The OP is correct. If WotC/Hasbro was real about working on a fair new license that will allow a healthy community and 3rd party creators ecosystem to flurish they would not (pretend to) involve 99+ percent non qualified customers but invite those creators and other publishers to register to take part in an open discusion without NDAs and best in a public forum, and run iterations of drafts (then a correct term finally) collaboratively.
This farce is just to placate us and play for time, while getting a better idea what they will get away without losing any of their major goals. Unless there is a simple iron clad new version which is pretty much 1.0a (why bother then) 1.0a needs to stay as an option for future publications.
Yes, OGL is special and not at all what a publicly traded corporation owning any big IP would like to have instead of the Disney-like total control of their IP, but that is what they made over 20 years ago in order to prevent D&D just fading away lacking of a healthy community, lacking of 3rd party publications (when the IP wasn't large enough to do all the publishing themselves). Now they are pretty much saying: thanks for growing our IP, f... of and die now!
And it wouldn't even be necessary. Just make the better VTT and the better products instead of being afraid of the community and the creativity of 3rd party publishers who are almost all 1-5 people doing some publishing work in the evening and on the weekends. Maybe talk to your old buddies at Microsoft, Cythia, Chris, and talk with them about the chances open stuff such as C++ or Linux can provide to your products (or just talk to the people who were around when the OGL took hold and D&D exploded instead of dying), and create value for customers instead of relying on your lawyers to kill competition.
Thank you Umbratica, this is exactly how I see this situation.
If they wanted 3PPs to stay and make content for them, THEY WOULD BE TALKING TO THEM! Not me! They know what they want and are just trying to see how far they need to pull out the knife in our backs.
Its so incredibly frustrating, because... honestly that new VTT looks #%@&ing DOPE. I would have been excited to use it and compare its capability to Foundry. Heck i'm still curious to see if they made a dungeon builder, that shit is MY JAM! (Dungeon Draft <3). Now its like why the hell would I support WotC, even if I do want to use their products. They have shown me their true colors and STILL HAVE NOT WALKED BACK FROM IT. They instead doubled down, TWICE NOW! Hiding behind a fake moral cause and using vague/veiled language.
The first iteration, in this whole process, 1.1, they get slammed for doing it secretly. Now you’re slamming them for doing it publicly? What do people want, exactly? If they’re going to err, wouldn’t you rather it be on the side of openness and transparency? They have to have an option.
And for people who think they’re not listening to the comments, I’ll bet they are. Just understand there’s a big difference between listening to someone and doing what they say. They can listen to you, understand and respect your opinion, and still not do it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to your ideas, it just means they don’t like them.
My assumption is that they're hoping that enough of the responses will miss core complaints, that they can point to the data and say "well, not many people complained about this, so se thought it was ok to keep."
That, and trying to pander to us by pretending they care about our opinions.
The first iteration, in this whole process, 1.1, they get slammed for doing it secretly. Now you’re slamming them for doing it publicly? What do people want, exactly? If they’re going to err, wouldn’t you rather it be on the side of openness and transparency? They have to have an option.
And for people who think they’re not listening to the comments, I’ll bet they are. Just understand there’s a big difference between listening to someone and doing what they say. They can listen to you, understand and respect your opinion, and still not do it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to your ideas, it just means they don’t like them.
I don't think I did slam them for being public...? I did however try to point out how ridiculous it is that they want my opinion and that I have to vest this much time in order to protect 3rd parties who they aren't talking to...
They are listening to the comments of majority unqualified people... Some of whom just want this all to go away and would accept bad terms THAT DONT EVEN EFFECT THEM!...
I don't care if they listen to my opinion, the point of this was to make other people think. Maybe change theirs.
. . . in order to protect 3rd parties who they aren't talking to...
[citation needed]
This might shock you, but it is entirely possible to talk to two folks at once - especially when you have the staff to do so and have been in talks with third party producers for months.
Wizards is almost certainly talking with the largest third party publishers - and, you’ll note most of the largest ones were very careful not to burn any bridges with Wizards (even if they expressed support for ORC), which is a pretty strong indication they still had an open line on negotiations.
