Let me preface this with the statement that I AM NOT A LAWYER, and even if
I was, I most likely wouldn't be YOUR lawyer. (For those of you whose
dialect of English is more Commonwealth than American, think "solicitor",
not "barrister".) This is a summary of MY UNDERSTANDING of some of the
discussion I have seen in multiple places on the web, including some YT
videos made by real lawyers who have experience in the field of
Intellectual Property Law.

There has been a lot of noise in the press recently about Hasbro/Wizards of
the Coast (WOTC, hereafter) running a new OGL (1.1) up the flagpole and
seeing who salutes it.

There is concern about how it might affect Traveller publishers. The answer
is that UNLESS YOU PUBLISH SPECIFICALLY FOR TRAVELLER-20 OR SOME OTHER
WOTC-BASED SYSTEM, you should have nothing to worry about.

***************************************************************************
WOTC does not own Traveller. WOTC doesn't own anything about Traveller
other than any materials that they may have published to use with
Traveller. Most especially, WOTC does not own the Traveller SRD, nor
anything published pursuant to Mongoose Publishing's modified-for-Traveller
version of the OGL.
***************************************************************************

What they do own that may be relevant to Traveller players and Traveller
producers is the D20 SRD and any "product identity" material incorporated
into any of the core D20 system rule books (e.g., 3ed D&D, D20 Modern,
etc.). Thus, publishers of Traveller-20 materials may have reason to be
interested in the current contretemps.

Some of the noise has been about WOTC "revoking" the current OGL (1.0a).
THEY CAN ONLY DO THIS IN CONNECTION WITH PRODUCTS AND SYSTEMS THAT THEY
CONTROL - AND THERE ARE OPINIONS FROM REAL LAWYERS THAT SAY THAT THEY CAN'T
EVEN DO THAT. If Mongoose, for example, were to say "The existing Traveller
SRD and products derived from it are still governed by the version of OGL
1.0a that has been modified to refer to Traveller and Mongoose properties",
then producers looking to maintain compatibility and reproduce material
from the Traveller SRD *WOULD NOT BE GOVERNED BY THE PROPOSED OGL 1.1*.

Traveller publishers need the (or an) OGL (or equivalent) for two reasons
only:

  (a) blanket permission to reproduce the text of the Traveller SRD (or
      portions thereof) rather than attempting to rewrite the rules in
      their own language in their entirety, and

  (b) "safety" - if you publish in conformance with the OGL and can
      demonstrate that you have done so, the likelihood of being pulled
      into court for violating Mongoose IP - and the likelihood of losing
      in the event you are - is reduced, which is always a good thing when
      lawyers need to get involved.

If you are not doing (a), and if you are in a position to know with
certainty that (b) is not a factor, you can still legally publish material
that can be used with Traveller, and there is case law that suggests that
you can even claim "compatibility" with Traveller by name (although you
couldn't use a Traveller logo or other styling to imply explicit official
endorsement - so don't use look-alike typefaces for Optima or Eras,
especially in red on black, for your compatibility statement. The term of
art that covers this is "trade dress", and using trade dress is a major
no-no without permission).

In short, TRAVELLER PUBLISHERS SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT UNTIL AND
UNLESS EITHER MARC MILLER OR MONGOOSE MAKE A STATEMENT THAT SUGGESTS THAT
THEY WILL FOLLOW WOTC'S GUIDANCE.

®Traveller is a registered trademark of
Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2022. Use of
the trademark in this notice and in the
referenced materials is not intended to
infringe or devalue the trademark.

--
Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
    The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Resource
xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com
http://www.freelancetraveller.com

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