D&D General What Actually Is Copyright Protected In The SRD?

[pemerton]

Why would they not have publicised Star Wars D20 in the marketing, had they used the licence?

Who knows? What were the terms of the licence? Did relations between the firms break down at a certain point? Did Bioware have an old agreement to produce up to N games using D&D stats and KoTOR was the last one, but WotC didn't want to let others of their trademarks be used with it, or Bioware didn't want to promote WotC's trademarks?

I don't see any reason to suppose that this would all be public. But given that BiowWare clearly had a licence for Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter, it strikes me as unlikely that their use of a similar framework for a later game happened completely independently of that framework.

 

[S'mon]

A very railroady resolution framework might be an example!, but also perhaps one where the action economy is expressive of a particular imaginative conception of a particular character or character type. The basic action economy of modern D&D doesn't seem to me to meet this threshold. I'm thinking of something like My Life With Master as perhaps getting closer to protectability.

I think the more tightly scripted a game is, the closer its structure gets to protectability A game like Lady Blackbird (sp?) designed to enact a single scenario may conceivably have protectable design elements. But I think it's the interaction of the design with the world fiction that could be protectable. I'm confident that 5e style action economy is not at all of that nature.

 

[Zardnaar]

My question was "What WotC-owned trademark does KoTOR use without a licence?" Telling me that a publisher may be violating WotC's IP rights if they lose their licence isn't answering my question.

This claim strikes me as utterly unwarranted. You yourself have said you don't know what licences KoTOR was published under.

Where would you expect to find it? It would be a private agreement between WotC and BioWare. Why would it be public?

No idea but usung Kotor as an example is bad I don't know the details of any licencing.

If you're not violating WotC IP you may be violating Biowares instead and they're owned by EA which is even bigger than Hasbro.

Either way you're still hypothetically screwed if push comes to shove in an OGL less world.

And KoToR had a recent rerelease and there's a remake in the works as well (or was).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did relations between the firms break down at a certain point?

This is what I think happened, but I can only speculate.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is what I think happened, but I can only speculate.

I own an original copy with manual. I can't dig it out atm as it's late/noise.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No idea but usung Kotor as an example is bad I don't know the details of any licencing.

If you're not violating WotC IP you may be violating Biowares instead and they're owned by EA which is even bigger than Hasbro.

Either way you're still hypothetically screwed if push comes to shove in an OGL less world.

And KoToR had a recent rerelease and there's a remake in the works as well (or was).

You would cite it as one of many examples of the wide usage of D&D style mechanics. Other examples, such as CoC, are mentioned upthread. No company is going to try and come after you on that basis of D&D style mechanics. You only take something to court if you have a good chance of winning and something to protect, or nothing to lose.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I own an original copy with manual. I can't dig it out atm as it's late/noise.

I have it too, I couldn't find anything on it about WotC. Lots of other stuff: Lucasarts, Lucasfilm, Bioware etc.

Of course, Disney own the Star Wars licences these days.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have it too, I couldn't find anything on it about WotC. Lots of other stuff: Lucasarts, Lucasfilm, Bioware etc.

Of course, Disney own the Star Wars licences these days.

That's not a Disney problem they licensed the game to Bioware.

Assuming it's still binding it's an EA problem.

In any event KoToR gets grandfathered in. Post OGL your now knock off my may not be. Willing to ignore a cease and desist over it?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Post OGL your now knock off my may not be.

If something was never published under the OGL, changing the OGL, even if it's deemed possible to do so retroactively, has no effect. You are verging towards the territory of "we can't play chess now there is no OGL!"

 

[pemerton]

I would doubt that Bioware was ever relying on the OGL, given that (i) by all accounts they don't conform to its requirements in their game, and (ii) Baldur's Gate pre-dates the OGL by some years.