LL OGL Questions

[kensanata]

I've populated a wiki with monsters from LL and the AEC and tried to do the right thing regarding the license. At the same time, I wanted to apply some common sense to the entire thing.

The license says "You must update the COPYRIGHT NOTICE portion of this License to include the exact text of the COPYRIGHT NOTICE of any Open Game Content You are copying, modifying or distributing"

Thus, I don't need to copy the entire copyright notice – I just need to update it appropriately. There are a small number of questions, however, that I could not resolve, however:

• Cave Cricket are listed in the copyright sections of LL and AEC but don't seem to be used in the text. Have they been renamed? To what?
• Kamadan – same question.
• Gorbel in the AEC – same question.

For the moment I'm dropping them from my statements, but obviously I'd put them back if required.

[Goblinoid Games]

Thus, I don't need to copy the entire copyright notice – I just need to update it appropriately.

Nope, a lot of people either get that wrong or just don't find it convenient, but you do in fact have to reproduce it in its entirety. If you don't, you're in violation of the OGL. It's unlikely anyone will come along to enforce it, but that's another matter. I always recommend if you're going to use the OGL just do it correctly to cover all bases.

[Goblinoid Games]

...oh one other note, if a listing is redundant then you only have to list it once, but otherwise you have to reproduce the whole thing.

[kensanata]

Hm, rereading it more carefully, I see that you are right. It doesn't make sense from the point of view of a normal person, but it there's no way around it.

[Goblinoid Games]

Hm, rereading it more carefully, I see that you are right. It doesn't make sense from the point of view of a normal person, but it there's no way around it.

True it is a pain, but I suspect that it is that way so you can legally cover your butt. You have to remember what the OGL really is--a license granting someone permission to create a derivative work from material you give permission for (open game content). That's why the license says that anything derived from open game content must also be open game content--you can't legally claim total ownership of something you derived from someone else's copyright work. So, if you had to try to sort out what part of what work belongs to which derivative work and exclude that from the copyright section, at some point a person is bound to make a mistake. Also, it may actually be impossible to make that decision depending on how a work is modified. So by reproducing the copyright section in its entirety you are creating a paper trail to document your derivative work.

[kipper]

• Cave Cricket are listed in the copyright sections of LL and AEC but don't seem to be used in the text. Have they been renamed? To what?

Locust, Subterranean

[kensanata]

Locust, Subterranean

Thanks!

I went through the monsters on the wiki and I think it's all good, now. As the AEC OGL is a superset of the LL OGL, I did mix entries from LL and AEC (dragons, for example) and just linked to the AEC OGL. I think that's ok...