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Message: <blockquote data-quote="resistor" data-source="post: 4307524" data-attributes="member: 9142">NOTE: I Am Not A Lawyer!Of course games can be copyrighted, but it only covers the text of the game books, not the underlying concepts.  Here's a relevant quote, taken from this <a href="http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/system/files/Golan+v.+Gonzales.pdf" target="_blank">ruling</a>:The idea/expression dichotomy is central to US copyright and patent law.  Copyright applies to the expression of an idea, not to the idea itself.  A patent, by contrast, is defined as (taken from <a href="http://www.uspto.gov/main/glossary/index.html#p" target="_blank">here</a> :US precedent has been very clear on the fact that patents cover inventions (more on the "idea" end of the spectrum), while copyrights cover expressions (at the "expression" end).So where would that leave OSRIC 4e?  It should, in theory, be possible to create a ruleset that implements the same underlying rules, but does so without duplicating any of the actual expression of said rules from 4e.  One would want to be very thorough about proofing it for "accidental" quoting.  Reproducing tables (like the class power progression) would be difficult, of course.  The simplest method might be to describe the underlying mathematical progressions textually, without quoting the tables.An interesting possibility would be that an OSRIC4e SRD might describe the progression textually, and then works derivative from that could produce the progression tables as a parallel derivation to that in the 4e core books.  US precedent does recognize the possibility of independent creation (and separate copyright holding) of identical works.  See the quote below, from the same ruling as above:In theory, one could argue that tables in a work derived from an OSRIC4e were a parallel creation of the same work, and it would be supported by the fact that the work would be a direct derivative work of the OSRIC4e rules, which would share no derivativity (as far as copyright goes) with the 4e rules.  This is, of course, speculative, and I wouldn't really recommend anyone try it.  But I'd definitely be interested in reading the rulings that resulted. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />-----The other major consideration is patents.  WotC does have a historical precedent of patenting game mechanics (on <a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=5,662,332" target="_blank">CCGs</a> and <a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,201,374.PN.&OS=PN/7,201,374&RS=PN/7,201,374" target="_blank">CSGs</a>), so it's not completely inconceivable that they could attempt to patent some critical element of 4e's mechanics, which would put a halt to anything like OSRIC4e.The interesting question would be: what could they patent?  The core mechanics (roll a d20 and add modifers to hit a target number) are obviously not new inventions.  Even the "new" stuff with class powers was previously invented in Bo9S, and possibly other RPGs.Then again, I have no plans to go make an OSRIC4e (woot for Pathfinder!), but logic games sure are fun. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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