Wow. People never fail to astonish me.
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I'm the wrong guy to ask. I do know that without including the OGL statement, you're leaving yourself COMPLETELY open to legal action, not just from Paizo, but also from WotC.
As for the legalities of creating a EPUB of the open content of a Paizo product, I'd really advice getting some sort of legal council before just throwing it out there. I THINK that as long as it is exactly what is in the PRD and/or SRD, and you have an appropriate OGL statement, you should be good, but I'm nowhere near a legal expert, so please don't even consider that vague opinion at all.
If I were you, I would take it down, at least until someone from Paizo comes and gives you some sort of guidance (although I suspect they will probably advise you to get legal advice, just as I did).
Thanks for pointing that out Kuthulhu, I always intended to include the OGL but forgot!
I'm struggling to understand about copyright violation though, as I've been careful to remove all 'All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artworks, and trade dress' and then literally copied the section labelled 'Advanced Player's Guide' from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document. I thought the OGL was designed to allow developments such as this? Especially considering the existence of Pathfinder_OGC which is a near copy of the PRGRD (I checked) and that the Core Rulebook is available here as an epub, reportedly from a member of this forum.
Are these places also breaking copyright? If not, how is my epub different?
Thanks for helping me out!
d20pfsrd.com operates using the Community Use Policy. Before distributing material for free, please read though that policy thoroughly.
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d20pfsrd.com USED to operate under the CUP but is now operating under the PCL. However, there remain many references to content which is not legal to use under the PCL. However, Vic and Lisa have been kind enough to be tolerant of our efforts to scrub the site clean of such things. We've been in an ongoing effort to do so and do appreciate any pointers to things we've missed by anyone who notices (and knows about) such things. We've already done a massive amount of scrubbing but as the site is well over 20,000 pages there are bound to be some stragglers we've missed. However, we are trying to squash such things as we discover them.
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Your first bullet point: All of the content you point to there is Open Game Content.
Your second bullet point: That ebook was created by another party not affiliated with the site and was built with the contents of the PRD plus art available under the Community Use Policy. Again, that file was not created by, nor is it maintained by, myself (John Reyst) or any of the regular editors of the site. Essentially a user asked if we could host his ebook he created. At the time the site d20pfsrd.com was functioning under the CUP so there was clearly no question the file could be hosted. It is debatable if we can continue to host that file now and would actually appreciate Vic/Lisa/anyone at Paizo's thoughts. I don't believe the OGL or the PCL are very explicit regarding this sort of thing but I'd certainly comply with whatever they prefer.
As for wanting to know what is allowed by the OGL, all I can recommend is to read the OGL, then read it again, then think about it a while, then read it a few more times. Then, ask some "what if" questions both to yourself and on blogs etc. You won't always get helpful info, but occasionally your eyes will be opened to something you didn't quite get the first time.
Chief Technical Officer
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Nathanael,
I don't have time to pore through the entire thing, but note that the OGL specifically restricts you from using "any ... trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity", or from "indicat[ing] compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark."
Which means that, without a specific agreement with us, you can't use trademarks like Pathfinder or Paizo in connection with your OGL product (except for citing your sources of Open Game Content in your OGL Section 15 Copyright Notice). (This would also include in your URLs.)
We do offer a Compatibility License that lets people say their product is compatible with the Pathfinder RPG ( http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility ), but it does not apply to standalone game systems, and if you have your epub, you don't need the Core Rulebook; that makes it a standalone system.
You may use the non-trademarked term "PFRPG", though.
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Chief Technical Officer
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By the way, the Community Use Policy doesn't give anybody access to Open Game Content; only the OGL can do that. The Community Use Policy provides access to certain content that is not otherwise open, including some things that are identified as Product Identity (and therefore are off limits to people using just the OGL).
I don't have enough information to know whether the Community Use Policy applies to you, but I will tell you that it's not a passive license—if it's applicable to you, and you want to use it, you need to abide by everything it says, including adding specific statements to your project.