4E OGL Material?

[catsclaw]

... it might be to their advantage to just release under the OGL

From a company's or individual's perspective, that type of attitude can almost seem defeatist or akin to a threat or extortion. It's like "well, you can't prevent us from taking your game rules and using them for free, so you might as well release it the way we want you to".

Actually, it's more like "We can't really tell if making these sorts of products is legal, and it doesn't benefit anyone to go to court over it. It's also not all that clear whether it even hurts us, and there's a lot of evidence suggesting it might even help us. So if you stay within these boundaries and play by these rules, we'll guarantee it'll be legal to do so."

Some people like to argue about getting rid of DRM by saying "you can't stop piracy, might as well embrace it" ... with that attitude, maybe the Federal Government should stop trying to protect money from counterfitting, since "you can't stop the counterfeiters, might as well not spend so much time and effort protecting it"

There's necessarily a difference in enforcement strategy when you're targeting 400,000,000 music pirates (each responsible for 25 illegal downloads) instead of 20,000 counterfeiters (each responsible for $1,000,000 in fake money). At some point the numbers overwhelm you.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Actually, it's more like "We can't really tell if making these sorts of products is legal, and it doesn't benefit anyone to go to court over it. It's also not all that clear whether it even hurts us, and there's a lot of evidence suggesting it might even help us. So if you stay within these boundaries and play by these rules, we'll guarantee it'll be legal to do so."

But then again, we don't know what if any licensing terms are going to be available. Assuming they go with a GSL license--If the GSL has similar freedoms (no fee, no need for prior permission), except some extra requirements (for instance saying you can't reproduce the rules from the PHB in your work and you can't depict extreme depravity in your products), then you are then ignoring the legal license and making more of a challenge against WoTC in that case.

If there was no license whatsoever, then you might have more traction to stand on. But if there's a license available and you deliberately challenge it because you dislike the reasonable terms, I think that would be a lot harder to prove, since that sort of infers a more hostile intent.

 

[xechnao]

But then again, we don't know what if any licensing terms are going to be available. Assuming they go with a GSL license--If the GSL has similar freedoms (no fee, no need for prior permission), except some extra requirements (for instance saying you can't reproduce the rules from the PHB in your work and you can't depict extreme depravity in your products), then you are then ignoring the legal license and making more of a challenge against WoTC in that case.

If there was no license whatsoever, then you might have more traction to stand on. But if there's a license available and you deliberately challenge it because you dislike the reasonable terms, I think that would be a lot harder to prove, since that sort of infers a more hostile intent.

That is if you are publishing compatible material. What about though if you are publishing a rules clone (with the intent of publishing compatible material to your clone)?

 

[catsclaw]

But then again, we don't know what if any licensing terms are going to be available.

Oh, I assumed AZRogue was using OGL in a general sense of "any sort of relatively open license with relatively few restrictions". Not the literal OGL.

I fully agree; if there's a GSL and it lets you do even half of what you wanted--stick to it. Lawsuits aren't fun for anybody except lawyers, even if you're right.

 

[Alzrius]

Regarding the OP's post, yes someone could reverse engineer existing d20 rules released under the OGL to create a game that's 95% compatible with 4E. Only new proper names and such would need to be changed (e.g. no "dragonborn" or "Golden Wyvern Strike" etc).

Honestly, I consider it inevitable that someone will do that (and heck, if someone else doesn't, I will - unlike epochrpg, I'd call mine "4Esque") if 4E turns out to not be released under the OGL.

As some people have mentioned, WotC could try and sue you over this. It's almost guaranteed they'd lose, but the point isn't to win so much as it's to hit you with legal fees in a battle of attrition. I personally don't think they'd do that, and even if they did, the internet makes the release of such rules too ubiquitous to really stop anyway.

 

[AZRogue]

Oh, I assumed AZRogue was using OGL in a general sense of "any sort of relatively open license with relatively few restrictions". Not the literal OGL.

I fully agree; if there's a GSL and it lets you do even half of what you wanted--stick to it. Lawsuits aren't fun for anybody except lawyers, even if you're right.

My original question came about as I was wondering about possible things holding up the GSL. I wondered if the current OGL and the possibility of someone using it to release semi-compatible 4E material might (MIGHT) have caused them to decide on releasing under the current OGL themselves.