So, yes, they are all but certainly talking to third party producers and their attorneys; but they are also talking to average players. After all, they want to know what the masses think and if it can be read easily by the vast swath of D&D players. After all, you never know which of the poll respondents might become third party producers moving forward.
And, if you truly think you have nothing to add to the conversation, you don’t have to respond. That is your choice - a choice you are afforded because Wizards cast their dragnet as wide as possible.
... Ok well lets see how they feel if we nerf the VTTs that could catch up to us and we can micro transaction the players for new shirts, pants, limited time only christmas hats. Or try to pull one over with veiled language."
This is exactly what I'm afraid of. Kneecapping other VTTs in order to make playing 5e or 1D&D on them practically impossible in order to "force" more players to their VTT, which I fully believe will be micro-transaction hell.
. . . in order to protect 3rd parties who they aren't talking to...
[citation needed]
This might shock you, but it is entirely possible to talk to two folks at once - especially when you have the staff to do so and have been in talks with third party producers for months.
Wizards is almost certainly talking with the largest third party publishers - and, you’ll note most of the largest ones were very careful not to burn any bridges with Wizards (even if they expressed support for ORC), which is a pretty strong indication they still had an open line on negotiations.
So, yes, they are all but certainly talking to third party producers and their attorneys; but they are also talking to average players. After all, they want to know what the masses think and if it can be read easily by the vast swath of D&D players. After all, you never know which of the poll respondents might become third party producers moving forward.
And, if you truly think you have nothing to add to the conversation, you don’t have to respond. That is your choice - a choice you are afforded because Wizards cast their dragnet as wide as possible.
You are coming up with your own justifications for them writing a new OGL which I haven't even seen them say. Nothing about making it "Easier to read" has any effect on OGL 1.0a.
OF COURSE THE 3PPs have shut up about it, this is literally their future. It does by no means imply that they are talking. I haven't heard any 3pp that i've listened to say WotC has reached out and opened a line of communication. I have heard 3PPs saying WIZARDS PLEASE TALK TO US, ILL TELL YOU HOW TO MILK THIS COW without screwing everyone over! Most are probably just saying.. "Welp see you in court"..
Yet here we still are. Trying to "deautherize" 1.0a, which you still haven't provided any valid reason to do. Nor is it legally revocable from my understanding which is why 3PPs will be taking this to court. Open Source Software will have a vested interest in ensuring "De-autherizing" isn't a thing.
The reasons the old license is getting snuffed have been explained more times than anyone here cares to count. The clan of "it hasn't happened and so it never will" are stuck there and will cry for a few more months over the loss, but it won't change anything. OGL 1 is gone.
The feedback net was cast to catch ANYONE involved in the game, at every level, to net as many opinions, views and perspectives as possible, in large part due to the uproar of the shady first kick at updating the license. I know it's shocking to some, but at times an under educated layman will present a valid point or idea that nobody with tons of legal experience or production experience thought of. With a huge staff to filter through tons and tons of chaff and hate-filled vitriol (which we all know is flooding in along with sane and rational feedback) it's the most effective way to get the fairest deal for the biggest slice of the population. It may be cumbersome, but I would prefer to have to filter through 150 moronic ideas to find a brilliant gem than have 50 ideas to pick from and miss that gem.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Yet here we still are. Trying to "deautherize" 1.0a, which you still haven't provided any valid reason to do. Nor is it legally revocable from my understanding which is why 3PPs will be taking this to court. Open Source Software will have a vested interest in ensuring "De-autherizing" isn't a thing.
Regarding “make it readable” - of course they will never state that as a goal. Players might see that as “we think our players are illiterate.” But from how the draft is not super in legalese, they used parentheticals to explain the legalese, and fact their survey asks about comprehension repeatedly, that is pretty clear evidence it is something they care about (as they should).
As for the above part, you are fundamentally not understanding what the terminology means. The terminology refers to the ability to revoke the contract once entered into - which you only get upon publication of content. If you have not entered into the contract, you get no rights under the contract - the document is not a blanket statement of rights, but an offer to form a contract.
Under basic contract law, you can always withdraw an offer - which gives them plenty of authority to deauthorise the 1.0 document for all FUTURE contracts. And, since the folks who already are in 1.0 get to keep their 1.0 rights, they have no damages.
