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I have both Ghostwalk and Libris Mortis here in front of me.
On closer inspection, as far as I can see, neither of these appears to be an OGL product. At least, I cannot see an OGL licence anywhere, as I recognise such a thing now. It would appear, therefore, that "Bonerattle" comes under the non OGL guidelines produced by Matt Thomason last night.
As far as PI goes, from the OGL:
"Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content.
So complying with the PI of every OGL product every written means not not using any of the above. I find it difficult to understand how one could ever do this without actually owning every OGL product ever written.
Richard
P.S. the above post is made in order to continue these interesting discussions and does not reflect any desire on my part to subvert the legal or ethical rights of anyone on the planet.
P.P.S I believe I have answered my own question (2) from my previous post here. I hadn't seen the all-encompassing definition for PI that's in the OGL.
You can't. IP laws are unclear, because it keeps lawyers employed. It's a dangerous, dysfunctional system. As you say, it is completely insane to expect anyone to be able to know what every single spell, monster, feat etc ever published has been called. And you kind of need to know that to be able to comply for certain. Anything else, and you end up risking that someone claims you are taking their stuff (whether warranted or not), and end up choosing between ruin or withdrawing.
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Given the relatively smaller size of the gaming industry, there is absolutely no excuse not do the same legwork yourself. Any proper noun you're thinking of using, you should look it up, just to make sure TSR didn't TM it in Marvel Superheroes. :)
Unless I've *completely* misunderstood Product Identity, it isn't just the proper nouns, is it?
Richard
So complying with the PI of every OGL product every written means not not using any of the above. I find it difficult to understand how one could ever do this without actually owning every OGL product ever written.
That's... not really how it works. Complying with the OGL means not "using" the PI, and every OGL product has its own license. In short, if someone else designates "Demon Knight" as PI, and you use that term for something else, you just wouldn't license their work at all. You would ignore it. At least, under the legal theory that "Demon Knight" is not itself a strongly trademarkable term, and you don't use it in a way that entangles it in their own clearly protected work.
You can't do this with the "Kingdom of Smersh," because the names of fictional places likely are trademarks, possibly very strong ones.
But just because someone designates a "boat oar" in one product does not mean they prevent anyone else from statting up a "boat oar." "Boat oar" is not original art.
"Bonerattle," as a spell, fits somewhere between those two categories. It is a recognizable English phrase. At the same time, a spell is itself a recognizable creation in its own right. Products that contain no OGL at all are in some ways safer to "take inspiration" from, because it's kind of hard for someone to claim ownership of ideas expressed in different text, interspersed in a completely different book.
On the other hand, if you Section 15 a book, anything designated as PI b that book is no good. You might be able to pre-empt that by finding that same term as OGC in another OGL product, preferably an older one.
If it seems like you are sailing in muddy waters, it's because you are. Not only is IP law constantly changing, but even in its current state of being, or previous conditions, many types of cases have never even made it to the higher courts.
All that goes double for anything related to copylefts, the OGL included.
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Given the relatively smaller size of the gaming industry, there is absolutely no excuse not do the same legwork yourself. Any proper noun you're thinking of using, you should look it up, just to make sure TSR didn't TM it in Marvel Superheroes. :)Unless I've *completely* misunderstood Product Identity, it isn't just the proper nouns, is it?
Richard
It is pretty much anything in your quoted definition ever published by TSR/WOTC that is not in the SRD. Interestedly, publishing under the OGL according to the letter of the law appears more restrictive than copyright law which you agree to by using the license. WOTC has shown unwillingness to follow the exact letter of their own license.
As has been shown, WOTC can be fairly inconsistent but you shouldn't bet any real money on their continuing inconsistency.
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Given the relatively smaller size of the gaming industry, there is absolutely no excuse not do the same legwork yourself. Any proper noun you're thinking of using, you should look it up, just to make sure TSR didn't TM it in Marvel Superheroes. :)Unless I've *completely* misunderstood Product Identity, it isn't just the proper nouns, is it?
Richard
Correct, it's also all those other vague things like "stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations" blah blah :)
With those things, someone would have to have enough of a case that you had knowingly and willingly copied their Product Identity, and we're back in murky IP judgements and "how close is it to the original?"
IMO, you would have to be pretty blatantly attempting to rip off something to get hit with this. There's a fairly vague grey area between intentionally copying and accidentally duplicating, but honestly anything you're creating from scratch is usually well into the safe zone, you would have to be setting out specifically to copy a major element of something for it to be recognisable as such.
