[TML] Copyright issues

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 8/28/07 2:17 PM, LKW wrote:

>> And didn't GDW also
>> WIN that suit on most counts?
> 
> I consider us to have won, but it was settled out of court before a judge's
> gvel descended, so no precedent was established.

True, in the proper legal sense it established no precedent that could be
cited in court.  But in the sense of setting the stage for later suits...

>> At that point, hadn't Traveller been out for about twenty years, with
>> mechanisms like rolling dice to create characters and resolve combats?
> 
> TSR was claiming they had invented such things with the publication of D&D in
> 1974.
> 
> We were preparing several dozen examples of prior art, but never got to use
> them.

This is an interesting statement.  I know war games used dice for combat
before D&D, but does the prior art include creating characters?  Like many,
I had always believed that was one of TSR's inventions.  And how does
copyright law cover simultaneous independent development?  I know it took
years from when the gang started using the predecessors of D&D for their own
games to when it was published, allowing time for others to come up with
many of the same concepts in isolation.