So they either have no standing for saying a contract was breached because they were never in a contract, or they were in a contract and are still in the same contract, so there was no breach or damage. They might sue - but that doesn’t mean they actually have a great case.
But from how the draft is not super in legalese, they used parentheticals to explain the legalese, and fact their survey asks about comprehension repeatedly, that is pretty clear evidence it is something they care about (as they should).
The Parenthetical changed the definition of Irrevocable, seems like the biggest reason they did that. Saw plenty of educated people gloss over that. I haven't taken the survey yet, so yeah that's pretty valid lol. Still doesn't effect 1.0a and has no bearing on if it should be revoked.
As for the above part, you are fundamentally not understanding what the terminology means. The terminology refers to the ability to revoke the contract once entered into - which you only get upon publication of content. If you have not entered into the contract, you get no rights under the contract - the document is not a blanket statement of rights, but an offer to form a contract.
Under basic contract law, you can always withdraw an offer - which gives them plenty of authority to deauthorise the 1.0 document for all FUTURE contracts. And, since the folks who already are in 1.0 get to keep their 1.0 rights, they have no damages.
So they either have no standing for saying a contract was breached because they were never in a contract, or they were in a contract and are still in the same contract, so there was no breach or damage. They might sue - but that doesn’t mean they actually have a great case.
I'm sure i'm fundamentally not understanding a %&@^in lot! But this seems to be your opinion and understanding of the law. There is an IP lawyer who wrote a thesis on OGL for their PHD who claim otherwise. As well as the lawyers who wrote the thing when they worked for WotC, still working as lawyers today and stand behind what they wrote 20 years ago.
Why should I believe you over industry professionals who are telling me otherwise? This isn't some one off license that WotC came up with. This license was built off the back of the Open Source Software community. Its not a standard contract, its an Open Source License. Legal terms that are used today were not used back then. Isn't intent 9/10 of the law? WotC's intent by their own FAQ until they removed it a few years ago was to keep the OGL 1.0a as is, Perpetual, and offical AUTHERIZED verson, NOT DRAFT that was released by the arbiter WotC. 20 years of intent to let the community build their brand vs 2 years of wanting it all to go away so they can maximize profits.
The reasons the old license is getting snuffed have been explained more times than anyone here cares to count. The clan of "it hasn't happened and so it never will" are stuck there and will cry for a few more months over the loss, but it won't change anything. OGL 1 is gone.
OGL 1.0a is not gone till its settled in a court of law.
There are other ways to prevent backlash from hateful and bigoted content from tarnishing the brand of D&D. The OGL was made as a guarantee to the community that we wont sue you like TSR did. The supreme court says that you can't own game rules, only the expressions of those rules. So technically the OGL might be a moot document. Obviously that would be tested in a court of law. The big scare that came up with Gygax's son or whatever didn't even use the OGL. He just straight up stole IP and added racism from what i've heard. If the OGL is moot then people could publish hateful shit with the SRD anyway.
Use the creative badge in a separate guide with restrictions on language and whatever else you need to keep the hate distant from WotC. There is no need to change the OGL 1.0a that has been presented to me. Anything that is a problem presented can be solved by other means.
Not a lawyers but i've been listening to them for the past week. This is all incredibly frustration and i dont see how any of you think this is in good faith about hatful and bigoted content.
Have you considered that it may be both? Irrevocable to those already taking advantage of it, i.e. those who have already accepted it, but not to those who have not yet, including with respect to, say, 6e? There is an issue there with 6e being backward compatible, but that is a real question for the experts.
I did consider that. So could I post on my website some dirt monster and include the OGL 1.0a. That would theoretically allow me to continue publishing until the 40 years(?) runs up? Saw something about it automatically being void after 35 years or 35 years after last publication not exceeding 40 years. So.. around 2041?
As for the above part, you are fundamentally not understanding what the terminology means. The terminology refers to the ability to revoke the contract once entered into - which you only get upon publication of content. If you have not entered into the contract, you get no rights under the contract - the document is not a blanket statement of rights, but an offer to form a contract.
