RPG Legalities: OGF/4eGSL/d20STLDiscussions about the Open Gaming Movement, the Open Gaming License, along with WotC's GSL. This is the new home of the OGF-L and d20-L listserver discussions.
4th Ed D&D just like Old School D&D-- when it comes to Cease & Desist Letters
So I noticed that Ema's character sheet website was served with a C&D by WotC. Then they declared war on their customers by serving 4epowercards.com with a C&D. Why? Because WotC is making their own CRAPTASTIC powercards. These are hardcopy cards that you can lose, mix up, forget to bring to game, etc, that cost an arm and a leg, that you have to sort through to choose, and in general don't save any time at all.
The cards at 4epowercards.com let you sort by class, level, type of power. You only needed to print out as many as you needed for your character. Forgot to bring them to game? That's cool, just print them out again when you get there, or read from your laptop. The site was also of great help for building your character-- choosing the powers you were going to take. With the Deck of power cards (BTW you will have to bend over to WotC because the Martial Power and PHB power cards are sold separately by class) you would have to sort through card after card to figure out what you want to make your character. No different from flipping through the book (except that the cards are easier to lose than pages in a book).
Well Wizards, this is my message to you "Cease and Desist being jerks". If someone made a free application to help make a D&D character back in the TSR days, they got sued-- but that was the kind of thing you guys used to mock! Now you are turning into that kind of company? You used to be cool Wizards... what happened?
__________________ Basic Action Games www.bashrpg.com
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1) License change. 4E is not open as 3.x was. Many of the things you could get away with (by posting the OGL alongside what you were doing) is not an option now. People may be incorrectly presuming what was allowed under the OGL (such as reposting huge parts of the SRD) is still allowable now.
2) D&D Insider. The websites that have been issued C&Ds provided tools that are (in some form) a feature of D&D Insider.
I'd also guess (but could be completely wrong) that ongoing revenues for both 4E and DDI are lower than expected/hoped at this point, and the idea of giving something away for free via these websites is seen as taking away from revenues that would otherwise be going to WotC.
Maybe it's also the fact that both of these sites were blatently infringing on WotC's copyrights and IP?
Really?
Quote:
Ema's sheets used the tragemarked logo's and full descriptive text of feats, spells, powercards etc.
Do you know for a fact that this is not within fair use in Italy?
Quote:
And 4epowercards also included the full text of the powercards.
They included most of the text of the powers from PH. So how much can you include? One power? Two? Three? Had the PH been a book of food recipes, you could certainly include a lot of those recipes (as food recipes are not covered by copyright). Is the description of a power that much different from a food recipe? Do we know for sure where to draw the line?
Blatantly infringing, you said? (actually, you didn't, but I'll assume you meant that.) You're sure they didn't assume that the infringement was so minor, their sites did more help than harm?
__________________ Mikael Borjesson, Sweden
The Titan of Titan Games
Keeper of the swedish D&D translations
Another reason for the OGL. The OGL saved money on lawyer fees for WotC. Whatever profits 4E makes, they will now be reduced by whatever they have to pay lawyers to protect their now closed IP. With the OGL there was alot less infriingement to worry about legally.
__________________ Brain: Come Pinky! We must prepare for tomorrow night.
Pinky: Why? What are we going to do tomorrow night?
Brain: The same thing we do every night....TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
Another reason for the OGL. The OGL saved money on lawyer fees for WotC. Whatever profits 4E makes, they will now be reduced by whatever they have to pay lawyers to protect their now closed IP. With the OGL there was alot less infriingement to worry about legally.
Agreed.
Also, had their fan site policy been out before release of the game, the sites in question would have at least known what was (and wasn't) expected/permitted. Considering the past (TSR), it may have been a prudent move. Of course, the fan policy is still not out, so if you want to have a fansite, you do so at your own risk. (Unless, of course, you are a fan of 3.5, in which case if you follow the terms of the OGL, you're good to go!)
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Last edited by DaveMage; 24th February 2009 at 12:51 AM..
For 4E customers. Wizards will not go back to the freedom of the 3E days.
I agree with you. I think that 3.x is the beginning and the end of the "golden age" of open gaming; I'd be very surprised if, in my lifetime, we ever experience anything else like it.
NOTE: i'm specifically referring to the openness of a commercial, corporate-owned, widely recognized game/ruleset. I'm not saying everything about the 3.x era was good, nor should this be taken as a knock to other games/rulesets.
I'm hopeful that paizo's pathfinder RPG gains enough traction to satisfy their company and their fans/customers.
I'm also hopeful that green ronin's mutants & masterminds stays around for many years to come, even though I haven't gotten into it yet.
Ditto on similar games like conan 2E, spycraft 2.0, true20, etc...
Truly, the OGL was like fire from prometheus for gamers, IMO; companies just need to continue to use it.
May the fire never go out; long live prometheus!
Oh, and I don't think that wotc is "bad" or "evil" for closing the two sites mentioned; it seems clear to me they were using wotc's IP without permission in a NOT-personal use way [distribution]. It sucks they closed though.
