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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hudarklord" data-source="post: 969360" data-attributes="member: 10932">Actually, Green Ronin and a couple of other publishers have specifically chosen not to agree with #1 above.  They have PI'd mechanics.  I think the license can be read as to allow for this.Consider this.  A person is allergic to strawberries, but likes many other fruits.  They might say, "my grocery list includes fruit, but specifically excludes strawberries."Got it?  So the statement of inclusion does NOT have to be read as specifically including ALL fruit.Let's look at the OGL:Note that when something might otherwise OGC but it is specified as PI, then it is NOT OGC.  Whenever the methods, procedures, processes, and routines embody PI, then they are NOT OGC.Most people mistakenly believe that PI is only trademark and art.  It isn't.If you come up with your very own mechanics and insert them into a work, then you can declare the "language" you explain them with, any "thematic elements" created or embodied by those mechanics, and any "concepts" behind those mechanics as Product Identity.Mongoose frequently used to open their mechanics but not their language.  Green Ronin has, in at least one product, de facto locked down concepts as well, closing off an entire section of new rules as PI.Under U.S. copyright law (with the OGC definition "reads in"), if you don't demand that I sign over copyrights of my derivative works when you license me to make a derivative work, then I gain a copyright on any newly added materials.  You don't get copyright on that stuff.  Insofar as it can only exist alongside your material usefully, then it is only useful in a licensed product.  But if I can sift out your copyrighted stuff, I could republish my additions separately, since I'm the copyright owner.As a copyright owner, I have the right to contribute stuff as OGC or to lock it down as PI, but this is most applicable when I can clearly separate my stuff from your stuff (so that I don't inadvertently declare as PI some of your language and concepts).So, theoretically, I believe you could lock down mechanics under the OGL.  However, this is _very_ limited protection.  Mechanics, by themselves, without an accompanying presentational framework, are not copyrightable.  So, unless you need to cite the product that has the locked down PI mechanic in it in your Section 15, you could borrow the ideas, rewrite your own rules section, and then introduce it into a product as OGC, PI, or whatever.  Provided you used your own language and structure for the presentation of that rules subsection, the originator of the concept would have no claim to copyright violation.  It should be noted that part of your work sort of steps outside the legal safe harbor of the OGL via this method.So, I think that PI'ing rules might be do-able, but it's practically pointless.  Simpler -- PI the descriptive language (as language), PI the gamespeak terms (as language/concepts), PI your layout of those sections to be protected (as formats), and then OGC the rules.  That'll de facto give you about the same level of protection for your product without raising a dust storm over whether or not you had the right to PI your mechanics.  It only leaves out one layer of protection -- that, by this method, people could copy all your OGC, rewrite your protected sections, and republish your book, by Section 15'ing the product.Green Ronin OGC'd so much of their product, that they did NOT want people to be able to both Section 15 the product for OGC use and to adapt the PI concepts.The weird thing about the Green Ronin product I mentioned, is that they PI'd certain point costs, and PI'd certain "gamespeak" phrases, but they opened up as OGC the method by which you derive the costs.  Now that was pretty odd.  It almost seems like if you derived the costs via the formula (which they left as OGC to allow you to publish your own lists of powers, provided you didn't use their gamespeak), then you could get the numbers right back without directly deriving them from the protected sections, but rather by deriving them from the unprotected sections.  I think this was some bizarre SNAFU and the OGC/PI declaration could thus be much clearer, but that's just an aside.  I think I've now seen two different major d20 content publishers slap a PI declaration on rules that they created exogenous of the SRD and/or the d20 system.Lee</blockquote>

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