On 17 Dec 00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled a note about [Open_Gaming] Gilligan's Dilema:
Just remember that you asked for this............
> My original post was not about creating content dervived from another source
> as the Gilligan adventure posts posited. I was claiming that ownership of an
> original adventure designed for use with a set of rules published by someone
> else is my property to with as I please. Furthermore my assertion was that
The original parts of the adventure would be owned by you, BUT not
the whole work! Anything that you wrote which is derived from
another source is the property of the owners of that other source.
> content created with the use of tools created by someone else does not
> entitle that someone to ownership of my work unless that agreement was
> reached prior to my purchase of the tools or by other agreement (ie. work
Your assertion is incorrect. By US Copyright law, any material
derived from somebody else's work becomes their property.
Way back when TSR first got online, they instituted an extremely
unpopular internet policy, asserting that ALL fan based work on the
internet was their property and that it could only be downloaded
from licensed sites (of which there was only one at the time).
While extremely unpopular, they were completely within their legal
rights.
> product or such). Trademark d20 issues aside, where does the idea that
> making adventures (for use with D&D or any other system) requires a license
> or permission, come from? If the content is original (no trademarks or
> copyright settings are used) why can't you sell your own work? The fact that
> you lay out your material according to rules which you bought and which exist
> to tell you how to play a certain way and which anyone else can buy, doesn't
> automatically invalidate your ownnership of your work. Nor do I see anything
Copyright law again. That is what says you cannot take material
published by another author (or company) and publish your own
material based off of it.
> (or a similar situation except via a EULA) which dictates you cannot sell
> your creations.
>
> The problem is that if you subscribe to the theory that no claims can be made
> against your original work created with a set of rules in mind, then why
> should you give up the ability to cite compatibility with such rules as you
> see fit?
>
This is a very confusing sentence, and I am not sure exactly what
question you are asking here. This seems more of a trademark
question than a copyright question, and I am not as versant in
trademark law as I am in copyright law, so I will decline to answer
it at this time.
> Publishing scenarios:
> A. I release into the public domain.
> B. I release under copyright and trademark laws.
> C. I release OGC and PI under the OGL.
>
> a. Anyone can use or profit from it.
> b. Anyone can violate and be sued by me, or secure my permission/license.
> c. Anyone can violate and be sued by me, or secure my permission/license.
Correction to item "c."
Anyone can use and profit from the OGC, but not the PI unless
they secure your permission/license. Violators of PI can be sued
by you. Violations of your material (OGC) must violate the OGL in
order for you to be able to sue them. Their use of OGC does NOT
require your permission.
>
> But under c.a suit only applies if there is a violation to my trademarks and
> PI (which may or may not have been protectable under copyright and trademark
> laws, but are now by declaration and contract). Otherwise, the OGC is
> essentially like public domain and the rest is like B. OGC is not
> (basically) public domain only when a violation has occurred and that can
> only happen in regard to trademarks and PI. The net effect is that I have
There are other types of violations not related to PI. One such
would be not properly crediting the works in which they use your
OGC.
> gained nothing over A or B except the loss of the ability to freely make
> compatibility claims myself, restrictrictions on how I may use my own
> material, restrictions on work released in conjunction with my own work (the
> magazine case?), and the power to shelter some things I might not be able to
> defend otherwise.
By law you are not giving up the ability to make compatibility
claims, because according to law you couldn't make those claims
to begin with without having permission from the original
publisher.... (who would legally own those portions of your work in
any case since it was derived from their products).
>
> So why the OGL? The argument from Wizards are as follows:
>
> The OGL places restrictions on the claims of compatibility you can make for
> works you contribute, but offers a way of protecting various publishers
This seems to be your biggest problem with the OGL, that you
cannot say that it is compatible with D&D.....
Look at it this way. I could take the SRD and revamp it completely
so that the rules I publish are NO longer compatible with the rules
in the SRD. Now would you really want somebody who did this to
be able to say it is compatible and then discover that it isn't?
>From the consumer viewpoint: I go buy game X that says it is
compatible with D&D (game X is the above hypothetical product). I
get home and find that the game uses a whoel different magic
system, a different skill/combat resolution system, and a different
character creation method. The only thing that is the same is the
feats and how they are acquired. Now should this product be
allowed to say it is compatible with D&D (or even d20?).
No it shouldn't. So, the OGL says that I cannot claim compatibility
with it because there is NO garuantee that it is compatible.
Now we come to the d20STL. By adopting it, and the restrictions it
asks for, you get to use the d20 logo and thus get to imply
compatibility (through the logo, and a visible clue such as that has
a more subliminal effect of association that using words to say it is
compatible, at least to me).
> assertions of their IP (by allowing you to restrict the use of your IP in
> conjunction with material you would otherwise released public domain). We are
> told this is necessary because of the litigious nature of publishers, but the
No, we were told that this was needed because of the litigious
nature of publishers in the past. Nobody said that they were this
way now (though I am willing to bet that if you violate a company's
trademarks and IP they will come after you.
> OGL doesn't prevent violations it only helps to prosecute them. In fact,
> because of complicated coverage rules the OGL can increase the chances you
> might violate the license and be sued. The OGL doesn't offer protection from
How does it increase the chances that you might be sued? Part of
the OGL requires that an author/publisher must clearly define what
is open and what isn't. If you use what is defined as open, then you
have no problems... If you try to use that authors' IP without his
permission, then you are right back where you were before the
OGL, performing copyright and/or trademark infringement and most
likely to be sued for doing so....
