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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 864442" data-attributes="member: 2013">IANAL, blah, blah, blah...This can be thought of as breaking down OGC into several branches of "stuff:"Open Game Content means(1) the game mechanic [which means] the methods, procedures, processes and routines [except for] Product Identity - the so-called "default" or "must be open no matter what stuff."AND(2) any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor - this one is pretty easy to understand as it is, "anything else the publisher says is open."AND(3)any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product Identity - pretty straightforward: "any work covered by the OGL that is not PI."Let me rephrase, cutting and pasting a bit... to cut out some of the "logical branches" to get to the meaty part for our argument:"Open Game Content"... means any work covered by this License... specifically excluding Product Identity.Now, let's look at the context of this statement with the rest of the OGL...This one is a little bit obtuse, but here's why I included it.If you use OGC, you must include the OGL.Corollary: If you use the OGL, you must have included OGC (otherwise why bother with the OGL?).  It's not strictly logically correct based only on "If you use OGC, you must include the OGL," but given the question in parentheses above, it seems to fall out logically.Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that any work that contains the OGL does so because it also contains OGC.  Furthermore, any product bearing the d20 logo must by terms of the d20 licence contain a minimum of 5% OGC, so in the case of a d20 product, we know for certain that there must be OGC involved.  For sake of argument, let's keep our discussion to products bearing the d20 logo only.  Then we know that the corollary "If you use the OGL, you must have included OGC" is true because we already have from the d20STL the premise that you must include OGC.Now, here's the rub:Look at this carefully.  This serves a dual purpose.You are allowed under #8 to designate only certain portions of a larger work that are considered OGC.  In other words, you are allowed to designate a subset of your work as "work that is distributed under the Open Gaming License."  As an example, if I publish a book with 5 chapters, and declare "only the text of Chapters 1, 2, and 4 is Open Game Content" I have in effect created a designation that tells you that Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are to be considered "a work published under the OGL" - Chapters 3 and 5 are, by default, published under normal copyright law, even if they happen to be in the same physical book.Now, let's look at point 1d again:What I have done in making an OGC designation is designate what constitutes the "work covered by this License."  (As we all know, PI allows you to make "exceptions to the rule" within a broader OGC designation and is not worth rehashing here).However, if I do NOT specifically make an OGC designation, the only logical definition as to what constitutes (in the emphasis portion above) the "work published under the OGL" is "the entirety of the physical book."This is, I believe, where the "legal foundation" for the concept of, "if you don't make a designation at all, your entire book is OGC" comes from.I am not entirely sure whether I agree with this reading of the license or not - I would sure LIKE to agree with it as it would open up a lot more stuff - but I think it is of somewhat tenuous strength as a legal argument, so I'm not going to bet anything on it (including a product and possible legal trouble by trying to drop stuff in that isn't clearly OGC).However, it also means that by a very tortured reading of the OGL, one could argue that the entirety of the MMII is in fact Open Game Content, as they did not specifically PI their monster names and they DID use the OGL... but it would be a VERY tortured reading of the OGL indeed... and one that I doubt very much would hold up in court - nor would making the attempt garner much goodwill among publishers. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />--The Sigil</blockquote>

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