Since I'm the one who posited the answer as it regards the Permission Agreement, and I see that anyone who is not familiar with the way that the DnD/FaNCC uses its permission agreements (at present), let me present a more complete explanation (if I may):
>On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>Several days ago, I brought up the question about collapsing Section 15 >>entries. Here is what one of the DnDCC/FANCC (for info on this name >>change, go here: http://www.dndcommunitycouncil.org/why.asp ) members >>posited: > >snipped. The question is whether or not copyright notices can be >collapsed. The response seems to be more about the Permission Agreement >and doesn't really speak to the question in my opinion. An understanding of the way the Permission Agreement works is fundamental to determination of the answer. The entire point of the post was to describe the process used in publication of work by a submitter. Firstly, the Permission Agreement (in its current form) provides only for the republication of material that a submitter sends via e-mail to the DnD/FaNCC. Under the present terms of the agreement, that material is published by the individual submitter as Open Game Content and the DnD/FaNCC is only re-printing content already released as OGC. In other words, the DnD/FaNCC books are not the first instance of the publication - they are the "second instance." This is why the issue even comes up at all... if they are "first instance" then Section 15 could be done in any manner agreeable to both the Copyright Holder and the DnD/FaNCC (hereafter FaNCC). This distinction is extraordinarily important. I will use as an example Thunderhead Games' recent product, Interludes. If you look in its Section 15, you will find a Feat that appears in the Netbook of Feats. To the best of my knowledge, that is the only widely-available source for finding this Feat. If Thunderhead did indeed borrow this Feat from the Netbook of Feats, wouldn't they have to include the entirety of Section 15 (which is pretty darn long) just because of this one Feat? I believe the answer is yes. That makes a huge amount of the Interludes' Section 15 worthless repetition of credits for material that does not even appear in the adventure, and creates nightmares for trying to cross-reference between Netbooks. It is certainly feasible that they contacted the Feat's author directly, but that is beside the point (which I am about to make). The point of the NBoFeats being a RE-publication is that instead of using the Section 15 of the NBoFeats, it is possible to use Section 15 of the "source" (only). For example, the NBoCreatures has used some of the OGC from Legions of Hell (Green Ronin). Rather than include the NBoCreatures' (long) Section 15 if you are using one of these creatures, it is much easier to use Legions of Hell's (much shorter) Section 15 without all the extras in it. My point is, for simplicity, it is in the best interest of the author of a work that uses others' OGC to go straight to the source of the work, hence creating the shortest Section 15 possible. Since all work submitted to (and subsequently published by) the FaNCC is (at least in theory) already OGC, Thunderhead Games can go back to the original document and use the Section 15 on that. Since the FaNCC uses e-mail to collect the submissions, and (as Ryan has explicitly mentioned on the opengamingfoundation.org site) while such an e-mail must technically include the Open Gaming License within it, complete with Section 15, it is awkward and unwieldly to do so, so a "virtual" Section 15 is understood to be attached. Now comes the Permission Agreement process (as promised). The FaNCC requires all members to submit a Permission Agreement which states that all submissions sent to members of the FaNCC by the signator are released as OGC. Since this covers all submissions sent by a Contributor, it is reasonable to assume that all submissions are added to a common virtual document (for simplicity's sake, it might be entitled "All Submissions to the FaNCC by <Name>") published by that Contributor. Since this virtual document is nameless, the Section 15 would simply be (along with the mandatory SRD reference and reference to WotC as copyright holder of the OGL, which is repeated in all Section 15s): Copyright 2001 by <Name>. For sake of simplicity, the individual Netbook points out the portion of the greater work (the Netbook) that comes from this Nameless Document by identifying it with something to the effect of Item A, Item B, and so forth. In this manner, it is clear which portions of the document come from a specific source, allowing others who use only portions of the document to reference the specific original source instead of the entire Section 15 of the Netbook. It ought to be noted that the FaNCC is currently drafting a slightly revised Permission Agreement to make some of these points clearer and to handle the inclusion of non-OGC material. >The OGL requires you use the exact text of the copyright notice of all the >works you borrow/derive from. It's generally accepted that you needn't do >multiples of the same - since technically even without including the >duplicates you are include exact text of each copyright notice. It's just >that some items, most likely the SRD notice, are counting for more than >one item you've borrowed from. Precisely. If the FaNCC printed everything for the first time, anyone who tried to borrow stuff from their documents would have a VERY unwieldly and mostly useless Section 15. This is why the FaNCC RE-publishes what can be thought of as a "collection" of many other, smaller OGC documents. That allows others to reference the "small" original document instead of the "big" one. >Now as for the part of the response