| -----Original Message-----
| From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Brad Thompson
| Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 5:22 PM
| To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| Subject: RE: [Open_Gaming] Marking PI and OGC
|
|
| > John Ughrin
| >
| > Can I, for example declare "the PC's rescue a kidnapped person of
| > import for
| > great reward" as a concept?
|
| Sounds more like a plot, but it doesn't much matter. A Concept
| is a thought
| or and idea. In this case 1(e) lists many different kinds of
| concepts, and
| this is a catch-all for ideas that don't fit in any of those other
| categories.
|
Yes, and my idea is that "the PCs should go an rescue someone". Sure, its
not a very specific idea, nor would it be defensible under normal law, but
under this contract, I don't see a demand for specificity of the expression
of the idea.
| > From what I can see, nothing prevents
| > that from happening.
|
| That's true, but it isn't a big deal. You would only gain protection for
| your specific expression of such a general concept. Additionally, the OGL
| only prohibits other people from using your instance of such a concept.
| That means that I could not take your work and copy it into mine, but I
| could come up with the same concept and incorporate it into my work
| independently of yours. You would have to demonstrate that I
| based my work
| on yours in order to show that I was violating the license.
|
Ummm...I know I would under *normal* copyright protection, but the PI rules
don't make any claims to normalcy or fair use clauses. Which is part of my
problem here. I do not agree that the OGL protect *only* specific
expressions. I do not see wording to that effect in 1e) or any other clause.
Instead of saying that PI includes all "expressions of <insert list>" or
similar wording, the PI definition include the very concepts themselves as
protected material.
| You might have your PCs rescue the King of Gorp from the evil Edwina the
| Sorceress and receive a big pile of meat pies as a reward. I could still
| have the PCs rescue the fair Giselle from a remote mountain tower
| where she
| is being held captive by a petulantly amorous demon, and the
| reward being an
| ancient tome of power.
That's precisely what I'm talking about, the terms of the license do not
specify that *I* must specify the characters and particular locale of my
thematic element. The vast majority of the terms in 1e are just fine, the
"concept" catch all is IMHO too broad and opens up the license for
significant abuse.
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