Sorry for the cross-posting and my earnest apologies to those who received 
this letter twice...

>... copyrights
>and traditionally the better-paid lawyer wins.
>

Copyrights - so what!

In designing a game product INTENDED FOR USE WITH, or DESIGNED UPON another 
gaming system, it is not copyright you need to worry about, it is TRADEMARK 
infringements.  The issue is not how close you can come to the rules - you 
can completely mimic them if you want - provided you use your own verbiage.

IT IS about whether you use terms or phrases in your game that the owner of 
the other game feels are so integral to their system that they constitute a 
Trademark.  The legalities are sometimes very gray here, and this generally 
means that the folks willing to spend the most $$$$ in court will win.

One of the things that is seriously lacking (and very critical) in the 
current draft D20 is the list of "Restricted Terms and Definitions" 
described in section 3.1.3 of the D20 draft.

These will be the "words" that WotC will reserve as their Trademarks, and 
will (presumably) spend gobs of money to fight in court to protect.  This is 
where I believe this effort will come to a crashing halt, because by 
defining such a list up front, effectively WotC will be outlining for EVERY 
GAMER exactally what they can get away with stealing.  They must be having 
some VERY hot-tempered discussions about this right now, because if they 
have NO LIST, then they open up their whole source document.  If the list is 
very short, it can be used in court to show that phrases like "Hit Points, 
"Armor Class", "Experience Levels", "THACO", etc were not intended to be 
protected.

If, on the other hand, the LIST is very restrictive and does include such 
words, then it will be against your better interests to even develop in the 
D20 system - as WotC will effectively own ALL of it - or be able to screw 
you in court for a long time if they don;t like you.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT? Because T$R was the original 300 pound gorilla - 
by never defining specifically WHAT their trademarks were, they could 
effectively pay gobs of attorney money and claim trademark violation on 
almost anything that used their original wording or even concepts - ie Hit 
Points, THACO, etc.  (Imagine trying to explain the D&D combat system 
without using common phrases such as Armor Class, Experience level, Armor 
Class Zero, and Hit Points.)  This is one reason why the Mayfair Games' 
supplements (for T$R products) used HTK (or "Hits to Kill" for their 
creatures, rather than the phrase "Hit Points".

Incidentally, if T$R was the 300 pond Gorilla, Hasbro weighs in at well over 
2 Tons.  It is basically going to be their show - because (unlike Mayfair 
vs. T$R) no gaming company currently in existence will be able to spend the 
money to stand up to them in court on even a trivial matter.

Faust

>From: "JNielsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: [Open_Gaming] "Not D20!"
>Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 17:27:22 -0400
>
> > For example, anyone can design a game that uses six attributes that 
>range
> > from 3 to 18 and are determined through various means of rolling 
>standard
> > six-sided die.  But they cannot describe this game mechanic the same way
> > it has been done in AD&D, as that would violate WotC's (and formerly
> > TSR's) copyrights.
>
>Anyone can then expend the money required for the fourteen challenges to
>this patent application.  It's not as simple as it sounds.  It's expensive
>and traditionally the better-paid lawyer wins.
>
>Jared Nielsen
>www.GameCodex.com
>
>-------------
>For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

-------------
For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org

Reply via email to