about addendums. First, the copyright >notice only needs to be included in material published under the OGL. So >if you are merely contributing to a product, you should accurately list >all the copyright notices of products you've borrowed/derived from and >then the editor of the product should do the work of removing any multiple >notices that result from multiple submissions relying on the same sources. True. But take a look at the Section 15 of the Netbook of Feats, for instance - it is about a PAGE long. Now consider the poor sap who tries to combine portions of SEVERAL Netbooks, each with a Section 15 as long as the Netbook of Feats. It renders everything in the Netbooks basically unusable for the sheer amount of "waste text" they would generate. Hence, the Netbooks are not "first instance" documents, but instead a second-generation collection of many micro-documents. This saves you the trouble of having to do this. >The one comment I really didn't understand was this: > >>a new part. It works in much the >>same way that errata becomes part of >>the original single work. You don't >>need to list (1) SRD and (2) errata >>for SRD published on <date>. Just >>the SRD. Note also that the errata >>does not have to reprint the entire >>SRD, but rather just says, "add or >>replace these pieces." > >This is completely wrong. First off there is no errata for the SRD. Nor >should there ever be one. If/when errata are discovered, Wizards should >simply correct the SRD. That's the advantage of the official SRD being an >online document. If an errata sheet were published under the OGL, it >would need to list the SRD in section 15 (since the errata is clearly >derivative of the SRD) and anyone using the errata would then need to list >both the errata and the SRD in their section 15. I used the SRD as an example because it the most widely available example of an OGC work. Let me instead use another example. Suppose I publish (in hard copy form) a book, "My Book of OGC Stuff" this month. I notice that something is wrong or missing, so I issue errata on my website in Feb 2002. When you want to use my work, you don't have to include a reference to both my original book and my errata - just my original book because errata is, by nature, assumed to be part of the book. In a similar way, if I want to publish another Chapter and say, "this is now considered a part of My Book of OGC Stuff" then the Section 15 reference is still for the "My Book of OGC Stuff" and does not also need a reference to "the Extra Chapter of My Book of OGC Stuff". >But if you're just submitting things to be published by someone else, >you're not actually publishing under the OGL yourself. You need to >provide the publisher with all the information to comply with the OGL, but >you really don't have to worry completely about form. So a submitter >could combine the copyright notice information, but the actual publisher >needs to make sure they are in compliance with the OGL by including the >exact text of any OGC that is being copied, modified or distributed as >well as updating the notice to include the title, date & copyright holder >of any new OGC contributed. Your statement here implies that you don't understand the Permission Agreement process (which, since I didn't explain it here until this post, is in many ways expected). As I mentioned, the Submitter *IS* publishing under the OGL himself. He publishes everything 100% OGC so that the FaNCC can RE-publish it in a nice collection. His original "publication" is done by e-mail. My guess is that most IP attorneys will tell you that publishing electronically (e-mail, website, .doc file, or otherwise) is just as valid as publishing to paper. The whole reason that the post revolved around the Permission Agreement is because of this argument - that the Permission Agreement isn't what allows the FANCC to publish someone else's work in the first place but rather what allows them to ensure that what someone sends to the FaNCC is being published by the Contributor under the terms of the OGL to begin with. The Contributor has to do the checking and referencing. They claim originality (not the FaNCC). I enocurage anyone who wishes to get involved in the discussion to check out the Permission Agreement on the http://www.dndcommunitycouncil.org site, read it, and try to understand the ramifications of how it works before attempting to answer this question - not because I think you're stupid but because the PA process is a VERY different process from the normal "commercial" publishing process (like what Clark at SSS uses). Basically, consider that the FaNCC is a VERY unusual case because what they are doing is very much different from a commercial publisher - they are trying to do Netbooks under the OGL as a non-profit fan club. The FaNCC tries to do everything legally, but the reason that members pay attention on forums such as these is that this is all volunteer, spare-time, grassroots stuff and can't afford to hire lawyers. This is not a company or corporation, but instead a fan group trying to work within the framework of the OGL. As such, they will have very different ideas about how to get things done in a manner that meets their goals ("freely adding to the amount of OGC out there" rather than "publish d20 stuff for fame and profit" - not that there's anything wrong with the latter, but it just isn't the FaNCC's goal). >(the guy with a law degree who isn't an attorney) Well, you're ahead of me on understanding the law there - I'm just a guy with a physics degree who isn't an attorney. Spencer T. Cooley ("The Sigil") ------------------------------------------------ "A computer without Windows is like a dog without bricks tied to his head." _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
