Quote from: Effete on January 31, 2023, 10:24:53 AM

Quote from: S'mon on January 28, 2023, 07:41:19 AM

Quote from: zer0th on January 28, 2023, 06:43:13 AM
WotC's intention wasn't to give us beholders, but the word was left behind in the text twice. I bet since this SRD 5.1 was released under the OGL 1.0a many years ago (if it is the same exact SRD), publishers noticed this but were advised not to push it by using what I believe is WotC trademark as the name of a monster, even if the name was in SRD.

The OGL specifically forbade use of Product Identity terms, including
beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar'ri, baatezu, displacer
beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti.
Under the CC licence that no longer applies.

But those monsters don't appear in the SRD, so you can't claim their use under CC-By-4.0 license. You can TRY to incorporate them into your product via Fair Use or through some unique creative expression, but any copy/paste of the stat blocks would be a clear and obvious violation of WotC's copyright.

It depends on what you're doing. If it's an OSR game, you have to re-word and re-organize the stat blocks anyway. At that point now that the words Beholder, Mind Flayer and Yuan-Ti are CC, you can take your Evil Eye that was mechanically identical to an AD&D Beholder and just call it a Beholder.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 03:04:43 PM
Go tell Matt Mercer he's doing it wrong by replacing the Beholder from the live play stream with a tentacle beast that was an original creation because you can't copyright a stack of concepts.

You can't copyright a 'stack of concepts'. However you can copyright the image of a Beholder, and sue people for creating derivative works based on that image. Detailed characters - but not stock characters - can also be copyright protected in some jurisdictions such as the USA (eg MGM v Honda, and recently Shazam v Only Fools here in UK), which might extend to copyright protection for a detailed original monster. Merely referring to the monster by name would not be enough, though.

Concept stack is just shorthand for 'If you add enough stuff, it eventually comes close enough to copyright'.

A Demon King named 'Emperor Voldemort' - Nah
A Demon King named 'Lord Voldemort' - Raises eyebrows
A Demonic Sorcerer named 'Lord Voldemort' - Getting there
A Skeletal looking Sorcerer named 'Lord Voldemort' who wants to rule the wizard world and wants revenge against 'Parry Hotter' - Yeah they gonna sue.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 31, 2023, 03:44:09 PM
Concept stack is just shorthand for 'If you add enough stuff, it eventually comes close enough to copyright'.

It's not good shorthand though. In fact it's very bad.

US law Title 17 of the United States Code S. 102: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

It's best not to use verbiage to describe the Law that goes directly against the law as written.

Quote from: S'mon on January 31, 2023, 03:51:47 PMIt's not good shorthand though. In fact it's very bad.

Everything is a concept, and an idea, ergo copyright law doesn't exist.

Quote from: migo on January 31, 2023, 03:22:53 PM

Quote from: Effete on January 31, 2023, 10:24:53 AM
But those monsters don't appear in the SRD, so you can't claim their use under CC-By-4.0 license. You can TRY to incorporate them into your product via Fair Use or through some unique creative expression, but any copy/paste of the stat blocks would be a clear and obvious violation of WotC's copyright.

It depends on what you're doing. If it's an OSR game, you have to re-word and re-organize the stat blocks anyway. At that point now that the words Beholder, Mind Flayer and Yuan-Ti are CC, you can take your Evil Eye that was mechanically identical to an AD&D Beholder and just call it a Beholder.

You could do that anyway, it just can't have the statblock of a DnD beholder (from any version of the rules) and it can't be TOO similar in description.
"Eyeball with wings?" You're probably good.
"Eyestalks and born from nightmares?" Infringement.

The word "beholder" showing up in CC without any context attached to it doesn't magically give you rights to stuff that isn't explicitly provided by the material placed in the Commons. The 5.1 SRD and the 5.1 Monster Manual are entirely separate documents. Just because the SRD says "beholder" somewhere in it doesn't imply you can take the "beholder" from the MM.

You can use the term "beholder" to describe virtually any kind of monster you want, like a skulking beast that can see perfectly in darkness, fog, and through any illusions. The only thing you can't do is use "beholder" with DnD's description (or anyone else's description of a "beholder" you don't have the rights to use).

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 31, 2023, 03:54:45 PM

Quote from: S'mon on January 31, 2023, 03:51:47 PMIt's not good shorthand though. In fact it's very bad.

Everything is a concept, and an idea, ergo copyright law doesn't exist.

Copyright does not protect the concept of an evil undead wizard who wants to rule the wizard world and seeks revenge on the boy wizard protagonist. However it can protect a particular expression of that concept, such as Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. This is an important distinction for understanding how copyright law works.

Quote from: Zelen on January 28, 2023, 11:35:29 AM
Boring personal attacks aside, that's entirely the point. The things people liked (the ideas) were never under lock and key to begin with. So the crowing over this is purely about being able to Consoom D&D Product.

