# We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions!



## Stonesnake

We received an official leak of OGL 1.1! In our weekly Roll For Combat Live YouTube show, we were talking about what we know about OGL 1.1 when we received a leak of OGL 1.1 from a reliable source. This isn't a scam, a troll, or clickbait. We go over the new OGL 1.1 and what it means to One D&D and the future of D&D (it's not great...).

Check it out now!


----------



## Alzrius

Calling on @darjr to watch and give us a breakdown, pretty please.


----------



## Cadence

Edit: Jump to We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions! for a link to a Gizmodo article backing them up.
------


Here's what they (apparently) posted on Reddit.  Haphazardly time-skipping through the video showed me no reason to give them clicks.  (Please correct if I missed something - like, by giving a timestamp to go to).


----------



## Nikosandros

Am I to believe that the above text was written by WotC? With that informal tone? Color me extremely skeptical.


----------



## Sacrosanct

Clearly fake clickbait, and not an actual leak.  So many red flags there, including and not limited to bad grammar and complete lack of legal understanding of how the current OGL works.

At the time of me seeing this thread (20 min after it was posted) the video is already down.

_Edit_ video appears to be back up, but clearly their "source" isn't an actual source for reasons above.


----------



## Alzrius

Sacrosanct said:


> At the time of me seeing this thread (20 min after it was posted) the video is already down.



It's still up for me; I'm literally watching it as I type this, and copy-pasting its URL pulls it up on Youtube just fine.


----------



## Nikosandros

Yes, it also still up for me as well.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Seriously?

Is this a bad attempt at trolling, or did people actually look at this and think, "Yep, that totes look like a legit license agreement."


----------



## Nikosandros

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Seriously?
> 
> Is this a bad attempt at trolling, or did people actually look at this and think, "Yep, that totes look like a legit license agreement."



It is so egregious that it does seem like trolling.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Yeah this is Bull.


----------



## payn

My link just says drink more Ovaltine.


----------



## Ondath

The third line looks like absolutely nonsense, but some people vouched for the duo on the Pathfinder subreddit saying one of them was a PF2 designer and that they know people in WotC.

Perhaps they're paraphrasing the intent behind what was leaked to them in an extremely informal tone? The conditions seem extremely limited, but @pemerton was saying that theoretically WotC could stop offering OGL v1.0a, so perhaps the leaks could have some truth behind them?

If this is the case, though, it's going to burn a lot of bridges. I can't imagine the OSR community (or even Evil Hat Productions, who use a modified version of OGL v1.0a for their SRD) being too happy about suddenly losing the right to publish new content. I feel like this would be one bridge burnt too far.


----------



## JThursby

I would find it extremely strange for two industry veterans to burn their reputation on clickbait, so I doubt they're trolling for views.  For whatever reason, they're putting a lot of faith in their source.  Time will tell if that faith is warranted or not.  The claims are...exceptional, to put it lightly.

Would it be too much to ask Morrus to chime in?  EN Publishing has worked with these guys before, and might have some insight on the potential validity of the claims.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

I know that no one on YouTube seems to understand this, but if it's "official," it's not a "leak." And if it's a "leak," it's not "official."


----------



## mamba

Ondath said:


> The third line looks like absolutely nonsense



the whole excerpt does


Ondath said:


> Perhaps they're paraphrasing the intent behind what was leaked to them in an extremely informal tone? The conditions seem extremely limited, but @pemerton was saying that theoretically WotC could stop offering OGL v1.0a, so perhaps the leaks could have some truth behind them?



they can stop making the SRD available for download, but that does not mean anything since you can still find it in plenty of places.
The license cannot be revoked.


----------



## Ondath

mamba said:


> they can stop making the SRD available for download, but that does not mean anything since you can still find it in plenty of places.
> The license cannot be revoked.



What I understood from pemerton's inference in the other thread was that while OGL v1.0a is irrevocable for those who took up the offer so far (i.e., people who published content using it), since the OGL is essentially a contract WotC can stop making the offer for OGL v1.0a for any future licensees. If this is true (though IANAL so my understanding is potentially very wrong), upon forcefully updating the OGL to v1.1, the only people who could use v1.0a would be those who already published content with it. So Necrotic Gnome and other existing OSR publishers could keep using it for their own game, but a new publishing company could not publish a new OSR title using OGL v1.0a.


----------



## Nikosandros

If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.


----------



## Ondath

Nikosandros said:


> If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.



Does this mean I'd have to, say, get them to publish my OGL v1.0a work, or can I just create derivative content of their work and use their OGL license to publish it myself? Say, Pathfinder 2E has Bulk Inventory rules that are different from the weight-based rules in SRD 5.1, and the Bulk Inventory rules are a part of Paizo's Open Gaming Content. Could I publish my own modified Bulk rules using OGL v1.0a just by slapping Paizo's OGL license notice, or do I have to go through them now that (so it is claimed) WotC will stop offering OGL v1.0a?

What I'm trying to understand is if WotC can ever legally put the genie back in the bottle regarding the use of D&D's core rules for developing your own game systems (which is how we got Pathfinder and all retroclones and Nu-OSR games, which is an ecosystem I'd like to see thrive).


----------



## mamba

Nikosandros said:


> Am I to believe that the above text was written by WotC? With that informal tone? Color me extremely skeptical.



Could also be a summary of the changes, certainly does not read like a legal license agreement would.
Right now I do not trust this at all, but if it were true, we are basically back in GSL 2.0 territory, forget about the misleading name.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> The third line looks like absolutely nonsense, but some people vouched for the duo on the Pathfinder subreddit saying one of them was a PF2 designer and that they know people in WotC.



I was going to bring that up here, too. Mark Seifter worked at Paizo since 2014 until about a year ago when he left for Roll for Combat's Battlezoo line. So I'm having a hard time believing that he'd injure his own professional reputation by putting out fake news for clicks.


----------



## darjr

I think I’ve listed to one video of theirs, an interview of the Author of Slaying the Dragon. They seemed well informed then and knew many folks in the industry.

But dang are they hard to listen too.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> Does this mean I'd have to, say, get them to publish my OGL v1.0a work, or can I just create derivative content of their work and use their OGL license to publish it myself?



I believe it's the latter.

Presuming that WotC, as the originator of the OGL v1.0a, can indeed stop offering the license, all you'd need to do is use the Open Game Content of literally _any_ other product that was published under the Open Game License v1.0a, citing that product's Section 15 in your Section 15 (along with the requisite copyright notice of your own product which you're publishing), and you're covered. It doesn't even have to be much of anything; any single bit of OGC is sufficient, so long as it's cited correctly.

Or at least, that's my understanding.


----------



## Sacrosanct

It's like people keep forgetting what the text of the OGL actually says

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a *perpetual*, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.
....
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use *any authorized* version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under *any *version of this License.


----------



## Ondath

Alzrius said:


> I believe it's the latter.
> 
> Presuming that WotC, as the originator of the OGL v1.0a, can indeed stop offering the license, all you'd need to do is use the Open Game Content of literally _any_ other product that was published under the Open Game License v1.0a, citing that product's Section 15 in your Section 15 (along with the requisite copyright notice of your own product which you're publishing), and you're covered. It doesn't even have to be much of anything; any single bit of OGC is sufficient, so long as it's cited correctly.
> 
> Or at least, that's my understanding.



That makes sense. Well, this would about seal the deal for me when it comes to breaking off from the D&D ecosystem. I've been meaning to give writing homebrew content a go, and it seems like I'll just use Level Up or OSE/Chromatic Dungeons/other retroclones for any D&D-adjacent content I'll publish. This just seems like it'll be GSL 2.0 (as @mamba said) and I just hope it'll be as badly received as the GSL to make WotC reconsider.


----------



## darjr

Did WotC sue someone in Europe over the OGL?


----------



## darjr

One thing. This is a leak, even if accurate, it’s not the final word from WotC.


----------



## Ondath

darjr said:


> Did WotC sue someone in Europe over the OGL?



I'm not sure. I know there's a French website that offers a fan translation of everything from 5E alongside most of the rules in English. The website claims to run under WotC's fan content policy, but they do some shady stuff like providing translations for copyrighted 5E content but just fail to provide its English equivalent so it's harder to find unless you speak French.


----------



## darjr

OK I don't think they are being sensational to get clicks.


----------



## mamba

darjr said:


> OK I don't think they are being sensational to get clicks.



so in other words you think this is a legitimate leak?


----------



## darjr

They reference Russ post about the OGL 1 and the ogl 1 faq.


----------



## darjr

mamba said:


> so in other words you think this is a legitimate leak?



I think the podcasters are legit, and are trying to be, even as they are kinda anti WotC, a little bit. Ultimately I dint know if the leak is legit.


----------



## Ondath

I lurked on the reddit thread a bit more, and some lawyers there chimed in to say that OGL v1.0a *would*, in fact, be unavailable if OGL v1.1 does pronounce v1.0a to be unauthorised, but that the whole thing would lead to a protracted legal battle about what "authorise" even means — which, given WotC's deep pockets, probably won't be good for any 3PPs wanting to keep OGL v1.0a alive.

The more I think about it, the less I can make heads or tails of the whole situation. I just know I don't like it.

Edit: I asked the lawyer in question why they thought @Alzrius's workaround would not work, and this is what they said (in an unofficial capacity that does not act as legal advice, obviously): "I think this is likely a flawed interpretation -  the Open Game License 1.0a starts with WotC and grows from there. Every use and instance relies on it being an active document, because every one of the sublicensee's rights requires the original license to be intact."

So if this interpretation is right, everything from FATE's SRD to Pathfinder to Level Up A5E would suddenly need to contend with the terms of OGL v1.1.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> I lurked on the reddit thread a bit more, and some lawyers there chimed in to say that OGL v1.0a *would*, in fact, be unavailable if OGL v1.1 does pronounce v1.0a to be unauthorised, but that the whole thing would lead to a protracted legal battle about what even "authorise" means — which, given WotC's deep pockets, probably won't be good for any 3PPs wanting to keep OGL v1.0a alive.
> 
> The more I think about it, the less I can make heads or tails of the whole situation. I just know I don't like it.



Paging @S'mon for thoughts on this? Note the screenshot on the first page summarizing what the leak purports.


----------



## darjr

The video doesn't go into much more detail than what is already posted.

And even they say the leak may not be legit. And they reiterate it's not final until released from WotC.

I'm interested in the leak that it was supposed to be widely released today from WotC anyway.


----------



## darjr

The video gets much better and even talks about a secret meeting at GenCon of publishers coming up with a plan in case WotC did this.

And they are level up fans!

@Morrus


----------



## darjr

It’s interesting that this is the “non-commercial” version.


----------



## Micah Sweet

If true, this is actually far, far worse than even the detractors imagined. You can't even ignore it under this interpretation!


----------



## darjr

I’m beginning to think it isn’t legit. I’m not knocking the podcasters but this is almost not believable.

I could be wrong and may just be hoping it isn’t true.


----------



## MockingBird

If this is true, and reading the third part makes me think it's not, this is pure commercial suicide.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword

I mean, even Stephen and Mark are flabbergasted and practically can't believe it beyond the fact that they have complete faith in the source.


----------



## overgeeked

If WotC paid real lawyers real money to write this thing they need to fire those lawyers immediately and hire new ones.


----------



## ersatzphil

Ondath said:


> I lurked on the reddit thread a bit more, and some lawyers there chimed in to say that OGL v1.0a *would*, in fact, be unavailable if OGL v1.1 does pronounce v1.0a to be unauthorised, but that the whole thing would lead to a protracted legal battle about what "authorise" even means — which, given WotC's deep pockets, probably won't be good for any 3PPs wanting to keep OGL v1.0a alive.



What thread is this? I'd be curious to take a look as well.


----------



## Ondath

ersatzphil said:


> What thread is this? I'd be curious to take a look as well.



It's this one here. I found it by googling the title of the reddit screenshot shared on the first page.


----------



## Nikosandros

darjr said:


> I’m beginning to think it isn’t legit. I’m not knocking the podcasters but this is almost not believable.
> 
> I could be wrong and may just be hoping it isn’t true.



If it's legit, they could have presented the text (from the Reddit post) in a different way.


----------



## MockingBird

It would be wise for WotC to get way ahead of this. I just can't wrap my brain around it right now lol.


----------



## darjr

OK they have two different sources.


----------



## Nikosandros

MockingBird said:


> It would be wise for WotC to get way ahead of this. I just can't wrap my brain around it right now lol.



I still do not understand what possessed them to fiddle with the OGL. They have an incredibly successful and popular edition. They are building the hype for the 2024 revision, there's a ton of 3P which help keep the 5e ecosystem vibrant and varied... couldn't they have just kept going like they were?


----------



## Nikosandros

darjr said:


> OK they have two different sources.



What is their claim? That the quoted text is a paraphrase or is it actually from the license? Because I can't believe the latter.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Nikosandros said:


> I still do not understand what possessed them to fiddle with the OGL. They have an incredibly successful and popular edition. They are building the hype for the 2024 revision, there's a ton of 3P which help keeping the 5e ecosystem vibrant and varied... couldn't they have just kept going like they were?



Apparently this part of the fix to the perceived problem that D&D is "undermonetized".


----------



## overgeeked

Nikosandros said:


> I still do not understand what possessed them to fiddle with the OGL. They have an incredibly successful and popular edition. They are building the hype for the 2024 revision, there's a ton of 3P which help keeping the 5e ecosystem vibrant and varied... couldn't they have just kept going like they were?



Pure greed. Other people are making too much money with their toys so they’re going to nuke most of the industry to get their cash.


----------



## Ondath

MockingBird said:


> It would be wise for WotC to get way ahead of this. I just can't wrap my brain around it right now lol.



Same. If the OGL v1.1 gets updated with something that amounts to what's leaked here, a large (and I mean LARGE) portion of the TTRPG industry will be changed irrevocably. Everything from all OSR games to Level Up to Pathfinder to FATE's SRD (though not the books themselves, I checked) use OGL v1.0a. If they invalidate it with a stroke of pen, they'll be alienating a a lot of publishers. The case would probably go to court, and the animosity this would create between WotC, the biggest fish, and the rest of the entire freakin' ocean could hurt the industry massively.


----------



## overgeeked

darjr said:


> OK they have two different sources.



Wow. That’s not quite unbelievable. But I really hope it’s BS.

Here’s to hoping the big 3PP rally together, write legally distinct (but close enough) rules, and publish them under their own open version of the OGL.


----------



## Alzrius

Nikosandros said:


> What is their claim? That the quoted text is a paraphrase or is it actually from the license? Because I can't believe the latter.



I can't either. My guess (and this is just a guess) is that their source(s) are copying-and-pasting some sort of informal communique from (someone at) WotC.


----------



## Nikosandros

Ondath said:


> Same. If the OGL v1.1 gets updated with something that amounts to what's leaked here, a large (and I mean LARGE) portion of the TTRPG industry will be changed irrevocably. Everything from all OSR games to Level Up to Pathfinder to FATE's SRD (though not the books themselves, I checked) use OGL v1.0a. If they invalidate it with a stroke of pen, they'll be alienating a a lot of publishers. The case would probably go to court, and the animosity this would create between WotC, the biggest fish, and the rest of the entire freakin' ocean could hurt the industry massively.



I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.


----------



## Malmuria

overgeeked said:


> If WotC paid real lawyers real money to write this thing they need to fire those lawyers immediately and hire new ones.



Seriously.  It's NuTSR-level writing.  

...wait a second...


----------



## Minigiant

Personally,I think there are just too many disingenuous fans of other RPGs, online content creators, and fledgling third party publishers out there wishing for a weakening of WOTC or even collapse of 1DND that I, Minigiant, would not trust even a source of a leak or a leak itself  right now.

There are too many people building franchises of Pitchfork Emporium that I would see anything that comes before the actual publishing of the OGL 1.1 as tainted.

WOTC and Hasbro went througn license issues less than 2 decades ago. And both have money for big lawyers. I know Big Corp can be stupid but it isn't that stupid.


----------



## mamba

Nikosandros said:


> I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.



I don't think this means nuking all previous material, as the license is permanent. It would however mean that nothing new can be published under 1.0a


----------



## Ondath

Nikosandros said:


> I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.



I mean, if it becomes closed going forwards, doesn't that amount to the same thing? If Paizo/EN Publishing/MCDM/OSR publishers would need to send WotC their revenue data to publish new PF2E/Level Up/K&W/OSR sourcebooks (because their license retroactively became OGL v1.1 when the old one became "unauthorised"), that's pretty much bringing the entire 3rd-party TTRPG industry to their vassalage.


----------



## Nikosandros

Ondath said:


> I mean, if it becomes closed going forwards, doesn't that amount to the same thing? If Paizo/EN Publishing/MCDM/OSR publishers would need to send WotC their revenue data to publish new PF2E sourcebooks (because their license retroactively became OGL v1.1 when the old one became "unauthorised"), that's pretty much bringing the entire 3rd-party TTRPG industry to their vassalage.



It is very different if it is simply closed for the new material. In that case, Pathfinder, OSR, Level Up, etc. would not be affected. They would just keep using the old OGL.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Nikosandros said:


> What is their claim? That the quoted text is a paraphrase or is it actually from the license? Because I can't believe the latter.




Briefly (given the FUD already spreading)-

The quoted bit is nonsensical. It doesn't even come close to resembling real legal-ese. It is not from any possible leaked license. 

Is it _possible_ that it's some mangled version of a license that someone misunderstood and then got translated via a bad game of telephone through various sources? Sure. Is it possible that someone saw something that people might need to be concerned about? Possibly. But the devil in contacts is, quite literally, in the details. Without access to the real document, you can't make any real determinations. And whatever we are being shown ain't it.

Now, moving briefly to @Ondath and the concerns raised-

1. You cannot retroactively cancel the OGL 1.0 and the works created from it. Life doesn't work like that. 

2. Is it possible that Hasbro could "revoke" (stop offering for acceptance) the prior OGL, and could this affect new works? Sure, that might be possible. But really answering that would require me to think about stuff. And I'm not here to think. I'm here to chew bubblegum and mock bards, and I'm all out of bubblegum.


----------



## Alzrius

Nikosandros said:


> I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.



I wonder if we're misinterpreting what the part about the OGL v1.0a "no longer being an authorized license agreement" means. "Authorization" only comes up in the OGL v1.0a with regard to Section 9, so that might be their way of saying (as people have theorized in several other threads) that Open Game Content published under the OGL v1.1 can't be used with the OGL v1.0a.

Likewise, I'm not at all certain that no one will be able to use the OGL v1.0a if WotC decides to revoke it (which would presumably leave the original v1.0 intact, interestingly enough). The OGL v1.0a might not say it's "irrevocable," but I thought that you could be a sub-licensor if you used Open Game Content from a preexisting OGL v1.0a product. In which case, the revocation on WotC's part is moot.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword

Ondath said:


> I mean, if it becomes closed going forwards, doesn't that amount to the same thing? If Paizo/EN Publishing/MCDM/OSR publishers would need to send WotC their revenue data to publish new PF2E/Level Up/K&W/OSR sourcebooks (because their license retroactively became OGL v1.1 when the old one became "unauthorised"), that's pretty much bringing the entire 3rd-party TTRPG industry to their vassalage.



Unless it specifically suggests *NEW *works can't use the 1.0 license and have to use the 1.1


----------



## mamba

Nikosandros said:


> It is very different if it is simply closed for the new material. In that case, Pathfinder, OSR, Level Up, etc. would not be affected. They would just keep using the old OGL.



existing products would remain under 1.0a, even in new print runs, but anything new presumably would have to be under 1.1


----------



## Maxperson

I don't care how many sources they claim to have.  There's no way that was written by lawyers for WotC.


----------



## Malmuria

My TRUSTED SOURCES have leaked to me the new "OGL Restricted License"  !!!!



> OGL Restricted License
> 
> This license allows third-party publishers to create and publish content for use with the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) role-playing game, subject to the following restrictions:
> 
> 
> Third-party publishers must obtain written permission from Wizards of the Coast before using any D&D intellectual property, including game mechanics, character names, locations, and other copyrighted material.
> Third-party publishers may not use any D&D intellectual property in a way that creates a direct competitor to the D&D game.
> Third-party publishers must pay a licensing fee to Wizards of the Coast for the use of any D&D intellectual property. The amount of the fee will be determined by Wizards of the Coast.
> Third-party publishers must give credit to Wizards of the Coast in all materials published under this license.
> Wizards of the Coast reserves the right to terminate this license at any time and for any reason.
> This license is non-transferable and may not be sublicensed by third-party publishers.
> This license is subject to change at the discretion of Wizards of the Coast.
> 
> This restricted version of the OGL gives Wizards of the Coast more control over the use of their intellectual property and allows them to charge a licensing fee for its use. It also limits the ability of third-party publishers to create products that compete directly with D&D.




My trusted source is Chat GPT.


----------



## Ondath

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Now, moving briefly to @Ondath and the concerns raised-
> 
> 1. You cannot retroactively cancel the OGL 1.0 and the works created from it. Life doesn't work like that.
> 
> 2. Is it possible that Hasbro could "revoke" (stop offering for acceptance) the prior OGL, and could this affect new works? Sure, that might be possible. But really answering that would require me to think about stuff. And I'm not here to think. I'm here to chew bubblegum and mock bards, and I'm all out of bubblegum.



I fervently want your interpretation to be true, Snarf, but my panic was mostly induced by the lawyer in the reddit thread arguing that rendering OGL v1.0a "unauthorised" would actually cause 1.0a to be unusable going forward. They implied that they have clients that produce 3PP content with OGL and that they warned them for the worst, which leads me to think that the lawyers are actually preparing for the worst.

That said, none of this should stop us from bashing bards. Where do they get their phoney magical powers from, anyway?


----------



## Alzrius

Malmuria said:


> My TRUSTED SOURCES have leaked to me the new "OGL Restricted License"  !!!!
> 
> 
> 
> My trusted source is Chat GPT.



Fun fact: WotC is really, truly, actually having ChatGPT write the OGL v1.1 for them.


----------



## Ondath

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Unless it specifically suggests *NEW *works can't use the 1.0 license and have to use the 1.1



Well if that's the way it goes, I'm expecting a lot of people to announce pre-alpha versions of their OGL v1.0a content just before OGL v1.1's official release (probably myself included).


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Maxperson said:


> I don't care how many sources they claim to have.  There's no way that was written by lawyers for WotC.



I mean, I think we can take it as read that even if it isn't a joke, this is intended as a summary of 1.1, rather than word-for-word 1.1, because yes otherwise it's prima facie laughable.

Honestly it seems a little unlikely that even WotC would be as silly to even have terms which approximated to these but, I guess we'll see.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ondath said:


> That said, none of this should stop us from bashing bards. Where do they get their phoney magical powers from, anyway?




Theft. Has to be theft. Can't trust a bard farther than you can throw 'em.

And you have to believe me- I worked hard to trust bards. I've thrown them from the highest cliffs in the land! 



> I fervently want your interpretation to be true, Snarf, but my panic was mostly induced by the lawyer in the reddit thread arguing that rendering OGL v1.0a "unauthorised" would actually cause 1.0a to be unusable going forward. They implied that they have clients that produce 3PP content with OGL and that they warned them for the worst, which leads me to think that the lawyers are actually preparing for the worst.




So, on this- always be careful with legal advice that (1) you didn't pay for, and (2) you have found on the internet. When people assert confident opinions about the law, I am concerned that they might not be lawyers, because everyone knows that real life is like the Fugitive, in that we are looking for a one-armed lawyer ... just so they won't say, "And on the other hand ...."

Anyway, worrying is interest paid on a debt that will never come due. Let's wait and see what the actual license terms look like. 

Finally, I am confident that Bards will be removed from OneD&D. I have two trusted sources for it- me, and my posterior.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword

Ondath said:


> Well if that's the way it goes, I'm expecting a lot of people to announce pre-alpha versions of their OGL v1.0a content just before OGL v1.1's official release (probably myself included).



True, but OneDND doesn't exist yet, and I imagine siloing THAT content off is their goal.


----------



## mamba

Snarf Zagyg said:


> So, on this- always be careful with legal advice that (1) you didn't pay for, and (2) you have found on the internet. When people assert confident opinions about the law, I am concerned that they might not be lawyers, because everyone knows that real life is like the Fugitive, in that we are looking for a one-armed lawyer ... just so they won't say, "And on the other hand ...."



from the reddit thread

"So, they unfortunately can de-authorize the old OGL. OGL 1.0a is perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license, but it is not _irrevocable_. De-authorization and revocation function effectively the same here.
Because the old OGL states that you may continue to use any _authorized_ version, and is fully revocable, having OGL 1.1 de-authorize OGL 1.0a is an effective revocation/de-authorization of 1.0a.

However, even though it's permissible under contract law, it does not mean it's an equitable result. This could lead to a lawsuit from relying on 1.0a for so long, only to have it be quickly switched Indiana Jones style.

*As a general disclaimer, while I am a lawyer in the gaming/tabletop industry, this comment is not legal advice - it's for informational purposes only, and does not create an attorney-client relationship."*


----------



## Sacrosanct

mamba said:


> from the reddit thread
> 
> "So, they unfortunately can de-authorize the old OGL. OGL 1.0a is perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license, but it is not _irrevocable_. De-authorization and revocation function effectively the same here.
> Because the old OGL states that you may continue to use any _authorized_ version, and is fully revocable, having OGL 1.1 de-authorize OGL 1.0a is an effective revocation/de-authorization of 1.0a.
> 
> However, even though it's permissible under contract law, it does not mean it's an equitable result. This could lead to a lawsuit from relying on 1.0a for so long, only to have it be quickly switched Indiana Jones style.
> 
> *As a general disclaimer, while I am a lawyer in the gaming/tabletop industry, this comment is not legal advice - it's for informational purposes only, and does not create an attorney-client relationship."*



That lawyer needs to look up what the definition of "perpetual" is, to make that statement.  If something is "never ending", how can it be revoked?


----------



## mamba

Sacrosanct said:


> That lawyer needs to look up what the definition of "perpetual" is, to make that statement.  If something is "never ending", how can it be revoked?



I am not a lawyer, but he makes the distinction between perpetual and irrevocable. Basically if you published something under 1.0a, you can continue to do so. If you want to publish anything new under it, you can no longer do that because it has been revoked / de-authorized. So any new material by anyone can be published under 1.1 only.

Not saying he is correct, I have no idea, but that to me seems to be the argument he is making

I kinda feel that if WotC thought they could do it, they would have done so with 4e / PF already (or they learned from that and this is why it is called OGL 1.1 rather than GSL 2.0), but I cannot say for sure either way


----------



## Art Waring

If they could have revoked the 1.0a by now they certainly would have (see 4e GSL's original poison pill). It's an argument that has been ongoing for 20 years.

This is likely a misinterpretation do to the fact that this is likely second hand, or possibly even third-to fourth-hand information without any actual documentation to go with it. I am concerned about the 1.1, but not for reasons as severe as they claim.

I could see them imposing no forward compatibility with the 1.0a & the 1.1 using closed game content, but that means they each go their own way. Being able to revoke the 1.0a OGL would mean potentially putting companies like Paizo out of business in a few months, it doesn't make any sense.


----------



## Ondath

mamba said:


> I am not a lawyer, but he makes the distinction between perpetual and irrevocable. Basically if you published something under 1.0a, you can continue to do so. If you want to publish anything new under it, you can no longer do that because it has been revoked / de-authorized. So any new material by anyone can be published under 1.1 only.
> 
> Not saying he is correct, I have no idea, but that to me seems to be the argument he is making
> 
> I kinda feel that if WotC thought they could do it, they would have done so with 4e / PF already (or they learned from that and this is why it is called OGL 1.1 rather than GSL 2.0), but I cannot say for sure either way



Pretty much how I understood it. @pemerton had made this point before, while the OGL as a license, once obtained, is perpetual and worldwide, it still requires you to enter into a contact with WotC in order to obtain it. In order to enter that contract, there needs to be (1) an offer from WotC, (2) something that the contract offers and (3) a clear sign that you've accepted that contract. If WotC stops offering OGL v1.0a (which is separate from revoking the license from those who previously held it, which is what they cannot do under the perpetuity clause), then you can no longer get OGL v1.0a since (1) becomes missing.


----------



## Alzrius

Sacrosanct said:


> That lawyer needs to look up what the definition of "perpetual" is, to make that statement.  If something is "never ending", how can it be revoked?



Apparently there's a difference between something with a perpetual duration and actively terminating something. In D&D terms, it's the difference between a spell with a duration of "permanent" and one that has a (D) notation after its listed duration (which in 3.5 meant that it was "dismissible" by the caster, who in this case is WotC).

Here's a quote from a law firm's website which talks about this:



> If your licensing agreement is silent on restrictions, revocability, and termination (meaning it contains no language regarding these issues), your ability to terminate likely depends on the duration of the agreement. Many courts have found that non-exclusive perpetual agreements that are silent as to revocability are revocable at will. In regard to non-exclusive term agreements (which set a fixed timeframe for the licensee’s rights) that are silent as to revocability, many courts have conversely found that they are not capable of being terminated during the term.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

overgeeked said:


> Pure greed. Other people are making too much money with their toys so they’re going to nuke most of the industry to get their cash.



Doubtful


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Art Waring said:


> Being able to revoke the 1.0a OGL would mean potentially putting companies like Paizo out of business in a few months, it doesn't make any sense.



I mean, it would absolutely make sense to anyone who didn't care about the impact on the RPG industry and didn't believe the bad PR they might accrue would be meaningful given D&D is laughably dominant.

Which may well apply to the various Microsoft bods running Hasbro and WotC right now.

Or not! We'll see.

I think it'd be weird if this much fuss was being made if there wasn't some basis for this, given the people involved, but who knows.


----------



## Pjack

Incandescent rage. I should not be surprised that a corporation would burn decades of goodwill for the bottom line. And yet: here we are.


----------



## JThursby

In the video, Stephen and Mark both question the capability for Wizards to enforce any kind of forced de-authorization of 1.0a, both of them conclude that it is likely a scare tactic instead of something truly enforceable.  That seems plausible, but I question why they would bother to try and scare publishers if they had no intention of pursing legal action, who would be fooled by it?

Furthermore, what is to stop one or multiple of their competitors from making their own license along similar lines? Does a game like Pathfinder really _need_ the specific term "magic missile" for their game to succeed?

Ultimately, I really hope this leak turns out to be exaggerated or false, but given the existence of things like the GSL it isn't entirely implausible.


----------



## Maxperson

Malmuria said:


> My TRUSTED SOURCES have leaked to me the new "OGL Restricted License"  !!!!
> 
> 
> 
> My trusted source is Chat GPT.



The sad thing is, that was better than the writing shown on page 1.


----------



## Art Waring

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, it would absolutely make sense to anyone who didn't care about the impact on the RPG industry and didn't believe the bad PR they might accrue would be meaningful given D&D is laughably dominant.
> 
> Which may well apply to the various Microsoft bods running Hasbro and WotC right now.
> 
> Or not! We'll see.
> 
> I think it'd be weird if this much fuss was being made if there wasn't some basis for this, given the people involved, but who knows.



Well I don't know, I really hope this is not as bad as they are making it sound.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

JThursby said:


> Ultimately, I really hope this leak turns out to be exaggerated or false, but given the existence of things like the GSL it isn't entirely implausible.



Same. Aspects of this are feeling a bit unfortunately plausible though.


----------



## Cadence

MtG: Goes against years of saying the reserve list applies to gold bordered cards too and finally does reprints at $250 a pack.

DnD: Hold my beer.

?


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Pjack said:


> Incandescent rage. I should not be surprised that a corporation would burn decades of goodwill for the bottom line. And yet: here we are.



With no proof it’s real and a lot of evidence it’s not

I despise this click bait naughty word.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

JThursby said:


> In the video, Stephen and Mark both question the capability for Wizards to enforce any kind of forced de-authorization of 1.0a, both of them conclude that it is likely a scare tactic instead of something truly enforceable.  That seems plausible, but I question why they would bother to try and scare publishers if they had no intention of pursing legal action, who would be fooled by it?




Briefly on this- litigation can be used for the _in terrorem_ effect, not just for the merits of the case.

The best case, the most slam-dunk case, in the world might give you a ... what ... 90% chance of victory? Now, good lawyers could adjust that somewhat- really expensive and clever ones might tilt the odds a little more. But let's keep it at 80%.

Imagine you're a small company. Hasbro is suing you- none of the claims involve attorney's fees. If they win, you're ruined. But if you win ... you're still out all the money you paid your attorneys.

That is the unfortunate side of litigation. Money ... well, it can matter. The threat of litigation can force a lot of people to back down, even when they know they are right.

_ETA- now, let's get back to the important stuff. Dragons, unicorns, and the perfidy of soulless, dead-eyed elves. _


----------



## Minigiant

Art Waring said:


> This is likely a misinterpretation do to the fact that this is likely second hand, or possibly even third-to fourth-hand information without any actual documentation to go with it. I am concerned about the 1.1, but not for reasons as severe as they claim.




Indeed it feels way too foolish for it not to be tainted info.


----------



## see

Alzrius said:


> Apparently there's a difference between something with a perpetual duration and actively terminating something. In D&D terms, it's the difference between a spell with a duration of "permanent" and one that has a (D) notation after its listed duration (which in 3.5 meant that it was "dismissible" by the caster, who in this case is WotC).
> 
> Here's a quote from a law firm's website which talks about this:



I'd be a lot more worried about this if we didn't have Wayback Machine archives of WotC's OGL FAQs, both 1.0 and 2.0. As appeared in both versions of the FAQ:



> *Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?*
> 
> Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.



I believe the relevant legal term of art is "reasonable reliance".


----------



## Clint_L

You would have to be a moron to read that supposed "leak" and think it was legitimate. So either the people making the video are idiots or (more likely) they know it is ridiculous but are treating it seriously anyway to drum up fake outrage and get clicks.


----------



## mamba

see said:


> I'd be a lot more worried about this if we didn't have Wayback Machine archives of WotC's OGL FAQs, both 1.0 and 2.0. As appeared in both versions of the FAQ:



not sure that helps much "what will happen to *content that has been previously distributed* using an earlier version"


----------



## Greg K

I thought Peter and Ryan Dancey both stated that the OGL 1.0 (a?) was designed to be irrevocable (iother than a breach of terms) so that fans of D&D could use it no matter what future owners do with D&D.


----------



## pemerton

Alzrius said:


> Apparently there's a difference between something with a perpetual duration and actively terminating something. In D&D terms, it's the difference between a spell with a duration of "permanent" and one that has a (D) notation after its listed duration (which in 3.5 meant that it was "dismissible" by the caster, who in this case is WotC).
> 
> Here's a quote from a law firm's website which talks about this:



That quote is under a heading discussing termination for breach. It's also not the case that the OGL "is silent on restrictions, revocability, and termination (meaning it contains no language regarding these issues)". Clause 13 of the OGL deals with termination for breach.

If the license granted under the OGL is in fact revocable at will by WotC, that is something that no one seems to have noticed in the past 20 years, including WotC up until now. That doesn't mean it's not the case, but I think some more argument is needed.


----------



## pemerton

see said:


> I believe the relevant legal term of art is "reasonable reliance".



I'm not sure if, in US law, reliance on a publisher's FAQ will generate binding consequences for the publisher. But it does suggest that WotC did not have the view, at that time, that licences granted pursuant to the OGL were revocable at will.


----------



## BrokenTwin

On one hand the terms in the leak seem unrealistically, cartoonishly bad. On the other hand, I never put it past corporations to do cartoonishly bad things if they think doing so will pad their bottom line.


----------



## Alzrius

pemerton said:


> That quote is under a heading discussing termination for breach.



It is, but I interpreted (possibly erroneously) that because the paragraph in question wasn't directly talking about issues of breach, that meant that it had moved on to a more general examination of the topic as part of a closing summary, rather than continuing to talk about that specific reason for termination.


----------



## EpicureanDM

pemerton said:


> If the license granted under the OGL is in fact revocable at will by WotC, that is something that no one seems to have noticed in the past 20 years, including WotC up until now. That doesn't mean it's not the case, but I think some more argument is needed.



