I've been reading Death in Freeport, a nice-looking and well-written
D20 module published by Green Ronin Publishing. I am confused by one
aspect of how the open game license was used in this work.
The copyright notice states that art is copyright 2000 by the
respective artists and that the text of the book is Open Gaming
Content. After this, there's a line that states "The Yellow Sign
is Copyright 1986 Kevin Ross." The Yellow Sign is a cult in the
city of Freeport. My guess is that this means the group was created
by Ross and he is retaining the rights to them.
Can a normal copyright notice be used as part of an open gaming
copyright notice to specify closed work? I know Green Ronin was
working with an early draft of the OGL/D20, and I don't fault them
for constructing the license as they did, but it seems less than
ideal as a way to differentiate open and closed material. The Yellow
Sign seems to be fairly important in the history of Freeport and in
the modules the company is doing, so I'm not sure how you could make
full use of the open content without them.
Rogers Cadenhead
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.prefect.com
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