More info about this OSRIC thing?

[Janx]

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.



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 "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.

Are you a millionaire?

America works the same way, loser pays. But if one side can keep the legal proceedings going longer, the other side may backout, because they can't afford to keep paying their lawyer (or other costs) that it takes to make in until then. It's probably not a problem if the lawyer agrees to bill you at the end, but if there's ongoing legal fees....that's how the big companies eat the little ones.

 

[Ourph]

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).

Issuing a TakeDown order against another publisher when you don't have any court decision backing up your claim that the document in question is infringing on your copyrights might be construed as a violation of anti-trust laws. I doubt the WotC/Hasbro legal departments would be that precipitous.

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.

Ryan would be right if game rules weren't specifically excluded from protection under copyright law. The US copyright office explains this all pretty clearly here...

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

Particularly....

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

That also takes care of any arguments based on Derivative Works and Fair Use. Those are both terms used to describe facets of copyright law. If the works in question aren't subject to copyright, those terms and the rules and concepts they represent, don't apply.

 

[GQuail]

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

If there's one thing recent news has taught us Brits, though, it's that your argument would most likely fall on deaf ears.

The internet has opened up a whole new can on worms re: the legal implications of doing stuff online - this would not be th first time the question of jurisdiction has come up.

 

[Ranger REG]

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

Are you saying that a copyrighted book from a non-British country have no legal status in the British court because it is not copyrighted on British soil?

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

If you stand by your documents that the text are all yours and not lifted from a copyrighted book -- or that some or all text come from the SRD with the SRD cited in Section 15 of your OGL attached to the documents -- then you should have no problem. It's not about making money off of the documents, the legal keyword is distribution.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Are you saying that a copyrighted book from a non-British country have no legal status in the British court because it is not copyrighted on British soil?

I made that remark in response to a specific point about legal fees, which don't work quite the same way under the law of England and Wales as they do under US law. I didn't say anything about copyright.

Great Britain is a signatory to the Berne Convention which governs how international copyright matters should be handled.

If you stand by your documents that the text are all yours and not lifted from a copyrighted book -- or that some or all text come from the SRD with the SRD cited in Section 15 of your OGL attached to the documents -- then you should have no problem. It's not about making money off of the documents, the legal keyword is distribution.

Thank you. I wish more people agreed with you.

Does anyone have a substantive question about OSRIC itself? I don't really want to keep answering questions about copyright.

 

[tx7321]

Will OSRIC be sold as a book before the holidays?

 

[Ranger REG]

Thank you. I wish more people agreed with you.

I just want you to be sure you're on "safe harbor," that's all.

 

[Wasgo]

If someone wanted to make an OSRIC Player's Handbook or DM's guide, would they have to contact you about it? The OSRIC license appears to not allow for whole republishing of the rules, which a PHB or DMG would probably substantially do.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Will OSRIC be sold as a book before the holidays?

If you mean before Christmas, then certainly yes. There's a pretty good chance I'll be putting out version 0.04 in the next few weeks, with some more cleaned up text, and I think v0.04 will be "finished".

If none of the readers spots any textual problems with it, then 0.04 will become OSRIC 1.0 which is the one that gets uploaded to Lulu so you can order it as a dead tree product.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

If someone wanted to make an OSRIC Player's Handbook or DM's guide, would they have to contact you about it? The OSRIC license appears to not allow for whole republishing of the rules, which a PHB or DMG would probably substantially do.

Depends on the precise content, but probably yes, I'm afraid.

The clause about wholesale republishing of the rules is there for several reasons.

First, the OSRIC rules are free in .pdf and will be sold at cost in print, and I intend that they should remain so. I don't want anyone else republishing the rules and lining their own pocket when I'm distributing it free.

Second, I don't want to see OSRIC "revised" by anyone except me, because I'm comfortable with its legal status at the moment, but even a small "correction" by a well-meaning fan could potentially put me deeply in legal trouble.