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From: "Alec A. Burkhardt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Anyway, it's not the end-user's responsiblity to do the backwork - if the book says it's OGC it's OGC until the original copyright holder comes after the publisher. Just like VP/WP is OGC because SPycraft says so until/if WotC decides to make the publisher changes the book.
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"OGC" implies to me something that I have a royalty free license re-publish without threat of lawsuit. By your logic, if you accidentally released a document declaring all Star Wars fiction books in print as OGC, then if I were to reprint them it's not a big deal because it's not like George Lucas would sue my pants of for publishing a million copies of his books and characters and cutting him out of the equation -- he'd just send you a "please change this" letter and everyone would be happy. This is ridiculous. The real order of operations would be -- you'd get a cease and desist letter, so would I, then if I didn't shut down operations immediately I'd get dragged into court for your blunder.
Something is OGC or it is not. It is not "OGC until the original copyright holder comes after the publisher". That use of information is called "copyright infringement" not OGC.
OGC is a PERPETUAL, royalty-free license. Except with regards to violations of the OGL, it is not normally subject to recall except after 35 years (when federal law allows a copyright originator to rescind any grant or transfer of copyright, regardless of contracts).
Things which WotC either chooses not to pursue under the so-called "gentleman's agreement" are not, under the terms of the OGL, OGC. Anything that can be revoked at will is, by definition, not a perpetual grant obviously. And OGC licenses are perpetual grants.
Moreover, I've now found at least 2 different publishers who have accidentally declared WotC items under the "gentleman's agreement" as OGC (which they clearly are not allowed to do, as it isn't their intellectual property) as well as making other minor mistakes under the OGC. Since OGC material can be freely published under the terms of the OGL, I could turn around and publish a book of it tomorrow. If John Doe misclassifies material as OGC that is not and I re-publish it, then I am now subject to lawsuit for copyright infringement.
A different concern: I was considering publishing some WotC materials supposedly listed as OGC under a different, non-d20-compatible system mechanic. Not one, but two different publishers to date, however, have listed material under the "gentleman's agreement" saying it was OGC. Had I not discovered this error, then I could have invested in what I thought to be a perpetual license, when in fact it was a license that could be revoked at-will with reasonable notice. Since the core books would have been non-d20-compatible, had WotC changed their mind on the "gentleman's agreement", the core books would have died, and the system would have had no compatible core books to support it without a complete re-release and re-write.
While I disagree that vendors should be required to tell us how or why they got the licenses to certain IP, I think that misdeclaration of other people's materials as OGC opens up doors to lots of ugly law suits and is hardly as trivial a matter as you make it sound, particularly with regards to Hasbro IP. While Hasbro probably won't get involved in any prolonged law suit over what they'd consider chump change, it is entirely their option as to whether they make somebody's life miserable for violating their copyrights.
Even if game mechanics are not normally copyrightable, verbatim copying (as would be common with OGC materials) would be expressly prohibited except via a valid licensing arrangement, and could subject you to legal action.
Lee
