Section 3 in the new OGL is there so that if Wizards prints something based on the same myths, legends, or common storytelling tropes that you based your Original Work on, and thus the two of you independently came to similar end states, you are not allowed to cost Wizards millions of dollars by suing for copyright infringement and stopping production of their material.
That is also why they put the license-back thing in 1.1 - not so they could steal your homebrew they never wanted in the first place, but so you weren't allowed to sue them because you made an 'Oni' species in your third-party homebrew thingus and a year later Wizards also made an 'Oni' species in a new book.
Your WORK belongs to you. The ideas your work was based on and inspired by belong to EVERYONE. You are not allowed to stake ownership of an idea, only on the actual, verifiable work that you printed and sold. The fact that other people can use the same ideas you did to arrive at similar end states and produce similar work is a GOOD THING. It means ideas can flow freely and the best iteration can win.
Stop being weird and bad about the dumb copyright thing. You will never get the ability to sue Wizards for "stealing your ideas!" Those ideas were never yours in the first place. Only the thing you made with them is yours.
Regardless of the reason it's there, the wording of it did allow for them to use in full anything you made using the OGL even if it included content that was original to you. You're just repeating word for word what WotC has said. If you publish a system agnostic setting and you put it under the OGL for some reason even if it doesn't use the SRD (people have done this before, Pathfinder did it with 2e) technically under the 1.1 wording, WotC could have published that setting in their own books. There's a reason we're fighting for proper wording. Part of it has to do with not trusting Wizards right now, and part of it has to do with not knowing what ideas future executives will have.
Also, if you made let's say a tree-person species for D&D and then Wizards did that 6 months later, you wouldn't really have a case unless their version was pretty much copied from what you did, so the clause is wholly unnecessary unless WotC intends to copy the design and not just have something similar. You know how many knockoff Jurassic Park movies there are? They don't actually have a Jurassic Park and use the character names etc. so they're legal. If WotC is worried about lawsuits, they're planning on or at least thinking about using your exact creative ideas without attribution or payment.
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This set of terms clearly defines the point that if anyone publishes user content on site, you waive a good bit of your rights to said content.
The moral of it all, ether don't publish anything you might want to make a dime with near or on this site, or publish and accept the reality you gave it away for free.
Section 3 in the new OGL is there so that if Wizards prints something based on the same myths, legends, or common storytelling tropes that you based your Original Work on, and thus the two of you independently came to similar end states, you are not allowed to cost Wizards millions of dollars by suing for copyright infringement and stopping production of their material.
That is also why they put the license-back thing in 1.1 - not so they could steal your homebrew they never wanted in the first place, but so you weren't allowed to sue them because you made an 'Oni' species in your third-party homebrew thingus and a year later Wizards also made an 'Oni' species in a new book.
Your WORK belongs to you. The ideas your work was based on and inspired by belong to EVERYONE. You are not allowed to stake ownership of an idea, only on the actual, verifiable work that you printed and sold. The fact that other people can use the same ideas you did to arrive at similar end states and produce similar work is a GOOD THING. It means ideas can flow freely and the best iteration can win.
Stop being weird and bad about the dumb copyright thing. You will never get the ability to sue Wizards for "stealing your ideas!" Those ideas were never yours in the first place. Only the thing you made with them is yours.
You can't copyright mythology, your anology doesn't work and WotC knows that nobody is talking about that. It's how you SPECIFICALLY mention lore for certain things though in your setting, such as homebrew worlds, or HOW the mythology gets depicted, among things.
Also, yes, you can absolutely sue for copyright or patent infringement if you release supplementary products for another product, and then the maker of said product copies your supplement.
Uh, okay, this is... my first post on these forums, I guess. Huh. But anyway, I'm an attorney; my focus is entertainment and copyright. I had to reply to this because:
You're absolutely right. Thank you.
You will find equivalent provisions to this in any (well-written) contract which involves the end user creating content with someone else's IP. So, you know how people in the film industry do not look at unsolicited film scripts? The worry is that someone will later sue when a coincidentally similar project comes out, which could be a major time and money sink and often happens even when the project isn't that similar (I was just listening to a talk about a high-profile case of this sort recently, and that was just a vaguely similar plot, not any kind of verbatim rip - easy to do by coincidence, assuming it was coincidence). If they can show they didn't look at the material in the first place, it's an easy defense. They can't have copied it. So, they look at as little material as possible - generally only from people they know and are certain they're interested in working with. That's how film and TV handle the problem, but not everyone can do it that way.
