Best Case Scenario - Conan & D&D 4e

[Clovenhoof]

Well, the rules are another story, but as we said, the SRD 3.0/3.5 is irrevocably OGL, so as long as they stick with those editions, there can't be any trouble.
As for the background, how can anyone achieve the copyright to something beyond the original author's rights? I mean, Howard's copyright to the stories is expired, so that should also include all the names and other things that define his Conan universe.
Again, I'm not an expert but it just doesn't make any sense to me that anyone can claim a copyright to something they didn't create; I mean what would you say if I claimed the copyrights to Shakespeare's characters, or Gilgamesh as we're about it.

 

[Tathlum]

Its like the movies. If one company has the rights to make, say a Lord of the rings movie, only they can make it. If I have the rights to write the 4th part of the Lord of the Rings I still can't make a movies, despite both movie and books having the same background.




I think....

 

[Strom]

Just to put to bed the questions on license. Mongoose has the Conan license until 2010 (or so...I do not know for sure)

msprange PostPosted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:51 am Post subject:

We have yet to post any info on Conan for 2007 - but don't worry, funky things are coming!

We have just negotiated an extension of the Conan licence for another four years, so there is plenty of adventure to be had in Hyboria. . .
_________________
Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23306&highlight=licence+license

CPI's comment on the Conan license on their Forum - http://www.conan.com site from a few years back:

“There has been considerable investment in and exploitation of the Conan property since the original appearance of Conan in the 1930s. Through the long-term and widespread exploitation of the Conan character and mythos, they are well-known throughout the world. The Conan intellectual property includes over five hundred copyrights and ninety trademarks around the world. The owners of Conan, therefore, enjoy widespread protection under the intellectual property laws of the United States and many countries around the world.
The Conan character first appeared in stories written by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s and published in Weird Tales Magazine. The proprietor of Weird Tales, Popular Fiction Publishing Co., registered each of the issues containing the Howard Conan works with the United States Copyright Office. U.S. copyright law, at that time, required timely renewal of copyright registrations during the 28th year of the anniversary of the copyright registration or the underlying work would fall into the public domain. Renewals for many of Howard’s Conan stories were obtained, which means those works continue to be protected by United States and foreign copyright laws. CPI’s broad intellectual property rights in the Conan property provide significant barrier to unauthorized use of those works and pose a grave legal risk to anyone who uses those works.”

 

[The King]

Strom has the final word. I didn't know all the story.

I find however pretty hard to excuse that the director of Weird Tales always paid his authors with much delay but still would register (and probably pay for it) the works of his freelance authors.

 

[slaughterj]

About the Conan license: I'm not an expert on those matters, but afaik any copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author, which in the case of REH was last year. That's also the reason why all Conan stories can now be distributed freely over the net. So wouldn't it be common sense that _all_ things Conan are public domain now, and nobody needs a license to peruse this universe?

The difference comes down to trademark rights. Think about this, Disney has old Mickey Mouse cartoons, and the copyrights will expire soon unless the get yet another extension to the copyright law. And when those start to expire, people will have the right to reproduce, distribute, etc. those old cartoons (for what they're worth...). But they cannot use Mickey Mouse as a trademark, to advertise products (beyond merely stating they are selling the cartoons), to create new material with Mickey, etc. etc. The same goes for Conan.

 

[Sutek]

As for the background, how can anyone achieve the copyright to something beyond the original author's rights?

Technically, concepts can't be copyrighted at all. Its always struck me as funny, but the OGL is complete BS for that very reason. If I created a game where you roll 1d20 to hit in combat and called it a "Strike Roll" that targeted an opponent's "Armored Defence" the the copyright applied to those terms and the terms alone. The concept of rolling a d20 to hit isn't copyrightable in any way, shape of form.

Trademarks protect the appearance of things, so that doesn't apply either.

Really, according to US law, everything is "OGL" if you just change all of the nams for everything.

Don't know about British IP law...

 

[slaughterj]

As for the background, how can anyone achieve the copyright to something beyond the original author's rights?

Technically, concepts can't be copyrighted at all. Its always struck me as funny, but the OGL is complete BS for that very reason. If I created a game where you roll 1d20 to hit in combat and called it a "Strike Roll" that targeted an opponent's "Armored Defence" the the copyright applied to those terms and the terms alone. The concept of rolling a d20 to hit isn't copyrightable in any way, shape of form.

Trademarks protect the appearance of things, so that doesn't apply either.

Really, according to US law, everything is "OGL" if you just change all of the nams for everything.

Don't know about British IP law...

Yeah, the benefit to entering the current OGL licenses appears to be able to rotely copy rules from one game for another, instead of having to rewrite them yourself - which, in doing so, can read a bit different, causing people to interpret them in different ways, etc., which is bad so being able to copy the rules is good for consistency and ease of learning. But it seems one could have simply rewritten rules (to avoid copyright), not entered in the OGL, and been able to make their own games anyway.

The new OGL (basically appears to be a combined d20/OGL, more restrictive license) doesn't allow the copying of rules to make new games, and it and the current d20 license each create contractual restrictions on things one cannot use (i.e., Product Identity). So there seems to be much less incentive to enter this new OGL (very limited if one wants to make a separate, new game), and is useful only *maybe* if you want to make modules, supplements, etc. for DnD. It's annoying, because if anyone doesn't enter the OGL and wants to use any new rules, they will have to rewrite them (to avoid copyright), leading to issues with interpretation that I noted above.