I’m with you. My purchases of DnD published material is is frozen until full disclosure of what the new OGL is. If it’s anything like the leaked documents, then I will no longer purchase any products under the Hasbro umbrella.
Considering the extent of the backlash just from speculation alone, I don't think it would be surprising if they totally backed down on this. I don't think they anticipated the damage this could do to the brand.
Some folks think this lead was intentional/subterfuge and not reflective of the actual document to be introduced so whatever form it takes will not look "as bad as folks feared." Some folks say "WotC does this all the time" citing MtG events with which I'm not familiar.
It's just not worth the aggrevation. Real time discords lead to real time issues and are far more popular these days than this format. Message boards are easier to control, more so this one that essentially is dead people walking. Critical Role probably is having negotiations behind the scenes with Wizards, so they don't want the fan community to temper and potentially aggrevate them.
In short, not shocked at all at this one.
My thought? Lot's of people who just flat out are incorrect on what's happening and espousing it as facts, and lots more people who simply just don't know period. I think conversation is important to show Wizards that an open platform is important but I'd like to see more people being correct, less fanboyism and the need to protect their favorite IPs and in general just more time to see.
Yeah, I think you're right about Discord being the hotter medium, and I agree with your take on the wider "discussion"'s participants.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Firstly, people are talking about a leak of a draft document. That is practically the definition of a what if.
It's far from pure speculation. Assuming it's real, it says a lot about what they recently intended. Of course, interpreting legalese is difficult, and it's easy to read things in the worst light, especially when you've already been primed to expect it, but it's certainly cause for real concern.
When you use the phrase "assuming its real" You are acknowledging that everything that follows is speculation.
With the leaked draft document, it's informed speculation. While it's possible that somebody made it up out of whole cloth, or, slightly more likely, altered a real one, neither is the way to bet. The main unknown is how recent a draft it is, and how more any recent versions have changed. Reacting based on it is not out of line.
I can empathize with people who've tied their living to making D&D supplements. I can absolutely understand how nervous they must be right now. It's got to be a scary time for them, and I truly wish them the best. I've been known to enjoy a 3pp supplement from time to time. I hope they are still around for a long time to come. All that said, no one is owed a successful business. These publishers made a business decision to tie their livelihood to someone else's product. If they got in thinking that nothing would ever change, that's their mistake. If they want total control, they need to invent their own game, then no one gets to tell them what to do. They want to accept the all the risk, they get all the rewards.
If I decided to start a software business building compilers based on GCC. I have a license that says I can do that under certain terms and conditions. The Free Software Foundation can't unilaterally revoke that license. The OGL publishers based their business on a similar promise. If the OGL actually has the something in it to let WotC revoke it on previously-covered works, that's on Wizards for putting that booby-trap in, not on the publishers for not spotting it.
I don't know if it does; there's a lot of speculation based on draft wording, possibly without context. I doubt they're actually going to try that, and they'd likely lose in court if they did, since the new license isn't binding on those who never accepted it. But most people don't have the resources to fight it if they do.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Firstly, people are talking about a leak of a draft document. That is practically the definition of a what if.
It's far from pure speculation. Assuming it's real, it says a lot about what they recently intended. Of course, interpreting legalese is difficult, and it's easy to read things in the worst light, especially when you've already been primed to expect it, but it's certainly cause for real concern.
When you use the phrase "assuming its real" You are acknowledging that everything that follows is speculation.
With the leaked draft document, it's informed speculation. While it's possible that somebody made it up out of whole cloth, or, slightly more likely, altered a real one, neither is the way to bet. The main unknown is how recent a draft it is, and how more any recent versions have changed. Reacting based on it is not out of line.
I can empathize with people who've tied their living to making D&D supplements. I can absolutely understand how nervous they must be right now. It's got to be a scary time for them, and I truly wish them the best. I've been known to enjoy a 3pp supplement from time to time. I hope they are still around for a long time to come. All that said, no one is owed a successful business. These publishers made a business decision to tie their livelihood to someone else's product. If they got in thinking that nothing would ever change, that's their mistake. If they want total control, they need to invent their own game, then no one gets to tell them what to do. They want to accept the all the risk, they get all the rewards.
If I decided to start a software business building compilers based on GCC. I have a license that says I can do that under certain terms and conditions. The Free Software Foundation can't unilaterally revoke that license. The OGL publishers based their business on a similar promise. If the OGL actually has the something in it to let WotC revoke it on previously-covered works, that's on Wizards for putting that booby-trap in, not on the publishers for not spotting it.
