>I personally think that the only thing that WotC owns in regards to Mind
>Flayers is the specific artistic representations (that being X pieces of
>art),the specific text of write-ups of the Mind Flayer/Illithid (that
>being
>Y occurrences in Z number of books), plus any relevant trademarks(Probably
>Illithid, possibly Mind Flayer), not the idea of "octopus headed humanoid
>with mental powers." At the very least there is sufficient prior art for
>them not to be the owners. If anyone does it's the people who own the
>rights to Cthulhu and I don't think they do either because it's an idea,
>not
>a tangible representation. However IANAL (though I am seriously debating
>becoming one) and all that :-P
What they DO very likely own, is a CHARACTER COPYRIGHT on either or bothe of
the following:
1)"octopus headed humanoid with mental powers."
called "mindflayers"
2)"octopus headed humanoid with mental powers."
called illithids.
3)"octopus headed humanoid with mental powers." and
statistics blocks identical to those for Mind Flayers
What they have LICENSED us to use is:
Creatures called mind flayers with tentacles around their
mouths that have mental powers and eat brains. Describe (or
draw) them as humanoid and you have crossed a legal line into
unlicensed territory.
Deal with it.
Faust
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