Licensing is an interesting discussion in it’s own right, software licensing as been a hot topic for years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license with various licenses pertaining to profit, non-profit, reuse, and unadjusted re-use being hotly contested and discussed along side the copyright and Intellectual Property (IP)rights and a huge community of proponents for the open source movementhttps://opensource.guide/.

This subject seems to not always be discussed within LARP, whether due to the majority of games being non-profit or hobbyist in nature, organisers general naivety or in some cases a general don’t ask or don’t draw attention to your selves attitudes. While Role Playing Games have normal copyright concerns and also a open license discussion the Open Gaming License (OGL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License#Using_the_OGL also relating to the System Reference Document (SRD) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Reference_Document inspired by the Open Gaming License communityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_gaming and surprisingly to some initially championed in wide spread gaming media by Wizards of the Coast it now supports a number of RPG developers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OGL_publishers.

Yet Live Role Playing Games (LRPs, LARPs) seem to rarely be published with copyright cited or seemingly a concern in Europe, while in some cases they are fiercely defended in the US. The use of IP belonging to gaming companies and media publishing companies is sometime questioned if they have an history of enforcements (Games Workshop spring to mind) while TV, Film, and Books are used without seeming concern in the majority although there is a documented example for Terry Pratchett being asked and allowing use of his Discworld series as base for a LARP, as well as RPG (Steve Jackson Games Gurps). Yet despite this when it comes to system rules you can find evidence of long and old discussions on the relevancy of copy right rec.games,frp.live-action and even evidence of refusal of usage rec.games.frp.live-action/LT_Earthworks_cardiff, So despite a plethora of discussions available about the use of Drow (whether Arthurian or TSR based), and the various fantasy tropes, races and themes from book authors such as Tolkien, Martin or any number of commonly used themes, it’s only when it starts to infringe on the rights of LRP game organiser’s it’s possibly seen as a valid issue.

An interesting divergence I discovered in these links is discussion of the effect that LARP being Player Lead Plot(PLP) as on the validity of any copyright or Intellectual property claim when the customer or Player is responsible for creating the plots.

Anyone who claims to promote player-led plot must, logically, accept the fact that the players own the campaign. They therefore cannot maintain the double standard of demanding plot control authority over events they do not organise set within the same campaign. Sanctioning and franchising agreements must recognise that the campaign belongs to the players, and may not be taken from them.

~ Simon Oliver

It’s an interesting topic and even this small post of my thoughts and reading as spiraled away far further than I expected, I wanted to mention licensing as some of my upcoming posts are discussions on how I would host games inspired by media from Rebellion and their 2000ad publishing range, and Call of Cthulhu inspired Delta Green Pagan Publishing among other things, The discussion will not stop me posting the articles, but it does make me stop to consider whether i have any right to the ideas about running them, I planned to publish them openly So I will regardless.