I don't know if it does; there's a lot of speculation based on draft wording, possibly without context. I doubt they're actually going to try that, and they'd likely lose in court if they did, since the new license isn't binding on those who never accepted it. But most people don't have the resources to fight it if they do.
Informed or not, it's still speculation. At this point, even the degree to which it may or may not be informed is speculation -- people are speculating about how much is speculation. That's all we have. One actual statement about a work in progress. Other than that, there's, lots of supposed leaks or supposed drafts of unknown times in the process, lots of speculation based on those leaks and drafts, and lots of people (not necessarily you, personally) throwing around legal terms they don't fully understand. All I'm saying is, take a breath. Yes, it's entirely possible that the new OGL will make it harder for people to participate in the cottage industry that's grown around 5e. It's also possible the impact will be negligible. Freaking out now, over a year before it happens is not productive.
Are you actually suggesting it's up to wizards to make sure another business reads the terms of a contract before they enter into it? Really? It's on wizards to make sure someone else knows what they're doing? Should they spellcheck the stuff for them, too?
Again from the official statement not from "YouTubers and clickbait websites as the gospel"
For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:
Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale
Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)
Include a Creator Product badge on your work
Gee point one really sounds like if I want to get started I have to register before I make a penny.
As for alienating consumers, I agree they are pissing off some people. And really, the people they’re upsetting are among the most passionate players. It absolutely a PR failure. But the number of D&D players who are buying stuff from 3pp is very small compared to the player base. I’d wager most people who play D&D don’t know kobold press, Goodman games and mcdm even exist. Parents will still pick up starter sets at target for their kids, and won’t know or care about this at all.
I agree with this, the messing with 3rd party publishers only effects the most passionate players. I started playing D&D because it was D&D. I became a fan of D&D because of the 3rd party support that helped me make the game what I enjoy.
Wizards has really dropped the ball in the last year for me, what magic products I have been interested in are either massively overpriced (m30) or under printed (worlds beyond Warhammer 40k).
My concern also comes from what happens to the community next. How many people switch to Pathfinder? How many companies create their own TTRPG? How does this splinter and fracture the community? Look at what happened to Games Workshop when they blew up the Old World and Warhammer Fantasy they are still the giant in industry but they lost market share by pissing off their players.
You are right, I misspoke about the registration, good catch. How difficult that registration and if it will become a barrier will be remains to be seen. It could be people have to hand write a form in triplicate, get it notarized and send it to them via registered mail. It could be there's a website where you click a box or two and write a two-sentence description of what you're doing. Probably, it will be somewhere in between, but much closer to the website and two sentences. Either way, people are using wizard's stuff. It seems like common courtesy to give them a heads up. (And as others have said in other threads, probably they're doing it in part because they'll use the information for market research, and probably, in part, to clamp down on stuff like the Book of Erotic Fantasy from 3e days.)
As for splintering the player base. Yes, that's a given. And I'll bet that Hasbro has a small army of people with spreadsheets figuring out, well, we'll piss off x percent who will stop buying stuff, but then Y percent will be all in and get new books. And of course, there will be new players who won't ever know the difference. Then they type in some numbers and figure out whether or not making a new edition will tank the company. And if it were going to tank the company, we would not be having this conversation, because they wouldn't be doing it. Edition wars suck, but the game's been through quite a few of them. It will keep on plugging away through this one.
Quote from Xalthu>>hange their plans from official statements here on dndbeyond they are going to use OGL 1.1 require content creators to:
Even if the ogl gets printed exactly as leaked, it won’t restrict 3rd party creators from doing their thing. It will simply make them, at worst, pay a little for the privilege of piggybacking off a rule system and brand they didn’t create.
But... Why should consumers want WotC to gouge more money out of third parties and competitors? That'd be backing anti-competition practices. From a consumer perspective one company gaining more money from the marketplace by siphoning off competitors and third parties- all without actually producing anything extra themselves is a net negative.
Especially when there's a clause in there that says WotC reserve the right to amend the royalty amount and threshold within 30 days for any reason. So will very likely be gouging more and more money out of third parties as time goes on.
Gouging is a quite alarmist when none of know the terms.
