Quote from: StuartUnder that legal system (which I think may apply to Quebec) Gary would have lost the company -- but not the game he created.

Careful. You may be right, but given how copyright works and the fact that copyright isn't patent or trademark, Gary might have only ended up with "AD&D" the text, but not the right to use the trademark in future games.

As things stand, the "only" thing he lost was the AD&D text and trademark(s). Had he wanted to write his own version of Palladium RPG or whatever, I don't see why he couldn't have.

Then again I seem to recall that TSR rather vigorously tried to keep him from writing any games, e.g. when he worked with GDW. I don't remember what the legal basis for that was.

Interesting that Gygax thought the OGL was a big mistake.  (And ironic, given that the OGL made Castles and Crusades -- and thus his most recent products -- possible.)

It seems that WotC has come to share that view ...

Quote from: Elliot WilenThen again I seem to recall that TSR rather vigorously tried to keep him from writing any games, e.g. when he worked with GDW. I don't remember what the legal basis for that was.

The legal basis was "flaky premise used to beat on the little guy with big bags of money till he goes away". Which is exactly how it played out. Of course I believe Gary also screwed up with a computer programming partner with a lack of communication there, which really hobbled him financially. I'm pretty sure that was in that series of posts by Old Geezer. All coming back to Mr. Gygax not being a particularly astute business leader and organizer. :shrug:

Quote from: AkrasiaInteresting that Gygax thought the OGL was a big mistake.  (And ironic, given that the OGL made Castles and Crusades -- and thus his most recent products -- possible.)

It seems that WotC has come to share that view ...

Or maybe that they don't need it so much anymore?  EDIT: Though it seems more like they are simply scaling it back a notch or two, it's hard to say since we still haven't seen the new document.

Quote from: Elliot WilenCareful. You may be right, but given how copyright works and the fact that copyright isn't patent or trademark, Gary might have only ended up with "AD&D" the text, but not the right to use the trademark in future games.

True enough, but that also brings up the interchangeable way Trademarks and Product names are sometimes used --

Quote from: WikipediaAnother common practice amongst trademark owners is to follow their trademark with the word "brand" to help define the word as a trademark. Johnson & Johnson changed the lyrics of their Band-Aid television commercial jingle from, "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" to "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me." Google has gone to lengths to prevent this process, discouraging publications from using the term 'googling' in reference to web-searches. This led New Scientist's Feedback section to coin the neologism FWSEing, in reference to the Famous Web Search Engine.[2] In 2006, "google" has been defined in the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."[3][4]

One example of an active effort to prevent the genericization of a trademark was that of the Lego company, which printed in manuals in the 1970s and 1980s a request to customers that they call the company's interlocking plastic building blocks "'Lego blocks' or 'toys' and not 'Legos'." While this went largely unheeded, and many children and adults referred to the pieces as "Legos", use of the deprecated term remained largely confined to the Lego company's own products – and not, for example, to Tyco's competing and interchangeable product – so genericization of the Lego trademark did not occur.

How often do you see "Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game" compared to "Dungeons & Dragons"?  What do you call it?

Gygax came out against the OGL at first because (like many people) he didn't really understand or know what it would do.

Gamers are terrific at predicting things. And by terrific, I mean, they suck at it. But they do it constantly. In the Army we had a term for this constantly trying to predict stuff.  The term used was (you might laugh) called "Wargaming". A Commander or whatever would say something like "You can't wargame this out on that assumption".

At one point I recall huge numbers of people (industry and fans alike)  were completely convinced that the OGL  was basicaly going to be used by WOTC as a tool to gather up everyone else's work for resale.

And also a widely agreed upon prediction where everyone agreed that absolutely no other game would ever use d20 as  a rules system.

Seeing the possibilities and not falling into the "everyone says so" trap is key.

Quote from: NicephorusI'm curious.  How much did he really screw him?  I have no idea what kind of cut Arneson was getting as second author. Certainly some of the key early ideas were Arneson's but it appears that most of the writing work and most of the sweat of running the business was Gygax.  
 
I've read (on a forum - grain of salt) that one of the motivations behind the AD&D books was to be able to take Arneson out of the loop.

Who knows - I certainly don't.

It's very much like the Jack Kirby vs. Stan Lee fiasco - after the big money poured in, everybody disagrees over who invented what.  Then, years later, they realize that neither of them can really remember the objective truth of what happened and make a separate peace of sorts.

Quote from: StuartI'm also more interested in "How Gary Gygax Lost D&D" than "How Gary Gygax Lost TSR".

