Quote from: Yabba on January 02, 2023, 06:14:59 PM
The Ogl won't even matter if what people are saying about the laws are right. According to them game rules can't be copyrighted so as long as you don't copy the original rules word to word. Questing Beast made a pretty good video on it you can find here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCpgeIKxSo

Then again he isn't a lawyer, and there's bound to be some loophole hasbro's lawyers can exploit if they really want to go after something.

Questing Beast says in the video "In the United States at least, it is not possible to legally protect rules or game mechanics for a game."
This is false.  One may patent game mechanics.  The most obvious example is WoTC's Magic the Gathering.
However TSR did not patent D&D mechanics, and so while Questing Beasts statement is false, the legal path to protect D&D game mechanics has been moot.

Quote from: DocJones on January 03, 2023, 09:32:56 AM

Quote from: Yabba on January 02, 2023, 06:14:59 PM
The Ogl won't even matter if what people are saying about the laws are right. According to them game rules can't be copyrighted so as long as you don't copy the original rules word to word. Questing Beast made a pretty good video on it you can find here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCpgeIKxSo

Then again he isn't a lawyer, and there's bound to be some loophole hasbro's lawyers can exploit if they really want to go after something.

Questing Beast says in the video "In the United States at least, it is not possible to legally protect rules or game mechanics for a game."
This is false.  One may patent game mechanics.  The most obvious example is WoTC's Magic the Gathering.
However TSR did not patent D&D mechanics, and so while Questing Beasts statement is false, the legal path to protect D&D game mechanics has been moot.

Even if they HAD filed a patent on the d20 System it would have expired by now.

Regular patents are 20 years, design patents are 15 (14 back when the patent process would have had to be going on). The same process being used by other non-TSR companies for 20 years before that (ex. Palladium has been using d20+mod vs. target's armor rating since the early 80's... before WotC even existed as a company) would have also shot any attempt at a process patent down as well.

Yes, this also means the patent on MtG's card tapping process expired in 2014. You're free to use it for anything you want.

Basically, the core mechanics of D&D (and most rpgs in general; ex. WoDs dice pool system dates to the early 90's, simple add dice pools to at least the late 80's) are too old to have any active patent on and can't be copyrighted.

So while technically correct that you could patent your mechanics, you would have to prove them to be something entirely unique from those presently in existence. The core d20 mechanic can be proven to predate WotC's existence as a company (founded in 1990 vs. Palladium Books using d20+mod vs. armor rating in Mechanoid Invasion in 1981).

At this point you'd need some type of custom dice plus a unique way of reading them (ex. FF Star Wars system could have likely been patented) to really stand a shot at a patent on anything game mechanic related.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 09:59:43 AM

Quote from: DocJones on January 03, 2023, 09:32:56 AM

Quote from: Yabba on January 02, 2023, 06:14:59 PM
The Ogl won't even matter if what people are saying about the laws are right. According to them game rules can't be copyrighted so as long as you don't copy the original rules word to word. Questing Beast made a pretty good video on it you can find here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCpgeIKxSo

Then again he isn't a lawyer, and there's bound to be some loophole hasbro's lawyers can exploit if they really want to go after something.

Questing Beast says in the video "In the United States at least, it is not possible to legally protect rules or game mechanics for a game."
This is false.  One may patent game mechanics.  The most obvious example is WoTC's Magic the Gathering.
However TSR did not patent D&D mechanics, and so while Questing Beasts statement is false, the legal path to protect D&D game mechanics has been moot.

Even if they HAD filed a patent on the d20 System it would have expired by now.

Regular patents are 20 years, design patents are 15 (14 back when the patent process would have had to be going on). The same process being used by other non-TSR companies for 20 years before that (ex. Palladium has been using d20+mod vs. target's armor rating since the early 80's... before WotC even existed as a company) would have also shot any attempt at a process patent down as well.

Yes, this also means the patent on MtG's card tapping process expired in 2014. You're free to use it for anything you want.

Basically, the core mechanics of D&D (and most rpgs in general; ex. WoDs dice pool system dates to the early 90's, simple add dice pools to at least the late 80's) are too old to have any active patent on and can't be copyrighted.

So while technically correct that you could patent your mechanics, you would have to prove them to be something entirely unique from those presently in existence. The core d20 mechanic can be proven to predate WotC's existence as a company (founded in 1990 vs. Palladium Books using d20+mod vs. armor rating in Mechanoid Invasion in 1981).