It’s hardly anti-competitive. Wizards made the rule set. They own it. They are letting other people use their product. Their competition is paizo and shadowrun, not people making a supplement for their game, which they invested in the creation of. Wizards are the ones who paid Crawford and company to make these rules, and then paid for the marketing, advertising and distribution of them. And now unless they give it away, they’re anti-competitive? That makes no sense.
So my reply would be, why should consumers care about the business arrangement between two large companies? How would you even notice if 2 of the dollars you spend on a darrington press product goes to wizards? This is one company is charging another company for the use of their product. It happens all the time. This isn’t going to impact Bob and Sarah in their basement posting stuff on dmsguild.
And people like critical role are almost certainly going to cut their own deal outside of the ogl. Matt Mercer and company will be just fine.
I mean they want to literally gouge money from other groups without actually doing any work. Gouge seems a fine word.
A new deal that expressly impacts your competitors negatively... Is anti competitive.
Oh my gosh they OWN it? I didn't realize that made everything they did okay. Capitalists who make industries worse because they OWN things are always morally correct
And yeah I'm kind of against only certain specific content creators getting cushy deals, the tabletop landscape is better now and it will be worse after things are changed.
WoTC Can go fornicate itself with 3 day old french bread whilst leaping from a high point. I cancelled my sub to this site, along with I will *NOT* be purchasing anything further from them until they stick with OGL 1.0a. Outside of that.. well.. best of luck with greed and all that. Apparently they didn't learn from 4e
This is definition of false outrage, we as of yet have no official info on what will or will not be in 1.1. Most of the outrage is coming from Youtube channels , and they are acting like it will affect them. Hint it wont. "OMG I have to change my format because the OGL is changing." Not even Pointy hat who publishes homebrew content through his channel would have to change. Because fair use protects most content on Youtube, reviewing rules, lore, and other material is also covered under fair use in the USA (Hint Disney is super sue happy over copyright, look at all the Star Wars and MCU channels). Advertising and selling OGL kickstarter on Youtube might be a grey area, but I doubt that will be affected.
Fair Use is not a blanket get out of jail free card.
Fair Use is an affirmative defense. Whether or not it covers any given content is subject to testing of the four factors and is typically specific to those cases. To say "fair use covers them" is like saying "this medium shirt will fit me" without knowing what your actual shirt size is. So unless they publish their content using the OGL, or have legal advice to make sure none of their content is "likely" to cross any fair use lines.. then they are only ok so long as WotC decides not to take action.
Who's affected? Big name competitors. ie Pathfinder may have to pay WotC money for OGL use, and a few other big game companies. Solestra... might be affected (Doubt it though) I see no issue with WotC making money from their content, and I don't have an issue with them charging other game companies for the use of their material, which is what they are doing.
This crying about Capitalism is dumb, hint, Capitalism is why we have gaming at all.
*Everyone* is affected. Small indie developers who put out their campaign and one-shots out for free can have them taken, bundled up and reprinted in a big book of AL quick stories and sold by WotC and they owe you *nothing* for it. Mr Welch, who spent years carefully updating BECMI Mystara to 5E mechanics would have their work ripped away and could be sold on DDB without any credit to him for his work. In theory, even Exandria could be taken away from Matt Mercer and Critical Role under 1.1 terms (if they were subject to them - odds are they won't be) and made sole property of the WotC. Enworld's A5E? Gone. There are dozens, if not hundreds of small creators and businesses who craft and share their creative drive for this game using the SRD as a basis for their homebrew.
Quote from Xalthu>>hange their plans from official statements here on dndbeyond they are going to use OGL 1.1 require content creators to:
Even if the ogl gets printed exactly as leaked, it won’t restrict 3rd party creators from doing their thing. It will simply make them, at worst, pay a little for the privilege of piggybacking off a rule system and brand they didn’t create.
But... Why should consumers want WotC to gouge more money out of third parties and competitors? That'd be backing anti-competition practices. From a consumer perspective one company gaining more money from the marketplace by siphoning off competitors and third parties- all without actually producing anything extra themselves is a net negative.
Especially when there's a clause in there that says WotC reserve the right to amend the royalty amount and threshold within 30 days for any reason. So will very likely be gouging more and more money out of third parties as time goes on.
Gouging is a quite alarmist when none of know the terms.
It’s hardly anti-competitive. Wizards made the rule set. They own it. They are letting other people use their product. Their competition is paizo and shadowrun, not people making a supplement for their game, which they invested in the creation of. Wizards are the ones who paid Crawford and company to make these rules, and then paid for the marketing, advertising and distribution of them. And now unless they give it away, they’re anti-competitive? That makes no sense.
