Sound Summae unrealistic?

Ah. Yeah, I think my groups have always used the optional rules from Covenants and I don't really see them as optional despite being explicitly mentioned as such.

I love your list and will be stealing the rules wholesale. I like the feel!

Bob

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I like the notion that "copyright" does not exist as we intend it today, but that it exists as per the "Cow and calf ruling": it's not the abstract text that's protected from being copied, it's just that the physical "child-books" belong to the owner of the physical "parent-book".

It also provides a better "background" to the reason why e.g. Durenmar goes a long way to prevent magical memorization of texts: if you are allowed to study a book, and then you write down what you now know, it's much harder to argue you are at fault under "literal" Cow and calf (above) than under modern copyright, so adding a layer of magical protection makes a lot of sense!

That's not always true! It may actually be lose-lose, because now a third party can encourage the competition between the two libraries, and get a better deal on both books than he would be able if each existed as a single copy, monopoly of one library. I seem to recall that there was something along these lines in a flavour text in the original Wizard's Grimoire (3rd ed.).