At this point you'd need some type of custom dice plus a unique way of reading them (ex. FF Star Wars system could have likely been patented) to really stand a shot at a patent on anything game mechanic related.

Yes for all those reasons PATENT for D&D is moot. 

Yet another point is that as long as you are NOT using the OGL, are not implying a business relationship, and are simply naming a product,
it is certainly legal to state your product is "Compatible with D&D™" as long as you state that D&D is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast
and reference to it does not imply sanction of the holder. 

Again, the fun part will be if this brings them into conflict with some of the same people responsible for D&D getting it's bump.

I admit it's improbable, but WotC and Hasbro strike me as just stupid enough to get cross-threaded with Mercer and Critical Role. Cue Ken Watanabe saying 'Let them fight'.

Quote from: DocJones on January 03, 2023, 10:40:13 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 09:59:43 AM

Quote from: DocJones on January 03, 2023, 09:32:56 AM

Quote from: Yabba on January 02, 2023, 06:14:59 PM
The Ogl won't even matter if what people are saying about the laws are right. According to them game rules can't be copyrighted so as long as you don't copy the original rules word to word. Questing Beast made a pretty good video on it you can find here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTCpgeIKxSo

Then again he isn't a lawyer, and there's bound to be some loophole hasbro's lawyers can exploit if they really want to go after something.

Questing Beast says in the video "In the United States at least, it is not possible to legally protect rules or game mechanics for a game."
This is false.  One may patent game mechanics.  The most obvious example is WoTC's Magic the Gathering.
However TSR did not patent D&D mechanics, and so while Questing Beasts statement is false, the legal path to protect D&D game mechanics has been moot.

Even if they HAD filed a patent on the d20 System it would have expired by now.

Regular patents are 20 years, design patents are 15 (14 back when the patent process would have had to be going on). The same process being used by other non-TSR companies for 20 years before that (ex. Palladium has been using d20+mod vs. target's armor rating since the early 80's... before WotC even existed as a company) would have also shot any attempt at a process patent down as well.

Yes, this also means the patent on MtG's card tapping process expired in 2014. You're free to use it for anything you want.

Basically, the core mechanics of D&D (and most rpgs in general; ex. WoDs dice pool system dates to the early 90's, simple add dice pools to at least the late 80's) are too old to have any active patent on and can't be copyrighted.

So while technically correct that you could patent your mechanics, you would have to prove them to be something entirely unique from those presently in existence. The core d20 mechanic can be proven to predate WotC's existence as a company (founded in 1990 vs. Palladium Books using d20+mod vs. armor rating in Mechanoid Invasion in 1981).

At this point you'd need some type of custom dice plus a unique way of reading them (ex. FF Star Wars system could have likely been patented) to really stand a shot at a patent on anything game mechanic related.

Yes for all those reasons PATENT for D&D is moot. 

Yet another point is that as long as you are NOT using the OGL, are not implying a business relationship, and are simply naming a product,
it is certainly legal to state your product is "Compatible with D&D™" as long as you state that D&D is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast
and reference to it does not imply sanction of the holder.

Personally, one advantage I saw to not using the OGL was the ability to refer directly to D&D in compare/contrast marketing (ex. D&D's core player book: $60 + ongoing microtransactions on a web app for content they left out to sell you later. Ruins & Realms core player book $25 and has everything you need for endless fun with your friends).

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on January 03, 2023, 08:37:40 AM
How possible is it for a blurred lines type case to emerge? I am thinking about how something you couldn't copyright before (essentially a 'sound') suddenly became copyrightable (I am not a lawyer so I may be getting that case's details wrong, but I followed it because I am interested in music). There were a couple of other weird cases in music, including the Kate Perry one (but I believe that was overturned by a later judge). The bottom line in music though is all this stuff I was told about what you can and can't copyright, when I was learning to play, has been thrown into question by recent legal decisions. Has the whole "You can't copyright a game mechanic" thing already been established in the courts or is that just something that reflects current legal thinking but hasn't actually been tested?

