Re: Legalese

From: Shannon Appel <appel_at_erzo.org>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 18:35:25 -0700


>Well, although the word 'Glorantha' is owned, the rest of the *ideas* and
>names AFAIK are not - Lunar, Jareel, Sartar, Harmast etc. As long as you
>don't use the *word* Glorantha in you publication...

Just from a legalistic point of view, that's not true in the least. Glorantha is a trademark. That means it can't be used without permission of the trademark holder in a way that might cause confusion to consumers (ie, on the cover of a product).

Everything that makes up Glorantha is protected by Greg's copyright. And, part of copyright law is the fact that you can't produce deritivate works without the permission of the copyright holder. This is the same reason you couldn't write a book about Luke, Leia, and their Force powers and call it "Space Wars".

Rob Heinsoo published some clear guidelines on Glorantha publications back in March. Periodicals are OK (and that's not, BTW, because there's any legal requirement for this, just that Chaosium wants to make things simple). Individual books require permission from Chaosium. I'm sure Rob can repost the guidelines if there is some confusion.

And, just as a side note, this only has to do with the Glorantha world. The RuneQuest trademark totally belongs to Avalon Hill nowadays, and so they would need to be consulted as well for Gloranthan RQ things. It doesn't matter if you're talking RQ1, RQ2, RQ3, or RQ4.

Shannon


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