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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7660799" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not an American contract lawyer, but I would be pretty surprised if contract law in any American jurisdiction did not permit giving up fair use rights as part of a contractual bargain.I think when you say &quot;it only has two benefits&quot; that's a bit like saying &quot;permission to enter my house only gives you the benefit that if you do come in I won't call the police to force you to leave&quot;. Ie, it's a pretty big &quot;only&quot;. Fair use would not permit anyone to verbatim reproduce the text found in the WotC's SRDs.The OGL also is not a warranty that you won't be sued by WotC. It is an agreement with WotC (and any other contributors of OGC whose OGC you use) that they permit to use that OGC, in respect of which they enjoy certain IP rights, subject to certain conditions. If you violate those conditions then you are absolutely liable to be sued.Third party supplements are absolutely possible without licence - provided that you don't violate WotC's IP rights.That means not infringing their trademark rights - which shouldn't be too hard - and not reproducing their copyrighted material. This is what I think is harder, because the boundaries between non-copyrightable mechanics and copyrightable story and expression are relatively vague within the context of an RPG.The author of the blog linked to upthread suggests that TSR settled its lawsuits because it thought it wouldn't win. In my view this is silly. Nearly all private litigation settles before coming to court, often on the courthouse steps. Running a court case costs time and money, and there are no guarantees. It's also in the interests of a large company like TSR or WotC to manage potential competitors via contractual relationships, where they can negotiate the terms, rather than via litigation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7660799, member: 42582"] I'm not an American contract lawyer, but I would be pretty surprised if contract law in any American jurisdiction did not permit giving up fair use rights as part of a contractual bargain. I think when you say "it only has two benefits" that's a bit like saying "permission to enter my house only gives you the benefit that if you do come in I won't call the police to force you to leave". Ie, it's a pretty big "only". Fair use would not permit anyone to verbatim reproduce the text found in the WotC's SRDs. The OGL also is not a warranty that you won't be sued by WotC. It is an agreement with WotC (and any other contributors of OGC whose OGC you use) that they permit to use that OGC, in respect of which they enjoy certain IP rights, subject to certain conditions. If you violate those conditions then you are absolutely liable to be sued. Third party supplements are absolutely possible without licence - provided that you don't violate WotC's IP rights. That means not infringing their trademark rights - which shouldn't be too hard - and not reproducing their copyrighted material. This is what I think is harder, because the boundaries between non-copyrightable mechanics and copyrightable story and expression are relatively vague within the context of an RPG. The author of the blog linked to upthread suggests that TSR settled its lawsuits because it thought it wouldn't win. In my view this is silly. Nearly all private litigation settles before coming to court, often on the courthouse steps. Running a court case costs time and money, and there are no guarantees. It's also in the interests of a large company like TSR or WotC to manage potential competitors via contractual relationships, where they can negotiate the terms, rather than via litigation. [/QUOTE]

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