The OGL and Copyright Declarations

[pawsplay]

An observation: many web sites with an OGL declaration play fast and loose with the copyright declaration requirement:

6.Notice of License Copyright: You must update the COPYRIGHT NOTICE portion of this License to include the exact text of the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any Open Game Content You are copying, modifying or distributing, and You must add the title, the copyright date, and the copyright holder's name to the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any original Open Game Content you Distribute.

IANAL, but I think at the very least this means any copied or donated OGC needs a copyright declaration, and further, web site compendiums need their own copyright notice (which will be copied forward if anyone uses the website as a source of OGC - which is probably unwise in the case of a wiki anyway because of the possibility of illegal contributions).

A second observation: Publishers can easily easily taint the OGC with any text they want in the Copyright notice section, however self-serving or irrelevant.

A third observation: the requirement to reprint the exact text means that OGL works that encompass several sources will have the effect of making OGL products based on them increasingly encumbered by longer and longer copyright declarations.

Thus, from a community standpoint, it is perhaps advisable for publishers who sincerely wish to contribute to the general fund to designate parts of their work as Product Identity and then licensing it to the public under less constricting terms. I am not sure of the precise legal requirements of doing such a thing.

 

[Morrus]

Thus, from a community standpoint, it is perhaps advisable for publishers who sincerely wish to contribute to the general fund to designate parts of their work as Product Identity and then licensing it to the public under less constricting terms. I am not sure of the precise legal requirements of doing such a thing.

You can certainly do that very easily with your fluff text.

Your mechanics, stat-blocks, feats, equipment, etc. are more difficult because they are likely derivative of the SRD. Asuming you're talking a d20 compatible product.

 

[pawsplay]

You can certainly do that very easily with your fluff text.

Your mechanics, stat-blocks, feats, equipment, etc. are more difficult because they are likely derivative of the SRD. Asuming you're talking a d20 compatible product.

Right. The OGL does permit you to create derivative works, though. Many products already contain plenty of rules material. If you licensed the new PI separately or offered it to the public domain, it would still include the PI and you would need the OGL to distribute the derivative portions, but the additions would not be OGC.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, that's what I said!

 

[Marius Delphus]

Generally a simple statement of intent is sufficient to give copyrighted material into the public domain.

One example of a license that falls short of a giving into the public domain is the Creative Commons license.

 

[pawsplay]

I was taking a second look, and it appears that you only have to include the exact Copyright text of any OGC you include, not that of any work containing OGC. Thus, you would not have to reproduce irrelevanices. But you would have to be very careful that what you referenced did not contain OGC from any of its sources. Best practice is probably to copy the whole thing unless there is a reason not to (for instance, using one monster from the Tome of Horrors).

 

[Starglim]

The COPYRIGHT NOTICE (capitals in the original) is Section 15 of the licence. You must include the entire s.15 notice from the source that first published the content, unless the publisher of that source is kind enough to write a subset of their notice for you that only applies to what you used. The Tome of Horrors, for instance, has such a notice for each monster.

Presumably, if you have several overlapping sources, no-one will mind if you remove duplicate copyright text. In the case of a compilation or reuse, nothing's stopping you from going back to the earlier sources, if you have them, and only citing the s.15 from those.

 

[pawsplay]

Ok, you're right. Bummer.

 

[Nellisir]

Yes, you have to reproduce the S.15 from any OGL work you use. No, you don't have to have duplicate entries. Yes, this eventually makes for a very long S.15. No, I don't think it's overly burdensome - it's not an issue online, and there are ways to condense the text in print -- or you could just go back to the original source (also, in many cases, there are redundancies and duplications, so the more sources you cite, the fewer new entries you actually have to the S.15). Yes, people play fast and loose with it. No, they shouldn't. Yes, they could put inane ramblings into the S.15 if they wanted, but that might be sufficient disincentive to not use their material, and if that's the goal, there are easier ways. yes, you could contribute non-OGC material to the public domain, but I haven't yet met a publisher or author who felt restrained from giving -more-. Most wanted to lock up as much as possible, so WotC and the cyber-pirates didn't swoop in and steal all their Shiny Kewl Ideas!!