Open Game License

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The Open Game License (or OGL) is an open content license designed for role-playing games. It was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000 to license their Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition game as the System Reference Document, or SRD, in a move spear-headed by Ryan Dancey.^[1] It is commonly used with the d20 license to allow individuals, amateur and professional companies and groups to publish the SRD and derivative works under the d20 System trademark. It has also been used to license content unrelated to the d20 System and/or the SRD.^[2]

Those individuals, groups and publishing companies that license their works under the OGL are sometimes collectively referred to as the "open gaming movement". ^[3]

1 Terms
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Terms

In many respects, the OGL resembles any other open source license. This section deals primarily with the OGL's differences with standard, open source licenses.

The OGL describes two forms of content: Open Game Content (or OGC) and "Product identity" - that is content covered by normal copyright, commonly referred to as "closed content". The OGL permits the inclusion of both OGC - or "open game content" - and Product Identity within a single work. Publishers are required to "clearly indicate" those parts of a work that are OGC.

The OGL defines the concept of Product Identity (or PI) as:

...product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark...

PI must be clearly defined by the publisher and, by using the OGL, licensees are prevented from distributing, copying or modifying PI and claiming "compatibility or co-adaptability" with PI trademarks unless permission is acquired through a separate license or agreement with the holders of the PI.

Finally, the OGL requires attribution be maintained by the copying of all copyright notices from OGC a licensee is copying, modifying or distributing. Unlike other open source licenses, this requires that the license notice itself must be altered by adding all copyright notices to the Section 15 part of the license.