Month by agonizing month, I am developing a new appreciation for intellectual property law (and an even bigger appreciation for avoiding tortious malfeasance and corresponding lawsuits), so I thought I'd ask a couple questions that had come up in my head. (Let me state up front that this is NOT a snide attempt and starting the afore-mentioned flame war. I am genuinely trying to conform to all of AEG's guidelines and make my website completely legal.)
Under the Open Game License, proper names can be considered Product Identity, but many companies grant the restricted use of these names in other works, so long as they are acknowledged as PI belonging to AEG. The most recent example of this is the Open Game License and Open Game Content page of Knights & Musketeers (which, by the way, refers to the Sidhe Book of Nightmares, and not Knights & Musketeers, in describing which portions of the book are desginated Open Game Content*). It designates by description and by example which elements of AEG material are considered Product Identity, and may not be used without express permission from AEG. Do we have this express permission to use the Product Identity in our web pages and other unpaid works? And if so, exactly how do we go about attributing ownership of the PI material?
In another post or three, Lady Yu included a <tm> after several book names (to wit: "[M]ay I refer all of you to the description of l'Empereur's lovely daughter Ysabette (Isabelle) on pg 57 of Sophia's Daughters (tm)?") Does this mean that we should include a Trademark symbol on any mention of a titled AEG product?
If so, is it only when referring to the book as a book, or in any capacity? e.g.:
"For more information on the Boucher school, see the Montaigne?book," vs. "Jean-Pierre is a Montaigne?duelist trained in the Boucher and Valroux schools."
And, for that matter, what about Boucher and Valroux, which are themselves considered Product Identity under the OGL? Would the need for perpetual trademarking be avoided by the addition of an apprpriate line of text with the other legal information (on the main page at a minimum, though I place it at the bottom of every page, just to be safe)? e.g.:
"7th Sea, Avalon, Castille, Eisen, Inismore, Highland Marches, Montaigne, Ussura, Vodacce, Vendel, Vestenmannavanjar, Knights of the Rose and Cross, Invisible College, Rilasciare, Novus Ordum Mundi, Vaticine Church of the Prophets, Explorer's Society, die Kreuzritter, El Vago, and all other related marks are ?and ?2004 by Alderac Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved."
This was more or less the standard for the older sourcebooks; the passage above appeared in the Eisen book. More recent books have a much less expansive list of trademarked names. In particular, Knights & Musketeers?does not assert 7th Sea as a trademarked property with the other legal information on page 1, but whenever "7th Sea" appears in the text of the book, it appears with a corresponding trademark symbol, thus: 7th Sea.?Swashbucklng Adventures, which does appear in the legal information, does not have the "? designation when it appears elsewhere in the book. Wouldn't asserting 7th Sea (or anything else, for that matter) as the trademarked property of AEG with the other legal information eliminate the need for the trademark designation in other places?
(And I will leave it to future Copyright Law classes, and not this forum, to debate whether or not the word "Eisen" can be trademarked in the first place. 
)
~shadow
* page 96, second column, heading "DESIGNATION OF OPEN CONTENT." The text goes on to read "Subject to the Product Identity designation above, the following portions of The Sidhe Book of Nightmares are desgnated as Open Game Content." Does this (unintentionally) assert that no portion of Knights & Musketeers is OGC, or does the language of the next section compensate for the misstatement? Is this a problem for AEG's legal department? (I really do find the whole process fascinating.)
but I'll alert the PTB. Please proceed as if it were correct. <grin>
. In the future, I will write the disclaimer before translating.