OGL aka Open Game License - Wizard Cash in On DND - Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,

[Doctor Professor Timon]

You know you can get help from an Attorney PRO BONO basis...

There are still fees involved even with pro bono work.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Yes and no. The prevailing legal analysis online suggests it can't be revoked, and the original creators have stated they never intended for it to be able to be revoked, but there's enough theoretical ambiguity there that we won't know for sure unless and until someone challenges it legally and we get some sort of definitive ruling.

The law is an ass, but I just can't imagine courts would allow this. If it did, a "we can unilaterally and retroactively modify this agreement and you can't do shit about it" clause would become boilerplate in every EULA-style agreement in the country. That would be absolute fucking chaos.

... but I'm not a lawyer and may be talking out my ass.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

The law is an ass, but I just can't imagine courts would allow this. If it did, a "we can unilaterally and retroactively modify this agreement and you can't do shit about it" clause would become boilerplate in every EULA-style agreement in the country. That would be absolute fucking chaos.

... but I'm not a lawyer and may be talking out my ass.

Most EULA contracts already have this. Pretty much every terms of use for every site out there says they can modify this at any time for any reason. The most legal requirement is a notice period - they can't change on monday and sue you on tuesday, but they can publish the intended changes on monday and have them come in effect a month from then. This is why sites like Youtube right now are in controversy over changing their monetization policies and retroactively enforcing them, fucking up a lot of channels in the process.

The reason they're not super common outside of terms of use style documents is because when royalties and rights are involved, nobody in their right mind will sign a document saying "We can just change whatever, whenever, unilaterally". Youtubers and the likes put up with it because there's not really an alternative, but WOTC doesn't really have that sort of leverage, and already shot themselves in the foot with the wording of the original license.

Seems a lot like they hoped this would slip through unnoticed and give them grounds to argue most creators implicitly took the poison pill in the 1.1 when they continued to sell after the new terms were released, revoking their rights to use the old license.

 

[East_Clintwood]

The law is an ass, but I just can't imagine courts would allow this.

You'd hope not, especially since a bunch of the people who were intimately involved in it's creation have come out and said it was never intended to be revoked. The problem is with the legal system there's always a possibility that a confluence of factors could fuck it up. Just look at the Weeb Wars case where a lawyer fucking up, combined with a judge who clearly didn't give a shit managed to fuck up a fairly straightforward case). The biggest danger in terms of an adverse ruling here would probably be WoTC testing their initial case against a

If it did, a "we can unilaterally and retroactively modify this agreement and you can't do shit about it" clause would become boilerplate in every EULA-style agreement in the country

A lot of EULAs already have all sorts of bullshit in them that lets them change the terms (albeit contingent on stuff like giving you notice, and allowing you to accept the new terms etc).

 

[East_Clintwood]

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

Finally we have an official statement. It's as weaselly and full of lies as you'd expect (really WoTC if it never crossed your minds to take other people's work why did you insert a specific provision allowing it?). Hopefully the community continues with it's plans for a replacement because I wouldn't trust WoTC/Hasbro as far as I could throw them.

 

[Alter Ego]

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

Finally we have an official statement. It's as weaselly and full of lies as you'd expect (really WoTC if it never crossed your minds to take other people's work why did you insert a specific provision allowing it?). Hopefully the community continues with it's plans for a replacement because I wouldn't trust WoTC/Hasbro as far as I could throw them.

The topmost point in the opening paragraph is very telling of what WotC reasonably expects they'll be able to pull off at minimum with approval from their audience:

When we initially conceived of revising the OGL, it was with three major goals in mind. First, we wanted the ability to prevent the use of D&D content from being included in hateful and discriminatory products. Second, we wanted to address those attempting to use D&D in web3, blockchain games, and NFTs by making clear that OGL content is limited to tabletop roleplaying content like campaigns, modules, and supplements. And third, we wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community—not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose.

They will revoke your license if you make something that offends WotC's woke sensibilities. And given how things are going, that could very well include you still innocuously using the now-verboten word "race". Given that many of the OGL1.1 critics are wokesters themselves, I expect they'll either pay no mind to this point or even express agreement with it along the lines of, "Well if WotC just did this, there wouldn't be a problem!"

Hell, I was just listening in part to a couple of old guys on a YouTube livestream talk about this controversy to 3k viewers, and at point they made an earnest aside to specify that some person with a female name they were referencing is a "they/them".

Also be wary of what Paizo's "ORC" license will actually turn out to be in this regard. They went woke before WotC.

 

[Terrifik]

https://twitter.com/griffons_saddle/status/1613905737238855681

Wizards of the Coast is doing everything in its power to turn the camera away from itself in this moment. At its heart, this is nothing more than classic corporate greed corrupting a beautiful game enjoyed by millions of players.

