Let's not get irrational in the heat of debate, please. If high production values are desired, open source is desirable. Collaboration, the exchange of ideas, different points of view, etc... are essential to achieve high-value products. That's not to say that proprietary code can't achieve good things too, but proprietary code doesn't mean higher production values.
I don't think we're unaligned. Open Source is valuable, and proprietary code has benefits too. I think both are good to have.
Not exactly with Baker v Selden (1879). Baker was about general use of published ideas - you cannot copyright an idea.
And you cannot prevent people from playing D&D using rules you have published. Anyone can play it with or without the books (using memory).
But publishing things on your own WITH those explicit rulesets (e.g. citing them at all) is still a copyright violation. It is still WoTC's brand. Creating explicit derivatives from it, using any part of the copyrighted books, is in violation. That's why there is an OGL 1.0 in the first place. It gave cover to those who wanted to use that explicit material.
And why there is a backlash from OGL 1.1, in which they heavy-handedly moved to standard licensing model for explicit use of copyrighted materials... under the guise of "keeping it safe" and/or "collecting information". They have the right to do so as it is theirs. And it's not exactly wrong. They just handled it badly (and with a greataxe).
I didn't say anything remotely like that, I said people will produce stuff regardless of WOTC's approval. I was questioning whose moral values WOTC were going to use, those of a country currently rolling back women's rights and allowing fundamentalist religious views to censor school libraries may not be viewed as appropriate by people outside of that country. And let's not forget the burning of the Harry Potter books because certain elements thought they were a demonic influence. The best people to decide if content is appropriate are those who decide whether or not to buy it.
You're missing the point, of course people can produce whatever they want. But the 1.0a license itself includes WotC's name, which means WotC's name ends up in every single book (and non-book!) published using that license. They have a right to be able to choose which books contain their name and which don't. If someone doesn't like that, they don't need to use someone else's license - it's that simple.
Some form of standing committee from outside needs to be in charge of determining if something is offensive (and we will all agree there is a LOT of things that we would NOT need a freakin' committee to decide on!) when it runs into these grey areas... It would be a method of allowing the company and those holding the licenses deciding what they ALL want to be associated with.
No, thanks. Censorship is an all around terrible idea. Censorship by committee is even worse. And the whole idea that one gets to decide what they are "associated with" is completely laughable. Life doesn't work that way, and when you try and force it to, the net result is suffering.
What's laughable is believing that the owner of a piece of property shouldn't have a say in how it's used.
And censorship refers to the government controlling your speech, not a private entity controlling their own platforms.
They have the right to do so as it is theirs. And it's not exactly wrong.
Keep in mind, however, that WotC already exercised their rights and decided what to do with their IP when they released it under a copyleft license. There is zero infringement on their rights for others to keep them to the terms of the license that they agreed to just because the new people in charge no longer like those terms.
Now whether they are legally able to use a loophole of a single word to go against that original decision that WotC themselves made has been debated all over the internet the past couple weeks and cannot be decided by anyone but a judge at this point.
But this is not about others trying to encroach on a business's IP. Their rights as a copyright holder are completely irrelevant. It is about holding a business to the terms of a license that they themselves not only agreed to, but wrote themselves. WotC does indeed have a right to control what happens with their IP, and they exercised that right in 2000. It is not an issue of their rights to try to hold them to a legally binding license agreement. It is a contractual issue not a copyright holder's rights issue.
From your own link: "Censorship by the government is unconstitutional." And literally the entire page you linked refers to governmental censorship. Not private companies regulating their property. If you don't like it, don't use their license.
They have the right to do so as it is theirs. And it's not exactly wrong.
Keep in mind, however, that WotC already exercised their rights and decided what to do with their IP when they released it under a copyleft license. There is zero infringement on their rights for others to keep them to the terms of the license that they agreed to just because the new people in charge no longer like those terms.
Now whether they are legally able to use a loophole of a single word to go against that original decision that WotC themselves made has been debated all over the internet the past couple weeks and cannot be decided by anyone but a judge at this point.
But this is not about others trying to encroach on a business's IP. Their rights as a copyright holder are completely irrelevant. It is about holding a business to the terms of a license that they themselves not only agreed to, but wrote themselves. WotC does indeed have a right to control what happens with their IP, and they exercised that right in 2000. It is not an issue of their rights to try to hold them to a legally binding license agreement. It is a contractual issue not a copyright holder's rights issue.
Businesses change license agreements all the time. The question is how is OGL 1.0 written when it comes to the licensing agreement? Is it in perpetuality or was is just an open license at the time?
Because an open license is just that - it can change at any time. Those who have the licenses can decide what to do with that.