Under basic contract law, you can always withdraw an offer - which gives them plenty of authority to deauthorise the 1.0 document for all FUTURE contracts. And, since the folks who already are in 1.0 get to keep their 1.0 rights, they have no damages.
It is not clear if that is applicable here. The critical part is if they can revoke the permission to use the SRD they put out as open game content. Would the OGL be a tested open license such as the GPL licenses it would not be. And there is quite a bit of evidence that it was intended to be like that. Should someone chose to keep publishing new stuff under 1.0a and WotC sue a court would have to look into what kind of license it is it seems. It might be a problem that it is WotC's license, not something that has been transfered to a proper steward, which is something the ORC authors seems to be quite aware of (not sure that a two lawyer legal firm is quite perfect either tbh, guess there is not really anything like the FSF for literary works).
I am not aware of anything other than all the open source licenses and creative commons -- and the OGL. So even if the authors are telling us the whole truth about their intentions it is not clear to me that a court would force WotC to adhere to that, though I'd think how it was used to convince partners at the time right after its creation should be a good argument to do so. It probably does not matter much anymore as WotC has decided to kill the competition (pretty much preemtively, no real competition exists atm), and their victims decided to give up on hoping for WotC to provide a reliable cooperation and instead create a new network as an alternative to WotC.
That was only one of three reasons they gave, and of the three, although listed first, I think it was the least important to them.
One could argue that listing it first as if it is the most important of the three is in bad faith, but one could also argue that critics pretending it is the only reason they gave is also arguing in bad faith.
I'm not tryng to argue in bad faith, was responding to someone who eluded to what seemed like specifically hateful and bigoted content being pinned on WotC and it all burning to the ground. That's also what I see the majority of the opposing opinions bastion here.
What is the 3rd thing? NFTs could be avoided in the same way explicit content could be. Which also just seems like a worm on a hook just to get X number of people to think this is a good thing. WotC were working on NFTs themselves too lol.. as well as publishing bigoted content. Their new VTT prob fails under the own standard of its VTT policy. I mean come on, they are clearly trying to monopolize while giving a bad faith argument of "we don't want VTTs to look like video games" meanwhile their VTT is built in Unity or whatever and has got like ****in ray tracing, customizable models.. lol gimme a break
None of what I have seen from wizards has been in good faith, aren't you all getting tired of defending them? .. Why are you?
Yeah, they would pay you whatever small fee if any and STILL BE ABLE TO PUBLISH IT AND MAKE MONEY OFF IT!
There's no cap on monetary damages, if you win your case that money is probably yours anyway. The reason they want to prevent injunctions is to avoid stalls in production from a dispute that they expect to win... eventually.
I did consider that. So could I post on my website some dirt monster and include the OGL 1.0a. That would theoretically allow me to continue publishing until the 40 years(?) runs up? Saw something about it automatically being void after 35 years or 35 years after last publication not exceeding 40 years. So.. around 2041?
If you post a dirt monster that isn't using Wizard's IP (other than the part they put under creative commons and arguably isn't copyrightable in the first place), you can release it under any license you want, including one you made up, unless you want to take advantage of their branding.
"This farce is just to placate us and play for time, while getting a better idea what they will get away without losing any of their major goals. Unless there is a simple iron clad new version which is pretty much 1.0a (why bother then) 1.0a needs to stay as an option for future publications."
Essentially they have said they will comment on 17 Feb!!
Almost a month away.
They are desperately hoping you will forget, please dont.
This next bit sounds common sense but apparently tons of folks are doing it wrong.
The real issue is with a change in policy, and probably the C.E.O.'s but not the design staff or the support workers. Please keep it professional by going against the policy. Please please send love to the support staff and designer team.
However, be assured this is a delaying tactic and a smokescreen designed to place time between you and the OGL. Boycott the movie, boycott the newly released books, but politely
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM Candlekeep Mysteries - 75 minutes - Weekly DM Tomb of Annihilation - 3.5 Hours - Fortnightly DM Hoard of the Dragon Queen - 3.5 Hours - Fortnightly DM Starfinder group - 4 - 5 hours - Monthly Player Call of the Nether deep - about 3 hours Fortnightly
"This farce is just to placate us and play for time, while getting a better idea what they will get away without losing any of their major goals. Unless there is a simple iron clad new version which is pretty much 1.0a (why bother then) 1.0a needs to stay as an option for future publications."
