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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corjay" data-source="post: 4437122" data-attributes="member: 52839">I came from the assumption of knowing general business practices and contracts while finding myself completely lost in regard to the gaming industry. While business rules still apply, there have been factors popping up unique to the gaming industry that I was not familiar with. I am making an effort not to continue to be assumptive regarding gaming companies. I think Pemerton has one half of the story and you have the other here. They don't appear mutually exclusive. I agree with both. I assume by the examples you put forth that you mean competing systems within the same company (Spelljammer and Dragonlance being from the same company), yet you're talking about competition between systems outside the company, so I'm confused. Competition is good outside the company, but yes, it is bad for a company to compete against itself so openly in roleplaying systems, because it's a division of resources and no inherent certainty in the absence of focus. (It's different for trading card games, because they're very rigid, so in-house competition can be withstood, but that's a different issue.) In other words, as a personal request, could you please clarify? <s>I agree with your view of WOTC's motive in this case, but I disagree about it violating creativity of any company. There's nothing that stops those companies from creating those exact same creatures under entirely different names.</s><s></s><s>That is using language of copyright law. In fact, much of the GSL is using language defined in copyright and other law. I would assume that they did it that way so that they don't have to list the definitions. Not very efficient, but if you know the laws that they come from it's not too hard to understand. In copyright law, a "derivative work" means that it imitates the image, setting up the same characters or same scene. They can use the same type of creature, they just can't use the same creature dressed the same. It has to be unique with unique features. It's just like depicting the same type of castle. They can depict the same type of castle (same kind of motifs, same kind of spires, same kind of windows, same kind of stones, even with all the same colors), but it has to be a different castle.</s> <s></s><s>No. As I pointed out in the thread this one was forked from, what that is saying is that the company can't sue an infringer for violations against WOTC's material just because it appears in their game as well. This keeps the red tape down and keeps the licensee from unnecessarily clashing with WOTC. It has nothing to do with the licensee bringing suit against WOTC. It also has the side effect of protecting the infringer from multiple suits from different companies for the same infringement. In some cases WOTC may not want to bring suit against a company, and they may want their word to the infringer that they're not going to sue to mean something. Perhaps they might see value in an infringer's work and actually want to use the infringer. At the very least, it gives WOTC the sole right and ability to decide the fate of the infringer.</s></blockquote>

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