But some contexts - mostly online/interactive platforms (forums, for example; take a peek at the terms of service on any other official forum) - can't refuse to look at content because they exist to host content. So, instead, they license all user content, even though they have no intention of doing anything with it. It insulates them from nuisance lawsuits. The exact same concerns apply to RPG content; they are inviting you to produce legitimate material under their brand, and they may curate or host it through platforms like DDB. So, frankly, I am flabbergasted that OGL 1.0 did not contain a term like this. Wizards has a whole bunch of professional game designers on staff. All legalities aside, trying to sell homebrew that you're probably offering at a much lower price than they could (or no price) would be kind of a stupid business model on their part. No, they do not want your homebrew.
Judging by the tone of conversations on this forum to this point, I expect my point isn't going to get through to anyone, but I couldn't let a lone voice of reason be shouted down for saying something that's entirely true.
Well, there you go bringing facts into the discussion. The problem with facts is that some people just aren't interested in them. There is apparently a rather sizeable portion of the D&D audience right now that feels angry, and they just want to feel angry. They're not interested in discussing the facts, they're not interested in negotiating a compromise, they just want to be angry and they want to shout down anyone who chooses not to jump on their anger bandwagon.
The simple fact is that nothing has been changed yet. D&D is the same as it was last week, last month, last year. The legal stuff is the same today as it was last week, last month, last year. No one has been sued, no one has lost a penny, no one has gotten a Cease & Desist letter from Hasbro - nothing. And yet 90% of the people on these Forums are just shouting rumors and drafts and links to blog posts by somebody who watched a Youtube video about a Twitter post that somebody made about a thing they heard from somebody.
I always thought the D&D crowd was smarter than that. We're the nerds, right?? We're supposed to be the smart ones! Good golly, folks. Stop acting like backseat lawyers and start acting like the nerds we truly are. This OGL thing will only be solved with talking, not with shouting.
Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. Parking will not be validated.
“They never have” is not the same as “They never will”, nor is it the same as “They couldn’t”.
For over 20 years, nobody entertained the thought that OGL1.0a could be pulled from under their feet and threaten their livelihood. If nothing else, learn from that lesson.
There needs to be controls, checks, and balances set in place. Many of the home brew items I have seen are way unbalanced and the monsters/NPC's are ridiculous.
Also take some reality check. You will probably be more upset if they decide your work of art is not worth stealing
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I think there are some people, seems like a lot of people, who won't be happy with anything WOTC does at this point. It's really a lose/lose/lose situation. WTOC loses, Players lose and 3rd Parties lose.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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They never have.
Let me reiterate: they never have.
Section 3 in the new OGL is there so that if Wizards prints something based on the same myths, legends, or common storytelling tropes that you based your Original Work on, and thus the two of you independently came to similar end states, you are not allowed to cost Wizards millions of dollars by suing for copyright infringement and stopping production of their material.
That is also why they put the license-back thing in 1.1 - not so they could steal your homebrew they never wanted in the first place, but so you weren't allowed to sue them because you made an 'Oni' species in your third-party homebrew thingus and a year later Wizards also made an 'Oni' species in a new book.
Your WORK belongs to you. The ideas your work was based on and inspired by belong to EVERYONE. You are not allowed to stake ownership of an idea, only on the actual, verifiable work that you printed and sold. The fact that other people can use the same ideas you did to arrive at similar end states and produce similar work is a GOOD THING. It means ideas can flow freely and the best iteration can win.
Stop being weird and bad about the dumb copyright thing. You will never get the ability to sue Wizards for "stealing your ideas!" Those ideas were never yours in the first place. Only the thing you made with them is yours.
Please do not contact or message me.
Thank you for posting this.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Regardless of the reason it's there, the wording of it did allow for them to use in full anything you made using the OGL even if it included content that was original to you. You're just repeating word for word what WotC has said. If you publish a system agnostic setting and you put it under the OGL for some reason even if it doesn't use the SRD (people have done this before, Pathfinder did it with 2e) technically under the 1.1 wording, WotC could have published that setting in their own books. There's a reason we're fighting for proper wording. Part of it has to do with not trusting Wizards right now, and part of it has to do with not knowing what ideas future executives will have.
Also, if you made let's say a tree-person species for D&D and then Wizards did that 6 months later, you wouldn't really have a case unless their version was pretty much copied from what you did, so the clause is wholly unnecessary unless WotC intends to copy the design and not just have something similar. You know how many knockoff Jurassic Park movies there are? They don't actually have a Jurassic Park and use the character names etc. so they're legal. If WotC is worried about lawsuits, they're planning on or at least thinking about using your exact creative ideas without attribution or payment.
