D&D Won't Change Its Original 1.0 OGL License, Reference Document Enters Creative Commons (pcgamer.com) 37
An anonymous reader shares a report from PC Gamer:
In a blog post published Friday, Wizards of the Coast announced that it is fully putting the kibosh on the proposed Open Gaming License (OGL) 1.2 that threw the tabletop RPG community into disarray at the beginning of this month.
Instead, Wizards will leave the previously enshrined OGL 1.0 in place, while also putting the latest D&D Systems Reference Document (SRD 5.1) under a Creative Commons License (thanks to GamesRadar for the spot).
The original OGL was put in place with the third edition of D&D in 2000, and allowed other companies and creators to base their work off D&D and the d20 system without payment to or oversight from Wizards. A draft of a revised OGL 1.1 leaked early in January, which proposed royalty payments and creative control by Wizards over derivative works. This immediately incited a backlash from fans. Wizards backpedaled, introducing a softer OGL 1.2 that would still replace the original, and opened the community survey cited in today's announcement.
With 15,000 respondents in, the results of the survey were pretty damning. 88% didn't "want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2," while 89% were "dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a." 62% were happy that Wizards would put prior SRD versions under Creative Commons, with most of the dissenters wanting more Creative Commons-protected content.
In response, Wizards of the Coast caved.
"We welcome today's news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a," tweeted Pathfinder publisher Paizo, who'd launched an effort to move the industry away from WotC's OGL. But "We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship.
"Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February."
Instead, Wizards will leave the previously enshrined OGL 1.0 in place, while also putting the latest D&D Systems Reference Document (SRD 5.1) under a Creative Commons License (thanks to GamesRadar for the spot).
The original OGL was put in place with the third edition of D&D in 2000, and allowed other companies and creators to base their work off D&D and the d20 system without payment to or oversight from Wizards. A draft of a revised OGL 1.1 leaked early in January, which proposed royalty payments and creative control by Wizards over derivative works. This immediately incited a backlash from fans. Wizards backpedaled, introducing a softer OGL 1.2 that would still replace the original, and opened the community survey cited in today's announcement.
With 15,000 respondents in, the results of the survey were pretty damning. 88% didn't "want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2," while 89% were "dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a." 62% were happy that Wizards would put prior SRD versions under Creative Commons, with most of the dissenters wanting more Creative Commons-protected content.
In response, Wizards of the Coast caved.
"We welcome today's news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a," tweeted Pathfinder publisher Paizo, who'd launched an effort to move the industry away from WotC's OGL. But "We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship.
"Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February."
Is it even legal? (Score:2)
If I put out an agreement saying that you can use my IP to make money, then, 20 years late, I say "LMAO, joke's on you, am changing that license and you all owe me money now"... Is this even legal?
At least micro$ embraces the old standard then slowly builds on it till you have no option to get gated into their ecosystem, but what WotC did is straight up revoke and old license for on-going works to bind all users to its new, much greedier, license.
Re:Is it even legal? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, that's what they tried to do. That was three weeks ago. The latest news (what this article is about) is that on their second or third try, the backed nearly all the way down, and are no longer doing that.
The reason I say "nearly" is that they're not trying to de-authorize the OGL 1.0a just for now; they haven't said they won't try to do it again in the future. (And, yes, I would agree with you, as does, for instance, Paizo, that that's not something they can do, and Paizo has said they will defend that in court.)
So, for now, WotC isn't trying to do anything that bad any more. They've gone back on trying to un-open all the gaming content that's been open for 23 years. Slashdot is a few weeks behind on this story. There's been a LOT of very heated response (and fairly one-sided anti-WotC response) on gaming message boards and th elike.
Re: Is it even legal? (Score:1)
Creating content for goodness sake is not marketing, distributing, profiting from a brand name. They can't stop you from creating your own content and giving it away. I am not a fan of wizards of the coast as the whole reason they even exist was to exploit the claims of gygax being the creator of the ad&d concept and for that matter rpg's in general and under some early half assed creative commons argument at that. His son is right now posing as a company named tsr and attempting to take d&d from wi
Re: (Score:2)
Is it legal? We don't know, a judge never decided. Was it plausible? I think so, the original license mentioned that WotC could authorize licenses. Presumably only later licenses WotC's lawyers felt that authorization also implied they could de-authorize licenses.
Then some nuance comes into play. If someone already published something, then WotC probably can't revoke the license unless the terms of the license were violated. If your business is based on OGL 1.0a content, not being able to publish new things
My 2nd hot take (Score:2)
It's also possible that neither WotC or publishers understand the license they are using. Courts settle contract disputes all the time where two parties have conflicting ideas terms of the contract. Generally it means the contract isn't valid ... which is the same as revoking it when it comes to a copyright license. oops!
In the alternate time line that never happened: I think worst case for small publishers is that a publisher's legal team would have to prove that WotC understands their own license. And Wot
Re: Is it even legal? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why wouldn't it be legal? They own the product, they can set whatever conditions they want.
Had this gone through there would have been a grandfather clause saying anything previously created by users would fall under the original license, but anything created after the new license came into effect would be subject to it. Or at least that's what SHOULD have been in the works. But we'll never know.
