Please excuse me if this has been discussed in the lists before. From following the discussion over the last few days, it seems that there is a collapse of the concept of patent and copyright. A process may be patentable, as in the case of Unisys patenting the GIF compression method. A description of the GIF process may be copyrighted. I believe (if memory serves) that NASA at one time owned a patent on the concept of manned orbital flight. I can see where WotC might patent the process of a d20 system (if possible), or some other aspect of their PI content, and then have much broader legal leverage for market control. Patent right could then be licensed and controlled. (On the other hand look at Microsoft, SUN, and JAVA.)
Richard A. Schreiber Razman Associates, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Anthony Valterra Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 1:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Ogf-l] WOTC sez Body/Vigor point system is violation? >>a)Taking the full text of the rules (let us say for Wounds/Vitality) and doing, in essence, nothing more than a search&replace (Turn 'Wounds' into 'Life Points' and Vitality into 'Stamina Points'), leaving the rest of the descriptive text effectively 'as is'.<< That is obviously no good. >>b)Rewriting the rules, and the descriptive text, completely, but using the same general mechanics? That is okay - but probably tough to do. Most people are going to hit somewhere in the center which is where the problems occurs. Espeacially if you are dealing with a freelancer who tells you that he (or she) has not lifted the rules but when you see it - it is obvious that there has been lifting whole cloth. I'm sure most of these people start out thinking "I'm going to completely redo the system" but after a while that paragraph or that chart is just what I want to say anyway so I just grab it, maybe rewrite one of the sentences or change one or two words and hope no one will notice. Or maybe I have read the rules so many times that, like some historians, I end up writing exactly the same thing. It is not for WotC to judge (so please don't send us samples and ask "is this okay"). Publishers have to make this call for themselves. If someone approaches me and says, "look I have a problem. I have a book that I want to publish but it uses your wounds/vitality system." I must assume that the publisher has looked at the rules and judged them to be so similar that it is obvious where they came from. At that point it is our policy not to grant permission, as that content is not open for public use. It is then the publishers decision to print or not. If the material is problematic enough that they felt they needed to contact WotC then they may have need to be concerned. If they have read the material and have confidence that it really is redesigned from the ground up then they don't need to contact us in any case. Finally, a word of advice for getting what you want from the WotC business team: We spend our days moving really fast doing way to many jobs. Bringing us a fire is not likely to be welcomed (though we will try like heck to be understanding). Coming to us with a nice long timeline makes us happy and tends to lead to better results. I hope that is clear. Anthony Valterra _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