So my reply would be, why should consumers care about the business arrangement between two large companies? How would you even notice if 2 of the dollars you spend on a darrington press product goes to wizards? This is one company is charging another company for the use of their product. It happens all the time. This isn’t going to impact Bob and Sarah in their basement posting stuff on dmsguild.
And people like critical role are almost certainly going to cut their own deal outside of the ogl. Matt Mercer and company will be just fine.
I mean they want to literally gouge money from other groups without actually doing any work. Gouge seems a fine word.
A new deal that expressly impacts your competitors negatively... Is anti competitive.
Oh my gosh they OWN it? I didn't realize that made everything they did okay. Capitalists who make industries worse because they OWN things are always morally correct
And yeah I'm kind of against only certain specific content creators getting cushy deals, the tabletop landscape is better now and it will be worse after things are changed.
We don't know how high the royalty payments will be (and they will only kick in after a company has made 3/4 of a million dollars). it could be a reasonable number. So yes, gouging is extreme at this point. Wizards did the work of making the game the other product is based on. D&D's popularity, which has been managed and grown by wizards for the past 20 or so years, has made an environment that allowed someone else to stroll in and make a product wholly derivative of D&D.
3pp are not quite competitors, really. To use many 3pp products, you must also own the PHB. 3pps create a system where their sales and WotC's sales feed off each other. Wizards doesn't want to interrupt that cycle. Besides that, impacting your competitors negatively is business. It's not anti-competitive, its simply competition.
They own it. yes. Scream about capitalism all you want, but those are the rules we are all playing by. And if you don't like businesses cutting deals with each other, then I don't know what to tell you. Businesses cutting deals is what made the device you typed your response on, different businesses cutting different deals made this website, and different businesses cutting different deals made the game. I guess you can try to opt out of the whole system. Good luck with that.
This is definition of false outrage, we as of yet have no official info on what will or will not be in 1.1. Most of the outrage is coming from Youtube channels , and they are acting like it will affect them. Hint it wont. "OMG I have to change my format because the OGL is changing." Not even Pointy hat who publishes homebrew content through his channel would have to change. Because fair use protects most content on Youtube, reviewing rules, lore, and other material is also covered under fair use in the USA (Hint Disney is super sue happy over copyright, look at all the Star Wars and MCU channels). Advertising and selling OGL kickstarter on Youtube might be a grey area, but I doubt that will be affected.
Who's affected? Big name competitors. ie Pathfinder may have to pay WotC money for OGL use, and a few other big game companies. Solestra... might be affected (Doubt it though) I see no issue with WotC making money from their content, and I don't have an issue with them charging other game companies for the use of their material, which is what they are doing.
This crying about Capitalism is dumb, hint, Capitalism is why we have gaming at all.
Kickstarter confirmed the leak is real, that they made a deal that made OGL 1.1 slightly brutal on them, so this is way beyond the rumour stage. That being said given the outrage OGL 1.1 is likely dead, not just altered, dead, it's just too toxic in terms of PR. Also there is a set date on this OGL 1.1, January 14th so the longer they don't officially release this, the liker it's dead, but its very, very real.
Quote from Xalthu>>hange their plans from official statements here on dndbeyond they are going to use OGL 1.1 require content creators to:
Even if the ogl gets printed exactly as leaked, it won’t restrict 3rd party creators from doing their thing. It will simply make them, at worst, pay a little for the privilege of piggybacking off a rule system and brand they didn’t create.
But... Why should consumers want WotC to gouge more money out of third parties and competitors? That'd be backing anti-competition practices. From a consumer perspective one company gaining more money from the marketplace by siphoning off competitors and third parties- all without actually producing anything extra themselves is a net negative.
Especially when there's a clause in there that says WotC reserve the right to amend the royalty amount and threshold within 30 days for any reason. So will very likely be gouging more and more money out of third parties as time goes on.
Gouging is a quite alarmist when none of know the terms.
It’s hardly anti-competitive. Wizards made the rule set. They own it. They are letting other people use their product. Their competition is paizo and shadowrun, not people making a supplement for their game, which they invested in the creation of. Wizards are the ones who paid Crawford and company to make these rules, and then paid for the marketing, advertising and distribution of them. And now unless they give it away, they’re anti-competitive? That makes no sense.