People keep getting hung up on the common wisdom about revocability and the OGL - which this website has perpetuated - while missing the fact that WotC's not going to revoke OGL 1.0. They're going to deauthorize it. This comment earlier in the thread spells it out. 


Ondath said:


> Pretty much how I understood it. @pemerton had made this point before, while the OGL as a license, once obtained, is perpetual and worldwide, it still requires you to enter into a contact with WotC in order to obtain it. In order to enter that contract, there needs to be (1) an offer from WotC, (2) something that the contract offers and (3) a clear sign that you've accepted that contract. If WotC stops offering OGL v1.0a (which is separate from revoking the license from those who previously held it, which is what they cannot do under the perpetuity clause), then you can no longer get OGL v1.0a since (1) becomes missing.


----------



## Incenjucar

I require more information than a "leak" to accept anyone is as bad at their job as this. The HBO content slayer exists, so it's not impossible, but the language presented is clearly not by a corporate legal team.


----------



## Alzrius

EpicureanDM said:


> People keep getting hung up on the common wisdom about revocability and the OGL - which this website has perpetuated - while missing the fact that WotC's not going to revoke OGL 1.0. They're going to deauthorize it. This comment earlier in the thread spells it out.



Yeah, but doesn't that ignore that sub-licensors themselves can in turn make the offer (instead of WotC), and so you can produce new Open Game Content under the OGL v1.0a so long as you use Open Game Content from an existing product to do so? I thought that idea was put forward in another thread here.


----------



## Ondath

Alzrius said:


> Yeah, but doesn't that ignore that sub-licensors themselves can in turn make the offer (instead of WotC), and so you can produce new Open Game Content under the OGL v1.0a so long as you use Open Game Content from an existing product to do so? I thought that idea was put forward in another thread here.



The lawyer in the reddit thread claims this wouldn't apply because all the sublicenses granted by other publishers depend on the original living document from WotC, and if WotC deauthorises OGL v1.0a, they would also lose that right. Of course, I don't know if their claim is correct, but if this is the case then a lot of companies will be changing the way they do business very soon.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> The lawyer in the reddit thread claims this wouldn't apply because all the sublicenses granted by other publishers depend on the original living document from WotC, and if WotC deauthorises OGL v1.0a, they would also lose that right. Of course, I don't know if their claim is correct, but if this is the case then a lot of companies will be changing the way they do business very soon.



Well, I'm no lawyer, but I question that interpretation, as "authorization" only seems to be a thing in the OGL v1.0a with regard to Section 9. Also, the "depend on the original living document" aspect of that line of reasoning seems dubious to me. Where in the OGL v1.0a does it suggest that?

And, if we want to get very technical, that leak doesn't say that they're deauthorizing the original OGL v1.0 either, just v1.0a.


----------



## Greg K

Can they deauthorize it for another version? I recall Ryan Dancey and Peter both stating that the intent behind the original version of the  OGL, unlike the SRD, was to ensure fans could use it regardless of what future owners do with the property.


----------



## Stonesnake

Wow, I guess this thread blew up. A few things have happened since I posted this original thread:

1) I have heard from other reliable sources that have confirmed that what we have posted so far is legitimate in its current form.

2) I didn't post this to get clicks, trolls, or anything like that. I am genuinely concerned for the future of this hobby if even half of this is true. I have been playing role-playing games since I was a little kid, nearly weekly for over 40 years. I love this hobby, and if this is true (and I believe it is), then I wanted to make sure we all got in front of it as soon as possible.

3) Yes, some of this language seems strange when you first read it, but there is precedent for WOTC's attorneys being cheeky in their language. See this quote from their Fan Content Policy: "#5. No bad stuff. We have the right to stop or restrict your use of Wizards’ IP at any time—for any reason or no reason—including when we think your use is inappropriate, offensive, damaging, or disparaging (and we’ll make that call in our sole discretion). If this happens, you must immediately take down your Fan Content or face the Demogorgon (yeah, the big bad is back from being on loan)."

4) We are fans of Level Up!  William Fischer works directly on most of our 5E material, and I know or have worked with most of the developers on Level Up!


----------



## Ondath

Alzrius said:


> Well, I'm no lawyer, but I question that interpretation, as "authorization" only seems to be a thing in the OGL v1.0a with regard to Section 9.



Well, since a lot of people depended on Section 9 to say they could stay in v1.0a without switching to v1.1 (since Section 9 is also what allows people to mix-and-match license versions with the content they make), authorisation factoring in Section 9 does seem pretty relevant to me.


Alzrius said:


> Also, the "depend on the original living document" aspect of that line of reasoning seems dubious to me. Where in the OGL v1.0a does it suggest that?



I believe the line of reasoning is that, while the OGL copyright notice allows you to mark your game content as under the OGL, the notice itself is, for weird legal shenanigans, _not_ under the OGL. The license text is under the copyright of WotC, and that means that any reproduction of the OGL by sublicensees still uses the copyrighted notice by Wizards. For instance, this is what Evil Hat Productions' OGL text looks like, even though FATE has nothing to do with D&D:


> *15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE*
> 
> 
> Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
> 
> 
> Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition © 2013 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. Developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue.



This then seems to imply that the license text itself is something that's separate from the OGL, and the OGL's validity stems from the original copyrighted license text that belongs to Wizards. As a result (the logic goes), if WotC deauthorises OGL v1.0a in a new version of the license, their change trickles down to sublicensees, and this might stop them from issuing OGL v1.0a licenses too.

Of course, this is very, very different from what Dancey & co. intended when they first designed the OGL. But mind you, the people in charge of D&D (and WotC at large) are not those people, and it's the second group that now decides how the OGL should be interpreted. If WotC goes for the worst-case scenario and decides to endanger the entire OGL-dependent side of the industry, things will inevitably go to court. Perhaps WotC might lose and OGL v1.0a might stay because the license was intended to be available forever. But even to get that result, there'd need to be a protracted legal battle against Hasbro. And that can't be good news for the hobby in general.

TL;DR: They're altering the deal. Let's pray they don't alter it further.


----------



## Cadence

If this was an MtG board it feels like Dancey's representations about the OGL and IANAL promissory estoppel musings would be everywhere.

(For whatever good or lack of good that would be).


----------



## Clint_L

BrokenTwin said:


> On one hand the terms in the leak seem unrealistically, cartoonishly bad...



Yeah, can we just stop there? It's so painfully, obviously, stupidly fake that it makes my brain hurt. It's like if a twelve year old with English as a third language wrote it. If nothing else (and there is a lot else), don't you think the inability to use capital letters correctly is a dead giveaway? I've seen solicitations from a "Nigerian prince" that were more convincing.


----------



## MockingBird

Well at least the show that's about to happen will be good. Gonna be a interesting new year.


----------



## Ondath

Clint_L said:


> Yeah, can we just stop there? It's so painfully, obviously, stupidly fake that it makes my brain hurt. It's like if a twelve year old with English as a third language wrote it. If nothing else (and there is a lot else), don't you think the inability to use capital letters correctly is a dead giveaway? I've seen solicitations from a "Nigerian prince" that were more convincing.



And what does continuously insulting the people who are taking the claims seriously get you, exactly?

Also note that one of the two people making the claims is a Paizo veteran who knows people in WotC (and who has posted again to the thread to say that they confirmed these news from several other sources). Don't you think it's odd they'd risk their reputation by making such a huge claim if they had no backing?


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> Well, since a lot of people depended on Section 9 to say they could stay in v1.0a without switching to v1.1 (since Section 9 is also what allows people to mix-and-match license versions with the content they make), authorisation factoring in Section 9 does seem pretty relevant to me.



I don't believe Section 9 works like that. You don't "depend" on it to continue using the OGL v1.0a once the OGL v1.1 comes out, as I understand it. The OGL v1.1 declaration that the OGL v1.0a is no longer "authorized" means, insofar as the OGL v1.0a Section 9 is concerned, that you cannot take Open Game Content released under the OGL v1.1 and release it under the OGL v1.0a, because Section 9 of the OGL v1.0a is what makes that possible. Having the OGL v1.1 expressly declare that the OGL v1.0a is not authorized for that purpose therefore means that you can keep using the OGL v1.0a as it is, just that you can't release Open Game Content under it that was originally released under the OGL v1.1.


Ondath said:


> I believe the line of reasoning is that, while the OGL copyright notice allows you to mark your game content as under the OGL, the notice itself is, for weird legal shenanigans, _not_ under the OGL. The license text is under the copyright of WotC, and that means that any reproduction of the OGL by sublicensees still uses the copyrighted notice by Wizards. For instance, this is what Evil Hat Productions' OGL text looks like, even though FATE has nothing to do with D&D:



The copyright notice of the OGL itself, under the Section 15, has never made sense to me, because Section 6 outlines that what you need to place under Section 15 is the copyright notice from any work whose Open Game Content you're using (which is recursive in nature, so you'll also be reposting the copyright notice of any of those books as well). But the Open Game License is itself not Open Game Content per se.

That said, the idea that this somehow constitutes a loophole which can prevent people from using new material under the OGL v1.0a just because of a notice of "deauthorization" in the OGL v1.1 strikes me as a claim with very little to back it up, especially when attributed to something as non-specific as "legal shenanigans."



Ondath said:


> This then seems to imply that the license text itself is something that's separate from the OGL, and the OGL's validity stems from the original copyrighted license text that belongs to Wizards.




This is where you lose me. The text of the OGL is separate from the OGL?  To be honest, a lot of what's being said in that reddit thread strikes me as FUDD more than insightful analysis...but I suppose we'll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.


----------



## Alzrius

Stonesnake said:


> 3) Yes, some of this language seems strange when you first read it, but there is precedent for WOTC's attorneys being cheeky in their language.



This much is true. A lot of people overlook this little tidbit in the Open Game License v1.0a:



> 1. Definitions: (a)"Contributors" means the copyright and/or trademark owners who have contributed Open Game Content; (b)"Derivative Material" means copyrighted material including derivative works and translations (including into other computer languages), potation, modification, correction, addition, extension, upgrade, improvement, compilation, abridgment or other form in which an existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted;


----------



## Maxperson

Alzrius said:


> This much is true. A lot of people overlook this little tidbit in the Open Game License v1.0a:



Maybe they had been drinking when they wrote that?


----------



## Clint_L

Ondath said:


> And what does continuously insulting the people who are taking the claims seriously get you, exactly?
> 
> Also note that one of the two people making the claims is a Paizo veteran who knows people in WotC (and who has posted again to the thread to say that they confirmed these news from several other sources). Don't you think it's odd they'd risk their reputation by making such a huge claim if they had no backing?



Is anyone here taking these claims seriously? I find that hard to believe.

Also, I have no idea what any of the credentials are from anyone making the claims. There is zero reliable reporting on this, there are rumours, people claiming to be lawyers on Reddit, etc. There is basically a bunch of people on the internet saying stuff and a text that is so obviously fake that there is not anything to debate. There is no point going any further than looking at that text and rolling your eyes.


----------



## Alzrius

Clint_L said:


> Is anyone here taking these claims seriously? I find that hard to believe.



If you read back through the thread, a number of people are taking these claims with (varying levels of) seriousness.


Clint_L said:


> Also, I have no idea what any of the credentials are from anyone making the claims.



I posted some links to the credentials of Mark Seifter back in post #20.


----------



## pemerton

EpicureanDM said:


> People keep getting hung up on the common wisdom about revocability and the OGL - which this website has perpetuated - while missing the fact that WotC's not going to revoke OGL 1.0. They're going to deauthorize it. This comment earlier in the thread spells it out.



The OGL doesn't talk about "deauthorisation". Section 9 deals with updates to the licence.

My view, as @Ondath has mentioned, is that WotC could cease to offer new licences of its existing SRD on the OGL terms. But existing licensees would enjoy the authority to license OGC that has been licensed to them, as per section 4 of the OGL v 1.0a together with the definition of "Use".

As I also posted in the other thread, IP licensing law is not my field of expertise. So there may well be arguments that refute my view. But I haven't seen this notion of "deauthorisation" explained in a way that makes sense. (And the comment that you point to is mostly referring to what I posted in the other thread.)


----------



## overgeeked

Never mind.


----------



## Ondath

Clint_L said:


> Is anyone here taking these claims seriously? I find that hard to believe.







I do hope you turn out to be right and that this whole situation ends up being an exaggeration. But given that third-party creators who were contacted by WotC and told to choose whether they'll adopt OGL v1.1 or not (but can't discuss details due to NDAs) are also showing extreme discomfort with what WotC is preparing, I think the OGL v1.1 that will be officially announced will be a lot closer to what the leaks say than you might think.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Maxperson said:


> Maybe they had been drinking when they wrote that?




Nope. Or maybe! Drunkage makes typsos!

@Alzrius - that wasn't a joke. It was likely a typo introduced when they were using boilerplate language. Similar licenses will use the correct term (from software) _portation_ (with an "r").


----------



## Glade Riven

The Rules Lawyer has a video up. Seems he got a copy of the leak, too.

I admit I am *not *a lawyer, _but _- content built off of D20 SRD, D20 Modern SRD, or 5e SRD is likely fine, even future content, _as long as you do *not*_ publish anything under the new license/SRD. Should you publish _anything_, no matter how minor, under the new, updated license, your use of the old license is revoked. It's very "Gotcha" - and third party publishers will have to decide whether to move forward with the risk of a very bad contract and Wizards having a De Facto royalty free license to their trademark or cutting free from D&D completely.

Software companies have taken huge legal hits for not honoring perpetual licenses (Filmora, I believe, is a recent one).


----------



## Alzrius

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Nope. Or maybe! Drunkage makes typsos!
> 
> @Alzrius - that wasn't a joke. It was likely a typo introduced when they were using boilerplate language. Similar licenses will use the correct term (from software) _portation_ (with an "r").



I like my interpretation better.


----------



## Uni-the-Unicorn!

Ondath said:


> Pretty much how I understood it. @pemerton had made this point before, while the OGL as a license, once obtained, is perpetual and worldwide, it still requires you to enter into a contact with WotC in order to obtain it. In order to enter that contract, there needs to be (1) an offer from WotC, (2) something that the contract offers and (3) a clear sign that you've accepted that contract. If WotC stops offering OGL v1.0a (which is separate from revoking the license from those who previously held it, which is what they cannot do under the perpetuity clause), then you can no longer get OGL v1.0a since (1) becomes missing.



What about OGL 1.0?


----------



## EpicureanDM

Alzrius said:


> Yeah, but doesn't that ignore that sub-licensors themselves can in turn make the offer (instead of WotC), and so you can produce new Open Game Content under the OGL v1.0a so long as you use Open Game Content from an existing product to do so? I thought that idea was put forward in another thread here.



From the reddit thread:


> This is likely where the confusion is coming from. However, it's important to note this protects content made under OGL 1.0a, _but the license itself is not a part of the license_. It has to be attached as a notice to the content, but WotC was very explicit that the text of the license is not included, and remains owned by WotC.



Unlike the other credible legal analysis I've seen, I'm not as confident with this bit. OGL 1.0a licensees are exactly that: licensees, not _sub-_licensees. The word "sublicensees" doesn't appear anywhere else in the OGL 1.0a except Section 13, which reads:


> Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with all terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License.



That's it. Section 13's only contemplating termination due to a licensee's (not a sublicensee's) failure to comply with the OGL. I don't see a provision in the OGL 1.0a that grants licensees the right to sublicense. It would be in Section 4, where you find the bundle of rights given to licensees: perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive. So how are these theoretical sublicensees mentioned in Section 13 (and _only_ Section 13) being generated and by whom?  Note that in the supposedly leaked text of the OGL 1.1, WotC does explicitly give itself the right to sublicense. Regardless of your position on the overall professionalism of the supposedly leaked text, that second section that describes WotC's IP rights _does_ sound like proper legalese. I would expect that word - "sub-licensable" - to be in Section 4 of OGL 1.0a if the licensee has that right.

A lot of effort went into making OGL 1.0a fit onto a single piece of paper, so I imagine a lot of eyes spent a lot of time boiling it down to what they thought were the absolute essentials. So that solitary reference in Section 13 to sublicenses suggests that it was included for some reason. Courts assume that all the language included in an agreement was included on purpose, so there's a presumption that WotC had _something_ in mind when they included this sentence. But it's also true that people make mistakes. Language supporting this sentence in Section 13 might have been removed and some lawyer didn't think through the ramifications, leaving that orphaned sentence in there.


----------



## pemerton

Ondath said:


> The lawyer in the reddit thread claims this wouldn't apply because all the sublicenses granted by other publishers depend on the original living document from WotC, and if WotC deauthorises OGL v1.0a, they would also lose that right. Of course, I don't know if their claim is correct, but if this is the case then a lot of companies will be changing the way they do business very soon.



I still don't know what "de-authorisation" means in this context. Is it meant to be a notion that arises under the terms of the OGL v 1.0a? A general notion from the law of IP licensing? Or something else.

My reading of the OGL v 1.0a is that WotC cannot unilaterally terminate their existing licence with (say) Hypertext SRD. And under section 4 of the OGL, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC that has been licensed to it, provided that the sub-license itself is in the same terms as the OGL v 1.0 (subject to the possibility of choosing other authorised versions as per section 9).

What's the alternative view? I'm not being dismissive, but it would be helpful to actually see it set out.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ondath said:


> I do hope you turn out to be right and that this whole situation ends up being an exaggeration. But given that third-party creators who were contacted by WotC and told to choose whether they'll adopt OGL v1.1 or not (but can't discuss details due to NDAs) are also showing extreme discomfort with what WotC is preparing, I think the OGL v1.1 that will be officially announced will be a lot closer to what the leaks say than you might think.




Look ... I mean ... this-

"You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We're aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us."

Without going into issues of waiver (especially w/r/t licenses) and why I think this is immediately suspect, I have a hard time imagining anyone with half a brain or any level of competence putting that into writing.


----------



## Ondath

Uni-the-Unicorn! said:


> What about OGL 1.0?



If Hasbro's lawyers are worth their salt, they'd probably deauthorise 1.0 alongside 1.0a if this is the direction they're going for.

What was the difference between the two of them anyway?


----------



## jerryrice4949

Ondath said:


> I do hope you turn out to be right and that this whole situation ends up being an exaggeration. But given that third-party creators who were contacted by WotC and told to choose whether they'll adopt OGL v1.1 or not (but can't discuss details due to NDAs) are also showing extreme discomfort with what WotC is preparing, I think the OGL v1.1 that will be officially announced will be a lot closer to what the leaks say than you might think.



Do we have the publishers actually saying this explicitly? I haven’t heard that.  I have heard rumors of it but nothing where Kobold Press for example says  publically they have concerns which would not violate the NDA as long as they didn’t release details of the new OGL.


----------



## mamba

At this point I hope someone comes up with an Open5e, as an almost-clone of 5e and not using the OGL, for all 3PP to switch over to use as the base for their products. Then license that under something similar to the OGL but air-tight, so no one can revoke or alter anything at a later point, and cutting WotC out completely. Heck, use an existing CC license if that works.


----------



## EpicureanDM

pemerton said:


> My view, as @Ondath has mentioned, is that WotC could cease to offer new licences of its existing SRD on the OGL terms. But existing licensees would enjoy the authority to license OGC that has been licensed to them, as per section 4 of the OGL v 1.0a together with the definition of "Use".
> 
> As I also posted in the other thread, IP licensing law is not my field of expertise. So there may well be arguments that refute my view. But I haven't seen this notion of "deauthorisation" explained in a way that makes sense. (And the comment that you point to is mostly referring to what I posted in the other thread.)



Isn't the claim made by Ondath, and supported by me, grounded in contract law, not IP law? 

And could you explain how you think "Use" as a defined term interacts with Section 4 of the OGL 1.0a to create in the licensee a right to sublicense?


----------



## Ondath

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Look ... I mean ... this-
> 
> "You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We're aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us."
> 
> Without going into issues of waiver (especially w/r/t licenses) and why I think this is immediately suspect, I have a hard time imagining anyone with half a brain or any level of competence putting that into writing.



Yeah, that part of the text is absolute nonsense. My best bet would be that it's a rephrasing of the intent behind that part of the license by @Stonesnake, but if that's not the case, that reduces the credibility of the leak quite a bit.


----------



## Ondath

pemerton said:


> I still don't know what "de-authorisation" means in this context. Is it meant to be a notion that arises under the terms of the OGL v 1.0a? A general notion from the law of IP licensing? Or something else.



Again, just relaying the opinion of the lawyer on the reddit thread:

"de-authorisation" seems to be related to Section 9's "You can use any *authorised* version of the license" clause from what I understand. Since that's the only way WotC can do something that would be equivalent to revoking OGL v1.0a, they seem to be going that way and declaring the alternative OGL versions to be de-authorised so that they can't be used instead of OGL v1.1. I don't know if they have the right to do that, but I'm guessing that would have to be decided in court.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> If Hasbro's lawyers are worth their salt, they'd probably deauthorise 1.0 alongside 1.0a if this is the direction they're going for.
> 
> What was the difference between the two of them anyway?



I looked into that over on this post. Basically, a slight amendment to Section 7 clarifying that it covers both trademarks and registered trademarks.


----------



## Ondath

jerryrice4949 said:


> Do we have the publishers actually saying this explicitly? I haven’t heard that.  I have heard rumors of it but nothing where Kobold Press for example says  publically they have concerns which would not violate the NDA as long as they didn’t release details of the new OGL.



Griffon's Saddlebag (a small account that makes homebrew magic items for 5E) posted this instagram video where he says that he is currently taking a break to discuss how to approach OGL v1.1 with his lawyers, and that the new direction isn't good. He also posted several tweets where he mentions the need to "keep OGL v1.0 intact" (implying it will not be left intact with v1.1).

I also remember reading that WotC apparently gave content creators until January 13 to decide whether they want to adopt OGL v1.1 or not and that they couldn't discuss the details due to an NDA, but I can't find where I read that. Also, @darjr (who courageously watched the whole video at the start of the thread!) relayed the claim in the video that apparently 3PPs were anticipating the "revocation" of OGL v1.0a and having meetings to discuss what to do.


----------



## jerryrice4949

I wonder what happens if no 3pp come over to the new OGL.  No royalties And perhaps a shrinking fan base.


----------



## pemerton

Ondath said:


> Again, just relaying the opinion of the lawyer on the reddit thread:
> 
> "de-authorisation" seems to be related to Section 9's "You can use any *authorised* version of the license" clause from what I understand. Since that's the only way WotC can do something that would be equivalent to revoking OGL v1.0a, they seem to be going that way and declaring the alternative OGL versions to be de-authorised so that they can't be used instead of OGL v1.1. I don't know if they have the right to do that, but I'm guessing that would have to be decided in court.



I've also read your post upthread:


Ondath said:


> I believe the line of reasoning is that, while the OGL copyright notice allows you to mark your game content as under the OGL, the notice itself is, for weird legal shenanigans, _not_ under the OGL. The license text is under the copyright of WotC, and that means that any reproduction of the OGL by sublicensees still uses the copyrighted notice by Wizards. For instance, this is what Evil Hat Productions' OGL text looks like, even though FATE has nothing to do with D&D:
> 
> This then seems to imply that the license text itself is something that's separate from the OGL, and the OGL's validity stems from the original copyrighted license text that belongs to Wizards. As a result (the logic goes), if WotC deauthorises OGL v1.0a in a new version of the license, their change trickles down to sublicensees, and this might stop them from issuing OGL v1.0a licenses too.



So the argument is not about who enjoys what licences in respect of the current version of the SRD, but about the ability to reproduce the text of the OGL itself without infringing WotC's copyright?

That seems to raise issues around implied licences (to publish a form of notice that a licensee is contractually bound to publish) and also maybe fair use. If Evil Hat currently uses WotC's copyrighted OGL text, what is their basis for doing so? Do they have a separate agreement with WotC in respect of that? Or are they relying on some implied authorisation?


----------



## Maxperson

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Look ... I mean ... this-
> 
> "You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We're aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us."
> 
> Without going into issues of waiver (especially w/r/t licenses) and why I think this is immediately suspect, I have a hard time imagining anyone with half a brain or any level of competence putting that into writing.



Some surprising things make it into writing.

Several years ago I got sent a book on my insurance coverage for my cell phone.  One day I got bored enough to think, "Hmm. Perhaps reading the book on insurance coverage will liven up my day."

It started of simple enough. Covered for theft. Covered for accidental breakage. Not covered if the FBI seizes it in a criminal investigation. Covered for destruction in a fire.  That sort of stuff.  Then it got interesting.  It turns out that I was not covered if my phone was destroyed in a nuclear explosion.............................UNLESS!..................the nuclear explosion caused a fire and the fire destroyed the phone, then I was covered.

The number of people whose cell phones can be destroyed directly or indirectly, while still being in good enough shape to actually try to collect on the cell phone being destroyed by a nuclear explosion is probably in the single digits.


----------



## jerryrice4949

When is the new/updated OGL supposed to be made public?


----------



## Glade Riven

Honestly, if this does somehow tank the OGL for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Level-Up, I'm going to make my OWN system. With Hookers. And Blackjack. Maybe not hookers and blackjack.


----------



## pemerton

overgeeked said:


> So, not a lawyer, but if the OGL works now, what’s to stop someone from taking the current OGL content and releasing it under a different license? Like Creative Commons?



By "current OGL content" I think you mean OGC as per the OGL v 1.0/1.0a.

In which case, what stops someone from doing what you say - in respect of OGC that someone else owns the copyright for - is the terms of the OGL, which grants "a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use" that OGC.

In respect of their own work in which they enjoy the copyright, I think that there is nothing stopping them doing that.


----------



## Ondath

pemerton said:


> I've also read your post upthread:
> So the argument is not about who enjoys what licences in respect of the current version of the SRD, but about the ability to reproduce the text of the OGL itself without infringing WotC's copyright?
> 
> That seems to raise issues around implied licences (to publish a form of notice that a licensee is contractually bound to publish) and also maybe fair use. If Evil Hat currently uses WotC's copyrighted OGL text, what is their basis for doing so? Do they have a separate agreement with WotC in respect of that? Or are they relying on some implied authorisation?



I'm honestly not sure. From what I understand, anybody who uses the OGL (even if they're not using D&D's SRDs) needs to replicate the WotC copyright bits. Evil Hat does it, Paizo does it and EN World does it with Level Up too (Level Up's OGL page even includes Paizo's copyright notice, which I guess means Level Up borrows some mechanics from Pathfinder). But I honestly can't tell the reason why they have to do it. The depth of the legal discussion is above my capabilities. My last brush with law was in undergrad where I took three courses on French constitutional law, French contract law and Roman Law, and I don't think any of these would apply here!


----------



## Alzrius

jerryrice4949 said:


> When is the new/updated OGL supposed to be made public?



We don't know.

I saw a secondhand comment somewhere (here maybe? I've been reviewing a lot of the coverage on this around the Internet) that WotC was asking the people who signed the NDA to decide if they were going to sign on with the OGL v1.1 or not by January 13th, so if that's the case then I doubt we'll see it before then.


----------



## pemerton

Glade Riven said:


> I admit I am *not *a lawyer, _but _- content built off of D20 SRD, D20 Modern SRD, or 5e SRD is likely fine, even future content, _as long as you do *not*_ publish anything under the new license/SRD. Should you publish _anything_, no matter how minor, under the new, updated license, your use of the old license is revoked.



This seems plausible enough in the abstract - ie that a condition of taking up rights in a revised SRD under a new licence is waiving whatever rights one might have enjoyed under an old licence.


----------



## mamba

jerryrice4949 said:


> I wonder what happens if no 3pp come over to the new OGL.  No royalties And perhaps a shrinking fan base.



I hope none do


----------



## Ondath

jerryrice4949 said:


> When is the new/updated OGL supposed to be made public?



The 13 January deadline for content creators makes me think it'll be around that time, but the last official date given by WotC was "early 2023".


----------



## EpicureanDM

pemerton said:


> I still don't know what "de-authorisation" means in this context. Is it meant to be a notion that arises under the terms of the OGL v 1.0a? A general notion from the law of IP licensing? Or something else.
> 
> My reading of the OGL v 1.0a is that WotC cannot unilaterally terminate their existing licence with (say) Hypertext SRD. And under section 4 of the OGL, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC that has been licensed to it, provided that the sub-license itself is in the same terms as the OGL v 1.0 (subject to the possibility of choosing other authorised versions as per section 9).
> 
> What's the alternative view? I'm not being dismissive, but it would be helpful to actually see it set out.



Also not being dismissive. Just trying to puzzle it out.

I think the missing link in your argument is that "Use" includes the ability to "Distribute", a defined term that contains the word "license". So, to rewrite your sentence a bit, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC - and the ability to Use includes the ability to Distribute, and the ability to Distribute includes the ability to _license_ - that has been license to it. That's arguably a drafting error, excluding the ability to sub-license in list of rights granted by Section 4, but including it in the definition of Distribute. That's classic legal chicanery and I'd be very interested to talk to the lawyers who drafted the OGL 1.0 and 1.0a to see if it was intentional.

EDIT: I don't think that interpretation's a slam dunk. It would have to be tested in court.


----------



## FrogReaver

My speculation on the leak.  At best it reads as a high level summary of the goals for a new OGL v 1.1 and not the actual legalese that it will be written in.  My take is that if it is a true leak they took it from a PowerPoint rather than a drafted legal document.


----------



## FrogReaver

EpicureanDM said:


> Also not being dismissive. Just trying to puzzle it out.
> 
> I think the missing link in your argument is that "Use" includes the ability to "Distribute", a defined term that contains the word "license". So, to rewrite your sentence a bit, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC - and the ability to Use includes the ability to Distribute, and the ability to Distribute includes the ability to _license_ - that has been license to it. That's arguably a drafting error, excluding the ability to sub-license in list of rights granted by Section 4, but including it in the definition of Distribute. That's classic legal chicanery and I'd be very interested to talk to the lawyers who drafted the OGL 1.0 and 1.0a to see if it was intentional.



Or sublicense was included because it's contract law term with specific meaning - which would make the most sense as nowhere else in the OGL does it use or define that term.


----------



## overgeeked

Ondath said:


> The 13 January deadline for content creators makes me think it'll be around that time, but the last official date given by WotC was "early 2023".



I bet they will release 1.1 and revoke 1.0 / 1.0a on the same day.


----------



## mamba

Ondath said:


> The 13 January deadline for content creators makes me think it'll be around that time, but the last official date given by WotC was "early 2023".



Friday the 13th is a fitting date


----------



## EpicureanDM

FrogReaver said:


> Or sublicense was included because it's contract law term with specific meaning - which would make the most sense as nowhere else in the OGL does it use or define that term.



I'm pretty sure that's now how U.S. contract law works. One of the most amusing things about the OGL is how hard it's trying to fit on a couple of sheets of paper. "Sublicensee" isn't a defined term that the parties to the OGL have agreed upon and I don't know what authoritative, legally-controlling source they would look to find its "specific meaning."


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I still don't know what "de-authorisation" means in this context. Is it meant to be a notion that arises under the terms of the OGL v 1.0a? A general notion from the law of IP licensing? Or something else.
> 
> My reading of the OGL v 1.0a is that WotC cannot unilaterally terminate their existing licence with (say) Hypertext SRD. And under section 4 of the OGL, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC that has been licensed to it, provided that the sub-license itself is in the same terms as the OGL v 1.0 (subject to the possibility of choosing other authorised versions as per section 9).
> 
> What's the alternative view? I'm not being dismissive, but it would be helpful to actually see it set out.



Section 9 has the relevant clause - "you may use any authorized version of this Licesne to copy, modify and distrbiute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this license.  

I'm with you that I don't see how WOTC can deauthorize OGL 1.0a for existing material (for example if it was deauthorized for SRD 5.1 then it would in effect revoke the whole license, which does seem to go against the terms of the OGL 1.0a license).  However, deauthorizing the use of OGL 1.0a for material released under OGL 1.1 would seem potentially doable and would be a statement made so that there is no confusion about whether certain content released under OGL 1.1 could be rereleased by others under OGL 1.0a (the question of whether OGL 1.1 would be legally considered a version of OGL 1.0a at that point might be in contention but outside that I think it would make sense).


----------



## Alzrius

EpicureanDM said:


> I'm pretty sure that's now how U.S. contract law works. One of the most amusing things about the OGL is how hard it's trying to fit on a couple of sheets of paper. "Sublicensee" isn't a defined term that the parties to the OGL have agreed upon and I don't know what authoritative, legally-controlling source they would look to find its "specific meaning."



Probably Black's Law Dictionary.


----------



## Glade Riven

pemerton said:


> This seems plausible enough in the abstract - ie that a condition of taking up rights in a revised SRD under a new licence is waiving whatever rights one might have enjoyed under an old licence.



Yeah, generally you have to have some sort of superficial "I agree" and usually in software licenses using the software is a "de-facto" agreement (with court support, at least under US Law). So if you create something under One D&D's OGL you are de-facto agreeing that anything you made under 1.0 or 1.0A has been replaced with 1.1. This means that if, say, Paizo published ONE adventure for One D&D under OGL 1.1 then they just handed ALL of Pathfinder and Starfinder over to Wizards with a perpetual, irrevocable license to do whatever they want. _Hence, the "*Gotcha*." _Wizards could, in turn, post a 30-day notice revoking all usage on their website and still reprint anything Paizo made consequence and repercussion free. Although that might get a little tricky with trademark law and it's still a bit of a mess but in theory it could happen.


----------



## SteveC

As someone who was waiting to hear what the carrot was, this looks like another, bigger stick. I think this warrants a "it's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them."

We don't know if this is real and accurate, but I follow the people behind the link enough to know that it isn't a troll. Now you don't know me, I suppose, so take this with all the salt you'd like: I'm thinking this is not the whole story, but it certainly isn't gaming insiders burning all their credibility down.


----------



## Minigiant

FrogReaver said:


> My speculation on the leak.  At best it reads as a high level summary of the goals for a new OGL v 1.1 and not the actual legalese that it will be written in.  My take is that if it is a true leak they took it from a PowerPoint rather than a drafted legal document.



This is close to my going speculation. This looks to me like secondhand summary of a detailed summary of someone who saw or hear info of potential OGL from WOTC. 

And due to the mass hysteria over this, this secondhand info is tainted as there is too much negative press and purposeful economic discrimination about it. Its just way too negative to be trustworthy.


----------



## Glade Riven

FrogReaver said:


> Section 9 has the relevant clause - "you may use any authorized version of this Licesne to copy, modify and distrbiute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this license.
> 
> I'm with you that I don't see how WOTC can deauthorize OGL 1.0a for existing material (for example if it was deauthorized for SRD 5.1 then it would in effect revoke the whole license, which does seem to go against the terms of the OGL 1.0a license).  However, deauthorizing the use of OGL 1.0a for material released under OGL 1.1 would seem potentially doable and would be a statement made so that there is no confusion about whether certain content released under OGL 1.1 could be rereleased by others under OGL 1.0a (the question of whether OGL 1.1 would be legally considered a version of OGL 1.0a at that point might be in contention but outside that I think it would make sense).



They could only do it for existing material if you publish something under the new OGL, because by using the 1.1 even once in a product you have agreed that 1.1 replaces 1.0a.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ondath said:


> I'm honestly not sure. From what I understand, anybody who uses the OGL (even if they're not using D&D's SRDs) needs to replicate the WotC copyright bits. Evil Hat does it, Paizo does it and EN World does it with Level Up too (Level Up's OGL page even includes Paizo's copyright notice, which I guess means Level Up borrows some mechanics from Pathfinder). But I honestly can't tell the reason why they have to do it. The depth of the legal discussion is above my capabilities. My last brush with law was in undergrad where I took three courses on French constitutional law, French contract law and Roman Law, and I don't think any of these would apply here!



Section 10 of OGL 1.0a specifies that copy of this license must be included with every copy of game content you distribute.


----------



## FrogReaver

Minigiant said:


> This is close to my going speculation. This looks to me like secondhand summary of a detailed summary of someone who saw or hear info of potential OGL from WOTC.
> 
> And due to the mass hysteria over this, this secondhand info is tainted as there is too much negative press and purposeful economic discrimination about it. Its just way too negative to be trustworthy.



