>On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, woodelf (lists) wrote:
>
>> oh, i dunno. i'd say it *is* fairly mysterious. between the
>> question of whether the things enumerated under the definitions of
>> OGC and PI are exemplary or exhaustive, and the fact that it never
>> mentions in the license that you are allowed (under the license) to
>> have content that is neither PI nor OGC, not to mention that we don't
>> have a convenient term for the material (though simply "closed" is
>> pretty accurate), it's pretty "mysterious" if you ask me. that is,
>> it's quite easy for someone, even with legal training (yourself,
>> frex), to read the WotC OGL, and come to apparently mistaken
>> conclusions (such as that game rules must be OGC) about its meaning
>> (assuming Dancey's pronouncements of how to interpret it, and the
>> FAQ, represent formal legal opinion being relayed to us).
>
>I've not come to the conclusion that "game rules must be OGC" so I have
>absolutely no idea what you are talking about when you claim that it is
>quite easy for someone with legal training to come to apparently mistaken
>conclusions. I've said that game rules cannot be PI but that's extremely
>different from saying game rules must be OGC.
bad choice of example: i don't *think* i meant to say that you had
concluded that rules must be OGC. it may be that i wrote that before
this whole mess (PI and OGC definitions as examples or exhaustive
lists) was clarified. or i might have meant (as i read it now) that
to be an example of a misinterpretation, but not one that you
specifically had made.
> And after both Clark & I
>pointed out that reading the list in the explanation of PI as exhaustive
>is the more likely legal practice, Ryan has not continued to say the
>anything can be PI. So game rules aren't required to be OGC, but they
>also cannot be included within the OGC by designating the rules as PI.
>(And that would mean that any such rules could be used by others as much
>as is allowed by regular copyright law.)
>At the moment I cannot remember an instance of anyone with legal training
>on this list having come to any of these mistaken conclusions that you are
>speaking of so I'll stand by my statement that the OGL is pretty simple to
>understand for anyone with legal training. I also think it's pretty easy
>to understand if you don't have legal training. Most of the difficulty
>seems to come more from people reading the OGL with their own preconceived
>ideas or desires about what it does/doesn't do and then trying to fit
>those concepts into what the license actual says.
i had been taking Dancey's pronouncements (on the meaning of the
licenses) as relays of WotC's lawyers' pronouncements, and thus the
fact that they disagreed with yours (among othes) was my evidence
that their could be disagreement. if, on the other hand, Dancey was
just giving his personal opinion, then it just means he was wrong (at
least IMHO--i agree with you and Clark on what the license means,
even if ithink it's too much effort to get there), which is a
less-serious issue with the license (though, i still question how the
license could be unclear to one of the guys behind it).
>A solid grasp of
>English tells you that the list in PI is exhaustive (it's a closed list
>with no language to expand it; if you want an open list you need to say
>something such as "for example" "like" or "such as") and that the writer
>can identify anything as OGC (it's explicitly stated in the license).
agreed on both counts. English-wise, the only ambiguity, IMHO, is
whether the things described as PI *are* or *can be* PI. i don't see
any linguistic clue that makes that absolute. similarly, did you
figure out on your own that there was a 3rd sort of content
recognized by the WOGL? and, if so, did you do so without any info
external to the license itself (like discussions, FAQs, etc.)? i had
read the license and the FAQ of the time (i think 4 questions at that
point), and was on this list for a couple of months before it came
up, quite surprising me (and pleasantly so) that all things that were
not OGC were not necessarily PI, either. while it might be just me,
it seems to be a common-enough mistake (based on questions here and
r.g.f.*, not to mention its inclusion in the FAQ), that i suspect it
should've been better worded. (just using more-precise grammar and
punctuation in the list of what is PI could have made it clear that
such things could be PI, and thus raised the question in the reader
of what something was if it was neither PI nor OGC--which would more
or less answer the question.)
>And while it might be nice to say that anything that isn't either OGC or
>PI is simply regular copyrighted material, it would also be very awkward
>since in many types of instances all OGC & PI is simply regular
>copyrighted material as well (i.e. if used for such purposes as journalism
>or scholarship). Would you require that the license explain that as well?
>
i don't think the license need explain how to treat material if
you're not using the license--which is what you're saying. but i do
think that explaining how to treat material if you *are* using the
license--and not just the special material defined by the license--is
a reasonable expectation. "All material in a work released under the
OGL is still protected by copyright, trademark, and patent laws, as
applicable, whether marked as OGC, PI, or neither." that may need
some cleaning up, but i don't think a statement to that effect would
clutter things up, and it might save a lot of questions, and clarify
a few points.
--
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.home.net/woodelph/
Damn John Whorfin and the horse he rode in on! --John Bigboote
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