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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anon Adderlan" data-source="post: 4664864" data-attributes="member: 53053">Yes.The only catch is that certain terms used to identify fictional elements (such as Illithid and Tenser's Floating Disk) could be treated as trademarks.It doesn't matter as long as you don't use any SRD material verbatim. The SRD (or rather OGL) is a copyright license, NOT a trademark license. It allows you to copy its text directly and add it to your own work. The license wouldn't even apply if you completely rewrote the SRD, and that rewrite wouldn't be considered a derivative work either, because its a description of rules.Nothing, no, no, and no.Copyright = right to copy. Even with an unregistered copyright, you can still prevent someone from making copies, even if you're usually unable to request financial damages.If I am certain of anything legally, it's that you cannot protect math using copyright or trademark law. The only problem is that certain IP rights given by the GSL may depend on other conditions being met, which may include not automating the rules in a program or distributing a character generator.However, you don't NEED to follow the GSL to do those things, nor to claim your product is for use with 4e. You DO need to follow it if you wish to use the D&D logos.Yes. Well said.Trademark issue.Terms used to refer to unique fictional entities are pretty easy to protect. I'd avoid them whenever possible.Also well said, especially the last bit.What forums and the like provide is a good base of information on which to ask a lawyer further questions about. So it's rather more useful than going in with a blank slate and asking 'what do I need to know?'.If you are concerned about possible lawsuits, then the first thing you should do is form a corporation to own the assets. That way, if legal action is brought against possible IP violations, they can't go after your PERSONAL assets. This is exactly what WotC did with M:tG back when they were being sued by Palladium, so if they lost, the M:tG assets would not be lost with it.Yes, but such claims being ruled as valid are an entirely different story. Sadly, specific mechanical descriptions are similar enough to software source code (which is protected by copyright to some degree) to cause difficulty. However, if a description is effectively the most concise mechanical one possible, it is highly likely a judge will rule that it is not protected by copyright.Wellll.....Though it's safer than a proper name referring to a fictional entity, using Beholder to refer to a floating eyeball with ten smaller eyes on its head is going to put you in an uncomfortable Jacuzzi®. It's the same as if you used the term Spiderman to refer to a man in a skintight red and blue suit who sticks to walls and shoots webs.Yes.I suspect the case against Ema was primarily about these kinds of issues.</blockquote>

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