This isn't a "WoTC did the right thing". I think they were stupid in how they did it. But it's still their IP. All large parties agree on that , including Paizo who is the loudest yeller has they've made a lot of money off of a free license.. something anyone else would have adjusted ages ago. I find the arguments of the small developers making sense. The large ones who have created competing product without paying a license fee.. they're massively biased as they initially saw their free ride coming to an end.
Businesses change license agreements all the time. The question is how is OGL 1.0 written when it comes to the licensing agreement? Is it in perpetuality or was is just an open license at the time?
Because an open license is just that - it can change at any time. Those who have the licenses can decide what to do with that.
This isn't a "WoTC did the right thing". I think they were stupid in how they did it. But it's still their IP. All large parties agree on that , including Paizo who is the loudest yeller has they've made a lot of money off of a free license.. something anyone else would have adjusted ages ago. I find the arguments of the small developers making sense. The large ones who have created competing product without paying a license fee.. they're massively biased as they initially saw their free ride coming to an end.
the OGL 1.0 is written with the language "the agreement is perpetual" --- however, "perpetual" in contract law language just means "it lasts UNTIL someone revokes it". the legal terminology needed is "irrevocable" - which the OGL does NOT have. It however ALSO does not say "this is how the contract can be revoked" . And WOTC on their Web Site for many years had a FAQ that said "We wont revoke this license" and in contract law, when a contract is drafted by one of the two parties, the benefit of the doubt goes AGAINST the drafter. particularly when the Drafter has made assurances as they did in the FAQ.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
They have the right to do so as it is theirs. And it's not exactly wrong.
Keep in mind, however, that WotC already exercised their rights and decided what to do with their IP when they released it under a copyleft license. There is zero infringement on their rights for others to keep them to the terms of the license that they agreed to just because the new people in charge no longer like those terms.
Now whether they are legally able to use a loophole of a single word to go against that original decision that WotC themselves made has been debated all over the internet the past couple weeks and cannot be decided by anyone but a judge at this point.
But this is not about others trying to encroach on a business's IP. Their rights as a copyright holder are completely irrelevant. It is about holding a business to the terms of a license that they themselves not only agreed to, but wrote themselves. WotC does indeed have a right to control what happens with their IP, and they exercised that right in 2000. It is not an issue of their rights to try to hold them to a legally binding license agreement. It is a contractual issue not a copyright holder's rights issue.
Businesses change license agreements all the time. The question is how is OGL 1.0 written when it comes to the licensing agreement? Is it in perpetuality or was is just an open license at the time?
Because an open license is just that - it can change at any time. Those who have the licenses can decide what to do with that.
This isn't a "WoTC did the right thing". I think they were stupid in how they did it. But it's still their IP. All large parties agree on that , including Paizo who is the loudest yeller has they've made a lot of money off of a free license.. something anyone else would have adjusted ages ago. I find the arguments of the small developers making sense. The large ones who have created competing product without paying a license fee.. they're massively biased as they initially saw their free ride coming to an end.
Exactly as Granny M says - the intent as that it was permanent, irrevocable, perpetual, forever, etc. etc. The problem was that copyleft licenses hadn’t seen much time in court at that point and so the wording to capture the intent was not as tight as later legal precedent helped develop. Either way, the point is WotC exercised their rights as a copyright holder to (attempt to) release that content as available under that license forever. So there is no issue of WotC having a right to control their IP. They already did that. It is a license wording issue.
So “free ride” or no free ride or whatever is all distraction. WotC entered into an agreement that WotC itself intended to be permanent but are now trying to get out of that agreement. Whether it was a good deal or bad or whatever is, again, irrelevant. A contract is a contract - good or bad - and it is legally debatable whether WotC can revoke that contract.
Again, it is 100% a contract wording issue and not at all an issue of a copyright holder controlling their IP.
And, as an aside, WotC has benefited indirectly from the OGL far, far more than any publisher. The 3pp ecosystem around D&D is essential fail to D&D’s current success. Additionally, Paizo is NOT the “major corporation” WotC laughably paints them as. WotC is an international BILLION dollar corporation, whereas Paizo would likely still be considered a small (or at most medium) sized business by most every metric.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
I doubt even that many will have the resources combined to fight this in court. Hasbro is one of the largest corporations in the world. I know Paizo say they intend to challenge the revocation in court, but I find it unlikely that they have the resources to do so.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
That is exactly right. Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time loose our rage. Once they publish a new license, it will be too late - the legal lines will have been drawn, and the real lawyering already begun. But until then, the community still has opportunity to make its voice heard, and convince Wizards (and their shareholders!) that abandoning the principles behind OGL 1 is huge mistake.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
I doubt even that many will have the resources combined to fight this in court. Hasbro is one of the largest corporations in the world. I know Paizo say they intend to challenge the revocation in court, but I find it unlikely that they have the resources to do so.
