>From: "John Nephew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Every contributor to that Netbook could explicitly identify each of his
>Feats as
>PRODUCT IDENTITY. This is clearly allowed by the OGL*, whose definition of
Uh - John - not at ALL. Once Brad talked to an attorney and realized that
HE PERSONALLY would be liable for any "downstream liability" resulting from
PI in his netbook, Brad refused to allow PI content. He (AND his attorney)
felt it would be too much of a risk for a work that was never intended to
make a profit. So he now insists that each of his contributors certify all
of their work as fully open. It would have been REALLY DUMB of him to do it
any other way.
He just bought a REAL NICE HOUSE, and he has no intention of losing it over
a hobby.
This is the essential point that apparently I am not apparently doing a poor
job of explaining. Here it is graphically:
PI = Downstream Liability.
This equation is EXACTLY why WotC is creating an SRD, rather than just
listing the items in the PHB that are PI. This is why I believe we will
NEVER see a "PI" statement from WotC.
If you do not quote PI, then the entire work is open, and there is
ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT, NO CHANCE FOR ERROR, AND NO CONFUSION as to what parts
of a work can and cannot be used. NONE.
This is REALLY REALLY important to a hobbyist who is not going to be running
off to a lawyer every five minutes. But not really that important at all to
a game producer.
PI = Downstream Liability.
Why? Because PI is where the mistakes, misintterpretation, and critical
errors of ommission can happen. PI is copyright work that HAS TO BE
protected, sitting smack in the middle of a suppposedly open document. One
mistake, one error, and BANG, you've got the liability issue for EVERYBODY
downstream that relies upon your work.
Now I posted a solution to this for producers on this list about eight
months ago. One that I thought was obvious, because its backed up by a real
world example.
EVERY company should have their own SRD. All of them.
When I print Earth 1066 it is going to have the following PI statement:
This book was based upon the D20 SRD and the parts of it that are
directly derivative of that document are open content. All other
parts of this volume are designated Product Identity under the
terms of the Open Gaming License. For a complete list of Open
Content based on this work see the Earth 1066 System Reference
Document at:
http://www.earth1066.comm/ET6SRD.html
In short, I will likely open ALL of my content, but it will be in a
controlled document with NO PI - JUST LIKE WOTC! So there will be no
confusion at all about what is and isn't open.
Somebody help me here. I really think this stuff is obvious, but am
apparently doing a bad job of explaining it.
Faust
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