> From: John Kim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> What I was commenting on was the claim that use of the > name "illithid" constituted a copyright violation. The courts have held that the use of the name "Rocky", in conjunction with a boxer from philly with a wife named Aidrian is a violation. I suspect that they'd find that the name "illithid" in conjunction with a humanoid figure with an octopus head would be similarly infringing. > They advance by character class, which is exclusively a trait > of humanoid & human-shaped creatures elsewhere in the SRD. You can't make that assumption though because the rules are clear that any creature can have character classes. That your available universe of examples doesn't include any does not mean you can draw the inference that a creature with the potential for character classes is humanoid. You could equally theorize that since none of the abberations in the book are humanoid, an abberation >cannot< be humanoid. (Which would also be false, but does proceed from the same logic.) In fact, were I to find myself in the witness box, that's exactly what I'd argue: Given the description of a creature as an "abberation", you should reasonably expect a nonhuman monsterous creature as a result. "Black-boxing" the "Mind Flayer" should give you some kind of alien monster, rather than the D&D Illithid. > However, I think it would be recognizably the same creature. If it was a octopus-headed humanoid, I'd call it infringing. Ryan _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
