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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 2414848" data-attributes="member: 9254">Check again. OGL says you must include all the relevant copyright notices (S13) with all OGL works and indicate what portions of your work are OGL.  Even if you OGL something you  own the copyrights and grant a use license.Many RPGs have released books of copyrighted characters and as long as they don't include the *rules* on how the character was created, they don't violated OGL.  Exhibit A that WotC doesn't own the copyrights is the MMII, which included a 3rd party OGL creature (scorpionfolk, IIRC) *AND* the S13 giving notice the copyright belonged to a 3rd party but was used under the OGL.  Ignoring the game mechanics of the character, the name, race, sex, age, weight, height, description, background, and described personality of a character amount to a copyrighted body of work that is, barring some other contract, owned by the creator which is 99% of the time the player.  Now a character can include other copyrights (like Jedi(tm)) that could limit the player's ability to publish the character but the player is the owner of the character and Lucas couldn't take it from them.  In other words, Lucas can't sell fan-fics without a contract from the author.  Same goes for DMs.  Legally, if you did not create the PCs and hand them to the players, you do NOT own them.  If you write a book/module/whatever about your campaign and include a character created by someone else they have a legal leg to stand on if they take issue with it.  Especially since many players bring characters from one campaign to the next and can prove a history of ownership.  If it helps, think of the character as a cameo on a tv show or in a book.  Just because the Hulk appeared on The Muppetshow doesn't mean Jim Henson "owns" the Hulk.</blockquote>

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