GURPS Lite and a Open gaming license?

[Varyon]

From what I understand, the trade dress is part of the GURPS copyright, and failure to enforce one's copyright (such as by not saying "Hey, you need to change this" when a violation is brought to their attention - say, by a link on the forum SJGames runs) can result in loss of said copyright. So while there's a big component of "We don't want anyone to mistake your fan project as an official product, particularly if it might get us sued," there's also a sizable component of "We have to send you official notice to change/remove this or we risk losing our copyright, so please just do so and make it easier on the both of us."

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

although it probably wasn't the only reason.

If I recall they lifted material directly from other GURPS books and credited GURPS authors (despite the only contribution being the pilfered rules), so it went above and beyond merely looking like an official product.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

From what I understand, the trade dress is part of the GURPS copyright.

Trade dress appears to be covered by trademark law, not copyright law, though such a product could easily also violate copyrights (and, of course, something like GURPS GhostBusters would also be violating Columbia Pictures' trademark).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Trade dress appears to be covered by trademark law, not copyright law, though such a product could easily also violate copyrights (and, of course, something like GURPS GhostBusters would also be violating Columbia Pictures' trademark).

I was probably thinking of trademark rather than copyright, then - I'm not a lawyer, and my memory can be rather spotty, particularly for things I'm not terribly interested in.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I was probably thinking of trademark rather than copyright, then - I'm not a lawyer, and my memory can be rather spotty, particularly for things I'm not terribly interested in.

Yeah, this is why I cited the link so anyone interested can read it for themselves.
it is pretty though, yet easy to read and understand for such a thing.

[robertsconley]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Of course, there were probably those involved in the creation of the OGL who absolutely did intend for it to create competitors.

Ryan Dancey from here
https://www.enworld.org/threads/ryan...icense.662351/

I also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners. I know just how close that came to happening. In 1997, TSR had pledged most of the copyright interests in D&D as collateral for loans it could not repay, and had Wizards of the Coast not rescued it I'm certain that it would have all gone into a lenghty bankruptcy struggle with a very real chance that D&D couldn't be published until the suits, appeals, countersuits, etc. had all been settled (i.e. maybe never). The OGL enabled that as a positive side effect.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I was probably thinking of trademark rather than copyright, then - I'm not a lawyer, and my memory can be rather spotty, particularly for things I'm not terribly interested in.

Copyright is the right to copy a work, you can defend this as selectively as you want and it will still be valid. You could go after just a single guy copying a single book and even if millions others copied it, you'd still hold a valid copyright.

Trademark is how you identify something as the genuine article (like McDonald's golden arches) and has to be defended whenever you become aware of a violation/potential confusion or you risk losing it.

Trade dress is a variation of trademark and has to be actively protected the same way. It includes such things as packaging, font usage, colours, and layout. Returning to the McD example, their packaging for french fries would count as trade dress with the fairly well known shape, size, colour and logo placement.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Copyright is the right to copy a work, you can defend this as selectively as you want and it will still be valid. You could go after just a single guy copying a single book and even if millions others copied it, you'd still hold a valid copyright.

Trademark is how you identify something as the genuine article (like McDonald's golden arches) and has to be defended whenever you become aware of a violation/potential confusion or you risk losing it.

A key distinction, because had the 22-yr history of third-party publishing under the OGL been covered under trademark law, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Either WotC would have defended breaches aggressively 22 years ago, or the industry would have looked on and said "then I guess you should have defended it 22 years ago."

Copyright doesn't go away by not defending it, so if WotC, the owner, manages to convince a judge/jury/arbiter that somehow anything that quacks like D&D is in violation (good luck with that, but it's possible to envision it going that way), the entire OGL-based publishing industry is left having to find something new to do.

[Edited to remove flip promo for DFRPG, b/c not open]

No matter what, a large number of folks are looking at non-OGL tied games. Anything from the already-extant Worlds Without Number (not OGL), about which Kevin said this two years ago:

The mechanical elements of my games, of course, can be lifted by anyone for their own products provided they rewrite them in their own words. I don't mind people making explicitly "Compatible with SWN" products, provided they don't use "Stars Without Number" explicitly in the title or otherwise give the impression of being an "official" release, and provided they use their own setting or some nebulously generic sci-fi background that could fit anywhere.

to any one of several new projects kicked off since this announcement will eventually hit. A new legal license framework is being worked on (Ryan Dancey just made some nice commentary about how Creative Commons isn't great, as it leads to assumptions, and the various terms can vary every bit as much as "whee! darn near public domain!" to "almost as draconian as OGL1.1") as well.

In a few years, the third-party D&D space will find its footing no matter the outcome. The real question here is "what do I do with the products I'm either selling, producing, or about to produce" until that landscape becomes clear.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by warellis

In Wizards' case, they are attempting to use OGL 1.1 to prevent would-be-competitors from growing any bigger than a certain point, by skimming off anything above $750,000.

It's genuinely awful.

Seems like business-school tactics. They've built up a dominant market share with D&D5e, so it's time to exploit that position. Doing a new edition makes changing the license legally straightforward, and brings in a bunch of money as people buy the books again.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Seems like business-school tactics. They've built up a dominant market share with D&D5e, so it's time to exploit that position. Doing a new edition makes changing the license legally straightforward, and brings in a bunch of money as people buy the books again.

The main fight isn't over whether they can apply a new license to a new edition (everyone agrees they can), it's over whether than can revoke the existing license on what they've already released.

The problem from Wizards' side is that if they don't revoke the existing license, all the third parties will just ignore the new license and produce things against the 5e SRD, and because they're trying to make it so everything in 5e works for the new edition, any such product will be compatible with the new edition.