Read more below

#OpenDnD #DnDBegone
Under the OGL 2.0, it STILL:
- Renders Kickstarters unfeasible - If Wizards had to pay 20% of their revenue, they'd be bankrupt
- Is not an Open license by definition, open means open
- Forces creators into a one-sided contract to continue making content they've made for years
- Claims that large companies are the reason for these changes, despite the fact that no company has taken money, or even threatened to remotely overshadow them, by using D&D's Open Content—NOT their protected IP. Even Pathfinder is miniscule compared to the scale of WotC.

- Turns an issue of Openness into an opportunity for Wizards to divide and conquer. This company makes $1,300,000,000 a year and is vilifying companies that make $750,000: the equivalent of what they make in 5 and a half hours.
- Lies about 1.1 being a draft. Drafts do not come with contracts attached. Further, it was never called a draft in their meetings with creators: in the same meetings where they were supposed to feel safest, according to Wizards.
- Unfairly punishes and cripples countless small businesses that have been following the bilaterally agreed upon rules and using only Open Content, without violating or misusing any of Wizards' IP, for 23 years.
The only answer is to leave 1.0a untouched. If they want to make OneDnD require signing 2.0, that's up to them.

#OpenDnD #DnDBegone
#NOgl2
They want to talk and grow together ? i'm not sure they know what talk means


#Wotc Forces creators into a one-sided contract just to make the content they were already planning to under 1.0a. They can't benefit from the grace period without agreeing to OGL 2.0.
+ they know that's not how crowdfunded campaigns planning goes

#OpenDnD #DnDBegone

A grace period by agreeing to the nonsense #WotC are calling an Open License? You don't deserve the content made by our community.

#OpenDnD #DnDBegone

 

[TheRedChair]

IMHO is this is NOT going to fly. You CAN NOT copyright Game Mechanics.
You can not claim as much as you want to think you can on DIREVITIVE WORKS.

If 3rd parties use WotC worlds, trademarks and exact working of content they produce then WotC could have a decent case in enforcing their license.

However again this will need to be hashed out in court. As stated before In my state I know a certain amount of what is needed to protect my IP's. That is why I have an IP attorney. IMHO I feel that woke company is making a cash grab as well as to make money off of other people's content.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

Watching WOTC devolve into EA is a lovely sight, and that's coming from someone who gave them thousands of dollars in his youth.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

The key difference is the part where they own anything and everything you create. A lot of people would be more than happy to play nice but that one line is a bridge few would be willing to cross. This is why it’s not directly comparable you YouTube/Patreon/etc: if you get kicked off YouTube, you can still post your videos on other sites. This new OGL would be like if you got banned from YouTube, and then when you tried to post your old videos to Odysee or Rumble, Google will copyright strike them because they own all of the videos you hosted on YouTube.

Oh yeah if that's true that's be a hard line for a lot of people.

In that case no wonder even the most corp-loving wokists balked at this.

In other news Paizo and a bunch of other publishers have taken a stand:

Paizo Addresses Pathfinder's Future, Announces New System-Neutral Open RPG License​

 

[DragoonSierra]

Yes and no. The prevailing legal analysis online suggests it can't be revoked, and the original creators have stated they never intended for it to be able to be revoked, but there's enough theoretical ambiguity there that we won't know for sure unless and until someone challenges it legally and we get some sort of definitive ruling.

I imagine any court case would involve the original creators of the OGL.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

I imagine any court case would involve the original creators of the OGL.

They would be witnesses, but its fun because its the company document, not their document - If the company says it has one intent, and someone says another, well the initial leaning for any argument of 'intent' will be the company - The lawyers can argue why they drafted a particular term, but the company can argue why it *accepted* the term.

They'd make very convincing expert witnesses though, and in conjunction with the wording being how it is (Much more powerful than intent arguments), its a difficult objective for Wizards to win on.

 

[Jaimas]

refresh me on that.

When the disastrously bad WarCraft 3 remaster hit, it did't hit quietly or gently; It automatically updated your game to the remaster (even if you were using an old copy on CD from the 90s) the second you tried to connect to Battle.net. In so doing, the game would demand you agree to a EULA that included a completely different licensing agreement from the original one that WarCraft 3 launched with. Similar happened for several other older games that Blizzard "took back into the fold."

The reason that Blizzard did this was that the original licensing agreement for their game editing software allowed broad freedoms, and those freedoms led to both DOTA and the MOBA renaissance. DOTA was so successful that it ultimately eclipsed WC3 itself, and it started as a WarCraft 3 Mod. This kind of thing happens in vidya all the time; Team Fortress started as a Quake Mod, for example. Blizzard wanted to make sure that if they ever had a breakout hit have its formational days on one of Blizzard's platforms, then they would own that shit outright, lock, stock, and barrel. Everyone knew this is what they were doing, and why.

