Ketjak said:
The 3.5 SRD says:
[PI designation from D20SRD(3.5) snipped]
The original SRD did not mention those specifically, but neither were they listed in the monster sections.
Actually, one of the on-again, off-again discussions on the OGF lists is the nature of PI. There are two issues: what it takes to declare PI, and how much power the PI restrictions really have.
On the first count, one reading of the WotC OGL is that PI is only meaningful within OGC, and has zero legal meaning in "normal" (closed) content. I.e., Since those terms never appear in OGC ('cause they're not in the D20SRD, either version, and none of the content of WotC's books is released as OGC), they aren't actually PI, despite the claim in the D20SRD(3.5). Instead, they are regular closed content, governed by standard copyright/trademark laws (which, in this case, isn't likely to afford much protection)
On the 2nd count, the question is whether PI is "forbidden" or "unavailable". If it is forbidden, then by agreeing to the WotC OGL, you are agreeing not to use the PI, regardless of source. If it is unavailable, then you merely can't use it from that source--it's as though someone had whited out all instances of PI before giving you the book, and it's just not there. But if you take it from another source, you're fine (provided you do so legally--within the bounds of Fair Use, or via the WotC OGL, or with permission, or whatever).
Also, there's the question of the lineage of PI: there is no requirement to reproduce PI when you derive from a work, so it's pretty easy to not know about PI from a work that is an antecedent to the work you're actually sourcing. So the question becomes, are you expected to track down all previous sources, and abide by those PI restrictions, too, or just those of works you are directly deriving from?
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that the particular character and likeness (including appearance and culture) of those monsters might very well be off-limits (i think the concept of character copyright extends to things like unique races of beings, not just unique beings), ditto for the stats (again, how much protection copyright affords them is in limbo), but the names themselves quite possibly are fair game (depending on the nature of PI, and what sources you work with).