I understand there have been US cases saying game mechanics not copyrightable, but I'm not a US copyright lawyer & can't recall any names. The USA and most countries are signed up to the Berne Convention on Copyright and the 1994 WTO TRIPS treaty, which says

2. Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such. - https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/trips_e.htm#art1

This has been taken to mean that a formula such as "XP to level = 2000 at 1st, doubling every level" is not protected. Nor is a procedure such as "roll d20+bonus vs target number". But no one knows exactly where the line is between non-protected procedures and protected creative expression. I'd say it was somewhere between White Star (fine) and Swords & Wizardry (not fine, in the absence of OGL). I can imagine it's conceivable a court might say even a D&D retro-clone did not infringe copyright, but I think most courts would see them as infringing adaptations/derivative works of the original, and it would not matter that they were games.
Rules procedures are not protectable, neither is a high level concept such as magical healing. But an RPG is more than just rules. In the absence of the OGL, I think OSRIC & BFRPG etc very likely would be infringing WoTC's copyrights in AD&D and B/X D&D. Conversely I think something like White Star probably does not infringe any copyrights even sans OGL, even though it takes a bunch of SF aliens and general concepts, and OD&D mechanics.

Anyway I would not rely on Questing Beast's comment about that guy who snubbed his nose at WoTC in 2019. They chose not to go after him, but I think his arguments* were pretty shaky and his stat blocks might well have been found infringing if they'd sued him.

*Eg his claim that a WotC Cyclops stat block was not copyright protected because cyclops are public domain. Sure cyclops are free to use, but a particular creative expression can be protected. Are monster stats a creative expression & copyright protected? Maybe.

I don't think a decisive case in the RPG industry is very likely compared to the music industry. Music definitely has the strongest protection. Big players like WoTC don't want to risk a loss that would stop them sending C&D letters. In the computer games industry they focus on the code, which is protectable, plus art & story elements, not rules.

Re formulas not being protected, this means that the 3e and 4e D&D XP tables are not copyright protected AFAICS, as they can each be derived from a formula. The 5e one though deliberately avoids following a formula and so may well be protected.

Quote from: atomic on January 02, 2023, 03:11:29 PM
It will be interesting to see how the OGL holds up compared to similar Open Source software licences.  OSS licenses have been successful so far.  If the OGL has similar legalities, it should be pretty much untouchable.  The only semi-successful attack I'm aware of on open source software licenses was based on patents (Oracle vs Google over Java), which I think don't apply to game rules or content.  In any case, I'm glad I already have hard copies of a bunch of cool stuff....

Jacobsen v. Katzer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobsen_v._Katzer

The case was over open source software in the world of Model Railroading. Basically a open source standard, JMRI, took hold and an asshole, Matthew Katzer, used the JMRI files without following the terms of the Artistic License. Which in my opinion are far more vague and confusing than the GPL and other open source license.

The Artistic License
https://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic-license-20.html


If the court upheld the Artistic License as a valid terms for the use of copyrighted material. Then I think the OGL 1.0/1.0a will also stand any challenge as well.

Quote from: Brad on January 02, 2023, 04:15:49 PM
Hasbro's market cap is $8.5 billion.

"clearly being run by greedheads"

You do understand how large corporations work, right? All they see is money that is being taken from their coffers. I'm honestly surprised WotC has gotten this far along without having to tighten the screws on obvious money-bleeding policies (even if it's literally pennies in the grand scheme of things). The SRD/OGL can be challenged in court by Hasbro and then all the independent publishers go under because one can afford to actually to defend the litigation. That's life, son.

How about "run by greedheads who misunderstand the underlying moral dimension Adam Smith detailed for free markets to continue to function."

I think that is a more accurate description. Microtransactions, subscription everything (you will own nothing, corporate version), and so on are perfect examples of failing at free markets from both a Smith and Randian perspective.

Quote from: S'mon on January 03, 2023, 12:04:07 PM
Re formulas not being protected, this means that the 3e and 4e D&D XP tables are not copyright protected AFAICS, as they can each be derived from a formula. The 5e one though deliberately avoids following a formula and so may well be protected.

Even though they probably wouldn't be, XP tables are such a triviality I'd make a different one for any project I created just on principle.

My current one uses "number of adventures where you faced a significant challenge" as the benchmark for its leveling formula (i.e. you only get stronger when you do something that pushes you at least a bit... beating up lone goblin mooks when you're level 5 doesn't teach you anything new, hence no improvement from it... surviving a swarm of three dozen at once on the hand would definitely be an experience where you'd have to push yourself and could learn from.

