
Traveller, as a SF-RPG, naturally borrowed various ideas from
SF-literature and elsewhere. Steven Higginbotham pointed this
out in no uncertain terms during early discussions concerning
the official Traveller universe and the legal issues surrounding
the unlicensed production of Traveller-compatible materials.

1. "jump" (meaning the concept of "hyperspace") has been in use
in SF for at least 40 years.

2. "Imperium" is a good latin word for Empire.  It also has been
used since the 60s in SF. (Anyone remember Perry Rhodan???)

3. "Vargr" (one of the major alien races in the game, wolf-men in
effect) is a Scandinavian word for wolf.

4. "Aslan" (another major alien race) cannot be copyrighted,
since the original copyright (C.S. Lewis's) has expired. And the
form they gave the Aslan seems to bear more than a passing
resemblance to the guys in the "Chanur" stories, by C.J. Cherryh.

5. "Efate" (a major world) is an Island in the Pacific ocean.

6. "Regina" (a subsector capitol) is a city in Canada.

7. "Mora" (another subsector capitol) is a coach for the New
Orleans Saints.

8. "Zyra" was lifted from the movie version of "When Worlds
Collide".

9. The "Sword Worlds" individual names were taken from history,
myth, and fiction.  The collective name is from "Space Viking" by
H. Beam Piper. Even the culture seems awfully like Piper's Sword
Worlds.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bundle: 393
Archive-Message-Number: 4689
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:33:43 PDT
From: gwh@lurnix.COM (George W Herbert)
Subject: About Copyrights...

While it is true that there's little possibility of GDW making a 
successful "intellectual property" lawsuit based on just the ideas
in Traveller, not actual copyright violation, please keep in mind
how hard it would be to _not_ violate copyright on their collected
works if someone did an unlicensed product.

You'd have to avoid referring to interstellar travel via a week-long
hyperspace as "jump".  You'd have to try and keep "Imperium" out of
it for most intents and purposes.  All alien race names would be
verboten.  Star system names might even be covered.

Heck, the task system is probably copyrighted and -able, so it's
probably out, too.  Weapon names like "7mm Assault Rifle" or
"RAM GL" or "PGMP" are probably out.

Could someone say, publish a book and make use of some subset of these
ideas?  Likely.  They're not totally unique to Traveller in scifi
writing and gaming.  However, any significant subset of them,
say enough to make a viable module, would probably be a violation.

Motto: if you go commercial, get a license.  If you're totally amateur,
it doesn't matter 'cause they have to prove damages if they sue
you for infringement, but make any money off it and you play the
game their way.  Writing an adventure article for a magazine is
generally considered "ok" in the industry, but publishing a
Traveller-oriented commercial product would be uncool.

- -george william herbert
gwh@lurnix.com  gwh@soda.berkeley.edu

