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Will there be a 4.75 a la Pathfinder?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6338975" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Correct. If you want to clone 4e, the GSL is hopeless - my view is that you would be in direct violation of its terms, and in any event WotC could just terminate.</p><p></p><p></p><p>A lot of posters seem to get very excited about "trade dress", but as was argued on one of these threads (maybe this one?) between me and a couple of others, I don't really see it.</p><p></p><p>Trademark and trade dress are about distinguishing products in the coures of commerce, and are also related to business goodwill. If a 3PP includes the terms "at-will" in a power description, but not in such a way as to be likely to produce confusion as to who the publisher is (eg the book is sold in shrink wrap, and/or covered in disclaimers, etc) then I don't see that there can be an infringement of WotC's trademarks. (In any event, I doubt that "at-will" is a WotC trademark, and I've seen no evience that they claim otherwise.)</p><p></p><p>The real issue in my view is copyright. I posted my analysis of the issues <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?356600-SRD5-A-Clone-of-Part-of-D-amp-D-5E-Basic/page5&p=6335107#post6335107" target="_blank">here</a>. Bottom line: I don't think it's anywhere as clear-cut as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] asserts, as far as the law is concerned.</p><p></p><p>(I don't pretend to have any special insight as to what litigation tactics WotC/Hasbro might pursue, however. They have reasons not to sue as well as reasons to sue - eg it may not serve their interests to have the limitaitons of their rights spelled out if in fact it turns out their rights are fewer and more narrow than they had hoped.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6338975, member: 42582"] Correct. If you want to clone 4e, the GSL is hopeless - my view is that you would be in direct violation of its terms, and in any event WotC could just terminate. A lot of posters seem to get very excited about "trade dress", but as was argued on one of these threads (maybe this one?) between me and a couple of others, I don't really see it. Trademark and trade dress are about distinguishing products in the coures of commerce, and are also related to business goodwill. If a 3PP includes the terms "at-will" in a power description, but not in such a way as to be likely to produce confusion as to who the publisher is (eg the book is sold in shrink wrap, and/or covered in disclaimers, etc) then I don't see that there can be an infringement of WotC's trademarks. (In any event, I doubt that "at-will" is a WotC trademark, and I've seen no evience that they claim otherwise.) The real issue in my view is copyright. I posted my analysis of the issues [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?356600-SRD5-A-Clone-of-Part-of-D-amp-D-5E-Basic/page5&p=6335107#post6335107]here[/url]. Bottom line: I don't think it's anywhere as clear-cut as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] asserts, as far as the law is concerned. (I don't pretend to have any special insight as to what litigation tactics WotC/Hasbro might pursue, however. They have reasons not to sue as well as reasons to sue - eg it may not serve their interests to have the limitaitons of their rights spelled out if in fact it turns out their rights are fewer and more narrow than they had hoped.) [/QUOTE]
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