More info about this OSRIC thing?

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Of course OSRIC uses the OGL, too (mainly for spells if I understand correctly)

It uses the SRD for many other things as well (example: alignment). Without the OGL, there's no way that OSRIC could exist.

 

[Henry]

It uses the SRD for many other things as well (example: alignment). Without the OGL, there's no way that OSRIC could exist.

I do honestly have to hand it to you guys -- the final product is a pretty smart bit of legal-craft. Whether it ultimately sinks or swims, you made the attempt, and I toast you for it.

 

[dcas]

It uses the SRD for many other things as well (example: alignment). Without the OGL, there's no way that OSRIC could exist.

Well, I submit that it would be relatively easy to create an AD&D-compatible game, except for the spells. They are the real kicker. For example, creating compatible classes is not difficult (Warrior = Fighter, Scout = Ranger, Vandal = Barbarian, Knave = Thief, etc.), but creating a whole new list of spells for the game is difficult, and I think those who play AD&D would want to see the spells they already know rather than a whole new spell list. That is why, in my estimation, a game like OSRIC could not exist without the OGL.

 

[Henry]

...creating a whole new list of spells for the game is difficult, and I think those who play AD&D would want to see the spells they already know rather than a whole new spell list. That is why, in my estimation, a game like OSRIC could not exist without the OGL.

...and alignments, unless you went with something like "good -- amoral -- evil." Which would evoke all of NO relationship with TETCBN (The Edition that Cannot Be Named, i.e. 1st ed, as opposed to TETSNBN, i.e. 3e.)

 

[John Stark]

Before I start: I like John Stark on a personal level, and I'm deeply grateful for his support for OSRIC, but his views are his, and mine are mine. I haven't said what he's said. It's possible that I might take a similar position if challenged, but it's also possible that I might not.

As I had nothing to do with the development of OSRIC, the above is certainly a proper distinction to be made.

I'm merely expounding on my own view of OSRIC and its potential.

 

[John Stark]

The documents from the various cases between Mayfair Games and TSR over the "Role-Aids" can be found on the Internet. If I remember correctly, the cases can be summarized as follows:

(1) Mayfair said that their Role-Aids products were compatible with AD&D (without a license).
(2) TSR sued.
(3) Mayfair and TSR came to an agreement over how Role-Aids products could indicate compatibility (still no license, though).
(4) TSR bought Mayfair to court contending that they had violated that agreement.
(5) Court found that Mayfair had violated some provisions of their agreement with TSR, but not so much that the Role-Aids line could be cancelled or stopped.

Yep, that sounds about right.

If TSR did buy the Role-Aids line then I find it curious that they didn't buy the existing stock of the products (Mayfair was still selling them a short while ago, but not producing them). TSR did buy the existing stock of Dangerous Journeys (skids and skids of it, from what I've heard).

I'm about 99% positive that TSR did not acquire Mayfair or Role Aids.

 

[dcas]

I'm about 99% positive that TSR did not acquire Mayfair or Role Aids.

They certainly did not acquire Mayfair . . . Mayfair still exists and is the U.S. publisher of (among other things) Settlers of Catan.

http://www.mayfairgames.com/

Mayfair was bought by Iron Crown Enterprises in 1997.

Here's a link to the TSR vs. Mayfair case

But the same site also states that

The Role Aids line was started in 1982 by Mayfair Games. These products were marketed as usable with AD&D. In 1984 without going to court, TSR came to a legal agreement with Mayfair Games over how to use their trademark. In 1991 they sued that Mayfair had violated this agreement along with copyright and trademark laws. The end result was that the court found that some (but not all) of the Role Aids line were in accidental violation of the exact terms of the agreement and awarded some damages. However, it did not terminate the agreement or find that the line as a whole was in violation. (cf. "TSR vs Mayfair Games") Eventually, TSR bought the rights to the Role Aids line from Mayfair, and promptly dropped it. Mayfair Games eventually closed shop in 1997.

 

[Mythmere1]

The Open Game License guru, Ryan Dancey, has spoken about OSRIC's license page assertions on the ogf-l mailing list. Here it is reproduced:

[snip]

To the extent that the charts of ability scores do not represent a non-linear mathmatical function (i.e., the figures are arbitrarily made up by the original writer) they're protected by copyright and can't be reused without permission.

To the extent that the class & racial limitations and individual power descriptions and level dependent abilities and game modifiers match those of AD&D (any edition) and are not the result of a simple linear mathematical function, those templates represent selection, arrangement and presentation copyrights inherent in AD&D and suffer the same limitations.

Spell names which are not OGC but are in AD&D and are "not obvious" (i.e. they contain some creative element) are copyright by WotC.

The 'to hit' charts, to the extent that they represent non-linear functions, are protected by WotC copyright.
[snip]

I’m not Stuart’s attorney, and this isn’t in any way an official stance, so take this as you will.