Current terms of Service for DnDBeyond states:
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Only a fool would take a corporation's word on such a blanket legal statement.
Actually, this is the DDB Section reference located near bottom of the sites TOS: https://company.wizards.com/en/legal/terms
This set of terms clearly defines the point that if anyone publishes user content on site, you waive a good bit of your rights to said content.
The moral of it all, ether don't publish anything you might want to make a dime with near or on this site, or publish and accept the reality you gave it away for free.
You can't copyright mythology, your anology doesn't work and WotC knows that nobody is talking about that. It's how you SPECIFICALLY mention lore for certain things though in your setting, such as homebrew worlds, or HOW the mythology gets depicted, among things.
Also, yes, you can absolutely sue for copyright or patent infringement if you release supplementary products for another product, and then the maker of said product copies your supplement.
Uh, okay, this is... my first post on these forums, I guess. Huh. But anyway, I'm an attorney; my focus is entertainment and copyright. I had to reply to this because:
You're absolutely right. Thank you.
You will find equivalent provisions to this in any (well-written) contract which involves the end user creating content with someone else's IP. So, you know how people in the film industry do not look at unsolicited film scripts? The worry is that someone will later sue when a coincidentally similar project comes out, which could be a major time and money sink and often happens even when the project isn't that similar (I was just listening to a talk about a high-profile case of this sort recently, and that was just a vaguely similar plot, not any kind of verbatim rip - easy to do by coincidence, assuming it was coincidence). If they can show they didn't look at the material in the first place, it's an easy defense. They can't have copied it. So, they look at as little material as possible - generally only from people they know and are certain they're interested in working with. That's how film and TV handle the problem, but not everyone can do it that way.
But some contexts - mostly online/interactive platforms (forums, for example; take a peek at the terms of service on any other official forum) - can't refuse to look at content because they exist to host content. So, instead, they license all user content, even though they have no intention of doing anything with it. It insulates them from nuisance lawsuits. The exact same concerns apply to RPG content; they are inviting you to produce legitimate material under their brand, and they may curate or host it through platforms like DDB. So, frankly, I am flabbergasted that OGL 1.0 did not contain a term like this. Wizards has a whole bunch of professional game designers on staff. All legalities aside, trying to sell homebrew that you're probably offering at a much lower price than they could (or no price) would be kind of a stupid business model on their part. No, they do not want your homebrew.
Judging by the tone of conversations on this forum to this point, I expect my point isn't going to get through to anyone, but I couldn't let a lone voice of reason be shouted down for saying something that's entirely true.
Medium humanoid (human), lawful neutral
Well, there you go bringing facts into the discussion. The problem with facts is that some people just aren't interested in them. There is apparently a rather sizeable portion of the D&D audience right now that feels angry, and they just want to feel angry. They're not interested in discussing the facts, they're not interested in negotiating a compromise, they just want to be angry and they want to shout down anyone who chooses not to jump on their anger bandwagon.
The simple fact is that nothing has been changed yet. D&D is the same as it was last week, last month, last year. The legal stuff is the same today as it was last week, last month, last year. No one has been sued, no one has lost a penny, no one has gotten a Cease & Desist letter from Hasbro - nothing. And yet 90% of the people on these Forums are just shouting rumors and drafts and links to blog posts by somebody who watched a Youtube video about a Twitter post that somebody made about a thing they heard from somebody.
I always thought the D&D crowd was smarter than that. We're the nerds, right?? We're supposed to be the smart ones! Good golly, folks. Stop acting like backseat lawyers and start acting like the nerds we truly are. This OGL thing will only be solved with talking, not with shouting.
Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. Parking will not be validated.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
“They never have” is not the same as “They never will”, nor is it the same as “They couldn’t”.
For over 20 years, nobody entertained the thought that OGL1.0a could be pulled from under their feet and threaten their livelihood. If nothing else, learn from that lesson.
I don't want your homebrew either.
Much of it is %#$%^
There needs to be controls, checks, and balances set in place. Many of the home brew items I have seen are way unbalanced and the monsters/NPC's are ridiculous.
Also take some reality check. You will probably be more upset if they decide your work of art is not worth stealing
They are totally after my BBEG's Basket of floating kittens
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I think there are some people, seems like a lot of people, who won't be happy with anything WOTC does at this point. It's really a lose/lose/lose situation. WTOC loses, Players lose and 3rd Parties lose.