Needless to say, this absolutely fucking murdered the creative scene Blizzard's games had that heretofore had been making free content for Blizzard's games for fucking decades. More inveterate shitlords in said creative scene elected to make maps like that one where there's a perptual instant-death swastika slowly spinning in the center of the map that gets slowly bigger as the map goes on (because Blizzard owns it now) and got them into the best maps pool before the Jannies declared no fun allowed and pulled the plug on the practice.

 

[I-chi]

When the disastrously bad WarCraft 3 remaster hit, it did't hit quietly or gently; It automatically updated your game to the remaster (even if you were using an old copy on CD from the 90s) the second you tried to connect to Battle.net. In so doing, the game would demand you agree to a EULA that included a completely different licensing agreement from the original one that WarCraft 3 launched with. Similar happened for several other older games that Blizzard "took back into the fold."

The reason that Blizzard did this was that the original licensing agreement for their game editing software allowed broad freedoms, and those freedoms led to both DOTA and the MOBA renaissance. DOTA was so successful that it ultimately eclipsed WC3 itself, and it started as a WarCraft 3 Mod. This kind of thing happens in vidya all the time; Team Fortress started as a Quake Mod, for example. Blizzard wanted to make sure that if they ever had a breakout hit have its formational days on one of Blizzard's platforms, then they would own that shit outright, lock, stock, and barrel. Everyone knew this is what they were doing, and why.

Needless to say, this absolutely fucking murdered the creative scene Blizzard's games had that heretofore had been making free content for Blizzard's games for fucking decades. More inveterate shitlords in said creative scene elected to make maps like that one where there's a perptual instant-death swastika slowly spinning in the center of the map that gets slowly bigger as the map goes on (because Blizzard owns it now) and got them into the best maps pool before the Jannies declared no fun allowed and pulled the plug on the practice.

So that's fuckin why I'll NEVER be able to try WC3 ever again lol.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

This was bound to happen considering the leftoid infiltration happening literally fucking everywhere.

Amazing how something that fucked up OWS is making its way through everything is definitely something that needs to be noted for future historians. Tumblr was a mistake.

 

[Raoul_Duke]

It really is incredible how this company is just committing seppuku over and over again. I've heard of quite a few dumb decisions with TTRPGs (D&D movies, LARPing, Cyberpunk V.3, etc,) But never have I seen anything this monumentally stupid.

This is worse than a blunder, it's a suicide.

 

[introvertedobserver]

Regarding this. Can publishers still publish their old stuff that was made under 1.0? Cause if they cant thats bullshit.

They're sure as shit trying to prevent them from being able to do so.

They are flat out attempting to effectively revoke 1.0, even their recently released statements about the new OGL make that crystal clear (offering a "6 month grace period" for content currently in production that meets "certain criteria" to operate under 1.0).

1.0 says you can use "any authorized license". The new license explicitly makes 1.0 no longer authorized, which would render 1.0 null and void. That's the line WOTC is trying to use to effectively revoke 1.0. 1.0 did not include an actual irrevocable clause. This was almost certainly an oversite on the authors part (they probably thought it was clear enough, and that 1,0 would always be authorized because it's the original). But there's enough wiggle room there for WOTC to lay a solid argument that they (wotc, not the actual authors) always intended the license to be revocable by way of approving it with the verbaige that's in it (excluding an irrevocable clause, authorized license clause).

There's a mix of "they'll never get away with that" and "you're fucked" floating around some lawyer analysis, but the analysis of the lawyers of companies that are producing OGL 1.0 content has been "They have a strong claim" which is lawyerspeak for "You're probably fucked"/"It's going to be a bitch to fight and there's a high chance we lose".

I honestly think the "they can't do that!" crowd is just huffing the copium. Never trust the US judicial system to side with the "little guy". It's a miracle when it happens.

 

[DragoonSierra]

When the disastrously bad WarCraft 3 remaster hit, it did't hit quietly or gently; It automatically updated your game to the remaster (even if you were using an old copy on CD from the 90s) the second you tried to connect to Battle.net. In so doing, the game would demand you agree to a EULA that included a completely different licensing agreement from the original one that WarCraft 3 launched with. Similar happened for several other older games that Blizzard "took back into the fold."

The reason that Blizzard did this was that the original licensing agreement for their game editing software allowed broad freedoms, and those freedoms led to both DOTA and the MOBA renaissance. DOTA was so successful that it ultimately eclipsed WC3 itself, and it started as a WarCraft 3 Mod. This kind of thing happens in vidya all the time; Team Fortress started as a Quake Mod, for example. Blizzard wanted to make sure that if they ever had a breakout hit have its formational days on one of Blizzard's platforms, then they would own that shit outright, lock, stock, and barrel. Everyone knew this is what they were doing, and why.

