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<blockquote data-quote="pedr" data-source="post: 7684557" data-attributes="member: 33464">I don't understand this post. Surely the OGL provides a licence for publishers to use to license the copyright in text expressing game rules. There is copyright in that text, even if there isn't copyright in the underlying concept of the rules, and copying that text without a licence - for instance if you copy text which hasn't been licensed as open content, or if you use it outside the terms of the OGL - is infringement. Using that text within the terms of the OGL is permitted use. Which is, presumably, why companies which reprinted the D&amp;D 3e SRD as a pocket player's handbook were not infringing and companies which incorporate the text of 5e spells into a product are. Clearly there is less value to using the OGL for a game which hasn't had its core content released as Open Content - but the similarities between 5e and 3.5 do mean that using the OGL means that you close down the scope for WotC to argue that your use of a particular monster, or even a particular rules expression, is an infringing close copy of the text they have copyright over, so it continues to act as a safe harbour, which is what the OGL was designed to do. If you don't accept the OGL, and are careful about how you work around the expression of rules, it is possible to create products which are designed to work with the 5e rules set - and which can even say that, due to trademark law, when the OGL products can't due to the agreement not to in the OGL itself - but surely that's a riskier proposition as you are reliant on the interpretation and operation of general copyright laws (in various jurisdictions, potentially) rather than being able to point to an agreement between you and a copyright owner which at least arguably covers the use you are making of their content.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pedr, post: 7684557, member: 33464"] I don't understand this post. Surely the OGL provides a licence for publishers to use to license the copyright in text expressing game rules. There is copyright in that text, even if there isn't copyright in the underlying concept of the rules, and copying that text without a licence - for instance if you copy text which hasn't been licensed as open content, or if you use it outside the terms of the OGL - is infringement. Using that text within the terms of the OGL is permitted use. Which is, presumably, why companies which reprinted the D&D 3e SRD as a pocket player's handbook were not infringing and companies which incorporate the text of 5e spells into a product are. Clearly there is less value to using the OGL for a game which hasn't had its core content released as Open Content - but the similarities between 5e and 3.5 do mean that using the OGL means that you close down the scope for WotC to argue that your use of a particular monster, or even a particular rules expression, is an infringing close copy of the text they have copyright over, so it continues to act as a safe harbour, which is what the OGL was designed to do. If you don't accept the OGL, and are careful about how you work around the expression of rules, it is possible to create products which are designed to work with the 5e rules set - and which can even say that, due to trademark law, when the OGL products can't due to the agreement not to in the OGL itself - but surely that's a riskier proposition as you are reliant on the interpretation and operation of general copyright laws (in various jurisdictions, potentially) rather than being able to point to an agreement between you and a copyright owner which at least arguably covers the use you are making of their content. [/QUOTE]

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