Quote from SherlockHulmes >>

Quote from Haravikk >>

Quote from SherlockHulmes >>

Fandom was not making D&D books. The same Terms may have been in place, but Fandom did not produce 5e books which does change things. The content here has far more value to WOTC than it did to Fandom. Especially from the viewpoint of folks who share their 5e work on Patreon, Blogs, Twitch/YouTube or via Kickstarter/Third Party Publishers in the Industry.

And how well do you imagine the headline "Wizards of the Coast Stealing Content From its Players" is going to play in the press and online sites? The last thing they want to do is turn their entire fanbase against them with a massive scandal; D&D is about original, personal, characters and stories, if they started actually attacking that then they'd have just spent $140m in order to lose more money. I can't imagine any of their rules designers would be happy about it either.

As you say yourself, they have no idea how original a user's private (and most public really) homebrew actually is, if they were to publish something that a user had homebrewed from a third party book then they'd still be liable.

 
Okay, so why not save the community a headache and alter the Terms so this isn't even a possibility. If they're never going to do it, which I agree I don't think they would, why does the wording need to allow them to? 

(See my other point about how if the purpose of this section is because they need access to content in order to share it with other users on DDB, which I absolutely don't think is the case BTW,  then they can simply alter the wording of the Term to make that more defined and clear).

And for your average user, sure they don't know how original someone's content is, but for independent writer/designer/creator/streamer there's a pretty safe bet it's pretty original. Changing these terms would save them hassle from having to worry about takedown requests from third-party publishers if others users are uploading their content to the site.

It just seems completely unnecessary and unless someone with actual technical/legal knowledge of it works tells me that the specific wording here is necessary for the content sharing to work, I don't believe that it's current wording is necessary.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from Harvey_Rabbit >>

This type of legal language killed aim back around 2003.  (Aol-instant-messenger.)
There is a difference between a small company that needs you having the rights & a large company that can screw you w/ an army of lawyers.

 
This is false, and ignores the fact that pretty much every successful site you use, be it Minecraft, D&D Beyond, Reddit, etc. -  ALL of which have the term people are freaking out about.  The simple reality is that these sites can’t function without this legalese - it’s necessary for them to disseminate your IP from their servers to your computer and to other users. 

 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from Harvey_Rabbit >>

This type of legal language killed aim back around 2003.  (Aol-instant-messenger.)
There is a difference between a small company that needs you having the rights & a large company that can screw you w/ an army of lawyers.

 
This is false, and ignores the fact that pretty much every successful site you use, be it Minecraft, D&D Beyond, Reddit, etc. -  ALL of which have the term people are freaking out about.  The simple reality is that these sites can’t function without this legalese - it’s necessary for them to disseminate your IP from their servers to your computer and to other users. 

 
Can you tell me how you know this specifically? This specific wording, the User Content policy is *necessary* for D&D beyond to work in it's current function and allow users to share content with one another in the tool?

 I’m an attorney and my SO is an intellectual property attorney who has drafted these exact agreements and included these exact provisions. 

But, if that is insufficient feel free to look into the T&C of pretty much every webpage you use where you also submit content; you’ll find comparable language pretty much everywhere. .. and just as many examples where none of those companies are using it as a mine for “stealing” content.

In fact, I can do even better than ask you to take my credentials on faith or ask you to look something up on your own to verify - Discord is kind enough to state my position explicitly in their T&C:

”Your content is yours, but you give us a license to it when you use Discord. Your content may be protected by certain intellectual property rights. We don’t own those. But by using our services, you grant us a license—which is a form of permission—to do the following with your content, in accordance with applicable legal requirements, in connection with operating, developing, and improving our services:

• Use, copy, store, distribute, and communicate your content in manners consistent with your use of the services. (For example, so we can store and display your content.)”

(It goes on from there and has some more legalese later, but that’s the pertinent portion for answering your question.)

Will this still be accessible? 

