On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Brad Thompson wrote:
> I agree with most of this in principle, but you left out the most important
> consequence of the offender's license being terminated. While the act of
> pulling the product from the shelf does not automatically invalidate your
> license, you will run into another problem as soon as the author of the
> yanked work finds out about you. The authority to contribute. Just because
> the OGL in his product was invalid does not mean that his copyright was
> invalid. The only thing that allowed you to use his OGC in the first place
> was the OGL, so without it you have no right to their work. They don't
> really have the right to use it either, since it was probably a derivative
> work, but that is beside the point - they can still stop others from using
This is extremely important to the point. The OGC stat block is
99.99% likely to be derived from the SRD, in my mind.
> it. That author would have the right to challenge your authority to
> contribute the OGC you took from their work, and you would be in breach.
The authority to contribute clause 5-OGL applies only to original
material.
> > I'm saying it is better to use the OGC as it is supposed to be used.
>
> Agreed. The OGL is poorly equipped to handle this situation. Certainly
> having a lot of those things as PI makes it hard to refine and evolve the
> OGC behind the creature, which is one of the stated goals of OGC. I am all
> for having less PI for common things like monsters, and saving it for the
> truly original works, but if somebody does do something like this I am much
> more inclined to boycott their products than I am to try to simply treat the
> content as if it had been released as OGC.
Agreed. There is also incredible risk and bad reputation associated
with using OGC as it is supposed to against someone else's wishes.
You may lose in court and people will certainly call you an ass.
But it is a better final recourse than to sue someone to get them
to open up something they falsely claimed to have created.
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