I made no comment on the trustworthiness of it.  In fact I think it's as likely to be trustworthy as untrustworthy.

But one must be careful with leaks.  Sometimes the leaker is doing it to shine a light of warning.  Sometimes the company itself is doing it to gauge reaction so they can either hold firm or soften their stance before officially releasing something.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Alzrius said:


> Probably Black's Law Dictionary.



I asked for a legally-controlling source. From your own Wikipedia link:


> The sixth and earlier editions of the book additionally provided case citations for the term cited, which was viewed by lawyers as its most useful feature, providing a useful starting point with leading cases. The invention of the Internet made legal research easier therefore many state- or circuit-specific case citations and outdated or overruled case citations were omitted from the seventh edition in 1999. The eighth edition introduced a unique system of perpetually updated case citations and cross-references to legal encyclopedias. The current edition is the eleventh, published in 2019.



Black's is published by a private company, not any particular state government or the federal government. It finds its definitions by examining case law and publishing what they find. They are a secondary source, not a primary source.

Given all of that, what state's laws govern the OGL? What state law (or federal law) would Black's be looking at to extract the definition of "sublicensee" as it is used in the OGL?


----------



## Remathilis

So my personal theory...

WotC is still good friends with Kobold and Darrington and Green Ronin and Goodman and Paizo. Even though they are competing in the RPG space, there is no way they are burning all those bridges. Those companies are all big enough that they can flip WotC off, create a new license between themselves, declare all of Pathfinder part of the new license and this becomes GSL debacle 2.0. There is no way WotC is lighting the entire RPG space on fire like this.


----------



## Alzrius

EpicureanDM said:


> I asked for a legally-controlling source.



Fair enough, though it might have been more helpful if you'd specifically cited that you were referring to controlling law.


----------



## FrogReaver

EpicureanDM said:


> I asked for a legally-controlling source. From your own Wikipedia link:
> 
> Black's is published by a private company, not any particular state government or the federal government. It finds its definitions by examining case law and publishing what they find. They are a secondary source, not a primary source.
> 
> Given all of that, what state's laws govern the OGL? What state law (or federal law) would Black's be looking at to extract the definition of "sublicensee"?



Your question presumes there must be some legally controlling source such as a law for the term sublicense such that the source determines it's meaning.  

Most often in contract law it's not a law that determines the meaning of a term but either a) the contract itself or b) case law/precedent.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Alzrius said:


> Fair enough, though it might have been more helpful if you'd specifically cited that you were referring to controlling law.



You could have done this additional Google search before you pulled the trigger on Black's.


----------



## EpicureanDM

FrogReaver said:


> Your question presumes there must be some legally controlling source such as a law for the term sublicense such that the source determines it's meaning.
> 
> Most often in contract law it's not a law that determines the meaning of a term but either a) the contract itself or b) case law/precedent.



Yes, I know that. Congratulations on spotting my clever, Socratic traps.


----------



## Alzrius

EpicureanDM said:


> You could have done this additional Google search before you pulled the trigger on Black's.



In general, the person throwing out specific terms (that aren't presumed to be widely known) should be the one to cite them, as a general guideline in favor of avoiding confusion and abetting discourse. "You should have done research in order to understand what I meant" is far less conducive in that regard.


----------



## Stonesnake

FYI, another person who also confirmed the leak information:


----------



## Minigiant

FrogReaver said:


> I made no comment on the trustworthiness of it. In fact I think it's as likely to be trustworthy as untrustworthy.
> 
> But one must be careful with leaks. Sometimes the leaker is doing it to shine a light of warning. Sometimes the company itself is doing it to gauge reaction so they can either hold firm or soften their stance before officially releasing something.




I'm just saying to me it feels like a summary or a summary of a document's design that isn't finished. That's 3 levels of bias, including WOTC's, for it to twist.  And likely before any decision with those being spoke to.  So I'm not even wrinkling my brain over it.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Alzrius said:


> In general, the person throwing out specific terms (that aren't presumed to be widely known) should be the one to cite them, as a general guideline in favor of avoiding confusion and abetting discourse. "You should have done research in order to understand what I meant" is far less conducive in that regard.



Your reply struck me as snarky, so that's how I responded. If you didn't intend it that way, then let's chalk it up to misunderstanding tone on the Internet and move on.


----------



## FrogReaver

Glade Riven said:


> Yeah, generally you have to have some sort of superficial "I agree" and usually in software licenses using the software is a "de-facto" agreement (with court support, at least under US Law). So if you create something under One D&D's OGL you are de-facto agreeing that anything you made under 1.0 or 1.0A has been replaced with 1.1. This means that if, say, Paizo published ONE adventure for One D&D under OGL 1.1 then they just handed ALL of Pathfinder and Starfinder over to Wizards with a perpetual, irrevocable license to do whatever they want. _Hence, the "*Gotcha*." _Wizards could, in turn, post a 30-day notice revoking all usage on their website and still reprint anything Paizo made consequence and repercussion free. Although that might get a little tricky with trademark law and it's still a bit of a mess but in theory it could happen.



Legally it would be easy enough to structure a company such that one branch of the company publishes under OGL 1.0 and the other OGL 1.1 without having the issue you propose (even if I fully agreed it could/would work the way you describe which I don't) - so I don't see the point in them even attempting what you suggest here.


----------



## FrogReaver

EpicureanDM said:


> Yes, I know that. Congratulations on spotting my clever, Socratic traps.



Why?  Just Why?


----------



## Dausuul

At this point, with confirmation from multiple sources, it does seem more and more likely that it's a real leak. If the language seems sloppy and unlawyerly in places... well, it is (supposedly) an internal draft.

And assuming this is the case, I second the motion that we all quit referring to it as "OGL 1.1" and start referring to it as "GSL 2.0," because that's what it is.


----------



## Alzrius

EpicureanDM said:


> Your reply struck me as snarky, so that's how I responded. If you didn't intend it that way, then let's chalk it up to misunderstanding tone on the Internet and move on.



Works for me.


----------



## EpicureanDM

FrogReaver said:


> Why?  Just Why?



Look, I genuinely don't know what law governs the OGL. So my questions weren't traps, exactly. If you know the answer, share with the group.


----------



## FrogReaver

EpicureanDM said:


> Look, I genuinely don't know what law governs the OGL. *So my questions weren't traps, exactly. *



...yea, I'm out.


----------



## FrogReaver

Dausuul said:


> At this point, with confirmation from multiple sources, it does seem more and more likely that it's a real leak. If the language seems sloppy and unlawyerly in places... well, it is (supposedly) an internal draft.
> 
> And assuming this is the case, I second the motion that we all quit referring to it as "OGL 1.1" and start referring to it as "GSL 2.0," because that's what it is.



How many independent sources are we up to now?


----------



## darjr

Stonesnake said:


> Wow, I guess this thread blew up. A few things have happened since I posted this original thread:
> 
> 1) I have heard from other reliable sources that have confirmed that what we have posted so far is legitimate in its current form.
> 
> 2) I didn't post this to get clicks, trolls, or anything like that. I am genuinely concerned for the future of this hobby if even half of this is true. I have been playing role-playing games since I was a little kid, nearly weekly for over 40 years. I love this hobby, and if this is true (and I believe it is), then I wanted to make sure we all got in front of it as soon as possible.
> 
> 3) Yes, some of this language seems strange when you first read it, but there is precedent for WOTC's attorneys being cheeky in their language. See this quote from their Fan Content Policy: "#5. No bad stuff. We have the right to stop or restrict your use of Wizards’ IP at any time—for any reason or no reason—including when we think your use is inappropriate, offensive, damaging, or disparaging (and we’ll make that call in our sole discretion). If this happens, you must immediately take down your Fan Content or face the Demogorgon (yeah, the big bad is back from being on loan)."
> 
> 4) We are fans of Level Up!  William Fischer works directly on most of our 5E material, and I know or have worked with most of the developers on Level Up!




Still trying to catch up on the thread after my game tonight. Thanks for stopping by!


----------



## jerryrice4949

It doesn’t sound like any of the sources thus far are claiming they have seen the official and complete OGL 1.1.  Just that they have these leaked documents that could be drafts or summaries of drafts etc.


----------



## Greg Benage

Lots of detailed legal analysis from the offices of Wiki, Yahoo and Bing is this thread.


----------



## FrogReaver

Greg Benage said:


> Lots of detailed legal analysis from the offices of Wiki, Yahoo and Bing is this thread.



I got my Law degree from Law and Order


----------



## darjr

jerryrice4949 said:


> When is the new/updated OGL supposed to be made public?



It was supposed to be today.


----------



## Glade Riven

Remathilis said:


> So my personal theory...
> 
> WotC is still good friends with Kobold and Darrington and Green Ronin and Goodman and Paizo. Even though they are competing in the RPG space, there is no way they are burning all those bridges. Those companies are all big enough that they can flip WotC off, create a new license between themselves, declare all of Pathfinder part of the new license and this becomes GSL debacle 2.0. There is no way WotC is lighting the entire RPG space on fire like this.



IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).


----------



## jerryrice4949

Glade Riven said:


> IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).



It would not be monopolistic in the least.  There would still be many TTRPG just not that close to the D20 base.


----------



## mamba

jerryrice4949 said:


> It would not be monopolistic in the least.  There would still be many TTRPG just not that close to the D20 base.



a monopoly does not need to be the only one around, they only need to be sufficiently dominant


----------



## darjr

I didn't see this posted? Griffon's Saddle Bag posted as well, not a lot of details though. 









						The Griffon's Saddlebag on Instagram: "TLDW; I’m taking an extra week to plan a path forward in the wake of OGL 1.1. I know that I and the rest of the community are doing everything we can to continue making content for you with as little disruption 
					

The Griffon's Saddlebag shared a post on Instagram: "TLDW; I’m taking an extra week to plan a path forward in the wake of OGL 1.1. I know that I and the rest of the community are doing everything we can to continue making content for you with as little disruption to you as possible. OGL 1.1...




					www.instagram.com


----------



## Remathilis

Glade Riven said:


> IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).



And WotC learned their lesson with a failed edition and a number of 3pp clones competing with them. They also figured out that working with these companies earned them a lot of good will and money. It was 10 years ago that Kobold Press was the creator of Tyranny of Dragons and Green Ronin did SCAG. Goodman put out three classic modules redone for WotC. Mercer wrote two books for them. They aren't going to throw them all under the bus. 

Unless they want to be making a "final" evergreen edition of D&D again in 4 years...


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

EpicureanDM said:


> I asked for a legally-controlling source. From your own Wikipedia link:
> 
> Black's is published by a private company, not any particular state government or the federal government. It finds its definitions by examining case law and publishing what they find. They are a secondary source, not a primary source.
> 
> Given all of that, what state's laws govern the OGL? What state law (or federal law) would Black's be looking at to extract the definition of "sublicensee" as it is used in the OGL?




As a general rule, if you don’t know what Black’s is _immediately, _and are looking for Wikipedia help, perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in snarky responses to posters about legal issues?


----------



## Minigiant

Glade Riven said:


> IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).



That's why they likely won't do it. Because it bombed before.

If WOTC is doing a GSL 2.0 with no reversion back to 5e, they probably got the okay from several big 3PP to go exclusive with 1DND or cut special deals with them to not have to fight it in court.


----------



## Scribe

Remathilis said:


> And WotC learned their lesson with a failed edition and a number of 3pp clones competing with them.


----------



## jerryrice4949

darjr said:


> I didn't see this posted? Griffon's Saddle Bag posted as well, not a lot of details though.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Griffon's Saddlebag on Instagram: "TLDW; I’m taking an extra week to plan a path forward in the wake of OGL 1.1. I know that I and the rest of the community are doing everything we can to continue making content for you with as little disruption
> 
> 
> The Griffon's Saddlebag shared a post on Instagram: "TLDW; I’m taking an extra week to plan a path forward in the wake of OGL 1.1. I know that I and the rest of the community are doing everything we can to continue making content for you with as little disruption to you as possible. OGL 1.1...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.instagram.com



They specifically note more information was coming out so they didn’t have the full picture of the OGL 1.1 at that time.


----------



## overgeeked

Glade Riven said:


> IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).



Well see just how non-copyrightable game rules are real quick. I bet more than a few people are already working on it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Snarf Zagyg said:


> As a general rule, if you don’t know what Black’s is _immediately, _and are looking for Wikipedia help, perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in snarky responses to posters about legal issues?







Nailed it!


----------



## overgeeked

jerryrice4949 said:


> It would not be monopolistic in the least.  There would still be many TTRPG just not that close to the D20 base.



WotC controls 95% of the RPG market. Another 4% is OGL and older editions of D&D. All other games fit within that last 1%.


----------



## mamba

Remathilis said:


> And WotC learned their lesson with a failed edition and a number of 3pp clones competing with them. They also figured out that working with these companies earned them a lot of good will and money.



seems they forgot all of that though


----------



## overgeeked

mamba said:


> seems they forgot all of that though



Looks like we’ll have to teach them again.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Snarf Zagyg said:


> As a general rule, if you don’t know what Black’s is _immediately, _and are looking for Wikipedia help, perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in snarky responses to posters about legal issues?



Maybe you posted this before reading the rest of the thread to see that Alzrius and I made peace about this?


----------



## Dausuul

I do think that if Wizards tried to go after a third-party publisher by claiming to have "deauthorized" the OGL, that publisher could raise quite a lot of money to pay their legal bills via crowdfunding.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

EpicureanDM said:


> Maybe you posted this before reading the rest of the thread to see that Alzrius and I made peace about this?




Maybe I think that what I wrote is good advice. You’re not required to take it.


----------



## Umbran

Clint_L said:


> You would have to be a moron...




*Mod Note:*
Being insulting is a great way to get yourself removed from the conversation.


----------



## Dausuul

overgeeked said:


> Looks like we’ll have to teach them again.



I don't know if you're intentionally quoting G'Kar here, but I'm going to assume so.


----------



## FrogReaver

Dausuul said:


> I do think that if Wizards tried to go after a third-party publisher by claiming to have "deauthorized" the OGL, that publisher could raise quite a lot of money to pay their legal bills via crowdfunding.



Do any of software's open licenses use similar language as the OGL does in regards to authorized.  If so Tech would likely fund the fight if it's based on that argument.


----------



## Xethreau

The Rules Lawyer has also weighed in and has faith in the source.


-edit-
Sorry this is probably already been addressed lol. I'm on my mobile and I'm not used to the new format, so the last post I saw here was still from 7:00 p.m.


----------



## Alzrius

overgeeked said:


> WotC controls 95% of the RPG market. Another 5% is OGL and older editions of D&D. All other games fit within that last 1%.



I agree that you can have monopoly power without being a monopoly; that said, the definition of a monopoly includes being the only supplier of a particular thing. WotC isn't a supplier of anything; they don't control a particular outlet or service that's squeezing out other outlets or services; just having the hottest product in a particular market doesn't mean you control that market.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Dausuul said:


> I don't know if you're intentionally quoting G'Kar here, but I'm going to assume so.




The OGL has begun; it is too late for the 3PPs to vote.


----------



## overgeeked

Dausuul said:


> I don't know if you're intentionally quoting G'Kar here, but I'm going to assume so.



“The WotC learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again.” —G’Kar.


----------



## FrogReaver

So we all can start screaming the sky is falling now?

...asking for a friend.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Maybe I think that what I wrote is good advice. You’re not required to take it.



You're going to snark on me to illustrate the point that we shouldn't snark before all the facts are in? I'll pass on that wisdom.


----------



## overgeeked

FrogReaver said:


> So we all can start screaming the sky is falling now?
> 
> ...asking for a friend.



Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.


----------



## darjr

Xethreau said:


> The Rules Lawyer has also weighed in and has faith in the source.



His source is the original video publishers, fyi. But yea.


----------



## jerryrice4949

FrogReaver said:


> So we all can start screaming the sky is falling now?
> 
> ...asking for a friend.



Still premature.  Until the big 3PP who have been mostly silent thus far sound the alarm there is hope.


----------



## mamba

Alzrius said:


> I agree that you can have monopoly power without being a monopoly; that said, the definition of a monopoly includes being the only supplier of a particular thing. WotC isn't a supplier of anything; they don't control a particular outlet or service that's squeezing out other outlets or services; just having the hottest product in a particular market doesn't mean you control that market.



they are the only supplier of D&D…


----------



## jerryrice4949

darjr said:


> His source is the original video publishers, fyi. But yea.



Yeah a lot of these people are using each other as a source.


----------



## jerryrice4949

mamba said:


> they are the only supplier of D&D…



Being the only supplier of Lazy Boy does not mean one has a monopoly on chairs.


----------



## Umbran

MockingBird said:


> It would be wise for WotC to get way ahead of this. I just can't wrap my brain around it right now lol.




If, every time someone posts something inflammatory, WotC has to "get in front of it", a bunch of jerks will make it so that getting in front of it becomes a full-time job.

There is a point where you stop giving in to the terrorists' demands, you know?

That goes for us, as well.  There is a point where we ought to stop jumping every time someone claims to have inflammatory scoops.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

EpicureanDM said:


> You're going to snark on me to illustrate the point that we shouldn't snark before all the facts are in? I'll pass on that wisdom.




No. I was making the point that legal issues (those things that you were opining on and being snarky to other people about) are complex; that you don’t know what Black’s is … is a tell … and indicates that you don’t have the requisite background to be so dismissive of others.

Not that you should be dismissive of others for any reason, but I was trying to gently point out that maybe you should be a little nicer given that you might lack the expertise to lecture others.


----------



## FrogReaver

mamba said:


> they are the only supplier of D&D…



I'm the only supplier of Frogreaver's crap in a can.  

...not sure where i was going with this.


----------



## mamba

jerryrice4949 said:


> Being the only supplier of Lazy Boy does not mean one has a monopoly on chairs.



if WotC sold 2% or whatever of TTRPGs they also would not be a monopoly


----------



## overgeeked

jerryrice4949 said:


> Being the only supplier of Lazy Boy does not mean one has a monopoly on chairs.



No, but being the one product that has 99% of the market for a given type of product is.


----------



## FrogReaver

EDIT: Removed


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

FrogReaver said:


> I'm the only supplier of Frogreaver's crap in a can.
> 
> ...not sure where i was going with this.




1. Product in a can. 
2. Not sure where you’re going with this.….
3. PROFIT!!!!!!


----------



## SkidAce

Ondath said:


> So if this interpretation is right, everything from FATE's SRD to Pathfinder to Level Up A5E would suddenly need to contend with the terms of OGL v1.1.



Would this mean Ryan Dancey failed in his efforts to open D20 up forever?


----------



## jerryrice4949

overgeeked said:


> No, but being the one product that has 99% of the market for a given type of product is.



I am sure we could go back and forth for hours which would be dull quick.  While WoTC has the lions percent of the TTRPG market there are literally hundreds of other  TTRPG that are not dungeons and dragons.  I think it is incredibly wishful thinking to believe the FTC would look into this in any way.


----------



## Umbran

FrogReaver said:


> please don't compare me to a terrorist




If you start making inflammatory videos, then we'll talk.


----------



## mamba

SkidAce said:


> Would this mean Ryan Dancey failed in his efforts to open D20 up forever?



as far as I am concerned, yes I would consider that a failure


----------



## Alzrius

mamba said:


> they are the only supplier of D&D…



At the risk of devolving into semantics, WotC is D&D's creator; the suppliers are the various retailers that you can buy D&D products through.


----------



## darjr

FYI the leak part of the video starts here.


----------



## mamba

jerryrice4949 said:


> I am sure we could go back and forth for hours which would be dull quick.  While WoTC has the lions percent of the TTRPG market there are literally hundreds of other  TTRPG that are not dungeons and dragons.  I think it is incredibly wishful thinking to believe the FTC would look into this in any way.



but it is the lion’s share that makes them a monopoly…

Whether they are one or not would in reality be largely dictated by how the market they are competing in would be defined / which interpretation the judge follows.
If say Paizo argued the market is TTRPGs, WotC would argue that they compete in the entertainment space, so CRPGs and MMOs should also count as competition, at which point they definitely no longer are a monopoly


----------



## mamba

Alzrius said:


> At the risk of devolving into semantics, WotC is D&D's creator; the suppliers are the various retailers that you can buy D&D products through.



and where do they get their product from?

If Apple were the only cell phone manufacturer, they would be a monopoly, even if you can buy their phone at Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and other places


----------



## Umbran

mamba said:


> a monopoly does not need to be the only one around, they only need to be sufficiently dominant






Alzrius said:


> I agree that you can have monopoly power without being a monopoly; that said, the definition of a monopoly includes being the only supplier of a particular thing.




Whether they are technically a monopoly is an academic question.

The _functional_ question is whether they have sufficient power, and engage in anti-competitive behavior, such that antitrust legislation comes into play.


----------



## Alzrius

mamba said:


> and where do they get their product from?



Their distributors.

And before this goes into "and where do _they_ get _their_ products from?", this line of inquiry ends with the idea that anyone who owns something that they sell commercially has a monopoly over it, which is quite clearly not in sync with the legal definition of that term.


----------



## Alzrius

Umbran said:


> The _functional_ question is whether they have sufficient power, and engage in anti-competitive behavior, such that antitrust legislation comes into play.



That's a fair point, and in that regard WotC quite clearly has neither of those things.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

mamba said:


> and where do they get their product from?




Look, I appreciate the effort, but this is a non-srtarter. Find a single case since 1980 that is comparable and we will talk.

But for a host of reasons, starting with the change in approach to antitrust spearheaded by, inter alia, Bork (yeah, that Bork) the idea that WoTC is a monopoly is not just a non-starter, it’s laughable.


----------



## Cadence

Alzrius said:


> That's a fair point, and in that regard WotC quite clearly has neither of those things.



Assuming the worst reading that they were trying to stop any companies from doing further development on anything done under 1.0a without giving WotC complete arbitrary control under 1.1 kind of feels like it would be anticompetetive? (Given how many ttrpgs were made using 1.0 or 1.0a).

Edit: Whether any regulators would care feels like it might depend on which senators have kids that like 3pp ttrpgs.


----------



## mamba

Alzrius said:


> Their distributors.
> 
> And before this goes into "and where do _they_ get _their_ products from?", this line of inquiry ends with the idea that anyone who owns something that they sell commercially has a monopoly over it, which is quite clearly not in sync with the legal definition of that term.



no, that works quite well, but generally the market is not defined as that one product, and that is why we do not have millions of tiny monopolies


----------



## EpicureanDM

Snarf Zagyg said:


> I was making the point that legal issues (those things that you were opining on and being snarky to other people about) are complex; that you don’t know what Black’s is … is a tell … and indicates that you don’t have the requisite background to be so dismissive of others.



I don't think you read my exchanges with Alzrius very closely.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

EpicureanDM said:


> I don't think you read my exchanges with Alzrius very closely.




_shrug_

Obvious things are obvious. You don’t have to be Benoit Blanc to know when someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Snarf Zagyg said:


> _shrug_
> 
> Obvious things are obvious. You don’t have to be Benoit Blanc to know when someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about.



Agreed.


----------



## JThursby

Umbran said:


> There is a point where you stop giving in to the terrorists' demands, you know?



Really?  Terrorists?  Is that the comparison you want to make to the guys in the video, people that have worked with the Level Up crew before?


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

EpicureanDM said:


> Agreed.




Heh. You genuinely don’t know, do you? Well, that does make it funny!


----------



## overgeeked

Alzrius said:


> That's a fair point, and in that regard WotC quite clearly has neither of those things.



Weird. Because if they pull the trigger and somehow the OGL actually does go away, that’s a lot of game companies that suddenly either disappear or fall in line, and that’s them directly engaging in anti-competitive behavior and exercising _a lot_ of power over the market.


----------



## Umbran

JThursby said:


> Really?  Terrorists?  Is that the comparison you want to make to the guys in the video, people that have worked with the Level Up crew before?




I have _exactly zero_ involvement with Level Up.  I don't know these people from Adam, and don't generally use game design credits as reliable character references.


----------



## Greg K

FrogReaver said:


> I got my Law degree from Law and Order



I got mine from from Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe


----------



## darjr

jerryrice4949 said:


> Yeah a lot of these people are using each other as a source.



Griffons Saddle isn't. His was posted 2 days ago. And it looks like someone else stepped into the comments back then too. Confirming some things if not the exact verbiage from the Roll For Combat folks.

Looks like at the time of Griffon's Saddle post the prior two weeks discussions were being held.


----------



## darjr

Well this is what Justin Alexander thinks.



link


----------



## danatblair

My concern is the knock on effects of potentially trying to kill or nerf the OGL for the companies that use It for non-d an d related games. A good example is Open D6.  It is released under the old OGL.  Aside from a few books like Open Fantasy, the bulk of the books have jack all to do with anything wizards has made. Depending on the tact they tack they take the system could be dead (more so than it already is) .  If it is just a 4e situation (the de-authorisation makes signing the new license incompatible with using the old one) no big deal. The handful of Open D6 publisher's that randomly release content can go about their merry way.  If they are trying to forcibly upgrade all OGL users by saying the old ones are somehow invalid then open d6 publishers would be potentially bound by the new rules. I understand that the odds of an open d6 publisher making more than 50k or 750k are infinitesimal. I still don't feel that the data collection requirements or the potential loss of IP by the publisher (like in DM guild) are ethically acceptable to me as Wizards didn't make the system. At the speed at which west end games was dying using an existing OGL made sense at the time. For me, how this impacts the smaller games that just used the license as I was convenient at time matters.  I realise that we don't know exactly what the final OGL will be from Wizards, but I want to hear wizard say explicitly what their intent is with games in this situation.


----------



## Twiggly the Gnome

FrogReaver said:


> So we all can start screaming the sky is falling now?
> 
> ...asking for a friend.



I think we're somewhere in-between "The sky is falling" and "This is fine".


----------



## Haplo781

MonsterEnvy said:


> With no proof it’s real and a lot of evidence it’s not
> 
> I despise this click bait naughty word.



If it's not true, WotC will outright deny it within a week.

Guess we'll see.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

overgeeked said:


> WotC controls 95% of the RPG market. Another 5% is OGL and older editions of D&D. All other games fit within that last 1%.




That does not add up...


----------



## Maxperson

overgeeked said:


> WotC controls 95% of the RPG market. Another 5% is OGL and older editions of D&D. All other games fit within that last 1%.



95+5+1=


----------



## overgeeked

Maxperson said:


> 95+5+1=



Fixed it.


----------



## FrogReaver

darjr said:


> Griffons Saddle isn't. His was posted 2 days ago. And it looks like someone else stepped into the comments back then too. Confirming some things if not the exact verbiage from the Roll For Combat folks.
> 
> Looks like at the time of Griffon's Saddle post the prior two weeks discussions were being held.



Who is this Griffons Saddle you speak of?


----------



## kenada

FrogReaver said:


> Who is this Griffons Saddle you speak of?











						The Griffon's Saddlebag
					






					www.thegriffonssaddlebag.com


----------



## FrogReaver

kenada said:


> The Griffon's Saddlebag
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.thegriffonssaddlebag.com



Decent start, but doesn't really tell me who he is.


----------



## kenada

FrogReaver said:


> Decent start, but doesn't really tell me who he is.



He’s a 5e creator who has posted about needing to take time off to navigate the OGL 1.1 and that it, “makes (continuing making content) extremely challenging and painful to do so,” which I believe is being cited as indirect evidence supporting the OP’s claims.


----------



## FrogReaver

kenada said:


> He’s a 5e creator who has posted about needing to take time off to navigate the OGL 1.1 and that it, “makes (continuing making content) extremely challenging and painful to do so,” which I believe is being cited as indirect evidence supporting the OP’s claims.



Okay, is there nothing more to his story?  Because if that's it then i'm not understanding why some here are placing such credibility in him on this?

Maybe I should ask what I want to know another way, Who is the most credible person claiming to have independently gotten the info about the OGL 1.1?


----------



## Scribe

FrogReaver said:


> Okay, is there nothing more to his story?  Because if that's it then i'm not understanding why some here are placing such credibility in him on this?
> 
> Maybe I should ask what I want to know another way, Who is the most credible person claiming to have independently gotten the info about the OGL 1.1?



I poked around his site, hes got a lot of content, a million + dollar kickstarter, and I assume, a decent income rolling in.

If he's concerned, as would seem to be implied, then perhaps he knows something, and is in that bracket of 'this is not looking good for me' earnings.


----------



## kenada

FrogReaver said:


> Okay, is there nothing more to his story?  Because if that's it then i'm not understanding why some here are placing such credibility in him on this?



That’s it as far as I’m aware.



FrogReaver said:


> Maybe I should ask what I want to know another way, Who is the most credible person claiming to have independently gotten the info about the OGL 1.1?



No one. Those who know are under NDA. The best we can do is make inferences based on what those who do know are saying.


----------



## FrogReaver

kenada said:


> That’s it as far as I’m aware.
> 
> 
> No one. Those who know are under NDA. The best we can do is make inferences based on what those who do know are saying.



No one is not a valid answer.


----------



## kenada

FrogReaver said:


> No one is not a valid answer.



I don’t know what to tell you. There aren’t any smoking guns. All we have is the reputation of the OP and what we can guess is why the creator of the Griffon’s Saddlebag would say he needs to take time to navigate the OGL 1.1. Either that’s enough, or it’s not. If it’s not, then no one is indeed a valid answer.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Haplo781 said:


> If it's not true, WotC will outright deny it within a week.
> 
> Guess we'll see.



Depends on if it gets enough buzz.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

FrogReaver said:


> No one is not a valid answer.



Yes it is


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> deauthorizing the use of OGL 1.0a for material released under OGL 1.1 would seem potentially doable and would be a statement made so that there is no confusion about whether certain content released under OGL 1.1 could be rereleased by others under OGL 1.0a (the question of whether OGL 1.1 would be legally considered a version of OGL 1.0a at that point might be in contention but outside that I think it would make sense).



I think it's perfectly possible for WotC - or you, or me, or anyone else - to publish a SRD and offer to license it to all comers on whatever terms we like. (Subject to general common law and statutory requirements.) And as I posted on the other thread, it seems quite likely that this is what WotC intends to do with its revised SRD.

But it would be confusing, in my view, to describe this as a "deauthorisation" of the OGL v 1.0a. What it would be, I would guess, would be (i) a non-authorisation of the new licence for OGL v 1.0a purposes (ie currently existing OGC can't be released under the new licence) and (ii) contractual terms in the new licence that make it clear that whatever form the new "OGC" takes, the new licence falls outside the scope of OGL v 1.0/1.0a section 9, and hence the new OGC can't be used under the current OGL.

The effect of (ii) seems clear enough (subject to WotC getting its drafting right, to actually do what it wants to do - although as long as the drafting is not terrible it seems a bit unlikely that anyone would actually try and test the limits in a way that WotC would care about.

The effect of (i), as I'm envisaging it, would be to mean that all existing publishers who want to reuse their stuff would have to reissue it under the new licence. Where publisher A's existing stuff is heavily intertwined with publisher B's OGC, that may be tricky. I don't know if WotC would care about the trickiness, and hence do something different from my (i), or not care. The most different thing they could do is try to set up a one-way door, so that everyone can bring everyone's existing OGC under the new licensing regime, but stuff licensed only under the new licence can't go back the other way. To my mind, that might be a bit tricky given the wording of section 9 of the current OGL, but I imagine WotC will be able to retain better drafters than me!


----------



## pemerton

EpicureanDM said:


> And could you explain how you think "Use" as a defined term interacts with Section 4 of the OGL 1.0a to create in the licensee a right to sublicense?





EpicureanDM said:


> I think the missing link in your argument is that "Use" includes the ability to "Distribute", a defined term that contains the word "license". So, to rewrite your sentence a bit, Hypertext has the authority to license others to Use the OGC - and the ability to Use includes the ability to Distribute, and the ability to Distribute includes the ability to _license_ - that has been license to it. That's arguably a drafting error, excluding the ability to sub-license in list of rights granted by Section 4, but including it in the definition of Distribute. That's classic legal chicanery and I'd be very interested to talk to the lawyers who drafted the OGL 1.0 and 1.0a to see if it was intentional.



I think you've answered your own question (unless I've misunderstood you).

I don't think it's a drafting error. I think it's a deliberate feature of the OGL. It's how it works in a "viral", "genie can't be put back in the bottle" fashion: every licensee in the SRD ecosystem is authorised by licensors (who, unless they are WotC issusing the SRD, are also licensees) to sub-license their OGC to future parties, provided those parties in turn agree to be bound by the terms of the OGL (which includes granting this authority in respect of their OGC).


----------



## pemerton

Glade Riven said:


> Yeah, generally you have to have some sort of superficial "I agree" and usually in software licenses using the software is a "de-facto" agreement (with court support, at least under US Law). So if you create something under One D&D's OGL you are de-facto agreeing that anything you made under 1.0 or 1.0A has been replaced with 1.1. This means that if, say, Paizo published ONE adventure for One D&D under OGL 1.1 then they just handed ALL of Pathfinder and Starfinder over to Wizards with a perpetual, irrevocable license to do whatever they want. _Hence, the "*Gotcha*." _Wizards could, in turn, post a 30-day notice revoking all usage on their website and still reprint anything Paizo made consequence and repercussion free. Although that might get a little tricky with trademark law and it's still a bit of a mess but in theory it could happen.



I don't agree with what you say in this post, in two respects:

First, I think it is highly unlikely that WotC will offer to license the revised SRD on terms that would make all the IP of parties to the new licence (v 11), who are also parties to the existing OGL (v 1.0/1.0a), available to WotC via a royalty-free licence. Of course, as far as the OGC published by Paizo is concerned, WotC already has the opportunity of publishing as much of that as they like under the existing OGL.

Second - and this is moving further from my fields of expertise, but is still something on which I have a modest intuition - I would expect that there is a plausible argument, in US contract and licensing law, that if WotC were to exercise a power of at-will revocation so as to deprive (say) Paizo of the benefits of any licence, then WotC would simultaneously lose its rights to an in-perpetuity royatly-free licence to Paizo's work. Or to put it another way, I doubt that the only tenable construction of the licence terms would be that one party is able to revoke at will while retaining the full benefit, in perpetuity, of the contractual promise made by the other party. (I am not saying that this is knock-down in any sense, only that I would expect there to be a plausible argument here. Of course everything will turn on the details of the drafting of the OGL v 1.1.)


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

If this leak is an accurate representation of any of WotC's language regarding OGL 1.1 (either language within the license itself, or language that is similar to a FAQ for OGL 1.1), it represents a serious industry-changing bit of news.
How bad the news is depends on lots of details the leak does not cover. But the worst-case scenario would be very, very bad.  
I can't blame anyone who doesn't know Stephen and Mark, and who isn't hearing about this language from multiple independent sources, for being skeptical the legitimacy of this leak.
I _do_ know Stephen and Mark. They are very smart, ethical, good-faith actors within the industry. I am absolutely convinced that they are sure that this is the actual language being used by WotC behind-the-scenes right now, and that their source is someone they know and completely trust.
And, I am hearing the exact same things from other people who aren't going public, but who I also know to be smart, ethical, good faith actors who would have access to people with first-person access to WotC's OGL 1.1 documentation.
And even after all that, I am skeptical. I'm positive none of this is an effort for clickbait glory from Mark or Stephen. And I am sure they trust their source. But I don't know who that source is, and everything I am hearing is second-hand.
But given the character and intelligence of Mark and Stephen, and that I am hearing the exact same thing from multiple independent sources, I'm not dismissing this either. Some of those sources are ringing alarm bells as loudly as they can without putting their careers in jeopardy. Some are very clear that the worst-case-scenario is coming, and that many popular video creators are being pressured to accept the new OGL 1.1 right now, as part of an effort to make it seem fait accompli before it goes public.
I don't have first-hand knowledge that supports this. But the second-hand information I'm getting is extensive and worrying.
I have worked on-staff for WotC, and Paizo, and other companies, and I have seen how the sausage gets made. And it is absolutely possible to me both that WotC would try this, and that they'd decide to use that language when they did so. I have seen other contracts (and, heck, signed some) from WotC and other entertainment companies that include that kind of informal language. It's not the norm, but it does happen.
Maybe Mark and Stephen are wrong. Heck, I _hope_ they're wrong. And even if they aren't, WotC may change the language before it goes public. (And, again, if that is the current language, I _hope_ WotC changes it.) 
And even if Mark and Stephen are right and the final language doesn't change, it may not be nearly as bad as it seems out of context. It could be a sub-clause that only kicks in if someone wants to use OGL 1.1 material. There may be some legal nicety that isn't included in the leak, which change what it means.
In the balance, even if the leak is 100% accurate for what is being discussed right now, I think it's more likely than not that the worst-case version of what WotC could try with OGL 1.1 isn't going to happen.
But I'm not confident in that, and my belief should in no way be taken as saying Mark and Stephen are wrong about what the language is right now.


