E-publishers, do you want a free Internet Arcana preview?

[jgbrowning]

Well, we've got another product. And we're looking to you all to make it the best there is. It is a massively hyperlinked document containing all SRD spells and Items.

And we want to include your stuff.....

Go here http://www.exp.citymax.com/page/page/475776.htm to pick up the proof of idea document. **special thanks to Jason Parent from E.N. Publishing for the use of his stuff for the demo**

Internet Arcana is designed for several purposes and for several different, but concurrent goals.

1. Users will have a PDF document of material that is user friendly. Hyperlinking saves a lot of time and creates a much more user friendly environment than the traditional format.

2. Users will have access to a lot of great OGC material from many different sources. They'll have the opportunity to explore different facets of different companies and products.

3. Companies will have direct links from each of their OGC material to their home page as well as to the page where the source document can be purchased. Hopefully this will result in people going "Wow! This spell is cool, I should pick up the whole book." We're trying to create more sales for the E-publishing industry as well as get the stuff people want to use into their hands in the easiest manner possible.

4. Your PI will be clearly indicated. I'm trying very hard to show what is open and what is not. Hopefully this should create some cross-pollinization within e-publishing itself.


We're calling for submissions from you e-publishers out there for your OGC material. Any material you send to us should contain the permission to use your product identity and we will be certain to clearly indicate what is open and not open. We'll take either text files, .docs. or PDF's. All submissions must come from E-publishers or from predominantly print publishers who have some e-products (this includes web supplements).

We'll look at everything that's sent and determine what we'd like to see in Internet Arcana. Not all submissions or all parts of submissions will find there way into Internet Arcana as we'll try to pick only the best.

Before we put the document up, we'll send a list of all OCG material we plan on using in Internet Arcana to the publishers that created the OCG material. This way, YOU still decide if you want your material included. All publishers whose material is included will receive complimentary copies.

Send all submissions to josephbrowning@exp.citymax.com. The tentitive release date (depending on the amount of OGC we receive) is May. We'll be accepting submissions up to April 30th.


We are so stoked about this project!

Joseph Browning
Expeditous Retreat Press

 

[smetzger]

Re: Internet Arcana accepting submissions

3. Companies will have direct links from each of their OGC material to their home page as well as to the page where the source document can be purchased. Hopefully this will result in people going "Wow! This spell is cool, I should pick up the whole book." We're trying to create more sales for the E-publishing industry as well as get the stuff people want to use into their hands in the easiest manner possible.

I like your idea, I hope you get lots of material to add to it.

A strict reading of the OGL prevents you from doing #3 unless you have permission from the publisher/copyright holder. This is because you cannot indicate compatability with a product. I suggest that if you are going to do this that you get permission from the copyright holder.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Re: Internet Arcana accepting submissions

I like your idea, I hope you get lots of material to add to it.

A strict reading of the OGL prevents you from doing #3 unless you have permission from the publisher/copyright holder. This is because you cannot indicate compatability with a product. I suggest that if you are going to do this that you get permission from the copyright holder.

Thanks for the well wishes!

I was under the impression that you couldn't indicate compatability for product identy. All product identity is clearly indicated as closed content in Internet Arcana and all product identity will be only used with permission. The compatibility clause prevents people from saying "Uses The Book of Eldritch Might's bard!" on the cover of the book and thereby riding off other peoples Product Identity unless you get specific approval from Monte to use the Product Identiy in that manner.

As far as non-product identity, I'm not quit sure what your referring to. I don't see how my providing a link to a publisher's web page indicates compatibility to begin with beyond any implied compatability that simply saying the name of the work implies. Since I'm required to state the source of the material, and that source material is de facto compatable with what's already in my book (ie. the assumption being that my book is internally compatable) i'm not sure how you can avoid implying d20 OGC material is compatible with other d20 OGC material.

I don't see how providing the reader a destination for the reader to purchase the orginal material is any different than saying "Available at your FLGS" for a hardcopy product.

If i'm reading that section incorrectly, or if there's something I missed, please point it out to me. I want to make sure, as much as I can, that everything is good. The goal with the link is to provide both the reader and the producer of OGC material a connection, so if the reader likes what he sees in my book he can go to original producer and decide if he wants to purchase any of their products. I'm trying to take the requirement for proper crediting and turn that into sales for the guy that came up with the good idea to begin with.

joe b.

 

[jmucchiello]

11. Use of Contributor Credits: You may not market or advertise the Open Game Content using the name of any Contributor unless You have written permission from the Contributor to do so.

7. ....You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark. ....

As long as you only taking OGC directly from the producer of it, you should not have a problem getting their written permission to use their trademarks (such as company names and logos) and you will not run afoul of section 11 either.

 

[philreed]

Time to close my content?

I've been releasing pretty much all of my D20 PDFs as 100% OGC. I expected people would pick whatever they like and reprint it in products. I'm good with that.

I didn't expect entire products to be lifted and reprinted. I know that's not what you'd suggesting here but that's what is happening. There is nothing at all stopping you from taking everything I've released and including it in a product like this.

I'm rambling here since I'm torn between saying "Whatever" and saying "Time to get stingy with my OGC."

