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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7668909" data-attributes="member: 42582">In the law of copyright and trademarks, there is no general entitlement to monopolise the production of things defined simply by loose function. For instance, WotC has no entitlement to monopolise the production of things that have the function of being useful for playing D&D.So, for instance, nothing stops me from writing a short book or pamphlet that describes a pseudo-mediaeval fantasy city, including its inhabitants, and that talks about how they might interact with player characters in various sorts of ways, leading to adventurous hijinks, and then selling that book with a blurb on it saying "Buy this book to get a fun setting for use with fantasy roleplaying games."Suppose I add in stats to my book - for NPCs, for various mechanically-defined objects, etc. There is the potential for that extra bit of writing to violate WotC's copyrights in respect of various text in its various rulebooks, but there are two complications. First, rules cannot be copyrighted, and if a given text is the only way of expressing a rule then that text can't be copyrighted. It's not clear how this legal principle applies to RPGs, but it's not necessarily in WotC's interests to litigate and find out!Second, WotC has licensed the use of various bits and pieces of its text (as published in the SRD) via the OGL, and GG may be intending to publish taking the benefit of that license, and hence replicating only licensed mechanical text. This is not free of uncertainty either, but again it's not necessarily in WotC's interests to litigate.Anyway, let's suppose for the sake of argument that GG will not be infringing any copyright that WotC has in respect of its text. (I'm not suggesting that GG is infringing; I'm just saying that the text isn't known to me, and so I can only assume that it is non-infringing.)Then the question is mostly one of trademarks: is GG trying to pass its works off as having been produced by WotC? I don't see any evidence on those covers that they are doing so. They aren't using "Dungeons & Dragons". They don't seem to be using any WotC-style logos, fonts, etc. To the best of my knowledge, WotC has not used the phrase "Fifth Edition Fantasy" on any of its products, and only uses the phrase "fifth edition" to describe other books (eg the back cover of the PHB recommends buying the "fifth edition" MM and DMG).Hence the conclusion that GG probably isn't infringing any of WotC's IP rights.</blockquote>

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