Something could be 100% unambiguously public domain, and they could still have put it in "product identity" and claimed that the terms of their license required you to act as though it were theirs. Could they win a lawsuit over you using that item? Maybe not! But they could credibly threaten one, which is what mostly matters.
D&D General What monster names are public domain?
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Really, no. If D&D can get away with a Balor that is a demon with a fiery multi-tailed whip, despite the best efforts of the Tolkien estate, you can too.
If it's not a registered trademark or a direct copy of a chuck of text, intellectual property law is weak. Something TSR proved in the early years of D&D.
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ValamirCleaver
Jäger aus Kurpfalz
Because both the name/word Balor and the concept of a powerful demon of fire & darkness armed with a multi-tailed whip originated in D&D?
EzekielRaiden
Legend
Yeah, even the Tolkien estate (notorious for their efforts to protect things like "mithril") cannot enforce anything on the name Balor, because it comes from Irish mythology. That's why D&D used it, because originally it was "Balrog" and the Tolkien estate sued.Because both the name/word Balor and the concept of a powerful demon of fire & darkness armed with a multi-tailed whip originated in D&D?
That said, "Balor" as very specifically a winged being of fire and darkness that uses a whip? Might be a bit dicey. The Balrog case implies that keeping the appearance but changing the name was sufficient to avoid copyright issues, and as you say the idea of a big strong fire demon with a whip is probably not copyrightable in general, only in specific expressions (e.g., individual pieces of art, not all possible depictions that meet the description.) But as with most things in this field, unless you're sure a suit wouldn't happen, you're at risk of getting slapped with one, and most small studios could never afford to defend themselves even if they would win.
ValamirCleaver
Jäger aus Kurpfalz
I wish individuals would stop repeating this because that is not what happened. The Tolkien Estate did not nor did the Tolkien Trust sue TSR. The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises (and later known as Middle-earth Enterprises) did send a Cease & Desist notice regarding TSR making use of things sourced from Tolkien's Middle-earth.
Dungeonosophy
Legend
i believe some monster names were trademarked by TSR for their LJN action figures c.1983, but that’s probably expired. I’m imagining something like BRONZE DRAGONtm and NIGHTMAREtm. Not sure tho.
As for Public Domain…To state the obvious: Google Books search and Project Gutenberg. Good question though.
Would be great to make a Public Domain monster list tho. Echohawk?
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You can also have a group of dwarves called Thorin, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Gloin, Dori, Nori, Ori and Kili if you want, but not Balin (and possibly not Oin or Fili either).
EzekielRaiden
Legend
Sure. They're all names taken from Beowulf, which Tolkien was a preeminent scholar of. (I believe his translation is still considered authoritative, or at least very significant.)
Might want to make them more diverse than just dwarves though, just to be safe.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
What about if it was called Brian? A name in standard usage is a name in standard usage. And I'm having a hard time finding ANY examples of a court finding for the plaintiff on grounds of narrative, cosmetic or mechanical similarity.
There is a reason WotC didn't include Balor on their list.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Small-timers can do anything they please. Even if WotC win a case they haven't actually gained anything, all they have done is paid a lot of money to lawyers in exchange for negative publicity. And if they lose its open season for anyone on whatever they chose to test.
The only way something like this could actually go to court is if some big company (e.g. Disney) decides to make a D&D clone. And frankly, I would bet on Disney winning. About the only thing WotC definitely own is the fancy ampersand.
WotC get a lot of benefit from other parties "playing nice", so nothing ever gets tested in court.
Is "Underdark" part of their product identity, or is it just a generic term that anyone can use? We don't know, and Paizo etc. come up with their own names for it. Paizo ever renamed the Sunless Sea to "Sightless Sea" when there's no way that is WotC IP.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Gradine
Final Form (she/they)
Might've been less about IP and more about avoiding confusion with the PC game of the same name
ValamirCleaver
Jäger aus Kurpfalz
“To seek the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
To break my fast on honey dew
And drink the milk of Paradise…”
I had heard the whispered tales
Of immortality
The deepest mystery
From an ancient book. I took a clue
I scaled the frozen mountain tops
Of eastern lands unknown
Time and Man alone
Searching for the lost — Xanadu
Xanadu — To stand within The Pleasure Dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan
To taste anew the fruits of life
The last immortal man
To find the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
Oh, I will dine on honey dew
And drink the milk of Paradise
Xanadu Lyrics — Rush.com
Official News and Information about the Legendary Rock Band Rush
www.rush.com
Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
There have been at least two subsequent translations that have been A Very Big Deal in recent decades. I think his is now in the "very good, but not the go-to text" pile.
Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
In addition to it being from Coleridge originally (I was just re-reading it, thinking of using his version of Xanadu as a quickie swords and sorcery setting), TSR first used the Sunless Sea as part of Greyhawk's underdark. It appears on the northwestern underdark map in Vault of the Drow, with the explicit idea from Gygax that player character groups could go sailing on black-sailed drow ships after adventuring in the vault.
Queen of the Demonweb Pits was years away and a 180-degree turn from the plot of the rest of the G-D series as it existed then. Lolth was the slightly preferable evil god in the story at that point, as compared to the Elder Elemental God.
Queen of the Demonweb Pits was years away and a 180-degree turn from the plot of the rest of the G-D series as it existed then. Lolth was the slightly preferable evil god in the story at that point, as compared to the Elder Elemental God.
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EzekielRaiden
Legend
From what I'm seeing (I had only heard this stuff second-hand before), it looks like his is still considered the best for the specific purpose of understanding the meaning of the text, but it is understood to sacrifice much of the beauty of the text in order to be as "correct" as possible to the original Old English (and apparently Tolkien himself thought this was true.) Seamus Heaney's translation is considered something of a sweet spot, sacrificing only a small amount of the text's literal meaning in order to preserve its artistic/literary beauty, and is thus the "go-to" text for approaching the book as an epic poem studied for literary value rather than the linguistic value, and it sounds like Tolkien would have approved had he still been alive (Heaney's translation was published in '99.)
There is, however, one other contender, and it's...something special, though whether it is specially good is perhaps a matter of debate. Maria Dahvana Headley has written a translation that can only be described as "into modern slang," and I really do mean modern, as in it uses phrases like:
Humorous and perhaps relatable for modern audiences, since Headley's goal was specifically to make the text communicate the cultural flavor and mores of the Saxons described, rather than concern about the literary or linguistic qualities of the work.
So, in the narrow sense of linguistics and achieving familiarity with the structure of the text, Tolkien is still considered the best--but given there are other resources to achieve that same end, it looks like you're correct, other translations (specifically Heaney's) are strictly preferable.
Overall, if one is considering only names, and takes a relatively cavalier attitude about whether WotC/Hasbro would be willing to C&D small-fry publishers, I'd say probably two thirds (as a very, very rough estimate) of all distinct creatures are not really able to be copyrighted. Not exactly the same as "public domain" per se, but the effect is the same. If you're wanting to be really sure you avoid the Lawsuit Bat (even though chances are you'd win in the end with most suits that weren't obvious violations), however, I'd say it probably falls to around half of distinct creatures. I'm considering all "blue dragons" (wyrmlings, ancients, adults, the works) to be one creature for distinctness here. If you let every monster statblock count as its own creature, the proportion of "probably safe" will rise quite a bit higher, simply because there's so many adjective-modified variants for several creatures.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
100% that gnome
We clearly need a Beowulf + Chaucer + Shakespeare subforum in this joint.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Steeling ideas is just like steeling anything else. Do people not steel out of fear of punishment, or do they not steel because they believe it is wrong?
Stealing ideas is nothing like stealing bread. And there is plenty of scope for people to disagree on what is wrong, without necessarily making any of them bad people.
Paizo, for example, doesn't include Eladrin in Pathfinder because they think the inclusion of the word "Eladrin" in the 3.5 SRD was an oversight (it was removed from the monster section, but WotC left it in the spells section under Summon Monster).
EN Publishing, on the other hand, didn't see anything wrong with including Eladrin in the Pathfinder version of Zeitgeist (and presumably the other versions as well).
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