We are excited to announce that D&D Beyond will soon be joining Hasbro as part of the Wizards of the Coast family!
On May 18, 2022 or soon after, your D&D Beyond account will transfer to Wizards of the Coast, at which point (and going forward) the Wizards Terms of Use will apply to your use of D&D Beyond, and the Wizards Privacy Policy will apply to the personal data associated with your account. If you are located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, Wizards of the Coast LLC will become the “data controller” of your personal data once it transfers.
For more information on this transaction, please click here. If you wish to delete your account prior to the transfer, you will find instructions for doing so here.
Frequently asked questions
When will the D&D Beyond Terms of Service be updated?
The Terms of Service will be updated to Wizards of the Coast Terms of Service on or around May 18, 2022.
Why are they being updated?
As part of Wizards of the Coast acquiring D&D Beyond, we will extend the Wizards Terms of Service to cover this new service.
What is changing in them?
We need your permission to put your user content on D&D Beyond and operate the D&D Beyond service, and we’re working to ensure that the scope of the permission you give us is tailored to that goal. The Wizards Terms of Service will therefore be updated with a section specific to D&D Beyond to allow us to host your content and otherwise operate the D&D Beyond service.
Will Wizards own my homebrew content created on D&D Beyond?
Wizards has no intent of taking ownership over user content you put on D&D Beyond, and the Terms of Service will not grant us such rights. The permissions we will need for user content will relate to allowing us to operate the D&D Beyond service, including displaying that content on our site.
Do these changes affect homebrew content that was created before May 18?
Any content that remains on the D&D Beyond service will be subject to the updated Wizards Terms of Service. The updated Terms of Service should not impact how you've used the site or owned your content prior to May 18.
If I delete my D&D Beyond account, will my homebrew content remain on D&D Beyond? If so, will my username still be credited?
While your homebrew content will remain on D&D Beyond, the credited username will change to “user-[number].”
Will Wizards own any character or account information I upload (e.g. character sheets, profile pictures)?
Wizards has no intent of taking ownership over user content you put on D&D Beyond, and the Terms of Service will not grant us such rights. The permissions we will need for that content will relate to allowing us to operate the D&D Beyond service, including displaying that content on our site.
Will I need a Wizards account to access or sign up for D&D Beyond after May 18?
No. You can continue to use your Twitch or Google account or Apple ID to sign into D&D Beyond. New users will still need a Twitch or Google account or Apple ID to sign up for D&D Beyond after May 18.
Would you expect Wizards to send you a free print copy if you'd bought the digital version here?
Hopefully we will have new logins, I hate twitch, and I hate the fact that my account is tied to twitch.
Do I need to be concerned about having a username here and on WoC that are the same? I imagine usernames are a primary key and account merge=?
I'm not sure the accounts are actually merging; we can link our DDB accounts to a Wizards account, but otherwise it's just the site ownership that's being transferred as far as the announcements have been so far.
While they'll probably move towards some sort of unified account eventually, it'll likely be a case of requiring us to link a Wizards account I would think, so they can merge that way, though really there's no reason for them to (the Wizards account can be the portable part, and DDB data remains specific to the DDB products).
With regards to the User Content policy.
- Fandom was not making D&D books. The same Terms may have been in place, but Fandom did not produce 5e books which does change things. The content here has far more value to WOTC than it did to Fandom. Especially from the viewpoint of folks who share their 5e work on Patreon, Blogs, Twitch/YouTube or via Kickstarter/Third Party Publishers in the Industry.
- If someone creates content for D&D Beyond, and WOTC *does* decide to publish it in a book (the argument of; "they won't" doesn't really work with contracts/agreements because as written they *can*), how does that then work in Ownership? My understanding is that the user waives any future trademark or copyright claim to it when uploading it, so does WOTC own it if they DO publish it and thus could demand the original owner remove it from other websites/locations?
- How will it work if someone doesn't upload their custom content to D&D Beyond, specifically because they want to retain ownership, but another user decides to copy it exactly and upload it? Will there be an option to issue a takedown notice to WOTC? Will that publisher or individual be able to take necessary steps *should* that content be used or modified in some way? How does international copyright laws and differences affect this?
- If it is necessary to have this clause for WOTC to be able to share that content with other users/in campaigns, then why is that not made more clear? If that is the SOLE purpose of this policy, then why does it not specify that? Why is it written in this way? If it IS the case that this policy is in place for the site's features to function then I feel like it could (and should) be rewritten to specify the ways it CAN be used without the need for such irrevocable sublicensing to take place. Clauses can be added to define the circumstances that would prevent bad faith users from damaging WOTC whilst ensuring honest users still have control and ownership of their content overall. Currently, it is an extremely controlling, overbearing, policy. Maybe not for a large % of users, but for the growing industry of third-party publishers, independent designers, stream DMs, Patreon users, artists, and more it *is* a concern.
