[freeroleplay] Re: Game mechanics copyright status on debian-legal

  • From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:58:36 +0100

Jerry Stratton wrote: 

There is precedence; and a lot of it from Hasbro, which owns WotC. While
Hasbro would love to sue on stuff like this if they could win, they have
already been tried to bring such lawsuits (especially with regards to
Monopoly) and set precedent that they don't particularly like. (With
regards to Monopoly, one lawsuit brought out a lot of information they
would rather not have seen made public.)

That is interesting, please tell us more. What sort of precedents are there and what what kind of information did they not want public?

I don't know about other countries, but I would recommend that when
mentioning copyright of game rules, a clear and unambiguous statement that
game rules themselves cannot be copyrighted under United States law is
important. Too many people don't realize that copyright doesn't cover
everything.

I believe Brazilian law specifically excludes games as well, according to debian-legal.

I think you feel the strongest about this, Jerry, would you be interested in putting together some kind of fact sheet on this subject summarising the arguments, legal precedents, etc? It would be most useful for future reference.

Kind regards...

--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free RPG Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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