12-22-2014, 11:32 AM
Havard Wrote:I find it interesting that Uvae would be named along with Skelfer as specifically being ZGG property. Was this a character ZGG had greater plans for, but which never came to fruition?
Not sure about the rest, but as to the legal implications, it would technically be possible to create and sell works derivated from the d20 line. (The same way that, say, Neil Gaiman was allowed to reuse characters in different comic book lines from different companies, that Gary Gygax beheld to the Zagyg property, that Janet Morris could use her Stepsons IP, that Ray Feist could borrow elements from Tekumel, and that Tracy Alley got away with novelizing her Mystara campaign.) Now, my personal guess is, the respective copyright would have to be contested on a case-by-case basis, and that something not having been brought to court yet is not necessarily a proof of it being legal. Also, as past, high profile lawsuits about similar topics have seemed to prove, two parties going to war about IP can be a tedious process. Speaking as a fellow media guy, I would not go down that path if it could be helped.
Now, looking at the cases when this has been done recently, it's usually been cases in which common sense dictated that it would be legal; as in, when the characters existed prior to the contractual regulation, or when the IP dispute was marginal to the product's individual identity.
As to Blackmoor, and ZGG, I would have liked to see the line continue, even though I didn't really like what I saw of AotW. Even if it's six years after its demise, the books, while sometimes a bit random, were pretty good work, especially when compared to other d20 projects. If at some point we'd get a Blackmoor Apocrypha, well... Why not?
