D&D General What Actually Is Copyright Protected In The SRD?

[S'mon]

Is "product identity" part of copyright or trademark law? How does one create "product identity?" Is this really meant to cover creaters and character names?

Product Identity is a concept that exists only within the contract, the OGL. It covers whatever the contract says it covers.

 

[Burt Baccara]

Product Identity is a concept that exists only within the contract, the OGL. It covers whatever the contract says it covers.

Did you hear that? The sounds from all the way across the Atlantic? Perhaps they were faint. The sounds of my head popping, followed by a slat sound.

OK seriously now, and be gentle, layperson honestly trying to understand this. In the OGL, is Product Identity meant to carve out just the name (e.g., mind flayer) or the full package (name, lore, descriptions, habbitate, culture, etc.) of the mind flayer?

 

[S'mon]

Did you hear that? The sounds from all the way across the Atlantic? Perhaps they were faint. The sounds of my head popping, followed by a slat sound.

OK seriously now, and be gentle, layperson honestly trying to understand this. In the OGL, is Product Identity meant to carve out just the name (e.g., mind flayer) or the full package (name, lore, descriptions, habbitate, culture, etc.) of the mind flayer?

I'd say full package, but it only specifies the names. Lawyer answer: it depends.
They don't want you putting Mind Flayers in your OGL game. 3PPs have used analogues with different names ok, eg Carcass Scavenger instead of Carrion Crawler.

 

[Burt Baccara]

I'd say full package, but it only specifies the names. Lawyer answer: it depends.
They don't want you putting Mind Flayers in your OGL game. 3PPs have used analogues with different names ok, eg Carcass Scavenger instead of Carrion Crawler.

As a consultant, I respect your "it depends."

On the creatures, it always seemed odd that they selected a handful and left out others like the owlbear and bulette.

 

[Lanefan]

More interesting for anyone contemplating writing a setting/cosmology, they also lay claim to the names of a whole bunch of outer planes, some of which are very close to commonly-used mythological names for the same thing. For example, they claim "Nine Hells of Baator" but I have to assume one can just use the nine hells, as that's a concept that dates back to (Dante?). Ditto the "Blessed Fields of Elysium"; the Elysium Fields are a part of ancient Greek mythology. And so forth.

 

[pemerton]

More interesting for anyone contemplating writing a setting/cosmology, they also lay claim to the names of a whole bunch of outer planes, some of which are very close to commonly-used mythological names for the same thing. For example, they claim "Nine Hells of Baator" but I have to assume one can just use the nine hells, as that's a concept that dates back to (Dante?). Ditto the "Blessed Fields of Elysium"; the Elysium Fields are a part of ancient Greek mythology. And so forth.

They don't "lay claim" to them. Rather, they offer toy license under the OGL only if licensees agree not to use those names in their own works.

As @S'mon said, this is a matter of contract law, not IP law.

 

[rcade]

Where Wizards has shot themselves on this in my opinion is that they didn’t take the care that they did with 3.x. In 3.x they had the OGL and the System Trademark License. If you wanted to publish content advertised as compatible or for use with D&D you had to use both licenses. The OGL to indicate use of the SRD and what was OGC and what was you IP in the product and the STL to indicate compatibility and use with D&D and the STL was more restrictive in its use.

Technically, the d20 System Trademark License didn't allow products to indicate compatibility with D&D. It allowed them to indicate compatibility with the d20 System. The d20 System mark was created by WOTC at the same time as the OGL to avoid any products doing what Role Aids did in the 1980s by calling the modules "Suitable for use with AD&D."

OGL 1.0a even gave WOTC/Hasbro more protection against "compatible with" marketing than they ever had before, because using the OGL required publishers to "agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity" (Section 7).

 

[Burt Baccara]

The d20 System mark was created by WOTC at the same time as the OGL to avoid any products doing what Role Aids did in the 1980s by calling the modules "Suitable for use with AD&D."

This is the part that blows me away. TSR in the 70s and 80s went after competition over use of the trademark. They prevented Judge's Guild from using it after a time, they went after Role Aids for "Suitable for use with AD&D." And now, we learn, you can totally say something like "Suitable for use with AD&D" or "Compatible with D&D."

I was always under the impression TSR did not go after competition over mechanics for fear of losing, and instead went after copyright—only to now learn, the trademark uses they were going after were OK too.

 

[see]

they went after Role Aids for "Suitable for use with AD&D."

I mean, yes, they did, but that isn't what got Role Aids ended.

In 1982, TSR claimed Mayfair was improperly using the AD&D trademark, and sued; Mayfair and TSR then settled in 1984, with an agreement that allowed Mayfair to use the AD&D trademark in one very specific way to indicate compatibility. Since this suit was ended by a settlement, it was never determined by a court whether the original ways that Mayfair was using the mark to indicate compatibility were infringing or not.

Then TSR in 1991 went after Mayfair for using the AD&D trademark in ways not covered by the settlement. And Mayfair, in court, admitted it breached the agreement, and in 1993 the court found they did breach the agreement, but the court found the violations were not significant enough to terminate the agreement, and said that "the scope of appropriate relief is deferred pending further submissions by the parties."

At this point, a settlement was reached between Mayfair and TSR that involved TSR buying the rights to the Role Aids line from Mayfair.

 

[Ancalagon]

Ah gotcha derp.

I've been thinking of a very simplev2d6 system for a while using modifiers instead.

-1, 0, 0, +1, +2, +3 as stats and they top out at +3.

DCs
Very Easy 3
Easy 5
Moderate 7
Hard 9
Very Hard 11

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I recommend looking into Troika!