HOW is this an OGC decleration?

[Yair]

A few more replies.

That would be a mistake. You are not in a position to make that claim and have it universally accepted. Anyone who wants to properly use OGC has to accept whatever designation anyone else uses or seek whatever remedy the licensing allows. If you feel the designation is unclear, avoid the material or take the party to court if you feel that is advisable or get WotC to take them to court if you feel that is proper.

I don't think it's right, but I am not a lawyer and am certainly not expecting my view to be universally accepted (even though I'm right ).
When it comes to actually using his OGC, I am accepting it. I just seek to understand it.

No, he didn't. He gave permission, through the license, to use the OGC he has released from that product. Be specific, please, lest you cause others through the same inaccurate use of language to make similar mistakes.

I am not using perfectly accurate language here, I admit. I'll try to be more specific, since you asked.

Please, don't do that. You and I can (and always have) treat(ed) one another with more respect than that.

I do respect you Mark, and hope you wouldn't be too disappointed with me.
But in my humble opionion this designation is damn nigh an insult, and if I will be using stuff from this product I might as well spend the time to present it in a less insulting manner. I'm not out to cost Wulf money, whatever content I release will not include portions I will not use nor content that isn't OGC, but the incentive of using a "rules bible" that I can look at without cringing at it having an incomprehensible OGC designation or being illegal is not insubstantial.

You're not going to release "Mythic Heroes" at all. That's the name of his copyrighted work. You need to be more specific (see above).

True, true.

You keep trying to force a designation that decreases the effort of your labors (the "starts (here) and stops (here)" type). [highlight]Why not take the time to write up what it is you want to use and run it by Wulf through email if you are unclear on how to separate his OGC from his non-OGC?[/highlight] You'd have to write it up anyway, so it really doesn't require any extra work.

I'm not trying to save me work, I'm a) ranting and b) trying to find out what is OGC.
If I'll write down an OGC text based on this work, I probably will send it to Wulf for acknowledgement if not approval. If he'll have any criticism over what OGC I used, I'll be more than happy to entertain it.

Wait a second.

If someone designates all the game mechanics of a text as OGC, does that include the text the author uses to describe the game mechanics?

I'll second that.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'll get over my disappointment but I think it is a waste of your time, and that of others, to go after someone's designation if the actual goal isn't to specifically use some OGC. I've done it myself (not over a designation but actual section 15 problems) in private forums and by email but only because I am truly interested in the OGC. In the end, I often wind up having to simply accept that some people aren't going to help clear up the perceived problems and the OGC will die on the vine. Some people simply do not care. I think you will find it more likely that your dream projects will come to fruition if you try not to take it personally (such as taking it as an insult) that someone else has a designation you find unclear. I wish you well and look forward to reading your posts about how your games and projects progress.

 

[DanMcS]

If someone designates all the game mechanics of a text as OGC, does that include the text the author uses to describe the game mechanics?

Yes. The OGL is a license allowing use of copyrighted materials. Open content, designated as such under the license, is the copyrighted material that can be used by others.

Game mechanics are not copyrighted. They actually cannot be, and there is case law to this effect. Someone can write a game using the exact same rules as D&D as long as they don't use their text, and it's perfectly legal under copyright law. You don't need to declare the mechanics "open", it's nonsensical, anyone can use them if they want.

The text is what is copyrighted, so by declaring your "game mechanics" as open content, you're declaring the text of them open content. The license doesn't deal with mechanics at all, it deals with copyrighted text and the ability for someone else to use it.

Or is this what the dispute is all about?

Yes. Wulf and others feel that they're being clever by trying to designate rules but not text as open content so that no one can actually use it. It doesn't work like that, but they're going to keep doing it because WotC is really the only one who could make them stop, and it's not worth their time and legal effort.

Edit: For instance, in the HoHF series, Badaxe clearly designated open content by putting designations at the bottoms of pages which said "Open Content".

In Grim Tales, the Open Gaming Content notice says "All game mechanics within this work are designated Open Content." The PI section later claims "The text and language used to describe the game mechanics in chapter Five, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve;" as product identity. These two designations directly conflict with each other, because the "text and language" ARE the game mechanics.

This is why I don't buy Badaxe products anymore, and why I discourage my friends from doing so as well. I don't want to support publishers who engage in practices like this.

 

[Mark CMG]

Wulf and others feel that they're being clever by trying to designate rules but not text as open content so that no one can actually use it.

Just in case it is not clear from the above, I am not one of those "others" and am of a mind that people who use the license should take a more magnaimous approach. Afterall, it's a huge gift getting to use the licensing from WotC, and all that goes with it. The idea of being stingy with further contributions after such a gift simply goes against the grain, IMO. However, the licensing is what it is and I have no choice but to live with its reality and defend those with whom I may not see eye to eye on its precise usage.

 

[Yair]

This is why I don't buy Badaxe products anymore, and why I discourage my friends from doing so as well. I don't want to support publishers who engage in practices like this.

I knew there was a reason I thought BAG was one of the "good guys". The first product I purchased from BAG was "Heroes of High Favor: Elves", and it has a clear designation. I didn't even look at the others. Now that I do, "Gamemastering" and "Mass-Combat" (both post-GT works) even say "the specific text and language used to describe the game mechanics in this work" is PI.
I think I'll join your buying habits in the future.

