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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 952830" data-attributes="member: 2013">rpgHQ:You clearly do not completely understand the issues involved here.  As Joe has said, this is a forum for what you can and cannot do under the terms of the Open Game License... and you are getting hung up on "copyright" issues alone, without looking at how the Open Game License works with them.  You must understand how both work together to meaningfully discuss things - you cannot try to look at one or the other individually and then apply it to the marriage of the two, any more than you can look at my wife individually and try to apply her qualities (long hair and secondary female characteristics) to our qualities as a couple.Let me make this VERY, VERY, VERY, simple.The Open Gaming License does NOT trump copyright law.  The only reason copyright law enters into the equation is that you are being given permission to use copyrighted material - OGC - in the contract that is the OGL - you are being given permission to do something the law normally forbids.The Open Gaming License falls under contract law.Contract law relies on multiple parties agreeing to a set of terms.Among those terms must be "grant and consideration" - IOW, each party must receive something of value from another party.Under copyright law, you do not have the license to copy and make derivative works of material copyrighted by another.Your point about "ideas, et al" under copyright is well-taken - that is why (to use my earlier example), GURPS and Palladium (to name two systems) had spells called "fireball" prior to the advent of the OGL.  Under copyright law you are allowed to do so.However, the "Grant and Consideration" clause in contract law comes into play when you publish under the OGL.  The OGL is an agreement in which you receive value - the right to re-use, derive from, and otherwise make use of copyrighted (and copyrightable) material as though it was your own.  The value that other parties (specifically, WotC and any other OGL publisher whose work you reference) receive from you is your agreement to (a) release your derivative work as Open Game Content AND (b) that you agree not to use any of their PI terms - even though you could normally do so under copyright law.  Your agreement not to do so does have value to another party.Read that last little bit again - "what you pay" for the right to use others' copyrighted material is that you agree that you will give others the same right AND you will avoid using certain terms.  This does not "trump" copyright - rather, it is a "payment" on your part - you "pay" your right to use X and Y - which you could normally use under copyright law - in exchange for them giving you the right to use A, B, C, D, E, and on through W.For a third time, to make it perfectly clear - in exchange for rights you don't ordinarily have ("right to use A, B, C... W") you give the other publisher rights he doesn't ordinarily have ("right to restrict use of X and Y").  Grant and consideration.If you do not wish give up and that "payment" of your rights under copyright law, that is your perogative - but that means that the other party is under no obligation to grant you any rights that copyright law ordinarily denies you (derivative work rights and use of A, B, C,...W).Why is this important?The d20 system, as an abstract ruleset, is not copyrightable.  The System Reference Document, however, as a substantial literary work is.Because, to my knowledge, no one has reduced the System Reference Document to a series of mathematical formulae, you cannot create a Feat, a d20-compatible spell, etc. without clearly having used the System Reference Doucment as a point of reference.  That makes your work a derivative work of copyrighted material (the System Reference Document).  In order to create a Spell, Feat, or what have you that is NOT a derivative work, you must start from ground zero and build your own gaming framework from scratch - and *without* using the SRD as a reference point to start from (otherwise you have - you guessed it - a derivative work, verboten by copyright law).SUMMARY:* The OGL does NOT trump copyright law.* The OGL IS a contract.* This contract says, in effect, "you agree not to use our PI - your agreement to do so has value to us.  In exchange, we grant you the right to use our OGC - our agreement to do so has value to you."  You thus have exchange of value - and a valid contract.* If you use PI after agreeing not to use it, you are in breach of contract, and your right to use someone else's OGC goes away - in other words, you go back to standard copyright law... Basically, you have a choice:You can use other folks' PI (under the "Fair Use" restrictions of copyright law - which will be considerably more stringent than the uses of OGC allowed by the OGL) OR You can use other folks' OGC (under the terms of the OGL) But you can't do both at once because the terms of the OGL include you agreeing of your own free will not to use other folks' PI.  As soon as you break that agreement, you relinquish your right to use of OGC (save as normally allowed by fair use).If you try to use OGC under the OGL and also use PI, you can be sued under contract law for breach of contract (using PI when you agreed not do) and/or under copyright law for copyright infringement (use of copyrighted material - OGC - without permission, since permission was terminated when you used PI).Is that clear yet?  I hope so.(Copied and reposted an example I came up with on another thread):As a simpler example:I agree to give you five dollars. In return, you agree never to use the word "Sigil" in a post on ENWorld. Is this a valid contract? Yes... I gave you something of value (five bucks) and you gave me something of value (a guarantee that you personally will not dilute by use the word, "sigil" - which lack of dilution I value, for whatever odd reason).If you take the five dollars, and then use the word "Sigil" in a post - even if you're referring to "a wizard's sigil" or "a word alphabetically between red and zebra" - even though copyright law allows you to do so - you are in breach of contract and you have to give me my five dollars back.Similarly, if you take OGC, and then use a PI'd word in your work, you are in breach of contract and you have to give the OGC back (you stop using it). Does that make it a little clearer?--The Sigil</blockquote>

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