Unlicensed Supplements and Trademark Issues
In 1994, Kenzer & Company released Kingdoms of Kalamar, a fantasy campaign setting compatible with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This source book was a completely unlicensed product, and although TSR (the then-owner of the Dungeons & Dragons trademark) had a precedent of threatening legal action against similar supplements, Kenzer & Company was never threatened.
With the launch of Dungeons & Dragons’s 3rd Edition, Wizards of the Coast made the d20 System available under the Open Game License (OGL) and d20 Trademark License. Under these licenses, authors are free to use the d20 System when writing games and game supplements. Shortly after Wizards of the Coast announced the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, they announced jointly with Kenzer & Company that Kenzer had acquired a license to produce official Dungeons & Dragons material, using the Kalamar setting exclusively.
With the release of the fourth edition, Wizards of the Coast has introduced its Game System License, which represents a significant restriction compared with the very open policies embodied by the OGL. In response, Kenzer & Company launched an updated version of Kingdoms of Kalamar compatible with the 4th Edition version of Dungeons & Dragons which does not conform to the new Game System License for approved use, instead releasing the campaign setting as an unlicensed supplement, similar to the original publication. The Dungeons & Dragons trademark is used in accordance with US law under a concept called Nominative use - the book merely says that it is for use with the new version. David Kenzer is named as an expert in copyright law.
Read more about this topic: Kenzer & Company
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