At 10:59 PM 1/21/2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >In a message dated 1/21/02 10:47:56 PM Pacific Standard Time, >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > ><< You publish a licensed Zorro RPG. That license, I'm guessing, includes not > >only the name 'Zorro', but rights to the 'distinctive likeness' of the >character(s). >> > > other Zorro-like and Zorro-inspired characters include: > > The Queen of Swords > Batman > Spider-Man > The Phantom > Luke Skywalker > The Dread Pirate Roberts > and on and on... > > Even Zorro himself was inspired in part by the Scarlet Pimpernel. > > The "idea" of a masked avenger who has a 'secret identity" is not > protected >by copyright, dude. Nor is any "idea."
I know this. However, if I draw a guy in black, with a wide hat, a sword, and a Mexican accent, I'm treading on dangerous ground. If I call him "Zorro", I'm violating a character copyright. (I'm guessing, having not seen the license.) I cannot write my own Zorro books, or publish my own Zorro game, even though all the *ideas* of Zorro are not copyrightable, because the CHARACTER is. And, under modern "trademark dilution" laws (enacted in the late 1990s) you could probably sue me, if you wanted to, even if my game didn't explicitly mention "Zorro", as long as it was close enough to "dilute" your trademark. A lot of hard-own trademark cases in the past would have been lost under modern law. (This is a bad thing, but it is unlikely to change as the trademark holder have effective control of Congress and the public doesn't care, or would even sympathize. "If we don't pass this law, pornographers will be able to make X-rated Mickey Mouse cartoons!") Disney doesn't own the idea of "Humanoid Mouse". That doesn't mean I can draw a cartoon mouse which looks just like Mickey Mouse. And if I call him "Mikey Mouse", and I don't have a good case for parody/commentary, I can expect a vist from Disney's lawyers. Now, the SRD case is more complex, because we have the right to use the term "Mind Flayer" in conjunction with a set of statistics (whereas I DON'T have the right to use the name "Zorro"). What is being denied is the right to link the term "Mind Flayer" to the image "Octopus headed humanoid". _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
