That thread title was only going to cause problems anyway

[woodelf]

If that's so, why does section 1 define OGC and PI? I don't understand... are you allowed to write your own section 1 when you use the OGL?

Those aren't definitions of PI--they're exemplary lists. The only absolutes are that (1) anything that is derived from OGC must itself be OGC, and (2) anything you declare as OGC or PI is OGC or PI, respectively. And that's according to the people behind the license. [Oh, and (3) trademarks are automatically PI. Maybe. I can't tell.] Oh, while we're clearing up the WotC OGL, there's also a third kind of content--neither OGC nor PI--when using it.

But, to answer your first question, in case my explanations haven't made this obvious: because it's a very poorly-written license that, IMHO, doesn't actually say what the authors claim it says. And i'd be curious what was made of it if it ever got into a court.

 

[Dan Bell]

Ryan,
Sounds like you could be a writer for one of the many HarnWorld free fanon articles.
Good luck!
Dan

 

[Ry]

Ryan,
Sounds like you could be a writer for one of the many HarnWorld free fanon articles.
Good luck!
Dan

Yeah, except if I wrote under that umbrella it wouldn't be kosher for someone to take the idea and write a novel about it without seeking permission first. I want them to have that ability right off the bat.

 

[woodelf]

I think the flaw there is that technically, if you're making a bunch of posts about aboleths (and using anything from the SRD), you have to include the OGL.

Most posts don't do so, since that would be impractical, and such use may fall under fair use provisions.

But by that logic, couldn't I write a bunch of posts about aboleths, make it into a book, get it published by EN Publishing, and not include the OGL?

Maybe. You've mixed up a bunch of things there.

First of all, aboleths don't appear in the D20SRD. So you definitely can't write anything about them using the WotC OGL.

Secondly, you can potentially write about anything that anyone has published, without using the WotC OGL. That includes material that has been released under the terms of the WotC OGL. The license doesn't supersede normal copyright--it piggybacks on it. What WotC's OGL does do is spell out some very specific ways in which you can re-use [some of] the material, despite it violating normal copyright.

However, if you choose to make a work based on someone else's work without any sort of explicit license, you're now in very fuzzy territory where copyright is concerned. It might or might not be legal. To get back to the quoted example: you *probably* can write something about kobolds--even D&D-style kobolds--and publish it, so long as you don't copy any text from someone else's work. Witness the multitude of fantasy novels that are clearly based on D&D concepts. Copyright protects text, not ideas. (Or, used to. The concept of "character copyright" has stretched this a fair bit, and is, IMHO, a really poor idea, since trademark could already protect individual characters.) But you probably can't write something about aboleths or illithids without permission, because WotC will probably claim [and be able to defend] trademark over the names/creatures.

As for including the WotC OGL on forum posts: that depends. If you want people to be able to reuse the content of your posts, that would be one way. But just to make the posts in the first place? Probably not. As some have said, it's likely that any such posts would be deemed to fall under the Fair Use exception to copyright, should it ever go to court, and thus have no need of the WotC OGL (or any other explicit license, since there's the implicit permission of Fair Use).

Finally, both my answer here and several posts before have made a serious logical flaw: assuming that just because such a thing exists, it must be legal, is not a good idea. The answer to "why does X exist and use/not use the OGL?" might well be "because the party being infringed doesn't know about it/doesn't have the financial means to pursue a legal case/doesn't care about the infringement/misunderstands the license terms/misunderstands copyright/is in the process of doing something about it behind the scenes" or any number of other reasons.

 

[woodelf]

I don't think so. Message board posts are funny. If you post them, you own them.

Which isn't in any way special for message board posts--if you write it, and it sees the world, you own it. Or, more precisely, you have copyright over it. Which doesn't mean it can't be challenged, if you infringe someone else's IP (such as by misusing trademarks, or plagiarizing).

Yeah, just because you post something in a public place does not mean you relinquish your copyright over it. Or something like that.

And, in fact, you might not have copyright over it until it sees some form of publication (that is, it is shown to others, in any form). Things apparently get fuzzy with dates and durations of copyright when you're talking about things like private diaries. All of the rules of copyright (well, most of them--there's been some variations in case law) are based on publication date, and thus meaningless if something has never been seen by the public.

 

[amethal]

Maybe. You've mixed up a bunch of things there.

First of all, aboleths don't appear in the D20SRD. So you definitely can't write anything about them using the WotC OGL.

Aboleths are in the SRD.

Have you read it?

 

[woodelf]

Aboleths are in the SRD.

Have you read it?

Um, yeah, you could say i have. Though it's been a couple years. Anyway, my mistake--i misremembered aboleths as being one of the 8 monsters withheld from the D20SRD (in comparison with the D&D3E MM), along with illithid, beholder, etc.