Essentially they have said they will comment on 17 Feb!!
Almost a month away.
They are desperately hoping you will forget, please dont.
This next bit sounds common sense but apparently tons of folks are doing it wrong.
The real issue is with a change in policy, and probably the C.E.O.'s but not the design staff or the support workers. Please keep it professional by going against the policy. Please please send love to the support staff and designer team.
However, be assured this is a delaying tactic and a smokescreen designed to place time between you and the OGL. Boycott the movie, boycott the newly released books, but politely
If they had closed it a week from now, you or others would have been yelling about how it’s not enough time.
if there is no way for them to win with you, then the survey isn’t for you anyway. They set a month for folks to respond. That’s a pretty common comment period in business
Yeah, they must not want to hear me. I went in, saw the open ended questions, and decided to come back this weekend after digesting the changes. Now says I already submitted. Thanks for wasting my time Wizards.
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Thank you Umbratica, this is exactly how I see this situation.
If they wanted 3PPs to stay and make content for them, THEY WOULD BE TALKING TO THEM! Not me! They know what they want and are just trying to see how far they need to pull out the knife in our backs.
Its so incredibly frustrating, because... honestly that new VTT looks #%@&ing DOPE. I would have been excited to use it and compare its capability to Foundry. Heck i'm still curious to see if they made a dungeon builder, that shit is MY JAM! (Dungeon Draft <3). Now its like why the hell would I support WotC, even if I do want to use their products. They have shown me their true colors and STILL HAVE NOT WALKED BACK FROM IT. They instead doubled down, TWICE NOW! Hiding behind a fake moral cause and using vague/veiled language.
The first iteration, in this whole process, 1.1, they get slammed for doing it secretly. Now you’re slamming them for doing it publicly? What do people want, exactly? If they’re going to err, wouldn’t you rather it be on the side of openness and transparency? They have to have an option.
And for people who think they’re not listening to the comments, I’ll bet they are. Just understand there’s a big difference between listening to someone and doing what they say. They can listen to you, understand and respect your opinion, and still not do it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to your ideas, it just means they don’t like them.
My assumption is that they're hoping that enough of the responses will miss core complaints, that they can point to the data and say "well, not many people complained about this, so se thought it was ok to keep."
That, and trying to pander to us by pretending they care about our opinions.
I don't think I did slam them for being public...? I did however try to point out how ridiculous it is that they want my opinion and that I have to vest this much time in order to protect 3rd parties who they aren't talking to...
They are listening to the comments of majority unqualified people... Some of whom just want this all to go away and would accept bad terms THAT DONT EVEN EFFECT THEM!...
I don't care if they listen to my opinion, the point of this was to make other people think. Maybe change theirs.
[citation needed]
This might shock you, but it is entirely possible to talk to two folks at once - especially when you have the staff to do so and have been in talks with third party producers for months.
Wizards is almost certainly talking with the largest third party publishers - and, you’ll note most of the largest ones were very careful not to burn any bridges with Wizards (even if they expressed support for ORC), which is a pretty strong indication they still had an open line on negotiations.
So, yes, they are all but certainly talking to third party producers and their attorneys; but they are also talking to average players. After all, they want to know what the masses think and if it can be read easily by the vast swath of D&D players. After all, you never know which of the poll respondents might become third party producers moving forward.
And, if you truly think you have nothing to add to the conversation, you don’t have to respond. That is your choice - a choice you are afforded because Wizards cast their dragnet as wide as possible.
This is exactly what I'm afraid of. Kneecapping other VTTs in order to make playing 5e or 1D&D on them practically impossible in order to "force" more players to their VTT, which I fully believe will be micro-transaction hell.
You are coming up with your own justifications for them writing a new OGL which I haven't even seen them say. Nothing about making it "Easier to read" has any effect on OGL 1.0a.
