----- Original Message -----
From: "Rogers Cadenhead" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 5:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Open_Gaming] OGF (possible) Final Draft
> I'm assuming that if I sat down with D&D 3E and rewrote the rules in
> my own words, there's some way under the law that it constitutes a
> copyright infringement. But if I wrote a work on my own without
> using anyone else's game as a blueprint, my game could have many of
> the same rules and it would not be a copyright infringement. If you
> read the U.S. Copyright Office information at
> http://www.loc.gov/copyright/, you will see that rules are described
> as one of the things copyright does not cover.
I agree with you here. I feel that while individual rules are not
copyrightable, a game *system* is essentially protected by copyright.
> I think, and this is just a personal opinion, that if someone tossed
> out all of his D&D books and wrote a game from memory codifying the
> house rules he had been playing under for 20 years, it could
> probably qualify as a new game as long as D&D trademarks and
> copyrighted setting elements (such as the "Bigby" and "Tenser"
> spells) were avoided.
And I think it has been done.
-kenan
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