuff. I think that Lee has possibly misinterpreted something because of this word and is adding two and two together to get 5. However if Lee is correct (which he may well be because he is better at the law than me) perhaps we need to come up with legal work arounds to avoid our "entire work" being "contaminated" by the use of one OGC spell. At least, I think that is what the issue is here! :-) If I am wrong on my opinion of what Lee *is* saying then I have just been chasing my own tail for a couple of weeks, but I do get the impression that he has brought the subject up because he believes that most people are using the OGL in a way that is wrong on issues of OGC definition. Lee likes to look for holes in the OGL (so that they can be plugged up in the next version). If he is in fact not saying anything different from what Martin says then I don't see why Lee would have brought the subject up (unless he himself has misunderstood something). I've written to Lee both on and offlist trying to understand this and he has sent me several emails trying to get his logic through to me. I'm not totally sure that I understand all of what he says but I'm pretty sure that he is saying something like "the OGL doesn't work the way people think it does". I don't think Lee is just saying "stuff that you call closed content is actually outside the covered work", because the people that talk about closed content have never said that it *was* part of the covered work to my recollection. My understanding is the other people say that "closed content" is regulated by the normal laws that manage copyrighted material. I'm fairly sure that Lee does understand what they are saying and has brought the issue up because he thinks they have missed something else. I personally think that Lee's position is incorrect because although there is a requirement to clearly mark OGC there is no requirement to clearly mark PI or the extent of the "covered work". I infer from this that if you don't mark those things that they fall into OGC if they are inside an area already defined as OGC or they fall into "closed content" or "not part of the covered work" if they are not inside an area already defined as OGC. [2] I think that if there is a difference between what Lee is saying and what Martin and other people have said. Why would Lee say what he said unless he believes that there is a difference somewhere? IANAL but I think that the safest way to behave until this issue is looked at (and someone convinces Lee he is wrong or Lee convinces the rest of us he is right) is: Assume that Martin is correct if you want to "Use" someone else's OGC (or licensed PI) until your lawyer tells you differently. Assume that Lee is correct if you want to issue your own OGC (or licensed PI) until your lawyer tells you differently. If Lee is correct then we all need to be careful to not accidentally open up content by not crossing our "T"s and dotting our "I"s. I would love for someone with a greater understanding of PI/OGC definitions and the law to tackle Lee on this. Then we can get the issue that Lee sees (but I don't) sorted out. David S [1] - I'm using the word Use as per the definition in the licence here. [2] - Although if part of your work is required to be OGC because you have Used OGC to create it (this is a grey area as far as I can see) but you fail mark the area as OGC then you have breached the agreement you have made with the copyright owner (whose work you Used). _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
