Quote from: sylvermoonkitten;687596If you take an honest look. Much of the socalled non-ogl is actually a rip. Beholders are the eye monsters of 50s horror movie.  The displacer beast a rip of the coerl, the mindflayer, kuotoa and yuan ti, are all cthuloid

Culture is a ripoff of culture. D&D didn't come up with elves, dwarves, and hobbits. Everything is built on other things. Also, please either master your phone or use a keyboard to post.

"4) Publishers don't help by not clearly designating what open and what product identity. I make sure I don't repeat this problem in my own products. For example, Majestic Wilderlands is divided into three clear sections. The first two are open except for trademarked names i.e. Judges Guild stuff, And the last is product identity and may not be copied in another product without my explicit permission."

Looking at the older d20 stuff some publishers (I'm looking at you Mongoose) intentionally obfuscated the OGL sources in their Ultimate Guides to X, and then made the distinction between open and closed content very cloudy.  The fact that some of the original sources are ostensibly unobtainable makes the OGL as a whole much less useful as one cannot distinguish what what in the Ultimate Guide to X is open (and Mongoose should be ashamed).  I asked Mongoose to clarify, and they said the OGL license was as written, not clarification to be given.  Its quite possible that some of the Ultimate Guide's are 100% open, but I am not going to risk using the material.  

Also, it is my understanding that one cannot put things into the public domain, it is not legally possible.  The public domain is related to time, thus one CC was created to allow for a license similar to PD.      

And finally, if one is set on using the non-OGL TSR monsters, multiple simulacrums of all the closed monsters have been created and are available via google.

Glad to see this thread I started getting further love: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=55550

Cheers

Quote from: Panjumanju;549642"Githyanki", similarly, comes from a George R. R. Martin book, was a name he invented, and would be unable to hold up under scrutiny.

It is important to note that both "Mind Flayers" and "Displacer Beasts" were not so-named in their source material. In "Voyage of the Space Beagle" by A. E. Van Vogt, the Displacer Beast (and it's obviously a Displacer Beast) is only ever referred to as "Pussy", by the star ship's crew, because of its resemblance to a cat. WotC came up with the label "Displacer Beast", and that's how they hold trademark.

//Panjumanju

Since this has been necro'ed already:

It gets weirder.  TSR based the displacer beast on the couerl and declared it product identity.  Paizo can't use the displacer beast in Pathfinder because of that.

What Paizo did do was go directly to A. E. Vogt's estate and get permission to adapt the couerl itself under its actual name in a oneshot deal.  

They've been pretty good about going back and giving credit where it's due with a bunch of creatures that were lifted and unattributed in previous editions, like the derro.

Frankly Wotc would have a hard time enforcing compliance with using non OGL monsters (if names filed off).  One could easily show in court how just about all of those monsters have been used over the past 30 years in various video games- Ultima, Final Fantasy, Wow, etc.  Prior art art and squatters rights et al.  

Then again, threats of lawsuits are enough to keep the little guys honest...

Quote from: Teazia;687987Frankly Wotc would have a hard time enforcing compliance with using non OGL monsters (if names filed off).  One could easily show in court how just about all of those monsters have been used over the past 30 years in various video games- Ultima, Final Fantasy, Wow, etc.  Prior art art and squatters rights et al.

Relevance, counselor?
Seriously though, some legal scholars have proposed applying adverse possession principles to copyright law. At present though adverse possession has no application to copyright (not under American law at any rate).
While one could probably show that TSR slept on its rights too long to assert a cause of action against e.g. Blizzard, that would only help Blizzard, and would not estop WotC from suing e.g. Goblinoid Games for the "Brain Lashers" from Mutant Future.
An actual defense would be that one only copied the idea of the monster, and not TSR/WotC's expression of it. Expression is protected; ideas are not, well, except when they are. See Kregos v. Associated Press, 937 F.2d 700 if you have the SAN to spare.
Also, while we're slinging legalese about, prior art does not mean what you seem to think it means.

QuoteThen again, threats of lawsuits are enough to keep the little guys honest...

Has anyone told James Shipman?

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549335The weirdest part of it for me is the issue of them trying to make Gythyanki into "Product Identity". Githyanki were written by George R. Martin in 1977 and they do not own that name. The only reason they can keep using it is because Martin decided it wasn't worth suing them over it.

That's actually why it and several other monsters aren't in the SRD and aren't covered by the OGL-- WotC knows their legal rights to them are tenuous, and thus suspects that, legally, they don't have the right to license them out to others. Since those monsters don't belong to them, they can't give other people permission to use them.

I think Dancey stated that when made the list of non SRD monsters he was kinda rushed and just grabbed stuff that he thought was key IP IIRC.  Whether or not he understood the vague legal aspects of the Githyanki and Displacer Beast may not have been a consideration.  Does he still come around here?

Quote from: Dan Vincze;688090Relevance, counselor?
Seriously though, some legal scholars have proposed applying adverse possession principles to copyright law. At present though adverse possession has no application to copyright (not under American law at any rate).
While one could probably show that TSR slept on its rights too long to assert a cause of action against e.g. Blizzard, that would only help Blizzard, and would not estop WotC from suing e.g. Goblinoid Games for the "Brain Lashers" from Mutant Future.
An actual defense would be that one only copied the idea of the monster, and not TSR/WotC's expression of it. Expression is protected; ideas are not, well, except when they are. See Kregos v. Associated Press, 937 F.2d 700 if you have the SAN to spare.
Also, while we're slinging legalese about, prior art does not mean what you seem to think it means.


Has anyone told James Shipman?

Now what if one used an "possibly infringing" OGL version of the Beholder in one's product.  Would that OGL version be a firewall to protect one from Wotc?  I know our very own Alexandrian created an eye monster, could he take the fall for me?  

Yes, I'm no lawyer!

Quote from: Teazia;688352Now what if one used an "possibly infringing" OGL version of the Beholder in one's product.  Would that OGL version be a firewall to protect one from Wotc?  I know our very own Alexandrian created an eye monster, could he take the fall for me?  

Yes, I'm no lawyer!

Neither am I, I'm just in law school, so don't take my hypothetical ramblings as legal advice.
The definition of "product identity" (d20srd.org)  includes "names and descriptions of ... creatures." This is ambiguous. WotC could argue that this refers not to the description in the monster manual, but to any description which clearly describes the same creature, even under a different name.
If the court follows the Restatement rule, that terms with multiple possible meanings generally be interpreted against the interest of the draftsman, that argument would probably fail.
Of course, as far as I know the issue has never been litigated and likely never will.

Quote from: Teazia;688349I think Dancey stated that when made the list of non SRD monsters he was kinda rushed and just grabbed stuff that he thought was key IP IIRC.  Whether or not he understood the vague legal aspects of the Githyanki and Displacer Beast may not have been a consideration.  Does he still come around here?

Occasionally, but he doesn't tend to talk much about his own prior history.

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