Yes.
Eventually they will probably work out the rules under which others can develop things for their IP just as they did for their earlier games. There is tons of content available for Morrowind and Oblivion on the net.
No. You can honor preexisting contracts without harming your chances at IP enforcement capability. The rule is, if you don't enforce it, you can't just start enforcing it out of no where. This does not apply to any 3rd party contracts that were in effect before a sale.
There is a latin name for this legal term, but I forget what it is. It is reflected in many aspects of law. Lets say you are in a work union, and the employee handbook says you can't use crued or vulgar language on the job or be subject to termination if used. Everyday your coworkers use crued and vulgar language with no reprocusions. One day, while cusing, you get singled out and management tries to fire you over the policy. They can't. You'd grieve it and win. They'd have to send prenotification that the rule will start being enforced before they can hold anyone accountable for breaking it.
Same goes for IP enforcement. But this does not matter when there is a sale and preexisting contracts. If I started working on a pnp FO rpg today, Bethesda could shut me down. And if it went to court (in the US at least) I could not submit in my defense that they let another company us the IP without express permission by them, since the contract was made before the sale of the IP.
ANd none of this matters since the injunction isn't about this at all. An injunction is future damages of a specific sort, and this sort is damage to the FO brand as stated in the news bit.
and makes claims against GCG that it may damage the Fallout brand and forecoming Fallout 3 release by linking the two
That is the express reason for the injunction. What you guys are trying to do is cloud the issue with noise. Lets say my nieghbor started building a third story onto his house that was going to block the sun from touching my back yard and kill my all my lucious gardens. I get an injunction put in place before he can finish and kill my gardens for the express reason of not killing my gardens. Saying I did it because I don't want a bunch of blacks moving into the neighborhood and destroying the property value of my house is the reason I did it is silly. We know the exact reason it was done, and what the exact future damage claim is exactly. And that is the FO brand.
If we relate this exact issue to another situation it might make it clearer. Lets say the lotr ip was sold. McDonald got a contract to include lotr action figures in happy meals before the sale and was just about to start the campaign. But the new owners of the IP thought the action figures were of low quality and would damage the IP's brand if McDonald went ahead with the campaign. So the new owners of the IP try and stop them from hurting the IP's brand (and lost future revenue do to that) with an injunction, which says don't go forward with this until we have our day in court, because if you do by the time we have our day in court the damage will already be done and will be too late.
It has nothing to do with IP enforcement. Yes, Bethesda has the legal right to place the injunction, but the real, and only question, you need to ask yourself is this: Would the FO brand and sales of FO3 be hurt by the release of a d20 FO pnp game? If you reall believe that, I would like to know how and why beyond, "Anything is possible!!!!!" Yes, anything is possible, but how likely is it? Do the majority of the people that play or bought Oblivion (keep in mind the sales and the console audience) know or have any interest in pnp games? The truth is the overwhelming majority of the people that are going to buy FO3 will have no idea about any pnp related material or even about this case. You know it and I know it, and anyone that claims different is retarded.
If the specific issue the injunction was created for is not the real reason Bethesda is trying to stop them for, then they should have taken them to court for another reason. Yes, there is a possiblity that this is the easiest reason they could get an injunction for, and they needed to get an injunction to stop them quick enough before they released the pnp game. But we can only speculate and guess.
Yes, i sound like a shit house lawyer, and in reality, beyond taking business law in college, have no idea what I'm talking about anymore than anyone else that claims this or that is how it works. But it until it goes to court or more info comes out or anyone can debunk anything I've said I'm right, right?