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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 3179635" data-attributes="member: 9254">This is a big hazy mess and I am no expert, but I am a moderately informed and interested layman.  Copyright, as a core concept, is based on the idea that people who work on stuff should be able to make something off it.  Everyone who has spent several hours pouring over an RPG book to convert it into LST/XML/chargenX format knows they worked.  Human nature is to feel there is some entitlement after having worked, be it for control of the product, recognition of the effort, and/or payment in some fashion.  That's the psychology, which the laws have tried, in some fashion, to protect with highly debatable levels of effectiveness.The reality as it stands is that you have:a) publishers who OGL their material with varying levels of comprehension of what that   meansb) coders who exert significant time and effort into converting that material c) A legal system with centuries of cruft and legal whorls (if not loopholes) as to the details of copyright.  d) Since this discussion includes software, you also have the fun and games of patent law to contend with.  (Intellectual Property includes both copyrightable and patentable works)Let's start with the conversion program.  A program to convert from an open standard (e.g. the details of the file format is both public knowledge and in the public domain) is completely legal.  A program to convert a closed format (e.g. the format is not in the public domain) is probably legal as long as it does not infringe on a patent or copyright (such as lifting someone else's code).  An example would be a file format that involves a patented encryption routine; without a license for the encryption routine you could not decrypt the file.  Even if the encryption is weak and easily defeated, it may be illegal to break it thanks to the DMCA.  The discussion of "what is PCGen's IP" goes back to b) people spending effort.  If people did nothing but copy/paste the SRD, there would be little in the way of new IP, though it may qualify as a new "work of art" due to the changes in organization. (remember, I'm not an expert)  But the truth is that many SRD details are paraphrased to fit the needs of the software  (e.g. text boxes, output sheets, etc).  Those paraphrased statements are definitely new IP.  Since the PCGen data files are (to the best of my knowledge) distributed under the OGL and the PCGen software is published under the GPL, there should be little legal basis for an arguement about converting to an OGL or GPLd product.......except for item a).  Some publishers want a review of the PCGen data files b/c they want to do a QA/QC check to ensure the LST coder got the mechanics write and that any paraphrasing has the right meaning, which is a hard thing to argue with, assuming they aren't nit-picking perfectionists that delay the release of the LST files with constant revisions.  The problem is with the publishers who don't realize that the OGL means they have no say in how people create derivative works based on their material.  Some never expected anyone to actually take advantage of the OGL, others did not intellectually comprehend it and quite a few, I suspect, did not understand it emotionally.  Most publishers are authors, and artists as a whole can become quite irate when their art is "abused."  The PCGen team has been bending over backwards to maintain cordial relations with the publishers for multiple reasons.  The simplest is that it is bad PR when a publisher bad mouths the project for "misusing" their games.  Working with publishers also results in some of that QA/QC, improving the product earlier in the release cycle.  Lastly, it means publishers don't abandon the OGL.   It is quite likely that if the PCGen folks had told the publishers "We're doin' what we want with this book 'cuz you OGLed it, neener-neener!" then said publishers would have never released anything under the OGL that they weren't explicitly required to.  So, six years down the line, the PCGen team could point at several products that probably never would have been OGL had they not been so accomodating.  They aren't likely to say what those products are as it might shame the publisher but I'm very confident that those products exist.One would hope that roughly six years into the OGL all the publishers would be hip to what it means but that is not always the case.  Anyone who plans on getting into the OGL software game should really ask questions of the PCGen team and learn the wisdom they acquired over years dealing with publishers as small as it gets (one guy in a basement) to WHasbrotC.</blockquote>

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