Hmmm... Is there a possibility that Wizard's is opening itself up to a class action lawsuit from all the creators at once?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
I doubt even that many will have the resources combined to fight this in court. Hasbro is one of the largest corporations in the world. I know Paizo say they intend to challenge the revocation in court, but I find it unlikely that they have the resources to do so.
Paizo has the advantage of having a law firm backing them that has a stake in the original document - in addition to the fact that it kindof seems personal for them, meaning they're less likely to bail just because it's expensive.
Plus, Hasbro corporate can do math too. They're not going to throw every dollar they have behind this effort - they have to justify expenditures with returns. Eventually, someone over there with a brain will put a cap on what they can put into this.
Which is assuming, even, that the potential court case makes it past day one. It's my understanding that a judge could rule almost immediately if it's obvious one party has no case.
And that's also assuming that Hasbro/WotC doesn't realize that the risks of going to court and losing big almost certainly outweigh their gain at this point...
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
I doubt even that many will have the resources combined to fight this in court. Hasbro is one of the largest corporations in the world. I know Paizo say they intend to challenge the revocation in court, but I find it unlikely that they have the resources to do so.
Paizo has the advantage of having a law firm backing them that has a stake in the original document - in addition to the fact that it kindof seems personal for them, meaning they're less likely to bail just because it's expensive.
Plus, Hasbro corporate can do math too. They're not going to throw every dollar they have behind this effort - they have to justify expenditures with returns. Eventually, someone over there with a brain will put a cap on what they can put into this.
Which is assuming, even, that the potential court case makes it past day one. It's my understanding that a judge could rule almost immediately if it's obvious one party has no case.
And that's also assuming that Hasbro/WotC doesn't realize that the risks of going to court and losing big almost certainly outweigh their gain at this point...
Not to mention WotC taking a copyleft license to court is a potential minefield of a lot of other interested companies and foundations, many of whom have legal departments deeper than Hasbro's, being suddenly interested in making sure no bad precedents are set in regards to interpreting copyleft licenses.
Heck, an individual programmer and a tiny business wound up in a legal battle over model train software, but since it involved open-source software licensing, pretty much every major player involved in the open-source community and numerous major corporations stepped in and took it all the way up to the US Court of Appeals, just one step down from the Supreme Court.
Maybe a potential OGL court case will be unrelated enough others won't get involved, or maybe they will and easily balance out Hasbro's 800 lb gorilla advantage. WotC has no idea until they try, which is a risky position to consider, and makes the whole "small Paizo vs giant Hasbro" a much more complicated calculation to assess. I would hope smart lawyers and execs at WotC would be wary of that many unknowns that could swing things very wildly.
That is exactly right. Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time loose our rage. Once they publish a new license, it will be too late - the legal lines will have been drawn, and the real lawyering already begun. But until then, the community still has opportunity to make its voice heard, and convince Wizards (and their shareholders!) that abandoning the principles behind OGL 1 is huge mistake.
I'm fine with opposing 1.1, but not with the idea that 1.0a should remain untouched. It was a bad contract from the beginning, and the only thing that kept that fact under wraps is that few people were pushing the bounds of what could be done with it. That is starting to change.
The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
It's a legal / contract issue, so court is exactly where it needs to be fought. Everything else is dependent on whether they can truly revoke, deauthorize, or amend 1.0a or not.
That is exactly right. Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time loose our rage. Once they publish a new license, it will be too late - the legal lines will have been drawn, and the real lawyering already begun. But until then, the community still has opportunity to make its voice heard, and convince Wizards (and their shareholders!) that abandoning the principles behind OGL 1 is huge mistake.
I'm fine with opposing 1.1, but not with the idea that 1.0a should remain untouched. It was a bad contract from the beginning, and the only thing that kept that fact under wraps is that few people were pushing the bounds of what could be done with it. That is starting to change. not.
What was bad about it? I've not seen anything bad come from it, I've seen a lot of fantastic stuff including OSRIC, OSE, PF1. The OGL has been a fantastic thing for the hobby.
That is exactly right. Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time loose our rage. Once they publish a new license, it will be too late - the legal lines will have been drawn, and the real lawyering already begun. But until then, the community still has opportunity to make its voice heard, and convince Wizards (and their shareholders!) that abandoning the principles behind OGL 1 is huge mistake.