Quote from: jhkim on January 02, 2023, 07:13:51 PM
Prior to the OGL, there were people who published games quite similar to D&D. One can sue over similarity of wording, not just fully copying all rules word-for-word. How similar the wording needs to be has yet to be fully tested in court. For example, TSR sued GDW over the Mythus game with ridiculous points like this:

Quote(36) The "First Aid" skill in MYTHUS (pages 28 and 165) is derived from the AD&D "Cure Light Wounds" spell in the AD&D 1st ed. PHB (page 43) and the AD&D OA (page 57)."

Still, I think the leverage there was Gygax as author. And I haven't looked over the wording myself. Still, most other game companies did not get sued by TSR.

I'd also point out that the lawsuit achieved its goal via "the process is the punishment" and "I don't have to have the law on my side, just more lawyers than you can afford to counter":

1. Mythus ended.
2. Gygax wasn't published for at least a decade by anyone else.
3. GDW entered bankruptcy whose major causes were elsewhere, but even small pebbles are part of the avalanche.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 09:59:43 AM
Even if they HAD filed a patent on the d20 System it would have expired by now.

It is tricky patenting games because you can't patent math. You can only patent inventions not discoveries*. A procedure can be an invention, and some new math could be instrumental to making the procedure possible. But the math itself remains a discovery and unpatentable.

Wizard's patent on card tapping worked out because it was a procedure that was invented not discovered.

*There is an exception for getting patents on new materials.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 09:59:43 AM
...
Yes, this also means the patent on MtG's card tapping process expired in 2014. You're free to use it for anything you want.
...

Which didn't stop WotC from going all lawfare on a MtG e-clone released in 2014 and get concessions from the developer leading to their demise.

Quote from: S'mon on January 03, 2023, 11:57:09 AM
I understand there have been US cases saying game mechanics not copyrightable, but I'm not a US copyright lawyer & can't recall any names. The USA and most countries are signed up to the Berne Convention on Copyright and the 1994 WTO TRIPS treaty, which says

2. Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such. - https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/trips_e.htm#art1
...

Luckily whenever a treaty conflicts with Federal Law - Federal Law takes precedence.

Of course there is still this:

Quote from: Daddy Warpig on January 02, 2023, 07:33:20 PM
...
Unfortunately, when it comes to the law, usually it's the guys with the deeper pockets who win. So clear baloney may just have its way.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 03, 2023, 09:01:46 AM
...
My hunch is they punch Paizo first because, even with PF2 mechanics, so much of the lore came out of the 3.5eSRD that they'll try to claim its derivative of their copyrights.
...
Win those and maybe something against one of the main OSR brands that used the OGL to recreate an earlier version of D&D whole cloth (again on the "we have the money to drag this out until you're bankrupt" principle of lawfare rather than anything that would actually stand in court) and Hasbro would have a significant chilling effect on the competition who's been using the OGL1.0a that will all just "go away" if you update to the v1.1 and start reporting your income and products for their licensing badge ...

This will be the basis for the lawfare.

Even Baizuo will not be able to really stand up to WotC if they chose to go down this route - they will get GDW'd...

I think that WotC is more likely to go down this route if the OneVTT is a success, than if it flops.

And Just like the T$R days; yeah, lots of people bitched about "They Sue Regularly', but it was still the #1 selling RPG until it literally went out of print...

Quote from: Jaeger on January 03, 2023, 01:01:30 PM
And Just like the T$R days; yeah, lots of people bitched about "They Sue Regularly', but it was still the #1 selling RPG until it literally went out of print...

  It was the #1 selling RPG most of the time even when it was 'out of print'--it slipped to #2 once, and that was the month Vampire: The Masquerade, at what was probably the height of its popularity, released their big shiny new Revised 2nd Edition.

Quote from: Jaeger on January 03, 2023, 01:01:30 PM
And Just like the T$R days; yeah, lots of people bitched about "They Sue Regularly', but it was still the #1 selling RPG until it literally went out of print...

While not cause and effect, I'd argue the sue regularly and the out of print are related.

When management worried more about better lawyers than better products you eventually run out of money for lawyers. The time spent on managing lawsuits should have been spent managing product lines and knowing what was making a profit and what wasn't. A lot of that top-selling product ended up losing money on each unit, so best-selling hurt the bottom line.