So my reply would be, why should consumers care about the business arrangement between two large companies? How would you even notice if 2 of the dollars you spend on a darrington press product goes to wizards? This is one company is charging another company for the use of their product. It happens all the time. This isn’t going to impact Bob and Sarah in their basement posting stuff on dmsguild.
And people like critical role are almost certainly going to cut their own deal outside of the ogl. Matt Mercer and company will be just fine.
I mean they want to literally gouge money from other groups without actually doing any work. Gouge seems a fine word.
A new deal that expressly impacts your competitors negatively... Is anti competitive.
Oh my gosh they OWN it? I didn't realize that made everything they did okay. Capitalists who make industries worse because they OWN things are always morally correct
And yeah I'm kind of against only certain specific content creators getting cushy deals, the tabletop landscape is better now and it will be worse after things are changed.
We don't know how high the royalty payments will be (and they will only kick in after a company has made 3/4 of a million dollars). it could be a reasonable number. So yes, gouging is extreme at this point. Wizards did the work of making the game the other product is based on. D&D's popularity, which has been managed and grown by wizards for the past 20 or so years, has made an environment that allowed someone else to stroll in and make a product wholly derivative of D&D.
3pp are not quite competitors, really. To use many 3pp products, you must also own the PHB. 3pps create a system where their sales and WotC's sales feed off each other. Wizards doesn't want to interrupt that cycle. Besides that, impacting your competitors negatively is business. It's not anti-competitive, its simply competition.
They own it. yes. Scream about capitalism all you want, but those are the rules we are all playing by. And if you don't like businesses cutting deals with each other, then I don't know what to tell you. Businesses cutting deals is what made the device you typed your response on, different businesses cutting different deals made this website, and different businesses cutting different deals made the game. I guess you can try to opt out of the whole system. Good luck with that.
We do know how high the Royalty Payments are it's 25% unless it's a kickstarter specifically in which case it drops to 20% (thanks to Kickstarter making a better deal on this with WotC).
"This crying about Capitalism is dumb, hint, Capitalism is why we have gaming at all. "
Tetris was invented by the Soviets.
Also i'm sure glad someone is willing to stand up for the poor defenseless Hasbro Executives. you guys are being really mean to these poor billionaires just because they want to take something you like and make it bad.
If I decided to start a software business building compilers based on GCC. I have a license that says I can do that under certain terms and conditions. The Free Software Foundation can't unilaterally revoke that license. The OGL publishers based their business on a similar promise. If the OGL actually has the something in it to let WotC revoke it on previously-covered works, that's on Wizards for putting that booby-trap in, not on the publishers for not spotting it.
I don't know if it does; there's a lot of speculation based on draft wording, possibly without context. I doubt they're actually going to try that, and they'd likely lose in court if they did, since the new license isn't binding on those who never accepted it. But most people don't have the resources to fight it if they do.
Are you actually suggesting it's up to wizards to make sure another business reads the terms of a contract before they enter into it? Really? It's on wizards to make sure someone else knows what they're doing?
Legally? Perhaps not, although if they represented it as irrevocable and it was actually revocable, they might find themselves with problems should that ever go to court.
Morally? Yes. Absolutely.
The OGL was made out to be like Creative Commons and Open Source licensing, which are widely understood to be perpetual. (Even though the copyright holder can release revised versions under different licenses, but they cannot revoke the licenses on the versions that already exist.) Other publishers have used it for their own stuff.
Also, "other businesses" are usually "somebody in their spare time, as a hobby". (Wizards was that once.) They don't have lawyers. If they're using something as widely-used as the OGL, it won't even occur to them that they need a lawyer. If they luck out and get medium (big is so incredibly rare as to not be worth considering), they might start getting somebody to draw up their contracts, but will they think to go back and get the OGL vetted? What would they even do if the lawyer tells them it's bad? They've built their business on top of it.
So yeah, when WotC put a license out there to bring the hobbyist publishers into their ecosystem, it was 100% their responsibility to not design it to let them screw over those people.
Now, I don't think that they're actually trying to do that, but if they are, the blame is not on the OGL users.
Im late to the party. Can someone sum up in a tweet what's going on and let me know if I should be mad or not?
I'll try to do it fairly.
There is a document that was reported to be a leak of a draft version of the new OGL 1.1 license agreement. It looks at least somewhat plausible. The full document is not available for review. It appears to imply that the old OGL license will be revoked, though there is a question over which version. It also says that the royalties WotC wants for creators making over 750k are in the very high 20-25% range. Many people feel this is the last straw if it is real and they don't change it in the actual official version. There has so far been no comment from WotC. Kickstarter has confirmed they have negotiated royalties, but not the amount.
