[RQ-Rules] Re: New RQ

[Peter Brink]

Peter Maranci skrev:
> 
> So Greg/Mongoose are using the copyright/trademark loophole (i.e. you can't 
> copyright a game system, only the specific wording used to describe it) 

That's not a bug it's a feature :-). It's a good and necessary thing 
that ideas and concepts cannot be copyright protected.

> The implications are also kind of disturbing; if Greg can use the BRP system 
> without Chaosium's permission, then so can anyone else. *I* could. And the 
> same applies to any other RPG. Sounds, well, chaotic. In a way, it's like 
> forcing BRP to become open source, at least until someone with lawyers gets 
> involved.

Why should it be disturbing? Ideas cannot be owned and therefore there 
it's no way anyone can own the methods and processes of a game (well 
perhaps partly in the US, since you can patent games in the US). In 
Sweden there's a score of RPGs that use game mechanics that are similar 
to BRP (and each of course other). In fact the rules of most RPGs are 
more or less similar. That people reword and reuse game rules from other 
games is nothing to be upset about it something that has been going on 
as long as mankind has been playing games (which is at least 7000 years...).

In Scandinavia (at least) even the way a game rule is expressed, that is 
  the way it's described, is not normally considered copyrightable. Such 
expressions are only very rarely original enough to qualify for 
copyright protection.

/Peter Brink