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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 3203877" data-attributes="member: 40522">Check out coyright law (in the United States) for yourself:<a href="http://www.copyright.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.copyright.gov/</a>I'm a writer myself. I've never published OGL material, I have only done screenplays so far. But it seems like you could use this material if you rewrote it so it susbtantially did not look like the original.There's alot that's not covered under copyright law.What Is Not Protected by Copyright?Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others: Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded)Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contentsIdeas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustrationWorks consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)This is the basis under which studios will listen to a pitch, decline to pay a writer for his script, and then get one of their staff writers (they're usually credited as 'producers') to write their own version of a script. They can legally get away from listening to your idea for a movie, paying nothing for it, and then using it as long as they change the specifics of the names, locations, and dialogue. This is one of the big reasons that most everybody that writes scripts is a member of the WGA or at least registers their scripts with them. Furthermore, the ideas and procedures for a game itself are expressly not covered under copyright law right now:<a href="http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html" target="_blank">http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html</a>The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable.T$R tried to stop people from publishing material on their own personal sites in the mid-90's and couldn't get it to court on this basis. It'd seem to me that you could rephrase these elements into your own words and be on reasonably solid ground, as long as you weren't using the exact phrasing or copying illustrations from the manuals or anything like that.But still, what's legal and what's ethical are two very different things. There'd be alot of people who'd think that's awful shady. I'd certainly wonder why you couldn't get clearances. I'd try to secure permission so you could use the exact material first. Although I can't imagine what material you want to use that's so vitally important to your material.</blockquote>

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