Comments | dragonspawnlair: Kingdoms of Kalamar released for D&D 4E... WITHOUT the GSL

dragonspawnlair

Kingdoms of Kalamar released for D&D 4E... WITHOUT the GSL

Jul 09, 2008 07:40

So apparently Kingdoms of Kalamar has been released for D&D 4th edition without using the restrictive game system license (GSL).

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kingdoms of kalamar, gsl, kenzer, d&d, 4e

Comments 3

joannahurley July 9 2008, 13:34:36 UTC

Fair use would be the wrong concept for this situation. Fair use applies specifically to non-profit situations. This is more akin to writing software that you advertise as "running on MS Windows XP".

I think including dragonborn & eladrin was a mistake. Those aren't as common as say, dwarves, and WotC may be able to claim creative rights. I only looked at the preview, but if they formatted new powers in the same way, that could be a problem, too.
It'll be interesting to watch this.

dragonspawnlair July 9 2008, 16:06:07 UTC

Thanks for the clarification. Looks like I need to brush up on copyright law.

Including things like dragonborn and eladrin is certainly a risky move on their part. On the other hand, they have published material for D&D before without a license (before 3E) without getting themselves in any trouble. Maybe they know what they are doing?

I just hope they have a good legal adviser on hand to guide them while walking this narrow line. I'd hate to see them get burned by legal issues.

Fair Use joannahurley July 9 2008, 17:29:51 UTC

It's Fair Use -- just not in the same way as it applies to Copyright. Here's the info on Nominative Use from Wikipedia.

Nominative use, also "nominative fair use", is a legal doctrine that provides an affirmative defense to trademark infringement as enunciated by the United States Ninth Circuit,[1] by which a person may use the trademark of another as a reference to describe the other product, or to compare it to their own. Nominative use may be considered to be either related to, or a type of "trademark fair use" (sometimes called "classic fair use" or "statutory fair use"). All "trademark fair use" doctrines, however classified, are distinct from the fair use doctrine in copyright law.

Stuart