Forking the OGL

[kingpaul]

Because WoTC does not publish under the OGL.

Then what would you call the SRD, RSRD, MSRD, Unearthed Arcana and d20 Weapons Locker if not published under the OGL?

 

[ThirdWizard]

They are not building 4e "from scratch." They are building 4e from 3.5, and 3.5 is Open. This means that 4e must be Open. And while WOTC is under no obligation to release any kind of SRD, it will be possible to derive 4e compatible Open Content.

3.5 isn't Open. For one, the SRD and D&D are effectively different entities, and there is no text in my PHB that declares anything within it Open Content. WotC has never been held to the OGL with its own proprietary works. Otherwise, SWSE would have to be Open. Is your contention that SWSE is legally Open Content?

 

[BryonD]

3.5 isn't Open. For one, the SRD and D&D are effectively different entities, and there is no text in my PHB that declares anything within it Open Content. WotC has never been held to the OGL with its own proprietary works. Otherwise, SWSE would have to be Open. Is your contention that SWSE is legally Open Content?

I agree.

But I have an honest question. Is there anything that would stop me from publishing a mechanically identical version of SWSE based on the SRD? Obviously all the Star Wars IP must be washed out. And I think things like the character advancement are out. But doesn't the existing OGL/SRD give me the ability to make a clone of the mechanics without ever challenging WotC's full closed ownership of the SWSE system?

 

[ThirdWizard]

But I have an honest question. Is there anything that would stop me from publishing a mechanically identical version of SWSE based on the SRD? Obviously all the Star Wars IP must be washed out. And I think things like the character advancement are out. But doesn't the existing OGL/SRD give me the ability to make a clone of the mechanics without ever challenging WotC's full closed ownership of the SWSE system?

Well, game mechanics aren't copyrightable, so in theory you wouldn't even need the OGL.

Now, if you used the OGL, there might be issues.

 

[2WS-Steve]

The FAQ for the OGL explains this in great detail. On that FAQ, WOTC say very specifically that a game rule cannot be copyright. It's been up there for years... I think that in the face of this, iit would be very hard for WOTC to claim in court that some kind of copyright attaches to the underlying rules of the game.

I think Ryan Dancey has said that while a game rule cannot be copyrighted, it's not so clear that a very specific and large collection of game rules that work together to form a system cannot be copyrighted. That sort of thing hasn't been tested.

From a general perspective I agree. There are good reasons to not allow rules or small sets of rules to be copyrighted, because they've likely all been seen before -- even the ones that haven't been seen aren't typically some unique flower but just something that nobody's gotten around to yet. It'd be almost like copyrighting words, or prepositional phrases.

But a big, coherent set of rules that work together in a very unique way, that'd be more like copyrighting a story.

Though, perhaps it'd be too much of a mess for judges to work out when there's too much overlap or not enough overlap to count for a violation, so the courts would agree to just leave it alone.

 

[Delta]

Then what would you call the SRD, RSRD, MSRD, Unearthed Arcana and d20 Weapons Locker if not published under the OGL?

Notable exceptions.

 

[Toben the Many]

Personally I think the time and effort spent trying to "reverse engineer" another's work, you could create your own RPG.

And I notice the people bringing up the rule "you can't copyright a game"...well, I believe that court case was a ruling based on board games like Monopoly and Chess. I have a feeling if a major RPG or computer game publisher actually got to a court-room, they could actually argue that an RPG is much more than a typical game system, and I have a feeling it could go either way when it comes to the RPG or any other really complex game that's mostly a lot of text.

No, that is not true. There was a court case about role-playing games specifically, and it was decided that you cannot copyright a role-playing game system.

That's why things like the Omni System put out by Morrigan Press can exist. The Omni system is pretty dark close to d20, but it does not use the OGL, or d20 license. That being said, if you, say just ripped off the D&D system, I think you'd run into plagiarism issues. For example, if you have Feats that all have the same exact name as D&D, with the same exact text description...well....

Also, even though you cannot copyright a role-playing system, WotC can always bring you to court - you might ultimately win your court case, but the headache of having to pay lawyers, cover court costs, and actually meeting over the entire affair would give most people pause.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Actually, Ryan think OSRIC is a little "iffy", and Clark Peterson, an attorney, thinks it could be iffy as well.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=201334
http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-207822.html

These reasons, along with others, make me think one of these reverse-engineered games is gonna get in trouble. Like I've said elsewhere, the "games can't be copyrighted" is part of legal precedent that was based on Boardgames like Monopoly and Chess--I'd have to look up exact cases--but an RPG has a lot of complex rules and a lot of copyrightable, trademarkable, and even patentable content. I could see a lawsuit that could set precedent saying D&D and its ilk are not the same as the boardgames.

ETA: Missed the last response. Hmm, it would be interesting if somebody could bring up the actual court case regarding the role-playing game systems so we could read it and see what the actual arguments were.

 

[Kevin Brennan]

Short answer is talk to a lawyer before you assume that game rules aren't copyrightable (at least at the scale of a whole RPG).

I did have the benefit of actual legal advice on "derivative" works a while back. It wasn't in regard to RPGs, but the upshot of it all was that case law on what is and is not a "derived" work is actually very thin, and it's not really clear how different something has to be before it is no longer considered derived for legal purposes.

But those of you thinking that WotC's material is somehow "open" because it's also found in the SRD are simply wrong. WotC is granting third parties the right to create derived works using the SRD through the OGL. Because WotC's right to create derived works is not based on the OGL, but rather through its status as the copyright holder of the original, NOTHING WotC publishes is Open unless they choose to explicitly make it so through designation as Open Game Content.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Eh? You referenced the thread in which Ryan D starts out with some quite accusatory remarks about OSRIC, and then when presented with the facts, Ryan backs off and admits he doesn't know.

I think Clark Peterson was a little overexcited in the other thread you reference (and at least one ENWorld mod would agree); but in any case, he was well answered by Matt Finch, who is a retired attorney himself.

It's been WOTC's position that game rules can't be copyrighted for a long time. This is posted in very clear print on their website (in the FAQ section on the OGL). Since that is WOTC's very publicly stated position, I think it would be hard for them to bring a lawsuit that claimed the opposite.

This is only one of a number of very serious obstacles WOTC would need to overcome in a lawsuit against OSRIC or its ilk.
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With regard to the lawsuit, I'm only aware of one really relevant one that relates specifically to pen and paper RPG copyright. It doesn't say quite what Toben says, so either Toben knows something I and my lawyers don't, or he's misremembered.

Here's the case:

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/copyright/cases/tsr_vs_mayfair.html