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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6020705" data-attributes="member: 42582">Suppose you publish an RPG book that reproduces the rules for Burning Wheel. And you include a declaration at the end of your book, that all the material within is OGC within the meaning of the Open Gaming Licence version 1.0a, and that "permission to copy, modify and distribute" your book's content "is granted solely through the use of" that licence. (My quotes are taken from the file "legal.rtf" which is part of the 3.5 SRD files.)If I take you at your word, and start publishing an OGL variant of Burning Wheel, Luke Crane is fully within his rights to pursue me! You can't grant me permission in respect of Luke Crane's work that you don't actually enjoy. And I can't defend myself against Luke Crane by arguing that I took your declaration of OGC in good faith, or that I can't be expected to know whether or not Luke Crane privately authorised you to release Burning Wheel as OGC.The situation in the Pathfinder/Paizo case is not quite the same as the scenario I've just described, because the text of Polar Ray has in fact been made OGC by WotC. But they have granted the permission to copy, modify and distribute solely through the use of the OGL. Insofar as the Pathfinder website is copying, modifying and distributing some other way (because as far as I can see they are not in conformity with the OGL, given the deficiency in their Section 15 declaration, and the material seemingly not having been made OGC by Paizo, given the apparent deficiency in its Section 15 declaration), they are using the material without permission.Notice from the owner of the material which has been copied, modified and/or distributed without permission would certainly be one way to trigger the 30 day period. I don't think it is the only way, though - Section 13 talks about "becoming aware", not "receiving notice". Observations from third parties would be another way of becoming aware.I don't have a practising certificate in either Australia or the US - I'm an academic lawyer, not a practicising one! So I'm not in the business of giving legal advice, solicited or otherwise.But - assuming that the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook has the same Section 15 declaration as the Pathfinder Beta PDF has - I am utterly amazed at Paizo's error in this respect. I mean, MonteCook was able to get it right, and his was pretty much a two-person show, I think (him and Sue). It's not that hard to read the "legal.rtf" file in the 3.5 SRD and cut and paste the copyright text in WotC's Section 15 declaration.Upthread, I tried to estimate the size of Paizo's PF business, and came up with the (possibly completely erroneous!) figure of $10,000,000. You'd think that with a turnover of that size (or in that order of magnitude), in a business based entirely on using the licensed material of another company, that you might spruik the money for a commercial lawyer to look over the key documentation that ensures your compliance with the terms of the licence. Anyway, as it is it seems to me that WotC could give Paizo notice under Section 13 and require them to cure the breach. I'm not sure how expensive that would be for Paizo - I'm thinking stickers in books and changes to PDFs, and I imagine they would be sending copies of stickers to distributors also.Anyway, I'm going to call [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] and see if he turns up - another academic lawyer, but with a better knowledge than me of contract law and IP law. Maybe he'll see something that I've missed that explains how Paizo is not in breach (assuming that their Section 15 declaration really is to the wrong version of the SRD).</blockquote>

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