an odd sort of question

[Urizen]

OK. I've been puzzling over this for the past couple of days, and I just thought I'd throw it out and see what everyone thinks.

Say you create a prestige class. You think it's cool, original and you realease it in your supplement as open gaming content.

Now, what you didn't know, was that the guys over at
"I can create RPG's better than you" publishing have created pretty much the same prestige class, with only a couple of differences, maybe prerequisites or a few different class abilities, and they released it last year.

Does "I can create better RPG's better than you" publishing have a legal basis for suing you?

I don't know about everyone here, but I don't have 100 bucks a month to spend on gaming products (although I would love to be able to do that). So what am I to do about knowing which feats or prestige classess have already been released?

BTW, has anyone ever tried to write off gaming books on your taxes?

 

[afstanton]

OK. I've been puzzling over this for the past couple of days, and I just thought I'd throw it out and see what everyone thinks.

Say you create a prestige class. You think it's cool, original and you realease it in your supplement as open gaming content.

Now, what you didn't know, was that the guys over at
"I can create RPG's better than you" publishing have created pretty much the same prestige class, with only a couple of differences, maybe prerequisites or a few different class abilities, and they released it last year.

Does "I can create better RPG's better than you" publishing have a legal basis for suing you?

I don't know about everyone here, but I don't have 100 bucks a month to spend on gaming products (although I would love to be able to do that). So what am I to do about knowing which feats or prestige classess have already been released?

BTW, has anyone ever tried to write off gaming books on your taxes?

It's not likely that they could sue you and win. They could take you to court as creating a derivative work and thus violating copyright, but not very likely. It's hard to make that kind of thing stick. Now if you had a word for word identical copy of what they wrote, then they could easily nail you to the wall.

As far as writing off gaming books - if you are running a legitimate business, research materials are valid expenses as far as I know. Researching the competition and learning about the industry. If you are in a business that writes software, the company can certainly buy programming books.

I am not a lawyer, nor am I an accountant. You really should be asking those people. (So why am I answering? Beats me.)

Aaron

 

[Bloodstone Press]

BTW, has anyone ever tried to write off gaming books on your taxes?

Yes.

The chances of someone suing you in the scenario you outlined are pretty slim. The chance of them winning is even less.

And of course, IANAL, and IANAA

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Yes.

The chances of someone suing you in the scenario you outlined are pretty slim. The chance of them winning is even less.

And of course, IANAL, and IANAA

You are potentially going to get a "cease and desist" letter ordering you to stop publishing your supplement though. That's when you have to evaluate the other product to decide if there's too many similarities. If there are, it's probably safer to take it out of print. What constitutes "too many" is between you and your lawyer at that point.