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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 7797589" data-attributes="member: 463">The problem here is that in UK law there is no "copyright in the Gith race", there can only be copyright in literary musical artistic & dramatic works. There is a copyright in the words Stross wrote (literary work) that were published under licence in White Dwarf. TSR think they 'acquired the rights' to Githyanki and the other Fiend Factory creatures, and the authors (Stross included) presumably signed off on something - the question is what that something said, and what its legal effect would be under the governing law, presumably English law. It is pretty hard to transfer copyright in an already published work under US law and my feeling is it is/was a good deal harder under UK law. And I have interacted enough with TSR lawyers to know they would not have had the competency to do this. But it's conceivable GW or TSR UK might have hired specialists in London with the ability to actually do this. I kinda doubt it though. Copyright was a really minor field ca 1980, GW was a small company, TSR was a mid sized US company not a a major media conglomerate. Even judges of the time deciding IP cases tended not to know IP law. Very few lawyers would have.</blockquote>