Yes, technically the above could, potentially, prevent me writing an adventure where you have to escort the previously-unknown heir to a distant kingdom to their homeland so they can take the throne. However, unless I also make that an oriental-themed kingdom, have the heir owning a tavern in the town the adventurers accompany them in, and throw in a bunch of demon-type creatures trying to prevent them from getting to their destination because they want to run the place themselves via their puppet... well, chances are nobody is going to accuse me of anything as it's not exactly an uncommon fantasy theme.
There's an important clause in the OGL, however, when dealing with other OGL products. It's that 30 day time limit to fix infringement, which means you're far more likely to receive a harshly-worded warning letter to change your infringing product than you are a court summons. I actually think the OGL is worth using for that clause alone, just to ensure you've got that additional buffer between you and legal action.
The other thing to remember is that none of this is really specific to the OGL, it's things writers have been dealing with forever with the normal intellectual property laws. The whole thing is a precarious balance of lawyers, money, whether the judge slept well last night, the degree of actual infringement, and how much of a threat you're seen as by the other party. It's also worth remembering that "I might accidentally come up with the same idea as someone else" works two ways - if it's really such a vaguely-defined or common idea that you could have come up with the idea independently, it's also going to make a case against you more difficult to prove, and most people really aren't worried about defending their rights to a couple of random common english words thrown together (it seems an incredibly petty thing to do and can lose you customer support, it's not really going to net you very much in damages, and the chances of winning the case are relatively slim compared to a more obvious attempt at copying larger parts of something.)
To put it another way, this industry tends to rely far more on good faith and playing nice than it does on legal threats. The last big legal issue I recall seeing personally was a company attempting a blatant release of the HeroQuest board game under the premise they owned the rights to the name in their country (although not the rights to the game itself.) The last OGL-related issue I saw was someone that didn't realize the OGL didn't also give them the right to mention parts of Golarion in their product (and to the best of my knowledge, Paizo didn't persue that one any further after the product was removed from sale). That's really the kind of things you should be looking to avoid, not accidentally coming up with the same vaguely themed idea as someone else.
My advice - avoid doing anything that stupidly blatant. Don't try to come up with something that's a major factor in another product, or an iconically-recognised part of one, and don't base your own product around one. The occasional side-reference to something that's almost-but-not-quite the same as an equivalent side-reference in another product is fairly safe.
I'm a bit uncomfortable saying this, but I personally doubt anyone is going to take anyone to court because a single spell, character, or monster forming a tiny part of a larger product is similar to one in their own - except in the aforementioned case of it being something iconic to their brand, and especially if it's a trademarked likeness. Just don't go risking everything you own purely based upon my personal doubts, as that'd be silly :)
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There's an important clause in the OGL, however, when dealing with other OGL products. It's that 30 day time limit to fix infringement, which means you're far more likely to receive a harshly-worded warning letter to change your infringing product than you are a court summons. I actually think the OGL is worth using for that clause alone, just to ensure you've got that additional buffer between you and legal action.
I was unaware of the above, the OGL just becomes more awesome the more you dig into it. It really is an exceptional piece of work. Thank you, Ryan Darcey and early WOTC employees.
With above in mind, if you publish as LLC and pdf only, your risk goes way down. In 30 days, you could change any pdf and wouldn't have dead tree inventory that you couldn't sell.
There's an important clause in the OGL, however, when dealing with other OGL products. It's that 30 day time limit to fix infringement, which means you're far more likely to receive a harshly-worded warning letter to change your infringing product than you are a court summons. I actually think the OGL is worth using for that clause alone, just to ensure you've got that additional buffer between you and legal action.I was unaware of the above, the OGL just becomes more awesome the more you dig into it. It really is an exceptional piece of work. Thank you, Ryan Darcey and early WOTC employees.
With above in mind, if you publish as LLC and pdf only, your risk goes way down. In 30 days, you could change any pdf and wouldn't have dead tree inventory that you couldn't sell.
The OGL was originally created as a safe harbor for 3PPs. "We *want* you to help provide material for our game because the more stuff there is the more rulebooks we'll sell. Use this license and you're pretty safe as long as you follow it, and we'll even include a 30 day period for you to fix stuff so you don't need to get scared of the big nasty 20HD extraplanar lawyer with death touch."
