>From: Clark Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] (no subject)
>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 00:05:31 -0800
>
>I guess I didnt find it too suspect, since I have used
>Mind Flayers in Rappan Athuk 2, and they are in Rappan
>Athuk 3 and several other upcoming product.
>
>Whats the problem? Guess what, your readers will know
>what you are talking about for the same reason you do.
Well, if your work contained no illustrations where a mind flayer looked anything like that as portrayed in the MM, and if you didn't build on any cultural or other background, as portrayed in the MM, I guess you're in the clear.
If your mind flayers are as people expect them from the MM, and you don't violate MM copyright, I'd assume that you either do a very shallow portrayal of them, or have very cleverly managed to build on people's expectations without actually directly using any MM content not found in the SRD.
If you have been clever, your work would be interesting to read from that standpoint alone.
What I continuously wander about (and there hasn't yet been a good answer to this), is whether WotC actually intend this to be so legally difficult, or it's just an unfortunate side-effect of having to keep copyright value in the MM itself (which is otherwise valueless, since it's completely copyable as fully OGC).
As has already being pointed out, even the cover of "Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins" is in (most likely unwitting) contravention of copyright, by clearly building on artwork from the MM, portraying a creature from the SRD.
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