On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Sixten Otto wrote: > At 11:53 AM 3/15/02 -0700, Alec A. Burkhardt wrote: > >The long list of things in the middle of the PI definition is simply > >stating what types of material can be claimed as "identifying marks" - > >basically establishing the type of material that *might* be considered as > >an identifying mark. > > Right. I guess maybe my question comes down to a very silly one: where does > the definition of "identifying mark" come from? > > I admit that it seems awfully common-sensical and worthless, but given the > number of people that basically claim half the text of their product as PI, > maybe not completely pointless.
yeah, basically this is one place where the OGL could have been more explicit. But then again, I think the WotC lawyers just assumed everyone would use a little common sense and realize that an 'identify mark' means exactly what it states: a mark (that word is a term of art) that can be used to identify something (in this case products). Since the definition seemed obvious they didn't include it in the OGL, but did include a list of the various types of content that might qualify to be used as identifying marks - assuming there is something about them that in someway makes them an identifier of the product. And some people apparently decided to skip the common sense meaning of 'identifying mark' and assume that the list is a definition. Which given the format of that section of the OGL is completely ridiculous - everything that is actually being defined is very clearly marked as such. > >Unfortunately many seem to focus on the list of things that may qualify as > >an identifying mark when claiming PI rather than the three types of > >material that really are eligible to be claimed as PI. > > I agree. It's unfortunate both because it creates a bad example for others > to follow (and since most compliance efforts are simply follow-the-leader, > that can be bad), and because it'll probably work. If someone declares > something as PI that probably cannot be, would you even bother trying to > work it out with them, or just rename it and get on with things (meaning > that the bogus PI did foreclose on reuse, just as it was meant to)? I agree completely and have been complaining about this since some of the earliest releases. It's still early enough in the experiment that while I'd agree that the mistaken claims of PI are inhibiting re-use, I'm not overly concerned that this represents an intentional effort by publishers to prevent the use of material they really shouldn't be trying to prevent the use of. However if the nebulous claims of PI continue, I wouldn't be at all surprised if somewhere down the line some people just start ignoring attempts to claim PI where such a claim obviously cannot be made (such as my earlier example of claiming the name 'John'). I'd recommend against it myself, but certainly someone somewhere at sometime is going to say, "That's ridiculous, they can't claim that as PI. I'm just going to keep that name for the feat (or whatever)." That's when things could start getting real messy. And that's why it's to the advantage of publishers to be more explicit on what they are claiming as PI and making sure their PI really meets the requirements of PI in the license. If some of what is being claimed as PI clearly can't be, some clearly can be, and some lies in the grey area in between, it's just a matter of time really until somebody decides go ahead and re-use those items that clearly can't be protected by PI. And after that we're just waiting to see who's going to push out the farthest on the limb of re-using the stuff in the grey area. (And of course realize that all my discussions of PI include the fact that under the terms of the OGL I do not believe anything claimed as PI that does *not* actually appear with what has been identified as OGC is relevant. Such material is regular closed content (protected by regular copyright laws and perhaps also trademark laws) rather than being product identity. It still can't be re-use by anyone under the OGL, but that's because it never appeared in OGC - the fact that someone tried to claim it as PI is irrelevant.) alec _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