----------



## Yora

What even is an official leak? That would be a press announcement.



danatblair said:


> My concern is the knock on effects of potentially trying to kill or nerf the OGL for the companies that use It for non-d an d related games. A good example is Open D6.  It is released under the old OGL.  Aside from a few books like Open Fantasy, the bulk of the books have jack all to do with anything wizards has made. Depending on the tact they tack they take the system could be dead (more so than it already is) .  If it is just a 4e situation (the de-authorisation makes signing the new license incompatible with using the old one) no big deal. The handful of Open D6 publisher's that randomly release content can go about their merry way.  If they are trying to forcibly upgrade all OGL users by saying the old ones are somehow invalid then open d6 publishers would be potentially bound by the new rules.



No, this can't happen.

Open Game License 1.0a:

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a *perpetual*, worldwide, *royalty-free*, nonexclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use *any authorized version of this License* to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content *originally distributed under any version* of this License.

Whatever a new license may contain, it does not touch these terms of the existing license.


----------



## Art Waring

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> Maybe Mark and Stephen are wrong. Heck, I _hope_ they're wrong. And even if they aren't, WotC may change the language before it goes public. (And, again, if that is the current language, I _hope_ WotC changes it.)



Exactly what I was referring to in the other ogl thread, that we should be communicating our concerns _now_ before the final draft of the 1.1 is made public, because it will be much harder to change anything once the 1.1 OGL is set in stone.


----------



## mamba

Yora said:


> No, this can't happen.
> 
> Open Game License 1.0a:
> 
> 4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a *perpetual*, worldwide, *royalty-free*, nonexclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.
> 
> 9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use *any authorized version of this License* to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content *originally distributed under any version* of this License.
> 
> Whatever a new license may contain, it does not touch these terms of the existing license.



no, but it changes its authorization status

No idea whether WotC can do that, but it might cost you more to find out than you can afford


----------



## Yora

That would be outside of any actual outside and simply be blackmail by threatening to abuse the legal system with fraudulent lawsuits. They can do that regardless of what a new license my say or not say.


----------



## mamba

Yora said:


> That would be outside of any actual outside and simply be blackmail by threatening to abuse the legal system with fraudulent lawsuits. They can do that regardless of what a new license my say or not say.



not sure that makes it any better… also, ‘can’ is a far cry from ‘are about to’


----------



## pemerton

EpicureanDM said:


> what state's laws govern the OGL? What state law (or federal law) would Black's be looking at to extract the definition of "sublicensee" as it is used in the OGL?





FrogReaver said:


> Your question presumes there must be some legally controlling source such as a law for the term sublicense such that the source determines it's meaning.
> 
> Most often in contract law it's not a law that determines the meaning of a term but either a) the contract itself or b) case law/precedent.



"Sub-licensee" is not, in itself, a particularly technical term. It refers to someone who (i) is licensed in respect of X, and (ii) was so licensed by a party who was also licensed in respect of X and whose licence included an authority to sub-license. It's similar in structure to the concept of a sub-lease.

I would expect the main issues in sub-licensing, in US law, to be ostensible and actual authority of the sub-licensor. In the present context, I think that would be determined mostly if not exclusively by the terms of the OGL. There may be some relevant general principles too.


----------



## pemerton

Glade Riven said:


> IDK, they did similar with 4e. I've seen too many weird corporate stunts to write it off. And if they do set the whole 3rd party sphere on fire and burn it down, it could trigger an FTC investigation into monopolistic practices (not likely, but possible).



It's not a monopoly to refuse to license your IP for free.


----------



## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> I know that no one on YouTube seems to understand this, but if it's "official," it's not a "leak." And if it's a "leak," it's not "official."



The moment I saw 'official leak' was the moment I knew not to click that link.


----------



## Art Waring

Ok so I have been on this all morning. I have timestamped the video in this post to playback where the youtuber reads what sounds like a direct source email regarding the new OGL, which he claims he received about two to three weeks ago. (I had initially said that this guy was most likely mistaken about the rumor, due to his lack of experience with the 1.0a OGL, but this is very concerning because it matches with the other sources, not to mention that he didn't actually read out the leaked document in his original video, this video has that information).


Summary: The email states that going forward "you cannot earn any income on SRD based dnd content on or after January 13th 2023 without either agreeing to the new 1.1 OGL license, or by striking a direct deal with wotc". I really, really, really hope this is just a rumor...


----------



## Yora

That's one week from now. How would WotC even be able to reach all people using the OGL and SRD content in that time to inform them of these changes? Which it legally can't make to the existing contracts anyway.


----------



## Art Waring

Yora said:


> That's one week from now. How would WotC even be able to reach all people using the OGL and SRD content in that time to inform them of these changes? Which it legally can't make to the existing contracts anyway.



While I personally have no idea how they expect this to happen, or if is even legal, it doesn't discount it from being a possibility that they can threaten future publishers with the new 1.1 OGL without having to go to court.

And its not really one week, according to the video they (likely companies that signed the NDA) may have gotten notice up to three weeks ago, giving companies their 30 days notice to sign or essentially vacate.


----------



## Nylanfs

I'd be interested to her Ryan's and David Kenzer's takes on this. AFAIK we haven't seen anything from David, Ryan did update the https://opengamingfoundation.org/ though.


----------



## Remathilis

mamba said:


> but it is the lion’s share that makes them a monopoly…




Bullocks. If that's the case, Apple has a monopoly on Smartphones, Microsoft has a monopoly on office software and Google has a monopoly on search engines. You need more than just market dominance, you need a mechanism that stops any competition from challenging you. There are plenty of options for each of the above, even if none of them quite reach the ubiquitous nature of the named companies.


----------



## Yora

FrogReaver said:


> Section 9 has the relevant clause - "you may use any authorized version of this Licesne to copy, modify and distrbiute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this license.
> 
> I'm with you that I don't see how WOTC can deauthorize OGL 1.0a for existing material (for example if it was deauthorized for SRD 5.1 then it would in effect revoke the whole license, which does seem to go against the terms of the OGL 1.0a license).  However, deauthorizing the use of OGL 1.0a for material released under OGL 1.1 would seem potentially doable and would be a statement made so that there is no confusion about whether certain content released under OGL 1.1 could be rereleased by others under OGL 1.0a (the question of whether OGL 1.1 would be legally considered a version of OGL 1.0a at that point might be in contention but outside that I think it would make sense).



If you want to make new 6th edition content unavailable under the new license, all they would have to do is simply call it *anything* other than Open Game License version 1.1. Just don't claim that the new license is a new version of the old license, and you're golden. You can put whatever you want in the new license with no legal consequences of anything that is in the OGL 1.0a.


----------



## mamba

Remathilis said:


> Bullocks. If that's the case, Apple has a monopoly on Smartphones, Microsoft has a monopoly on office software and Google has a monopoly on search engines. You need more than just market dominance, you need a mechanism that stops any competition from challenging you. There are plenty of options for each of the above, even if none of them quite reach the ubiquitous nature of the named companies.



Apple doesn’t even sell the majority of smart phones (Android does), that is out on its face. MS does have a monopoly on office software.

Being a monopoly is not illegal, abusing that position is


----------



## mamba

Yora said:


> If you want to make new 6th edition content unavailable under the new license, all they would have to do is simply call it *anything* other than Open Game License version 1.1. Just don't claim that the new license is a new version of the old license, and you're golden. You can put whatever you want in the new license with no legal consequences of anything that is in the OGL 1.0a.



so clearly that is not the goal, they want it for all versions


----------



## Alzrius

overgeeked said:


> Weird. Because if they pull the trigger and somehow the OGL actually does go away, that’s a lot of game companies that suddenly either disappear or fall in line, and that’s them directly engaging in anti-competitive behavior and exercising _a lot_ of power over the market.



Anticompetitive practices has a very specific meaning here, which a potential revocation of the OGL v1.0a doesn't come close to meeting.


----------



## mamba

Art Waring said:


> Summary: The email states that going forward "you cannot earn any income on SRD based dnd content on or after January 13th 2023 without either agreeing to the new 1.1 OGL license, or by striking a direct deal with wotc". I really, really, really hope this is just a rumor...



is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?

Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible


----------



## Art Waring

mamba said:


> is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?
> 
> Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible



Yeah I don't know myself, this is becoming surreal. I'm just reporting the pertinent information so that folks can stay informed as things develop further.


----------



## S'mon

Nikosandros said:


> If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.




Yes, that's my understanding.


----------



## FrogReaver

kenada said:


> I don’t know what to tell you. There aren’t any smoking guns. All we have is the reputation of the OP and what we can guess is why the creator of the Griffon’s Saddlebag would say he needs to take time to navigate the OGL 1.1. Either that’s enough, or it’s not. If it’s not, then no one is indeed a valid answer.



I didnt ask whether there’s enough to accept as fact, I just asked who the most credible source was. You could have all extremely incredible people and still say which of those is the most credible.


----------



## Cadence

mamba said:


> is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?
> 
> Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible




Which SRD(s) seems like it would be important too.  (3.5? 5? The upcoming one?).


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> I am absolutely convinced that they are sure that this is the actual language being used by WotC behind-the-scenes right now





Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> I have seen other contracts (and, heck, signed some) from WotC and other entertainment companies that include that kind of informal language. It's not the norm, but it does happen.





Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> And even if Mark and Stephen are right and the final language doesn't change, it may not be nearly as bad as it seems out of context. It could be a sub-clause that only kicks in if someone wants to use OGL 1.1 material. There may be some legal nicety that isn't included in the leak, which change what it means.



That was a good post and I just wanted to highlight those three things.

1) Whatever is happening, it really seems like someone is leaking behind-the-scenes non-finalized stuff from WotC, presumably in an attempt to create enough of a kerfuffle that WotC goes "Hmmm this isn't a great idea!". This is far form unprecedented - it happened with videogames on a number of occasions (usually via datamining of beta tests and the like rather than individual leaks, but sometimes it is the latter), and with Western companies has usually proven sufficient to get them to change their mind. The fact that the email the guy was reading out had [LINK] instead of an actual link is obviously how a lot of us format stuff that we're writing up, but that isn't finalized yet.

2) The informal language would tie in with the non-finalized content being leaked to warn WotC off this approach. What I've seen happen before, working at corporate law firms, is that a client or even an internal non-lawyer writes what they want a contract to say, then the lawyers go over it and put that in proper legal terms - if possible - or contact them to explain why that's not possible or is a bad approach. But as you say, some contracts do just contain informal language. You don't have to have a lawyer look at your contract - you can, in theory, write a binding contract up yourself, even with colourful language. However, it's a bit like representing yourself in court - unless it's incredibly low stakes (like a parking ticket), it's kind of a terrible idea.

3) Yeah and we can certainly hope that's the case. It's even possible (perhaps likely) that there are multiple version of the OGL 1.1 floating around WotC at the moment, and this is just most evil of them, and maybe not the favoured one even, just one some people are arguing for.



S'mon said:


> Yes, that's my understanding.



IANAL but I don't think anyone should be relying on that. Actual lawyers discussing the issue (including those who think this leak is nonsense) have suggested that's not how it works. At best you'd be risking WotC taking you to court.



mamba said:


> Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible



If you watch the video, he reads it out and it's very clear that this only applies to newly released products after the 13th. Not extant products.

Also yes "which SRD", but they may mean all of the WotC ones. I think it's more likely that it'll be clarified to mean the 1D&D SRD, but we shall see.


----------



## kenada

mamba said:


> is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?
> 
> Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible



If the change is only for SRD-based content, then the OGL 1.1 shakedown presumably won’t affect games that don’t use the WotC’s SRDs but are licensed under the OGL (e.g., the Fate Core SRD, Open D6, etc). That’s not very many.


----------



## S'mon

"This licence did not mean what you thought it meant - and what we said it meant in our FAQ - at the time you signed up to it" seems like an argument unlikely to win in court. 

Even if they have a chance to get a judge to restrict the functioning of the OGL - which would threaten how a lot of similar computer software licenses work - this seems like a scorched-earth policy by WoTC guaranteed to create massive ill will. And they are not Microsoft in 1995, so that seems a really bad idea to me.


----------



## Alzrius

While I personally don't think that WotC is trying to revoke (or otherwise prevent people from publishing new content under) the OGL v1.0a, apparently as of January 13th based on what we're hearing (as opposed to simply trying to prevent material originally published under the OGL v1.1 from being used with the OGL v1.0a, which I think _is_ their goal), the level of uncertainty right now makes me think that it's possible they are going that far.

In which case, I wonder if their motivation is that they (WotC) are aware of the possibility of someone using the 5.1 SRD (and potentially the 3.5 SRD also, since there's nothing prohibiting them from being used together in the same product) to kludge together an almost-identical facsimile to a possible 1D&D SRD, rendering the restrictions of the OGL v1.1 moot.

That's really the only thing I can see motivating WotC to go that far, if they really are going that far (which seems both dubious and unlikely to work).


----------



## S'mon

Alzrius said:


> While I personally don't think that WotC is trying to revoke (or otherwise prevent people from publishing new content under) the OGL v1.0a, apparently as of January 13th based on what we're hearing (as opposed to simply trying to prevent material originally published under the OGL v1.1 from being used with hte OGL v1.0a




The problem is that they could do that easily by simply not calling the new licence "OGL". Then Section 9 would not apply.


----------



## Alzrius

S'mon said:


> The problem is that they could do that easily by simply not calling the new licence "OGL". Then Section 9 would not apply.



Yeah, that would have been much more straightforward on their part. If they're calling it that just to avoid negative press, then – given the current state of things – the irony is quite pronounced.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

S'mon said:


> "This licence did not mean what you thought it meant - and what we said it meant in our FAQ - at the time you signed up to it" seems like an argument unlikely to win in court.



Whilst your faith in the US judicial system is extremely touching, much, much, much worse arguments have won in US courts. Particularly those involving IP law. In EU courts? Not so much.

To be fair, many of these terrible arguments got appealed enough to get overturned (though not all of them), but appealing stuff and going up the judicial ladder is, well, it's bloody expensive in the US. 


S'mon said:


> And they are not Microsoft in 1995, so that seems a really bad idea to me.



Interesting you say that given much of the key leadership of Hasbro/WotC is now ex-Microsoft, including the most important positions.

Chris Cocks, for example, who is in charge of Hasbro, was with MS since 1999 until 2016, and whilst you say "1995", the worst MS behaviour was all later than that, and really kept going until fairly recently.

So they kind of are Microsoft at least a little bit.


----------



## EpicureanDM

pemerton said:


> I think you've answered your own question (unless I've misunderstood you).
> 
> I don't think it's a drafting error. I think it's a deliberate feature of the OGL. It's how it works in a "viral", "genie can't be put back in the bottle" fashion: every licensee in the SRD ecosystem is authorised by licensors (who, unless they are WotC issusing the SRD, are also licensees) to sub-license their OGC to future parties, provided those parties in turn agree to be bound by the terms of the OGL (which includes granting this authority in respect of their OGC).



I think I follow you. But the definition of Use relates to Derivative Material of Open Game Content, not Open Game Content itself. This is where I mostly lose my footing, in the definitions of "Derivative Material" and "Open Game Content". If the OGL's leaning in part on the U.S. Copyright Office's definitions of "derivative works", then the intent might be to allow licensees to only sublicense any Derivative Material (derivative work) that the licensee contributed to the OGC, excluding the OGC material contributed by WotC, i.e. the material in the SRD itself.

The hypothetical that sparked this part of the thread contemplated that an OGL 1.0a licensee could sublicense OGC found in the SRD in perpetuity, provided that the licensee had published SRD-based OGC prior to the "non-authorization" (to use your term) of the OGL 1.0a . That's the scenario I've been asking about, anyway.

Also, I'm not as confident in the integrity of the OGL's drafting. In Section 4, there's a misplaced comma between "Use" and "the Open Game Content." In Section 12, there's a reference to "Open Game Material", a seemingly defined term that isn't actually defined. The definition of "Distribute" includes the word "distribute," which is arguably circular. In Section 9, You are permitted to "distribute" any Open Game Content (not using the defined term), while in Section 10, You are required to include a copy of the OGL in every copy of Open Game Content You *Distribute* (now using the defined term).


pemerton said:


> "Sub-licensee" is not, in itself, a particularly technical term. It refers to someone who (i) is licensed in respect of X, and (ii) was so licensed by a party who was also licensed in respect of X and whose licence included an authority to sub-license. It's similar in structure to the concept of a sub-lease.
> 
> I would expect the main issues in sub-licensing, in US law, to be ostensible and actual authority of the sub-licensor. In the present context, I think that would be determined mostly if not exclusively by the terms of the OGL. There may be some relevant general principles too.



Although my credibility has been questioned on this point, I am (and was) aware of that.


pemerton said:


> The effect of (i), as I'm envisaging it, would be to mean that all existing publishers who want to reuse their stuff would have to reissue it under the new licence. Where publisher A's existing stuff is heavily intertwined with publisher B's OGC, that may be tricky. I don't know if WotC would care about the trickiness, and hence do something different from my (i), or not care. The most different thing they could do is try to set up a one-way door, so that everyone can bring everyone's existing OGC under the new licensing regime, but stuff licensed only under the new licence can't go back the other way. To my mind, that might be a bit tricky given the wording of section 9 of the current OGL, but I imagine WotC will be able to retain better drafters than me!



When Publishers A and B are both licensees who have published OGC under OGL 1.0a, this makes sense to me. But what if Publisher B is WotC and the OGC in question is the SRD? This is where the nuances of Derivative Material and Open Game Content lose me, again, along with the particulars of how the Copyright Office defines the rights of original copyright holders versus those held by the authors of derivative works. The community has long held that OGL 1.0 and 1.0a licensees have the right to continue using the SRD (any version published under any prior version of the OGL) and - in the hypothetical I've been referencing - the ability to sublicense SRD content to which WotC holds the copyright. Maybe that's right, but has it ever been tested in court? WotC now seems like it's in the mood to do just that.


pemerton said:


> Second - and this is moving further from my fields of expertise, but is still something on which I have a modest intuition - I would expect that there is a plausible argument, in US contract and licensing law, that if WotC were to exercise a power of at-will revocation so as to deprive (say) Paizo of the benefits of any licence, then WotC would simultaneously lose its rights to an in-perpetuity royatly-free licence to Paizo's work. Or to put it another way, I doubt that the only tenable construction of the licence terms would be that one party is able to revoke at will while retaining the full benefit, in perpetuity, of the contractual promise made by the other party. (I am not saying that this is knock-down in any sense, only that I would expect there to be a plausible argument here. Of course everything will turn on the details of the drafting of the OGL v 1.1.)



This also matches my intuitions and presents a potential pothole on the road to 6e. The playtest documents released so far for 6e have similarities to Pathfinder's designs and rules. WotC's hired a bunch of Paizo designers to work on 6e, so that's not entirely surprising. Under this theory, Pathfinder could arguably sue WotC for infringement if 6e's final form ends up incorporating elements of Paizo's design in a way that's not sufficiently transformative. I don't think there's a high likelihood of this. But the idea illustrates how the lawyers and executives making decisions about the OGL might not understand what's going on in the actual design of 6e itself. 

Maybe they do. After all, they could just say that they're going back to 3e design principles and expressions. You'd still have to do the textual analysis to see if a copyright infringement occurred, but the argument is probably strong enough to take into court.


----------



## kenada

FrogReaver said:


> I didnt ask whether there’s enough to accept as fact, I just asked who the most credible source was. You could have all extremely incredible people and still say which of those is the most credible.



Fair enough. I was just trying to explain the situation as I understood it without trying to make a judgement. My take is there’s smoke, but I want to see the fire before concluding that things are as bad as it sounds like they will be.

In terms of credibility, it depends on what one wants. If it’s just confirmation that the OGL 1.1 is going to be as bad as it sounds, then I think the creator of the Griffon’s Saddlebag is more credible because he’s just conveying his current situation and how things could change for him. Personally, I think the OP is credible, but given how many of these “WotC is going to kill the OGL” threads we’ve had, I can understand taking a skeptical stance towards their video. I wasn’t aware of @Yora’s video at the time, so the OP was the only source of the alleged changes, and discounting them would again leave no one.

In light of that video, and assuming it was sourced independently, then I feel that enhances the credibility of the OP and others making similar claims. That is not welcome news if true. 🫤


----------



## Ruin Explorer

EpicureanDM said:


> Also, I'm not as confident in the integrity of the OGL's drafting. In Section 4, there's a misplaced comma between "Use" and "the Open Game Content." In Section 12, there's a reference to "Open Game Material", a seemingly defined term that isn't actually defined. The definition of "Distribute" includes the word "distribute," which is arguably circular. In Section 9, You are permitted to "distribute" any Open Game Content (not using the defined term), while in Section 10, You are required to include a copy of the OGL in every copy of Open Game Content You *Distribute* (now using the defined term).



Oh dear. That rather does suggest 1.0a was rather slapped together. Where I work (large corporate law firm), if something final and intended to be seen by thousands of eyes went out looking like that, well, at the very least a trainee would be yelled at, and probably worse.

(We actually have a Word add-in tool which is very effective at picking these specific sorts of error up and preventing it - it would definitely have got the use of an undefined term as if it was defined, and questioned the circular definition of Distribute!)


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ruin Explorer said:


> Whilst your faith in the US judicial system is extremely touching, much, much, much worse arguments have won in US courts. Particularly those involving IP law. In EU courts? Not so much.




Given your use of "whilst," perhaps it is best not to tell others how the American legal system handles contract and intellectual property issues, in the same manner that the Yanks tend not to tell Magic Circle firms how to cook their fish & chips.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Given your use of "whilst," perhaps it is best not to tell others how the American legal system handles contract and intellectual property issues, in the same manner that the Yanks tend not to tell Magic Circle firms how to cook their fish & chips.



I mean, nationalism is fun, but let's be real, whilst IANAL and I'm certainly not an "expert" in any meaningful sense of the word, I do know more about the US legal system (or patchwork of systems) than, say 98% of Americans (probably a little higher than that). Particularly as concerns civil law. Any actual lawyer (such as yourself?) or even probably a paralegal is going to laugh me out of the building, but your typical American-on-the-internet? Come on. I've certainly read plenty of US judgements, if nothing else, from my years as a researcher.

It's not like I'm some superior European from a civil law background! (in the "not common law" sense) (And yes I'm aware Louisiana has a civil-law like legal system, which I will cheerfully admit to being the extent of my knowledge of Louisiana's legal system!)

Also, the Yanks have been telling us "how to cook our fish and chips" for like, 20 years now, in a legal sense! So you absolutely do! The City is absolutely full of American invaders, coming over here, overpaying trainees and giving them unreasonable expectations! Several US law firms have merged with UK ones (indeed a couple of the world's biggest law firms have come out of that), and indeed any City law firm which hasn't, I guarantee you a US law tries to merge with them every few years. The Magic Circle is a bit tragic I admit, but that's what we've got.


----------



## EpicureanDM

Deleted.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, nationalism is fun, but let's be real, whilst IANAL and I'm certainly not an "expert" in any meaningful sense of the word, I do know more about the US legal system (or patchwork of systems) than, say 98% of Americans (probably a little higher than that). Particularly as concerns civil law. Any actual lawyer (such as yourself?) or even probably a paralegal is going to laugh me out of the building, but your typical American-on-the-internet? Come on. I've certainly read plenty of US judgements, if nothing else, from my years as a researcher.
> 
> Also, the Yanks have been telling us "how to cook our fish and chips" for like, 20 years now, in a legal sense! So you absolutely do! The City is absolutely full of American invaders, coming over here, overpaying trainees and giving them unreasonable expectations! Several US law firms have merged with UK ones (indeed a couple of the world's biggest law firms have come out of that), and indeed any City law firm which hasn't, I guarantee you a US law tries to merge with them every few years. The Magic Circle is a bit tragic I admit, but that's what we've got.




Heh. Well, y'all are taking all of our acting jobs! Turnabout is fair play, right?

Seriously, though, there is a vast gulf between the American and English system which makes the vagaries of language usage look minute in comparison, and just small things like the distinctions between state and federal law which are ingrained in any American are often lost on those across the pond- let alone the more peculiar issues that have arisen over time and the distinctions we have from fifty sovereign states.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Given your use of "whilst," perhaps it is best not to tell others how the American legal system handles contract and intellectual property issues, in the same manner that the Yanks tend not to tell Magic Circle firms how to cook their fish & chips.




I would say In support of Ruin Explorer’s position that there have been some utterly insane IP cases in the US in recent years (the blurred lines decision being the most famous). Thankfully the Kate Perry decision, which was possibly worse than the Blurred Lines case, was ultimately overturned I believe. I’m no lawyer though (but am American and used to be musician).


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Bedrockgames said:


> I would say In support of Ruin Explorer’s position that there have been some utterly insane IP cases in the US in recent years (the blurred lines decision being the most famous). Thankfully the Kate Perry decision, which was possibly worse than the Blurred Lines case, was ultimately overturned I believe. I’m no lawyer though (but am American and used to be musician).




Well, without going too far down the rabbit hole (because I don't support the _Blurred Line_ decision), the trouble is that people often don't understand what actually is going on in these various cases. It's like you get the snippet ("Ooh, McDonalds got sued because Coffee is hot!") and lack the foundation to fully appreciate what happened in the case.

Cases go to juries. Juries can make mistakes. A jury in California made the _Blurred Lines_ decision. Now, if you want to read something interesting, read the Ninth Circuit (appellate) decision that upheld the jury decision. Both the majority and the dissent. It might not change your mind about the actual case, but it might give you insight as to why it ended up that way (from a procedural point of view).

ETA- if you really are curious, it's _Williams v. Gaye, _885 F. 3d 1150 (9th Cir. 2018).


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Heh. Well, y'all are taking all of our acting jobs! Turnabout is fair play, right?



I guess < sulks >


Snarf Zagyg said:


> Seriously, though, there is a vast gulf between the American and English system which makes the vagaries of language usage look minute in comparison, and just small things like the distinctions between state and federal law which are ingrained in any American are often lost on those across the pond- let alone the more peculiar issues that have arisen over time and the distinctions we have from fifty sovereign states.



I totally acknowledge that, and I think you'd be surprised by how much of that I'm aware of.

However I do maintain some fairly demented judgements have been in US IP law cases, especially in our friend The Western District of Texas (though I think I heard there was some action being done to rectify this last year), though that's largely patent stuff. I'm not here to zing the US civil law system, I mean, it has issues (seriously just make the loser pay - I know there are a few places that do actually do that - and limit costs more!), men in glass houses and so on, given how libel/defamation is handled here, which is just a big fat oof for Britain and anything resembling justice.


----------



## Desdichado

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Given your use of "whilst," perhaps it is best not to tell others how the American legal system handles contract and intellectual property issues, in the same manner that the Yanks tend not to tell Magic Circle firms how to cook their fish & chips.



Regardless of whether he's American or not, he's absolutely right. There are plenty of bad judgements in the US court industry (and I use that label somewhat deliberately) and plenty of judges have admitted outright that they don't even look at precedent, etc. Never put faith in a big, bureaucratic system that doesn't actually care about the outcome to produce the right outcome.


----------



## S'mon

Bedrockgames said:


> I would say In support of Ruin Explorer’s position that there have been some utterly insane IP cases in the US in recent years (the blurred lines decision being the most famous). Thankfully the Kate Perry decision, which was possibly worse than the Blurred Lines case, was ultimately overturned I believe. I’m no lawyer though (but am American and used to be musician).




I tend to think of it in terms of US court of first instance decisions being extremely patchy, while appeal judgements tend to be of good quality, with quality of legal reasoning comparable to the English Court of Appeal; and then the decisions of the highest courts being more political. I remember a talk by Randy Rader here in London where he told an audience of English IP lawyers and academics that the purpose of a judge was to support the big corporations, never worry about the legal niceties. The audience didn't seem very keen on this.


----------



## Cadence

@Ruin Explorer

Do you know of anyone high up in the UK government or European Commission who loves 3PP ttrpgs? ...


----------



## Alzrius

Did anyone else see that, in the Indestructoboy stream, one of the commenters (under the handle "Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG" which seems to imply that they're the publisher of said RPG) asserts that the DMs Guild license will be updated to require the use of the OGL v1.1 for products published that way?

No idea if that's true or not, but yet more fuel for the speculation mill.


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> @Ruin Explorer
> 
> Do you know of anyone high up in the UK government or European Commission who loves 3PP ttrpgs? ...




I don't, but I know Stuart Marshall of OSRIC got an English law firm ready to represent him vs WoTC if they sued over OSRIC on the OGL, on no win no fee. WoTC backed off swiftly!

I can't see WoTC attempting to retroactively amend the OGL working in England or similar jurisdictions. One problem they have for the USA is that a judgement in their favour would have a huge effect on the open software industry, so they'd face a lot of amicus (amici?) curiae.


----------



## Yora

It's not an RPG issue, it's an open license issue. (Assume the issue even exists in the first place, which I seriously doubt.)

And open licenses in software are a big deal.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Cadence said:


> @Ruin Explorer
> 
> Do you know of anyone high up in the UK government or European Commission who loves 3PP ttrpgs? ...



The sad thing is I think a number of people in government here have played RPGs, but I don't think any of them are that interested. I'm not sure this is an issue to be solved in legislation anyway, we might be getting just a little bit ahead of ourselves!


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ruin Explorer said:


> I guess < sulks >
> 
> I totally acknowledge that, and I think you'd be surprised by how much of that I'm aware of.
> 
> However I do maintain some fairly demented judgements have been in US IP law cases, especially in our friend The Western District of Texas (though I think I heard there was some action being done to rectify this last year), though that's largely patent stuff. I'm not here to zing the US civil law system, I mean, it has issues (seriously just make the loser pay - I know there are a few places that do actually do that - and limit costs more!), men in glass houses and so on, given how libel/defamation is handled here, which is just a big fat oof for Britain and anything resembling justice.




Not bad! Although it's the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.). 

Texas is a big state .... That said, there have been changes that have helped (_TC Heartland_) but yeah, patent trolls are a problem. 

Think we're getting pretty far afield of the topic, though.


----------



## bedir than

jerryrice4949 said:


> Yeah a lot of these people are using each other as a source.



When this happens with a sports* rumor it's generally a sign that the rumor is untrue. Circular origins mean that there is no origin at all.

It's one of the easiest ways to debunk a rumor.

*I've worked in sports journalism for a total of 15 years and have broken stories on things worth more than D&D.


Yora said:


> What even is an official leak? That would be a press announcement.



Often at the end of a rumor's cycle you can discover the origin of a leak, and yes there are times when that origin is part of an official process.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

S'mon said:


> I don't, but I know Stuart Marshall of OSRIC got an English law firm ready to represent him vs WoTC if they sued over OSRIC on the OGL, on no win no fee. WoTC backed off swiftly!



Did WotC C&D him or something?


Snarf Zagyg said:


> Not bad! Although it's the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.).
> 
> Texas is a big state .... That said, there have been changes that have helped (_TC Heartland_) but yeah, patent trolls are a problem.
> 
> Think we're getting pretty far afield of the topic, though.



We are but sir I think I must say it actually is the Western District (which isn't to say the Eastern District isn't ALSO up to no good, I don't know!) - U.S. court moves to break West Texas judge's hold on patent cases
The WDTX Rocket Docket Being Reviewed for Abuse of Patent Litigation Venue Shopping | Klemchuk LLP#

(Sorry for the extremely lazy use of literally the first things that came up on Google, I feel like I'm sinning whenever I don't use proper legal research tools but I don't have them anymore, since I moved into automation.)


----------



## S'mon

Ruin Explorer said:


> Did WotC C&D him or something?




WoTC contacted him, but never got to a formal C&D after he explained he had legal representation.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

S'mon said:


> WoTC contacted him, but never got to a formal C&D after he explained he had legal representation.



Interesting. What were they concerned about? Was this very early on, like before a whole bunch of OSR stuff had appeared?


----------



## Cadence

S'mon said:


> I don't, but I know Stuart Marshall of OSRIC got an English law firm ready to represent him vs WoTC if they sued over OSRIC on the OGL, on no win no fee. WoTC backed off swiftly!



I hadn't seen that before.  Thanks for something to distract me even more from getting back into the swing of work this New Year...






						Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
					

Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?



					www.therpgsite.com


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Ruin Explorer said:


> Did WotC C&D him or something?
> 
> We are but sir I think I must say it actually is the Western District (which isn't to say the Eastern District isn't ALSO up to no good, I don't know!) - U.S. court moves to break West Texas judge's hold on patent cases
> The WDTX Rocket Docket Being Reviewed for Abuse of Patent Litigation Venue Shopping | Klemchuk LLP




Oh, that's a separate issue. That's Albright. That has to do with judicial assignments, not the forum in general. The E.D. Texas was so bad that it not only led to a sitting Supreme Court justice calling it out as a renegade jurisdiction during oral arguments, but an entire SCOTUS opinion to make it more difficult to forum shop there.

But yeah, the whole deal with Albright is embarrassing. A lot of stuff out of the 5th is ... but that's beyond patents.*

eta or the scope of the thread.


----------



## Reynard

bedir than said:


> When this happens with a sports* rumor it's generally a sign that the rumor is untrue. Circular origins mean that there is no origin at all.
> 
> It's one of the easiest ways to debunk a rumor.
> 
> *I've worked in sports journalism for a total of 15 years and have broken stories on things worth more than D&D.
> 
> Often at the end of a rumor's cycle you can discover the origin of a leak, and yes there are times when that origin is part of an official process.



Owen K. Stephens' post upthread adds credence to the idea that SOMETHING is happening. He is about as reliable and high profile a voice you are going to see not bound by an NDA.

It's best we pay attention, but maybe pull back on the armchair legal analysis.


----------



## S'mon

Ruin Explorer said:


> Interesting. What were they concerned about? Was this very early on, like before a whole bunch of OSR stuff had appeared?



Yes, 2004/5. No one had thought to make a retro-clone using the OGL before OSRIC and BFRPG.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Reynard said:


> Owen K. Stephens' post upthread adds credence to the idea that SOMETHING is happening. He is about as reliable and high profile a voice you are going to see not bound by an NDA.
> 
> *It's best we pay attention, but maybe pull back on the armchair legal analysis.*




Yep.

It's kinda sorta impossible to analyze the impact of a licensing agreement that _no one has seen, and that the example we have is clearly not an actual licensing agreement._

Contracts, licenses- they are all about the details. Any "analysis" of what it all means without the actual document is worthless.


----------



## bedir than

Reynard said:


> Owen K. Stephens' post upthread adds credence to the idea that SOMETHING is happening. He is about as reliable and high profile a voice you are going to see not bound by an NDA.
> 
> It's best we pay attention, but maybe pull back on the armchair legal analysis.



Owen's thread doesn't indicate a new source. His info could all be from the same person that the circular squad is using.

Real, credible journalism on this leak would have indicators of sourcing such that the potential sources could be differentiated.


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> I hadn't seen that before.  Thanks for something to distract me even more from getting back into the swing of work this New Year...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> 
> www.therpgsite.com




Good search-fu there! I see myself from 2014 just below Marshall. I don't think my opinion has changed since 2014.


----------



## Reynard

bedir than said:


> Owen's thread doesn't indicate a new source. His info could all be from the same person that the circular squad is using.
> 
> Real, credible journalism on this leak would have indicators of sourcing such that the potential sources could be differentiated.



He told us that multiple people he knows working for WotC and 3PPs under NDA are concerned. THAT is what should concern us.


----------



## Vaalingrade

I'm gonna wait on confirmation before caring.

