Publishers Opinion Of PCGen

[Grazzt]

And so they should really stop distributing until it was done. Scott, as I recall, actually took his site down for those few hours. I removed the conversion library until it was OK to put it back up.

So, yeah - they may be in a similar position, but they're responding in a different way. Except, of course, that they weren't under the fan site policy, which didn't apply to a product.

Yeppers- the CC went down for a few hours and was replaced with a "Down for maintenace" page whilst I made sure I was compliant. WotC didnt tell me I had to do it that way, but I thought it best.

 

[soulcatcher]

And so they should really stop distributing until it was done. Scott, as I recall, actually took his site down for those few hours. I removed the conversion library until it was OK to put it back up.

So, yeah - they may be in a similar position, but they're responding in a different way. Except, of course, that they weren't under the fan site policy, which didn't apply to a product.
-Morrus

Except that they are not doign anything illegal now, and don't claim to be OGL compliant now.

The only thing they seem to have said is A) what we have always done is legal, because we are not using Open Game Content, we are using copyrighted materials in a legal way, and B) at some point in the future, we will licence the materials from Wizards of the Coast, using the OGL.

there is no reason for them to take it down currently because of a lack of OGL/D20 compliance, because it is not a product at all currently covered BY the OGL, or the D20 trademark.

PCGen is not, and never has been using Open Game Content. Materials that are covered by that license are offered to people VIA that licence - but there is no reason you can't exercise your legal rights with a copyrighted document, as they have done, and still do today. Remeber, the OGL is a licence to use the copyrighted materials in a way that you are not normally granted via copyright law. PCGen has never actually EVER used any of those extended rights, and still doesn't to this day.

Yes, they say they are approaching OGL compliance, but they have yet to use any OGC, so they are not yet required to follow the OGL.

Why take something down, for breech of contract (essentially), when it has yet to EXERCISE that contract?

This is like saying you can only quote my message if you use the DDL (Devon's Document License), as it is DDC (Devon's Document Content). I can offer licenses for posts till my face turns blue, but you still don't have to agree to them in order to quote my post, because you can legally do that with ANY DOCUMENT.

PCGen is choosing to slowly gain compliance with the OGL BEFORE they use any of the special rights it grants, and as such, can stay in this state LEGALLY and MORALLY for as long as they want to.

Once again, I am not even remotely on the PCGen team, and don't speak at all for them.

Soulcatcher (Devon Jones)
soulcatcher@evilsoft.org

 

[Cergorach]

So, yeah - they may be in a similar position, but they're responding in a different way. Except, of course, that they weren't under the fan site policy, which didn't apply to a product.

Sorry for muddling up the details, my mind was never made to remember things, it was made for creativity ;-)

I'm glad that you see the things are similar (but of course not the same). Why is the Creature Catalog not a product? And PcGen is? Both are fan produced creations, both didn't follow the OGL liscence. PcGen has been breaking IP rights here and there, so has the CC (monster names are i believe IP).

Are the PDFs you produce through Natural D20 not products? Why is the CC then not a product?

Yes, they are handeling things differently, is that wrong? Are you doing things exactly like your parents (i hope not, because that would be another point for cloning ;-) ? WotC has not strictly forbidden them from distributing PcGen, and they made the decisision to keep distributing and fixing the mistakes as they go along.

You might or might not know that fixing code and the code's structure is a whole different order of magnitude more difficult to make 'perfect' (just ask microsoft) than a plain text document is.

 

[jgbrowning]

hrm...

well it looks to me this arguement wont be solved until a court case comes up.

which, i think was what everyone was wanting to avoid? no...

wouldn't it be easier to just follow the ogl than to fight it?

anyway..

my .002$

also for the record, i'll never use PCgen. even if it is better than anything else, even if it does become compliant (yes, im irrational.). I just like guys that dont try, IMHO, to "get away" with breaking the spirit of the law because they "can".


joe b.

(i am not a lawyer, i dont work with pcgen and i've never told martha stewart any insider trading information... honest.)

 

[Cergorach]

Under the fan site policy I was allowed to do that. I only started using the OGL when WotC (AV to be exact) asked me to. They didnt tell me I had to and didnt tell me I wasnt compliant. AV simply said that the way they handled conversions was gonna be working differently very soon and said I needed to post the OGL on my site. Which I did. And according to WotC everything with the Creature Catalog is (as it always has been) cool.

