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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4905356" data-attributes="member: 40961">1. Scrubbing the 4e rules of protectable material is probably a lot harder than most people think.  Remember, the part that can't be copyrighted is the process- not the aesthetic names and labels and flavor text that make that process translate into an RPG. 2. As a result, no one's bothered to do it.  So even if I want, I don't have the option of downloading a purely procedural version of 4e.  This point is a trump of all other points. 3. Even if someone did, the copyrightable, non procedural, non rules flavor text is not valueless to me.  "Two Fanged Strike" is of more value to me than "Level 3 Attack Number 4."  And while renaming would be possible, again we return to the fact that no one has done it- a complete trump of all other points. 4. I'm not convinced that the present uncopyrightability of game rules is legally stable.  I acknowledge that it is present day precedent, but feel that it is in a degree of tension with other modern day precedents such as those which govern copyrightability of computer code, which, much like games, consist of purely procedural code designed that function as a medium for creative content.  I do not expect the law to change as long as infringement is too minor for anyone to need to file large lawsuits on the issue, but I suspect that there is potential for a shift in this precedent over time. 5. If someone told me that they'd created a scrubbed copy of 4e, I'm not 100% sure I'd trust them to have done it right.  The sorts of people likely to take up that cause tend to be the sorts of people likely to take the most file sharer friendly possible approach of all possible approaches when it comes to interpreting what is or is not copyrighted material.I'm not a fan of the idea that its not "cool" to obtain a free copy of a product that a company has explicitly, intentionally, and with forethought released for free.  Or that I should worry that other companies, watching me freeload, will choose not to make freeloading available.  It seems an odd sort of concern, that.  If that were an issue for them, why did they offer me a free copy?</blockquote>

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