Mr.Dancey’s analysis is insightful, and might even be applicable in certain areas of copyright law. It is compact and elegant. It isn’t the law, it’s an opinion about how the law should be construed, but it is a fascinating approach from the legal perspective.

The idea is that when an author has the infinite scope of numbers to choose from, his selection of particular numbers is as meaningful as the selection of a word, and thus embodies a protectable, tangible expression of creativity. Certainly, even, when numbers are used as words, this is true. If I name a fictional character 45672391, that “name” is almost certainly going to be protectable to a certain degree under copyright law in the same way that a random name using letter-characters would enjoy protection. This is not the area of copyright law that is implicated in “to-hit” tables, but it illustrates that Mr. Dancey’s theory has grounding in copyright law – just not in the applicable part of copyright law.

Also, Mr. Dancey has largely addressed the right issue in looking at OSRIC, in the sense that he realizes that we are not in any way seeking to copy the rulebooks, but the underlying, abstract and nontangible rules themselves, as expressed by numbers plus licenced reference points that give those numbers meaning. OSRIC doesn’t copy a book, it creates a numerical system compatible with the intangible rules expressed in the original books.

How does this play out in less theoretical language? It’s fascinating stuff.

There are two approaches that can be taken to illustrate why Mr. Dancey’s theory doesn’t apply to games – at least, not to tabletop games (computer games, with an infinite number of numbers available, might actually fall into this theory, but that’s not relevant here).

First test of the Dancey theory: apply it to a system that’s clearly not copyrightable and see if it generates the right answer.

Second test: go in reverse and see if the underlying principles of the Dancey theory match with the hit points table he’s specifically applying it to.

First test: Imagine that Chess has never been invented, and someone invents it today, 8/18/06. He does all the right things: trademarks the name “Chess,” and asserts a copyright over the 8x8 board, the look of the pieces, and his rulebook. A week later, someone reads the rulebook, looks at the chessboard, and manufactures an identical game, but with a different rulebook describing the same rules. (OSRIC’s rules, as has been pointed out, are not identical, but this is a hypothetical example that we want to keep clean of other issues). The name of the “new” game is “Mega.” How would a court rule? First, if the pieces look identical to the classic chess pieces, it’s probably a copyright violation (I’m not discussing trademarks). The pieces need to look different because they are like statues, and copyright law covers statues. The 8x8 gameboard is absolutely not copyrightable. We know that the law says the “rules” are not protected. Mr. Dancey’s theory would, however, initimate that the moves of the chesspieces, since they are arbitrary choices of the author not determined by any sort of formula, would be protected as an artistic expression. The original author had the full scope of moves available, and thus the knight’s peculiar move, the choice of the bishop’s diagonal move, all of these are plucked from the air. Moreover, the pawn can engage in an absolutely peculiar progression into a queen. The nature of this pawn-to-queen progression is unrelated to anything mathematical (other than the fact that the queen is one of the existing pieces). It makes sense for the pawn to perhaps gain the movement characteristics of all the pieces – but it doesn’t get the knight’s move. The moves and the progression in chess are arbitrary and cannot be explained by any formula. It is indeed the brilliance and timelessness of the game of chess that these arbitrary moves create a world of mathematical analysis of their interplay, so vast that human players still routinely defeat computers. Under Mr. Dancey’s theory that a progression must be mathematically generated, chess would seem to be the ideal test.

And yet, I cannot conceive that a judge would hold these highly arbitrary attributes of chess to be protected by copyright if chess were suddenly invented today.

The example of board games where a player’s cash or other attributes increases or decreases by the utterly non-linear changes mandated by “spaces” hit on a board is perhaps even more telling than the simpler example of chess. If I play a board game and hit a space that tells me to move using a different die than before, that’s non-linear. The non-linearity of the progression is what makes the game fun. That’s just an aside, since chess is my example, but it’s worthy of consideration.

Second test: It is true that the vast infinity of numbers, used as the source of choice, might arguably approximate the meaning of words (but see above). Let us consider to what degree the selection of numbers is infinite in a role playing game. A game is played in human dimensions. The math must be within the scope not only of human comprehension, but of easy use. Similarly, in a dice-based game, the numbers are generated on pieces of plastic with a finite number of sides. Out of this finite number of sides, in a to-hit roll, the small spread of numbers must accommodate a range of “miss” numbers and the random spread of possibilities to accommodate different classes of armor – all within the reach of easy mathematical use by a human. In human scope, the infinities of choice required to support Mr. Dancey’s theory are simply not available in practical terms.

The foreclosure of numbers and procedures for using them is precisely the reason why courts have consistently ruled that a particular use of numbers cannot be used to foreclose another game manufacturer from using the same numbers in rules, procedures, etc.

Mr. Dancey is effectively asserting that WotC would have a legal monopoly, with the right to sue, anyone using a progression such as +1, +3, +4, +20, +2 …in an area where people need to be able to add numbers in their heads. That is a limited field of numbers, far from the infinity required to support the equivalency of numbers to words.