I thought about this a few days ago in a different way:
What if I owned the rights and stuff to the monopoly board game. What if it didn't come with little property cards, but instead I had put the relevant information in the rules manual, with the clear permission "hey kids! write the property rules down on index cards [for personal use only]! It makes the game easier to play!", and people did that? Cool; makes the game easier to play, IMO.
Then, what if people started distributing these homemade cards? How would I feel about this? My customers still need to buy the game to play, but others are copying word for word from my instruction manual to make these cards. I may ask them nicely to stop; I would try to find hard numbers to see if it positively affected my sales both ways [letting this continue VS. having them stop] before I did anything, though. I'd probably allow it to continue for, oh...maybe six months or so while I continue to collect data to determine the most profitable course of action.
Finally, what if I, the owner of monopoly, started marketing "property cards" for use with monopoly? Now, how would I feel about people copying word for word from my instruction manual [even though they're giving the cards away for free]? At this point, I would be willing to do more than just politely ask to stop. I'd be okay with "blank property cards" though. Just don't copy out of my copyrighten [copyrighted?] instruction manual. I'd also kick myself in the butt for not marketing the cards sooner, and hire some more people for R&D to look into what other stuff I could make as accessories for my game; themed boards, special play pieces, add on "chance" cards, etc. I may even get some of the people who made good quality free cards on my payroll to put their constructive energies to use on making me more money. They obviously enjoy my game, and saw something I didn't. Better they work for me than a competitor.
That is what i'd do if I was trying to sell a game and it's accessories; YMMV, etc.
For 4E customers. Wizards will not go back to the freedom of the 3E days.
Its their (WotC's) loss.
__________________ Brain: Come Pinky! We must prepare for tomorrow night.
Pinky: Why? What are we going to do tomorrow night?
Brain: The same thing we do every night....TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
I agree with you. I think that 3.x is the beginning and the end of the "golden age" of open gaming; I'd be very surprised if, in my lifetime, we ever experience anything else like it.
I'm just glad it happened during a time that I could afford to buy so much of it. I have products that WotC wouldn't make - Castle Whiterock, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Ptolus. WotC may not have felt like Open Gaming was best for them, but as a consumer, it was (and remains) gold for me.
I'm just glad it happened during a time that I could afford to buy so much of it. I have products that WotC wouldn't make - Castle Whiterock, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Ptolus. WotC may not have felt like Open Gaming was best for them, but as a consumer, it was (and remains) gold for me.
You and me both!
I think a lot of good product came out of open gaming, and hope that continues through the 3pps.
Who knows, maybe we'll get some more awesometastic stuff at some point?
Do you know for a fact that this is not within fair use in Italy?
They included most of the text of the powers from PH. So how much can you include? One power? Two? Three? Had the PH been a book of food recipes, you could certainly include a lot of those recipes (as food recipes are not covered by copyright). Is the description of a power that much different from a food recipe? Do we know for sure where to draw the line?
Blatantly infringing, you said? (actually, you didn't, but I'll assume you meant that.) You're sure they didn't assume that the infringement was so minor, their sites did more help than harm?
Reproducing two-thirds of the content of a $30 book and distributing that content is not fair use in Italy or anywhere else.
For 4E customers. Wizards will not go back to the freedom of the 3E days.
I haven't checked, but is Ema's down completely, or just the 4E parts?
Cause as you say, the freedom's gone for you 4E guys, but me? I still want my freely available resources, darn it!
It would really suck if sites I use more often, like crystalkeep got shut down completely because they tried to put up 4e stuff. Not that I'm sure what crystalkeep does is legal by the OGL, either. Fortunately if it's not, WotC probably doesn't care anymore.
My online gaming group, Torch of Spirit (Contains all information for the current game I'm co-DMing as well as lots of houserules I'm using or considering for the future. Feel free to check it out.)
According to the discussion in the General forums, Ema's is down completely. The issue is not quite certain, but it sounds like a lot of it had to do with Ema's use of trademarked logos, including for 3e sheets. I don't know if what crystalkeep does is exactly kosher (it certaiiinlyy falls outside the OGL) or follows the "can't copyright game rules" route. Crystalkeep does seem to use similarly trademarked logos, but only at the top of the web page AFAICT.
Epochrpg, simply give it a rest. The days of the OGL are gone forever.
Doubt it, 4e fanboy.
As long as there are Pathfinder, True20/Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft, etc., OGL will live far longer than 4e GSL (which will end when D&D 5e is published).
__________________ Anyhoo, just some random thoughts...
My philosophy is "you don't need me to tell you how to play -- I'll just provide some rules and ideas to use and get out of your way." --Monte Cook
Are these really C&D letters from lawyers threatening legal action, or just letters from WotC asking the sites not to do what they're doing?
A company that runs to the law to deal with its fans instead of at least trying to work with them is not a company I'd like to work with, or be a fan of. But these days I'm not a fan of WotC anyways.
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