Still, I'm more concerned about the 'we get to 'legally' steal and publish anything you create' part than the 'we're going to performatively invalidate the original license that says it can't be invalidated and isn't actually needed because game mechanics can't be copyrighted' part.


----------



## Alby87

WotC Announces OGL 1.1 -- Revised Terms, Royalties, and Annual Revenue Reporting
					

There has been a lot of speculation recently about WotC's plans regarding the Open Gaming License and the upcoming One D&D. Today, WotC shared some information.  In short, they will be producing a new Open Gaming License (note that the previous OGL 1.0a will still exist, and can still be used)...




					www.enworld.org
				




I had concerns about the word "Authorize" on section 9 three weks ago. It was told me to not worry about that one. What a world, I'm unhappy of being right, this is not something common knowing me 

What I really think is that the TTRPG market, if WotC will do this move, will never, ever trust them again, on a "7 edition" with a truly good "OGL 1.3". They will burn all the faith. More, I think that a new open gaming license will be made by a consortium by former 3PP (Paizo, Enworld...) with no economic interest on revoking it, and a new wave of games will be released under this new license. It will be the rise of Pathfinder 3rd, or Level Up 2nd, or another game that will be de "De Facto" D&D alternative, that will surely go well because of brand recognition (they are working A LOT about it, thanks to movie, serials, books, toys), but everytime in a forum, reddit or so on, someone will ask for a better game, that name will be presented.

What a wonderful birthday party Wizards is making for the 50th of D&D. Big party, with no invited... Sad one.


----------



## bedir than

Reynard said:


> He told us that multiple people he knows working for WotC and 3PPs under NDA are concerned. THAT is what should concern us.



Concerned, of course they are.

That's not evidence that the leak is true. That's evidence that change is coming, which we already know because WotC stated publicly that change is coming.


----------



## Cadence

S'mon said:


> Good search-fu there! I see myself from 2014 just below Marshall. I don't think my opinion has changed since 2014.



Some history from RSDancey apepars on page 7 with a brief follow-up by you again:






						Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
					

Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?



					www.therpgsite.com
				




and he gives his opinion on technology in ttrpging (back in 2014) down at:





						Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
					

Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?



					www.therpgsite.com
				




with musings on MMOs a few posts below that and another on the OGL a bit after that.

The following from him seems pretty relevant to today, especially the last paragraph:

"If there's a meaningfully large number of people who will jump through hoops to play an "old school" retro clone of 1e, that's critical information that Wizards wants.  There's very little Wizards could do to uncover that information short of letting people just make whatever the hell they wish, and then seeing what sells and what doesn't.

Wizards should have the "retro-clone" market under a microscope, at least to the extent that they can figure out if it's real, or just a small group of really loud people.  If it is real, that is something worth knowing.  And if it's just a small group of really loud people, that's something worth knowing too.

If the company threw cease & desist letters around at anything it found offensive or "dangerous" to its intellectual property, it would squash the kind of innovation required to explore all the market niches, and scratch all the itches.  And it wouldn't likely sell one more D&D book, or generate one more dollar of D&D license revenue.  It's all downside, and no upside.

*Eventually I think Wizards will want to clear the ground and fight to define its rights to copyright roleplaying game materials.  The recent string of court cases in the US that are expanding the concept of copyright to "worlds" beyond "works" is all in their favor.  But they're not going to fight that battle over OSRIC, for goodness' sake.  They're going to fight over something worth tens of millions of dollars.  The target for that fight doesn't even exist yet, but if it arises, Wizards wants to keep its powder dry.  Remember that copyright, unlike trademark, does not lose enforceability if it is not defended"*

-Dancey in reply #116

There is more by him later in that thread to.  Feels worth a read to those interested in the history of the game who haven't read much up on it before (ranging from rumors of how well things were selling to 4e to Forge).


----------



## Greg Benage

Reynard said:


> Owen K. Stephens' post upthread adds credence to the idea that SOMETHING is happening.



Does it? How?

Owen doesn't know anything, and is entirely upfront about that. He claims that the "leak reporters" are credible, but admits they could be wrong. And then he notes, "[...] even if Mark and Stephen are right and the final language doesn't change, it may not be nearly as bad as it seems out of context."

You know what _actually_ "adds credence" to the idea that "something is happening"? Wizards of the Coast's statement that they're making changes to the OGL.

(Fine Print: The quoted "leak," while reading nothing like actual legal language, reads a lot like an email from a nonlawyer attempting to communicate the substance of a legal document they've seen.)


----------



## SteveC

Alby87 said:


> I had concerns about the word "Authorize" on section 9 three weks ago. It was told me to not worry about that one. What a world, I'm unhappy of being right, this is not something common knowing me
> 
> What I really think is that the TTRPG market, if WotC will do this move, will never, ever trust them again, on a "7 edition" with a truly good "OGL 1.3". They will burn all the faith. More, I think that a new open gaming license will be made by a consortium by former 3PP (Paizo, Enworld...) with no economic interest on revoking it, and a new wave of games will be released under this new license. It will be the rise of Pathfinder 3rd, or Level Up 2nd, or another game that will be de "De Facto" D&D alternative, that will surely go well because of brand recognition (they are working A LOT about it, thanks to movie, serials, books, toys), but everytime in a forum, reddit or so on, someone will ask for a better game, that name will be presented.
> 
> What a wonderful birthday party Wizards is making for the 50th of D&D. Big party, with no invited... Sad one.



I think this is a pretty astute comment. I have been here for a very long time, and have had to experience things like TSR's spat with Judges Guild and Role Aids which left a bad taste in peoples mouth back in the 70s and 80s! The thing was, when the OGL happened, it was thought of as crazy talk by many (and I know many of you were here). I have to laugh at what people in Hasbro and corporate WotC think about Ryan Dancy.

When 4E and the GSL happened, it brought a *tremendous *amount of bad will with it. I was there for that as well and there are people still salty about that to this day. When 5E happened, it literally took *years *to rebuild trust and the good will that was lost. And now, if what we are seeing is correct, it's likely we have broken all of that good will. So happy New Year, I guess.


----------



## S'mon

Ondath said:


> Edit: I asked the lawyer in question why they thought @Alzrius's workaround would not work, and this is what they said (in an unofficial capacity that does not act as legal advice, obviously): "I think this is likely a flawed interpretation -  the Open Game License 1.0a starts with WotC and grows from there. Every use and instance relies on it being an active document, because every one of the sublicensee's rights requires the original license to be intact."




It seems to me that if that were true then many open software licences would not work. I understand what your lawyer contact is saying about sub-licencing, but the intent of the OGL 1.0 seems pretty clearly to be to permanently release the material licenced under it, and indeed WotC's 2000 FAQ appeared to say just that AIR. A US court normally looks at what the parties agreeing to the contract would reasonably understand it to mean, not what the writer of the contract later decides it really meant.


----------



## Reynard

Greg Benage said:


> Does it? How?
> 
> Owen doesn't know anything, and is entirely upfront about that. He claims that the "leak reporters" are credible, but admits they could be wrong. And then he notes, "[...] even if Mark and Stephen are right and the final language doesn't change, it may not be nearly as bad as it seems out of context."
> 
> You know what _actually_ "adds credence" to the idea that "something is happening"? Wizards of the Coast's statement that they're making changes to the OGL.
> 
> (Fine Print: The quoted "leak," while reading nothing like actual legal language, reads a lot like an email from a nonlawyer attempting to communicate the substance of a legal document they've seen.)



You misunderstand: I did not intimate that his post said the leak was real, but that since a number of credible people are concerned about what this means going forward, then that is evidence something important is happening.

I am not interested in sparing with you or anyone else over the veracity of the "leak" since we can't really know anything. Lots of folks are asserting things they can't possibly have any knowledge of. But when the one person with access to folks actively involved comes in and tells us that the mood at WotC and 3PPs surrounding the state of the "OGL 1.1" is concerning, I am inclined to listen.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Well, without going too far down the rabbit hole (because I don't support the _Blurred Line_ decision), the trouble is that people often don't understand what actually is going on in these various cases. It's like you get the snippet ("Ooh, McDonalds got sued because Coffee is hot!") and lack the foundation to fully appreciate what happened in the case.
> 
> Cases go to juries. Juries can make mistakes. A jury in California made the _Blurred Lines_ decision. Now, if you want to read something interesting, read the Ninth Circuit (appellate) decision that upheld the jury decision. Both the majority and the dissent. It might not change your mind about the actual case, but it might give you insight as to why it ended up that way (from a procedural point of view).
> 
> ETA- if you really are curious, it's _Williams v. Gaye, _885 F. 3d 1150 (9th Cir. 2018).




There are people with far greater musical expertise than myself (I can play instruments and understand some music theory). But this decision is widely regarded by people in music as very bad for songwriting in general. I don't the the appellate judges statement at all eases my concern. I once aspired to be a song writer, but after that decision I am glad to not have to worry about music copyright. Also with so many of these cases, the people filing the lawsuit are guilty of the very same thing they accuse the defendants of (there are countless music channels that show the chain of influence leading up to the song in questions and inevitably the plaintiffs are also taking just as much from earlier songs as they say has been taken from their song). 

Rick Beato has a very short video that I think gets at the heart of the problem with the original decision: 
There is also this video on a more recent music case by Adam Neely (which I think helps show how far the Blurred Lines case has led to things moving): 
He also did a video on the Kate Perry case, which was ultimately overturned, but the video helps show some of the issues with recent musicologist testimony in these copyright cases: 
These are all definitely worth checking out. Rick Beato and Adam Neely both have a very strong grasp of the music side of this and how it will impact music. I will say make your own decision and if the statement by the appellate judge changes your mind, fair enough. But I think the core claim presents a huge problem for music (it would in my opinion be like a case in RPGs undermining the concept that you can't copyright a game mechanic).


----------



## Greg Benage

Reynard said:


> You misunderstand: I did not intimate that his post said the leak was real, but that since a number of credible people are concerned about what this means going forward, then that is evidence something important is happening.



I don't think I do misunderstand: I think WotC's statement that they're changing the terms of the OGL is evidence that something important is happening. I don't think Owen's post or the rumor mill catching fire, burning down, and falling into the river adds any evidence.

But cool: no sparring.


----------



## Cadence

@S'mon @Snarf Zagyg @Ruin Explorer 

Looking back at the OSRIC stuff, assuming WotC wants to deactivate the OGL 1.0a,  are there any obvious ways things are vastly different for companies based in the UK instead of the US?  Or is it equally up to whatever judge and appeals courts get it in whatever country?   In a work for hire case, does the country of the hired author matter at all?


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> Some history from RSDancey apepars on page 7 with a brief follow-up by you again:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> 
> www.therpgsite.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and he gives his opinion on technology in ttrpging (back in 2014) down at:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?
> 
> 
> 
> www.therpgsite.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> with musings on MMOs a few posts below that and another on the OGL a bit after that.
> 
> The following from him seems pretty relevant to today, especially the last paragraph:
> 
> "If there's a meaningfully large number of people who will jump through hoops to play an "old school" retro clone of 1e, that's critical information that Wizards wants.  There's very little Wizards could do to uncover that information short of letting people just make whatever the hell they wish, and then seeing what sells and what doesn't.
> 
> Wizards should have the "retro-clone" market under a microscope, at least to the extent that they can figure out if it's real, or just a small group of really loud people.  If it is real, that is something worth knowing.  And if it's just a small group of really loud people, that's something worth knowing too.
> 
> If the company threw cease & desist letters around at anything it found offensive or "dangerous" to its intellectual property, it would squash the kind of innovation required to explore all the market niches, and scratch all the itches.  And it wouldn't likely sell one more D&D book, or generate one more dollar of D&D license revenue.  It's all downside, and no upside.
> 
> *Eventually I think Wizards will want to clear the ground and fight to define its rights to copyright roleplaying game materials.  The recent string of court cases in the US that are expanding the concept of copyright to "worlds" beyond "works" is all in their favor.  But they're not going to fight that battle over OSRIC, for goodness' sake.  They're going to fight over something worth tens of millions of dollars.  The target for that fight doesn't even exist yet, but if it arises, Wizards wants to keep its powder dry.  Remember that copyright, unlike trademark, does not lose enforceability if it is not defended"*
> 
> -Dancey in reply #116
> 
> There is more by him later in that thread to.  Feels worth a read to those interested in the history of the game who haven't read much up on it before (ranging from rumors of how well things were selling to 4e to Forge).




I thought post 116 was very relevant re strategy Have Hasbro/WotC ever sued or threatened a retro-clone publisher or author?

_First, I have to remind people that if the OGL had had meaningful restrictions is is very doubtful that it would have worked.  People at the time were absolutely convinced it was a secret plot by Wizards to destroy all competition in the category, to steal everyone's intellectual property.  It was, in their minds, the One Ring to Rule Them All._


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> @S'mon @Snarf Zagyg @Ruin Explorer
> 
> Looking back at the OSRIC stuff, assuming WotC wants to deactivate the OGL 1.0a,  are there any obvious ways things are vastly different for companies based in the UK instead of the US?  Or is it equally up to whatever judge and appeals courts get it in whatever country?   In a work for hire case, does the country of the hired author matter at all?




I think the main difference on jurisdiction is that in England/Wales the loser usually pays the winner's legal fees, so lawfare by baseless intimidation is a lot less effective as a tactic. You can potentially scare people, but if they have a good case, only until they get lawyered up. Though the initial legal consultation will be a whack of change ofc.


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> @S'mon @Snarf Zagyg @Ruin Explorer
> 
> Looking back at the OSRIC stuff, assuming WotC wants to deactivate the OGL 1.0a,  are there any obvious ways things are vastly different for companies based in the UK instead of the US?  Or is it equally up to whatever judge and appeals courts get it in whatever country?   In a work for hire case, does the country of the hired author matter at all?




We actually don't have 'Work for Hire' doctrine in the UK. Under our law (CDPA 1988) the author is the first owner of copyright in the commissioned work. Same across the EU.


----------



## Dausuul

bedir than said:


> Concerned, of course they are.
> 
> That's not evidence that the leak is true. That's evidence that change is coming, which we already know because WotC stated publicly that change is coming.



If they're under NDA, then they have information about what the change is going to be.

Taking a step back, we have seen the following:

1. Rumors that the OGL was going away.
2. Wizards stepped in to "clarify" that there would be an OGL 1.1, except when they described what they had in mind, it was quite definitely _not_ an open license.
3. This supposed leak, coming from people in the industry with some credibility (i.e., not random YouTubers trolling for clicks).
4. Griffon's Saddlebag, under NDA, expressing extreme concern, saying the new license makes producing content "extremely painful and challenging" and he's consulting with his lawyers.
5. Various other unnamed sources under NDA also expressing concern.

No one of these is solid evidence of anything (well, except #2), but the accumulation suggests A Bad Thing coming down the pike.


----------



## Art Waring

Greg Benage said:


> I don't think I do misunderstand: I think WotC's statement that they're changing the terms of the OGL is evidence that something important is happening. I don't think Owen's post or the rumor mill catching fire, burning down, and falling into the river adds any evidence.
> 
> But cool: no sparring.



Daniel Fox of Zweihander RPG was in the live chat, stating that he has read the entire 1.1 OGL from end to end, and that he can't comment yet (likely NDA'd), but that he will be making a statement after wotc's next official statement, and that the new 1.1 OGL is in his own words "undesirable."

Edit: I don't know anything about DF or Zweihander or have any opinions on the individual, I am simply reporting the facts, as we now have multiple publishers saying things of a similar nature.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Bedrockgames said:


> These are all definitely worth checking out. Rick Beato and Adam Neely both have a very strong grasp of the music side of this and how it will impact music. I will say make your own decision and if the statement by the appellate judge changes your mind, fair enough. But I think the core claim presents a huge problem for music (it would in my opinion be like a case in RPGs undermining the concept that you can't copyright a game mechanic).




Did you read the linked opinion?

Look, I watch Adam Neely. I respect his opinions on music. His knowledge of the law ... not so much. But to put this in very simple terms- no system is perfect. Litigation involves decisions. Bad decisions were made in the _Blurred Line_ case. Those bad decisions (procedural decisions) are evident in the appellate opinion. Q. E. D. 

As a general rule, think of something you know a lot about. Now, think about how it is covered in the popular press ... let alone youtube. Legal opinions are public- I provided you a link. If you don't understand it, that's fine. But at least appreciate that there is more going on.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Did you read the linked opinion?
> 
> Look, I watch Adam Neely. I respect his opinions on music. His knowledge of the law ... not so much. But to put this in very simple terms- no system is perfect. Litigation involves decisions. Bad decisions were made in the _Blurred Line_ case. Those bad decisions (procedural decisions) are evident in the appellate opinion. Q. E. D.
> 
> As a general rule, think of something you know a lot about. Now, think about how it is covered in the popular press ... let alone youtube. Legal opinions are public- I provided you a link. If you don't understand it, that's fine. But at least appreciate that there is more going on.




I read it, perhaps I misunderstood the point, or missed something, but it still seemed to be saying you could copyright these elements we don't normally copyright because of how they come together (but that is still fundamentally allowing the groove and vibe to be copyrighted---again unless I am missing something here)


----------



## Cadence

S'mon said:


> We actually don't have 'Work for Hire' doctrine in the UK. Under our law (CDPA 1988) the author is the first owner of copyright in the commissioned work. Same across the EU.




How does that work for things done by a team? (Like Level-Up where there are a bunch of designers and a publisher listed, or, as I'm beginning to suspect, do I have absolutely no clue about wrok for hire and the like).


----------



## kenada

Alzrius said:


> Did anyone else see that, in the Indestructoboy stream, one of the commenters (under the handle "Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG" which seems to imply that they're the publisher of said RPG) asserts that the DMs Guild license will be updated to require the use of the OGL v1.1 for products published that way?



The current DM’s Guild license is already heavily tilted in WotC’s favor. If they change it to the OGL 1.1, that it might actually be an improvement. The reporting requirement would suck if you published other things outside of the DMG, but I should hope it would be sufficient to rely on the DMG if that’s the only place where you publish OGL content.

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like WotC is trying to build a walled garden around the barn after all the horses got out. Talking through the DM’s Guild scenario, it’s very similar to what Apple is doing (requiring revenue reporting for royalties) when they have been forced to allow third party IAPs by some jurisdictions.


----------



## jerryrice4949

Is the fact Morrus is saying nothing telling?  I am sure he is under NDA but does that prevent him from saying what  he thinks of the general direction?


----------



## Cadence

Linda Codega on a "new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, "

Has a comment from Chris Pramas (of Mutants and Masterminds), and  a decline to comment from Paizo "stating that the rules update was a complicated and ongoing situation".









						Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition
					

An exclusive look at Wizards of the Coast's new open gaming license shows efforts to curtail competitors and and tighten control on creators of all sizes.




					gizmodo.com


----------



## Alzrius

jerryrice4949 said:


> Is the fact Morrus is saying nothing telling?  I am sure he is under NDA but does that prevent you from saying what you think do the general direction?



My impression was that @Morrus was not one of the people approached by WotC regarding the OGL v1.1 and/or 1D&D.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Cadence said:


> "new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, "
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition
> 
> 
> An exclusive look at Wizards of the Coast's new open gaming license shows efforts to curtail competitors and and tighten control on creators of all sizes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gizmodo.com



"While the original open gaming license is a relatively short document, coming in at under 900 words, the new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, is over 9,000 words long."

Bloody hell. Still reading.


----------



## Cadence

Ruin Explorer said:


> "While the original open gaming license is a relatively short document, coming in at under 900 words, the new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, is over 9,000 words long."
> 
> Bloody hell. Still reading.





"Additionally, all creators will need to clearly and deliberately distinguish “their content” from “licensed content.” The new document reads that this must be done “in a way that allows a reader of Your Licensed Work to understand the distinction without checking any other document.” The updated OGL suggests a different color font, asterisks on the page, “or putting a separate index or list in the back of Your Licensed Work that lists out what, exactly, You used from the SRD.”


----------



## jerryrice4949

Disregard.


----------



## Remathilis

Art Waring said:


> Daniel Fox of Zweihander RPG was in the live chat, stating that he has read the entire 1.1 OGL from end to end, and that he can't comment yet (likely NDA'd), but that he will be making a statement after wotc's next official statement, and that the new 1.1 OGL is in his own words "undesirable."



This is absolutely shooting the messenger, but I'm not particularly inclined to take DF on good faith when it comes to his bottom line.


----------



## darjr

Looks like Gizmodo has received a copy from a source.


----------



## darjr




----------



## darjr

Ope! Beaten to the punch.


----------



## S'mon

Cadence said:


> How does that work for things done by a team? (Like Level-Up where there are a bunch of designers and a publisher listed, or, as I'm beginning to suspect, do I have absolutely no clue about wrok for hire and the like).




We have works of joint authorship. In that case by default every author has a kind of overlapping copyright in the work. And we have employer owns copyright in works created by employees in the course of employment.

Normally with commissioned works the authors assign copyright in writing to the comissioner, and waive their Moral Rights. If they don't assign copyright then either there is an implied licence under the commission contract, or more recently courts have been talking about "equitable ownership" by the commissioner. I find the latter a bit iffy.


----------



## Nikosandros

Ruin Explorer said:


> Whatever is happening, it really seems like someone is leaking behind-the-scenes non-finalized stuff from WotC, presumably in an attempt to create enough of a kerfuffle that WotC goes "Hmmm this isn't a great idea!".



Yes, I had hypothesized this in a different thread some days ago. I was accused of peddling conspiracy theories. 

While far from proven, it is instead not so unlikely and I actually think that it would speak positively of the folks at WotC (quite possibly from the design and development side) trying to curtail this kind of moves.


----------



## Art Waring

Remathilis said:


> This is absolutely shooting the messenger, but I'm not particularly inclined to take DF on good faith when it comes to his bottom line.



I don't have any opinion of him (didn't really look into these things to be honest), & I have never played Zweihander, I'm just reporting on the current developments.


----------



## Stonesnake

Well, it seems that many of the items listed in the gizmodo.com have the exact same language as what we reported yesterday. Just saying...


----------



## Cadence

darjr said:


>




She notes in the twitter replies:


----------



## mamba

Ruin Explorer said:


> "While the original open gaming license is a relatively short document, coming in at under 900 words, the new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, is over 9,000 words long."
> 
> Bloody hell. Still reading.



“One of the biggest changes to the document is that it updates the previously available OGL 1.0 to state it is “no longer an authorized license agreement.” By ending the original OGL, many licensed publishers will have to completely overhaul their products and distribution in order to comply with the updated rules. Large publishers who focus almost exclusively on products based on the original OGL, including Paizo, Kobold Press, and Green Ronin, will be under pressure to update their business model incredibly fast.”

“The “OGL wasn’t intended to fund major competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming. We are updating the OGL in part to make that very clear.””

I really do not care whether it funded competitors, esp. since it still allows PDFs which this claims is the main competition… WotC is bigger than ever so I do not see much/any harm there.

I do not care about limiting it to print, pdf and vtt only either (I care once it becomes less than that). I care about the register, report and pay fee bit. The license should remain open


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Bedrockgames said:


> I read it, perhaps I misunderstood the point, or missed something, but it still seemed to be saying you could copyright these elements we don't normally copyright because of how they come together (but that is still fundamentally allowing the groove and vibe to be copyrighted---again unless I am missing something here)




Okay- last post on this and we move on to the actual topic. First thing you need to understand is that it's an appellate opinion, with a three judge panel. Two judges were in the majority (affirming, well, mostly, the lower court) and one judge dissented.

Now, the majority opinion made the following points. I will provide pinpoint cites (page numbers from the reporter):
1. Recitation of the standard of law. 1163-66. This is all standard stuff. 

2. Denial of Summary Judgment. 1166-67. This is the most important part, as the "Thicke Parties" (ahem) primarily based their appeal on this. But here's the thing; after a full trial on the merits, you don't get to appeal the denial of summary judgment. 

3. Everything else. 1167-1178. It's basically just a recitation of "you're screwed because of the standard on appeal after a jury trial." Nothing interesting here, except the part where they overturn the vicarious liability finding. 

What you need to read, and understand, is the majority section VIII ("You Can't Get There from Here"), 1178-82 and contrast that with the Dissent. It shows that the majority is dealing with this as a procedural issue- that the failure here was a litigation failure, a failure to correctly preserve issues (such as by making a rule 50(a) motion) so that the court _could_ rule on the merits. 

What you're missing is that this opinion isn't about what the people on youtube are saying it is; instead, it's a procedural fight with one judge wanting to decide the case _despite the rules _while the majority is following the appellate procedure. 

Here's the part where they make it explicit-
_Lastly, the dissent prophesies that our decision will shake the foundations of copyright law, imperil the music industry, and stifle creativity. It even suggests that the Gayes' victory will come back to haunt them, as the Gayes' musical compositions may now be found to infringe any number of famous songs preceding them. Respectfully, these conjectures are unfounded hyperbole. Our decision does not grant license to copyright a musical style or "groove." Nor does it upset the balance Congress struck between the freedom of artistic expression, on the one hand, and copyright protection of the fruits of that expression, on the other hand. *Rather, our decision hinges on settled procedural principles and the limited nature of our appellate review, dictated by the particular posture of this case and controlling copyright law*. Far from heralding the end of musical creativity as we know it, our decision, even construed broadly, *reads more accurately as a cautionary tale for future trial counsel wishing to maximize their odds of success.*

Williams v. Gaye_ isn't some apocalyptic tale of IP law. It is a cautionary tale of what can happen when attorneys ... well, don't maximize their odds of success. Now, in saying that, I will again reiterate that I don't agree with the underlying principle that even allowed the lawsuit to get that far, but people continue to misunderstand and misrepresent the case.


----------



## darjr

@Morrus I’m getting flooded by folks who want to know what ENWorld thinks, which I can’t answer of course. What do you think?


----------



## Sacrosanct

The thing with a license is that both parties have to agree to it.  If one never agrees or uses the 1.1, then they aren't beholden to it.  I'm hearing a lot of things that seem to infer that you (general you) have to use 1.1 as if it's mandatory.

If (and that's a huge if) WoTC could even revoke the license I and others agreed to, that doesn't mean I'm forced to use 1.1.  It's not really necessary for most things.  It's just a convenience.  So unless there are some serious carrots to use 1.1 if it's that restrictive, I don't see anyone using it, making it a pretty worthless and irrelevant license.


----------



## darjr

Please please stay on topic
Also twitter links are not working great for some of the enworld audience so please try and include a snapshot or direct quote.


----------



## Alzrius

According to the Gizmodo article, the new OGL v1.1 "takes a strong stance against bigoted content, explicitly stating the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”"

While on its face this is a good thing, it ignores the fact that there can be reasonable disagreements about what constitutes any of those things (even using the "blatantly" qualifier). The idea that describing a new humanoid monster as "savages," for instance, could be described as blatantly racist, and assigning fixed ability score modifiers could be viewed much the same insofar as it's indicative of biological determinism. The possibility that WotC revokes the agreement for a product that someone else puts out with the aforementioned content is not zero; that's a level of uncertainty I foresee a lot of publishers not wanting to deal with.

It's entirely possible to go too far in pursuit of a good thing, and this strikes me as an instance of that line being crossed.


----------



## Remathilis

Alzrius said:


> According to the Gizmodo article, the new OGL v1.1 "takes a strong stance against bigoted content, explicitly stating the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”"
> 
> While on its face this is a good thing, it ignores the fact that there can be reasonable disagreements about what constitutes any of those things (even using the "blatantly" qualifier). The idea that describing a new humanoid monster as "savages," for instance, could be described as blatantly racist, and assigning fixed ability score modifiers could be viewed much the same insofar as it's indicative of biological determinism.
> 
> It's entirely possible to go too far in pursuit of a good thing, and this strikes me as an instance of that line being crossed.



You can thank NU-TSR for that.


----------



## Ondath

darjr said:


>



I just read this and I hate being justified in my worries. So they are actually killing OGL v1.0a *entirely*. I really hope publishers like EN World and Paizo have a response ready because I really hate the idea of the entire d20-adjacent space suddenly becoming WotC's vassals.


----------



## mamba

“There is no mention of perpetual, worldwide rights given to creators (which was present in section 4 of the original OGL), and one of the caveats is that the company “can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days’ notice.””

with all of this we are at a more restrictive GSL, there is no way any of this is received well by anyone


----------



## Greg Benage

Holy naughty word: 20-25% royalty on Qualifying Revenue.

Well...that's, like, double what I considered an unrealistic worst-case scenario. That's a "don't try to make real money on this" kind of number.


----------



## BrokenTwin

So... WotC can't force creators currently using the OGL to switch to this new license, can they? That's ridiculous. Feeling a lot better about the fact that I haven't bought any of their books in years, but actually starting to get worried for the people whose work I have been supporting.


----------



## Vaalingrade

Alzrius said:


> While on its face this is a good thing, it ignores the fact that there can be reasonable disagreements about what constitutes any of those things (even using the "blatantly" qualifier). The idea that describing a new humanoid monster as "savages," for instance, could be described as blatantly racist, and assigning fixed ability score modifiers could be viewed much the same insofar as it's indicative of biological determinism. The possibility that WotC revokes the agreement for a product that someone else puts out with the aforementioned content is not zero; that's a level of uncertainty I foresee a lot of publishers not wanting to deal with.



Stop trying to make me like this.


----------



## Haplo781

Remathilis said:


> Bullocks. If that's the case, Apple has a monopoly on Smartphones, Microsoft has a monopoly on office software and Google has a monopoly on search engines. You need more than just market dominance, you need a mechanism that stops any competition from challenging you. There are plenty of options for each of the above, even if none of them quite reach the ubiquitous nature of the named companies.



Microsoft was successfully sued for monopolistic practices because they _included Internet Explorer with Windows 95_.


----------



## mamba

BrokenTwin said:


> So... WotC can't force creators currently using the OGL to switch to this new license, can they? That's ridiculous. Feeling a lot better about the fact that I haven't bought any of their books in years, but actually starting to get worried for the people whose work I have been supporting.



they cannot force you onto 1.1, but they sure try to force you off 1.0


----------



## Ondath

Greg Benage said:


> Holy naughty word: 20-25% royalty on Qualifying Revenue.
> 
> Well...that's, like, double what I considered an unrealistic worst-case scenario. That's a "don't try to make real money on this" kind of number.



Oh yeah. There's a Turkish company currently making 5E content that got two succesful kickstarters funded (Dream Realm Storytellers). Their revenue from the two kickstarters got around 475k in dollars. If they were to publish under OGL v1.1 and make two more kickstarters to the same amount, they'd need to pay Wizards royalties to the tune of 40000 dollars, *which makes around 748000 Turkish liras (which is 88 times the Turkish minimum wage).*

Mind you, this is a very small indie Turkish company that just happened to find a niche that gave them reach in the international market. I hardly doubt their current financials would allow them to afford paying the kind of royalties WotC is asking.

They're effectively killing any profitable third-party content creation unless you're Critical Role.


----------



## MockingBird

Is no one in the WotC offices saying "I don't think this is a good idea boss"?


----------



## Remathilis

Haplo781 said:


> Microsoft was successfully sued for monopolistic practices because they _included Internet Explorer with Windows 95_.



And the version of Edge I got preinstalled with Windows 11 points to how effective that lawsuit was.


----------



## Alzrius

Vaalingrade said:


> Stop trying to make me like this.



No one should like a clause that could conceivably get the Curvy Cryptid Monster Manual pulled.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

EDIT for quote:



			
				Linda's Twitter said:
			
		

> My source indicated that this was originally supposed to go live Jan 4, and people would have until Jan 13 to agree. Jan 13 is cited in the document I received. If true, WotC was planning to give only 7 business days for people to adjust and respond, and, presumably, agree.




That's uh, not great.

Also we learn royalties are 25% on what you make over 750k. So it's not what anyone expected exactly. It's a flat quarter of revenue (not profit), but only on the part that is above 750k.

Also absolutely randomly, if you use Kickstarter, WotC will charge you only 20% royalties (!?!?!?!) OK I guess.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> Oh yeah. There's a Turkish company currently making 5E content that got two succesful kickstarters funded (Dream Realm Storytellers). Their revenue from the two kickstarters got around 475k in dollars. If they were to publish under OGL v1.1 and make two more kickstarters to the same amount, they'd need to pay Wizards royalties to the tune of 40000 dollars, *which makes around 748000 Turkish liras (which is 88 times the Turkish minimum wage).*



Actually, no. According to the Gizmodo report (emphasis mine):



> According to the document, “If, and only if, You are generating a significant amount of money (over $750,000 per year across all Licensed Works) from Your Licensed Works, The revenue You make from Your Licensed Works in excess of $750,000 in a single calendar year is considered “Qualifying Revenue” and You are responsible for paying Us 20% or 25% of that Qualifying Revenue.”
> 
> The draft goes on to explain that if you make $750,001, you will owe Wizards of the Coast 25 cents, as *they are only asking for royalties on the one dollar made in excess of the Expert Tier.* As stated in their announcement in December, WotC suspects that “less than twenty” companies are at the Expert Tier.


----------



## Remathilis

Alzrius said:


> No one should like a clause that could conceivably get the Curvy Cryptid Monster Manual pulled.



What a terrible day to have eyes...


----------



## S'mon

Sacrosanct said:


> The thing with a license is that both parties have to agree to it.  If one never agrees or uses the 1.1, then they aren't beholden to it.  I'm hearing a lot of things that seem to infer that you (general you) have to use 1.1 as if it's mandatory.
> 
> If (and that's a huge if) WoTC could even revoke the license I and others agreed to, that doesn't mean I'm forced to use 1.1.  It's not really necessary for most things.  It's just a convenience.  So unless there are some serious carrots to use 1.1 if it's that restrictive, I don't see anyone using it, making it a pretty worthless and irrelevant license.




If I were giving advice (which I'm not)  I'd advise anyone unsure not to agree to the OGL 1.1, for this reason. If OGL 1.0 is now 'unauthorized' by WoTC then you can no longer contract directly with them under it, but AFAICS third parties can still use it, including for previously released & licenced material. 

Codega says:

_According to attorneys consulted for this article, the new language may indicate that Wizards of the Coast is rendering any future use of the original OGL void, and asserting that if anyone wants to continue to use Open Game Content of any kind, they will need to abide by the terms of the updated OGL, which is a far more restrictive agreement than the original OGL.

Wizards of the Coast declined to clarify if this is in fact the case._

So it looks like we have to wait and see on this, but if they try to stop people using SRD material released under OGL 1.0, my feeling is I don't think that is going to work. They may scare some people into compliance, but they have what looks to me like a weak case, and are basically declaring war on not just the 3PP world, but the Open Software world. I think a precedent that open licence terms can be retroactively changed to mean something other than what they were said to mean, to withdraw the licenced material, is unlikely to be made, and very unlikely to stand.


----------



## Nikosandros

MockingBird said:


> Is no one in the WotC offices saying "I don't think this is a good idea boss"?



One hypothesis is that some of the leaks might be coming from such a person. Of course, they might also be coming from someone breaking their NDA.


----------



## Jack Daniel

BrokenTwin said:


> So... WotC can't force creators currently using the OGL to switch to this new license, can they? That's ridiculous. Feeling a lot better about the fact that I haven't bought any of their books in years, but actually starting to get worried for the people whose work I have been supporting.




That all hinges on whether they can in fact "de-authorize" v1.0(a), which is a very open question at this point.

Sure, WotC can try and _say_ that it's been de-authorized and supplanted by v1.1… but can they actually stop anyone who wants to publish under v1.0a from pretending that v1.1 simply doesn't exit?


----------



## Sacrosanct

Ondath said:


> Oh yeah. There's a Turkish company currently making 5E content that got two succesful kickstarters funded (Dream Realm Storytellers). Their revenue from the two kickstarters got around 475k in dollars. If they were to publish under OGL v1.1 and make two more kickstarters to the same amount, they'd need to pay Wizards royalties to the tune of 40000 dollars, *which makes around 748000 Turkish liras (which is 88 times the Turkish minimum wage).*
> 
> Mind you, this is a very small indie Turkish company that just happened to find a niche that gave them reach in the international market. I hardly doubt their current financials would allow them to afford paying the kind of royalties WotC is asking.
> 
> They're effectively killing any profitable third-party content creation unless you're Critical Role.



