GSL, Purchased PDFs and Software Tools... - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

GSL, Purchased PDFs and Software Tools...

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
darkagecat
Jul 16, 2008 23:49:32 I know that this has been in some particulars been hashed over to death here, but I am curious about a singular loophole. The GSL section 5.5 explicilty excludes interactive products (character creators etc... ) from the set of products which can take advantage of the license grant. However, there does not appear to be anything that prevents the distribution of a specialized PDF reader which can index, cross-reference and display both GSL licensed single download form PDF source materials and the complete core rule books in PDF format.

There also appears to be no limit on the extension of such a reader, much as WoTC cannot mandate the function of Adobe Acrobat or GhostView. Under such an assumption it seems plausible that one could create a "character creator" or other "interactive product" that itself was copyrighted text free, and embodied only method's of operation and process of game play which is explicitly exempt from copyright protection under U.S. Law. (See Title 17 of the United States Code Circular 92 Chapter 1 section 102(b))

I guess the fundamental issue at hand is if WoTC is willing to formally accept that there is nothing stopping an entity from developing and distributing tools that will only function in the presence of a legitimate electronic copy of the source books (and/or GSL licensed supliment) and if it is acceptable for a single entity to produce both GSL licensed material and a seperate specialized (non-GSL licensed) reader.

What do people think the WoTC position on this will be? Does the extension of per-product line seperation in the GSL FAQ extend to the point that a generic tool and GSL product could be produced by the same individual or company?

Thoughts,
-DAC
#2
riprjak
Jul 17, 2008 23:00:44
I know that this has been in some particulars been hashed over to death here, but I am curious about a singular loophole. The GSL section 5.5 explicilty excludes interactive products (character creators etc... ) from the set of products which can take advantage of the license grant. However, there does not appear to be anything that prevents the distribution of a specialized PDF reader which can index, cross-reference and display both GSL licensed single download form PDF source materials and the complete core rule books in PDF format.

There also appears to be no limit on the extension of such a reader, much as WoTC cannot mandate the function of Adobe Acrobat or GhostView. Under such an assumption it seems plausible that one could create a "character creator" or other "interactive product" that itself was copyrighted text free, and embodied only method's of operation and process of game play which is explicitly exempt from copyright protection under U.S. Law. (See Title 17 of the United States Code Circular 92 Chapter 1 section 102(b))-DAC

Certainly an interesting arguement, particularly here in Australia... however the real challenge would be promoting it without infringing on trademarks.

This is what galls me most about the move, they know damn well they cant stop you making a character generator; but they can stop you promoting it. Once you promote it as ABLE to make characters for D&D 4e, then you have made the enabling link.

Unless you call it "a character generator for the latest edition of that role playing game that that dead guy with the gg initials made that got sold to that card game company which is now owned by a global toymaking conglomerate".

As I said, as soon as you mention it is for dungeons and dragons fourth edition, you have created a crack that their lawyers can swarm through like so many parasites.

So generic tools like pcgen or metacreator could get away with adding such features silently, as long as it was only described in common language; but D&D specific tools would suffer... alot.

err!
jak.
#3
darkagecat
Jul 18, 2008 8:01:14 Well, I can't imagine that this the interpretation of the GSL is directly relevant to an Australian market. Its based on US copyright and trademark law. From my personal perspective, I'm completely indifferent to the mass marketing aspect.

I'm only concerned with creating a point of understanding around which development of fan produced products can occur without resulting in C&D letters and other recourse by WoTC. However, I wonder if there is anything that prevents a GSL product line from referring to its compliance or interoperability with a non-GSL product. Can for example can a GSL (and thus full branding marketed) adventure module tout an interactive support tool such as PCGen with no branding?

My other note is that the GSL and SRD provides a clear definition of what WoTC defines as their licensable IP including their specific look and feel, outside of this agreement, use of anything else in 4e is presumably covered by copyright and trademark law. In this regard it would seem that the GSL/SRD gives a concise definition of what WoTC considers infringement of their brand. I wonder if this is a basis on which an argument limiting the scope of defense of copyright or trademark can be made? (Keeping in mind that an undefended trademark or copyright rapidly ceases to be in the US courts.)

-DAC
#4
steerpike7
Jul 19, 2008 7:54:04
Once you promote it as ABLE to make characters for D&D 4e, then you have made the enabling link.

This is false.
#5
steerpike7
Jul 19, 2008 7:55:15
(Keeping in mind that an undefended trademark or copyright rapidly ceases to be in the US courts.)

This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works.
#6
darkagecat
Jul 19, 2008 10:53:02
This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works.

