Goodman Games Releasing 4e Adventures Prior to October 1st

[Spinachcat]

I agree that the most logical speculation is the "special agreement" between Goodman / WotC. That sounds most probable in an Occam's Razor way of thinking.

I have studied US copyright/fair use laws and I doubt that would be the choice of anyone advertising a 4e D&D product. Those laws are what protected Palladium and Ultima in the early days of RPGs when they created games similiar to D&D, but safely different enough to be considered unique products. I have never seen anything in copyright / fair use law that would allow you to write an adventure using the 4e rules and then label your product with the Product Identity of a competing company.

Copyright laws are NOT what the internet thinks they are. They are in parts far stricter and other parts far looser than what people believe. If you have a spare afternoon and some Tylenol, give the basic laws a thorough reading.

 

[Scribble]

I have never seen anything in copyright / fair use law that would allow you to write an adventure using the 4e rules and then label your product with the Product Identity of a competing company.

Are they doing this though? What product ID are they using?

 

[Treebore]

Are they doing this though? What product ID are they using?

So far as can be seen? 4E, and that is not copyrightable or covered by Trademark.

Spinachat, I have read the laws, and attended many seminars on copyright law due to my wifes working as a medical research librarian at MUSC, and since she wanted to become a published author, and since has become one, I attended those seminars with her.

I agree with what your saying, but my opinion differs in that going the copyright route instead of the GSL is very doable and can be very worthwhile in comparison to given total control of your future to the good will of WOTC.

I do think the most likely scenario with GG is that he got special permission from WOTC to publish early. However Joe has surprised me a couple of times before, so I can't rule out that he went the copyright/trademark route (to be referred to as the C/T route from now on).

Like I said before, Joe is a smart guy and obviously not afraid to try things likely to fail, or else Goodman Games wouldn't exist in the first place.

So even though I think the "special permission" is the most likely scenario, Joe definitely has the brains and courage to go the C/T route.

 

[philreed]

. . . and then label your product with the Product Identity of a competing company.

PI is OGL-speak and has nothing to do with US copyright or trademark law.

I can't see any answer except following copyright law. If the GSL was a useful document, I would expect publishers to use it. As it is, though, I fully expect publishers to ignore the GSL and proceed down the path of legal options.

Keep in mind that there are both Axis & Allies and Risk variants/support products on the market and Hasbro has not shut those down.

 

[Alzrius]

I agree with the people who think that Goodman Games is opting to use the copyright rules for publishing a compatible product. After all, they're not using the D&D logo, which is pretty much the only benefit of the GSL. Further, even their web pages for those products list the rules set as being "4E" rather than D&D.

There's no other real explanation. Even a special agreement with WotC would have them using the D&D logo.

 

[The Little Raven]

I agree with the people who think that Goodman Games is opting to use the copyright rules for publishing a compatible product. After all, they're not using the D&D logo, which is pretty much the only benefit of the GSL. Further, even their web pages for those products list the rules set as being "4E" rather than D&D.

They'd just better be careful. Wizards was almost buried by Palladium for the same thing because of the Primal Order, which didn't feature a logo or anything, just references to Palladium material. Though Wizards might not win the case, could Goodman survive a drawn out legal battle against them?

 

[Garnfellow]

SJGames released dozens of 3.x articles in Pyramid magazine without use of the OGL. They used a thing known as copyright law to put those articles out. I can't imagine they would do anything but applaud GG doing the same thing for 4e. Heck, I'll bet they publish some 4e articles themselves in the same manner at some point.

Are you sure they didn't use the OGL? SJGames' big run at the d20 market was a weekly eZine that used OGL. (I think it was called d20 Weekly?) And ran for maybe a year before they shut it down and folded all its articles into the Pyramid archives.

 

[pemerton]

Keep in mind that there are both Axis & Allies and Risk variants/support products on the market and Hasbro has not shut those down.

This is a far more useful analogy then an earlier one from some other poster about after-sale car parts. (I had been thinking of posting a hypothetical, of someone other than Games Workshop releasing a Talisman expansion.)

Like such support products, a 4e module is useful to its intended market only because that market is using WoTC's IP, and because that market will understand certain of the words occuring in the module as referring to aspects of that WoTC IP. Unlike those support products, the actual amount of IP that is implicated is much greater - 100s of pages of rulebooks rather than maps and comparatively brief rules texts.

LIke such support products, a 4e module also obtains a market at least in part because of the goodwill that WoTC enjoys in that same market.

These are the features of the situation that make me think the copyright/trademark route may not be as straightforward as some are suggesting.

The goodwill issue is not something I have any competence to elaborate on, but one way of dealing with the copyright issue might be to do what someone else suggested above, and include no stats at all except generic descriptions using non-copyrighted/non-trademarked descriptions (goblin level 2 x2, etc). The module text would then, in effect, be nothing but fluff (which just happens to generate a playable D&D adventure when read in the context of the 4e core rulebooks).

Once the module text starts to use power descriptions (for example) which are obviously intended to be read in conjunction with the conditions descriptions on p 277 of the PHB, and the power rules on pp 54-59, then I think it all gets a lot murkier.

I will certainly be interested to see what Goodman Games is doing.

 

[Delta]

For those who missed it, I did create a poll for people to register their best guess as to exactly what Goodman Games is doing for a license:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=232730

 

[kave99]

can the little guy win against the big guy? the answer is yes. Last year i worked on a move called Flash of Genius about Robert Kearns' long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, and ford played the kind of hard ball that would loss WotC a lot customers. now that case has little to do with the issue at hand, just proves that you can fight the big guy.

Hasbro new that the OGL was out there when they bought WotC, so they will have to live with it. the GSL will not convince any one to give up the OGL . I don't know about you but I can live with out dragonborn and the shadowfell etc. It probably doesn't help that WotC just hired a new lawyer to handle all this and a new CEO. {boy would I love to know What went down over the last 6 months at WotC}