Quote from SherlockHulmes >>

Okay, that's fair. Thanks for answering. Sincere question then; isn't drafting these agreements based on what the companies want users to agree to, not necessarily what is technically required? Is that a case of 100% knowing the term is necessary for the tool to operate or simply, this is what many companies put in their terms to cover their backs?

Also, from your experience, would this policy hinder independent writers/publishers/creators who have their own brand/IP they want to protect? Say a designer who releases their own subclasses, items, monsters and adventures on Patreon? Or a small third-party publisher making 5e content. They would essentially be unable to use DDB without giving the complete sublicense rights to WOTC as laid out in the Terms right? What would happen if the creator did upload something to DDB and then WOTC included it, or a obviously similar, piece of content in a future book?

How does that work with users taking other creators works and uploading them to DDB without their permission?

 
1. Yes, the language tends to be over inclusive to be on the safe side; but in this case it still would be necessary for the reasons stated. Copyright violations can get really, really expensive and no one wants to be the one company who gets in trouble for simply providing the services of their site. 

2. It hasn’t in the past, and those who do care can easily just avoid posting their content on Beyond… or anywhere on the internet for that matter.

3. Yes, this gives Wizards the license to the subclass; but they were already giving Fandom the license and, unlike Wizards, whose terms only allow them to use it, Fandom could give your license to whom ever they wanted. In effect, Wizards has always been able to get this license if they wanted; nothing has changed.

4. Nothing would happen to the creator, other than the fact that Wizards is using their content.  

5. If you upload someone else’s content without your permission, you are in breach of a different term. The creator could try to exert their IP rights against Wizards, and Wizards would promptly turn around and make things miserable for the person who submitted the concept. 

Granted, most of that is academic - Wizards has a very long history of being careful and respectful of folks’ IP - I read somewhere a while back that they have very strict rules on their Magic employees even looking at fan submitted cards to avoid any possible entanglements with fans; I assume the D&D team takes similar steps to ensure they’re not intentionally stealing from fans.

Quote from SherlockHulmes >>

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

The WOTC Terms, from my understanding, do NOT include that sort of distinction. I can totally understand DDB/WOTC needing to use/access/distribute and communicate homebrew content on D&D Beyond in order to facilitate the use of the service. But that's not what the current User Content terms state. 

Feel free to read Discord’s full terms - that’s just one bullet point on a list of bullet points providing them much broader rights than simple “here is what is necessary to function.” The full text was fairly lengthy and not relevant to your question as to proving that companies need this language to simply provide the service itself, and thus was omitted from my post.

I'd love to know about additional authentication methods too. Twitch is my current authentication method and I really don't like it.

do i keep my data?

I'm also a lawyer and the language in section 5.2 is way broader than necessary to allow dndbeyond to continue to operate. There is a big difference between granting a license to "use, copy, store, distribute, and communicate your content in manners consistent with your use of the services. (For example, so we can store and display your content.)” and granting a licensee to "use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content (in whole or in part) in any media and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed ... (including) the right to: (i) exploit any proprietary rights in such User Content, ... (ii) your name, likeness, and any other information included in your User Content, without any obligation to you. "

One gives permission to use/copy/store/distribute data for the service; the other provides an unlimited right to use, change, adapt, and commercially exploit the data in whatever way the company wants including the right to exploit our personal information. While it's true we lawyers like to make stuff as broad as possible to avoid future issues, if I were negotiating on behalf of the other side I would say heck no to this provision as drafted.

It is fair to note that the language in 5.2 is basically identical to the license that was in place when dndbeyond was owned by twitch. However, the license in place under fandom was substantially less expansive and they managed to operate the site just fine. For more info on how the license has changed over time and issues with the WoTC language see this discussion.

