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Originally Posted by philreed
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It's a nice policy and the most relevant part for authors of third-party material is where it talks about fair use protections under copyright and trademark law. There's not any practical (legal) way that SJG can _prevent_ someone from publishing third-party rules, as long as those rules themselves are actually legal. Fair use will allow a third party author to make reference to things in TFT, which ought to be enough for most expansions. People can publish a document that contains new rules, talents, whatever.
What SJG _can_ do (and I think _should_ do) is to influence third-party authors by providing a way to put something like a "Powered by TFT" logo on their material or, "this product approved by Steve Jackson Games". This would be a _legal_ way for SJG to have a say in third-party material. It would also be a way to help customers decide what and what not to buy.
I was hoping the announced license would serve this purpose but apparently it won't.
I'm still hoping there will eventually be something like this, so that 1) SJG can get a cut of third-party rules (published through Warehouse 23) and 2) customers can get a little guidance from SJG directly about third-party products. #1 is actually more significant than #2, in my opinion, because product reviews, rating systems, and "sell me on" threads already offer guidance to potential customers.