I have had thoughts along the same lines:
>It seems like a big legal land mine to me. Derivative work is already
>poorly defined. Now we are inviting people to explore the mine field
>with the Identification section of the OGL. Comments?
On Wed, 21 Jun 2000, Walter Christensen wrote:
[snip]
> using Open content and calling it Closed? It certainly isn't in the
I do not think this is not the issue.
> Open work and call it Closed then they potentially face legal action from me
> *and every individual before me*. Would *you* want to foot the time/money
> as a defendent in, say, 37 different court cases?
The issue is people calling "material you think is closed" open.
No one is going to defend that material as closed except you.
37 people are going to be on the other side wanting it OPENED.
If you use open content more than fair use allows then you may
have your entire work seen as open content by someone. If that
someone also happens to have lots of legal clout and ability
to wade thru a long legal battle then your closed material will
likely become open content against your wishes.
Nor do I even think the "spirit" of the OGL will be applicable
in many cases. What if someone created a set of objects and
monsters that became very popular? Someone else claims those
objects and monsters use the standard stat blocks and they
should be open content. The original creator claims those
objects and monsters are part of the story and are closed.
This is purely hypothetical. Everyone could play nice and
respect everyone else's wishes (at least until there is something
worth fighting over *snicker*).
If material does become pushed into openness against people's
wishes, I don't see it as being bad for the community. More
content is available for people to build on and increase the
open content pool. Sure, some of the creators who had their
stuff pushed open, might be upset and leave the community but
so what? They were making mostly closed material or they
wouldn't be such a target. Good riddance.
I may be a dreamer but I think this will eventually encourage
people do the "right thing". If people make most everything open
content: new rules, objects, monsters, spells, classes, etc.
while keeping the artwork and a four page background story closed
material, no one will feel the need to push their work open so
they can build on those rules/objects/monsters/spells/classes/etc.
Regards,
--Kal
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