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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AscentStudios" data-source="post: 2484676" data-attributes="member: 11548">Good gravy.I would hope that folks seeing the number of industry owners/professionals sallying forth to this thread to defend the idea of ownership of a trademark is saying something. The opinions I'm seeing here arguing against the definition of trademarks, their value, or good relationships in the industry, are, quite frankly, talking out of thier asses. The idea that a company who owns an idea  *owes* it to any shmuck who wants to crap something out on the page and put said company's name on it, so he can gain a profit for himself without paying the idea's owner a dime, boggles the mind.This ain't big business, people. This, as my friend Clayton Oliver quite astutely notes, is a subsidized hobby. But anyway.Nope. "Powered by" and "Family" are both licensed third party products, with varying degrees of support from AEG. Because I don't know exactly what benefits Family members gain with 2.0 (I am familiar with 1.0's benefits), but Family is essentially a license with greater support of AEG. "Powered By" IIRC is free - AEG just wants to be aware what's out there.Exactly. Brands like True20 have value (otherwise, why would people want to use it in the first place?) thus they want to be sure that True20 remains associated with value in the reader's mind - just like when you see the Coke symbol, you think '"good" or "thirst-quenching" or you salivate, GR and AEG want "good game design" to pop to mind when people see True20 or Powered by Spycraft logos. It's not about control of the product, just the brand. That's the guts of branding - consistency of quality which constructs value and positive feelings within the mind of the viewer - and it requires a lot of hard work to maintain. People who fear being controlled or want to use it regardless are either lazy or player-haters and should frankly find another way rather than stealing (gaining profit from another's work without offering proper credit and/or compensation per a standard agreement). In this case, as Chris has repeatedly stated, using OGC is perfectly acceptable per the OGL; infringing upon the IP and/or trademark of WotC (d20 STL and logo) AEG (PbS logo and marks) or GR (True20 logo and marks) for profit is theft, as they offer up a standard and most-likely free license for people to use in order to use those marks). The content is open - the company, however, is not <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />*sigh* At any rate, I am in no way concerned that Phil and RoninArts will do the right thing. I just happen to have this conversation about branding and trademarks every other day or so at the day job. Ah, the joys of a public relations career.</blockquote>

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