It's almost a shame that it's seen more as "Look! Free rules!" nowadays ;)
Given the relatively smaller size of the gaming industry, there is absolutely no excuse not do the same legwork yourself. Any proper noun you're thinking of using, you should look it up, just to make sure TSR didn't TM it in Marvel Superheroes. :)Unless I've *completely* misunderstood Product Identity, it isn't just the proper nouns, is it?
Richard
Correct, it's also all those other vague things like "stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations" blah blah :)
*snip*
WotC does seems to have gotten a bit more Cease and Desist happy lately, possibly due to their return to pdf sales. I can think of two miniature kickstarters that WotC filed against. One, which was shut down entirely iirc, was producing minis directly from Product Identity art, while another changed its selection before funding ended. Thing is, all of the material WotC found actionable about the second fell into Matt's "other vague things" category. (Mostly likenesses; minis too similar to Elminster and Drizz't without ever mentioning the name. Why the cast of characters from the old D&D cartoon made it through and the owlbear didn't, I'll never know.)
WotC does seems to have gotten a bit more Cease and Desist happy lately, possibly due to their return to pdf sales. I can think of two miniature kickstarters that WotC filed against. One, which was shut down entirely iirc, was producing minis directly from Product Identity art, while another changed its selection before funding ended. Thing is, all of the material WotC found actionable about the second fell into Matt's "other vague things" category. (Mostly likenesses; minis too similar to Elminster and Drizz't without ever mentioning the name. Why the cast of characters from the old D&D cartoon made it through and the owlbear didn't, I'll never know.)
Yeah, there we go with those iconic representations to be avoided at all costs :)
Thinking about it, I'm unsure whether or not the cartoon characters are WotC property, which may be how they slipped through.
The PDF thing is why I vaguely alluded earlier to it not being a good idea to rip off a currently-available product (even if just via PDF). Anything that harms sales of earlier versions of D&D could be seen as a threat. Things like OSRIC have probably existed too long now to take action, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were hit with C&Ds (or 30-day OGL noncompliance warnings where applicable) if they were released today.
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The PDF thing is why I vaguely alluded earlier to it not being a good idea to rip off a currently-available product (even if just via PDF). Anything that harms sales of earlier versions of D&D could be seen as a threat. Things like OSRIC have probably existed too long now to take action, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were hit with C&Ds (or 30-day OGL noncompliance warnings where applicable) if they were released today.
I think you are right about the above, although I think WOTC would like to kill the current OSR retroclones by competition instead of litigation. Why bother with Labyrinth Lord when D&D B/X is available? Why with OSRIC with 1e & 2e reprints (likely in pdf when it goes out of print)? What if the basic form of D&D Next is also fairly close?
Of course, some like Castles & Crusades and Adventurer-Conqueror-King System are really well done according to your focus and preferences.
I would still bother with Swords & Wizardry because OD&D is really badly written and edited. EGG freely admitted it was more like alpha/beta run, yet there are still people happily playing it.
Many are simply dying because there is so little support with adventures. 3e/PF is really the major elephant in the room with lion's share of the RPG gaming market with Paizo creating the perfect storm of support in combination with other 3PPs.
Given the relatively smaller size of the gaming industry, there is absolutely no excuse not do the same legwork yourself. Any proper noun you're thinking of using, you should look it up, just to make sure TSR didn't TM it in Marvel Superheroes. :)Unless I've *completely* misunderstood Product Identity, it isn't just the proper nouns, is it?
Richard
Product identity is whatever the person writing under OGL decrees it to be.
Paizo basically seems to designate proper nouns mostly-- but also Trade dress.
Monte Cook in Arcana Unearthed designated the text of all the spells open content, but the spell names as product identity-- so you can reprint his spells from that book with new names over and over if you want, but you cannot print them with the same names he used.
Importantly, Ghostwalk is NOT OGL at all--
It very specifically says "This WIZARDS OF THE COAST® product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be reproduced without
written permission."
Which nixes any concept of using any part of it.
Also, it doesn't matter what is defined as Product Identity, when using OGL you are agreeing to the terms of the license which is agreeing to not use anything that ISN'T designated as open content.
Do you think Bonerattle counts as IP?Huh? The concept of "IP" is just not helpful here; there's copyright and trademark rights that I went over above, and then there's patent rights (irrelevant unless WotC patented it) and personality rights and whole bunch of things that are completely irrelevant here. What laws are you asking about?