> violations of your material nor does it protect you from violating other
> people's rights but it does restrict your ability to market yourself and
> reference other people's work fairly.
>
If used properly, then you will not be in danger of of violating
anything, and thusly will have no fear of being sued. It is that
simple...
> We are also told this is the only way we can legally gain "access" to the
> publishing market for SRD compatible products because that is the only way
> those rules will be released. Which gives us:
> 1) Having access to a bigger market is a good thing.
Hmmm.... if I use the OGL (and the d20STL, which is a totally
different issue), I get to place a d20 logo on my product (and with
the STL, I get to say that it requires the PHB, which effective says
that it is compatible), and this gives me access to the much larger
market....
> 2) The largest gamer population plays under the SRD rules.
Which is true. Are you denying this?
> 3) The only way to legally access this market is through the SRD.
> 4) SRD will only be released under the OGL, so to have access to what the SRD
> offers you must subscribe to the OGL.
>
Again, a true statement. Because otherwise, by law, you would be
required to get a license to do this, or take the chance of getting
sued for selling derivative works without permission.....
> Anyone see how this fails as a good line of reasoning to adopt the OGL for
> your releases? Because the rules as encompassed by the SRD could be
> "accessed" anyway, making products for them would be legal, and claiming
> compatibility with them would be legal. Also, if you used the OGL you would
How could they be accessed anyway? If I create a product based
off those rules (a simple module for example). My use of their rules
makes the module a derivative work, and as such, they own it, and
could legally take me to court, and prevent me from selling it,
especially if I used their trademarks on my product to show
compatibility.
> lose in some measure the ability to capitalize on the very strength of
> choosing to adopt the SRD rules in the first place, since you can't make
> compatibility claims with the larger group of games that share the rules
> without extra permissions. Adopting the OGL does not equal automatic access
> to a lager market, only restricted access.
>
Right! So is the problem you are having? It has never been said
that the OGL alone will grant you access to D&D's market.
Sorry, but IMHO this sounds a lot like sour grapes because you
cannot have everything you want exactly.
> Wizards has upped the ante by providing a marketing vehicle in the form of
> the d20STL+G because the OGL on its own is hardly compelling (even with the
> SRD). With this you can gain back some marketing power but the restrictions
> are tightened up and benefit is added to Wizards market position by basically
> requiring that the PHB be purchased from them (under the d20STL+G version of
> the SRD). While this is certainly fine for them and acts as a huge carrot
> (d20 brand recognition can offset the restrictions) it doesn't justify the
> OGL for other games.
>
Sorry, but your whole attitude seems just a little naive at times.
WOTC is a company. As such, they are in business to make
money. If Ryan had not convinced them that there was a way for
them to make money off this idea, then there would be no OGL,
and no SRD and d2STL....
For other games, the companies that produce them would have to
develop their own OGL. Or create an SRD for their system and
place that under the OGL, while creating their own STL for their
game.
The concept of the OGL works. The question is when are other
companies going to adopt it for their own systems........
> Conclusion, the OGL doesn't work in a vacuum, and under the SRD/d20 scheme it
> has a solid baseline use only because of the existing market, but for other
> games or situations (magazines) it is far too restrictive. The system
Yes, it does place some restrictions on magazines, but as Ryan
has said before, those restrictions will be relaxed over time. In
other words, we have to learn to crawl before we learn to walk.....
> underneath the SRD could probably be the basis of products without using the
> OGL so it offers dubious benefit there. Throw in the practical annoyances
> like including copies and you have another problem.
>
Copies of what?
> Apparently, the only legal way to have anything to do with the SRD system
> (and a huge market that Wizards feels they "own" by virtue of being the
> publisher of the set of rules most used by that market) is to adopt the OGL
> thereby giving up the ability to say you are compatible with those rules,
> even though you may be generally compatible with them. You can erase some of
> this barrier by adopting the d20STL+G which grants some marketability and
> which signifies compatibility to a more defined SRD system, but you must
> concede control over some crucial parts of the system to Wizards.
>
Yes, and what is wrong with this? Without this dual license setup,
there is no way to ensure that a product with the d20 logo is
actually compatible (in any way) with the currently published
ruleset.
The combination of both licenses not only work to protect Wizards,
and the d20 publishers, but it also works to protect to the
consumer, by NOT misleading them about the content of a
product... (i.e. claiming compatibility when there is none, even
though the OGL and SRD was used to create the product.
> In the end though, I fail to see why anyone should give up rights to claim
> compatibility for the simple reason that if the rules are not protected
> except in specific presentation/expression, and you own your own work created
> according to those rules, then what gain do you have by publishing under the
Not according to US copyright law. If your product was created
using thier specific expression of those rules, then you are creating
a derivative work, and they own it by law.
> OGL? Either way you can still be sued for the same types of problems, namely
> trademark and copyright violations. Under it you gain protection only if you
> don't violate the terms which are even more restrictive so your exposure is
> greater not less. Your gain is that you might have an easier time
> prosecuting your own claims, but you give up some marketability for this.
You can only be sued if you attempt to use somedy else's PI. If
you use only their OGC, then you are safe.....
Without the OGL, you would not be allowed to anything created by
another person, nor use their trademarks without permission.
>
> d20/OGL=Yea.
> OGL+any other game material=Nea.
Only until companies start placing their systems under OGL.......
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********TANSTAAFL********
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Rasyr (Tim Dugger)
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Last updated: October 6, 1999
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