Paizo (publishers of Pathfinder) react to rumors of Wizards of the Coast moving from the existing Open Game License to a new, predatory license and attempting to somehow retroactively revoke the old license: https://paizo.com/community/blog
The punchline: Paizo previously used the OGL to release their original content because it was there; now they feel it is no longer trustworthy so they're making their own license.
The name: The Open RPG Creative License (ORC).
If you haven't been following this: Around 2000 D&D 3e was released using OGL 1.0a, which Wizards created. After 23 years gobs of commercial work has been released depending on this license. About a week ago Wizards started privately sending creators a "OGL 1.1" with alarming terms. Originally it had a go-live date of *TODAY*. The new license immediately leaked, and there was uproar.
Today Wizards announced a livestream to discuss the controversy. Then cancelled it.
https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-ogl-announcement-wizards-of-the-coast-1849981365
Follow-up: So one week after canceling the launch of "OGL 1.1" aka "OGL 2.0", Wizards has launched "OGL 1.2". They brag they've addressed community concerns in various ways, but I don't think they have. For example they brag the new license contains the word "irrevocable" (although they define it to mean something special in the document so maybe it's still revocable). But the outrage was that Hasbro was trying to revoke the *old* OGL, 1.0a. And they're still doing that:
https://www.polygon.com/23562874/dnd-dungeons-dragons-ogl-1-2-release-download-feedback-survey
A new draft of the Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License (OGL) places the core rules of the seminal tabletop RPG in the Creative Commons. “We’re giving the core D&D mechanics to the community,” said the executive producer. Feedback is due by Feb. 3.
So this extensively sourced video takes the otherwise inexplicable decisions by Wizards around the OGL and renders it all depressingly explicable: None of this ever had anything to do with 3rd party publishers. The OGL is a bullet aimed directly at "Virtual Tabletop" (OpenRPG, Roll20 etc) so Hasbro can monopolize that market with an Unreal "app" that gives Hasbro an eternal revenue stream charging you microtransactions for animations on every new spell you want to learn.
The vision of the future sketched here, the one Hasbro is currently risking destroying D&D forever to create, is really deeply depressing. Instead of having fun painting little models and maps, or God forbid *imagining*, you just pay $3.99 over and over forever. Some leaks float the idea of eliminating the DM role entirely (an "AI" does that).
Interposing technology where it's not really needed because technology can be monetized (taxed) in a way imagination can't.
The company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is planning to revoke the open license that has, since the year 2000, applied to a wide range of unofficial, commercial products that build on the mechanics of the game.
@mcc that's not what they're doing, though
that's what they wanted to do, but the new one (and your screenshot) clarifies that they're not retroactively invalidating the license, just that they're no longer offering it to anything new, and aiui that's perfectly fine
it's like the equivalent of taking your source code and relicensing it from MIT to All Rights Reserved; you're within your rights to do that, and going forward nobody else can use it, but the change doesn't apply retroactively
@demize So there's several points in conceptual space here
1. Published 1.0a works can continue being published, books first published after Effective Date can't. (What the text of the document seems to say)
2. Someone who accepted before the "deauthorize" date can keep using 1.0a, but someone who receives a copy of a 1.0a book after that date can't. (Kit Walsh of EFF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License)
[continues…]
[…continued]
3. 1.0a content can still be used under 1.0a, but if you ever use 1.2 content, you are blocked from using 1.0a content ever again. (My theory)
4. 1.0a content can keep being used, but content released as 1.2 is 1.2-only. (Your theory? Kyle Orland's theory?)
(3) or (4) is how I would *assume* it has to work. If it's (1) or (2) it seems like they'd have to create new law. But a plain reading seems to say (1) or (2).
@mcc @demize It could well be true that none of those holds to the exclusivity of all others — courts in different jurisdictions may differ, for instance. It may also come down to subtle differences between whether a case concerns uncopyrightable components, fair-use components, or some mix thereof. For large enough third-party publishers, the point about estoppel may make the whole thing moot.
It's all a giant mess.
@mcc it feels like the they're trying to phrase it as "anything published after the effective date must use 1.2" but... that's also not really how it works? because that implies things that just aren't right
like say I'm making a TV show based on it, and the "effective date" is in between two episodes... I don't think there's any way to justify that the second episode can't be licensed under 1.0a? but that's what it sounds like they're trying to do?
they need more than one paragraph here
@http_error_418 @mcc they did but it's still nuts that they're revoking it. There's a post here too: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license
This whole thing implies that the old version is "updated" based on the new version but I don't see how that's possible unless the old version says that you must always seek out the newest version. What if someone is living under a rock / offline only? How would the revocation clause in the new OGL actually apply without someone agreeing to it?
I think I might be able to help here... revoking a license and offering a license are two different things in the world of licensing law.
Some licenses are revokable, that is they can no longer be used to justify old content, but they usually have to be unilateral, ie you don't offer anything and they don't keep anything to use it instead of bilateral.
@Vrimj @http_error_418
By "new material", you mean third-party material not written at the time of the revocation, or first-party material published after "effective date"?
Say someone comes into possession of a book printed before effective date, but which they obtained after— I'm *assuming* the SRD, OGL 1.0a etc were available in printed form??— would you actually say Wizards can say "I know you have a piece of paper saying you have a license, but it doesn't count anymore, bc we said so"?
So anything already published under 1.0a would still be licensed after the effective date, the license has already been accepted by publishing in compliance.
@mcc @http_error_418
"would you actually say Wizards can say "I know you have a piece of paper saying you have a license, but it doesn't count anymore, bc we said so"?"
This would be what is usually meant by revoking, lots of reasons for them not to do it and I am surprised they considered it!
Withdrawing: No new stuff
Revoking: No new stuff and no new editions being sold of old stuff
Does that help?
Ok this one I can kind of answer (general perspective not legal advice)
Most of the licenses you are looking at are bilateral, they require things in order to accept and have duties attached.
You can't (usually) unilaterally revoke bilateral contracts because they are agreements not gifts.
@Vrimj @http_error_418 OK, you mentioned that before.
Maybe this question is too big, but generally what kind of test would we use to determine if something like the ISC license, or the OGL 1.0a, is bilateral?
@mcc @http_error_418
If you are saying you can revoke a license you also saying "it was a gift, we didn't get anything in return" so this was kind of the most offensive thing Wizards did in my reading of the situation.
ISC is basically a this is a gift license because it doesn't have obligations that attach.
By contrast something like https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ wouldn't be revokable by default because you are accepting a limitation in exchange for the license.
In general the question is "what do you have to do to use this license" and if the answer is something more than publish the license it is probably bilateral.
OGL1.0a is trixy and IP lawyers disagree.
I agree people accepted limitations and expanded on a core product line, but I am not an IP person, most of the IP people who play D&D agree with this read though.
I went to see who their staff attorney was for ISC because yeah it seems like a Chesterton's Fence sort of situation and it looks like they don't have one and I don't see any lawyers as staff or board?
So new print runs of old stuff would still be licensed
New stuff that hasn't been published is a closer call and I think it would depend on when acceptance happens.
But I also think this license is basically "just vibes" anyway because there isn't IP in this stuff to license.
mcc
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