Legality Question??

[AnimeSniper]

So this is simply a question on whether it is legal or illegal to use another's published creators work in ones own upcoming possible publication Mainly PDF's.

For example if I were to republish the material in the Bleeding Edge- Ammunition PDF by Devils Workshop and The Game Mechanics Ammunition Variants PDF as it is written originally it would be copyright infringement lawsuit .

However, if I were to expand upon them by adding material not originally within them, i.e. Table Lists/PDC's, and things like other ammunition types would I be fine.

 

[LordEntrails]

Maybe. You really haven't given us enough info to even give you a useless internet opinion.

You're talking about derivative works, and what is legal and not is going to depend upon two main factors; 1) Jurisdiction, 2) Luck.

Any opinions here are really going to be pretty useless unless you can give details that put you in one of a well known situations (such as OGL or Creative Commons derivitive works).

 

[Morrus]

You can't republish somebody else's work unless it has been released to you under some kind of public/open or private license. Adding extra content to it doesn't change that. You can, under some circumstances, quote small portions of another's work under the doctrines of fair use. Those circumstances are fairly well defined in most jurisdictions.

Has the work in question been released as Open Gaming Content, or under some similar license?

 

[AnimeSniper]

First off sorry for the lack of details but on to the reply.

Both the above mentioned works are OGL version 1.0a at the end of the PDF's... most of the short accessory PDF's that I have the OGL 1.0a at the end and most were obtained from RPGnow.com and their subdomains.

I know that I can't republish someone else's hard work word-for-word, i.e. Exodus without the aforementioned licensing rights to do so

 

[Morrus]

First off sorry for the lack of details but on to the reply.

Both the above mentioned works are OGL version 1.0a at the end of the PDF's... most of the short accessory PDF's that I have the OGL 1.0a at the end and most were obtained from RPGnow.com and their subdomains.

I know that I can't republish someone else's hard work word-for-word, i.e. Exodus without the aforementioned licensing rights to do so

Then the answer is that you simply need to follow the terms of the OGL. It explains exactly what you need to do in its own text. Each product will (should) identify which portions of it are OGC and available for your use. Assuming you've identified the OGC portion, you can reuse that in your own product as long as you do what the OGL says.

If you have any specific questions about any terms in the OGL you don't understand, feel free to ask. I'm sure we can help.

 

[AnimeSniper]

Thanks because will all my loose pages of homebrew notes on various topics related to the obscure D20 Modern and its cohorts I've been thinking maybe I could post a no bells-and-whistles basic word PDF on RPG Now or somewhere else