Kewl, you complied. So is PcGen, but as i said, code takes a lot longer to fix, mostly because code is a lot more complex than plain text. Also, PcGen had an agrement with WotC (allowing them the use of their material), they also had similar agrements with a lot of other publishers.

So- I was never not in compliance. I didnt even have to use the license to begin with.

WOW! You to! So said the PcGen team, and guess what, no one believed them. According to Orcus, if you use OGL material (everything SRD, thus the statistics you use) you are bound to the OGL. Go ask Orcus he's an evil Lawyer ;-)

When it came time to change, I did it. No questions asked. No problems. Took all of a few hours to change it over.

The PcGen guys to, it just takes a lot longer. But if you think it can be done faster, i'm sure that the PcGen folks could arrange some source code for you...

 

[soulcatcher]

also for the record, i'll never use PCgen. even if it is better than anything else, even if it does become compliant (yes, im irrational.). I just like guys that dont try, IMHO, to "get away" with breaking the spirit of the law because they "can".
-jgbrowning

Yes, that is irrational. because you are also applying that rule to people who never even broke the spirit of the law.

copyright from day one was intended to protect the expression of ideas, so that people WOULD express them. Once they express them, the ideas are public domain. Period. The only way they are not, is if the are patented.

PCGen is very much within the SPIRIT of copyright, as well as the letter. The only reason the founding fathers agreed to putting copyright and patent law into the constitution was with the intention of getting more ideas and inventions available to the public. And it is NOT intended to provide people with easy financial monoplies - that was the method chosen to facilitate getting the ideas out to the public.

Wizards does NOT own the concepts of D&D, only the expression of it that makes up their library of books, as well as the names of certain things that are trademarked.

if this were not the case, every person who wrote a book about any subject would have to gain the rights to do so from the person who owned the idea. Can you imagine how many less books we would have if people had to be authorized to write about said subjects? Every person who wanted to say write a book on MS Word, or a 82' Pinto would have to obtain permission from the people who owned the ideas of those subjects. That would be a horrible world.

PCGen is a derivitive work, and as such that is a VERY solid part of not only our laws, but our economy as well.

so use it or not, don't be under a delusion that it is because PCGen is subverting the law for their own evil purposes - the activities of PCGen as they were are a very normal and legal in letter and spirit part of our economy.

Soulcatcher (Devon Jones)
soulcatcher@evilsoft.org

 

[Morrus]

Also, PcGen had an agrement with WotC (allowing them the use of their material),

That would make the difference. Thing is, the PC Gen people have, on this thread, said that only now have they had any dialogue with WotC. If they had an actual agreement, then all is fine and dandy.

The PcGen guys to, it just takes a lot longer. But if you think it can be done faster, i'm sure that the PcGen folks could arrange some source code for you...

Ummm... I'm not even sure how to respond to this. It's irrelevant. Yes, we know it takes longer. Sure, we sympathise - I'm glad it's not my job to do. No, we don't blame them if it takes 3 years to do. I already said all that. What's your point here?

 

[soulcatcher]

Just to back up what I have been saying about the use of the ideas (which is what pcgen does) is legal (and intended to be legal), weather or not they follow the OGL:

"In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." (US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 102)

simply put, as long as you don't use the same words, you have free use of the ideas. And I think you would be hard pressed to find a place in the Players handbook that says:

