SRD Legal Hassle - in need of help/advice

Flyspeck23

Flyspeck23

First Post
Short story:
On friday I posted three PDFs on TOGC , containing all the text of the SRD concerning character classes, skills and feats. On monday I added three more, this time player races, equipment and prestige classes.
Now, on tuesday, I received the following eMail (translation by me) from Amigo, the german D&D publisher:

Ladies and Gentlemen,
hereby we point out that your homepage www.theothergamecompany.com violates copyrights and/or the license regulations of the OGL and the D20 licenses. It is, among other things, not permitted to offer the SRD on a private homepage! It serves only as reference on the original side, for manufacturers of D20 and OGL products. Furthermore some the files offered by you do not correspond to the license. Remove all appropriate files immediately , or else we report the side to the legal department of Wizard OF the Coast/Hasbro.
Yours sincerely, Bjoern Meyer (@amigo-spiele.de)


Although I think that Mr. Meyer doesn't understand the OGL (and it's "spirit"), I immediatley removed those six PDFs from my site (because Amigo is not anybody...).
Now what? I know no one of you is a lawyer (as far as I know), but somehow I don't think this eMail is any real threat. What do you think?
Help much appreciated.





PS: For those who need it, here's the original (german) text of said eMail:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
hiermit weisen wir Sie darauf hin, dass Ihre Homepage www.theothergamecompany.com gegen Urheberrechte bzw. die Lizenzbestimmungen der OGL und der D20 Lizenzen verstößt. So ist es unter anderem nicht gestattet, das SRD auf einer privaten Homepage anzubieten! Es dient lediglich als Referenz auf der Originalseite, für Hersteller von D20 und OGL Produkten. Desweiteren entsprechen einige der von Ihnen angebotenen Dateien nicht den Lizenzvorgaben. Entfernen Sie umgehend alle entsprechenden Dateien, da wir anson
sten die Seite der Rechtsabteilung von Wizard of the Coast/Hasbro melden müssen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Bjoern Meyer
 

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Well, they hold a license, because they translate and publish the german D&D rules (no SRD for that, btw). But they do not hold that license :)

Amigo is known to be a little... itchy... about their license...

But what do you think? Shouldn't I care? Problem: they are from Germany, I am from Germany... I don't want to go to court with them :(
 

If i where you i would e-mail the person at Wizards that handles the SRD and the OGL, cc Amigo the e-mail as well. Explain in the e-mail that your just following the OGL liscence to the letter and that if your doing something wrong you would like to know from the people that know something about it, WotC. Let it be known in the e-mail that your not happy to be contacted in such a hostile manner by Amigo.

As a side note, would you be interested in translating the SRD into german? ;-)
 

No, I definetly don't want to translate the SRD - because that instance I would mess with Amigo on their home turf. And I don't want anything to do with them ;)

Thanks for the advice. I already did send an eMail to WotC (Andrew Smith - aka TheAndy(tm), if I'm not mistaken).

Man, I'm so :mad: about this. That totally wrecks my day. And don't get me started on Amigo and their "support" of D&D (or Chainmail, for that matter)... ;)

But if I don't act politely on this, I'm afraid they start nitpicking on my site and documents. And (unlike Amigo) we (TOGC) don't have a legal department.
 

I can understand not wanting to "go to the mattresses" about this, especially not with Amigo.

I'm curious if they did this to only german sites, i'll post a preview of SRD v.3.5 Deluxe in a couple of days, i'm curious whether or not i'll also get an e-mail (in german no less)...
 

Well, there's D20-Forum.de , and I'd say Amigo visits that board just to check if no one is in violation of their license.
I've made the error of announcing my PDFs on that board. Never again. Sadly.

I don't think you'll receive any mails by Amigo , because after today I sure hope they'll learn.

If not, then... I don't know ;)
 


Dude, if all you did was post the 3.5 SRD, whether in PDF format, HTML format, Camel Dung format, or whatever format, then Amigo is full of schwine sheiss. You can reproduce the SRD til the cows come home and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Tell them to where to stick their so called legal action. They're acting like bullies with no legal standing whatsoever.

Chris
 
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He is definantly in the wrong. His behavior is way out of line.

Did you update section 15 correctly?

I would contact WOTC, Andy the intern.

Also, if you send me the files I will post them on my website.

*:> Scott
 

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