> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ryan S. Dancey
> Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2001 11:46 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] Let's Pause, and Take a Deep Breath...
>
>
> 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.
Understood. I have no doubt that you counseled your colleagues at WotC
exactly as you have counseled those on this list. I also have no doubt that
some of them will ignore your counsel just as did your colleagues.
> > 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.
Only time will tell. One significant datapoint -- a huge amount of PI mixed
with a huger amount of OGC -- is CC, which is selling like the proverbial
hotcakes. I haven't seen that they have suffered any long-term damage.
> > 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.
Understood. But is it really bureaucracy, or a difference of opinion on what
constitutes valuable IP that should remain under the sole control of WotC?
Is it a bureaucrat saying, "No, that's against policy, so we won't consider
it"? Or an executive saying, "Sorry, but we see too much income potential,
and cannot risk diluting it"? (I would love to believe it is a creator
saying, "Sorry, this is my idea, and I want to maintain my control"; but I
suspect that all your IP today is works made for hire, and thus original
creators have very little say in business decisions regarding the course of
the IP.)
> 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.
The smart move, I think.
> Until they get to something like a Product Identity label on a character
> name of "Charlie". Or a monster named "Frost Ape".
"Charlie" is certainly a good example of PI abuse. I'm withholding judgment
on "Frost Ape", because I think that's at least as original as "Laser
Rifle", a trademark which was successfully registered by Lucasfilm (but has
since lapsed). If your criterion is "stuff that probably >IS< trademarkable
or copyrightable", there are lots of examples out there that are pretty darn
broad. Just a search for Lucasfilm trademarks yielded the following
registered-but-generic marks:
Laser Rifle
Radar Laser Cannon
Rebel Commando
Sand Speeder
Land Speeder
Those were ones they SUCCESSFULLY registered. Then you gotta laugh when you
see some of the ones for which they have applied but for which registration
hasn't been granted: Episode I, Episode II, Episode III... If Lucasfilms
will go to the effort of applying for trademarks for these terms -- an
effort that costs legal fees and a lot of time and hassle with the
government -- I suspect they'll have no compunction at all about making them
PI, which basically involves including them in a list.
> To the extent that slapping PI identification on public domain content can
> be avoided, it should be avoided.
Agreed. Public domain AND material owned by others.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Martin L. Shoemaker Consulting, Software Design and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.MartinLShoemaker.com
http://www.UMLBootCamp.com
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