Faust, I think you completely missed my point.
Once more, with feeling:
If you identify the name and description of something as Product Identity,
as the Open Game License allows you to do, then you assert future licensing
control over that Product Identity. Other OGL users agree NOT to use
Product Identity without the permission of its owner.
Thus, a fan who is concerned about his Open Game Content being sold for
profit by others can use Product Identity to require would-be re-users agree
to a separate license with him for its use. The license might be very
simple. "You can freely use this Product Identity only in items not for
sale." You could probably bundle the license as part of the work, just like
the OGL itself.
The whole point of Product Identity is to give a creator control over her
creation. If control is the worry of these net-authors, Product Identity is
their tool and their friend. (Some of them perhaps recognized this and this
may be a reason they chose not to give their work to a fully-open book.)
If you are worried about violating others' Product Identity, then by all
means avoid it. But that should be easy, because the claimant of PI is
required to "clearly identify" it as such. Just look on the legal page.
> 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.
This sounds like a game of telephone with legal advice, since what you're
asserting makes no sense to me.
Perhaps Brad's lawyer is saying he should not allow any PI from third
parties. That is, I can't give him a feat that references a monster name
from the Creature Collection, because those names are PI. That's
reasonable. One might even tell him he should avoid claiming Product
Identity, because it is contrary to the spirit of netbooks. However, it
hardly strikes me as "dumb" to use Product Identity for its intended
purpose: to give control to creators over their contributions to open
gaming, ESPECIALLY if his contributors have voiced concern about such
control. In fact, I have trouble believing that is what the lawyer advised.
(Does he also tell people not to claim copyright over their writing, because
it would give them downstream liability if someone else plagiarized their
work?) Using PI claimed by a contributor should be no problem, because the
contributor just needs to provide Brad with permission to include that PI in
the collected work.
On the other hand maybe Brad's lawyer practices real estate law, didn't
bother to closely read the OGL, or dispenses free legal advice in exchange
for warm beer in paper bags.
Or perhaps Brad is easily confused. Or perhaps, as some have suggested, the
many contributors decided that the OGL itself offers them new and more
interesting things to do than to give away their writing to a netbook.
Telephone games get confusing.
> This is the essential point that apparently I am not apparently doing a
poor
> job of explaining. Here it is graphically:
>
> PI = Downstream Liability.
No, that doesn't clear it up at all.
Tell me how I have incurred "downstream liability" by labeling the proper
name "Kyrielee" from "The Tide of Years" as Product Identity. What
hypothetical scenario would make this some kind of legal problem FOR ME (as
opposed to people who violate my Product Identity, whom I could pursue for
violating the terms of our Open Game License if I have the inclination)?
Seems to me Brad's problem is any publisher's: He has the risk that material
given to him by other people (whether they declare it to be "open" or not,
"PI" or not) is not theirs to give, and that he'll get hosed through someone
else's misdeed. Not declaring anything "PI" doesn't help that. If someone
gives Brad plagiarized material and says "It's all open!" then other people
will copy it and attribute it to Brad's collection, and he'll get cease and
desist letters out of it.
> 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.
WotC is in a unique position, since it decides what is added to the SRD. PI
is not relevant to them, unless and until they take an interest in
reproducing Open Game Content from outside WotC. This has no bearing on
what PI means for other creators.
> If you do not quote PI,
I'm not talking about quoting PI -- I'm talking about identifying your own
PI so as to assert control over future use of the fruits of your creative
endeavors.
> 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.
If you only use your own PI, then you can make clear what is PI, and you
don't have to worry about anything more than if you didn't identify your
Product Identity.
> 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.
Only if you are using SOMEONE ELSE's PI, not YOUR OWN.
If the only PI in a document belongs to YOU, then the only liability from
downstream is people who might violate YOUR rights. Which is a risk you
take by publishing anyhow; you always have the chance that you'll be
plagiarized and whatnot.
> 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.
Why? Our open content is clearly labeled, set in shaded boxes. Our product
identity, if there is any, is specified on the legal page. Clear as day.
It might be convenient for others if I made a big SRD for easy
cut-and-paste, but I have more urgent things to do.
> 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.
Aren't you afraid of "downstream liability" for all those other parts you
designate as Product Identity? (Not that I understand WHY you or Brad's
lawyer should be afraid of it...)
In fact, you seem to be overboard on Product Identity -- and you are leaving
the reader to determine what is "directly derivative" rather than, as the
OGL requires, making PI "clearly identified." What does your lawyer think
of this formulation? If he likes it, fire him.
If everyone used this kind of "up to the reader to determine what
constitutes 'derivative' and 'open' versus 'original' and 'product
identity'" unclear pseudo-identification method, I would agree that Product
Identity is a mess. But (a) I don't think everyone is doing that, and (b) I
think the people who are not providing CLEAR IDENTIFICATION are in violation
of the license and may find themselves getting friendly letters from Ryan
when his schedule eases up.
In fact, if this is how you see PI being implemented, your fears of being
ambushed by PI "sitting smack in the middle of a suppposedly open document"
make more sense. But your PI statement is a very bad PI statement,
precisely because it ambushes the reader/developer with unclear PI claims.
Its lack of clarity violates the OGL, in my view, and I as writer/publisher
would not touch any of its content with a ten foot pole because something
that violates the OGL doesn't offer me any safe harbor.
> 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.
Well, it doesn't work, IMHO. Your other document, the one you are actually
selling as a book, violates the license by not providing clear
identification. The web page which does provide that identification is a
SEPARATE document. I strongly suspect that doesn't fly, any more than
skipping inclusion of the Open Game License and just telling people to find
it on a web page. Maybe paragraph 8 of the OGL is meant to be interpreted
so loosely (i.e., clear indication of what is Open Content in a document can
be provided in a separate document only available in a different medium),
but I doubt it.
In addition, "Product Identity" tends to be integrated in sections of text
that are otherwise Open. That's why "PI" needed to be defined in the OGL in
the first place.
For example, if I were to do an SRD for "The Tide of Years," in order to
identify ALL the open content, I would have to include many stupid-looking
snippets like, "A Search roll against DC 15 notices that..." On the other
hand, if I include the description of Kyrielee the Nixie (open content game
stats), I would be using Product Identity -- her name. Either I'd have to
change her name (causing confusion), OR I'd have to note that it's Product
Identity. Which puts us right back where we were at the start.
> Somebody help me here. I really think this stuff is obvious, but am
> apparently doing a bad job of explaining it.
I don't know about "obvious," but it doesn't match up with what I read in
the license or how I see other people using and actively interpreting it.
Maybe we're all wrong, though. Didn't I see someone slipping Clark a warm
40 oz in a lunch bag at the GAMA show...? ;-)
------------------------------------------------------
John Nephew voice (651) 638-0077 fax (651) 638-0084
President, Atlas Games www.atlas-games.com
_______________________________________________
Ogf-l mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
