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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6162149" data-attributes="member: 42582">The GSL is very different from the OGL.Roughly speaking, the OGL licenses the use of text - ie the SRD, which is in turn in many cases a reproduction or paraphrase of the PHB, MM and DMG - which otherwise would be protected by copyright. The OGL is not a trademark licence - in fact, its product identity clauses (again, roughly speaking) preclude the distribution of word trademarks as open game content.The GSL is quite different. Roughly speaking, it doesn't license the reproduction of any text in which WotC holds the copyright. It is basically a trademark (and affiliated product identity) licence, and in that respect therefore more comparable to the D20 licence (and like the D20 licence, and like most trademark licences, it is not in perpetuity). Once WotC no longer wishes to use the trademarks in question, I'm pretty sure it will pull the GSL, as it won't want others to be trading under those marks either. But this will have only modest implications for any trying to clone 4e - either with or without the GSL, the issue with cloning 4e is not mostly a trademark issue (though that could perhaps come up if you copied the WotC stat blocks very closely) but rather a copyright issue.&nbsp;[MENTION=38140]Frylock[/MENTION] wrote some good blogs about this a year or two ago.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6162149, member: 42582"] The GSL is very different from the OGL. Roughly speaking, the OGL licenses the use of text - ie the SRD, which is in turn in many cases a reproduction or paraphrase of the PHB, MM and DMG - which otherwise would be protected by copyright. The OGL is [I]not[/I] a trademark licence - in fact, its product identity clauses (again, roughly speaking) preclude the distribution of word trademarks as open game content. The GSL is quite different. Roughly speaking, it doesn't license the reproduction of any text in which WotC holds the copyright. It is basically a trademark (and affiliated product identity) licence, and in that respect therefore more comparable to the D20 licence (and like the D20 licence, and like most trademark licences, it is not in perpetuity). Once WotC no longer wishes to use the trademarks in question, I'm pretty sure it will pull the GSL, as it won't want others to be trading under those marks either. But this will have only modest implications for any trying to clone 4e - either with or without the GSL, the issue with cloning 4e is not mostly a trademark issue (though that could perhaps come up if you copied the WotC stat blocks very closely) but rather a copyright issue. [MENTION=38140]Frylock[/MENTION] wrote some good blogs about this a year or two ago. [/QUOTE]

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