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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5494352" data-attributes="member: 463">Under UK copyright law, short phrases like 'Player's Handbook' or 'Sly Flourish' simply don't meet the substantiality requirement for copyright protection.  What you say about 'functionality' and 'transformative use' is interesting, they show a very different approach than in UK copyright law.The approach under UK or UK-derived copyright would be that the words 'Sly Flourish' or 'Bulette' are not protected, rules mechanics per se are not protected, but the text describing the power or monster can be protected, and I think less regard would be given to whether the WotC text was the only or best way to describe how the power or monster works.  Re monster stat blocks; the monster's in-game statistics would probably not be protected, but the formatting of the WoTC stat block probably would be protected against copying, even if it is the 'best' way to present the monster.Another difference from US law is that the UK does not protect vs 'derivative works', we protect vs 'adaptations' - US "derivative work" doctrine has extended beyond adaptations at least in some states.  In the UK it would be hard to use copyright to prevent somebody publishing a work set in the same fictional setting as your fantasy universe (Eberron, Greyhawk etc); Trade Mark and Passing Off law would be better bets unless the work made it very clear it was unauthorised.  You'd have to show the new work 'took the heart' of your work (Herbert vs Ravenscroft) which is not easy.Finally, I do agree with you that it's certainly possible to publish 4e-compatible material without using the GSL, without infringing copyright, and without doing anything questionable.  The pre-GSL 4e Kalamar (Kenzer) or Goodman Games' DCCs are good examples; although in the latter case they also did several things they didn't need to such as using different words for game-terms like Bloodied; that has no legal effect AFAICS.Anyway thanks for your interesting article and response.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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