OF COURSE THE 3PPs have shut up about it, this is literally their future. It does by no means imply that they are talking. I haven't heard any 3pp that i've listened to say WotC has reached out and opened a line of communication. I have heard 3PPs saying WIZARDS PLEASE TALK TO US, ILL TELL YOU HOW TO MILK THIS COW without screwing everyone over! Most are probably just saying.. "Welp see you in court"..
Yet here we still are. Trying to "deautherize" 1.0a, which you still haven't provided any valid reason to do. Nor is it legally revocable from my understanding which is why 3PPs will be taking this to court. Open Source Software will have a vested interest in ensuring "De-autherizing" isn't a thing.
The reasons the old license is getting snuffed have been explained more times than anyone here cares to count. The clan of "it hasn't happened and so it never will" are stuck there and will cry for a few more months over the loss, but it won't change anything. OGL 1 is gone.
The feedback net was cast to catch ANYONE involved in the game, at every level, to net as many opinions, views and perspectives as possible, in large part due to the uproar of the shady first kick at updating the license. I know it's shocking to some, but at times an under educated layman will present a valid point or idea that nobody with tons of legal experience or production experience thought of. With a huge staff to filter through tons and tons of chaff and hate-filled vitriol (which we all know is flooding in along with sane and rational feedback) it's the most effective way to get the fairest deal for the biggest slice of the population. It may be cumbersome, but I would prefer to have to filter through 150 moronic ideas to find a brilliant gem than have 50 ideas to pick from and miss that gem.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Regarding “make it readable” - of course they will never state that as a goal. Players might see that as “we think our players are illiterate.” But from how the draft is not super in legalese, they used parentheticals to explain the legalese, and fact their survey asks about comprehension repeatedly, that is pretty clear evidence it is something they care about (as they should).
As for the above part, you are fundamentally not understanding what the terminology means. The terminology refers to the ability to revoke the contract once entered into - which you only get upon publication of content. If you have not entered into the contract, you get no rights under the contract - the document is not a blanket statement of rights, but an offer to form a contract.
Under basic contract law, you can always withdraw an offer - which gives them plenty of authority to deauthorise the 1.0 document for all FUTURE contracts. And, since the folks who already are in 1.0 get to keep their 1.0 rights, they have no damages.
So they either have no standing for saying a contract was breached because they were never in a contract, or they were in a contract and are still in the same contract, so there was no breach or damage. They might sue - but that doesn’t mean they actually have a great case.
The Parenthetical changed the definition of Irrevocable, seems like the biggest reason they did that. Saw plenty of educated people gloss over that.
I haven't taken the survey yet, so yeah that's pretty valid lol. Still doesn't effect 1.0a and has no bearing on if it should be revoked.
I'm sure i'm fundamentally not understanding a %&@^in lot! But this seems to be your opinion and understanding of the law. There is an IP lawyer who wrote a thesis on OGL for their PHD who claim otherwise. As well as the lawyers who wrote the thing when they worked for WotC, still working as lawyers today and stand behind what they wrote 20 years ago.
Why should I believe you over industry professionals who are telling me otherwise?
This isn't some one off license that WotC came up with. This license was built off the back of the Open Source Software community. Its not a standard contract, its an Open Source License. Legal terms that are used today were not used back then. Isn't intent 9/10 of the law? WotC's intent by their own FAQ until they removed it a few years ago was to keep the OGL 1.0a as is, Perpetual, and offical AUTHERIZED verson, NOT DRAFT that was released by the arbiter WotC. 20 years of intent to let the community build their brand vs 2 years of wanting it all to go away so they can maximize profits.
OGL 1.0a is not gone till its settled in a court of law.
There are other ways to prevent backlash from hateful and bigoted content from tarnishing the brand of D&D. The OGL was made as a guarantee to the community that we wont sue you like TSR did. The supreme court says that you can't own game rules, only the expressions of those rules. So technically the OGL might be a moot document. Obviously that would be tested in a court of law. The big scare that came up with Gygax's son or whatever didn't even use the OGL. He just straight up stole IP and added racism from what i've heard. If the OGL is moot then people could publish hateful shit with the SRD anyway.
Use the creative badge in a separate guide with restrictions on language and whatever else you need to keep the hate distant from WotC. There is no need to change the OGL 1.0a that has been presented to me. Anything that is a problem presented can be solved by other means.
