>> 8. Identification: If you distribute Open Game Content You >> must clearly >> indicate which portions of the work that you are >> distributing are Open >> Game Content. >> >> Unless clearly indicate has some specific legal meaning I'm >> not aware >> of, specifying compatibility with any sort of program isn't >> necessary. >>
IANAL, but the people with the law degrees once had a very long discussion about a legal body called a "reasonable person" -- not to be confused by a common person's definition of what a reasonable person is. Attorneys/Lawyers/Law Degree holders please correct me if I'm wrong.... It's a legal construct, used by the court to determine things like whether or not something is "Clearly Indicated." From what I remember there is no clear definition of "what a reasonable person" _is_ because it is uniquely constructed for every case. So should someone go to court over the "clear indication" of OGC, then that court (judge + attorneys on all sides) would argue whether or not a "reasonable person" would consider the OGC to be clearly indicated. During those arguments a specific instance of "reasonable person" would be constructed by arguments on both sides of the case. I would assume, that those arguments would include information about how the OGC was intended to be used. For example, if it was a translation into Spanish for distribution in Spain, then it would be assumed that a "reasonable person" for the purposes of the case would be able to read Spanish -- because it would be reasonable to assume that people in Spain could read Spanish. Now to take this to software, lets say you encode some OGC from CompanyX into a PDF file, place it on a CD, include in the CD booklet the statements "Requires Adobe Acrobat[tm] Reader" & "For use with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP", also include on the CD itself a copy of Acrobat Reader and then sell that CD through the regular distribution chain for local game retailers. Now somebody from CompanyX comes along and takes you to court because they don't have a PDF viewer on their Atari PC and therefore don't consider the OGC you took from them to be "clearly indicated." The court, and the lawyers would then need to construct a reasonable person for the case. In my opinion by 1. Having the requirement labels in place 2. Having specifically targeted the general public that owns windows machines 3. By including the acrobat reader on the CD itself 4. The fact that most people already have Acrobat installed w/ windows The Court would determine that a "reasonable person" would consider the OGC to be clearly indicated. Now for the tough part -- when you start encoding OGC into MS-Access, into proprietary computer code, into fox pro, etc -- you start to place more and more barriers between the OGC and the user trying to read it. By providing requirement statements, including viewer software, and by specifically targeting consumers that will already be able to understand how to view the OGC you help alleviate those barriers. But at some point, and this is a very gray line, you will cross over from being clearly indicated by a reasonable person, to not being clearly indicated. But since there is no finite line, you won't know if you've crossed it until someone takes you to court. So what do you do about it? Well you evaluate the barriers that you've created, vs what a court may likely determine a "reasonable person" can do, and decide if the gamble is worth taking. For example, IMHO if you took the SRD, encoded it into MS-Access, dropped that MDB onto a CD without compiling it into a standalone DB, without including a "requires MS-Access label", and by distributing it to the general gaming population through standard distribution chains --- Then when the court constructed a "reasonable person", it would be determined that the average population would not already have MS-Access installed, they would not know they needed, and once they got the file they wouldn't know what to do with it. And then it would be ruled that it was not clearly indicated. However if you compiled it for stand-alone use, also included the raw MDB, indicated that MS-Access was recommended but not required (remember it's also included in compiled form), and only distributed over the internet from your website where you had a disclaimer about the fact it was a MS-Access database -- then I believe the court would find the "reasonable person" in this case would consider it to be clearly indicated. Where the exact line is between those two are, I'm not sure -- and I don't think anyone on this list can give you a definitive answer to it either. -- Mike C. _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
