We know there are many lawyers among RPGers, even some in the IP field. Maybe one or two of them would do the work pro bono or low enough to make it worth it.

However, anyone with a college diploma can take the time to read the laws, the case studies and do the necessary research. It's not rocket science and every librarian would be happy to show off their books on copyright, public domain and IP. And really, anyone who wants to be a publisher should probably educate themselves on these topics.

Before anyone drops $2k on a lawyer (aka, that's probably 5-8 hours of their time, depending on local prices), they should look to see the projected profits on their RPG project first. And in my experience, lawyers can't wipe their ass without at least 10 hours of tasty billing, let alone analyze an IP. Even worse, the hired lawyer might not even be right in their assumptions and provide incorrect analysis. I've seen that plenty of times and watched that dance play out very badly in Court.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1095458We know there are many lawyers among RPGers, even some in the IP field. Maybe one or two of them would do the work pro bono or low enough to make it worth it.

However, anyone with a college diploma can take the time to read the laws, the case studies and do the necessary research. It's not rocket science and every librarian would be happy to show off their books on copyright, public domain and IP. And really, anyone who wants to be a publisher should probably educate themselves on these topics.

Before anyone drops $2k on a lawyer (aka, that's probably 5-8 hours of their time, depending on local prices), they should look to see the projected profits on their RPG project first. And in my experience, lawyers can't wipe their ass without at least 10 hours of tasty billing, let alone analyze an IP. Even worse, the hired lawyer might not even be right in their assumptions and provide incorrect analysis. I've seen that plenty of times and watched that dance play out very badly in Court.

The ideal would be what happen with the OSRIC team, that some of them were IP lawyers and AD&D fans.

One (or one group) could opt to go at it along which is all well and good but hopefully by putting the idea out there somebody is motivated to get this going for the benefit of everybody. Much in the way the clash of opinion over the direction of Castles and Crusade led to the birth of OSRIC. Which in conjunction with Basic Fantasy led to the OSR.

I fully agree. "Clash of opinions" often spur on interesting creations.