Thanks for pointing this out, it appears I've created a confusion of different bodies of law here and made an overly strong statement. Perhaps I should separate out the practical sentiment into more precise terms for each body and attach a specific more limited question to each. I'm quite interested in learning more about the issues of law that seem to be at question here.

An "undefended" copyrighted work seems more vulnerable to phrases entering common usage. That would seem to create later difficulty defending against third party usage of those phrases. Is this a more accurate statement? Is there somewhere I can find more information on orphan works? (Intellectual curiousity at work there.)

Defendable trademarks are only those bits that are so labeled in the works. (See notice of registration clause, US Code Title 15 Chapter 22, subchapter III section 1111) This effectively defines those trademarks that WoTC can successfully defend. I was more interested in the limitations to trademark injunction that this provides. Would it therefore be more correct to state: Anything not currently labeled as trademarked in the core rule books is not protected by trademark law and that later trademark of included items that have been used in a third party publication prior to registration is not subject to trademark limitations? (sic, section 1115)

Not defending a patent does deteriorate the position of the litigant. However WoTC does not seem to have produced a patent covering the mechanics of D&D 4e so this doesn't seem to be at issue.

I would also observe, that just because lack of timely defense may make a litigant's later case weaker doesn't necessarily provide enough protection for a defense especially if the larger entity has more resources to bring to bear. Again this all seems to devolve into the question of what WoTC intends to take action against in defense of its core property, which is presumably some subset of its legally provided guarantees, or an extension/redefinition of those guarantees as defined under licenses such as the GSL. Unfortunately, that is an unanswerable question.

-DAC
#7
sorites
Jul 21, 2008 19:29:43
Unless you call it "a character generator for the latest edition of that role playing game that that dead guy with the gg initials made that got sold to that card game company which is now owned by a global toymaking conglomerate".

You might be able to say, "Compatible with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons."
IANAL

http://robertsongames.com/news/kenzer-co-dd-and-trademarks
#8
mechascorpio
Jul 21, 2008 19:52:16 Publishers should absolutely be able to say "Compatible with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons." The concept (and legal affirmation) of nominative fair use goes back to the 60s. It's everywhere you look in modern life, and the RPG and publishing industries are certainly not exempt from it. We use it in the software industry ("requires Microsoft Windows XP or later; Windows XP is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation") all the time. I'm certain I used to purchase and play 3pp modules in the 70's and 80's that took this approach. Chaosium's Thieves' World comes to mind, which clearly advertised that it was compatible with 9 role-playing systems that it listed out, including AD&D (though maybe they had permission, I really don't recall).

Granted, I've been missing from the world of RPG's since the mid-80s, but what if anything has changed? The GSL is one approach for creating supplements, one in which the publishers gets to take advantage of the official D&D trademarks and such; but as long as a publication doesn't infringe on WOTC's copyrighted material, they can still use the "compatible with" phraseology, yes?
#9
darkagecat
Jul 22, 2008 1:06:16
http://robertsongames.com/news/kenzer-co-dd-and-trademarks

This work provides an interesting exemplar. It has a similar but distinct look and feel from the WoTC source books, and makes a series of direct references to key phrases from the core rules. I'm greatly interested in what if any action WoTC takes against its publication.

-DAC
#10
darkagecat
Jul 22, 2008 1:20:32
Granted, I've been missing from the world of RPG's since the mid-80s, but what if anything has changed?

A bit of humor there, the world today is very similar to the 80s. The madness seeps in between now and then. There was a "golden age" under the Open Gaming License (OGL) where almost all of D&D could be used in near verbatim form without threat of reprisal.

WoTC is putting the cat back in the bag for 4th edition under the new Game System License. The structure of the GSL as an inter-business agreement and its comparatively restrictive terms in comparison to the OGL seem to encourage a return to use of standard copyright & trademark law as the boundaries for most third party efforts in the lay community and a number in the business community as well.

So in essence from an licensed content perspective nothing much has changed from the 80s.

-DAC
#11
darkagecat
Jul 22, 2008 1:36:34
This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works.

Steerpike7, thanks for pointing out this area of interest. I've in a fit of insomnia done a bit of digging into the resultant legislation from the copyright office's study and funny enough you can find more information on this at:
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/

It looks like no statutory change has yet been made though bills have been introduced in both the house and senate. In any event the text of all versions of this defense require that the infringer be unable to find the originator of the copyright, which unless WoTC goes belly up will not be the case for anything germane to this discussion.

-DAC
#12
noisician
Jul 22, 2008 14:11:26 Even in the supermarket you see house brands with labels like:

If you like Fruit Loops try our Artificially Colored Sugar Os!