Under that legal system (which I think may apply to Quebec) Gary would have lost the company -- but not the game he created.

See - here's the problem with sole ownership of a brand (from a non-legal POV) like that...

What constitutes D&D?  And who really created it?

How much of the product should Arneson have owned?  Didn't he form a lot of the original rules as well?

And what about Holmes?  Metzner?  Moldavay?  Cook?  etc.

Gary might have been the main author of the original game rules, but a lot of other guys were instrumental in building up the game into what it became by the time he left.

You get the same problem with trying to decide movie ownership outside of laws/contracts - who really "created" a movie: The writer, the director, the editor, the producer, the lead actors, the cinematographer...?  If multiple people contribute different parts to an artistic work, how does one determine which artist should ethically hold the rights?

@jgants -- I agree.

"None of them" doesn't feel like a good answer though.

Quote from: Stuart@jgants -- I agree.

"None of them" doesn't feel like a good answer though.

Although you can't transfer the status of being the creator it is my understanding that you can effectively transfer everything else linked to that. So in the end all that the status of being the creator stands for is who's death starts the copyright clock.

So Gary didn't lose D&D. Ultimately he sold it, as much as he legally could, which is pretty much everything except noteriety and a name on an old book.

But that's just a layman's understanding. Is there an attorney in the house?

Quote from: Abyssal MawGygax came out against the OGL at first because (like many people) he didn't really understand or know what it would do.

At one point I recall huge numbers of people (industry and fans alike) were completely convinced that the OGL was basicaly going to be used by WOTC as a tool to gather up everyone else's work for resale.

I distinctly remember Gary falling into this later category back in 2000 (or 2001?), in posts he made as Col Playdoh on Eric Noah's site. He was avoiding the OGL because he was worried about getting ripped off. Not necessarily by WotC though, he wasn't that explicit.

Quote from: StuartTrue enough, but that also brings up the interchangeable way Trademarks and Product names are sometimes used --



How often do you see "Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game" compared to "Dungeons & Dragons"?  What do you call it?

I dunno. I do know that in the 80's I ran across people who'd say "D&D" to mean "roleplaying in general", but the meaning wasn't nailed down very precisely. Sometimes it was somebody talking about an extremely houseruled campaign that didn't even directly refer to the D&D books anymore.

And TSR back then was famous for putting the trademark symbol on practically every proper noun that appeared in one of their products. ("Trademark Strictly Required" was the joke.)

I'm pretty much at a loss to think of someone who retained copyright on a work but involuntarily lost the right to use the title due to trademark.

Quote from: jgantsSee - here's the problem with sole ownership of a brand (from a non-legal POV) like that...

What constitutes D&D?  And who really created it?

How much of the product should Arneson have owned?  Didn't he form a lot of the original rules as well?

And what about Holmes?  Metzner?  Moldavay?  Cook?  etc.

Gary might have been the main author of the original game rules, but a lot of other guys were instrumental in building up the game into what it became by the time he left.

The Arneson thing will probably remain murky forever, but I believe Holmes, Mentzer, et. al. were doing "work for hire" and legally that would mean that everything they came up with belonged to TSR.

QuoteYou get the same problem with trying to decide movie ownership outside of laws/contracts - who really "created" a movie: The writer, the director, the editor, the producer, the lead actors, the cinematographer...?  If multiple people contribute different parts to an artistic work, how does one determine which artist should ethically hold the rights?

From a legal perspective, it's the person who "oversaw the work as a whole" (or something like that. So, generally, unless contracts spell things out otherwise, it's the director or producer.

From an ethical perspective I'm not sure that IP really has much validity. Once you put it out there, it belongs to everyone. I believe that IP should be seen rather reductively, as an arrangement constructed at the pleasure of society to encourage creators. About the only ethical right I'd recognize is the right to be recognized as a creator, part of what in copyright law is called "moral right".

Quote from: Elliot WilenI'm pretty much at a loss to think of someone who retained copyright on a work but involuntarily lost the right to use the title due to trademark.

Pilates.  A bunch more with more details here.

Photoshop and Google are on thin ice.

Quote from: StuartPhotoshop and Google are on thin ice.

Probably less so than Kleenex, which has been hanging in there against the odds for a long time. But yeah, such are the downsides to success.

However D&D isn't anywhere close to that common of use though. It is a rough equivalent to those well outside the industry and RPG player base. But by people that buy games? Nobody uses D&D and RPG interchangably. Not even close to the type of use you get from people that refer to any brand of facial tissue as a "kleenex" when they know damn well it isn't made by Kimberly.