If the royalty is Gross, and not net, that's going to cut a lot of people out.  Let's look at a recent KS I did: Twilight Fables.  The KS was $55,000.  KS took $5K of that.  If I had to pay an additional $13,700 to WoTC, I would have been in the red (by that amount, since I pretty much broke even at $55K).

An additional 25% of *GROSS *profits is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.


----------



## Ondath

Alzrius said:


> Actually, no. According to the Gizmodo report (emphasis mine):



I factored that in my calculation. The company currently made 475k from two Kickstarters. My calculations were based on the hypothetical that they made two more kickstarters that netted the same returns, putting them at 950k. Since the royalties start from the first cent after the 750k, they'd have ~200k USD of earnings that are subject to WotC royalty demands. A fifth of that (which is the more generous estimate compared to the 25%) nets us 40k USD of royalties owed to WotC, which gets me to the 88 Turkish minimum wages worth of royalties I arrived at.

Basically, if anyone in my country becomes succesful enough making OGL v1.1 content, they'll take on an extra burden *as if they suddenly hired 88 minimum wage employees* on top of everything they had.


----------



## Alzrius

Sacrosanct said:


> If the royalty is Gross, and not net, that's going to cut a lot of people out.  Let's look at a recent KS I did: Twilight Fables.  The KS was $55,000.  KS took $5K of that.  If I had to pay an additional $13,700 to WoTC, I would have been in the red (by that amount, since I pretty much broke even at $55K).
> 
> An additional 25% of *GROSS *profits is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.



That seems to be the case, as the Gizmodo article indicates:



> But the new OGL states that the Commercial Agreement “covers all commercial uses, whether they’re profitable or not.” So if you go into the red on a Kickstarter that earned $800K in backing money, you will still owe Wizards of the Coast, regardless of the fact that you did not profit from your venture.




Though as I pointed out in my last post, it also asserts that you'd only be paying that money on the amount that was over $750,000.


----------



## EpicureanDM

MockingBird said:


> Is no one in the WotC offices saying "I don't think this is a good idea boss"?



D&D's entire senior leadership team has been replaced in the past six months with people who have no relevant experience with, or connection to, D&D's history and place within the TRPG industry. Anyone who might raise a concern is either invested in the success of this new approach or focused on having their name on a new edition of the game.


----------



## Ondath

Sacrosanct said:


> If the royalty is Gross, and not net, that's going to cut a lot of people out.  Let's look at a recent KS I did: Twilight Fables.  The KS was $55,000.  KS took $5K of that.  If I had to pay an additional $13,700 to WoTC, I would have been in the red (by that amount, since I pretty much broke even at $55K).
> 
> An additional 25% of *GROSS *profits is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks.



That's a fair point. We need to see the actual text to know, but Gizmodo's article suggests that it's based off the yearly revenue out of all content made with OGL. So it's not even *profits*, it's *revenue.* Even if you're in the red, if you got 800k in revenue from your Kickstarter, you owe royalties out of the last 50k.


----------



## BrokenTwin

Alzrius said:


> No one should like a clause that could conceivably get the Curvy Cryptid Monster Manual pulled.



Not a product I would buy, but I would fight for its right to exist.


----------



## Ondath

BrokenTwin said:


> Not a product I would buy, but I would fight for its right to exist.



Wasn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy a large source of kerfuffle back in the 3.5 days? Though I do remember WotC managing to get that product stopped in distribution for some reason.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Vaalingrade said:


> Stop trying to make me like this.



You know how they'll enforce it though, they'll ignore stuff that you or I would consider "blatantly racist", but then crack down hard on something LGBTQ+ because it was too  "sexualized" or whatever.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

MockingBird said:


> Is no one in the WotC offices saying "I don't think this is a good idea boss"?




Nope.

I wrote about this worry a while ago-








						D&D 5E - The Pitfalls of Success: Hasbro Success Story, Take 2
					

Most of the time, I just let a post out and see where the conversation goes; rarely does it seem so many misunderstand what I wrote (albeit @Mistwell got it pretty quickly). Admittedly, a fair number of people commented based on the title without reading the piece, but then again, it did have...




					www.enworld.org
				




Basically, D&D's success is both a blessing and a curse. Now that it is a revenue center ... it's a revenue center. It's on the radar at Hasbro. They expect it to make money.


----------



## Scribe




----------



## Vaalingrade

Ruin Explorer said:


> You know how they'll enforce it though, they'll ignore stuff that you or I would consider "blatantly racist", but then crack down hard on something LGBTQ+ because it was too  "sexualized" or whatever.



God, you're right.

Meanwhile the Anniversary Edition of Orcs of Thar, now with a Random Slur for the First Nations table would run wild and free.


----------



## Azzy

If WotC persists in this as their new "OGL", I hope it bites them in the ass squarely and painfully.


----------



## kenada

Cadence said:


> Linda Codega on a "new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, "
> 
> Has a comment from Chris Pramas (of Mutants and Masterminds), and  a decline to comment from Paizo "stating that the rules update was a complicated and ongoing situation".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition
> 
> 
> An exclusive look at Wizards of the Coast's new open gaming license shows efforts to curtail competitors and and tighten control on creators of all sizes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> gizmodo.com



Those are app-store-levels of royalties. They really do think they can create a walled garden.

Since this is being managed through D&D Beyond, I requested my account be deleted. I do not trust WotC not to pull something sneaky.


----------



## S'mon

Jack Daniel said:


> Sure, WotC can try and _say_ that it's been de-authorized and supplanted by v1.1… but can they actually stop anyone who wants to publish under v1.0a from pretending that v1.1 simply doesn't exit?




It seems that their intention was to suddenly drop OGL 1.1 with a 1 week deadline and they planned to scare third party publishers into signing up in a fearful rush. Once you're signed up to OGL 1.1, I think they have you.

It seems to me that what is described as OGL 1.1 is so terrible (25% royalty on all income over 750K?!) and WoTC's claims are so egregious, that it makes far more sense to fight than to comply, even for US-based companies.


----------



## Sacrosanct

You know who that royalty hurts?  Not just publishers, but all of those freelancers.  Lose 25% of your gross sales?*  When margins are already thin?  Can't afford to hire freelancers any longer.  But hey! Here's this thing called MidJourney and ChatAI....

Ugh..

*I know it's over $750K _now_, but doesn't mean it stays that way...


----------



## BrokenTwin

Ondath said:


> Wasn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy a large source of kerfuffle back in the 3.5 days? Though I do remember WotC managing to get that product stopped in distribution for some reason.



Yeah. Which is funny, because I found the Book of Exalted Deeds (with its Good-aligned_ poisons_) to be a much more morally objectionable book.


----------



## Alzrius

Ondath said:


> Wasn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy a large source of kerfuffle back in the 3.5 days? Though I do remember WotC managing to get that product stopped in distribution for some reason.



It resulted in a modification of the d20 STL (i.e. the separate license that let you use that red-and-white d20 logo on the cover of your book), but all that did was make the publishers of the BoEF change the cover (which they were already prepared to do). It still came out in commercial venues without any delay that I recall.


----------



## Haplo781

Remathilis said:


> And the version of Edge I got preinstalled with Windows 11 points to how effective that lawsuit was.



That's a moving goalpost.

Whether or not the suit was effective is independent of the grounds for bringing it.


----------



## Sacrosanct

Vaalingrade said:


> God, you're right.
> 
> Meanwhile the Anniversary Edition of Orcs of Thar, now with a Random Slur for the First Nations table would run wild and free.



That's the unfortunate price of free expression, right?  I mean, WoTC certainly has the right to protect their IP, but when you have one person making the decision as to what's objectionable and what's not, and can ban what they like...that never has ended well.  You (general you) might agree with their changes now, but what happens when they ban something you like?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Okay- last post on this and we move on to the actual topic. First thing you need to understand is that it's an appellate opinion, with a three judge panel. Two judges were in the majority (affirming, well, mostly, the lower court) and one judge dissented.
> 
> Now, the majority opinion made the following points. I will provide pinpoint cites (page numbers from the reporter):
> 1. Recitation of the standard of law. 1163-66. This is all standard stuff.
> 
> 2. Denial of Summary Judgment. 1166-67. This is the most important part, as the "Thicke Parties" (ahem) primarily based their appeal on this. But here's the thing; after a full trial on the merits, you don't get to appeal the denial of summary judgment.
> 
> 3. Everything else. 1167-1178. It's basically just a recitation of "you're screwed because of the standard on appeal after a jury trial." Nothing interesting here, except the part where they overturn the vicarious liability finding.
> 
> What you need to read, and understand, is the majority section VIII ("You Can't Get There from Here"), 1178-82 and contrast that with the Dissent. It shows that the majority is dealing with this as a procedural issue- that the failure here was a litigation failure, a failure to correctly preserve issues (such as by making a rule 50(a) motion) so that the court _could_ rule on the merits.
> 
> What you're missing is that this opinion isn't about what the people on youtube are saying it is; instead, it's a procedural fight with one judge wanting to decide the case _despite the rules _while the majority is following the appellate procedure.
> 
> Here's the part where they make it explicit-
> _Lastly, the dissent prophesies that our decision will shake the foundations of copyright law, imperil the music industry, and stifle creativity. It even suggests that the Gayes' victory will come back to haunt them, as the Gayes' musical compositions may now be found to infringe any number of famous songs preceding them. Respectfully, these conjectures are unfounded hyperbole. Our decision does not grant license to copyright a musical style or "groove." Nor does it upset the balance Congress struck between the freedom of artistic expression, on the one hand, and copyright protection of the fruits of that expression, on the other hand. *Rather, our decision hinges on settled procedural principles and the limited nature of our appellate review, dictated by the particular posture of this case and controlling copyright law*. Far from heralding the end of musical creativity as we know it, our decision, even construed broadly, *reads more accurately as a cautionary tale for future trial counsel wishing to maximize their odds of success.*
> 
> Williams v. Gaye_ isn't some apocalyptic tale of IP law. It is a cautionary tale of what can happen when attorneys ... well, don't maximize their odds of success. Now, in saying that, I will again reiterate that I don't agree with the underlying principle that even allowed the lawsuit to get that far, but people continue to misunderstand and misrepresent the case.



Thanks for the explanation and pointing to the relevant section. I had to read it quickly the first time and didn’t realize it was a three judge panel. I will drop this too after this post. The only thing I will say is that still doesn’t fill me with ease and the dissenting opinions in cases can still prove more prophetic than the majority (there is at least one major Supreme Court case I feel the dissent predicted the consequences accurately while the majority asserted their decision would not lead to that outcome)


----------



## EpicureanDM

kenada said:


> Those are app-store-levels of royalties. They really do think they can create a walled garden.
> 
> Since this is being managed through D&D Beyond, I requested my account be deleted. I do not trust WotC not to pull something sneaky.



The new executives in charge of D&D are primarily e-commerce folks.


----------



## mamba

If this is true, I am not buying anything Hasbro ever again. All their stuff is in the impulse buy category, not enough money to really think about it, not important enough to actually need. Well, that just changed.


----------



## ART!

kenada said:


> Those are app-store-levels of royalties. They really do think they can create a walled garden.
> 
> Since this is being managed through D&D Beyond, I requested my account be deleted. I do not trust WotC not to pull something sneaky.



Can you explain your thinking here a bit more? I'm trying to stay on top of these developments, in part as a _very_ frequent user of DDB.


Sacrosanct said:


> You know who that royalty hurts?  Not just publishers, but all of those freelancers.  Lose 25% of your gross sales?*  When margins are already thin?  Can't afford to hire freelancers any longer.  But hey! Here's this thing called MidJourney and ChatAI....
> 
> Ugh..



My brain just exploded a bit. What an incredibly awful "perfect storm" that would be.


----------



## Morrus

darjr said:


> @Morrus I’m getting flooded by folks who want to know what ENWorld thinks, which I can’t answer of course. What do you think?



I've been away and that's a 2-hour video. Right now I have no opinion one way or the other. I'll try to catch up today.


----------



## LordEntrails

Ruin Explorer said:


> You know how they'll enforce it though, they'll ignore stuff that you or I would consider "blatantly racist", but then crack down hard on something LGBTQ+ because it was too  "sexualized" or whatever.



This is demonstrable false. We have a 347 page thread on this forum that details how aggressively WotC has gone after "blatantly racist" stuff. Including significant legal action that actually states one reason they are looking to shut down this "publisher" is because of the blatantly racist content.


----------



## Ondath

mamba said:


> If this is true, I am not buying anything Hasbro ever again. All their stuff is in the impulse buy category, not enough money to really think about it, not important enough to actually need. Well, that just changed.



Same. I have expressed displeasure at WotC in several occasions but that was just due to me no longer being the kind of player they're targeting. This goes into ethically objectionable territory, and I will never buy anything from them in any way, shape or form for as long as their hostility to open content continues.


----------



## J.Quondam

Azzy said:


> If WotC persists in this as their new "OGL", I hope it bites them in the ass squarely and painfully.



Nice thing about this January release is it leaves plenty of time for a big loud boycott of the movie.


----------



## Sacrosanct

ART! said:


> Can you explain your thinking here a bit more? I'm trying to stay on top of these developments, in part as a _very_ frequent user of DDB.
> 
> My brain just exploded a bit. What an incredibly awful "perfect storm" that would be.



It's almost like no one at Hasbro bothered to think of the impacts of this, or the optics of how this is going to look like.  I see a lot of bad things, not any good things from this.


----------



## Greg Benage

Morrus said:


> I've been away and that's a 2-hour video. Right now I have no opinion one way or the other. I'll try to catch up today.



Read the 10-minute Gizmodo article instead and fight the Pivot to Video.


----------



## Ondath

Morrus said:


> I've been away and that's a 2-hour video. Right now I have no opinion one way or the other. I'll try to catch up today.



If I may make a humble suggestion, I suggest you check the gizmodo article. The video was based on partial leaks from the full OGL v1.1 document, but Gizmodo wrote a rundown of the entire license that they got their hands on.

And if I'm understanding it correctly, it may impact all future OGC you guys might produce if they're de-authorising OGL v1.0a.


----------



## Ondath

ART! said:


> Can you explain your thinking here a bit more? I'm trying to stay on top of these developments, in part as a _very_ frequent user of DDB.
> 
> My brain just exploded a bit. What an incredibly awful "perfect storm" that would be.



They might say you automatically "upgrade" to OGL v1.1 if you have any homebrew content you made that's sitting in DDB's servers, I guess? I know I have plenty of 5E homebrew I made for my home game, and if that somehow automatically switches me over to OGL v1.1 things would get really weird.


----------



## S'mon

Morrus said:


> I've been away and that's a 2-hour video. Right now I have no opinion one way or the other. I'll try to catch up today.




Like they say above, best read the Gizmodo article Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition


----------



## Greg Benage

Sacrosanct said:


> It's almost like no one at Hasbro bothered to think of the impacts of this, or the optics of how this is going to look like. I see a lot of bad things, not any good things from this.



I think a 20-25% royalty is designed to force big players into "a more custom (and mutually beneficial) licensing agreement" with Hasbro. I know KS has revolutionized TTRPG publishing, but I don't see how anyone could eat that. It's prohibitive.


----------



## DarkCrisis

WotC may do a lot of stupid things that I don't agree with but I can't see them pissing into Critical Roles cheerios.  They have them to thank for a lot of the high sales numbers.  Losing Critical Role to a different game would be taking away money from their own pockets.


----------



## Alzrius

Greg Benage said:


> I think a 20-25% royalty is designed to force big players into "a more custom (and mutually beneficial) licensing agreement" with Hasbro. I know KS has revolutionized TTRPG publishing, but I don't see how anyone could eat that. It's prohibitive.



What's particularly odd is that, according to Gizmodo, the royalty percentage is only 20% for Kickstarter, and is 25% for other crowdfunding platforms. Why is WotC trying to funnel the crowdfunding of third-party content toward Kickstarter? Because they think they can get more royalty revenue that way?


----------



## Ondath

DarkCrisis said:


> WotC may do a lot of stupid things that I don't agree with but I can't see them pissing into Critical Roles cheerios.  They have them to thank for a lot of the high sales numbers.  Losing Critical Role to a different game would be taking away money from their own pockets.



I'm sure they already have a special deal with Darrington Press and Critical Role Productions LLC. They already have a good business relationship, with the Wildmount sourcebook and the Netherdeep adventure being published by WotC, D&D Beyond being a longtime sponsor of the show and all. They certainly secured a deal with their biggest 3rd-party supplier before preparing this (and probably left them out of the sucky deal that we're all getting).

I can't say the same for Paizo and the others. Though I hope Darrington Press keeps in mind that Paizo was once a favoured partner for WotC in publishing the Dungeon and Dragon magazines as well...


----------



## Greg Benage

Alzrius said:


> What's particularly odd is that, according to Gizmodo, the royalty percentage is only 20% for Kickstarter, and is 25% for other crowdfunding platforms. Why is WotC trying to funnel the crowdfunding of third-party content toward Kickstarter? Because they think they can get more royalty revenue that way?



My guess is that it's just risk mitigation. They're more confident they'd be able to collect their share from products released through Kickstarter. But I'm just speculating.


----------



## DarkCrisis

Ondath said:


> Wasn't the Book of Erotic Fantasy a large source of kerfuffle back in the 3.5 days? Though I do remember WotC managing to get that product stopped in distribution for some reason.



Only thing I recall from that book (from the one time i read it) is the Distraction Bonus to AC.  Which was used to explain why chainmail bikini armor could have a good AC bonus.


----------



## kenada

ART! said:


> Can you explain your thinking here a bit more? I'm trying to stay on top of these developments, in part as a _very_ frequent user of DDB.



I don’t play or run 5e anymore, so it’s easy for me to request, but I simply don’t trust WotC. I’m also nervous having published homebrew content on D&D Beyond about being tainted by the OGL 1.1.


----------



## Alzrius

DarkCrisis said:


> Only thing I recall from that book (from the one time i read it) is the Distraction Bonus to AC.  Which was used to explain why chainmail bikini armor could have a good AC bonus.



I think you're thinking of EN Publishing's _EN Armoury: Chainmail Bikini_ (affiliate link).


----------



## GMforPowergamers

J.Quondam said:


> Nice thing about this January release is it leaves plenty of time for a big loud boycott of the movie.



why would we boycott a movie about book publishing? more to the fact how would anyone SHOW that said boycott was infact people not going cause of the SRD/OGL and not cause it just didn't appeal to them?


----------



## Maxperson

MonsterEnvy said:


> Yes it is



One independent person reporting the leak is the most credible.  Perhaps more than one if there is a tie.


----------



## DarkCrisis

Alzrius said:


> I think you're thinking of EN Publishing's _EN Armoury: Chainmail Bikini_ (affiliate link).



Nope.  Never seen that before.


----------



## Parmandur

DarkCrisis said:


> WotC may do a lot of stupid things that I don't agree with but I can't see them pissing into Critical Roles cheerios.  They have them to thank for a lot of the high sales numbers.  Losing Critical Role to a different game would be taking away money from their own pockets.



They probably already have a custom agreement in place.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

LordEntrails said:


> This is demonstrable false. We have a 347 page thread on this forum that details how aggressively WotC has gone after "blatantly racist" stuff. Including significant legal action that actually states one reason they are looking to shut down this "publisher" is because of the blatantly racist content.



I've never seen that thread, can you link it or at least name it so I can search it?


----------



## mamba

GMforPowergamers said:


> why would we boycott a movie about book publishing? more to the fact how would anyone SHOW that said boycott was infact people not going cause of the SRD/OGL and not cause it just didn't appeal to them?



why not? the only thing that matters to WotC is clearly money, so I vote with my wallet

I do not care if it flops because it is a bad movie or because of this. I am not seeing it because of this and hope it flops for any reason


----------



## Scribe

DarkCrisis said:


> WotC may do a lot of stupid things that I don't agree with but I can't see them pissing into Critical Roles cheerios.  They have them to thank for a lot of the high sales numbers.  Losing Critical Role to a different game would be taking away money from their own pockets.



I doubt they lose CR. Too many eyes on both.

I'd laugh for a solid afternoon if they went to PF1 though.


----------



## darjr

About the movie. I was planning to take the whole family. Even arrange a bday watch with family and friends. I’m kinda soured on the idea. I would have thought WotC would want enthusiasts fans and hobbyists to be the ice breakers for this movie. I guess not.


----------



## J.Quondam

GMforPowergamers said:


> why would we boycott a movie about book publishing? more to the fact how would anyone SHOW that said boycott was infact people not going cause of the SRD/OGL and not cause it just didn't appeal to them?



Why/Why not? Because it's all part of the vaunted "undermonetized D&D lifestyle" that Hasbro is pushing.

I said it needed to be a "loud" boycott: prompted by streamers and bloggers, picked up by gizmodo or something, repeated all over social media, etc. Obviously, simply not showing wouldn't do anything unless it's been telegraphed why they're not showing. The aim would be the threaten the box-office take on a potentially good D&D movie, specifically by people who love D&D. Presumably it would depend on the relative amounts of money at stake and whatever publicity came of it.

It might mean something. Or it might not.
But there's one way to find out.


----------



## BrokenTwin

GMforPowergamers said:


> why would we boycott a movie about book publishing? more to the fact how would anyone SHOW that said boycott was infact people not going cause of the SRD/OGL and not cause it just didn't appeal to them?



Usually if you want to boycott something, being vocal about why you're boycotting it is part of the process. And yes, if a company is doing something you disagree with, boycotting other things they do as a form of protest is perfectly valid.


Ruin Explorer said:


> I've never seen that thread, can you link it or at least name it so I can search it?



Pretty sure they're referring to the nuTSR thread? Just a guess on my end though.


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> About the movie. I was planning to take the whole family. Even arrange a bday watch with family and friends. I’m kinda soured on the idea. I would have thought WotC would want enthusiasts fans and hobbyists to be the ice breakers for this movie. I guess not.



This doesn't really impact my interest in seeing the movie at all. I'm fairly emotionally detached about these changes, to be honest, and don't see it impacting my behavior or purchasing decisions. And I buy 3PP stuff and know what's going on, I wonder how many D&D players in general will even take note at all...?


----------



## Knorrrssk

Ruin Explorer said:


> I've never seen that thread, can you link it or at least name it so I can search it?



Presumably this one:








						TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR
					

Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver.  As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2)...




					www.enworld.org


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Ondath said:


> I'm sure they already have a special deal with Darrington Press and Critical Role Productions LLC. They already have a good business relationship, with the Wildmount sourcebook and the Netherdeep adventure being published by WotC, D&D Beyond being a longtime sponsor of the show and all. They certainly secured a deal with their biggest 3rd-party supplier before preparing this (and probably left them out of the sucky deal that we're all getting).
> 
> I can't say the same for Paizo and the others. Though I hope Darrington Press keeps in mind that Paizo was once a favoured partner for WotC in publishing the Dungeon and Dragon magazines as well...



Bad press and bad feelings spread.

It's all very well if WotC have a cosy custom deal with Critical Role, but if this goes out like it is here, even if WotC have that deal, and manage to muscle some others, like Paizo, the backlash will still be there, but instead of just being directed at WotC, it's going to spill over and people are going to start saying "Why are you helping these backstabbers, Matt? What's up with that?!" and stuff is going to go south pretty quickly.

Even Paizo get some sweetheart deal where THEY don't pay royalties or whatever, and don't use the OGL, they're also be seen as "collaborators" in a bad way (and yeah people will use that language).

So those guys better watch out, frankly. You don't want to be standing next to the guy the muckspreader is pointed at when it turns on!


----------



## Parmandur

J.Quondam said:


> Why/Why not? Because it's all part of the vaunted "undermonetized D&D lifestyle" that Hasbro is pushing.
> 
> I said it needed to be a "loud" boycott: prompted by streamers and bloggers, picked up by gizmodo or something, repeated all over social media, etc. Obviously, simply not showing wouldn't do anything unless it's been telegraphed why they're not showing. The aim would be the threaten the box-office take on a potentially good D&D movie, specifically by people who love D&D. Presumably it would depend on the relative amounts of money at stake and whatever publicity came of it.
> 
> It might mean something. Or it might not.
> But there's one way to find out.



My desire for owlbear toys and other merchandise outweighs any kerfuffle about licenses between publishers.


----------



## Scribe

Parmandur said:


> This doesn't really impact my interest in seeing the movie at all. I'm fairly emotionally detached about these changes, to be honest, and don't see it impacting my behavior or purchasing decisions. And I buy 3PP stuff and know what's going on, I wonder how many D&D players in general will even take note at all...?



A drop in the bucket.

"Just let me consume, give me more WotC!"


----------



## darjr

Parmandur said:


> This doesn't really impact my interest in seeing the movie at all. I'm fairly emotionally detached about these changes, to be honest, and don't see it impacting my behavior or purchasing decisions. And I buy 3PP stuff and know what's going on, I wonder how many D&D players in general will even take note at all...?



Probably not many. Movies are an emotional thing to me and I realize it’s not to everyone. Though much of my family and friends wouldn’t see it on opening day if it weren’t for me.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Knorrrssk said:


> Presumably this one:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR
> 
> 
> Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver.  As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2)...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.enworld.org



Oh that. I don't think that proves a commitment to being particularly anti-racist, more that "there is a limit", especially if you try and tweak WotC's nose by directly attacking them and attempting to thieve their copyrights! Further, I don't think it undermines the point re: LGBTQ+ stuff which is frequently attacked for being "sexualized" etc.


----------



## LordEntrails

Ruin Explorer said:


> I've never seen that thread, can you link it or at least name it so I can search it?



As @Knorrrssk linked: TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR
Thought you had participated in that thread, sorry if my assumption was wrong.


----------



## Parmandur

Scribe said:


> A drop in the bucket.
> 
> "Just let me consume, give me more WotC!"



That's how the market works, basically. People buy stuff based on the appeal they see in front of them, not broad ideological points. Cool toys for my kids? Buy. Cool shirt? Buy.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

J.Quondam said:


> Nice thing about this January release is it leaves plenty of time for a big loud boycott of the movie.




I'd show solidarity with you ... but Chris Pine is kinda dreamy.

_Wait .... what role is he playing. He's playing a WHAT?_

BOYCOTT THAT MONSTROSITY OF A MOVIE! SOLIDARITY NOW!


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> Probably not many. Movies are an emotional thing to me and I realize it’s not to everyone. Though much of my family and friends wouldn’t see it on opening day if it weren’t for me.



Yeah, my five hear old is excited to see Black Dragons and Owlbears, which is a bigger factor than abstract considerations of Open Gaming.


----------



## darjr

There is a note to be made here.

The original plan was to release the license yesterday. It seems they have not. I hope that means they are rethinking some of this. If it’s true.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

LordEntrails said:


> As @Knorrrssk linked: TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR
> Thought you had participated in that thread, sorry if my assumption was wrong.



I just don't see it as proving the point re: a commitment to being anti-racist. Maybe there's stuff I missed later. I think I only read the beginning of it and dropped in to laugh at a couple of things later on. This is a company that intentionally messed with WotC legally, which is pretty different, in my view, from a company which publishes something I'd regard as "blatantly racist" but which WotC decides is innocuous.


----------



## LordEntrails

Ruin Explorer said:


> Oh that. I don't think that proves a commitment to being particularly anti-racist, more that "there is a limit", especially if you try and tweak WotC's nose by directly attacking them and attempting to thieve their copyrights! Further, I don't think it undermines the point re: LGBTQ+ stuff which is frequently attacked for being "sexualized" etc.



Sort of...
Where is the racists line or examples of such content where you feel WotC has not taken a stance (when they were legally allowed to) and should have?
Where have you seen WotC attack LGBTQ+ stuff disguised by claiming such content is too sexualized?


----------



## J.Quondam

Parmandur said:


> My desire for owlbear toys and other merchandise outweighs any kerfuffle about licenses between publishers.



As it happens, my next owlbear plushy will be named "Kerfuffle".


----------



## darjr

Parmandur said:


> Yeah, my five hear old is excited to see Black Dragons and Owlbears, which is a bigger factor than abstract considerations of Open Gaming.



You don’t have to see it opening weekend.


----------



## Scribe

Parmandur said:


> That's how the market works, basically. People buy stuff based on the appeal they see in front of them, not broad ideological points. Cool toys for my kids? Buy. Cool shirt? Buy.



Exactly. A megacorp trampling on smaller creators who found a niche and a living wage?

Who cares, just get me that sweet branded merchandise.

Pass.


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> You don’t have to see it opening weekend.



I mean, I am not sure I'll be physically comfortable returning ing to the theaters yet by the time it releases, to be honest. The pandemic is more of a factor than the OGL.


----------



## Parmandur

Scribe said:


> Exactly. A megacorp trampling on smaller creators who found a niche and a living wage?
> 
> Who cares, just get me that sweet branded merchandise.
> 
> Pass.



I buy fair trade coffee and sugar.

For toys and games, I'll take what amuses me.


----------



## Bedrockgames

GMforPowergamers said:


> why would we boycott a movie about book publishing? more to the fact how would anyone SHOW that said boycott was infact people not going cause of the SRD/OGL and not cause it just didn't appeal to them?




I think people are underestimating how much of a culture is built around the OGL and how that is going to shape peoples reactions. Also the OGL itself is something that earned WOTC so much good will from gamers, even to this day. If that Gizmodo article is correct, and if it's more dire predictions are true, I don't think you'd even need a boycott, it might just sour people to seeing the movie. No idea how this will play out though.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

LordEntrails said:


> Sort of...
> Where is the racists line or examples of such content where you feel WotC has not taken a stance (when they were legally allowed to) and should have?
> Where have you seen WotC attack LGBTQ+ stuff disguised by claiming such content is to sexualized?



WotC?

I haven't. They've not been in a position to do so. I don't know if I've ever heard WotC officially comment on a specific 3PP product at all, have you?

But I'm talking about the behaviour of large, family-friendly US corporations. They tend to have a bit of a blind spot for racism unless it falls into very distinct shapes. WotC are a great example here with the Hadozee stuff slipping past dozens of eyes, many of whom had received training in how to spot racist stuff. They didn't spot it in their own product. If there are dozens or hundreds of 3PPs coming out, how likely do you think it is they'll spot it? I think it's unlikely. I think they're much more likely to spot stuff that might conceivably seen as "sexualized", which to a large fraction of the West (probably a minority but still plenty) is merely existing as an LGBTQ+ person, and I think any products which are LGBTQ+ friendly in an obvious way will be hyper-scrutinised by people looking for an excuse to say "this isn't sufficiently kid-friendly, why are you allowing this WotC?!". And knowing large corporations, they'll likely ask for it to be pulled without properly considering what they're doing.


----------



## Scribe

Parmandur said:


> I buy fair trade coffee and sugar.
> 
> For toys and games, I'll take what amuses me.



Well within your rights, and as I noted, the VAST majority of D&D players will be of a similar mindset.

Unless a critical mass of the hyper online are impacted and vocal, Wizards won't care when they have millions already in their back pocket who just want a plushie.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Bedrockgames said:


> I think people are underestimating how much of a culture is built around the OGL and how that is going to shape peoples reactions. Also the OGL itself is something that earned WOTC so much good will from gamers, even to this day. If that Gizmodo article is correct, and if it's more dire predictions are true, I don't think you'd even need a boycott, it might just sour people to seeing the movie. No idea how this will play out though.



Souring is much more likely an issue than a boycott, yeah.

If a lot of people are kind of pissed off with WotC, even if mildly, when that comes out, they may decide not to go and see it, and may knock on to others who they would have invited along and so on.

There are people who will certainly not be discouraged, and many who will never hear about the issue, but souring could make an appreciable difference to the bottom line, especially if there are strong alternatives on at the same time.


----------



## Cadence

Pondering the old FAQ #42 and the requirement of being a mandated reporter to WotC of what is made. (And a dream world where the server crashes when someone makes an easy app to report every single email and social media post that might hit the OGL):


*40. What if I'm writing an email message or using a very small amount of Open Game Content?*

Technically, you are still required to include a copy of the License text. In the real world however, you are unlikely to be sued by someone over the use of Open Game Content in an email message or other trivial use if you fail to do so.


----------



## darjr

There currently is a lot going on behind the scenes. One example are 3pp lawyers engaging WotC lawyers as we speak on this topic.

Is that subtle confirmation? I dunno cause I can’t share sources!!!! Weeeeee clunk.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Parmandur said:


> That's how the market works, basically. People buy stuff based on the appeal they see in front of them, not broad ideological points. Cool toys for my kids? Buy. Cool shirt? Buy.




I don't think that is always the case, especially in the gaming hobby. A lot of people factor in other things when they buy something. People will choose not to buy a shirt based on where it is manufactured for example, the conditions of the workers who manufacturer it, what political causes the company has taken positions on, etc. I am not saying you need to, or that everyone will, but it definitely appears to shape a lot of consumer decisions. And this is something that is going to impact a lot of people within the hobby itself (so it isn't just a vague ideological issue). 

That said I also think people will sometimes say one thing, but then do something else. So you may have a lot of noise around a product but people still quietly buy it. I would imagine though, at least in arenas like this one and other online places, it is going to be a contentious issue that is discussed a lot.


----------



## Cadence

Ruin Explorer said:


> Souring




Combining threads and pivoting to the game instead of the movie - is DMs souring the thing that matters more than players souring?


----------



## LordEntrails

Ruin Explorer said:


> WotC?
> 
> I haven't. They've not been in a position to do so. I don't know if I've ever heard WotC officially comment on a specific 3PP product at all, have you?



Ah, my bad. Since the thread is about DD1 and the OGL I thought you were referring to WotC and how they would enforce the new? parts of the OGL 1.1.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Knorrrssk said:


> Presumably this one:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TSR - The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR
> 
> 
> Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver.  As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2)...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.enworld.org




So ultimately they might actually win... by luring wotc into a restrictive OGL 1.1 which will have negative impact on wotc's good relatively good standing with the customers...

to clarify: the part about reporting the general content and denying on the base of certain content.


----------



## Greg Benage

Bedrockgames said:


> Also the OGL itself is something that earned WOTC so much good will from gamers, even to this day.



I gotta say, that's something that's never been in evidence to me! People complained that they wanted all restaurants to be Taco Bell, people complained when they released 3.5 that it tanked all the d20 System products, the retroclone publishers (and fans) generally took a "haha suck it, WotC" attitude to the whole thing, people howled about the GSL, people cheered and mocked when Paizo used the OGL to release _Pathfinder_ and eventually surpassed D&D in market share, people complained about the SRD 5's limited content...

In my experience, some people lionized Ryan Dancey et al, but the corporation never received any "goodwill" from the OGL. It became, if anything, a source of entitlement that generated an unending stream of PR headaches for twenty years.

And just to be clear, fork the corporation. But I wouldn't expect anyone wearing a suit at WotC or Hasbro to give two shirts about any supposed goodwill.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

darjr said:


> There is a note to be made here.
> 
> The original plan was to release the license yesterday. It seems they have not. I hope that means they are rethinking some of this. If it’s true.




Hmmh... mayby Crawford himself leaked the info.... and now he is telling the Hasbro bosses: "told you so"...


----------



## Bedrockgames

Greg Benage said:


> I gotta say, that's something that's never been in evidence to me! People complained that they wanted all restaurants to be Taco Bell, people complained when they released 3.5 that it tanked all the d20 System products, the retroclone publishers (and fans) generally took a "haha suck it, WotC" attitude to the whole thing, people howled about the GSL, people cheered and mocked when Paizo used the OGL to release _Pathfinder_ and eventually surpassed D&D in market share, people complained about the SRD 5's limited content...
> 
> In my experience, some people lionized Ryan Dancey et al, but the corporation never received any "goodwill" from the OGL. It became, if anything, a source of entitlement that generated an unending stream of PR headaches for twenty years.
> 
> And just to be clear, fork the corporation. But I wouldn't expect anyone wearing a suit at WotC or Hasbro to give two shirts about any supposed goodwill.




