Game settings and copyright law

[Dykstrav]

Use existing similar OGC spells or feats or make up your own ones for those niches that you can derive from OGC (such as the srd).

This would be very easy. See if you can tell what feat (from the SRD) this is:

Mighty Attack
At the expense of accuracy, you can make your melee attacks hit harder.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1 or higher, Strength score must be 13 or higher.
Benefit: As a free action on your turn (before you've made any attack rolls) you can voluntarily take a penalty to your melee attack rolls (ranging from -1 up to the value of your base attack bonus). If you hit despite the penalty, you get to add the value of the penalty to your damage roll. These penalties and bonuses apply until your next turn.
Special: A fighter can select Mighty Attack as one of his bonus feats. Light weapons don't let you get the bonus damage on attacks but you still have to take the penalties. (This provision doesn't apply to unarmed attacks or natural attacks.) If you're wielding a single weapon with two hands, you can add the damage to bonus twice.

That took something like a minute to figure out how to rephrase and another minute to type out. If it's only a very few things you might consider making your own statistically close versions like that.

 

[Glyfair]

2. When you are ready to publish, get an intellectual property lawyer to help you figure out what you can & what you can't publish.

This is really the crux of the matter. If you are going to publish and use anything from another source, you should hire an IP specialized lawyer and make sure you are in the clear. If you can't afford that, then stay away from anything from another source.

 

[arscott]

Yes, but how exactly is that prohibition enforced?

It isn't. Even if a company found out about it, it's almost never worth it for them to sue for such minor offenses.

Actually according to copywrite law: Up to 10% of any copywrited material can be used in another publication by someone other than teh copywrite holder and still not violate copywrite law. So the trick is to figure out if the entire book is copywrited as a whole, or if the individual pieces you are wanting to use are copywrted seperately.

Not unless you're looking at very different US laws than I am. Amount copied is one of the criteria by which the court decides whether a specific use of copyrighted material is genuine fair use, but there's no specific percentage attached to that. And even then, that only applies if the material is being used for fair use purposes "such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research"

 

[Dykstrav]

Yes, but how exactly is that prohibition enforced?

I've seen a few infringement suits play out. Fortunately I haven't been personally involved with them yet, but it generally boils down to the following process.

1) Cease and desist letter: The copyright holder makes a nice letter and sends it to you politely informing you that they believe you are infringing on their copyright, and if you don't stop they'll take you to court over it. If you stop distributing the material at this point, that's probably all there is to it.
2) You go to court (assuming that you didn't stop distributing the material). Unless you have a good lawyer you don't want it to get to this point. Essentially, an infringement case hinges on the copyright holder being able to prove that they lost money because of what you did. If you are found to be infringing, they estimate damages (which you pay to the copyright holder) and issue you an injunction against using the material.

Check out the Ghettopoly case, it even involved Hasbro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettopoly

Even in this case, however, a default judgement was rendered on the behalf of Hasbro because the defendant couldn't produce documents. The focus wasn't on whether or not Chang had copied the rules (which are copyrighted) but that by using the "-opoly" suffix he'd infringed on their trademark on the term "MONOPOLY" in the context of a board game.

We do know that alot of this sort of thing happens and just flies under the radar. There are, for example, fan shows based on Star Trek that Paramount just doesn't think are worth shutting down. People have even re-shot entire movies in their backyards and distributed them without reprisal, simply because the copyright holders realize that these people aren't a threat to their bottom line.

If you are going to publish and use anything from another source, you should hire an IP specialized lawyer and make sure you are in the clear. If you can't afford that, then stay away from anything from another source.

This is the best advice you can get. Even if you use 100% original material, you should always get a lawyer to do clearances for you. Fortunately, there are usually enough lawyers that want to do entertainment law that they'll do it pro bono in most cases (this is the only way I get a lawyer to check my material before I publish it).

 

[ChimericDream]

Wow... that's a lot of great suggestions. It's looking more and more like I'll be rewriting quite a bit of the content that isn't OGL. That's not so bad, though. Honestly, mechanics have been the easy part for me, and the actual story writing and things are the hard parts. One of the problems is that I have too many ideas that I want to use, and not the personal writing experience to put them to paper (or screen...).

I'm definitely interested in more opinions. There has been a lot of good stuff in this thread, and I'm sure other people could benefit from some of the responses. Of course, few responses weigh more heavily than "Make sure to talk to a lawyer before you do anything." I think that sums up a lot of what's said above, but there are some good alternatives as well.

 

[RFisher]

The long and short is, to be legit, you are going to have to rewrite portions of it if you are going to distribute it.

Do not underestimate the pain of this task if your campaign setting is at all detailed.

() If you're going to distribute it you should go through a rewrite anyway. Standard writing procedure: Write. Rewrite. Repeat.

 

[Enforcer]

I think the only thing you should take away about copyright and IP law from this thread is that a copyright/IP lawyer knows a LOT more about it than the various gamers, writers, and publishers who have posted here.

I'm not a lawyer, but if you're serious about this project, you should get one. And I'd take everything said here with a Volvo-sized grain of salt until a specialized copyright/IP lawyer confirms it.

 

[ChimericDream]

I think the only thing you should take away about copyright and IP law from this thread is that a copyright/IP lawyer knows a LOT more about it than the various gamers, writers, and publishers who have posted here.

I'm not a lawyer, but if you're serious about this project, you should get one. And I'd take everything said here with a Volvo-sized grain of salt until a specialized copyright/IP lawyer confirms it.

I agree. That's the main thing I'm taking from this thread, but I was just curious if anyone else had already been through the process. I am not what you'd call a "regular" author / game writer. I just enjoy coming up with things for my setting, and I could see it growing to a point in a few years that I'd like to share it and see what sort of response I get.

Here's hoping I can find a pro bono lawyer when I need one. Heaven knows I can't afford an attorney for this.

 

[Mistwell]

Wrong. If something is illegal for you to copy, then it's illegal for you to copy. That applies whether you just make a copy for your gaming group, or send a copy to every gamer in the world.

That's not quite accurate. Very little is actually "illegal to photocopy" without exception. Some national security documents, for example, have no exceptions (you need permission, period). There are numerous exceptions to general U.S. Copyright law material, and if you meet an exception then you may photocopy it within the context of that exception.

Fair Use is one example of some exceptions. There are others. Here is fair use:

The fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Another exception is the de minimis doctrine, which allows for the copying of very small or insignificant portions of existing works (it's not a fixed percentage).

Another exception is use for the purposes of parody.

In general, in my experience as an attorney for over a decade, I've found that if your use is strictly for your own personal use and does not affect the income of the original creator, nobody seems to care. I've never seen anyone sued, or even a cease and desist, because someone photocopied some pages from a book and handed it out to a handful of friends. "De minimis non curat lex" (The law does not care about trifles). However, if you are going to publish, then you should get permission, or get rid of the copyrighted material from your work.

 

[jeffh]

Actually according to copywrite law: Up to 10% of any copywrited material can be used in another publication by someone other than teh copywrite holder and still not violate copywrite law. So the trick is to figure out if the entire book is copywrited as a whole, or if the individual pieces you are wanting to use are copywrted seperately.

This is absolutely false. Please, nobody act on this information. It's just wrong.

It's a very bad idea - dangerous to yourself and others and quite possibily illegal - to post anything that can be taken as legal advice if you aren't sure you know what you're talking about. While it's up to the mods whether any action needs to be taken, I think it's important to make it clear in the strongest possible terms that doing so is a bad idea.