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
@rbos That's the naive view, complicating this is that GPL 1.0 ( see section 7 ) has explicit text indicating that when new GPLs are released that GPL 1.0 remains valid for GPL 1.0 released code. OGL 1.0a may not have had such clear succession language, potentially leaving it up to a court to decide if succession language is implied.
Complicating THAT are contract doctrines like promissory estoppel or laches.
@CarlMuckenhoupt Yeah, like… okay so let's say I publish a book in which Donald Duck is the main character. I can continue to publish the book until such time as Disney tells me to stop.
Now imagine Disney gives me a license to publish books with Donald Duck, and I do so for 5 years, and then Disney arbitrarily revokes the license. I could do it until they told me to stop. So what did the license add? Waiving damages for works already sold? Seems to defeat the core purpose of a license.
@mcc In the screenshot you posted, it doesn't sound like they are trying to do backsies?
I'm also not a lawyer, but it looks like it's saying you can't make *new* content licensed OGL 1.0a after (effective date).
"It does not mean that any content previously published under that version needs to update to this license. Any previously published content remains licensed under whichever version of the OGL was in effect when you published that content."
mcc
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