I guess my impression is different. I am not saying they were never criticized. I remember all those things as well (especially the anger when 3.5 was announced) but I would point out that part of the issue with 4E was the license change (obviously disagreements over the system mattered a lot too). But I do remember people being glad that WOTC had effectively saved D&D. I remember those last few years of TSR and they were not pleasant. When they went under it really looked like we wouldn't have D&D anymore. And WOTC not only issued the OGL, but brought back things people liked about the game that they had been missing (initially there was a back to the dungeon attitude, the return of half orcs, etc). Not saying it has all been roses. But I think a lot of people who have been critical of WOTC, and I include myself there, have appreciated the OGL and their role in it (and I would say it has definitely moderated my opinion about them quite a bit).


----------



## Random Task

Cadence said:


> Edit: Jump to We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions! for a link to a Gizmodo article backing them up.
> ------
> 
> 
> Here's what they (apparently) posted on Reddit.  Haphazardly time-skipping through the video showed me no reason to give them clicks.  (Please correct if I missed something - like, by giving a timestamp to go to).
> 
> View attachment 271280



That last paragraph about being receiving bad PR and community pushback clearly shows this isn't legitimate.


----------



## overgeeked

I’d quote the Good Place but that might be seen as trying to avoid the profanity ban. If ever there was a time for profanity, it’s now.

Whatever tiny sliver of hope there was this was a troll is basically gone. I can believe WotC is this short-sighted, greedy, and stupid. I can’t believe people are still defending and cheerleading WotC.

Critical Role is going to be hard to watch. They’re already borderline for this long-time fan with their endless stream of merch and ads. I guess we’ll see where they really are, morally, when this is all official. Here’s to hoping people get together and mke a legally distinct but close enough version of D&D and CR switches to that.

Ugh. Just ugh.


----------



## kenada

The author of the Gizmodo article has a tweet where she is responding to questions about the OGL 1.1.


----------



## Art Waring

overgeeked said:


> Critical Role is going to be hard to watch. They’re already borderline for this long-time fan with their endless stream of merch and ads. I guess we’ll see where they really are, morally when this is all official. Here’s to hoping people get together and mke a legally distinct but close enough version of D&D and CR switches to that.



You never know though, CR could (hopefully) do something positive based on the worsening perception of the 1.1 OGL, they haven't made a statement yet. More than anyone else, CR is in the best position to effect a change, because they don't need wotc, the have their own platforms and they draw people to d&d, not the other way around.


----------



## Greg Benage

BTW, they've decided to go with "Licensed Content" as the replacement term for "Open Game Content." I still think they're missing a golden trolling opportunity by not calling it "One System Rules."


----------



## Morrus

I've posted an article summarsing the current situation as best I can at present:









						The OGL -- Just What's Going On?
					

D&D fandom is in uproar again about purported upcoming changes to the Open Gaming License, and rumours are flooding social media regarding WotC's intentions to 'de-authorize' the existing Open Gaming License in favour of a new one.    What's the OGL? The Open Gaming License is a share-a-like...




					www.enworld.org


----------



## mamba

Greg Benage said:


> In my experience, some people lionized Ryan Dancey et al, but the corporation never received any "goodwill" from the OGL. It became, if anything, a source of entitlement that generated an unending stream of PR headaches for twenty years.



I am not so sure about that, I certainly had some goodwill towards them. That is not the same as agreeing with everything they do, but certainly being more open/ forgiving

Is the opposite then also true, since there was no goodwill from it, nothing changes now either when the OGL disappears?


----------



## Greg Benage

mamba said:


> Is the opposite then also true, since there was no goodwill from it, nothing changes now either when the OGL disappears?



Oh, heck no. As the whole history of the OGL (RIP) has proven, it's much easier to generate ill will than goodwill.


----------



## Bedrockgames

overgeeked said:


> I’d quote the Good Place but that might be seen as trying to avoid the profanity ban. If ever there was a time for profanity, it’s now.
> 
> Whatever tiny sliver of hope there was this was a troll is basically gone. I can believe WotC is this short-sighted, greedy, and stupid. I can’t believe people are still defending and cheerleading WotC.
> 
> Critical Role is going to be hard to watch. They’re already borderline for this long-time fan with their endless stream of merch and ads. I guess we’ll see where they really are, morally, when this is all official. Here’s to hoping people get together and mke a legally distinct but close enough version of D&D and CR switches to that.
> 
> Ugh. Just ugh.




It has been a very odd ride. When I first heard the leak, it looked legit. Then there were questions, and it seemed legitimate concerns raised, but now it appears confirmed. And doesn't look like good news.


----------



## Cadence

Is there someway to work a crackdown on streamers who make big $$$ on this?  (Fan policy has to be free, 1.1 doesn't cover it..)


----------



## Tazawa

Alzrius said:


> What's particularly odd is that, according to Gizmodo, the royalty percentage is only 20% for Kickstarter, and is 25% for other crowdfunding platforms. Why is WotC trying to funnel the crowdfunding of third-party content toward Kickstarter? Because they think they can get more royalty revenue that way?




Maybe because they have an agreement with Kickstarter to not allow OGL 1.0a content? It would not surprise me if WOTC is trying to control the distribution channels.

How does this affect OneBookshelf? They have a very large amount of OGL 1.0a content available outside of DMs Guild. Will they be forced to stop selling it if they want to retain the DMs Guild license? Will the DMs Guild license get yanked and moved to DnD Beyond?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Tazawa said:


> How does this affect OneBookshelf? They have a very large amount of OGL 1.0a content available outside of DMs Guild. Will they be forced to stop selling it if they want to retain the DMs Guild license? Will the DMs Guild license get yanked and moved to DnD Beyond?



Oh god that's excitingly new and horrifying angle to this.


----------



## Scribe

Tazawa said:


> Maybe because they have an agreement with Kickstarter to not allow OGL 1.0a content? It would not surprise me if WOTC is trying to control the distribution channels.




So a 'if we cannot remove the 1.0 OGL, good luck with your next 'Million Dollar Kickstarter'' ?

Corporations are so _gross_.


----------



## darjr

I think older stuff is safe? Maybe?


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

bedir than said:


> Owen's thread doesn't indicate a new source. His info could all be from the same person that the circular squad is using.
> 
> Real, credible journalism on this leak would have indicators of sourcing such that the potential sources could be differentiated.



I have other sources, who aren't going public, unrelated to Mark and Stephen. There are clear signs they are getting their info from a different source and that it corroborates (and predates) rather than duplicates what Mark and Stephen have.
To be honest, it freaks me out. I still find this fantastically difficult to think it what is, for sure, happening.
So I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything other than: this isn't a single source or a ratings stunt.


----------



## Alzrius

Ruin Explorer said:


> Oh god that's excitingly new and horrifying angle to this.



That's right. I was assuming that stuff already published under the OGL v1.0a would be "grandfathered in" somehow, allowing them to continue to be sold even after the OGL v1.0a was revoked...but on reviewing the Gizmodo article, there's nothing that says that. Conceivably, _any_ existing OGL v1.0a products could be cited for using a no-longer-valid license, with WotC telling their publishers to cease selling them. In which case, PDF products would need to be yanked.

Of course, I doubt WotC would go that far...but I also doubted they'd try to kill the OGL v1.0a in the first place, and yet here we are.


----------



## darjr

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> I have other sources, who aren't going public, unrelated to Mark and Stephen. There are clear signs they are getting their info from a different source and that it corroborates (and predates) rather than duplicates what Mark and Stephen have.
> To be honest, it freaks me out. I still find this fantastically difficult to think it what is, for sure, happening.
> So I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything other than: this isn't a single source or a ratings stunt.



More sources.

Thank you for posting.


----------



## Ondath

darjr said:


> I think older stuff is safe? Maybe?



Since 1.0a is perpetual, I don't think they can cease the publication of old content. But I'm really confused about what will happen with new content for companies using OGL v1.0a. Does this mean Paizo can't publish a new PF2 rulebook starting one week, or does this stop from publishing a new version such as Pathfinder 3E, or a completely new game like Modernfinder?


----------



## Glade Riven

Jack Daniel said:


> That all hinges on whether they can in fact "de-authorize" v1.0(a), which is a very open question at this point.
> 
> Sure, WotC can try and _say_ that it's been de-authorized and supplanted by v1.1… but can they actually stop anyone who wants to publish under v1.0a from pretending that v1.1 simply doesn't exit?



There is a thing (at least under US law) which is implied agreement (example 1: courts assume that if you are using software, you are agreeing to the terms of service to use the software; example 2: banks changing their TOS with customers and ending the notification with "if you disagree with these changes, you have until _X_ date to close your account). So if you publish under OGL 1.1 you automatically agree that 1.1 replaces 1.0a.


----------



## S'mon

Glade Riven said:


> There is a thing (at least under US law) which is implied agreement (example 1: courts assume that if you are using software, you are agreeing to the terms of service to use the software; example 2: banks changing their TOS with customers and ending the notification with "if you disagree with these changes, you have until _X_ date to close your account). So if you publish under OGL 1.1 you automatically agree that 1.1 replaces 1.0a.




Yes, don't publish under 1.1 if you don't want to be bound by it!


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Ondath said:


> Does this mean Paizo can't publish a new PF2 rulebook starting one week [from now]



That seems to be what it means, yes.

Re: future games, Paizo would need to find a different licence, or not use a licence at all.


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

MockingBird said:


> Is no one in the WotC offices saying "I don't think this is a good idea boss"?



Well, there are people who left WotC last year.
But it kinda doesn't matter. It's a massive corporation. I am sure lots of voices are saying it's a bad idea. But if those people aren't in charge, they can't stop it.


----------



## Branduil

The issue is not just how bad attempting to destroy the OGL 1.0a would be(it's obviously extremely bad), but that they're essentially setting fire to the entire community and proving themselves completely untrustworthy in all future contractual dealings. You can't unring that bell-- if they're willing to wage war to destroy the OGL, nothing else they say or claim in the future can be trusted either. It's monumentally stupid and self-destructive, in a way that's far worse than the GSL was.


----------



## Jack Daniel

Glade Riven said:


> There is a thing (at least under US law) which is implied agreement (example 1: courts assume that if you are using software, you are agreeing to the terms of service to use the software; example 2: banks changing their TOS with customers and ending the notification with "if you disagree with these changes, you have until _X_ date to close your account). So if you publish under OGL 1.1 you automatically agree that 1.1 replaces 1.0a.






S'mon said:


> Yes, don't publish under 1.1 if you don't want to be bound by it!




Obviously. But the question at hand is whether publishing under 1.0 can implicitly bind you to 1.1 (and more to the point, whether publishing under 1.0 _after 1.1 has been released_ can do so).


----------



## mamba

Jack Daniel said:


> Obviously. But the question at hand is whether publishing under 1.0 can implicitly bind you to 1.1 (and more to the point, whether publishing under 1.0 _after 1.1 has been released_ can do so).



no, it cannot. Worst case (which also us where this is headed) you cannot publish anything new under 1.0


----------



## dbolack

Remathilis said:


> You can thank NU-TSR for that.



I mean, the only major D20STL revocation I can recall does more than a bit to support that statement.

FauxSR didn't help.


----------



## dbolack

Jack Daniel said:


> That all hinges on whether they can in fact "de-authorize" v1.0(a), which is a very open question at this point.
> 
> Sure, WotC can try and _say_ that it's been de-authorized and supplanted by v1.1… but can they actually stop anyone who wants to publish under v1.0a from pretending that v1.1 simply doesn't exit?



Regardless of whether or not they can unilaterally declare it unauthorized ( including for contracts they aren't a party of?! ) they can indeed press you to agree it is unauthorized in a follow-up contract. My


----------



## Alzrius

Interesting bit regarding why the royalty fee is lower for Kickstarter than for other crowdfunding platforms:


----------



## Greg Benage

"Advocating for creators" + "doing whatever we can to keep big D&D releases on Kickstarter so we can still get our own 5%"


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Alzrius said:


> Interesting bit regarding why the royalty fee is lower for Kickstarter than for other crowdfunding platforms:



Well that's another very strong confirmation here, given Ritter works for Kickstarter and has clearly seen this thing.


----------



## Ondath

Ruin Explorer said:


> That seems to be what it means, yes.
> 
> Re: future games, Paizo would need to find a different licence, or not use a licence at all.c



That is actually insane.


----------



## mhd

Hope that if that happens, some of the currently OGL-d non-D&D games switch to something better, like Fudge or OpenD6.

Oh boy, could this get Chaosium complete control over BRP again?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Ondath said:


> That is actually insane.



Right? But that's really what it appears to mean.

It's not permanent. But anything new would need to use no licence or a new licence, so there'd be quite a delay, and you'd probably want to republish everything under the new licence, if that's even possible (I think it would be?), which could be quite burdensome.

Hence this is pretty good leverage for forcing Paizo into some kind of better deal.


----------



## BRayne

Art Waring said:


> You never know though, CR could (hopefully) do something positive based on the worsening perception of the 1.1 OGL, they haven't made a statement yet. More than anyone else, CR is in the best position to effect a change, because they don't need wotc, the have their own platforms and they draw people to d&d, not the other way around.


----------



## Art Waring

BRayne said:


> View attachment 271353



That's quite interesting thank you for posting it!


----------



## Greg Benage

BRayne said:


> View attachment 271353



I'm not sure I agree with the claim, but I really hope Mercer believes it.


----------



## Tazawa

How does WOTC asserting that OGL 1.0a is no longer an authorized version affect open game content released under 1.0a?

Does it mean that creators of that content are no longer bound by that license?

Can they ‘close’ their game content and proceed to develop game content derived from their formerly open content?

Could they open up this new content under a different open license?


----------



## GMSkarka

Given that the list of non-D&D rules systems released under OGL1.0a is pretty long (Runequest BRP, Mongoose Traveller, D6, FATE, etc.), any "de-authorizing" of that license is going throw some major wrenches into the works.


----------



## mhd

Legal inception: Is a there a copyright on a license, i.e. could people just create the Open Shmaming License, with the revocation clauses removed, so that previous licensor not tainted by D&D OGC could just move on?


----------



## overgeeked

Greg Benage said:


> I'm not sure I agree with the claim, but I really hope Mercer believes it.



It's certainly not the best game out there, but I'd argue that it's mostly name recognition. Which Mercer himself is at least in part responsible for.


----------



## God

LOL.

WotC can eat a bag of ________.


----------



## dbolack

Greg Benage said:


> My guess is that it's just risk mitigation. They're more confident they'd be able to collect their share from products released through Kickstarter. But I'm just speculating.



I'm thinking a backdoor contract between them.


----------



## Greg Benage

dbolack said:


> I'm thinking a backdoor contract between them.



I don't think it's "backdoor" -- I think Hasbro is making all the big guys offers they can't refuse. But Mercer liking that tweet at least suggests, even if it's some wishcasting on my part, that he might be inclined to refuse anyway.


----------



## Random Task

BRayne said:


> View attachment 271353



I unfortunately don't believe that. The OGL was a tactical error that allowed Paizo to grow and flourish using familiar D&D IP. D&D now doesn't need the OGL and all the D20 come along games and third party stuff to be successful. I don't think D&D 5th edition took off because of the OGL. 

Similarly Chaosium would be better off having published Delta Green as a branch of Call of Cthulhu, and not allowed it to go off and make someone else successful while being hard to distinguish system and background wise from CoC.


----------



## Scribe

Greg Benage said:


> I don't think it's "backdoor" -- I think Hasbro is making all the big guys offers they can't refuse. But Mercer liking that tweet at least suggests, even if it's some wishcasting on my part, that he might be inclined to refuse anyway.



Which tweet? EDIT: NM saw it, fast threads.


----------



## DarkCrisis

God said:


> LOL.
> 
> WotC can eat a bag of ________.



Dice!


----------



## Greg Benage

Random Task said:


> I don't think D&D 5th edition took off because of the OGL.



There wasn't even an SRD when it took off.


----------



## Jack Daniel

mamba said:


> no, it cannot. Worst case (which also us where this is headed) you cannot publish anything new under 1.0




But again, what could compel that? If I don't agree to v1.1 — if I just act like v1.1 doesn't exist and go about my merry way publishing under v1.0 — what could stop me?

Clearly, the company to watch in the coming days will be Paizo. They're the biggest fish in what is still basically the retro-clone pond (regardless of PF2e's status as a new game). If Paizo doesn't want to accept any new version of the license or enter into any new agreements or contracts with WotC, what could possibly stop _them_ from continuing to publish PF2e material under the OGL v1.0a forever?

I can't think of a single thing that would accomplish that (without litigation, of course).


----------



## dbolack

Morrus said:


> I've posted an article summarsing the current situation as best I can at present:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The OGL -- Just What's Going On?
> 
> 
> D&D fandom is in uproar again about purported upcoming changes to the Open Gaming License, and rumours are flooding social media regarding WotC's intentions to 'de-authorize' the existing Open Gaming License in favour of a new one.    What's the OGL? The Open Gaming License is a share-a-like...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.enworld.org



That status change... new?


----------



## mamba

Jack Daniel said:


> But again, what could compel that? If I don't agree to v1.1 — if I just act like v1.1 doesn't exist and go about my merry way publishing under v1.0 — what could stop me?



WotC's lawyers


----------



## MockingBird

Does this make anyone else not want to participate in the playtest?


----------



## Vaalingrade

MockingBird said:


> Does this make anyone else not want to participate in the playtest?



Yeah, makes any help you give them feel a lot like being the accomplice in what could be the ruining of many, many lives.


----------



## Scribe

MockingBird said:


> Does this make anyone else not want to participate in the playtest?




Oh 100%. I'm sitting here reading all this, just going.


----------



## Cadence

Even if WotC were to come out and say "we reconsidered", it feels like unless there's a court decision saying it's irrevocable or a 1.0b* that's just like 1.0a except with irrevocable, that it would be silly for anyone not to think this 1.1 wasn't right around the next management-change corner?

*Not that the new things coming up from WotC have to be under it, just that all the old stuff doesn't go away.


----------



## Ondath

MockingBird said:


> Does this make anyone else not want to participate in the playtest?



I recorded a podcast episode where I played the playtest with a few friends. Even if the episode gets published, only a small portion of it will be on the playtest itself and most of it will be on the OGL.


----------



## overgeeked

MockingBird said:


> Does this make anyone else not want to participate in the playtest?



It wasn't a play test to begin with, but it makes me want to participate in the surveys even more.


----------



## Alzrius

Cadence said:


> Even if WotC were to come out and say "we reconsidered", it feels like unless there's a court decision saying it's irrevocable or a 1.0b* that's just like 1.0a except with irrevocable, that it would be silly for anyone not to think this 1.1 wasn't right around the next management-change corner?
> 
> *Not that the new things coming up from WotC have to be under it, just that all the old stuff doesn't go away.



Yeah. Casting doubt on the perpetual viability of the OGL v1.0a that was heretofore unquestioned is already a degree of damage that won't be easily undone.


----------



## dbolack

Random Task said:


> I unfortunately don't believe that. The OGL was a tactical error that allowed Paizo to grow and flourish using familiar D&D IP. D&D now doesn't need the OGL and all the D20 come along games and third party stuff to be successful. I don't think D&D 5th edition took off because of the OGL.




The only tactical error that was made with the OGL, from a money-grubbing perspective, was not binding it to the D20 STL. This would have prevented Pathfinder but allowed most everything else.



Random Task said:


> Similarly Chaosium would be better off having published Delta Green as a branch of Call of Cthulhu, and not allowed it to go off and make someone else successful while being hard to distinguish system and background wise from CoC.




I'm not sure what you're going for here.


----------



## Random Task

dbolack said:


> Random Task said:
> Similarly Chaosium would be better off having published Delta Green as a branch of Call of Cthulhu, and not allowed it to go off and make someone else successful while being hard to distinguish system and background wise from CoC.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what you're going for here.



Allowing strong competitors using your IP is not the best thing for your business. See also the IBM PC and the Mac clone era.


----------



## Staffan

Greg Benage said:


> I don't think it's "backdoor" -- I think Hasbro is making all the big guys offers they can't refuse. But Mercer liking that tweet at least suggests, even if it's some wishcasting on my part, that he might be inclined to refuse anyway.



I believe the people to talk to, at least formally, would be Travis Willingham and Marisha Ray as CEO and Creative Director, respectively. Matt Mercer may run the *game*, but not the company.


----------



## tomBitonti

So, I’m finding the text re: Revoking the prior license to be confusing.

The problem that I’m having is the appearance of a factual declaration in a license agreement.  Then I have two problems.  First, the contents of the license are conditional.  Would that, bizarrely, make the de-authorization a fact only for those who accepted the new license?  Second, the statement is not of the form of an agreeable proposition.  For example, “the licensee agrees to cease use of prior versions” is an agreeable proposition.  (“Agreeable” meaning can make an agreement over.  Not, “pleasant”.)

My best “logical” sense is that a ”de-authorization” of one of the license versions would have to be done directly by the License issuer as an independent statement.

Absent a clear definition of “authorized” and absent clearly defined steps to change the “authorization” state of a license version, the word appears vacuous.  Can such a momentous consequence (the prevention of the use of earlier versions) be tied to it?

To be clear, what is being attempted seems clear.  And lots of folks, myself included, pointed to “authorized” as a possible problem point.  I’m just having a problem with the “how it is being done”-ness.

TomB


----------



## dbolack

Random Task said:


> Allowing strong competitors using your IP is not the best thing for your business. See also the IBM PC and the Mac clone era.



Pagan wasn't exactly a strong competitor when they started Delta Green. For that matter, neither was Chaosium. And Greg just wasn't that kinda dude.


----------



## Ondath

While not exactly Critical Role themselves, Aabria Iyengar, who was the DM for the spinoff campaign Exandria Unlimited and appears in multiple actual play shows (including Dimension 20) tweeted this:


This is giving me hope that the bigger AP folks are actually not very happy with OGL v1.1, which might be the only group with enough influence to make WotC reconsider.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

overgeeked said:


> It wasn't a play test to begin with, but it makes me want to participate in the surveys even more.



Make use of the free text commentary to express that revoking the OGL would have an impact on you reception of One D&D


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Ondath said:


> While not exactly Critical Role themselves, Aabria Iyengar, who was the DM for the spinoff campaign Exandria Unlimited and appears in multiple actual play shows (including Dimension 20) tweeted this:
> 
> 
> This is giving me hope that the bigger AP folks are actually not very happy with OGL v1.1, which might be the only group with enough influence to make WotC reconsider.



Aabria and Brennan just announced a new non-D&D actual play show in late December, which feels suggestive.


----------



## overgeeked

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Abriya and Brennan just announced a new non-D&D actual play show in late December, which feels suggestive.



Worlds Beyond Number.


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

Greg Benage said:


> I'm not sure I agree with the claim, but I really hope Mercer believes it.



That claim was a big part of why the OGL was originally created. The belief, espoused by Ryan Dancey in particular, that "network externalities" drove the popularity of D&D.
It was discussed a lot on the "Gentleman's Agreement" pre-3.0 OGL discussion email group in 1999, which I was part of.
The idea was that more people knowing D&D rules meant more people played D&D. And, therefore, if you could make those rules even MORE commonly known, the biggest company with the biggest market share (WotC) would be the one that benefits the most from network growth.


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

Jack Daniel said:


> But again, what could compel that? If I don't agree to v1.1 — if I just act like v1.1 doesn't exist and go about my merry way publishing under v1.0 — what could stop me?



First, a Cease and Desist.
Then, a lawsuit Hasbro can afford, and you likely cannot.
("You" being any 3pp publisher of course, myself very much included.)


----------



## Greg Benage

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> That claim was a big part of why the OGL was originally created. The belief, espoused by Ryan Dancey in particular, that "network externalities" drove the popularity of D&D.



I'm very familiar, Owen, thanks. I haven't had a dog in the hunt for a long time, so I have no pressing urge to argue it either way. The fact that 5e became a pop culture phenomenon without an SRD even being released makes me much less confident than I would have been twenty years ago.


----------



## Stonesnake

Over the past 24 hours, several leaks have appeared concerning OGL 1.1 and how it will affect gamers and content creators. Unfortunately, many of people's worst fears might be coming true if this leaked OGL 1.1 is correct, so we decided to sit down with expert contract lawyer Alan L. Bushlow, Esq., to discuss this license and the possible future of One D&D and the hobby at large.

*Join us today at 5 pm EST to ask your questions LIVE!*


----------



## Random Task

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> The idea was that more people knowing D&D rules meant more people played D&D. And, therefore, if you could make those rules even MORE commonly known, the biggest company with the biggest market share (WotC) would be the one that benefits the most from network growth.



My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Random Task said:


> My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?



Me.

Just glancing over at my shelves, I have the full complement of Lazy DM books, Roll & Play: The Gamemaster's Fantasy Toolkit, Magical Industrial Revolution, The Dungeon Alphabet, The Monster Alphabet, The Stygian Library, Ptolus: City by the Spire, Ptolus: Secrets from the Delvers Guild, Ptolus: City of Adventure, Monsters of the City, The City Watch, Empire of the Ghouls, Monsters of the Underworld, Monsters of Feyland, Fey Encounters, Latin American Monsters, An Unexpected Wedding, Incantations, Adventures in Oz: Campaign Setting, Adventures in Oz: Beasts & Beings, and the complete run of Goodman Games' Original Adventures Revisited (those could probably exist under the new license, since they're a special agreement with WotC).

The WotC stuff I have out and available: PHB, MM, DMG, Xanathar's, Tasha's, Monsters of the Multiverse, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Tales from the Yawning Portal, Van Richten's, Strixhaven and Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.

This doesn't count what I've got in storage (less than I've got out -- I'm pretty minimalist nowadays), in PDF form or via D&D Beyond.

I DM for more than a dozen of folks, many of whom have started DMing as a result of our long-term campaign, generating lots more sales of WotC core books and supplements.

WotC is not losing out on money because of my third-party purchases. They don't have comparable material that I'm choosing not to buy. Likewise, they are not crowded out of the marketplace by the presence of these third party products. If they wanted to create a Jane Austen-inflected adventure, the existence of An Unexpected Wedding wouldn't even rate as a speed bump to them.

The presence of a vibrant third party scene helped bring me back to D&D. The loss of it would not suddenly mean I'd be buying Ravnica or Storm King's Thunder. I would just play with what I've got and do even more homebrew.

The OGL helps _everyone_ and expands the hobby. A gaming industry without it would be smaller and have a significantly smaller audience, along with a much smaller pool of designers for WotC to draw from.

Tightening up or shutting down open gaming is a stunningly stupid idea.


----------



## mamba

Random Task said:


> My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?



if they are not playing them, they are also not buying them


----------



## Morrus

mamba said:


> if they are not playing them, they are also not buying them



Now THAT is famously not true. The cliche of the gamer with shelves of unplayed games is a real thing.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Morrus said:


> Now THAT is famously not true. The cliche of the gamer with shelves of unplayed games is a real thing.



I not only buy new games regularly but when my fiancé moved into my house I realized I still had systems I purchased 20 years ago I have never played... and now re in storage


----------



## Nikosandros

Morrus said:


> Now THAT is famously not true. The cliche of the gamer with shelves of unplayed games is a real thing.



I promise I'm going to run an Imagine campaign. One day.


----------



## mamba

Morrus said:


> Now THAT is famously not true. The cliche of the gamer with shelves of unplayed games is a real thing.



touche, but still, that is not a lost sale for WotC, it's either the 3PP or nothing, and without the broad 3PP support I might not use 5e at all, that to me feels like its biggest advantage


----------



## Bedrockgames

Morrus said:


> Now THAT is famously not true. The cliche of the gamer with shelves of unplayed games is a real thing.




I am small potatoes but I hear this enough from people who buy my books to suspect it is broadly quite true. I've heard from RPG book collectors and from people who maybe want to play the game one day but have only just had a chance to read it (so the cliche with the shelves of unplayed game). One thing I will say though is even in the latter case, the read material often makes its way to the table in some form (even if it is just an idea for a type of encounter or something).


----------



## Slander

Random Task said:


> My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?



Spitballing, but 3PP likely affects churn rate more than acquisition. A lot of 3PP target GMs more than players. If WotC retains a GM because 3PP covers a topic WotC doesn't, it retains that GM plus all of that GMs players. Some portion of those players then become DnD GMs and the cycle continues. Is that enough to impact WotCs bottom line? They clearly think not.


----------



## Ondath

Random Task said:


> My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?



This is one way to look at it, but at the time it was designed, WotC really didn't see it that way. Ryan Dancey (the man behind the OGL) explained the rationale behind the OGL by saying that TSR had started competing with itself by releasing too many supplementary products (adventures, add-on rules, settings etc.). One benefit of the OGL for WotC would be off-loading the supplementary products to smaller third-party groups, and since all of these would still need the core rules to be used, D&D would benefit from being the biggest fish that uses the OGL while allowing more 3PPs to create stuff within its ecosystem.


----------



## Micah Sweet

I was.


Random Task said:


> My non professional idea would be that you're getting small publishers free riding off the bigger publisher. How many people are buying D&D in order to play amazing third party products?


----------



## Desdichado

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> That claim was a big part of why the OGL was originally created. The belief, espoused by Ryan Dancey in particular, that "network externalities" drove the popularity of D&D.
> It was discussed a lot on the "Gentleman's Agreement" pre-3.0 OGL discussion email group in 1999, which I was part of.
> The idea was that more people knowing D&D rules meant more people played D&D. And, therefore, if you could make those rules even MORE commonly known, the biggest company with the biggest market share (WotC) would be the one that benefits the most from network growth.



What Ryan Dancey likely did NOT anticipate was where we are now where multiple people are using the OGL to create D&D clones that people can buy and play without any reference to D&D itself as currently in print, however. Which is exactly why the OSRIC guy, who's name slips my mind, had to deal with hasslin' from WOTC at the time, because that wasn't at all what they wanted the OGL to do. The whole existence of the OSR who ignores 5e and in fact disparages it in many instances was not the intent of the OGL at all. I can imagine why WOTC isn't thrilled with the actual result as opposed to the theoretical one.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Desdichado said:


> I can imagine why WOTC isn't thrilled with the actual result as opposed to the theoretical one.



OSRIC gave birth to the OSR movement, which WotC has been influenced by and hired designers from that scene, all the while energizing a group of players who had largely already moved on to other games or had just gone back to playing their tattered old copies of TSR games. It also kept people playing what was functionally D&D during a time when 4E had driven a lot of people away, which made it easy for people like me to come back when the 5E ruleset was more to my liking.

"My feelings got hurt because the OSRIC guy said 1E was better than modern systems" is a very dumb rationale to make a business decision. I guess we should be glad they didn't buy a social media network, at least.


----------



## mamba

Desdichado said:


> What Ryan Dancey likely did NOT anticipate was where we are now where multiple people are using the OGL to create D&D clones that people can buy and play without any reference to D&D itself as currently in print, however. Which is exactly why the OSRIC guy, who's name slips my mind, had to deal with hasslin' from WOTC at the time, because that wasn't at all what they wanted the OGL to do. The whole existence of the OSR who ignores 5e and in fact disparages it in many instances was not the intent of the OGL at all. I can imagine why WOTC isn't thrilled with the actual result as opposed to the theoretical one.



I find it difficult to argue that the OGL caused D&D / WotC harm when you look at the market and how dominant D&D is


----------



## Micah Sweet

What I'm hung up on is, even very recently, WotC's line was that what they really cared about was people play D&D, in whatever form.  Now it seems they have contracted that desire.  A lot.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Micah Sweet said:


> What I'm hung up on is, even very recently, WotC's line was that what they really cared about was people play D&D, in whatever form.  Now it seems they have contracted that desire.  A lot.



There is no "WotC." There are people who work there. This all feels very much like two or three top execs who don't get the world of open source having a knee jerk reaction and the power to not listen to arguments to the contrary.


----------



## Micah Sweet

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> There is no "WotC." There are people who work there. This all feels very much like two or three top execs who don't get the world of open source having a knee jerk reaction and the power to not listen to arguments to the contrary.



Those execs are ruining it for the rest of us.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Micah Sweet said:


> Those execs are ruining it for the rest of us.



That's what execs do.


----------



## bedir than

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> I have other sources, who aren't going public, unrelated to Mark and Stephen. There are clear signs they are getting their info from a different source and that it corroborates (and predates) rather than duplicates what Mark and Stephen have.
> To be honest, it freaks me out. I still find this fantastically difficult to think it what is, for sure, happening.
> So I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything other than: this isn't a single source or a ratings stunt.



Thank you


----------



## Staffan

Desdichado said:


> What Ryan Dancey likely did NOT anticipate was where we are now where multiple people are using the OGL to create D&D clones that people can buy and play without any reference to D&D itself as currently in print, however.



Ryan Dancey is on record as saying that one of the purposes of the OGL was to make sure that if Wizards went under or made intolerable changes to D&D, the game would be able to go on anyway. Pathfinder was not an unintended consequence of the OGL, one of the purposes of the OGL was to enable that very thing.

Back in the day, there was a companion license to the OGL called the d20 System Trademark License which was much more restrictive. It allowed you to use the "d20 System" logo and to write something along the lines of "Requires the use of the D&D Player's Handbook" on your product (thereby claiming compatibility with D&D, something the OGL specifically disallows), and in exchange you had to follow a long list of rules. Among those rules were that you were not allowed to include the rules for creating or leveling up a character. You could have a class writeup, but you could not say "When you get so-and-so many XP, you gain a level and follow this procedure." In addition, the SRD did not include those rules, and nor did it (as I recall) include most other rules related to XP (such as how much XP you get for a level X encounter) – that, by the way, is why Pathfinder 1 has highly different XP tables from 3.5e and doesn't use the "level vs CR" system 3e used and instead awards a fixed number of XP based on CR, and adjusts the XP tables accordingly.

So the idea was that the SRD itself was extremely open. You could do pretty much anything with it. One of the FAQs was even "Could I publish the whole thing?" and the answer was "Sure. If you think someone would be willing to pay for it, you're more than welcome to try." (And I do believe someone did publish a "pocket SRD", basically just reprinting the SRD in a smaller and more portable format.) But if you wanted to use the d20 logo and the name "d20 system", you basically had to make your product a support product for D&D (or eventually d20 Modern).


----------



## Desdichado

Staffan said:


> Ryan Dancey is on record as saying that one of the purposes of the OGL was to make sure that if Wizards went under or made intolerable changes to D&D, the game would be able to go on anyway. Pathfinder was not an unintended consequence of the OGL, one of the purposes of the OGL was to enable that very thing.



Yes, yes, I remember, but we're not really talking about what Ryan Dancey and Peter Adkison wanted, we're talking with what the current management of WOTC thinks about it. After they struggled through the dominance of the OSR and Pathfinder competing head to head with 4e, I can imagine that they're not very happy with the actual result of the OGL. And although 5e has been pretty dominant, I doubt that the WOTC management sees Pathfinder or the OSR as actually helping grow D&D further.


----------



## Nikosandros

Staffan said:


> (And I do believe someone did publish a "pocket SRD", basically just reprinting the SRD in a smaller and more portable format.)



Yes, Mongoose did publish some pocket books. I remember that I had the pocket PHB, which was quite convenient at the gaming table.


----------



## Scribe

Micah Sweet said:


> What I'm hung up on is, even very recently, WotC's line was that what they really cared about was people play D&D, in whatever form.  Now it seems they have contracted that desire.  A lot.




The idea or claim that 'WotC' actually cares about anything they claim to, has been, and forever will be, lip service to avoid negative PR, and maximize profits.


----------



## Desdichado

New article on Gizmodo about the topic too: Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition


----------



## Cadence

Desdichado said:


> New article on Gizmodo about the topic too: Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition




Same as the one in post #343 (with link to it in post #3)?


----------



## jerryrice4949

Scribe said:


> The idea or claim that 'WotC' actually cares about anything they claim to, has been, and forever will be, lip service to avoid negative PR, and maximize profits.



This is beyond over simplistic.  I imagine many members and employees of WoTC care deeply about many things.  However what the CEO and shareholders care about may be different.


----------



## Sacrosanct

2022: LaNasa managed to have everyone rooting for the big bad corporation.  WotC had a lot of goodwill
2023: Wotc: "Well, we can't have that, can we!  Hold my beer!"


----------



## Scribe

jerryrice4949 said:


> This is beyond over simplistic.  I imagine many members and employees of WoTC care deeply about many things.  However what the CEO and shareholders care about may be different.