I'm not I'm asking about the OGL. As I understand it, the OP wants to use the OGL which includes an undertaking not to use another company's IP without a separate license.
The law is clearly what you need to know about if you're not publishing under the OGL and it obviously also applies under the OGL, however the license imposes its own restrictions beyond what is prohibited (or allowed) by the law.
Yes, the license imposes its own set of restrictions, but it is also what grants you the right to use copyrighted text in the first place.
Yes-- "bonerattle" and everything published in a book is "IP" or "Intellectual Property" in the abstract because everything written/published is IP in some form or another.
There is a copyright notice inside the cover of Ghostwalk-- clearly it is a work that is copyrighted.
Technically speaking according to US law the act of writing something inherently copyrights it-- the novel I am writing on my laptop is my intellectual property the second I type the words regardless of any other factors. The fact that "Ghostwalk" was written and then published, and posted with a copyright notice. . . there's not really any question of whether or not that text is "IP" or copyrighted.
Now, whether or not a particular spell that is designed separately that bears some resemblance to a particular spell in its contents would be found to infringe upon that IP/copyright is a complete other issue.
Yes, the license imposes its own set of restrictions, but it is also what grants you the right to use copyrighted text in the first place.
Yes-- "bonerattle" and everything published in a book is "IP" or "Intellectual Property" in the abstract because everything written/published is IP in some form or another.
There is a copyright notice inside the cover of Ghostwalk-- clearly it is a work that is copyrighted.
Technically speaking according to US law the act of writing something inherently copyrights it-- the novel I am writing on my laptop is my intellectual property the second I type the words regardless of any other factors. The fact that "Ghostwalk" was written and then published, and posted with a copyright notice. . . there's not really any question of whether or not that text is "IP" or copyrighted.
Cheers. I wondered whether IP and "Copyrighted words" were indeed synonyms (they seem different to me).
If it's IP then you agree not to use it in an OGL work (without a separate license to do so). That honestly seems straightforward to me and not at all murky. Personally, I think someone using the OGL who doesnt want to hire a lawyer is best off swimming between the flags and using only what is covered by the license. Whether Open Content is copyright or not doesnt seem relevant to me, nor the copyright status of any IP - you've agreed not to use it anyway.
Technically not synonyms-- IP (Intellectual property) includes copyrights, trademarks, patents, and a few other things.
So, copyright is part of or type of IP and anything copyrighted is IP.
Ah I see my confusion - serves me right for using acronyms. I meant Product Identity, not Intellectual Property. My bad. (No wonder I couldnt make sense of my previous posts :p).
Maybe we need a post that parses our acronyms for us. IP is short for Intellectual Property, whereas PI is short for Product Identity, a term invented for the sake of, and which only has relevance to, the Open Game License.
Yeah - I should just avoid the acronym. I'm only interested in whether Bonerattle is Product Identity. I got confused reading a post with IP as if it used PI. Sorry. :o
Bonerattle is not product identity because it does not appear in a book which uses the OGL.
It appears in a book which specifically says it contains no open game content, therefore nothing in that book can or needs to be designated as product identity because it is all off limits for use within the open game license.
If a book states that it uses no open game content, it still falls within the legal purview of the OGL. I know, it sounds crazy, but "open game content" is an OGL term. (It's totally weird, that's why you want to employ legal counsel.)
If a book states that it uses no open game content, it still falls within the legal purview of the OGL. I know, it sounds crazy, but "open game content" is an OGL term. (It's totally weird, that's why you want to employ legal counsel.)
Not unless the book is licensed under the OGL.
I have both Ghostwalk and Libris Mortis here in front of me.
On closer inspection, as far as I can see, neither of these appears to be an OGL product. At least, I cannot see an OGL licence anywhere, as I recognise such a thing now. It would appear, therefore, that "Bonerattle" comes under the non OGL guidelines produced by Matt Thomason last night.
<clipped for brevity>
Absolutely true. If WotC didn't not put it in the SRD it was not OGL.
www.d20srd.org includes everything WotC determined to be OGL. So if it's produced by WotC and it isn't included there I wouldn't touch it, personally.
If a book states that it uses no open game content, it still falls within the legal purview of the OGL. I know, it sounds crazy, but "open game content" is an OGL term. (It's totally weird, that's why you want to employ legal counsel.)