I don't see why something similar wouldn't be legal. How about:

"This is not an official Dungeons & Dragons module. It's better."

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darkagecat Jul 16, 2008 23:49:32	I know that this has been in some particulars been hashed over to death here, but I am curious about a singular loophole. The GSL section 5.5 explicilty excludes interactive products (character creators etc... ) from the set of products which can take advantage of the license grant. However, there does not appear to be anything that prevents the distribution of a specialized PDF reader which can index, cross-reference and display both GSL licensed single download form PDF source materials and the complete core rule books in PDF format. There also appears to be no limit on the extension of such a reader, much as WoTC cannot mandate the function of Adobe Acrobat or GhostView. Under such an assumption it seems plausible that one could create a "character creator" or other "interactive product" that itself was copyrighted text free, and embodied only method's of operation and process of game play which is explicitly exempt from copyright protection under U.S. Law. (See Title 17 of the United States Code Circular 92 Chapter 1 section 102(b)) I guess the fundamental issue at hand is if WoTC is willing to formally accept that there is nothing stopping an entity from developing and distributing tools that will only function in the presence of a legitimate electronic copy of the source books (and/or GSL licensed supliment) and if it is acceptable for a single entity to produce both GSL licensed material and a seperate specialized (non-GSL licensed) reader. What do people think the WoTC position on this will be? Does the extension of per-product line seperation in the GSL FAQ extend to the point that a generic tool and GSL product could be produced by the same individual or company? Thoughts, -DAC
#2 riprjak Jul 17, 2008 23:00:44	I know that this has been in some particulars been hashed over to death here, but I am curious about a singular loophole. The GSL section 5.5 explicilty excludes interactive products (character creators etc... ) from the set of products which can take advantage of the license grant. However, there does not appear to be anything that prevents the distribution of a specialized PDF reader which can index, cross-reference and display both GSL licensed single download form PDF source materials and the complete core rule books in PDF format. There also appears to be no limit on the extension of such a reader, much as WoTC cannot mandate the function of Adobe Acrobat or GhostView. Under such an assumption it seems plausible that one could create a "character creator" or other "interactive product" that itself was copyrighted text free, and embodied only method's of operation and process of game play which is explicitly exempt from copyright protection under U.S. Law. (See Title 17 of the United States Code Circular 92 Chapter 1 section 102(b))-DAC Certainly an interesting arguement, particularly here in Australia... however the real challenge would be promoting it without infringing on trademarks. This is what galls me most about the move, they know damn well they cant stop you making a character generator; but they can stop you promoting it. Once you promote it as ABLE to make characters for D&D 4e, then you have made the enabling link. Unless you call it "a character generator for the latest edition of that role playing game that that dead guy with the gg initials made that got sold to that card game company which is now owned by a global toymaking conglomerate". As I said, as soon as you mention it is for dungeons and dragons fourth edition, you have created a crack that their lawyers can swarm through like so many parasites. So generic tools like pcgen or metacreator could get away with adding such features silently, as long as it was only described in common language; but D&D specific tools would suffer... alot. err! jak.
#3 darkagecat Jul 18, 2008 8:01:14	Well, I can't imagine that this the interpretation of the GSL is directly relevant to an Australian market. Its based on US copyright and trademark law. From my personal perspective, I'm completely indifferent to the mass marketing aspect. I'm only concerned with creating a point of understanding around which development of fan produced products can occur without resulting in C&D letters and other recourse by WoTC. However, I wonder if there is anything that prevents a GSL product line from referring to its compliance or interoperability with a non-GSL product. Can for example can a GSL (and thus full branding marketed) adventure module tout an interactive support tool such as PCGen with no branding? My other note is that the GSL and SRD provides a clear definition of what WoTC defines as their licensable IP including their specific look and feel, outside of this agreement, use of anything else in 4e is presumably covered by copyright and trademark law. In this regard it would seem that the GSL/SRD gives a concise definition of what WoTC considers infringement of their brand. I wonder if this is a basis on which an argument limiting the scope of defense of copyright or trademark can be made? (Keeping in mind that an undefended trademark or copyright rapidly ceases to be in the US courts.) -DAC
#4 steerpike7 Jul 19, 2008 7:54:04	Once you promote it as ABLE to make characters for D&D 4e, then you have made the enabling link. This is false.
#5 steerpike7 Jul 19, 2008 7:55:15	(Keeping in mind that an undefended trademark or copyright rapidly ceases to be in the US courts.) This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works.