Hence the quote 'WoTC'.

Individual employees are probably just as pissed as a lot of folks, and feel bad for the people who are fearful for their income/jobs.

WotC? Does not care.


----------



## Desdichado

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> "My feelings got hurt because the OSRIC guy said 1E was better than modern systems" is a very dumb rationale to make a business decision. I guess we should be glad they didn't buy a social media network, at least.



Do you think anyone who ruined the profitability of Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, or Marvel Phase 4 had GOOD rationale's for doing so? Corporations are full of people, and lots of people are either stupid or brainwashed into cult-like behavior that isn't in their best interest. Happens every day.


----------



## Desdichado

Imagine finishing an epic campaign to have the plot twist that the BBEGs are some ex-Microsoft, soul-less executives and a team of lawyers who are suing you in real life for daring to play the game you want to instead of the way they want you to.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Desdichado said:


> Do you think anyone who ruined the profitability of Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, or Marvel Phase 4 had GOOD rationale's for doing so? Corporations are full of people, and lots of people are either stupid or brainwashed into cult-like behavior that isn't in their best interest. Happens every day.



I'm extremely confused if this post is a joke or sarcastic or not, because all four of the things you're saying had "ruined profitability" are extremely successful. I mean, you don't have to like it, but the figures speak for themselves. None of them are flops, and the same people who "ruined" Star Trek with Discovery (I guess?) made Strange New Worlds which is universally acclaimed.

Maybe get some actual examples?


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Ruin Explorer said:


> I'm extremely confused if this post is a joke or sarcastic or not, because all four of the things you're saying had "ruined profitability" are extremely successful. I mean, you don't have to like it, but the figures speak for themselves. None of them are flops, and the same people who "ruined" Star Trek with Discovery (I guess?) made Strange New Worlds which is universally acclaimed.
> 
> Maybe get some actual examples?



I wish the 'flops and failures' that people think big companies face on all my friends.

Batman V Superman
4e
Star Trek Discovery
The worst star wars film (YMMV)

I hope all of you ALSO suffer set backs and flops like those.


----------



## Desdichado

Ruin Explorer said:


> I'm extremely confused if this post is a joke or sarcastic or not, because all four of the things you're saying had "ruined profitability" are extremely successful. I mean, you don't have to like it, but the figures speak for themselves. None of them are flops, and the same people who "ruined" Star Trek with Discovery (I guess?) made Strange New Worlds which is universally acclaimed.
> 
> Maybe get some actual examples?



Losing half of your revenue movie to movie and destroying the profitability of your merchandise is "extremely successful?" Having ratings so low that they could be on the last level of a Gygaxian megadungeon is "extremely successful?" Yeah, the figures speak for themselves alright, and they say the exact opposite of what you think that they do.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Desdichado said:


> Losing half of your revenue movie to movie and destroying the profitability of your merchandise is "extremely successful?"



I mean, that didn't happen? So I'm not sure what you're saying here. That's not true of any of the franchises you're describing, and particularly excited to learn the metrics by which the "profitability" of Dr Who, a product made by the BBC, a non-profit corporation, is going to be measured. You can't just make up that things failed because you want them to fail lol.

I know Paramount+ is really feeling that destroyed profitability with Star Trek - oh wait - Paramount Streaming CEO Attributes Paramount+’s Success to Leveraging ’The Whole Household’ (Podcast)

Literally what are you talking about?


----------



## Greg K

For the lawyers, what is your opinion of this lawyer's reasoning that Hasbro cannot revoke the OGL 1.0a (except possibly after 35 years following 1.0a's release or if one accepts using the terms of 1.1) ?


----------



## pemerton

Greg K said:


> For the lawyers, what is your opinion of this lawyer's reasoning that Hasbro cannot revoke the OGL 1.0a (except possibly after 35 years following 1.0a's release or if one accepts using the terms of 1.1) ?



See @S'mon's post here: Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.


----------



## FrogReaver

Greg K said:


> For the lawyers, what is your opinion of this lawyer's reasoning that Hasbro cannot revoke the OGL 1.0a (except possibly after 35 years following 1.0a's release or if one accepts using the terms of 1.1) ?



Great video.  A little long but it's the definitive explanation of the situation.  *At least until we get the actual full text of the actual OGL 1.1.

That said, the risk factor of not having sure legal footing is probably going to be quite chilling for 3pp.

Also, someone really needs to make a text summary of this videos main points.


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

Desdichado said:


> What Ryan Dancey likely did NOT anticipate was where we are now where multiple people are using the OGL to create D&D clones that people can buy and play without any reference to D&D itself as currently in print, however. Which is exactly why the OSRIC guy, who's name slips my mind, had to deal with hasslin' from WOTC at the time, because that wasn't at all what they wanted the OGL to do. The whole existence of the OSR who ignores 5e and in fact disparages it in many instances was not the intent of the OGL at all. I can imagine why WOTC isn't thrilled with the actual result as opposed to the theoretical one.



Ryan did anticipate that, actually.
He just stated it could never hurt WotC sales because WotC would have to do 5 specific, obviously detrimental things WotC would never, ever do, all at once, for anyone to be able to create a game using the OGL that could bite into their customer base.
WotC then did all 5, at once, in 2008.


----------



## ersatzphil

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> Ryan did anticipate that, actually.
> He just stated it could never hurt WotC sales because WotC would have to do 5 specific, obviously detrimental things WotC would never, ever do, all at once, for anyone to be able to create a game using the OGL that could bite into their customer base.
> WotC then did all 5, at once, in 2008.



What were the five things?


----------



## Vaalingrade

Massive shift facing the entire industry, many people facing a serious threat to their careers and livelihoods.

"This is the perfect time to start a victory lap in celebration of a war from ten years ago!"

*Mod Edit:* watch the language, please.


----------



## sigfried

Maxperson said:


> I don't care how many sources they claim to have.  There's no way that was written by lawyers for WotC.



Why Max?  In life, when there are facts to be had, it's best to read them and then make the decision that makes the most sense, not the one you want to be true.

When Gizmodo got the same leak, they read about the special royalty rate for Kickstarter in the contract. They then contacted Kickstarter, who confirmed they'd negotiated that special rate.  Kickstarter is not owned or controlled by WOTC, they have no way to lie or any other way to know about that value unless they indeed negotiated it with WOTC.  And WOTC would not be negotiating with Kickstarter unless this contract not only existed but they were far along in getting ready to implement it.

The only conclusion that makes sense of those facts that the leaked contract and Kickstarter agree, is that it's the real deal.

The leak is legit.  Whether WOTC backpedals or not remains to be seen.  But WOTC has been fighting with magic players of late, and if you go ask them how responsive WOTC has been to their concerns, it will give you an idea of how likely they are to reverse direction on this.


----------



## Maxperson

sigfried said:


> Why Max?  In life, when there are facts to be had, it's best to read them and then make the decision that makes the most sense, not the one you want to be true.
> 
> When Gizmodo got the same leak, they read about the special royalty rate for Kickstarter in the contract. They then contacted Kickstarter, who confirmed they'd negotiated that special rate.  Kickstarter is not owned or controlled by WOTC, they have no way to lie or any other way to know about that value unless they indeed negotiated it with WOTC.  And WOTC would not be negotiating with Kickstarter unless this contract not only existed but they were far along in getting ready to implement it.
> 
> The only conclusion that makes sense of those facts that the leaked contract and Kickstarter agree, is that it's the real deal.



Or else there's another contract that has the real language.  Just because they're negotiating and a change is happening does not 1) make that claptrap legal writing by their lawyers, 2) mean the the change is even all that similar to what we see.  Any significant change would spark negotiations.

That release being the real language is not the only conclusion that makes sense, but hey, feel free to believe it if you want.


----------



## sigfried

ersatzphil said:


> What were the five things?



Speculation but...

1. Make a new and radically different rule set
2. Have that rule set be seen as worse than the competition
3. Stop using the open license for that rule set
4. Charge a price that is not competitive with the alternative
5. Stop supporting the old rule set

About the only thing they could add to that would be to totally change their branding (which they didn't do).


----------



## sigfried

Maxperson said:


> Or else there's another contract that has the real language.  Just because they're negotiating and a change is happening does not 1) make that claptrap legal writing by their lawyers, 2) mean the the change is even all that similar to what we see.  Any significant change would spark negotiations.
> 
> That release being the real language is not the only conclusion that makes sense, but hey, feel free to believe it if you want.



So how would the leakers know the terms of Kickstarter's negotiations if it wasn't in the contract?  

Why do you think the language isn't real?  Are you an expert in legal contract language?

*I'll point out a few things about contracts and lawyers*
1. Not all lawyers are good at their job
2. Lawyers make contracts based on their client's specifications, and stupid clients can make lawyers make stupid contracts
3. There is a strong movement among lawyers to write contracts in simple and plain language when possible under the philosophy that understanding of the law and contracts should be available to all. I can provide you links to this if you are interested.
4. WOTC has a well-established history of providing plain language contracts, even of including rather silly jokes in them.


----------



## kikai

Desdichado said:


> Imagine finishing an epic campaign to have the plot twist that the BBEGs are some ex-Microsoft, soul-less executives and a team of lawyers who are suing you in real life for daring to play the game you want to instead of the way they want you to.



like the ending of the Acquisitions Incorporated Storyline... I found it a bit weird, but now it looks a lot like foreshadowing


----------



## Maxperson

sigfried said:


> So how would the leakers know the terms of Kickstarter's negotiations if it wasn't in the contract?
> 
> Why do you think the language isn't real?  Are you an expert in legal contract language?
> 
> *I'll point out a few things about contracts and lawyers*
> 1. Not all lawyers are good at their job



As a paralegal, I'm well aware that some lawyers are bad at their job.  Even bad lawyers, though, had to pass the bar and and years of law school.  The errors bad lawyers make are typically omissions of things that should have been included, bad citations, accidental inclusion of wording from prior documents used as the base for the new document, and so on.  Even the bad lawyers aren't going to write something like the third paragraph there.

Contracts, even ones written in plain language, need to be very specific.  Vague writing like "...if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectional under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision."  I mean, what the hell does that even mean?  Not your guess mind you. Exactly what is the definition of "somehow stretch?" What is "too far?" What constitutes "pushback" or "bad PR?"  What does "open to being convinced" mean?

Judges and juries need exacting language and definitions in order to figure out who will prevail in contract dispute. Hell, even well written contracts can have language that might be found to be too vague, which is why contracts include a severability clause.


sigfried said:


> 2. Lawyers make contracts based on their client's specifications, and stupid clients can make lawyers make stupid contracts



Bad specifications, sure.  But they will still write those bad specifications in a much cleared manner than the claptrap from page 1.


sigfried said:


> 3. There is a strong movement among lawyers to write contracts in simple and plain language when possible under the philosophy that understanding of the law and contracts should be available to all. I can provide you links to this if you are interested.



Again, plain language =/= vague. Vague = dead contract.  What is written on page one isn't clear enough.


sigfried said:


> 4. WOTC has a well-established history of providing plain language contracts, even of including rather silly jokes in them.



I've seen a few of those.  Even those were, outside of the clear jokes, written much more precisely than what we see here.  What we see here isn't a joke.


----------



## Maxperson

Ruin Explorer said:


> WotC?
> 
> I haven't. They've not been in a position to do so. I don't know if I've ever heard WotC officially comment on a specific 3PP product at all, have you?
> 
> But I'm talking about the behaviour of large, family-friendly US corporations. They tend to have a bit of a blind spot for racism unless it falls into very distinct shapes. WotC are a great example here with the Hadozee stuff slipping past dozens of eyes, many of whom had received training in how to spot racist stuff. They didn't spot it in their own product. If there are dozens or hundreds of 3PPs coming out, how likely do you think it is they'll spot it? I think it's unlikely. I think they're much more likely to spot stuff that might conceivably seen as "sexualized", which to a large fraction of the West (probably a minority but still plenty) is merely existing as an LGBTQ+ person, and I think any products which are LGBTQ+ friendly in an obvious way will be hyper-scrutinised by people looking for an excuse to say "this isn't sufficiently kid-friendly, why are you allowing this WotC?!". And knowing large corporations, they'll likely ask for it to be pulled without properly considering what they're doing.



The Hadozee is a good example, though.  Even if they didn't spot it, as soon as someone did(and someone always will), then leapt into action and changed it. They changed orcs, Vistani and other things as well.  I don't see why they wouldn't leap into action against a 3rd party once someone told them about the racism.


----------



## S'mon

Desdichado said:


> What Ryan Dancey likely did NOT anticipate was where we are now where multiple people are using the OGL to create D&D clones that people can buy and play without any reference to D&D itself as currently in print, however. Which is exactly why the OSRIC guy, who's name slips my mind, had to deal with hasslin' from WOTC at the time, because that wasn't at all what they wanted the OGL to do. The whole existence of the OSR who ignores 5e and in fact disparages it in many instances was not the intent of the OGL at all. I can imagine why WOTC isn't thrilled with the actual result as opposed to the theoretical one.




Conversely, I buy a lot of OSR product and then run it using 5e rules. My players buy 5e books (real & virtual). IME OSR D&D supports 5e D&D. Eg I have OSR Stonehell, Barrowmaze and Arden Vul campaigns going, using 5e D&D rules. I also have a 5e Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign, which was written for 5e. Functionally all those 3PP adventures/campaigns have the same effect for WoTC, they drive sales of WoTC's books like the PHB, Xanathar's, and even the MM.


----------



## S'mon

sigfried said:


> *I'll point out a few things about contracts and lawyers*
> 1. Not all lawyers are good at their job
> 2. Lawyers make contracts based on their client's specifications, and stupid clients can make lawyers make stupid contracts




Too true. I remember talking with a TSR lawyer back in the mid '90s. He was tasked with stopping Internet sites from posting fan-created D&D content. Whether or not he truly believed that TSR 'owned' terms like AC and hit points, that's what he was told to say, and he did as instructed. House (employee) lawyers in particular will act on the instructions of their employer, no matter how stupid & irrational.


----------



## sigfried

Maxperson said:


> Contracts, even ones written in plain language, need to be very specific.  Vague writing like "...if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectional under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision."  I mean, what the hell does that even mean?  Not your guess mind you. Exactly what is the definition of "somehow stretch?" What is "too far?" What constitutes "pushback" or "bad PR?"  What does "open to being convinced" mean?



It is an explanation of the line, "You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues." 

These were contracts that were sent to third parties as part of an outreach to forwarn or negotiate. So they may well include explanatory text regarding the motivation of a given clause. It's basically saying, "Hey don't worry about this clause, we don't mean to screw you, we'd get in trouble if we did, so trust us that this isn't here so we can abuse you and you have no recourse."


----------



## Maxperson

sigfried said:


> It is an explanation of the line, "You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues."



It's not.  It's too vague to be an explanation. If that's really what they wrote, they lose if they try to enforce it.


----------



## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos

Is this possible: the text that was leaked is a preliminary version of the final product. It's a test balloon floated as part of a negotiation i.e. here's my initial proposal... now what's your counter-proposal? A bit of back and forth, then we have a final product. Maybe this leak occurred as a form of leverage: the hope being the negative PR towards WotC would tilt the table away from WotC's position.


----------



## S'mon

Ulorian - Agent of Chaos said:


> Is this possible: the text that was leaked is a preliminary version of the final product. It's a test balloon floated as part of a negotiation i.e. here's my initial proposal... now what's your counter-proposal? A bit of back and forth, then we have a final product. Maybe this leak occurred as a form of leverage: the hope being the negative PR towards WotC would tilt the table away from WotC's position.




I doubt it was deliberately leaked by WoTC.
I do think it very likely that the leaked text will never see the light of day as the final OGL 1.1. If I were WoTC I'd be in very intense internal discussions right now, considering all options including junking OGL 1.1 and starting over, likely with a _mea culpa_. Or they could go scorched-earth nuclear. We'll see.


----------



## S'mon

S'mon said:


> I doubt it was deliberately leaked by WoTC.
> I do think it very likely that the leaked text will never see the light of day as the final OGL 1.1. If I were WoTC I'd be in very intense internal discussions right now, considering all options including junking OGL 1.1 and starting over, likely with a _mea culpa*_. Or they could go scorched-earth nuclear. We'll see.




*Most likely I think is a blander statement "Following feedback from (3PPs), we have decided to revise the new licence to better meet the needs of all parties".


----------



## jgbrowning

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> There is no "WotC." There are people who work there. This all feels very much like two or three top execs who don't get the world of open source having a knee jerk reaction and the power to not listen to arguments to the contrary.




I'm getting that feeling as well although I have no confirmation. I mean...

"OCTOBER 4, 2022 PAWTUCKET, R.I.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–*Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS),* today announced *Dan Rawson* has joined Wizards of the Coast in a newly created role as Senior Vice President of _Dungeons & Dragons_. Mr. Rawson, formerly COO of Microsoft Dynamics 365,"

They just put an ex-microsoft exec into a _newly created_ role of Senior VP of D&D in early October.

joe b.


----------



## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos

S'mon said:


> I doubt it was deliberately leaked by WoTC.
> I do think it very likely that the leaked text will never see the light of day as the final OGL 1.1. If I were WoTC I'd be in very intense internal discussions right now, considering all options including junking OGL 1.1 and starting over, likely with a _mea culpa_. Or they could go scorched-earth nuclear. We'll see.



I meant leaked by someone to whom WotC distributed the draft version of the OGL.


----------



## Bagpuss

After reading that 



> Physical books and PDFs are the ONLY content covered in the OGL 1.1. “It does not allow for anything else, including but not limited to things like videos, virtual tabletops or VTT campaigns, computer games, novels, apps, graphics novels, music, songs, dances, and pantomimes."




Of course the immediate question I'm sure everyone was concerned about was what Dungeons and Dragons Pantomines they had missed under the OGL 1.0

So far I've found this one...









						Dungeons and Dragons the Panto! - Podvine
					

126 likes, 0 comments. This is the live recording that we made at Dragonmeet 2022 with Emily and Shamini of the RPGeeks podcast! It was a ton of fun to m..




					podvine.com


----------



## pemerton

EpicureanDM said:


> But the definition of Use relates to Derivative Material of Open Game Content, not Open Game Content itself.



I don't agree.

Use is relevantly defined as "use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content". I think the "otherwise" is referring to "otherwise than editing, formatting, modifying or translating". I don't think that it reaches all the way up the definition to govern "use", "Distribute" and "copy". Because (for instance) _copying_ OGC is not a mode of creating derivative material of the OGC, as best I'm aware.



EpicureanDM said:


> If the OGL's leaning in part on the U.S. Copyright Office's definitions of "derivative works", then the intent might be to allow licensees to only sublicense any Derivative Material (derivative work) that the licensee contributed to the OGC, excluding the OGC material contributed by WotC, i.e. the material in the SRD itself.



I assume it's drawing on the statutory definition of _derivative works_ where it uses that phrase: Chapter 1 - Circular 92 | U.S. Copyright Office

As far as the authority to sub-license is concerned, section 4 extends it to _the_ Open Game Content, which is not confined to the OGC that the licensee contributes (section 5 calls that out distinctly). At least, that's how it reads to me.



EpicureanDM said:


> The community has long held that OGL 1.0 and 1.0a licensees have the right to continue using the SRD (any version published under any prior version of the OGL) and - in the hypothetical I've been referencing - the ability to sublicense SRD content to which WotC holds the copyright. Maybe that's right, but has it ever been tested in court? WotC now seems like it's in the mood to do just that.



I believe there are cases on software open source licensing. I don't know what they say, nor what they tell us about the OGL v 1.0/1.0a.



EpicureanDM said:


> The hypothetical that sparked this part of the thread contemplated that an OGL 1.0a licensee could sublicense OGC found in the SRD in perpetuity, provided that the licensee had published SRD-based OGC prior to the "non-authorization" (to use your term) of the OGL 1.0a . That's the scenario I've been asking about, anyway.



My view is that WotC would somehow have to revoke the licensor's rights to sub-license to others. Given that those rights are contractually granted, I'm not really seeing how that would work. There's been some more discussion of this, through a contract law lens, in the "PSA" thread.

The best post there, in my view, is this one: Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.

That poster says the following:



bmcdaniel said:


> as a matter of contract law, an offeree is generally permitted to terminate an ongoing offer. I can imagine that WOTC could announce "no more licensees" under the OGL and a court might enforce that, but it would not affect the current licensees who have accepted the terms of the OGL. Its not clear as a practical matter WOTC would prove that someone has not previously accepted the terms of the OGL. Its also not clear how this would affect sub-licensees who take a license from an existing licensee.



I'm not able to take the analysis any further than this - @bmcdaniel is a better US contract lawyer than I am.


----------



## pemerton

S'mon said:


> Good search-fu there! I see myself from 2014 just below Marshall. I don't think my opinion has changed since 2014.



I noticed I got a friendly mention in your 2014 post! I remember our conversation about OSRIC gnolls.


----------



## Alzrius

S'mon said:


> IME OSR D&D supports 5e D&D.



I've seen that also. It's why "O5R" is a thing.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Maxperson said:


> The Hadozee is a good example, though.  Even if they didn't spot it, as soon as someone did(and someone always will), then leapt into action and changed it. They changed orcs, Vistani and other things as well.  I don't see why they wouldn't leap into action against a 3rd party once someone told them about the racism.



I mean, I don't agree that they "leapt into action" "as soon as someone [spotted it]". It'd been discussed at some length for some time and had got to the point where people were generally thinking "I guess WotC doesn't care" (and indeed a lot of people were suggesting they shouldn't care!) before WotC even acknowledged the issue. Once they did, they did a decent job. It helps that it was anti-Black racism, which is on the sort of racism that US corporations are better at at least _recognising_ (even if they often perpetuate it).

But it's a good example because it's a case of "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". That wheel was squeaking very loudly, and it was a WotC product.

With 3PPs, it's going to be a lot more complicated, because far less people are going to see any given product, and WotC's thing says "blatant racism", which is theoretically a pretty high bar. I'm not even sure the Hadozee would have reached that, though personally I think the minstrelsy stuff did take it there.

And my experience with corporations is that they're somewhat loathe to publicly call others "racists" (for obvious reasons, I hope). So unless a book is staggeringly obviously racism (i.e. "blatant racism"), they're probably not going to do anything about it. If it's just trading in stereotypes or unfortunate implications/language (which is kind of where the Vistani and Orcs were), I'm skeptical that they'll do anything. Maybe that's fine, but I think it means the whole commitment is a bit questionable. Further, it's quite likely more non-US forms of racism will go ignored because it doesn't immediately make sense, and US corporations and frankly American society in general, has an amazing history of not recognising anti-Native American racism. So I'm pretty skeptical about how that's going to actually work out. And I'm not saying it's not hard - it is! But that just means it's less likely to work out!

On the flip side, corporations have an equally long history, especially US ones, of freaking out about anything that people are telling them is "sexual". They freak out way more about that, than anything but the most severe racism or the like. And LGBTQ+ people are the main target of this. A significant minority of US society suggests merely being LGBTQ+ is a "sexual" thing - that's obviously hardly worth discussing it's such a given. Further there are organised groups actively seeking out LGBTQ+ material to criticise on these grounds. So I believe any LGBTQ+ work is going to get a lot of complaints made directly to WotC about it on those grounds. Those complaints may well not appear on social media, which will make it harder for people to say "That's unwarranted", and I think it's highly likely WotC will burn a few LGBTQ+ creators before realizing they're essentially being played. If they even realize that. There's also a lower bar for calling something "sexual" than calling something "racist", at least for corporations. I think that's wrong, but it's how it seems to work.

So hopefully you'll forgive my rather strong skepticism that this commitment is anything but a commitment to protect their brand, and my belief that it's unlikely to be consistent, fair, or well-handled.


----------



## Maxperson

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, I don't agree that they "leapt into action" "as soon as someone [spotted it]". It'd been discussed at some length for some time and had got to the point where people were generally thinking "I guess WotC doesn't care" (and indeed a lot of people were suggesting they shouldn't care!) before WotC even acknowledged the issue. Once they did, they did a decent job. It helps that it was anti-Black racism, which is on the sort of racism that US corporations are better at at least _recognising_ (even if they often perpetuate it).



I mean, their announcement came about 2 weeks after the release of the product.  It takes some time for it to be spotted and brought up.  Let's say a week.  Then a week for a corporation to hear about it, meet about it, come to a decision and then announce it is lightning fast.

Release date: 8-16-22
Announcement: 9-2-22

I understand about U.S. corporations  being hesitant historically to call out racism, but WotC doesn't seem to be shy about confronting it and they're getting much quicker.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Maxperson said:


> I mean, their announcement came about 2 weeks after the release of the product.  It takes some time for it to be spotted and brought up.  Let's say a week.  Then a week for a corporation to hear about it, meet about it, come to a decision and then announce it is lightning fast.
> 
> Release date: 8-16-22
> Announcement: 9-2-22



It was spotted either immediately on release, or perhaps even in printed copies that got out early. It didn't take "some time" for it to be spotted. So at a minimum we're talking the full two weeks.

But if you consider that lightning fast, cool I guess.


----------



## Maxperson

Ruin Explorer said:


> It was spotted either immediately on release, or perhaps even in printed copies that got out early. It didn't take "some time" for it to be spotted. So at a minimum we're talking the full two weeks.
> 
> But if you consider that lightning fast, cool I guess.



For a corporation? There are multiple levels that have to hear about it, meet about it(with very busy schedules), then come to a decision and arrange for it to be announced.  

My wife is in corporate upper management.  Once a decision to announce something has been made, the announcement has to be drafted, reviewed by multiple upper executives who with their corporate egos all have to contribute or change something(even if it's one word), then be finally approved by the top dog.

Even 3-4 weeks would have been quick.


----------



## mhd

jgbrowning said:


> They just put an ex-microsoft exec into a _newly created_ role of Senior VP of D&D in early October.



Wasn't October when Ray Winninger left, who, when at Mayfair had to fight some legal battles with TSR?


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Maxperson said:


> My wife is in corporate upper management. Once a decision to announce something has been made, the announcement has to be drafted, reviewed by multiple upper executives who with their corporate egos all have to contribute or change something(even if it's one word), then be finally approved by the top dog.



I work in a large corporate law firm, and whilst I totally agree on the sequence of events (indeed I described it in another thread), I will say, we manage to be a lot more responsive than that. Much more like "a week" or sometimes "2-3 days" than "3-4 weeks". But maybe being a lawfirm we're just good at this?


----------



## GMforPowergamers

mhd said:


> Wasn't October when Ray Winninger left, who, when at Mayfair had to fight some legal battles with TSR?



boss's life experience can effect an entire corp culture, and if one changes the other most assured will.


----------



## Maxperson

Ruin Explorer said:


> I work in a large corporate law firm, and whilst I totally agree on the sequence of events (indeed I described it in another thread), I will say, we manage to be a lot more responsive than that. Much more like "a week" or sometimes "2-3 days" than "3-4 weeks". But maybe being a lawfirm we're just good at this?



Most likely. As a paralegal I have to say that working with the often very tight and absolute deadlines that law offices deal with daily breeds the ability to get things done more efficiently. You have to. You also don't generally have 3-8(or more) other lawyers all dealing with the document and making changes.

On the other hand, if the deadline is months off, I've never seen a lawyer get something done more than a few days early, and very often working late the evening before to get it done.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Maxperson said:


> Most likely. As a paralegal I have to say that working with the often very tight and absolute deadlines that law offices deal with daily breeds the ability to get things done more efficiently. You have to.
> 
> On the other hand, if the deadline is months off, I've never seen a lawyer get something done more than a few days early, and very often working late the evening before to get it done.



it's funny how 1D&D has us all shareing our day jobs info... just interesting,


----------



## Desdichado

Ruin Explorer said:


> I mean, that didn't happen? So I'm not sure what you're saying here. That's not true of any of the franchises you're describing, and particularly excited to learn the metrics by which the "profitability" of Dr Who, a product made by the BBC, a non-profit corporation, is going to be measured. You can't just make up that things failed because you want them to fail lol.
> 
> I know Paramount+ is really feeling that destroyed profitability with Star Trek - oh wait - Paramount Streaming CEO Attributes Paramount+’s Success to Leveraging ’The Whole Household’ (Podcast)
> 
> Literally what are you talking about?



Dude... look at the box office for Force Awakens vs... whatever the last one was called. 50% fall-off. Look at the ratings for Star Trek. They're happy with those? Maybe. But they're a fraction of what they were during, say, Next Generation. Suggesting that the profitability of these properties hasn't completely cratered in the last few years is either idiotic, dishonest, or at least disingenuous, by cherry picking the box office, looking at it out of context and suggesting that it's good.

Or are you suggesting that Disney losing literally over $120 BILLION dollars in stock value in the last twelve months is a good result? Or are you suggesting that you can't look at their stock price and admit that that actually happened? Sure, sure... there were more factors there than the failure of Marvel Phase 4 and Star Wars and Disney+ generally (which was expected to do well because of the Marvel and Star Wars streaming shows), but they were big contributors nonetheless.


----------



## Desdichado

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> Ryan did anticipate that, actually.
> He just stated it could never hurt WotC sales because WotC would have to do 5 specific, obviously detrimental things WotC would never, ever do, all at once, for anyone to be able to create a game using the OGL that could bite into their customer base.
> WotC then did all 5, at once, in 2008.



And again, except even worse, in early 2023. 

I actually stopped playing D&D in 2008. I never moved into 4th or 5th edition, and became a gamer of other games. To date, I hadn't been very concerned one way or another what WotC did with 6e. From a personal standpoint, I guess that's still true, but to be honest with you, now I have hostile, malicious interest in what WotC does with D&D. I actively hope to watch them crash, burn, and cry about how everyone is terrible for moving on from what they're doing, because it's totally not their fault. Then I'll point and laugh. I hope that there's a whole ecosystem on discord and youtube and elsewhere of people who gleefully point out every failure in excruciating detail.

I've gradually developed the same attitude towards LucasFilm, among other players in the entertainment industry. But WotC has been very quickly going down the same path, where they have turned apathetic and disinterested former fans into actively angry anti-fans who want to watch them fail while munching on popcorn.

That's the legacy of 6e for at least one subset of the fandom. And while I don't pretend like my attitude is a majority, it's a not insignificant plurality, and it is likely bigger than WotC thinks it is.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Desdichado said:


> But they're a fraction of what they were during, say, Next Generation. Suggesting that the profitability of these properties hasn't completely cratered in the last few years is either idiotic, dishonest, or at least disingenuous, by cherry picking the box office, looking at it out of context and suggesting that it's good.



Look at _any_ ratings over that timespan. Shows that would be on the bubble in 1992 would be a shocking runaway hit of 2023. Comparing streaming numbers to broadcast numbers from decades ago is also cherry-picking.


----------



## Desdichado

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Look at _any_ ratings over that timespan. Shows that would be on the bubble in 1992 would be a shocking runaway hit of 2023. Comparing streaming numbers to broadcast numbers from decades ago is also cherry-picking.



Are you suggesting that you can't adjust for that? Or merely that you don't know how to do so? Even so, the ratings are lower _in the context of relatively depressed ratings_ than their predecessors.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots

Desdichado said:


> Are you suggesting that you can't adjust for that? Or merely that you don't know how to do so?



I'm suggesting, weirdly aggressive dude, that you are making an apples to oranges comparison when you make an un-caveated argument.


----------



## Umbran

Desdichado said:


> Suggesting that the profitability of these properties hasn't completely cratered in the last few years is either idiotic, dishonest, or at least disingenuous, by cherry picking the box office, looking at it out of context and suggesting that it's good.




*Mod Note:*
Arguments of the form, "You need to be mentally deficient or dishonest to not agree with me," are insulting, and not welcome on these boards, or in this discussion.  So, you are no longer part of this disucssion.

Treat people better.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

*redactited* I wont tag somone that is booted from the thread


----------



## Owen K.C. Stephens

Desdichado said:


> Dude... look at the box office for Force Awakens vs... whatever the last one was called. 50% fall-off.



Attack of the Clones has made 302 mil, worldwide, since 2002. That's 500 mil in 2023 dollar.
Rise of Skywalker has made 515 mil worldwide since 2019.
When you have making half-billion dollar movies, yes, you are happy anytime the last one you made didn't gross less (adjusted for inflation, even) than several previous entries.


----------



## S'mon

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> Attack of the Clones has made 302 mil, worldwide, since 2002. That's 500 mil in 2023 dollar.
> Rise of Skywalker has made 515 mil worldwide since 2019.
> When you have making half-billion dollar movies, yes, you are happy anytime the last one you made didn't gross less (adjusted for inflation, even) than several previous entries.




I really don't think Disney are happy that Rise of Skywalker made half the gross that The Force Awakens made. Maybe if the situation were reversed - TFA had made half as much as RoS - they'd be happy. That's just human psychology. People like to see things going up, not down.
And these films had similar budgets. From what I know of Hollywood blockbuster economics, you typically break even around $0.5 billion, while $1 billion is a lot of profit to Disney. The new Avatar reportedly needed $1 billion to break even, but that's unusual. Solo: A Star Wars Story apparently grossed $393 million. With a $275-300 million budget it needed around $550 million at the box office to break even, hence is considered a flop. Total life time income of a film (not just box office) needs to be around 2.5 or so times the production budget to break even. Possibly more, if the income comes mostly from overseas markets like China where the producers take a smaller chunk of the gross.


----------



## Nikosandros

I think that the 1B figure for Avatar includes a sizable part of the expenses for (some of) the sequels. IIRC, A3 is in post-production, A4 is in shooting and A5 is in pre-production.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Desdichado said:


> That's the legacy of 6e for at least one subset of the fandom. And while I don't pretend like my attitude is a majority, it's a not insignificant plurality, and it is likely bigger than WotC thinks it is.




That is a terrible attitude in general. No matter how someone screws up, retaliating with nothing but malicious joy is surely not the right way to do.
There are many people's life affected who have zero to do with the corporate dumb choice.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Nikosandros said:


> I think that the 1B figure for Avatar includes a sizable part of the expenses for (some of) the sequels. IIRC, A3 is in post-production, A4 is in shooting and A5 is in pre-production.



Yeah Cameron seems to have said 1bn break-even and 2bn to justify making A4+A5.

Currently it seems to be well on the way to 2bn. Having seen it, it was a weird damn movie but I enjoyed it a lot. I haven't seen a final action sequence that well done for a very long time, and somehow despite that part being incredibly long, it didn't drag.


S'mon said:


> I really don't think Disney are happy that Rise of Skywalker made half the gross that The Force Awakens made.



They probably aren't but the problem lies with TFA, if one sees it as a problem, rather than that TFA did better than one should expect. The drop from TFA to TLJ was from 2bn to 1.3bn, despite TLJ being better reviewed, and word-of-mouth among everyone except a certain kind of internet person being positive (which is different from everyone loving the movie).

But the issue that gets lost in-between people shrieking about TLJ's perceived "issues" or other people suggesting maybe those guys are just racists, is that TFA was a massive nostalgia-bomb, and tons and tons of people went to see it because it was the first Star Wars movie in decades. And after it we had Rogue One to burn off further Star Wars nostalgia before TLJ, by which time I think far fewer people were super-excited about the idea of a new SW movie. I mean, my wife and I went first night on both TFA and TLJ, and TFA, like 1/4 of the audience was in some kind of Star Wars costume (maybe more!), and it was like a real "event". Some of the people there, this was the first SW movie they were seeing in cinemas (and I'm talking late-20s people lol). That wasn't the case with TLJ, and not because of the later kerfuffle, which no-one even knew about then, but because we'd had SW movies two years in a row, and now it was much more of just "a thing". There were still some people in costumes, and people excited, but it wasn't this big huge event in the same way.

So I would attribute the 2bn there heavily to a combination of SW nostalgia and lack of cinema SW content for decades. I do think it's possible if TFA was amazing there would have been less of a drop, esp. if all three movies had been planned ahead as a continuous trilogy rather than just throwing the ball between director/writers (one of whom ultimately got fired - Trevorrow). But that's not what Disney chose.

Sorry, getting a bit off-topic but I just feel like it's worth mentioning that in any discussion of that particular drop should factor in how unusual TFA-as-an-event was.


----------