This is not true in any way shape or form. A product is only affected by or subject to the terms of the OGL if it is published using those terms.
There is no back door in to claim that WOTC products which they published without open game content included are somehow affected by the terms of the license because they specifically stated that they are not.
You cannot use any of the information from Ghostwalk or other WOTC products that are not open content in OGL material at all. They are legally not bound or in anyway affected by the terms of that license and are not under any legal "purview" thereof by stating that they are NOT employing the license.
Unless the OGL is printed in the book that book is neither restricted by, nor protected by the OGL in anyway.
Remember, the OGL is a protection for you as the small publisher that if you abide by its conditions it will protect you from lawsuit.
Ghostwalk needs to be treated exactly the same as any copyrighted work, i.e. you need to not plagiarize from it.
Period. That is all.
Whatever supposed legal loopholes companies publishing unlicensed retro clones think they are jumping through that protect them, the fact is that if they can be shown to be plagiarizing they can face serious consequences.
Combining those supposed legal loopholes together with the OGL would be suicidal, since OGL is a license to protect you from the ramifications of plagiarism by licensing you the material and doing that would be spitting in the face and negating your own legal protection.
Treat Ghostwalk the way you would George RR Martin's SOFI series, or DC comics latest issue of Superman, or the movie "Seven", or the songs of Wu Tang Clan. . .
TL:DR Don't plagiarize. End of story.
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I would never plagiarise, BTW. I write adventures, and the stuff that sits in these books that I would *like* to use if such a thing was legal and ethical is material which was produced precisely so that it could appear in adventures.
I know that the original intention was for home-brew games only, however I think that these old D&D books are sitting in a bit of time-warp from a world where a great proportion of adventures were home-written and run. My feeling is that this time has passed and now most of the adventures that are run are bought ones. I don't know for certain, of course, but given the much greater number of published adventures and the lack of much discussion on dungeon design (as opposed to tweaking, which happens quite a lot), I *think* this is the case.
(Back in 1st ed days, we all used to take turns DMing our own adventures, and there was some pretty wacky things produced. At my gaming table now there's no appetite for that sort of thing at all)
At the end of the day, there's plenty of alternatives, and writers, players and DMs will have no problem moving on from these books. It does, however, seem a bit of a shame that all that creativity will drop out of existence just because there is no way to open it up for *use* (not plagiarism) by 3pp adventure writers.
Richard
If a book states that it uses no open game content, it still falls within the legal purview of the OGL. I know, it sounds crazy, but "open game content" is an OGL term. (It's totally weird, that's why you want to employ legal counsel.)This is not true in any way shape or form. A product is only affected by or subject to the terms of the OGL if it is published using those terms.
There is no back door in to claim that WOTC products which they published without open game content included are somehow affected by the terms of the license because they specifically stated that they are not.
You cannot use any of the information from Ghostwalk or other WOTC products that are not open content in OGL material at all. They are legally not bound or in anyway affected by the terms of that license and are not under any legal "purview" thereof by stating that they are NOT employing the license.
Unless the OGL is printed in the book that book is neither restricted by, nor protected by the OGL in anyway.
Remember, the OGL is a protection for you as the small publisher that if you abide by its conditions it will protect you from lawsuit.
Nathanael, I'm not looking to start a flame war here, and as I've said a few dozen times I'm no lawyer, but can you provide any examples of "open game content" from before the OGL was created by WotC? It seems like you said I was flat out wrong and then went on to explain that "open game content" is legal terminology that's only relevant to the OGL.
Interesting little extracts here, which I'm not 100% certain are supposed to do what they appear to do:
"Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts, creatures, characters, stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;
You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity.
By agreeing to the OGL's terms and placing it on your product, you've agreed not to use Product Identity.
Product Identity is defined above as [a long list of things], and does not say those things have to be from an OGL work, only that Open Game Content is excluded from them and that people can declare any other trademark as being Product Identity.
Technically, the way it's worded, it can be read as saying that by using the OGL, you agree not to use [logos, identifying marks, places, locations, spell names, and so on] from any product without the permission of the owner of said content.
Maybe that's not the intent of the OGL, but I wouldn't want to base a legal defence on "but it's only supposed to stop me using those things from other OGL works". It doesn't protect those non-OGL works per se, but it does, if read that way, put you in breach of the OGL when you step over that mark.
