On Sun, 16 Dec 2001, Martin L. Shoemaker wrote: > I think that declaring the names as PI as a precaution makes a certain sort > of sense, particularly because it protects you in case you forget and use > the name in OGC. I think some have argued against needless PI declarations, > but I don't remember the reasons.
Well, you mentioned my argument in your previous post Martin: that there is a very strong logical argument (which therefore is also legal argument) that nothing outside what has been declared as OGC can be declared as PI based upon the language of the OGL. So needlessly declaring things that never appear in OGC as PI does 2 things: 1) continues to confuse the issue of the use of PI as defined by the license & 2) provides no real PI protection under the license. That said, I really don't consider the needless claiming of PI for very specific items (such as names) to be as harmful as needless claiming of PI for broad generic concepts (such as "story elements"). If each specific name is then listed in the declaration of PI (and this doesn't necessarily require that each individual name be individually listed in the PI declaration. But if some names are PI & some are OGC, as proposed in the start of this thread, something must be done to distinguish between the two types of names - and that may require individually listing each PI name), it's more like the author is being overly cautious (or lazy) just in case the name appears in an OGC block even though the author didn't intend to ever include it in OGC. This can be done for the more generic types of material (stories, storylines, thematic elements, etc.) that can be claimed as PI as well, by specifically identifying the plot/storyline/themes that the author is concerned about - rather than just declaring PI by copying the list from the OGL itself. Generally all it requires is taking the generic term and adding modifiers: "all stories related to the world of XYZ are PI" for example. But when a work says entire chapters are OGC and then includes in the declaration of PI that all fiction is PI (the Sovereign Stone Campaign Sourcebook does this) I think it creates a mess. Basically the entire work is fiction, but clearly that is not what was meant by the declaration by including fiction in the declaration of PI. alec _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