I'm fine with opposing 1.1, but not with the idea that 1.0a should remain untouched. It was a bad contract from the beginning, and the only thing that kept that fact under wraps is that few people were pushing the bounds of what could be done with it. That is starting to change.
I'm curious - what exactly is your stake in this "bad deal"?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
Yeah I have no idea how anyone could see the original OGL as a 'bad deal' in any fashion unless they're hardcore bootlickers for corporations - of which I have met online, they do exist, 12 year old boys that think they're going to be CEO's one day really seem to get off on defending the rights of billion dollar corporations for some reason.
I think at most you could say it 'needed to be updated to include language of the future' - as in, if they had revised it and ONLY changed it so that they included language that covers more modern digital age stuff that they didn't know about 20 years ago when it was written in the first place. They'd have had to keep the rights basically the same though, none of this 'now you owe us constant information / royalties / all of your stuff belongs to us too' malarky that they're trying to pull.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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That is neither my problem nor theirs.
I don't think we're unaligned. Open Source is valuable, and proprietary code has benefits too. I think both are good to have.
Not exactly with Baker v Selden (1879). Baker was about general use of published ideas - you cannot copyright an idea.
And you cannot prevent people from playing D&D using rules you have published. Anyone can play it with or without the books (using memory).
But publishing things on your own WITH those explicit rulesets (e.g. citing them at all) is still a copyright violation. It is still WoTC's brand. Creating explicit derivatives from it, using any part of the copyrighted books, is in violation. That's why there is an OGL 1.0 in the first place. It gave cover to those who wanted to use that explicit material.
And why there is a backlash from OGL 1.1, in which they heavy-handedly moved to standard licensing model for explicit use of copyrighted materials... under the guise of "keeping it safe" and/or "collecting information". They have the right to do so as it is theirs. And it's not exactly wrong. They just handled it badly (and with a greataxe).
I'm getting tired of teaching you things:
https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship
Keep in mind, however, that WotC already exercised their rights and decided what to do with their IP when they released it under a copyleft license. There is zero infringement on their rights for others to keep them to the terms of the license that they agreed to just because the new people in charge no longer like those terms.
Now whether they are legally able to use a loophole of a single word to go against that original decision that WotC themselves made has been debated all over the internet the past couple weeks and cannot be decided by anyone but a judge at this point.
But this is not about others trying to encroach on a business's IP. Their rights as a copyright holder are completely irrelevant. It is about holding a business to the terms of a license that they themselves not only agreed to, but wrote themselves. WotC does indeed have a right to control what happens with their IP, and they exercised that right in 2000. It is not an issue of their rights to try to hold them to a legally binding license agreement. It is a contractual issue not a copyright holder's rights issue.
Having withdrawn all your other "points', you still need to withdraw the first two: The way to fight hate and NFTs is NOT via the OGL.
From your own link: "Censorship by the government is unconstitutional." And literally the entire page you linked refers to governmental censorship. Not private companies regulating their property. If you don't like it, don't use their license.
Right, they did, including not making that license irrevocable.
Businesses change license agreements all the time. The question is how is OGL 1.0 written when it comes to the licensing agreement? Is it in perpetuality or was is just an open license at the time?
Because an open license is just that - it can change at any time. Those who have the licenses can decide what to do with that.
This isn't a "WoTC did the right thing". I think they were stupid in how they did it. But it's still their IP. All large parties agree on that , including Paizo who is the loudest yeller has they've made a lot of money off of a free license.. something anyone else would have adjusted ages ago. I find the arguments of the small developers making sense. The large ones who have created competing product without paying a license fee.. they're massively biased as they initially saw their free ride coming to an end.
the OGL 1.0 is written with the language "the agreement is perpetual" --- however, "perpetual" in contract law language just means "it lasts UNTIL someone revokes it". the legal terminology needed is "irrevocable" - which the OGL does NOT have. It however ALSO does not say "this is how the contract can be revoked" . And WOTC on their Web Site for many years had a FAQ that said "We wont revoke this license" and in contract law, when a contract is drafted by one of the two parties, the benefit of the doubt goes AGAINST the drafter. particularly when the Drafter has made assurances as they did in the FAQ.
BUT you dont know how the judge will rule until you are before the judge.
Exactly as Granny M says - the intent as that it was permanent, irrevocable, perpetual, forever, etc. etc. The problem was that copyleft licenses hadn’t seen much time in court at that point and so the wording to capture the intent was not as tight as later legal precedent helped develop. Either way, the point is WotC exercised their rights as a copyright holder to (attempt to) release that content as available under that license forever. So there is no issue of WotC having a right to control their IP. They already did that. It is a license wording issue.
