I don't think we need worry about common words such as "Dungeon" being
outlawed re: copyrights from this document. You cannot copyright a
common term such as this. it's not like these guys are rewriting the
constitution here. When you read in Dragon Magazine that DRAGON is
copyright WOTC or whatever -they are referring to the body of work
encapsulated by the DRAGON magazine title. If we could take ownership
of words by thrusting the word copyright in front of them then we would
either have only 2 or 3 publishers in the world or an extremely large
vocabulary.
Not too long ago Mattel tried to sue Aqua for their song Barbie Girl as
it directly touched on their copyright (they thought) and gave Barbie
(the doll) a bad image. Case was unsuccessful. The OGL will not be
able to remove words from the english language and make them their sole
property. What you can copyright are trademark names such Wizards of
the Coast(r). You would have a hard time copyrighting a name such as
"Steve".
Perhaps this document has a higher level of strategy to it...If you wish
to create an adventure that would coincide with a d20 rules system but
did not specifically say that or use any of the d20 logos/trademarks and
were careful I think you may actually have more creative power than IF
YOU DID sign the agreement. Wizards is giving you a tradeoff of
allowing use of D20 and their branding power, but forcing the adherence
to the OGL which will have a set of restrictions geared towards
preserving that which is valuable to them. These valuable properties
(words, names, whatever) may actually be very hard for them to protect
unless an agreement was in place that gave them a bit more power (that
we may all intend to sign).
_______________________________
Jason
-----Original Message-----
From: Brad Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 5:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Can we use "Dungeon?" Re: [RE: [Open_Gaming] Some license
updates]
> Doug Meerschaert
>
> Can someone (Clark? Ryan?) answer this? If a trademark referrs
> to a common
> term (Dungeon, Dragon, etc.) does the proposed change prohibit us
> using it?
>
> Once the clause goes in, the answer is something that should be
> added to the
> FAQ ASAP.
I'd actually like to see the whole clause, rather than just Ryan's
paraphrasing of it. The precise wording may have an impact on our
objections.
-Brad
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