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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3407663" data-attributes="member: 19675">Its the most basic form of control of all.  The primary right of copyright is the right to control the copying of the material:The right to distribute also includes the right NOT to distribute- that's what they mean by "exclusive right."  If you make an unauthorized copy, you've violated the fundamental principle of copyright.A person writes a book, affixes it into some kind of readable media and then chooses not to publish it.  He dies, and his will expressly says that the book should never be published.  You find it and copy it, and his estate's trustee catches you.  You can be sued for violating his copyright, and you WILL lose (assuming it hadn't fallen into the public domain 70 years after the writer's death). Yes & No.One could reasonably argue that those particular spells are in the public domain, or what passes for it in your campaign world, so are not individually protected by IP law.However, the unique collection of spells & flavor text WOULD be protected.  Look at the cookbook section of a bookstore and you'll probably find several similar cookbooks covering various kinds of cooking.  For example, I have several books of "American" cooking, covering all kinds of traditional recipes.  No 2 are exactly alike, however, when considering the details of layout and the particular recipes and commentary, no matter how pedestrian the recipes.  My first cookbook was a kids cookbook (I got it at age 7), and it taught me how to make grilled cheese sandwiches, basic scrambled eggs, pancakes and so forth.  I'm sure I could find a book with the exact same kinds of recipes.  But despite the simplicity of that book, none would be arranged exactly the same.  None would have the exact same recipes word for word.  Helpful hints would vary.If Bob the Wizard creates a new spell called Bob's Beautiful Bomb which makes a magical grenade that is magically attractive (thus bringing more victims into its blast radius), and writes it in his spellbook, it is "copyrightable" (assuming your campaign world has such a concept), and under modern law, is copyrighted as soon as it is affixed to a particular medium- here, his spellbook.Once so affixed, nobody has a right to copy it without his permission in any form. Not so- just try translating the Harry Potter series into, say, Coptic, without permission and see how fast JK Rowling's lawyers have you paying a hefty fine.  Ditto if you film a Baliwood version of the books without her clearance.  Merely translating the copied text into a different form of writing or producing it in a different medium is ZERO protection. That is an interesting and valid point.  In the USA:In the final analysis, it would depend on whether the courts & legislatures of your world would consider a spell an industrial/technical process (and thus, patentable), or a literary/artistic work (and thus, copyrightable).In all likelihood, it would be viable for both forms of protection- copyright of the text ("Bob's Book of Bodacious Magery"), patent of the process (the actual spell itself).  Those who copied your spellbook for dissemination, you'd sue under copyright.  Those who actually used your spell, you'd sue for violating your patent rights.</blockquote>

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