>Clark-
> I understand your position and I am not suggesting you do something
>you are uncomfortable with as a company. I just got the impression that you
>were saying you couldn't do anything about it because of the OGL, which I
>don't think is the case.
> I think that saying "This is no longer PI," is sufficient, since the
>key to creating PI is simply having the owner clearly identify it as such.
>This is one of the hairy issues I think though. Ryan just indicated that
>there are no rules for identification because of the myriad ways it can be
>done, which I wholly understand. However, while this may work for OGC
>(because all OGC is accompanied by the OGL which spells out the rules), I
>have seen nothing that says where PI is to be found. Do you see the problem?
> The OGL gives protections (of reference) to a class of material that is not
>necessarily part of an OGC distribution. Anyone who does research for a
>product can clearly find the rules, provenance, etc. for OGC content they
>wish to use but may have no idea of what PI lurks out there because the
>declaration of PI is not tied to the presence of OGC or the OGL.
> Therefore, even though a simple declaration might be sufficient there
>is no way for people to tell what is and is not PI.
from the OGL, section 1:
>(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the
>methods, procedures, processes and
>routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product
>Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art
>and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content
>by the Contributor, and means any work
>covered by this License, including translations and derivative works
>under copyright law, but specifically excludes
>Product Identity.
now, maybe i've misread this, but it sounds to me like Product
Identity and Open Game Content are, together, inclusive. that is,
everything in a work is one or the other, so if it's not OGC, it's
PI. this is further reinforced by the definition of PI (which could
be summed up as "everything that isn't game mechanics", if we didn't
need it in legalese). for that matter, everything i've looked at in
the stores seems to follow this dichotomy: there's OGC, released by
the WOGL, and everything else is PI, protected by the WOGL (and, in
many cases, copyright or trademark laws).
furthermore, my reading of the WOGL is that one must release
game-mechanics stuff (specifically, stuff that's based on game
mechanics that have already been released) in order to qualify for
the WOGL, or, rather, that one may not choose not to release material
that is not PI and still abide by the WOGL. is there a third
category of material that is not PI and not OGC, which the OGL fails
to mention?
> One of the issues,I thought I had asked about earlier (in another
>post) was whether the declaration of PI is tied to the presence of OGC and
>the OGL. At one point in the License the phrase "the Product Identity" is
>used in such a way as to imply that PI might only be valid if declared within
>a OGL'd body of work.
>
> Anyway, thank god no one is trying to PI the ape deal. I didn't just
>think of it in terms of the words though, I was worried that someone else
>was. I support the PI'ing (assuming there are good reasons for it) of entire
>concepts (like a Frosted Sugary Ape with ecology, etc.) but not just generic
>names. I also liked Brad's explanation that people could use the same or
>similar names if the creature was a) different and b) not derived from the
>"original."
>
> Please post the results of your discussions with Steve as regards the
>issue of designing with PI and OGC in mind (flexibity-wise) because I think
>that they would be very useful.
>
>-Alex Silva
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#20 Law of Militaristic Unreliability
Huge galaxy-wide armadas, entire armies, and large war-machines full of
cruel, heartless, bloodthirsty warriors can be stopped and defeated with
a single insignificant example of a caring/loving emotion or a song.
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