Sorry it's not exactly a tweet length, but I think that's about all of the major details.
A good point to mention is that the 25% is calculated by revenue and not profit. Which means a lot of the 3rd party creators probably will stop making Kickstarter's etc or similar for D&D if the current leaked 1.1 is correct.
A lot of 3rd party creators will move away from using D&D systems at all, and people like me who already where more invested into 3rd party content than WOTC published content will stopp supporting WOTC in the future if they go forth with this.
Greetingz, honestly I am a little torn about the whole situation aside the speculation. Just for the sake of argument, lets assume the following: - OGL 1.1 will include reporting and royalty fees - OGL 1.1 will grant WotC an irevocable and perpetual licence to all 3P-Content created unter it
It may be bold and a little disingenuous to compare Source-Books and the general IP to stock photos, but for the sake of argument, thats what they are. You can either just use them as a whole, or just as a light texture to make a picture more grounded or only cut that piece in the background to give the new picture that little something. Sure you dont have to pay a flat 25% fee of the revenue to the rights holder, but in order for you to use it to build your content (and most relevant to the whole story: sell it), you need to pay. And thats fine as it provided value to you, most prominently via saving time. What bothers me here, are the numbers and not the fact that they want to be paid (and with more sensible numbers id guess most would agree this at least justified).
On the other hand effectively forfeiting control of your work that froms the basis of your business, regardless of how derrivative it may be, is a HUGE red flag to me. What would stop WotC just reprinting your work and selling it at a lower price cuz they have the traffic and exposure to warrant higher volumes. Or even just add it to DDB and locking it behind a subscription. In either case for that particular work, you can close shop. This rather than the fee discurrages ppl to put time and effort into the hobby, maybe even turn their passion into a job by selling their work, as why would someone put themselves at risk to be at the scrutiny of company that can do what ever it wants with what they have created.
To summarize its ok to have to pay a fee for resources that benefited you, but its borderline insane to demand sth that is a literal hairs breath away from ownership to be allowed to use those resources.
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I’m with you. My purchases of DnD published material is is frozen until full disclosure of what the new OGL is. If it’s anything like the leaked documents, then I will no longer purchase any products under the Hasbro umbrella.
Some folks think this lead was intentional/subterfuge and not reflective of the actual document to be introduced so whatever form it takes will not look "as bad as folks feared." Some folks say "WotC does this all the time" citing MtG events with which I'm not familiar.
Yeah, I think you're right about Discord being the hotter medium, and I agree with your take on the wider "discussion"'s participants.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
With the leaked draft document, it's informed speculation. While it's possible that somebody made it up out of whole cloth, or, slightly more likely, altered a real one, neither is the way to bet. The main unknown is how recent a draft it is, and how more any recent versions have changed. Reacting based on it is not out of line.
If I decided to start a software business building compilers based on GCC. I have a license that says I can do that under certain terms and conditions. The Free Software Foundation can't unilaterally revoke that license. The OGL publishers based their business on a similar promise. If the OGL actually has the something in it to let WotC revoke it on previously-covered works, that's on Wizards for putting that booby-trap in, not on the publishers for not spotting it.
I don't know if it does; there's a lot of speculation based on draft wording, possibly without context. I doubt they're actually going to try that, and they'd likely lose in court if they did, since the new license isn't binding on those who never accepted it. But most people don't have the resources to fight it if they do.
At this point in time, all I see are rumors and speculation. I am concerned about this, but I am not ready to panic just yet over unconfirmed "leaks".
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
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HERE.A lawyer answers questions about (O)GL 1.1
https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-d-d-s-open-gaming-license-ogl-581312d48e2f
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Informed or not, it's still speculation. At this point, even the degree to which it may or may not be informed is speculation -- people are speculating about how much is speculation. That's all we have. One actual statement about a work in progress. Other than that, there's, lots of supposed leaks or supposed drafts of unknown times in the process, lots of speculation based on those leaks and drafts, and lots of people (not necessarily you, personally) throwing around legal terms they don't fully understand. All I'm saying is, take a breath. Yes, it's entirely possible that the new OGL will make it harder for people to participate in the cottage industry that's grown around 5e. It's also possible the impact will be negligible. Freaking out now, over a year before it happens is not productive.