So “free ride” or no free ride or whatever is all distraction. WotC entered into an agreement that WotC itself intended to be permanent but are now trying to get out of that agreement. Whether it was a good deal or bad or whatever is, again, irrelevant. A contract is a contract - good or bad - and it is legally debatable whether WotC can revoke that contract.
Again, it is 100% a contract wording issue and not at all an issue of a copyright holder controlling their IP.
And, as an aside, WotC has benefited indirectly from the OGL far, far more than any publisher. The 3pp ecosystem around D&D is essential fail to D&D’s current success. Additionally, Paizo is NOT the “major corporation” WotC laughably paints them as. WotC is an international BILLION dollar corporation, whereas Paizo would likely still be considered a small (or at most medium) sized business by most every metric.
Nobody does, so all this yelling at each other is pointless. WotC will attempt to declare that 1.0a has been revoked, someone will attempt to call their bluff by publishing something new under that version, and the legal battle will begin.
And only fewer than ten companies have any chance to fight the legal battle, while WotC will of course strategically pick whom to attack with litigation focusing on what. So if the collective resistance to defend isn't successful we will lose most 3rd parties no matter what the outcomes will be for the cases that are actually making it to judges' or juries' decisions. The fight needs to be fought by the community mainly outside of courts.
I doubt even that many will have the resources combined to fight this in court. Hasbro is one of the largest corporations in the world. I know Paizo say they intend to challenge the revocation in court, but I find it unlikely that they have the resources to do so.
Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licence Holder
That is exactly right. Now is the time to speak out. Now is the time loose our rage. Once they publish a new license, it will be too late - the legal lines will have been drawn, and the real lawyering already begun. But until then, the community still has opportunity to make its voice heard, and convince Wizards (and their shareholders!) that abandoning the principles behind OGL 1 is huge mistake.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieHmmm... Is there a possibility that Wizard's is opening itself up to a class action lawsuit from all the creators at once?
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatiePaizo has the advantage of having a law firm backing them that has a stake in the original document - in addition to the fact that it kindof seems personal for them, meaning they're less likely to bail just because it's expensive.
Plus, Hasbro corporate can do math too. They're not going to throw every dollar they have behind this effort - they have to justify expenditures with returns. Eventually, someone over there with a brain will put a cap on what they can put into this.
Which is assuming, even, that the potential court case makes it past day one. It's my understanding that a judge could rule almost immediately if it's obvious one party has no case.
And that's also assuming that Hasbro/WotC doesn't realize that the risks of going to court and losing big almost certainly outweigh their gain at this point...
Not to mention WotC taking a copyleft license to court is a potential minefield of a lot of other interested companies and foundations, many of whom have legal departments deeper than Hasbro's, being suddenly interested in making sure no bad precedents are set in regards to interpreting copyleft licenses.
Heck, an individual programmer and a tiny business wound up in a legal battle over model train software, but since it involved open-source software licensing, pretty much every major player involved in the open-source community and numerous major corporations stepped in and took it all the way up to the US Court of Appeals, just one step down from the Supreme Court.
Maybe a potential OGL court case will be unrelated enough others won't get involved, or maybe they will and easily balance out Hasbro's 800 lb gorilla advantage. WotC has no idea until they try, which is a risky position to consider, and makes the whole "small Paizo vs giant Hasbro" a much more complicated calculation to assess. I would hope smart lawyers and execs at WotC would be wary of that many unknowns that could swing things very wildly.
I'm fine with opposing 1.1, but not with the idea that 1.0a should remain untouched. It was a bad contract from the beginning, and the only thing that kept that fact under wraps is that few people were pushing the bounds of what could be done with it. That is starting to change.
It's a legal / contract issue, so court is exactly where it needs to be fought. Everything else is dependent on whether they can truly revoke, deauthorize, or amend 1.0a or not.
What was bad about it? I've not seen anything bad come from it, I've seen a lot of fantastic stuff including OSRIC, OSE, PF1. The OGL has been a fantastic thing for the hobby.
Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licence Holder
I'm curious - what exactly is your stake in this "bad deal"?
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieYeah I have no idea how anyone could see the original OGL as a 'bad deal' in any fashion unless they're hardcore bootlickers for corporations - of which I have met online, they do exist, 12 year old boys that think they're going to be CEO's one day really seem to get off on defending the rights of billion dollar corporations for some reason.
I think at most you could say it 'needed to be updated to include language of the future' - as in, if they had revised it and ONLY changed it so that they included language that covers more modern digital age stuff that they didn't know about 20 years ago when it was written in the first place. They'd have had to keep the rights basically the same though, none of this 'now you owe us constant information / royalties / all of your stuff belongs to us too' malarky that they're trying to pull.