So I think test 2 fails as well. The premise of Mr. Dancey’s theory does not match up with the practical realities of a game. This is precisely why games have their own category of copyright law; because they are played in the human dimension.

All this is in the high air of theory, of course, but I love theory.

Anyway, I think Mr. Dancey’s theory (as well as existing law, which would be applied more bluntly) fails as a theory of copyright.

 

[Janx]

Well, let's imagine that OSRIC did infringe WOTC's intellectual property or somehow breach the OGL. (It doesn't do either of these things.)

If that were the case, then WOTC's lawyers would be able to give me a specific period of time to cure the breach, or take OSRIC down. (I haven't heard anything at all from WOTC's legal department.)

If they didn't do that within a reasonable period of time after OSRIC's launch, then they would open themselves up to a defence of laches, which would quite likely mean that they would lose the rights to that IP.

Waiting for a couple of years before challenge really isn't a realistic option for them; they need to do it soon or not at all.

Too many things to say.... I'll start here:
IF WotC got hostile, all they have to do is issue a Take Down order to your ISP. (see link explaining legal bits): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCILLA

A TakeDown order would surely take the bounce out of OSRIC's bungee. And they're ridiculously easy to give (with the hard work going to get it restored).

Dancy's argument seems to be saying that the decision to grant a +4 to-hit bonus for having an 18 score (sorry, I forget the 1E table) was not mathematically deterministic (and thus not a process subject to patent law). And that therefore that would be copyrightable.

It seems that the OGL might still protect rules that state if you have X, then you get Y (per other's posts, IANAL). Additonally, these types of statements sound like rules, and rules aren't patentable. At best WotC could sue if the same wording of "if you have 18 strength, you get +4 to-hit" that appears in the 1E books. Things would have been different if TSR patented the concept of ability scores and bonuses...which is what the inventer of Chess would have had to do to protect the concept of piece transformation (pawn to queen) per reaching a predetermined objective.

Since WotC has given license to use the terms (Strength for instance), they can't sue for having Strength scores in OSRIC. If saying 18 Strength grants a +4 to-hit bonus is protected for being a rule (not copyrightable), than OSRIC seems like it would win.

The biggest risk, is that IF WotC chose to sue, they could tie up OSRIC in courts until the OSRIC folks run out of money (assuming WotC has deeper pockets). This is despite the rightness of OSRIC's case. It's just a matter of lawyers and time wasting.

Now one interesting side effect of OSRIC, is that it and C&C are both targetting "old school gamers" and "those who want simplified D&D" to some extent. C&C has a higher barrier to entry to use it than OSRIC. Therefore, publishers interested in this nice will be more likely to use OSRIC than C&C. That has an interesting economic twist on things.


Now another interesting variable. WotC is heavily invested in D20. It wins when people use its rules. It has little interest in alternatives to its product, even ones that diverge from the common d20 base (which relies on PH sales). So WotC has more to gain by NOT licensing its older engines (unless it chose to publish older engine products, such as reprinting material). Even then, reprints of 1E stuff may detract from 3e sales. The big problem TSR had was too much diversity of product (too many titles). Keeping a tight rein on control and product line has been key to WotC's success.

My guess, is WotC will enjoy the free money from re-releasing existing 1e stuff (PDF probably). If OSRIC seems problematic to them, they will send the lawyers (who are paid retainers, and have nothing better to prove the value of those retainers than to find people to sue). Otherwise, OSRIC is a clever pathway to support old-school gaming, cheaper for other publishers. The odd thing is that the owners of OSRIC don't seem to be gaining monetarily from this, though it has likely cost them money to do this.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Too many things to say.... I'll start here:
IF WotC got hostile, all they have to do is issue a Take Down order to your ISP. (see link explaining legal bits): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCILLA

A TakeDown order would surely take the bounce out of OSRIC's bungee. And they're ridiculously easy to give (with the hard work going to get it restored).

I think WOTC's lawyer's would advise them not to go this route, since it would potentially open them up for a fairly expensive anti-trust suit, which I would pursue rather energetically.

The biggest risk, is that IF WotC chose to sue, they could tie up OSRIC in courts until the OSRIC folks run out of money (assuming WotC has deeper pockets). This is despite the rightness of OSRIC's case. It's just a matter of lawyers and time wasting.

I'm British, and I would certainly argue that an American court wouldn't have jurisdiction.

Under British rules of procedure, the loser pays the winner's legal fees. Thus, the argument would need to be won on merit, not on wallet.

The odd thing is that the owners of OSRIC don't seem to be gaining monetarily from this, though it has likely cost them money to do this.

The "owners" of OSRIC are me (I own the copyright and jointly own the trademark) and Matt Finch (who jointly owns the trademark). Legal responsibility for OSRIC's publication rests entirely with me.

You're correct to say that I'm not gaining monetarily from this. There are other reasons to do things apart from money.