Now that I've seen that Wulf actually meant to release no OGC text, I won't be making any use of Mythic Hero's text whatsoever (in my games or as an OGC comiplation). I'll go to people with more lenient OGC declerations, like Monte Cook.
And that was a sentence I never thought I'll write.

Yair

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

If there's case law to support the assertion that game mechanics cannot by copyrighted, I'd like to see it. Even if you cannot cite it, I certainly lean towards your interpretation.

However, it's my belief that the OGL is designed to (and does) supercede standard copyright law.

Yes. Wulf and others feel that they're being clever by trying to designate rules but not text as open content so that no one can actually use it.

You have an uncanny insight into my motives. At any rate it's certainly never been the case that I object to others using my work, and in fact I actively encourage it. I am and remain one of the OGL "good guys" and the steps I take to keep my work out of the hands of the "bad guys" really don't warrant criticism.

In Grim Tales, the Open Gaming Content notice says "All game mechanics within this work are designated Open Content." The PI section later claims "The text and language used to describe the game mechanics in chapter Five, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve;" as product identity. These two designations directly conflict with each other, because the "text and language" ARE the game mechanics.

We certainly disagree here. Obviously, there is a point at which the game mechanic cannot be more simply or differently expressed.

That has no bearing on my belief that my particular writing style, that the game mechanics as expressed by me, is Product Identity worthy of protection.

Understanding and absorbing a process or concept, and then re-expressing that concept in your own words, is achievable by the average 10th grader. Hopefully that doesn't set the bar too high for the average RPG publisher.

There are times when I object to others copying my work verbatim.

I pretty much view the body of potential OGC reusers along two axes. Relevant or irrelevant, responsible or irresponsible.

Yair's described a use for Mythic Heroes in his home campaign that I consider responsible and irrelevant. No problem.

It's possible there are folks out there who will be irresponsible and irrelevant. I'm not particularly concerned with that, either.

My concern is with folks who use my OGC in a way that is both irresponsible and relevant.

I knew there was a reason I thought BAG was one of the "good guys". The first product I purchased from BAG was "Heroes of High Favor: Elves", and it has a clear designation.

That designation encouraged others to copy the text and reuse it verbatim. I don't believe that's a proper or responsible use of Open Content.

From the discussion in the Wiki thread, I already know you disagree.

 

[DanMcS]

If there's case law to support the assertion that game mechanics cannot by copyrighted, I'd like to see it. Even if you cannot cite it, I certainly lean towards your interpretation.

Here's one from the US Copyright office, which actually wasn't around the last time I looked up this topic. It's nice to see the government putting up useful, straightforward answers about this sort of thing.

Skotos.net has a good series of articles on IP law as it relates to games, the first of which is about copyright.

Here's an analysis of the case I was looking for, Allen vs Academic Games. The ruling noted that:

"A copyright only protects a particular expression of an idea and not the idea itself Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 218 (1954). Thus, ideas contained in a copyrighted work may be freely used so long as the copyrighted expression is not wholly appropriated."

and

"Here, Allen has not shown that it is possible to distinguish the expression of the rules of his game manuals from the idea of the rules themselves. Thus, the doctrine of merger applies and although Allen may be entitled to copyright protection for the physical form of his games, he is not afforded protection for the premises or ideas underlying those games."

The merger doctrine (in the US) says that some ideas may be intelligibly expressed in a limited number of ways. The idea-expression divide doesn't apply since the expression is "inextricably merged" with the idea. This may mean that expressions of this type cannot be copyrighted, or it may just be an affirmative defense to copyright infringement, apparently there is mixed case law on that.

 

[Yair]

I want to add that the school of thought that claims that OGC can include abstract ideas and that text describing OGC mechanicss can be PI is entirely new to me. My instinct is to deny it, but I will give the matter some thought.

Wulf and I clearly disagree on what the OGL allows and means, what is a responsible and irresponsible use of OGC, and what seperates the "good guys" from the "bad guys" in this regard. I don't think we can bridge our differences.
It's a shame. I consider the Mass-Combat and Gamemastering pdfs to be sheer brilliance, and now I won't ever use them again.

Yair

 

[jeffh]

If someone designates all the game mechanics of a text as OGC...

I'd just like to take a moment to point out - and I suspect this is the root of the problem - that, assuming Yair has quoted it correctly, this is not actually what the OGL declaration in question does. That may very well be what it was intended to say, but it isn't what it actually says.

It says the OGC consists of game mechanics. It does not say that it consists of all the game mechanics, or even that any of the mechanics are open. It just says that, whatever is open, it consists only of game mechanics. It is of no help whatsoever in terms of which mechanics.

 

[BSF]

Wulf,
As somebody peripherally interested in the OGL and it's implications, I find the topic interesting. Am I understanding you correctly in the following?

You have done the work to create mechanics and you have provided language to understand how to use those mechanics.
You encourage people to reuse those mechanics.
But you do not wish people to, essentially, copy/paste the language used to describe how to use the mechanics. You want people to rewrite that text for themselves. Perhaps even adding to it overall?

Is my understanding correct there?