--- Doug Meerschaert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Neal Rogers wrote:
>
> > I would have to disagree with that based on my
> reading
> > of the fact sheet on games at the copyright
> office.
> > [http://www.loc.gov/copyright/fls/fl108.pdf]
>
> I am not a lawyer. You are not a lawyer. Ryan
> Dancy is not a lawyer.
> Therefore, we really aren't qualified to interpret
> the law anymore than
> Rush Limbaugh is qualified to be president.
You snipped the part of my post where I said I'm not a
lawyer and the points of view expressed in my posts
are simply the opinions of a nonlawyer. There is
nothing wrong with a layman expressing opinions on the
law particularly if said opinions are identified as
such. I have never heard of there being a gag rule on
people talking about their opinions on the law.
> Furthermore, when people who are qualified tell us
> that the law is
> ambiguous, then we should believe them.
Obviously there are some vague areas WRT roleplaying
games in copyright law. No argument there. AFAIK
nobody is arguing otherwise. My posting of the link
to the copyright office's faq on games was simply a
refutation of someone's comment that only an
individual rule is not copyrightable whereas a whole
system of rules >is<. The circular states pretty
clearly that a system is >not< and that the idea for a
whole game can be duplicated by somebody else.
> In fact, since none of us nor anyone who's direct
> comments I have heard
> of is a judge writing the opinion of a court, *no
> one* can say whether
> or not you can, rule for rule and name for name,
> reproduce D&D.
Nobody can say for sure unless there's a court
case...which nobody wants.
[snip]
> D&D and the OGL is just like what would happen if
> Microsoft released
> their source code under a open source licence, even
> one modified like
> the OGL. Automatically this license would be the
> most valuable one in
> the marketplace, not because of its intrinsic
> values, but because that
> the most popular and widespread system is now
> avaliable for derivation
> under it.
Well there's a flaw in this analogy. Microsoft
already allows people to build applications for use
with Windows without entering into a licensing
agreement with Microsoft. If you want to use their
logo you have to go through some kind of rigmarole
with them, but if you're happy without the logo you
can make your Windoze apps all day long without having
to ask Microsoft jack or complying with any kind of
licese. All you're subject to are the standard
copyright and trademark laws. In the D&D world
there's this hint of 'lawsuit!' if you do such a
thing, with the OGL being the umbrella of 'protection'
against being sued, and the OGL is more restrictive
than regular copyright and trademark law.
This is not a slam to the OGL even though I guess a
few could possibly take it that way. I see it as a
simple statement of fact that there are restrictions
in the OGL that are above and beyond conventional
intellectual property law. Obviously WOTC had reasons
for writing it the way they did. What effect this
whole thing will have on the industry and any kind of
'industry standard' definitions of intellectual
property is anybody's guess.
Neal
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
_______________________________________________
Ogf-l mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
