From: "Martin L. Shoemaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Because you are a multi-million dollar company, part of a multi-billion
> dollar company.
Specifically, this is one case where my personal opinion will not matter and
people with zero interest in Open Gaming will make the decision. If it was
my personal opinion that mattered, far less would probably be identified as
Product Identity.
Then again, I could be pleasantly surprised when the time comes to explore
that forest.
> Similarly, if a multi-thousand dollar company wants to err
> on the side of caution to protect their multi-thousand dollar IP, they
> should do so.
My opinion remains: It's probably not worth the hassle, and will do more to
damage the long-term value of your offering than the potential benefit would
probably merit.
Again, I'm >NOT< talking about stuff that is clearly original. I'm talking
about stuff that >ISN'T< very original. Like a monster named "Bone Golem".
> I'm sorry, but I don't see that scale makes one bit of
> difference in this regard.
It's not the scale. It's the bureacracy.
> I realize that this complicates things to no
> end, particularly in regard to copyright law; but the whole point of OGL
(I
> thought) was to set up a safe harbor where there was clear delineation of
> which potentially-derivative areas would be considered licensed
(derivative
> or not) and therefore safe from litigation; and which would be considered
a
> violation (particularly in regard to PI) and thus potentially subject to
> litigation.
You bet. So a smart publisher who didn't want to bother jumping through any
legal loopholes will simply ignore anything wearing a Product Identity
"verbotten" sticker and not even attempt to figure out how to use it.
Until they get to something like a Product Identity label on a character
name of "Charlie". Or a monster named "Frost Ape".
Now that person is going to start to wonder about how many other common,
public domain things various companies think they "own", and have asserted
Product Identity for. And that's a bad situation, though not as bad as
having no safe harbor at all. It would be great if in general, Product
Identity was used for stuff that probably >IS< trademarkable or
copyrightable, even if nobody wants to go to the trouble to pursue the
matter all the way through to registration.
To the extent that slapping PI identification on public domain content can
be avoided, it should be avoided.
Ryan
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