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Beholders, Mind Flayers, and Strahd von Zarovich Released Into Creative Commons (Kinda)
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<blockquote data-quote="occam" data-source="post: 8920909" data-attributes="member: 39815"><p>I agree with most of what you have to say in this post, but...</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, they absolutely can be. I don't know where this comes from. Stat blocks are specific creative expressions, eligible for copyright protection just like any other piece of text or music or film. I don't see how that's in any way debatable; there are lots of specific creative choices that need to be made in the development of a creature's stat block.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think it's just the opposite. Duplicating a stat block is almost certainly copyright infringement. But you can probably mention illithids, the Raven Queen, or any other trademarks (assuming for the moment that these things have trademark protection), as long as there's no chance of creating confusion in the marketplace about the source of those ideas. What you can't do is reproduce any text or artwork to which you don't have a license (like the CC or OGL).</p><p></p><p>By using the Creative Commons license, you free yourself from the OGL's restrictions on referencing Product Identity, which are trademarks given <em>extra</em> protection over-and-above usual trademark protection. By using CC, you can reference trademarks like normal, just as we do on this very message board.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="occam, post: 8920909, member: 39815"] I agree with most of what you have to say in this post, but... Yes, they absolutely can be. I don't know where this comes from. Stat blocks are specific creative expressions, eligible for copyright protection just like any other piece of text or music or film. I don't see how that's in any way debatable; there are lots of specific creative choices that need to be made in the development of a creature's stat block. I think it's just the opposite. Duplicating a stat block is almost certainly copyright infringement. But you can probably mention illithids, the Raven Queen, or any other trademarks (assuming for the moment that these things have trademark protection), as long as there's no chance of creating confusion in the marketplace about the source of those ideas. What you can't do is reproduce any text or artwork to which you don't have a license (like the CC or OGL). By using the Creative Commons license, you free yourself from the OGL's restrictions on referencing Product Identity, which are trademarks given [i]extra[/i] protection over-and-above usual trademark protection. By using CC, you can reference trademarks like normal, just as we do on this very message board. [/QUOTE]
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