Edit: looking back at other posts I'm seeing a lot of claims that the WoTC terms don't change anything. I would appreciate a link or other evidence to support that claim from any of the people taking that position. It's always been my understanding that dndbeyond/fandom had a license to use anything that was published as homebrew but I've never seen any claim that dndbeyond owned or could use info we did not share as homebrew. My understanding is the major change in 5.2 is that it seems to apply to literally everything we create on dndbeyond, not just stuff shared on the homebrew portions of the site. If there is evidence showing that understanding is mistaken I would appreciate someone sharing it. 

Does this mean our login information / characters / etc will all stay the same?  Or the website will be converted over?  

Quote from NH23 >>

I'm also a lawyer and the language in section 5.2 is way broader than necessary to allow dndbeyond to continue to operate. There is a big difference between granting a license to "use, copy, store, distribute, and communicate your content in manners consistent with your use of the services. (For example, so we can store and display your content.)” and granting a licensee to "use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content (in whole or in part) in any media and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed ... (including) the right to: (i) exploit any proprietary rights in such User Content, ... (ii) your name, likeness, and any other information included in your User Content, without any obligation to you. "

One gives permission to use/copy/store/distribute data for the service; the other provides an unlimited right to use, change, adapt, and commercially exploit the data in whatever way the company wants including the right to exploit our personal information. While it's true we lawyers like to make stuff as broad as possible to avoid future issues, if I were negotiating on behalf of the other side I would say heck no to this provision as drafted.

It is fair to note that the language in 5.2 is basically identical to the license that was in place when dndbeyond was owned by twitch. However, the license in place under fandom was substantially less expansive and they managed to operate the site just fine. For more info on how the license has changed over time and issues with the WoTC language see this discussion.

 
I would posture that you are not taking into account that IP law is particularly unforgiving to one who “knowingly” violates another’s IP.  Given the sheer volume of homebrew content submitted, you can bet there’s going to be some overlap with official content that is released after the homebrew. 

I know I wouldn’t want to put my clients in a position where they are publishing information, storing information, and have a high likelihood of accidentally or inadvertently copying that information, and then having to argue “yes, well, you see, we have this information in our system, available to all our staff, and have a license to use it for some things… but, honest, we didn’t know about this thing in our possession!” Much easier to argue “this wasn’t copied and, in the alternative, if it were copied, we have a legal right to it.”

Given the business it is in - and the volumes Wizards is dealing with - I just don’t see any way their counsel would let them operate the site without protections against potentially litigious content creators.

As for the language being different, Fandom’s license includes everything in Wizards’, including rights to use folks’ likeness, right to produce derivative works, etc. Wizards writes with more legalise than Fandom, but the effect is that Fandom had MORE power than Wizards, since they reserved the right to authorise whomever they wished to utilise same.

Ultimately, nothing is changing: Wizards does what it needs to protect itself, folks get the services they want, and creators, most of whom probably don’t bother to read T&Cs are still going to follow the general common sense approach of “if I want to monetise this, I won’t put it on a free forum”, avoiding 90% of the potential issues 

While I agree the legal speak is way too broad giving WotC way too much leeway. The easy answer has always been - don't publish content to a site like this that could potentially use your ideas IF you want to keep those ideas private. Use common sense. I will NEVER publish homebrew content for exactly that reason. But as I use the rest of the site features, using the official systems and rule sets, I understand fully that those are not "mine, all mine".

There are only 3 outcomes - 1. WotC will muck things up | 2. keep things the way they are | 3. or make things better. 

My assumption is they will try to make things better by adding more resources towards the development of future products and services.

But don't be surprised if there are plans for new chargeable services in the future. The writing on the wall tells me DnDB was not in a financially sustainable position, as is. Be glad that WotC sees the value of DnDB (the products and services and I hope all the staff) to continue, and perhaps grow, what it has to offer.

what happens if we have different user name in WOC? How will that impact our DDB account?

what about player characters?

Will this affect the site in ways pertaining to homebrew content, campaigns, and encounters being ran through the site?

BOOOOOOO