Needless to say, this absolutely fucking murdered the creative scene Blizzard's games had that heretofore had been making free content for Blizzard's games for fucking decades. More inveterate shitlords in said creative scene elected to make maps like that one where there's a perptual instant-death swastika slowly spinning in the center of the map that gets slowly bigger as the map goes on (because Blizzard owns it now) and got them into the best maps pool before the Jannies declared no fun allowed and pulled the plug on the practice.

Should have gone the Valve route and just buy anything good and make it their own.

They're sure as shit trying to prevent them from being able to do so.

They are flat out attempting to effectively revoke 1.0, even their recently released statements about the new OGL make that crystal clear (offering a "6 month grace period" for content currently in production that meets "certain criteria" to operate under 1.0).

1.0 says you can use "any authorized license". The new license explicitly makes 1.0 no longer authorized, which would render 1.0 null and void. That's the line WOTC is trying to use to effectively revoke 1.0. 1.0 did not include an actual irrevocable clause. This was almost certainly an oversite on the authors part (they probably thought it was clear enough, and that 1,0 would always be authorized because it's the original). But there's enough wiggle room there for WOTC to lay a solid argument that they (wotc, not the actual authors) always intended the license to be revocable by way of approving it with the verbaige that's in it (excluding an irrevocable clause, authorized license clause).

There's a mix of "they'll never get away with that" and "you're fucked" floating around some lawyer analysis, but the analysis of the lawyers of companies that are producing OGL 1.0 content has been "They have a strong claim" which is lawyerspeak for "You're probably fucked"/"It's going to be a bitch to fight and there's a high chance we lose".

I honestly think the "they can't do that!" crowd is just huffing the copium. Never trust the US judicial system to side with the "little guy". It's a miracle when it happens.

What about the you cant copyright game mechanics lawsuits?

Another question. What happens if Pathfinder republishes thier old stuff under their new license they are talking about. Couldnt WOTC say its under OGL 1.1 automatically?

 

[introvertedobserver]

What about the you cant copyright game mechanics lawsuits?

That's an entirely different issue and is irrelevant to whether they can revoke the 1.0 license or not.

For game mechanics the functional parts are not copyrightable. Because ideas and functions aren't themselves copyrightable - but the expression of them is. User manuals, large parts of the SRD itself (which serves a similar purpose), any and all lore, descriptions of the game mechanics, etc... are copyrightable. A whole lot of proper nouns are trademarkable (a whole lot are also generic and not trademarkable) And it only takes being found to have infringed on one single thing for you to owe WOTC damages, and possibly even be outright derivative depending on what that thing is and how foundational it is to your works.

Game mechanics are, however patentable. Thankfully it doesn't look like they patented D&D (they did MTG though).

The problems are going to arise in that people are so used to using the idiosyncrasies of D&D virtually all content created from the OGL/SRD almost assuredly has some infringing content.

Not to mention WOTC has the pockets to just sue and sue and sue even if its a loss. The threat of a lawsuit is enough to stop most people in their tracks and even force small to mid size businesses to settle.

But their intent isn't so much to go after Joe Random who made XYZ derivitive works under the OGL. It's to, as a whole, make using anything D&D related so risky that few business entities will take the risk and no serious investors will invest in a company that goes near OGL 1.1 (which would be the only way to make derivative works going forward). It's anti-competitive in nature, not an attempt to extract more money from people using the IP. They want completely and total, centralized control over D&D and anything related to it (There is a case for it being a violation of anti-trust laws). They don't really want the royalty money, they want all the money.

The risk is huge. Not only might your business get sued for millions of dollars if you don't agree to the terms of 1.1 and try to distribute, but if you do agree to 1.1 WOTC can arbitrarily revoke your license, and in combination with their license to licensed works clause, render you with IP that you don't and can't control rendering the IP completely worthless from the get go. Investors/banks tend to not go for deals in which, in a worst case scenario, they have nothing to liquidate to try and recover losses.

Likewise the license to licensed works clause also serves primarily to ward off other business efforts because WOTC can simply take the work and publish it as theirs with all of their finances backing it to force people trying to profit from it out. Again, another huge business risk and investor red flag.

Another question. What happens if Pathfinder republishes thier old stuff under their new license they are talking about. Couldnt WOTC say its under OGL 1.1 automatically?

No. You have to affirmatively agree to a license for it to be binding. But if WOTC is successful in revoking 1.0 and their works are found to be derivative they would be infringing on WOTC's IP for continuing to distribute it beyond the date 1.1 goes into effect.

 

[Stoneheart]

Who is playing DnD in 2023? Pathfinder is the superior fork of the last good version of DnD and its pretty old at this point.

Also with this new open RPG license, can we get Kiwi Publishing going? lets see howall those people of soy react to a series where Jersh is the god of true woman...