THIS PAGE IS INTENDED TO BE HELPFUL, BUT IT IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. IF IN DOUBT ALWAYS REFER TO YOUR LAWYER.

Using the ORC License

To use the ORC License you simply need to include an ORC Notice in your product. This notice includes the following elements:

  • Notice

  • Attribution

  • Reserved Material

  • Expressly Designated Licensed Material

Each of these is explained below. You do not have to include a copy of the actual ORC license in your product.

Irrevocable

Remember, the ORC License is irrevocable. If you license material under this license, you cannot later change your mind. That material is licensed forever to anybody who wishes to use it.

Definitions

First, some definitions.

Licensed Material. This is content which you are licensing other ORC creators to use. Note that under ORC, all game mechanics are automatically Licensed Material.

Reserved Material. This is content which you specifically wish to keep back as your own. This might include trademarks, character or place names, or other non-mechanical IP. Note that under ORC, non-game mechanics are automatically Reserved Material unless you choose to designate them as Expressly Designated Licensed Material.

Expressly Designated Licensed Material. This is content which is normally Reserved Material, but which you wish to license to other creators.

Game Mechanics Are Automatically Licensed

Remember, under ORC, game mechanics are always Licensed Material. You cannot hold them back. The license is designed as a viral mechanism to share game mechanics and contribute to the overall pool. If you don’t want your game mechanics available to others for use, you should use a different license.

Game mechanics are things like rules, stat blocks, etc. The license itself contains a longer list of examples, but we assume you know what game mechanics are.

There are arguments that game mechanics cannot be copyrighted anyway; this stems from old family boardgames with simple mechanics like ‘Roll a die and move that many squares’. There are arguments that that means that an RPG’s game mechanics cannot be copyrighted and anybody can simply use them; and there are arguments that an RPG’s game mechanics are complex enough that they form a copyrightable expression. Until a court tests this, they will remain arguments. The ORC license settles the debate by avoiding the copyright issue and expressly licensing all game mechanics, ensuring everybody is clear on what is available for use.

As the ORC creators say: “While creating this type of mechanical content may involve just as much effort as creating Reserved Material, copyright protection is not based on “sweat of the brow.” All users of the ORC License agree to contribute all of their mechanical content to downstream users. If that contribution does not fit your publishing strategy, or you feel that doing so is too generous, it is likely that the ORC License is not the best option for that product.”

Lore, Art, & Trademarks Are Automatically Reserved

The non-mechanical aspects of your product are reserved as your exclusive IP unless you expressly state otherwise by designating them as Expressly Designated Licensed Material.

This includes things like your trademarks, proper nouns, art, lore, story arcs, characters*, and places.

*Though not the mechanics in their stat-blocks.

When Mechanics And Lore Collide!

How does a stat block get separated into Licensed and Reserved Material? The license says Reserved Material is that which is “...not essential to, or can be varied without altering...” the game. If it affects the gameplay, it’s mechanics; if it doesn’t it’s not. So a character’s hair color or name does not affect gameplay and is automatically Reserved Material; but their Armor Class does and is automatically Licensed Material.

The ORC License does all this for you, so you don’t need to specify unless you want to expressly share some of your Reserved Material.

Notice

The ORC Notice is simply the words:

This product is licensed under the ORC License held in the Library of Congress at TX 9-307-067 and available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense, www.gencon.com/orclicense and others. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein.

Note that the copyright number (where it says [number tbd] above) has not yet been determined. This page will be updated when that happens.

Note that you can apply ORC to portions of a product—a magazine with rules articles for different game systems might have some articles under ORC and others not, or you might use an appendix to isolate certain content. You would need to be clear with your designations (or include an ORC Notice in each relevant article).

Attribution

This is where you (a) give attribution to other creators’ work you have used, and (b) tell people how you wish to be attributed should they use your work.

  1. Include the phrase: “This product is based on the following Licensed Material:”

  2. Credit the creators of the product you are deriving from in the way they ask in their product.

  3. Include the phrase “If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us in your product as follows:”

  4. State how you wish to be credited.

The result might look something like this (example taken from the license FAQ):

This product is based on the following Licensed Material:

Raptor Game System v1.0, © Azora Entertainment, Corp. Designed by Brian Lewis.

If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us in your product as follows:

Raptor Imperium, © OKthulhu Games, Inc., Designed by Cher Luck.

The license requires you to use “reasonable, good-faith efforts” to identify upstream creators and credit them in the manner they request. You can look at the ORC Notice in the product you are borrowing from. Note http due to the viral nature of the license, that notice might include multiple upstream creators.

Reserved Material

Reserved Material is the content you specifically wish to designated as your own IP, which cannot be used by other creators. Typically, this might be your trademarks, art, lore, character names, place names, that sort of thing. This might look something like this:

Reserved Material elements in this product include, but may not be limited to: Bloodbeak, Thondor, Glamfeather, and Richard the Righteous, and all elements designated as Reserved Material under the ORC License.

Note that, as explained above, you cannot designated mechanics as Reserved Material. Under the ORC License, all mechanics become Licensed Material.

Note that by default non-mechanics are automatically Reserved Material. This really just doubles down on it and makes it clear to the reader.

Expressly Designated Licensed Material

Expressly Designated Licensed Material is non-mechanical content you wish to license to other creators. The ORC license automatically designated mechanics as Licensed Material.

This might look like this:

The following elements are owned by the Licensor and would otherwise constitute Reserved Material and are hereby designated as Licensed Material: The names and historical background of the Deovian Raptor Wranglers in Chapter 3.

Example

Your ORC Notice might look like this (example from the official ORC FAQ). It doesn’t have to look exactly like this—the license merely requires that you do so in a “reasonable manner”.

ORC Notice

This product is licensed under the ORC License held in the Library of Congress at TX 9-307-067 and available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense, www.gencon.com/orclicense and others. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein.

Attribution

This product is based on the following Licensed Material:
Raptor Game System v1.0, © Azora Entertainment, Corp. Designed by Brian Lewis.

If you use our Licensed Material in your own published work, please credit us in your product as follows:
Raptor Imperium, © OKthulhu Games, Inc., Designed by Cher Luck.

Reserved Material

Reserved Material elements in this product include, but may not be limited to: Bloodbeak, Thondor, Glamfeather, and Richard the Righteous, and all elements designated as Reserved Material under the ORC License.

Expressly Designated Licensed Material

The following elements are owned by the Licensor and would otherwise constitute Reserved Material and are hereby designated as Licensed Material: The names and historical background of the Deovian Raptor Wranglers in Chapter 3.

Important Documents