Are you actually suggesting it's up to wizards to make sure another business reads the terms of a contract before they enter into it? Really? It's on wizards to make sure someone else knows what they're doing? Should they spellcheck the stuff for them, too?
You are right, I misspoke about the registration, good catch. How difficult that registration and if it will become a barrier will be remains to be seen. It could be people have to hand write a form in triplicate, get it notarized and send it to them via registered mail. It could be there's a website where you click a box or two and write a two-sentence description of what you're doing. Probably, it will be somewhere in between, but much closer to the website and two sentences. Either way, people are using wizard's stuff. It seems like common courtesy to give them a heads up. (And as others have said in other threads, probably they're doing it in part because they'll use the information for market research, and probably, in part, to clamp down on stuff like the Book of Erotic Fantasy from 3e days.)
As for splintering the player base. Yes, that's a given. And I'll bet that Hasbro has a small army of people with spreadsheets figuring out, well, we'll piss off x percent who will stop buying stuff, but then Y percent will be all in and get new books. And of course, there will be new players who won't ever know the difference. Then they type in some numbers and figure out whether or not making a new edition will tank the company. And if it were going to tank the company, we would not be having this conversation, because they wouldn't be doing it. Edition wars suck, but the game's been through quite a few of them. It will keep on plugging away through this one.
I mean they want to literally gouge money from other groups without actually doing any work. Gouge seems a fine word.
A new deal that expressly impacts your competitors negatively... Is anti competitive.
Oh my gosh they OWN it? I didn't realize that made everything they did okay. Capitalists who make industries worse because they OWN things are always morally correct
And yeah I'm kind of against only certain specific content creators getting cushy deals, the tabletop landscape is better now and it will be worse after things are changed.
WoTC Can go fornicate itself with 3 day old french bread whilst leaping from a high point. I cancelled my sub to this site, along with I will *NOT* be purchasing anything further from them until they stick with OGL 1.0a. Outside of that.. well.. best of luck with greed and all that. Apparently they didn't learn from 4e
Fair Use is not a blanket get out of jail free card.
Fair Use is an affirmative defense. Whether or not it covers any given content is subject to testing of the four factors and is typically specific to those cases. To say "fair use covers them" is like saying "this medium shirt will fit me" without knowing what your actual shirt size is. So unless they publish their content using the OGL, or have legal advice to make sure none of their content is "likely" to cross any fair use lines.. then they are only ok so long as WotC decides not to take action.
*Everyone* is affected.
Small indie developers who put out their campaign and one-shots out for free can have them taken, bundled up and reprinted in a big book of AL quick stories and sold by WotC and they owe you *nothing* for it. Mr Welch, who spent years carefully updating BECMI Mystara to 5E mechanics would have their work ripped away and could be sold on DDB without any credit to him for his work. In theory, even Exandria could be taken away from Matt Mercer and Critical Role under 1.1 terms (if they were subject to them - odds are they won't be) and made sole property of the WotC. Enworld's A5E? Gone. There are dozens, if not hundreds of small creators and businesses who craft and share their creative drive for this game using the SRD as a basis for their homebrew.
We don't know how high the royalty payments will be (and they will only kick in after a company has made 3/4 of a million dollars). it could be a reasonable number. So yes, gouging is extreme at this point. Wizards did the work of making the game the other product is based on. D&D's popularity, which has been managed and grown by wizards for the past 20 or so years, has made an environment that allowed someone else to stroll in and make a product wholly derivative of D&D.
3pp are not quite competitors, really. To use many 3pp products, you must also own the PHB. 3pps create a system where their sales and WotC's sales feed off each other. Wizards doesn't want to interrupt that cycle. Besides that, impacting your competitors negatively is business. It's not anti-competitive, its simply competition.
They own it. yes. Scream about capitalism all you want, but those are the rules we are all playing by. And if you don't like businesses cutting deals with each other, then I don't know what to tell you. Businesses cutting deals is what made the device you typed your response on, different businesses cutting different deals made this website, and different businesses cutting different deals made the game. I guess you can try to opt out of the whole system. Good luck with that.
Just a small question I wish I could ask the people that have read the leaked draft.
Does it refer to OGL 1.0 being unauthorized (as keeps being said) or does it refer specifically to 1.0a?
Those are not the same license, and everything made in the past 20 years has been using 1.0a.