Not a lawyers but i've been listening to them for the past week. This is all incredibly frustration and i dont see how any of you think this is in good faith about hatful and bigoted content.
I did consider that. So could I post on my website some dirt monster and include the OGL 1.0a. That would theoretically allow me to continue publishing until the 40 years(?) runs up? Saw something about it automatically being void after 35 years or 35 years after last publication not exceeding 40 years. So.. around 2041?
It is not clear if that is applicable here. The critical part is if they can revoke the permission to use the SRD they put out as open game content. Would the OGL be a tested open license such as the GPL licenses it would not be. And there is quite a bit of evidence that it was intended to be like that. Should someone chose to keep publishing new stuff under 1.0a and WotC sue a court would have to look into what kind of license it is it seems. It might be a problem that it is WotC's license, not something that has been transfered to a proper steward, which is something the ORC authors seems to be quite aware of (not sure that a two lawyer legal firm is quite perfect either tbh, guess there is not really anything like the FSF for literary works).
I am not aware of anything other than all the open source licenses and creative commons -- and the OGL. So even if the authors are telling us the whole truth about their intentions it is not clear to me that a court would force WotC to adhere to that, though I'd think how it was used to convince partners at the time right after its creation should be a good argument to do so. It probably does not matter much anymore as WotC has decided to kill the competition (pretty much preemtively, no real competition exists atm), and their victims decided to give up on hoping for WotC to provide a reliable cooperation and instead create a new network as an alternative to WotC.
I'm not tryng to argue in bad faith, was responding to someone who eluded to what seemed like specifically hateful and bigoted content being pinned on WotC and it all burning to the ground. That's also what I see the majority of the opposing opinions bastion here.
What is the 3rd thing? NFTs could be avoided in the same way explicit content could be. Which also just seems like a worm on a hook just to get X number of people to think this is a good thing. WotC were working on NFTs themselves too lol.. as well as publishing bigoted content. Their new VTT prob fails under the own standard of its VTT policy. I mean come on, they are clearly trying to monopolize while giving a bad faith argument of "we don't want VTTs to look like video games" meanwhile their VTT is built in Unity or whatever and has got like ****in ray tracing, customizable models.. lol gimme a break
None of what I have seen from wizards has been in good faith, aren't you all getting tired of defending them? .. Why are you?
There's no cap on monetary damages, if you win your case that money is probably yours anyway. The reason they want to prevent injunctions is to avoid stalls in production from a dispute that they expect to win... eventually.
If you post a dirt monster that isn't using Wizard's IP (other than the part they put under creative commons and arguably isn't copyrightable in the first place), you can release it under any license you want, including one you made up, unless you want to take advantage of their branding.
"This farce is just to placate us and play for time, while getting a better idea what they will get away without losing any of their major goals. Unless there is a simple iron clad new version which is pretty much 1.0a (why bother then) 1.0a needs to stay as an option for future publications."
Essentially they have said they will comment on 17 Feb!!
Almost a month away.
They are desperately hoping you will forget, please dont.
This next bit sounds common sense but apparently tons of folks are doing it wrong.
The real issue is with a change in policy, and probably the C.E.O.'s but not the design staff or the support workers. Please keep it professional by going against the policy. Please please send love to the support staff and designer team.
However, be assured this is a delaying tactic and a smokescreen designed to place time between you and the OGL. Boycott the movie, boycott the newly released books, but politely
DM Candlekeep Mysteries - 75 minutes - Weekly
DM Tomb of Annihilation - 3.5 Hours - Fortnightly
DM Hoard of the Dragon Queen - 3.5 Hours - Fortnightly
DM Starfinder group - 4 - 5 hours - Monthly
Player Call of the Nether deep - about 3 hours Fortnightly
If they had closed it a week from now, you or others would have been yelling about how it’s not enough time.
if there is no way for them to win with you, then the survey isn’t for you anyway. They set a month for folks to respond. That’s a pretty common comment period in business
Actually, they said they would comment no later than 17 Feb.
Yeah, they must not want to hear me. I went in, saw the open ended questions, and decided to come back this weekend after digesting the changes. Now says I already submitted. Thanks for wasting my time Wizards.