Now, that's the sort of grey area someone with expensive lawyers could potentially attempt to use against you. Intent be damned, because all they have to do there is convince the judge you breached your side of the agreement. Admittedly, it doesn't get them a thing, because they were not protected by the OGL, but they could still potentially void your own OGL usage. Obviously, it's still more sensible for them to go after you in a straight copyright or trademark case, where they can actually win something.
I'm also unsure if a third party that isn't the owner of one of the OGL-sublicensed works can actually open such a case in the first place if they're on neither side of the agreement - but they could potentially get someone that was to open it.... Probably more likely (although *still* very unlikely) that someone whose work you're using quite legitimately through the OGL but who doesn't like you using it might try and turn a breach elsewhere in your product against you.
At this point I know I'm getting into very unlikely niche situations, but still, it's interesting to delve in this deeply :)
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Isn't that just an impossible agreement?
Richard
Sorta.... :)
It's along the lines of "I agree, as part of this license, never to step foot in the following cities...."
But given that, nobody whose work you licensed under the OGL is likely to *care* if you stepped foot in this or that city ;)
Honestly, it's just a really silly only-vaguely-plausible if you have expensive lawyers and a judge that's never presided over an IP case in their life possibly-not-even-there-loophole, that nobody is ever likely to even attempt to exploit, given that there's really nothing in it for them if they do so. I'm pretty certain there'd have to be some kind of argument that you really copied said terms rather than coming up with them on your own, too.
It's just one of those interesting diversions when I had nothing better to do so I read and re-read it and tried to make sense of it :D
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Flipping the question on its head a bit, all I'm interested in protecting in my own products is the possibility that someone will just copy it verbatim and reproduce it under their own name.
Under PI I've written cartography, artwork (which isn't mine anyway) and non-games-rule-related text.
I'm not sure whether that last bit makes sense or not - I'm not sure whether you were only supposed to use something from that long list.
I have absolutely no desire to protect storylines, plots, thematic elements, etc, etc.
I think what I've written in my PI says you can have whatever you like but you'll have to re-write it, re-draw it and re-map it. Is that right?
Richard
Flipping the question on its head a bit, all I'm interested in protecting in my own products is the possibility that someone will just copy it verbatim and reproduce it under their own name.
Under PI I've written cartography, artwork (which isn't mine anyway) and non-games-rule-related text.
I'm not sure whether that last bit makes sense or not - I'm not sure whether you were only supposed to use something from that long list.
I have absolutely no desire to protect storylines, plots, thematic elements, etc, etc.
I think what I've written in my PI says you can have whatever you like but you'll have to re-write it, re-draw it and re-map it. Is that right?
Richard
The way I tend to look at it is that OGC and PI are "includes" and "excludes" respectively.
IMO, If you match the above with a section that says "The rules text of this product, and nothing else, is declared as Open Game Content" then you're pretty much covered that nobody can reuse anything other than rules, and anything else they'd have to do their own version of.
Note that you'd also have to declare any OGC inherited from other products as OGC, but unless you've used anything other than rules from other products you're safe :)
Alternatively, look at how Paizo do it, as that's probably going to work too. None of the Paizo maps, locations, NPC names, etc are OGC.
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To be honest with you I don't mind people using people names or any other bits and pieces. I just want to stop outright wholesale copying.
These are my two paragraphs:
Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: artwork, cartography and non-game-rules-related text.
Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.
Richard
To be honest with you I don't mind people using people names or any other bits and pieces. I just want to stop outright wholesale copying.
Richard
You'd need to ensure anything you want copyable is declared as Open Game Content.
You *could* do a very simple
"Everything not declared as Product Identity is Open Game Content"
Or you might also have a particular chapter you wanted to protect in which case you could say something like "All rules text and stat blocks apart from the contents of Chapter 5 are Open Game Content, except for items declared as Product Identity."
If in doubt, be explicit in your declarations of PI and OGC. To this day I'm not 100% sure whether a stat block counts as "rules" so I just ensure I list them each explicitly :)
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These are my two paragraphs:Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: artwork, cartography and non-game-rules-related text.
Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.
Richard
Okay, given those:
I can use the text of the game mechanics from your product in mine. I can't use anything else. In addition, the artwork, cartography, and all other text is declared PI so you've effectively got a nice double-lock protecting the things you want protected (it's not OGC in the first place, *and* it's also listed as PI - which is precisely what you ought to do to protect the things you absolutely don't want copied verbatim.)