Kickstarter confirmed the leak is real, that they made a deal that made OGL 1.1 slightly brutal on them, so this is way beyond the rumour stage. That being said given the outrage OGL 1.1 is likely dead, not just altered, dead, it's just too toxic in terms of PR. Also there is a set date on this OGL 1.1, January 14th so the longer they don't officially release this, the liker it's dead, but its very, very real.
We do know how high the Royalty Payments are it's 25% unless it's a kickstarter specifically in which case it drops to 20% (thanks to Kickstarter making a better deal on this with WotC).
"This crying about Capitalism is dumb, hint, Capitalism is why we have gaming at all. "
Tetris was invented by the Soviets.
Also i'm sure glad someone is willing to stand up for the poor defenseless Hasbro Executives. you guys are being really mean to these poor billionaires just because they want to take something you like and make it bad.
Im late to the party. Can someone sum up in a tweet what's going on and let me know if I should be mad or not?
Legally? Perhaps not, although if they represented it as irrevocable and it was actually revocable, they might find themselves with problems should that ever go to court.
Morally? Yes. Absolutely.
The OGL was made out to be like Creative Commons and Open Source licensing, which are widely understood to be perpetual. (Even though the copyright holder can release revised versions under different licenses, but they cannot revoke the licenses on the versions that already exist.) Other publishers have used it for their own stuff.
Also, "other businesses" are usually "somebody in their spare time, as a hobby". (Wizards was that once.) They don't have lawyers. If they're using something as widely-used as the OGL, it won't even occur to them that they need a lawyer. If they luck out and get medium (big is so incredibly rare as to not be worth considering), they might start getting somebody to draw up their contracts, but will they think to go back and get the OGL vetted? What would they even do if the lawyer tells them it's bad? They've built their business on top of it.
So yeah, when WotC put a license out there to bring the hobbyist publishers into their ecosystem, it was 100% their responsibility to not design it to let them screw over those people.
Now, I don't think that they're actually trying to do that, but if they are, the blame is not on the OGL users.
I'll try to do it fairly.
There is a document that was reported to be a leak of a draft version of the new OGL 1.1 license agreement. It looks at least somewhat plausible. The full document is not available for review. It appears to imply that the old OGL license will be revoked, though there is a question over which version. It also says that the royalties WotC wants for creators making over 750k are in the very high 20-25% range. Many people feel this is the last straw if it is real and they don't change it in the actual official version. There has so far been no comment from WotC. Kickstarter has confirmed they have negotiated royalties, but not the amount.
Sorry it's not exactly a tweet length, but I think that's about all of the major details.
A good point to mention is that the 25% is calculated by revenue and not profit. Which means a lot of the 3rd party creators probably will stop making Kickstarter's etc or similar for D&D if the current leaked 1.1 is correct.
A lot of 3rd party creators will move away from using D&D systems at all, and people like me who already where more invested into 3rd party content than WOTC published content will stopp supporting WOTC in the future if they go forth with this.
Greetingz,
honestly I am a little torn about the whole situation aside the speculation.
Just for the sake of argument, lets assume the following:
- OGL 1.1 will include reporting and royalty fees
- OGL 1.1 will grant WotC an irevocable and perpetual licence to all 3P-Content created unter it
It may be bold and a little disingenuous to compare Source-Books and the general IP to stock photos, but for the sake of argument, thats what they are. You can either just use them as a whole, or just as a light texture to make a picture more grounded or only cut that piece in the background to give the new picture that little something. Sure you dont have to pay a flat 25% fee of the revenue to the rights holder, but in order for you to use it to build your content (and most relevant to the whole story: sell it), you need to pay. And thats fine as it provided value to you, most prominently via saving time. What bothers me here, are the numbers and not the fact that they want to be paid (and with more sensible numbers id guess most would agree this at least justified).
On the other hand effectively forfeiting control of your work that froms the basis of your business, regardless of how derrivative it may be, is a HUGE red flag to me.
What would stop WotC just reprinting your work and selling it at a lower price cuz they have the traffic and exposure to warrant higher volumes. Or even just add it to DDB and locking it behind a subscription. In either case for that particular work, you can close shop. This rather than the fee discurrages ppl to put time and effort into the hobby, maybe even turn their passion into a job by selling their work, as why would someone put themselves at risk to be at the scrutiny of company that can do what ever it wants with what they have created.
To summarize its ok to have to pay a fee for resources that benefited you, but its borderline insane to demand sth that is a literal hairs breath away from ownership to be allowed to use those resources.