# Class Name CSKILL
CLASS:Bard CSKILL:Alchemy|Appraise|Balance|Bluff|Climb|Concentration|TYPE.Craft|Decipher Script|Diplomacy|Disguise|Escape Artist|Gather Information|Hide|Intuit Direction|Jump|TYPE.Knowledge|Listen|Move Silently|Perform|Perform%|Pick Pocket|TYPE.Profession|Scry|Sense Motive|Speak Language|Spellcraft|Swim|Tumble|Use Magic Device
1 CAST:2 KNOWN:4 SA:Bardic music %/day|Bardic music SA:Bardic knowledge (+%)|Bardic knowledge DEFINE:Bardic knowledge|0 DEFINE:Bardic music|0 BONUS:VAR|Bardic knowledge|INT BONUS:VAR|Bardic music|CLASSLEVEL=Bard BONUS:VAR|Bardic knowledge|CLASSLEVEL=Bard FEATAUTO:Armor Proficiency (Light)|Armor Proficiency (Medium)|Shield Proficiency|Simple Weapon Proficiency
2 CAST:3,0 KNOWN:5,2
3 CAST:3,1 KNOWN:6,3
4 CAST:3,2,0 KNOWN:6,3,2
5 CAST:3,3,1 KNOWN:6,4,3
6 CAST:3,3,2 KNOWN:6,4,3
7 CAST:3,3,2,0 KNOWN:6,4,4,2
8 CAST:3,3,3,1 KNOWN:6,4,4,3
9 CAST:3,3,3,2 KNOWN:6,4,4,3
10 CAST:3,3,3,2,0 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,2
11 CAST:3,3,3,3,1 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,3
12 CAST:3,3,3,3,2 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,3
13 CAST:3,3,3,3,2,0 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,4,2
14 CAST:4,3,3,3,3,1 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,4,3
15 CAST:4,4,3,3,3,2 KNOWN:6,4,4,4,4,3
16 CAST:4,4,4,3,3,2,0 KNOWN:6,5,4,4,4,4,2
17 CAST:4,4,4,4,3,3,1 KNOWN:6,5,5,4,4,4,3
18 CAST:4,4,4,4,4,3,2 KNOWN:6,5,5,5,4,4,3
19 CAST:4,4,4,4,4,4,3 KNOWN:6,5,5,5,5,4,4
20 CAST:4,4,4,4,4,4,4 KNOWN:6,5,5,5,5,5,4

which is a direct quote from the old (pre 3.0.0) PCGen Player's Handbook file

so simply - PCGen is, and always has been legal, and some day when they choose to they will follow the OGL. But until then, there is no reason for them to stop distributing legal files that are damn close to compliance anyway.

Soulcatcher (Devon Jones)
soulcatcher@evilsoft.org

And no, I will not give anyone a copy of the older versions of PCGen. It's their place to distribute it, and they have determined that they wish not to, and I respect that.

 

[EOL]

Just to back up what I have been saying about the use of the ideas (which is what pcgen does) is legal (and intended to be legal), weather or not they follow the OGL:

I think what you really should be considering is this bit of law:

s 17.1.8 COPYRIGHT INTERESTS--DERIVATIVE WORK (17 U.S.C. s 101)

An owner is entitled to copyright protection of a derivative work. The term derivative work refers to a (translation) (musical arrangement) (dramatization) (fictionalization) (motion picture version) (sound recording) (art reproduction) (abridgement) (condensation) (, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted) that is based upon one or more preexisting works. (A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative work.) Copyright protection of a derivative work extends only to the contribution of the author of the derivative work.

Are you really that sure that the excerpt you posted from PCGen would not be considered an condensation or an abridgement? Especially when you combine it with information elsewhere like the spell names and possibly the skill descriptions? Sure enough that you would pay out of your own pocket for a lawyer to take it to court confident you'd reclaim your expenses?

I'm not that sure, and I imagine that a year or so ago when the PCGen team started down the path to OGL compliance they weren't so sure either.

 

[soulcatcher]

Are you really that sure that the excerpt you posted from PCGen would not be considered an condensation or an abridgement? Especially when you combine it with information elsewhere like the spell names and possibly the skill descriptions? Sure enough that you would pay out of your own pocket for a lawyer to take it to court confident you'd reclaim your expenses?

I'm not that sure, and I imagine that a year or so ago when the PCGen team started down the path to OGL compliance they weren't so sure either.

I'm relitvely sure that abbridgements and condensations require that the person still use a semblance of the original prose.

As for PCGen and lawyers, the inner circle have stated more then once in this very thread that they reviewd what they were doing with a lawyer on repeated occasions to ensure they were not doing anything wrong.

the problem on the lists is combating the perception that has encroached into the US that publishers, and producers of other copyrighted works have massive control over their works and the ideas contained therin....

the point of the laws is to get ideas out there, not hide them away from the public behind lock and key

Soulcatcher (Devon Jones)
soulcatcher@evilsoft.org