Assuming that's what you want, it looks good to me :)
If you're okay with (or want to encourage) reuse of location/NPC/creature names, you could always list those as OGC (as long as it's just the names listed as OGC, people can use them but will have to rewrite any associated non-rules text) - sometimes seeing your custom monster showing up elsewhere can be cool :D You can always achieve that with something along the lines of "The names and statblocks of all creatures in Appendix I are declared as Open Game Content"
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I'll do what you suggest.
I'm also hoping that by specifying "text" I'm not encompassing all those other crazy things like storylines, plots, incidents and so on. As far as I'm concerned if anyone wants to use one of my "incidents" (!) they're more than welcome to do so as long as they write it themselves.
Richard
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Actually, the way I interpret "all non-rules related text" it pretty much means everything that isn't rules text becomes Product Identity, closed content. If you want to go a'la carte and open plots and storylines but close the artwork and cartography, you need to break down the Intellectual Property into individual elements and declare what goes where. Paizo's PI/OGC declarations from APs and modules are a good example on how to do that.
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Paizo uses proper names, dialogue, plots, storylines, locations and characters (by way of textual stuff).
I struggle with this, I must admit. Is someone's *personality* PI? If someone says "kill the goblin" is that PI?
I don't get it, to be honest. Maybe it's just a case of "we all know what is meant" and go with that. Believe it or not someone asked me about the PI of one of my adventures in the past because they wanted to post up adventure logs. The last thing I would want to do is to stop anything like that.
Richard
Paizo uses proper names, dialogue, plots, storylines, locations and characters (by way of textual stuff).
I struggle with this, I must admit. Is someone's *personality* PI?
Well, it's very definitely part of characterization, and part of what makes a character marketable (and therefore valuable). And it's definitely something one can copyright.
People:
"Derivative Material" means copyrighted material including derivative works and translations (including into other computer languages), potation, modification, correction, addition, extension, upgrade, improvement, compilation, abridgment or other form in which an existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted;
"Use", "Used" or "Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content.
Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity. ...
All this says is that you can't create Open Content from Product Identity. "Use" means something very specific in the OGL, which can be roughly translated as "to Open Content something."
So, the OGL is stating that it does not grant any rights to anyone else's PI, and if you act as if it does, your license terminates.
"You can't use PI" is essentially a tautology, but it turns the terms of the OGL into a complete sentence.
Nothing "becomes" PI, it just is, according to the definitions of the license, and you can't "use" it whether "it" is "Characters from Game of Thrones" or "that spell in that book by that 3pp."
If you write your own non-infringing material, that's not "use." That's just writing. Like, if I write up a bunch of intelligent Nordic bears who wear special suits of armor, that's not "use." I'm just writing up something inspired by the same concept in Frostborn, which in turn was, ahem, inspired by The Golden Compass. If I don't get sued, that's great. If I do, that sucks. If it goes to court... that would be very surprising. Most likely someone will either back down or go into bankruptcy first.
Also, OGC always excludes PI and PI always excludes OGC, so you can always declare anything, anything. But you can't turn lead into gold; PI cannot become OGC unless you are the copyright holder, trademark owner, or author of the PI.
Chief Technical Officer
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Isn't that just an impossible agreement?
Richard
If you think it is impossible for you to abide by the terms of the OGL, I would suggest you not agree to it.
I think it's a very reasonable agreement that offers a lot of value and really doesn't ask all that much in return.
"Use", "Used" or "Using" means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content.
Ah-ha! That's the magic line I was missing that suddenly makes the whole "Use" thing make sense, thanks! :)
Don't forget the potation. Potation is very important.
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Isn't that just an impossible agreement?
Richard
If you think it is impossible for you to abide by the terms of the OGL, I would suggest you not agree to it.
I think it's a very reasonable agreement that offers a lot of value and really doesn't ask all that much in return.
It's not always clear, though, Vic, and as I said in the rest of my post which you didn't quote "all 3pps try very hard to get this sort of thing right".
That's what these discussions are trying to do, from my P.O.V. anyway, try to understand it and try to get it right.
If you see what has been written earlier certain interpretations of the agreement seem to make it impossible to adhere to. It was a natural question for me to ask. Picking on my *question* and then saying, effectively, "if you don't like it, mate, f*** o**" is a bit unfair.
Richard