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Question Regarding Copyright and Use of Character Sheets

Hi, I'm a grad student working on a research project pertaining to TTRPG's and virtual assets used to change the medium from the tabletop to the computer.  I've been going through licensing contracts regarding the genre and was curious how Roll20 is able to provide character sheets clearly labeled and associated with various systems?  Even in the d20 OGL from WotC, it specifically states that such sheets are not legal for use and WotC has released a competing product so I doubt they would grant rights for the use. 
Great question maybe ask it via <a href="mailto:team@roll20.net" rel="nofollow">team@roll20.net</a>
thanks, will do lordmage
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Edited 1514913424
Mike W.
Pro
Sheet Author
Would love to knwo the answer to this myself.
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Edited 1514882237
GiGs
Pro
Sheet Author
API Scripter
This isn't as clearcut as you might imagine. Or rather, it is pretty clearcut, but in the opposite direction than you are framing your question. First, as far as D&D goes, roll20 has a licensing agreement with WOTC. They publish several licensed WotC products, so obviously WotC must endorse roll20's use of D&D character sheets. They are after all needed for the use of those officially license products. Secondly, there's a long tradition in the rpg industry of game publishers unofficially and sometimes officially allowing fan creations of things like character sheets. Partly this is due to the fact the rpg games industry is actually pretty small - there's very few companies could actually afford to legally pursue even a fraction of the fan creators of character sheets, and the bad publicity would be crippling. Also, there is the question of what is actually legally enforceable. The fact is, game rules are not subject to copyright law. You can't copyright a set of rules, you can only copyright a specific expression of those rules. While various licenses have sprung up around games since the D&D3e OGL was created, in fact these licenses are more restrictive than what is allowed by copyright law, and people don't have to use them to do a lot of things - like creating character sheets of their own. And of course, the specific Character Sheets that companies have created are not competing products with the the roll20 character sheets. You can't use roll20 sheets outside of roll20, and you can't use other publisher's sheets inside roll20. The usage is different, they don't compete. It's important to remember that companies like to create licenses to maintain control over their properties, but those licenses only carry wait when people agree to use them. Copyright law itself is much more permissive.&nbsp;
Official Response:&nbsp; Thanks for the questions. Before creating an official character sheet on our system, both Roll20 and the publisher sign a licensing agreement to do such. As for community created sheets, those creators send us a pull request to have them pulled into the public repository. If we or a publisher notices content that is owned by another company and not available for public use, we immediately take down any offending content. ___________ Also thank you, GG for your response.&nbsp; I guess that I wasn't aware that Roll20 already had ties with WOTC and thought of Fantasy Grounds as a Competing product for Roll20, and so any assets that support the competing product wouldn't be licensed.