Saying that the terms were the same before with Fandom is NOT a defense of any criticism towards the policy. It can be bad then, and still bad now. Some folks might not have known about it then and have every right to raise their voice now, others may have expected WOTC to improve it, or have only just begun to understand the importance of owning their material and are concerned with how it will be used in the future. EDIT: Also, another factor I realize is that many users signed up to D&D Beyond before Fandom acquired it from Curse. I can't say for sure for certain if a similar clause existed when D&D Beyond first launched, but I don't remember it being a thing.
If WOTC is taking ownership of this, then they have the power to change and modify those terms to better protect the creative community using it. That is exactly what providing feedback here is for. If you don't care about it, that's completely up to you. But folks can absolutely be upset about this.
I've supported WOTC a lot, and I think the idea of them having ownership of D&D Beyond is great for the tool's development and I would be excited to see what they do with it. But I still don't agree with this policy and I think being critical of large companies having unquestionable, irrevocable rights to others' creative content isn't something to be defending.
Damn this is pretty serious
What I hope to see is
I hope WotC takes Beyond - Beyond it’s SUBSCRIBERS highest hopes. We’ll all be watching with our finger on the RENEW or the CANCEL button.
Yeah, it's honestly why I might stop putting homebrew stuff here.
I'm ok for stuff for my campaigns, but I'm not going to sit here and create these things for my games and Wizards to go "Hey, that's neat, yoink" and then profit from it.
Characters are worthless without the stories. Who gives a shit what Blaine Riverbrand is doing without knowing all the things that happened in his session. It's a name and a stat block. A custom artifact creation that delves deep into lore though? That's different. A custom subclass without the bounds of a current class that can just be paste into a new book? That's different.
This is it exactly. WotC has way more capability to publish content than any of the previous owners.
The big issue is not only can they "steal" it but they can also lock you out of it, because it's now theirs.
For anyone that does have anything on here, it would probably be best to remove it if you're concerned. Remember it's not just WotC, this is the multi billion dollar conglomerate Hasbro. They have the means to "patent troll" anyone into oblivion. Baseless lawsuits will still destroy you financially, even if by some miracle you could prove you were in the right.
What about homebrew items and things we've bought? Will we get refunded or get some other item to compensate for the digital dice and such?
It looks like D&D Beyond will still be here but the Ownership of it will change. That's all it seems to be doing.
This is wrong. Nothing in these T&C gives Wizards ownership over your IP; it’s still yours. Hasbro isn’t going to engage in “patent trolling” because (a) that term isn’t applicable to this conversation or how you use it, and perhaps don’t try to toss out legal terms if you don’t understand them, and (b) because it doesn’t do anything for them to file frivolous lawsuits against individual homebrew creators, other than make them look bad and waste their legal department’s time and money.
Now, they can shut down offensive content on their site or decide to stop posting it, but that’s what Fandom already could do. None of that gives them ownership of your creations though, and it certainly doesn’t confer the legal rights you think Hasbro is obtaining.
And how well do you imagine the headline "Wizards of the Coast Stealing Content From its Players" is going to play in the press and online sites? The last thing they want to do is turn their entire fanbase against them with a massive scandal; D&D is about original, personal, characters and stories, if they started actually attacking that then they'd have just spent $140m in order to lose more money. I can't imagine any of their rules designers would be happy about it either.
As you say yourself, they have no idea how original a user's private (and most public really) homebrew actually is, if they were to publish something that a user had homebrewed from a third party book then they'd still be liable.
If I delete my account, will I still maintain access to all my purchases?
Erm, no? Deleting your account is deleting your account. If you don't want to delete your account then don't delete it. 😝
Will prices change for anything involving either accounts? Also what about books? If we buy the digital download and the physical copy will it change at all? Like if I buy the book will i get the digital with it or do I still have to buy both...
This ... very important as I spent quite a lot of time trying to (re)establish my WoTC account back in 2008 (hours on phone). I own a lot of DDB content, I hope there will be some form of merge.
This type of legal language killed aim back around 2003. (Aol-instant-messenger.)
There is a difference between a small company that needs you having the rights & a large company that can screw you w/ an army of lawyers.
This is false, and ignores the fact that pretty much every successful site you use, be it Minecraft, D&D Beyond, Reddit, etc. - ALL use this exact type of language. The simple reality is that these sites can’t function without this legalese - it’s necessary for them to disseminate your IP from their servers to your computer and to other users.
Okay, so why not save the community a headache and alter the Terms so this isn't even a possibility. If they're never going to do it, which I agree I don't think they would, why does the wording need to allow them to?
(See my other point about how if the purpose of this section is because they need access to content in order to share it with other users on DDB, which I absolutely don't think is the case BTW, then they can simply alter the wording of the Term to make that more defined and clear).
And for your average user, sure they don't know how original someone's content is, but for independent writer/designer/creator/streamer there's a pretty safe bet it's pretty original. Changing these terms would save them hassle from having to worry about takedown requests from third-party publishers if others users are uploading their content to the site.
It just seems completely unnecessary and unless someone with actual technical/legal knowledge of it works tells me that the specific wording here is necessary for the content sharing to work, I don't believe that it's current wording is necessary.
Can you tell me how you know this specifically? This specific wording, the User Content policy is *necessary* for D&D beyond to work in it's current function and allow users to share content with one another in the tool?