I've got more books than I could ever possibly use in three lifetimes of gaming. I don't personally give a shit if I ever buy anything new. But the hobby dies without new blood, and new blood dries up without product. All the hoarded used books and random shit in second hand shops in the world won't keep the hobby alive as anything more than a few isolated groups, whereas I'd like to be able to pass it on to my godchild and maybe even their future hypothetical children. But if all that's left is a bunch of old greybeards, that aint gonna happen.

Quote from: Bruwulf on January 31, 2023, 07:21:27 PM

I've got more books than I could ever possibly use in three lifetimes of gaming. I don't personally give a shit if I ever buy anything new. But the hobby dies without new blood, and new blood dries up without product. All the hoarded used books and random shit in second hand shops in the world won't keep the hobby alive as anything more than a few isolated groups, whereas I'd like to be able to pass it on to my godchild and maybe even their future hypothetical children. But if all that's left is a bunch of old greybeards, that aint gonna happen.

I don't know.  The hobby started out as pamphlets when they were expensive and time-consuming to produce.  One ink cartridge on a small business printer will let me print out a complete set of rules for at least 20 people, in color--assuming that I'm correct that I'm currently at about 40% of the final page count.  Then add in paper and binding.  And I'm only doing some things to keep the cost down, such as using multiple, small booklets for now because I know I'll be reprinting as we test and fix things. 

If you have to sell it, handle it, ship it, etc., it adds up.  If all you want to do is pass it along to keep it going, not so much. 

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 03:04:43 PM

Quote from: DocJones on January 31, 2023, 02:36:11 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 01:45:18 PM
You are aware that other posters like DocJones are telling people to use WotC's IP outright and as is word for word because he claims they won't actually go after you, right?

Never ever in a million years would I have said the above. 
Could it be that you are the one with a basic misunderstanding of what copyright covers?

And by the way there is no such thing as "concept stacks".  Concepts cannot be copyrighted.  Neither can stacks of them.

"Word-for-word" might have been an exaggeration, but the spirit of the statement of what you're calling for remains true. You're the one screaming "Fight the power!...Somebody else fight the power!"

It's not about "fighting the power", but all about doing what  you are legally allowed to do.
The only hyperbole I've used is "Don't be a pussy" and "Man up". 

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 03:04:43 PM
So go ahead and prove me wrong by publishing something using all of Hasbro's non-CC-by-4.0 IP then. Or better yet, go rewrite the entirety of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in your own words with different names for the characters and see where that lands you.

I don't want to use any of Hasbro's IP that's protected by copyright or trademark. 
I don't want to use their OGL1.0a nor their CC-by-4.0. I don't care what is in or not in their SRD.
If I want mountain dwarves or wood elves I'll have them, even though they aren't in their SRD.
I want to make a D&D compatible rules book using my own work.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 03:04:43 PM
Go tell Matt Mercer he's doing it wrong by replacing the Beholder from the live play stream with a tentacle beast that was an original creation because you can't copyright a stack of concepts.

I don't know anything about critical role, but I found this.   
I'm guessing you are talking about the cartoon.  Maybe the cartoon operates under OGL, but the live stream does not.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 31, 2023, 08:38:26 AMUltimately, the correct answer to where the line falls is "where the judge you get thinks the line is" and what your own personal level of financial risk tolerance is.

Bingo!

Also, kudos on the Halfling vs. Hobbit breakdown.

Anybody know who the 5e Hobbit from One Ring was done vs. the 5e Halfling? It would be interesting to see how the authorized Tolkein version compares to the D&D version.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 31, 2023, 09:09:31 PM

I don't know.  The hobby started out as pamphlets when they were expensive and time-consuming to produce.  One ink cartridge on a small business printer will let me print out a complete set of rules for at least 20 people, in color--assuming that I'm correct that I'm currently at about 40% of the final page count.  Then add in paper and binding.  And I'm only doing some things to keep the cost down, such as using multiple, small booklets for now because I know I'll be reprinting as we test and fix things. 

If you have to sell it, handle it, ship it, etc., it adds up.  If all you want to do is pass it along to keep it going, not so much.

I will admit that the electronic publishing boom changes the metric, and I don't know quite how. Certainly it's less likely that - hopefully - popular books will go out of print and become scarce if you can get nice slick PDFs, and yeah, sure, you can print them out - hell, you can even get them printed out and bound to where they are pretty much as good as any conventionally produced book.

But I wonder at how much of that market is existing gamers, verses new gamers. How many new gamers come in purely digitally, verses how many start out with "gateway" products you can find in game and comic shops and regular bookstores, like WotC and Paizo products. Ebooks might be fine for second- and third-generation gamers, being introduced by their parents/uncles/etc, but will they draw in new players spontaneously?

I don't know. I'll admit, I don't have the answers there.