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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8925408" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that [USER=58172]@Yaarel[/USER] is making strong claims without really providing the legal analysis.For instance, if the history of the composition of the work is (1) WotC-owned SRD =&gt; (2) OGL-licensed 3PP-owned OGC=&gt; (3) &quot;serial numbers filed off&quot; 3PP unlicensed material, what liability might that 3PP have to WotC?I don't think we can answer that question just by saying that &quot;rules can't be copyrighted&quot;, or pointing out that it might have been possible for the 3PP to get to the same place via a different pathway (eg drawing from public domain works). The point is that they got to where they are via that actual pathway, which at a certain point involved copying (or something in that neighbourhood) as is more-or-less admitted by the section 15 declaration at the second of the three stages.If it could be shown that WotC in fact did not enjoy the copyright it asserts, and hence the copying is no infringement, that might help. But would it be relevant to that argument that the 3PP apparently acknowledged WotC's copyright when they entered into the OGL licensing agreement? How easy or hard is it to resile from that?I can't comment on how significant any of these possible issues is - they're just the ones that occur to me. A serious copyright lawyer (which is not me) would need to chime in to give better answers.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8925408, member: 42582"] I think that [USER=58172]@Yaarel[/USER] is making strong claims without really providing the legal analysis. For instance, if the history of the composition of the work is (1) [i]WotC-owned SRD[/i] => (2) [i]OGL-licensed 3PP-owned OGC[/i]=> (3) [i]"serial numbers filed off" 3PP unlicensed material[/i], what liability might that 3PP have to WotC? I don't think we can answer that question just by saying that "rules can't be copyrighted", or pointing out that it might have been possible for the 3PP to get to the same place via a different pathway (eg drawing from public domain works). The point is that they got to where they are via that actual pathway, which at a certain point involved copying (or something in that neighbourhood) as is more-or-less admitted by the section 15 declaration at the second of the three stages. If it could be shown that WotC in fact did not enjoy the copyright it asserts, and hence the copying is no infringement, that might help. But would it be relevant to [i]that[/i] argument that the 3PP apparently acknowledged WotC's copyright when they entered into the OGL licensing agreement? How easy or hard is it to resile from that? I can't comment on how significant any of these possible issues is - they're just the ones that occur to me. A serious copyright lawyer (which is not me) would need to chime in to give better answers. [/QUOTE]

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