Any advice or suggestions?

 

[Blacksway]

Section 7 covers product identity and Trademarks - If someone copies OGC out of your product they can do whatever they like as long as they update the Section 15 accordingly.

However, as most company names are trademarks you can't use that company name anywhere other than the Section 15 without permission. They can list the OGC, but thats all.

There are nice ways of letting people use your PI and trademarks as well, basically including a little 'this is my trademark/PI you can use it as long as you write it like this and let me know' type thing.

Section 11 covers marketing using (seemingly) specific contributers names - can't see anything wrong with just simple 'this has loads of OGC in it!' statements. Doesn't seem to apply to the actual content, just advertising and covers.

---

Joe appears to be taking the usual 'we could just rip out your OGC but we're going to ask everyone anyway' approach, which is the very gentle-personly thing to do. Got caught on the wrong side of this little fishy once and will never again as you don't make friends that way! (check out my homebrew site where I once tried to put some peoples stuff without their permission - I could, but I wont again!)

If you don't want people to be able to take your whole product and re-release it because it IS OGC then don't release it all as OGC Make sure you keep your flavour text etc PI. Use the method above to allow people an easy method of getting your permission or even specify you give your permission in certain circumstances in the product. But letting everything be OGC there's nothing you can do to stop them. Sorry, but there isn't a better way of putting that

 

[jgbrowning]

thanks!

Thanks gentlemen for explaining that to me. I'll be certain to contact every company who's product I use in the book for their permission to use their company name for the linking of products and for that use only.

I wasn't aware that that was a problem, and I really appreciate ya'll telling me about it.

I'm most definitly not going to be taking a lot of a single product's material. I want the customer to see your stuff and go buy your stuff. I'm going to provide a list of all OGC material I use from each company and run that by each company before putting the product out. That way if a company thinks we're using too much of their material they can tell us and we'll simply remove it.

I know we don't have too, but it is the gentlemanly thing to do.

Thanks again,

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Time to close my content?

I've been releasing pretty much all of my D20 PDFs as 100% OGC. I expected people would pick whatever they like and reprint it in products. I'm good with that.

I didn't expect entire products to be lifted and reprinted. I know that's not what you'd suggesting here but that's what is happening. There is nothing at all stopping you from taking everything I've released and including it in a product like this.

I'm rambling here since I'm torn between saying "Whatever" and saying "Time to get stingy with my OGC."

Any advice or suggestions?

Phil, I also release everything as OGC. IF people wanted they could copy A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe in its totality and that would be legal. I'm not worried about that happening, as I trust the gaming community to support my efforts enough to where I'll still keep doing it.

I want to turn Internet Arcana into something that both the reader and the companies that supply the OGC benefit from. By linking the OGC from where it came from, I hope to give readers information they were'nt aware of and help sales for e-products.

Joe b.

 

[philreed]

I may be confused.

It sounded like you wanted to collect all of the OGC from a product and add it to this one. Cool and all if 5% of my product is OGC but not so cool if it's 100% OGC. I can see where customers would rather buy the giant PDF that collects everything in one place for $5.

Sorry if it sounded like an attack in my earlier post. I'm just not sure what I should be doing. I want to continue releasing everything as OGC but not if each PDF is just going to become an appendix in another PDF. I know this is a change of opinion on the subject for me but I've recently been asked be someone if they could compile all of my PDFs into a new PDF and sell the compilation. That scared me a bit.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: I may be confused.

It sounded like you wanted to collect all of the OGC from a product and add it to this one. Cool and all if 5% of my product is OGC but not so cool if it's 100% OGC. I can see where customers would rather buy the giant PDF that collects everything in one place for $5.

Sorry if it sounded like an attack in my earlier post. I'm just not sure what I should be doing. I want to continue releasing everything as OGC but not if each PDF is just going to become an appendix in another PDF. I know this is a change of opinion on the subject for me but I've recently been asked be someone if they could compile all of my PDFs into a new PDF and sell the compilation. That scared me a bit.

I'm very sorry Phil, I should have been more clear about the product. That's my fault. My goal for Internet Arcana is to have approximately 30% or more (perhaps up to 50% if the response is good and all companies involved are pleased) OGC material outside the SRD.

It's a new product concept (we'll it is to me, I'm sure its not really new. ). Its the spells and items from the SRD, but massively hyperlinked so you can find things much faster than ever before (hopefully at game speed so people use it while gaming). Each spell will have the list of magic items that specific spell is used for item creation. Each OGC piece will link the customer right to your web page. Its a weird product/advertising product that's not annoying for the customer. It doesn't have adds or pop ups or anything except where that piece of DnD goodness came from and who made it. I'd like to get people used to using products on their computers, cause i think, in the end, it will really benefit us.

I view the OGC/OGL as a way for producers to benefit from a non-adversorial relationship. If I can make a product that sells some of your products, I'm happy, your happy, and the customer is happy because he may not have been interested in the material without seeing that part of it right infront of him. I'm trying to capitalize on that concept and use the ease PDF products provide to make it work better for everyone involved. I most definitly won't use OGC as a method to destroy someone's business. That's why I only make %100OGC material.

joe b.