#6 darkagecat Jul 19, 2008 10:53:02	This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works. Thanks for pointing this out, it appears I've created a confusion of different bodies of law here and made an overly strong statement. Perhaps I should separate out the practical sentiment into more precise terms for each body and attach a specific more limited question to each. I'm quite interested in learning more about the issues of law that seem to be at question here. An "undefended" copyrighted work seems more vulnerable to phrases entering common usage. That would seem to create later difficulty defending against third party usage of those phrases. Is this a more accurate statement? Is there somewhere I can find more information on orphan works? (Intellectual curiousity at work there.) Defendable trademarks are only those bits that are so labeled in the works. (See notice of registration clause, US Code Title 15 Chapter 22, subchapter III section 1111) This effectively defines those trademarks that WoTC can successfully defend. I was more interested in the limitations to trademark injunction that this provides. Would it therefore be more correct to state: Anything not currently labeled as trademarked in the core rule books is not protected by trademark law and that later trademark of included items that have been used in a third party publication prior to registration is not subject to trademark limitations? (sic, section 1115) Not defending a patent does deteriorate the position of the litigant. However WoTC does not seem to have produced a patent covering the mechanics of D&D 4e so this doesn't seem to be at issue. I would also observe, that just because lack of timely defense may make a litigant's later case weaker doesn't necessarily provide enough protection for a defense especially if the larger entity has more resources to bring to bear. Again this all seems to devolve into the question of what WoTC intends to take action against in defense of its core property, which is presumably some subset of its legally provided guarantees, or an extension/redefinition of those guarantees as defined under licenses such as the GSL. Unfortunately, that is an unanswerable question. -DAC
#7 sorites Jul 21, 2008 19:29:43	Unless you call it "a character generator for the latest edition of that role playing game that that dead guy with the gg initials made that got sold to that card game company which is now owned by a global toymaking conglomerate". You might be able to say, "Compatible with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons." IANAL http://robertsongames.com/news/kenzer-co-dd-and-trademarks
#8 mechascorpio Jul 21, 2008 19:52:16	Publishers should absolutely be able to say "Compatible with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons." The concept (and legal affirmation) of nominative fair use goes back to the 60s. It's everywhere you look in modern life, and the RPG and publishing industries are certainly not exempt from it. We use it in the software industry ("requires Microsoft Windows XP or later; Windows XP is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation") all the time. I'm certain I used to purchase and play 3pp modules in the 70's and 80's that took this approach. Chaosium's Thieves' World comes to mind, which clearly advertised that it was compatible with 9 role-playing systems that it listed out, including AD&D (though maybe they had permission, I really don't recall). Granted, I've been missing from the world of RPG's since the mid-80s, but what if anything has changed? The GSL is one approach for creating supplements, one in which the publishers gets to take advantage of the official D&D trademarks and such; but as long as a publication doesn't infringe on WOTC's copyrighted material, they can still use the "compatible with" phraseology, yes?
#9 darkagecat Jul 22, 2008 1:06:16	http://robertsongames.com/news/kenzer-co-dd-and-trademarks This work provides an interesting exemplar. It has a similar but distinct look and feel from the WoTC source books, and makes a series of direct references to key phrases from the core rules. I'm greatly interested in what if any action WoTC takes against its publication. -DAC
#10 darkagecat Jul 22, 2008 1:20:32	Granted, I've been missing from the world of RPG's since the mid-80s, but what if anything has changed? A bit of humor there, the world today is very similar to the 80s. The madness seeps in between now and then. There was a "golden age" under the Open Gaming License (OGL) where almost all of D&D could be used in near verbatim form without threat of reprisal. WoTC is putting the cat back in the bag for 4th edition under the new Game System License. The structure of the GSL as an inter-business agreement and its comparatively restrictive terms in comparison to the OGL seem to encourage a return to use of standard copyright & trademark law as the boundaries for most third party efforts in the lay community and a number in the business community as well. So in essence from an licensed content perspective nothing much has changed from the 80s. -DAC
#11 darkagecat Jul 22, 2008 1:36:34	This is also false, at least with respect to copyrights, which have a statutory term. The Copyright Office is currently looking into problems relating to orphan works. Steerpike7, thanks for pointing out this area of interest. I've in a fit of insomnia done a bit of digging into the resultant legislation from the copyright office's study and funny enough you can find more information on this at: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/ It looks like no statutory change has yet been made though bills have been introduced in both the house and senate. In any event the text of all versions of this defense require that the infringer be unable to find the originator of the copyright, which unless WoTC goes belly up will not be the case for anything germane to this discussion. -DAC
#12 noisician Jul 22, 2008 14:11:26	Even in the supermarket you see house brands with labels like: If you like Fruit Loops try our Artificially Colored Sugar Os! I don't see why something similar wouldn't be legal. How about: "This is not an official Dungeons & Dragons module. It's better."