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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 1271694" data-attributes="member: 813">This has not been tested in a court. Until it is, OGC is only what a publisher declares it to be. Basically, some people want what you say to be true. Others don't.Someone asked about something legal and you aren't using legal definitions. Interesting. PI is not well defined. If it was, there would not be debates about what it is with 4 conflicting opinions on the ogl mailing list.Are you going to use the term AC? hit points? Level? All of them are in the SRD and in the Epic Handbook. WotC seems as though they will assume your use of these terms is a botched attempt at the OGL. Explain what you can use in the Epic Handbook that doesn't LOOK like it is derived from the SRD. Also notice I said this seems to be WotC policy. They haven't stated this policy as such but it makes sense from their point of view to assume any use of their material that could be derived from the SRD is such an attempt to use the OGL. That way they can use the OGL to enjoin you from using it.Now, you apparently are one of those people who follows the letter of copyright law and claims that game mechanics are not copyrightable, only their expression. On paper you are correct. In a court of law, it doesn't matter who is correct because you are now out $50,000+ trying to defend yourself. RPG makers don't have that kind of money to play with for legal fees so it is a moot point whether you CAN use game mechanics outside the SRD. Unless you have the money to go toe-to-toe with Hasbro, or are so small as to fly under their radar, you just should not use non-SRD based material published by WotC.And how are you going to do this without using terms like cleric, wizard, figher, class, hit points, ac, hp, experience points, 3rd level spell, feat, ranks in skills, etc? Those terms, WotC can claim, are derived from their OGC source called the SRD.Look, I don't want to be argumentative. I know where you are coming from but it is a shaky place to stand legally. IMO, discussing a shaky legal standpoint in a public thread where someone is asking about legalities is asking for trouble and more importantly does not help the person who asked the question. This argument is why I did not want to "correct your error" in the first place. Claim I quote you out of context all you want. Call me a jackass and don't apologize. I don't care.Ceogarch wants to know why publishers make vague OGC declarations and what can be done to stop them from doing so. Granted, he didn't clarify that up until a few posts ago. But the ability to use Epic Handbook sources based on copyright law has nothing to do with that, it's not even on topic.</blockquote>

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