Frylock's Final(?) Post on the OGL

[FrogReaver]

Ok - I think I have my head wrapped around what's going on here, but I feel like I'm getting something wrong:

1. Frylocke is first suggesting that WotC has no claim at all on their stats because you can't copyright stats. So far, so good - that's basically the argument that I thought he was making at first.

2. But his screed is actually about Wizards engaging in "copyright misuse" because they're using the OGL to sew Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to bully people into accepting Wizards claim that stats are copyrightable or at least act as if they are and keep themselves within the bounds of the OGL's guardrails.

Is that right? And if it is I still don't see how 2 helps him or how it enters into the picture at all. If the court disagrees with 1. then 2. is just wrong as far as I can see - if stats are copyrightable then Wizards is providing a legit license and not doing what he says. It seems like either stats aren't copyrightable or he's got nothing.

Leverage. It's not what if he loses part 1 He wants WOTC asking what if they lose 1.

Ultimately, if they really did copyright stuff that wasn't copyrightable (and that comes out in court). Then they made an agreement allowing people to use that "uncopyrightable" material in exchange not to use other material. I don't know if that's copyright misuse, nor do I know what it takes to prove copyright misuse. But I'm betting that WOTC doesn't feel 100% confident about how a court would rule in that situation and even a 1% risk of having their copyrights threw out as a whole in that situation is probably much to high a risk for them.

 

[FrogReaver]

Feist v Rural found that Yellow Pages business directories were copyrightable, right? Because of the skill that went into the selection & arrangement of the information by business category, unlike the white pages alphabetical telephone listings. And there is a good deal more creativity in monster stat blocks than in a yellow pages directory. So his own case cite is against him!

Like I said a couple threads ago, I think you can write "Orc AC 13 hp 15 ATT +5/d12+3" in your adventure and not infringe WoTC copyright in the Orc stat block - either the court will hold info taken is not copyrightable, or that it's a de minimis borrowing, or that it's a Fair Dealing/Fair Use of the work (eg in English Law, that my use here would at worst be a fair dealing for purpose of criticism under the UK's CDPA). But that is a far cry from reproducing the entirety of the MM in slightly altered form.

Sure, but the thrust seems to be that if they would rule the single orc stat line above is uncopyrightable (which you just said was possible), then making an alphabetical listing of creatures with that information wouldn't be copyrightable either.

If that happened then the only real question is if the specific layout of monster stat blocks is copyrightable and was his too close to infringe? I have no idea how that would be ruled or decided at that point.

(note: I am no lawyer or legal expert, just an interested person)

 

[S'mon]

If that happened then the only real question is if the specific layout of monster stat blocks is copyrightable

I don't see any reason why it would not be.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't see any reason why it would not be.

Well that answers half that question

 

[pemerton]

At a certain point you can't copyright even the description of the rules, at least at their most basic level. So I can write game with the basic operation of: Roll at d20 and add your modifiers. At its heart D&D works that way, WotC probably has sentence in multiple PHBs that matches that almost exactly.

<snip>

His complaint about the OGL might work in absence of the SRD, but he's forgetting that the SRD is Open Game Content, the whole damn thing. So, sure the mechanics don't work for copyright, but I'm pretty sure a 600 page document that WotC is basically saying "hey here's a big old copy of our game, except for a few bits we don't want to share, feel free to copy the whole thing as much as you want, hell go ahead and sell it, just make sure to slap the OGL on the end" is consideration from them, and in exchange you're giving up and possible fair use copyright claims you have in exchange for using the OGL and WotC OGC content.

Just to add to this: I think in one of the earlier threads @S'mon (or someone else) suggested that Frylock appears to have misinterpreted sub-clauses 1(d) and 1(e) of the OGL, such that the only licensed content - the OGC - is the material that (he asserts) is not amenable to being copyrighted because it is simply expressing rules/mechanics. He seems to be disregarding the phrases "and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor" in 1(d) and the phrase "clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content" in 1(e).

 

[S'mon]

Just to add to this: I think in one of the earlier threads @S'mon (or someone else) suggested that Frylock appears to have misinterpreted sub-clauses 1(d) and 1(e) of the OGL, such that the only licensed content - the OGC - is the material that (he asserts) is not amenable to being copyrighted because it is simply expressing rules/mechanics. He seems to be disregarding the phrases "and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor" in 1(d) and the phrase "clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content" in 1(e).

Yes. It's the kind of thing a weak student might do in an exam, but I'm pretty flabbergasted someone claiming to be a practicing lawyer could misread such a clear contract so badly. Or wonder why no one else in 19 years had noticed it!

 

[darjr]

 

[El Borak]

Did anyone else notice that he originally started the original project on 06/02/2015, completed it on 10/26/2015 and per his blog post it was originally all of the 5E monsters.

Then his more recent blog post of May 9, 2019 was edited to add this statement. "These were removed on May 12, 2019, at 8:14 PM EDT. They should be back within the week, along with other material that I wasn’t planning on publishing. If you loved what I was doing, you’re really going to love what’s coming." "These" refers to the file(s) of "One-Stop 5e D&D Stat Blocks."

Wasn't the C&D from WotC received by him in May?

I wrote a brief post with links here Frylock's Gaming & Geekery vs WotC.

I posted this at the end of the other thread before I knew about this thread.