That just got me wondering and I was curious how easy it would be in the first place and wondered if the genie had, indeed, escaped the bottle. I was curious what people thought on the possibility of someone doing that.

PERSONALLY, I'm going to be completely happy as long as there's some kind of license. I don't mind a restrictive license at all. I'll be completely content with a GSL. I just thought it was an interesting question and wanted to see what people thought. There have been some very interesting posts and that was all I was after.

 

[kenmarable]

Game rules are not restricted by copyright. However, specific expressions of game rules are. And copyright protects not only the original material, but also derivative works.

So if you were to do something that uses 4e terminology, then WotC could sue you for copyright infringement, claiming that your book is a derived from their copyrighted expression of the D&D rules.

On the other hand, you could do what epochrpg does above and create 4e rules using the 3rd-edition terminology. Which would probably be pretty difficult--the examples above are among the easiest.

He still might get sued for advertising his stuff as "4e" though. He might be treading upon WotC trademark. And the whole "Four Elves" thing just screams bad faith.

Also, if it appears to be crossing the line of treading into WotC product identity, they could slam you for violating the OGL itself, which has nothing to do whatsoever with copyright infringement (so all of the "game mechanics and math can't be copywritten" claims are irrelevant). The OGL has built into it the "safe harbor" concept of playing nice with other people's closed content, regardless of any copyright claims. So trying to publish a pseudo-4e ruleset under the OGL could be construed as a license violation with WotC (since every time you publish under the OGL, you are entering into a legally enforceable license with WotC). That's a court case I wouldn't bet on them losing.

So, if I were... uh... brave enough to try and create pseudo-4e products, and especially a 4e clone SRD, I would rely on the "game mechanics aren't copyrightable" defense and not touch the OGL at all (plus, like I said above, I'd incorporate so I wouldn't lose my house). But that's just me, and I think it's just begging for a lawsuit, not to mention it can be seen as "peeing in the pool" of open gaming, which won't make you any friends in the industry.

 

[Alzrius]

Also, if it appears to be crossing the line of treading into WotC product identity, they could slam you for violating the OGL itself, which has nothing to do whatsoever with copyright infringement (so all of the "game mechanics and math can't be copywritten" claims are irrelevant). The OGL has built into it the "safe harbor" concept of playing nice with other people's closed content, regardless of any copyright claims. So trying to publish a pseudo-4e ruleset under the OGL could be construed as a license violation with WotC (since every time you publish under the OGL, you are entering into a legally enforceable license with WotC). That's a court case I wouldn't bet on them losing.

I don't see this as being any sort of hurdle, though. You just need to avoid using any terms that aren't already in the SRD, and you're fine. You can make a racial write-up that mimics the dragonborn in every way conceivable, and so long as you call them the "dragonfolk" you haven't violated any of the OGL's Product Identity guidelines.

 

[Oldtimer]

Also, if it appears to be crossing the line of treading into WotC product identity, they could slam you for violating the OGL itself, which has nothing to do whatsoever with copyright infringement (so all of the "game mechanics and math can't be copywritten" claims are irrelevant).

Well, just avoid those things declared as Product Identity in the SRD. It's a fairly short and specific list.

Note the difference between "product identity" and "Product Identity". The latter needs to be explicitly declared and is the thing OGL forbids you to touch.

 

[arscott]

Your examples share the characteristics AND the name of the original characteristics AND name.
So a work that shares only characteristics and no name is considered not derivate?

No. It's only the characteristics that are important. The fact that all of those things are called "Harry Potter and the Whatever" is irrelevant to copyright. Names are governed by Trademark, which is a whole separate category of IP protection.

If the Harry Potter Lexicon is legal, it would seem to imply that a Rules Cyclopedia type product for 4e would also be legal, provided you rewrote the text of the abilities in your own words.

Remember, though, that rewriting something in your own words is not, in and of itself, a defense against copyright.

If I were to write "Barry Pottinger and the Wizard's Gem", taking the text of Harry Potter and re-writing it in my own words but preserving the characterization and sequence of events in the original novel, I'd still be liable for copyright infringement.