Companies continually change conditions of use. That this involved physical creation doesn't make it any differ
Re: (Score:2)
Why wouldn't it be legal?
Because they issued a license that undertook not to do it. Then officers and representatives of the company made official clarifying declarations of what was meant while working in their official capacity for years afterwards.
So, no, it was not legal. They were hoping no one would notice that they were full of shit.
Re: (Score:2)
made clarifying declarations of what was meant while working in their official capacity for competitors for years afterwards.
Congratulations. You've made some shit up! Well done.
Go show your mother.
Re: (Score:2)
Its always fascinating to me when people like this cast creators as "competitors", as if it were actually about Kobold Press/Paizo/etc. Its a bit silly. WOTC wanted to kill off _everything_. That included things like Fantasy Grounds, Arkenforge, Heroforge, Dungeon Draft, even open-source projects utilizing SRD+OGL docs for things like character creation via PCGen, etc. Basically all the tools that make it actually possible to play D&D in a modern web-based ecosystem where you can't be physically at
Re: (Score:2)
what it does is make people in the 5e ecosystem such that more people want THERE stuff then others
thats the rub even if you do create great stuff USING there stuff its still 5e
THEIR, than, that's, their, it's
Re: (Score:3)
They make $1.5b a year in profit (Score:2)
But we've structured our entire civilization for massive short term gains in order to benefit a handful at the top. Oh, and for trolling. Our entire civilization is built around pushing people's buttons and milking their prejudices. Now that's not sustainable.
Re: They make $1.5b a year in profit (Score:3)
Jesus tittyfucking Christ on a pogostick. NO. WOTC was 72%. MtG was 95%+ of WOTCs revenue. D&D is miniscule in comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
This.
It's not slightly, it's actually massively. Hasbro has been leaning o
Re: (Score:3)
WotC wanted to slaughter the golden goose for tonight's dinner, they've likely been saved from destroying their own company. Of course, this whole fiasco will likely empower rivals, WotC will lose community trust, and Paizo seems well positioned to be the new steward/representative of
Re: So ... (Score:2)
I see WotC have their folks out astroturfing again...
I'm gonna guess that you'll have a bit of a challenge on your hands explaining how a company making more than some country's GDP would suddenly "go out of business" by not changing the thing that made them most of that money to begin with.
So surreal seeing comments begging mercy towards a company that would happily sue anyone and everyone it could if it wanted to. I've never lived in Stockholm, but it appears their syndrome is alive and kicking after all
Journalist speaks Sunday (Score:4, Informative)
Linda Codega, the journalist at io9/Gizmodo who first broke the story and spearheaded resistance over the last few weeks, will be interviewed on how this all came to pass, Sunday on the Wandering DMs livestream talk show: Linda Codega & the OGL [youtube.com]
What I've learned from this (Score:5, Informative)
The entire community basically did a D&D strike. Cancelled subscriptions to D&D Beyond while buying up 8 months of Pathfinder books in 2 weeks. WOTC had to stand up and take notice, their entire brand and company was about to be shut down.
When everybody bargained together they bargain from a position of strength.
Re: (Score:2)
The solution to that is voting (Score:2)
Capitalism is a machine. And like any machine it needs maintenance. We haven't been doing that maintenance. We skipped it for 40+ years. Now it's breaking down. It's gonna take extra effort to fix, and we might need t
Re: (Score:2)
>...where if you don't belong to a union the gov't makes one for you
What does that mean? Union membership in Denmark is not compulsory, so how can it be voluntary if the government creates a union to which you must belong?
Re: (Score:2)
If the government provides the services that a union would provide, to any citizen upon request, then you have both voluntary union membership and complete coverage. It's not so different to being able to take an employer to court for unfair dismissal.
Re: The solution to that is voting (Score:2)
But it's not a union any more than the UK has universal Union coverage by virtue of legal aid and benefits.
Re: The solution to that is voting (Score:2)
Best of luck, unfortunately. If I've learned anything over the decades of my life it's that in America, being a slave to corporations isn't frowned upon, it's how we define ourselves.
Wait, I think they're releasing another iPhone! There's basically nothing better about it but IT'S NEW, I have to go get one! /Zombie shuffle intensifies/
That's only the boomers (Score:2)
LegalEagle (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
LegalEagle did an analysis on it a week or so ago. A lot of the "rights" supposedly granted by either licence was already guaranteed under existing laws. WotC couldn't shut down those rights even if they wanted to.
This. Nothing about it, the way he explained it, made it sound especially bad. Or even noteworthy.
Someone casted CONFUSION.
This spell assaults and twists creatures' minds, spawning delusions and provoking uncontrolled ACTIONS.
Each creature in a 10-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point you choose within range must succeed on a
Wisdom saving throw when you cast this spell or be affected by it.
I'm curious (Score:2)
What has all of this kerfuffle done wrt other gaming systems? Has there been renewed interest in CoC, Rolemaster, and other more fringy but less encumbered gaming systems?
I'd have expected other games companies to have worked their NPCs arses off trying to leverage interest in gaming systems that didn't threaten lawsuits for writing and selling modules.
(And AD&D can no longer claim with a straight face that it's actually simpler than the alternatives.)