On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Brad Thompson wrote:
> Public domain names are no different than any other kind of OGC or PI. If
> the public domain name was OGC before it was PI, then the party who made it
> PI is in breach. If it wasn't, then it is now theirs if you choose to
> derive from their work. Since it is a public domain name, you can still use
> it in works that do not derive from it.
(I had a little trouble parsing the last few "it" references so
please redirect if I misundersood.)
Public domain names are very different from OGC or PI. Anyone can
use public domain names in any context, regardless of the OGL. I
disagree that a party who uses a public domain name as OGC is in
breach. The SRD is going to have lots of public domain names as OGC.
People exert copyright on documents with public domain content all
the time. That does not mean their copyright is invalid.
Technically, I don't even think that someone who uses a public domain
name as PI is in breach. Again, they are free to exert copyright on
their works containing public domain content as they see fit. But if
I am convinced enough that a certain name is public domain, I will
use it as such.
> Yes, that might be pretty disappointing if they did something really cool
> with it, but that's one consequence of how the OGL handles PI.
They are free to copyright their expression of the really cool thing
they did and license that content under the OGL as they see fit. But
they cannot prevent someone from using a public domain name to refer
to a piece of open game content.
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