Discussions about writing in '4e compatable' mode?

The problem is that WotC will be *looking* to sue people who go this route, and there are a lot of murky gray areas. Certainly classes like Tiefling, Eladrin, and Dragonborn are protected by copyright and their precise powers may also be protected. You may encounter similar problems with classes. Rules mechanics are one thing, but "a world where there are people called paladins who can do X, Y, and Z" is arguably copyrightable.

Unless you're doing a total rebuild from base mechanics like Mutants & Masterminds, I suspect that you're going to run into trouble eventually...

Yes, the names of the classes & powers carry some copywrite issues. They'd have a hard time proving their rights to Paladins, Clerics, Wizards, Sorcerors, Dwarf, Human and the like because those are largely public domain but others that are totally of their own making like the ones you posted they could nail you on.

But then I'm no IP lawyer either.
 

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I'm not your lawyer, I'm not an IP specialist, and this isn't legal advice, but...

Generally speaking, names are not protected by copyright. That's what trademarks are for. So the first rule of thumb for "4e compatible" non-licensed works is don't use anything that WotC has asserted a trademark on. They have to do that openly (generally with one of those "beholders, illithid, X, Y, and Z are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast; A, B, and C are registered trademarks" text boxes near the beginning of the book, although just using the TM logo is enough, I think.) If eladrin is a WotC trademark (which I haven't checked), don't use it. Otherwise, you might be okay even though it's their name. Likewise, you're probably okay using the names of non-trademarked powers. The names themselves don't have copyright protection.

Also, any text in a specific form is copyrighted. You might be able to quote small sections as fair use, but I wouldn't if I were you-- the goal is to stay as safe as possible without a license, so I wouldn't want to rely on any nebulous doctrines like fair use for safety. So that means no copying text. And frankly, you probably don't want to copy stat blocks either, for the same reason. So, "3 kobold slingers" is probably fine (no trademark, no copyright protection for just a name), and 3 kobold whatevers, with a new stat block that you wrote from scratch, is also likely to be fine, but I wouldn't say 3 kobold slingers, and then copy out the MM stat block. Likewise, you can probably say "X is a warlock with the eldritch blast power" as long as (A) none of the names are trademarked and (B) you don't copy the text of the power description. There is definitely a fuzzy area here, but again, if your goal is to be on the safe side...

You'll also have to make your products not look like their products. There are "trade dress" issues to worry about there. But that's pretty easy as a matter of design to avoid.

My guess is that if you don't use any of their trademarks and don't copy any blocks of text, you'll be fine. Also, it's worth remembering that sueing isn't costless for them either. In fact, Hasbro would probably have to spend a substantial amount of money to sue-- that's both time for their in-house counsel office, and they would probably hire outside counsel at hundreds of dollars an hour. So sure, they can try to bully you out of existence by sueing, but they may not, unless they think it's worthwhile. If you make it easy for them (infringing their trademarks, republishing the PHB text for powers, etc.), or if you're really big, or if you have deep pockets, they may view it as worthwhile. But there is probably room for small fry to survive simply based on the idea that it's not worth spending tens of thousands of dollars litigating a claim over 1000 copies sold of a small-press module, especially where they might lose. (Remember, in the American system, each party generally pays its own lawyers, so even if WotC sues you for infringing their copyright and wins, they might end up losing money on the lawsuit. Conversely, of course, even if you win a lawsuit where they're sueing you for infringement, you're out your own lawyers' fees (unless their claim was frivolous, but that's a high standard.))

Anyway, I hope this is informative. Again, this isn't legal advice, but I wanted to correct some of the misinformation above.
 

The problem is that WotC will be *looking* to sue people who go this route, and there are a lot of murky gray areas.

I'm not so certain of that. As Clark Perterson of Necromancer Games pointed out, if they sue they will likely have to publicly open their books and show how much they are actually making from D&D. Also more importantly WotC's parent company Hasbro has been reluctant to sue Scrabulous even though it is an almost direct copy of Scrabble. I personally wouldn't bet on WotC actually sueing anyone (Cease and Desist letters are another matter) unless there is some very blatant infringement issues.
 

The Scrabulous case is a complex one, in no small part due to the rights to Scrabble being principly owned by both Hasbro and Mattel, with various other companies also having cut deals for individual rights to the concept.

I woulden't be parading it as a good example of Hasbro not leaping to defend its IP in cut and dry conditions.
 

But the situation of a publisher printing 4e compatible works that don't use WotC's trademarks or copy blocks of text from WotC's works isn't a cut and dried situation. I think it's clear that if someone tries to publish a clear copy of their works-- using the trademarks or using large blocks of text-- WotC would sue, at least if the infringer were large enough to be worth the money spent litigating. But if a small press company arguably infringes their copyright in a gray area, will WotC sue? I'm not at all sure. The risks to WotC are substantial-- it costs money to sue and they could establish precedents that give other future companies cover-- and the upsides are relatively small-- they could get some damages, likely to be small and possibly hard to collect, and they could establish some useful precedents, and they could deter other similar attempts in the future. If I were WotC's lawyer, I wouldn't recommend that they sue unless (A) I thought there was a real chance of a significant monetary recovery, (B) I thought that WotC was losing substantial amounts of money, or (C) I thought the principle and the precedent was likely to be very valuable to WotC (in concrete money terms).

Of course, sending cease and desist letters is cheap, and negotiating a side deal to avoid having to litigate the issue can also be cheap. So they may well send some cease and desist letters and rattle their sabers even if they are not ultimately willing to sue.
 


Er, Hasbro just launched a lawsuit today againt the owners of Scrabulous.

My impression is that
1) Hasbro probably went to the brothers and tried to get a licensing deal. Couldn't come to an agreement and Hasbro said, "screw this..."

2) Hasbro took this long because it wanted to make sure it had all its ducks in a row. I have a suspicion that Hasbro has a mountain of paperwork to back up their claims.
 

Er, Hasbro just launched a lawsuit today againt the owners of Scrabulous.

My impression is that
1) Hasbro probably went to the brothers and tried to get a licensing deal. Couldn't come to an agreement and Hasbro said, "screw this..."

2) Hasbro took this long because it wanted to make sure it had all its ducks in a row. I have a suspicion that Hasbro has a mountain of paperwork to back up their claims.

Ok, that news is now 3 hours old. My mistake for not catching it 20 minutes after it happened. :)

I guess they are willing to give it a try. This is something now everyone in gaming should watch because it could set precedent on the copyright of game mechanics. I was figuring that after losing the Monopoly suit that they wouldn't be willing to risk a precedent that could open up all their games to being copied. We will see how it goes.
 

I'd have to read the complaint to know, but I wouldn't be so sure they're suing over game mechanics and copyrightability. Scrabulous has a name which is clearly derivative of "Scrabble," which is undoubtedly trademarked so hard. I bet they have very little difficulty proving that Scrabulous is confusingly similar, especially given the context.
 

I'd have to read the complaint to know, but I wouldn't be so sure they're suing over game mechanics and copyrightability. Scrabulous has a name which is clearly derivative of "Scrabble," which is undoubtedly trademarked so hard. I bet they have very little difficulty proving that Scrabulous is confusingly similar, especially given the context.

Both trademark and copyright are mentioned as I read it.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20080724_Hasbro_complaint.pdf
 

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