Conversion Doc clarifications (sorry, kind of long)
RyanD said:
I have a unique perspective on the document.
I wrote much of it (though the final version is mostly a paraphrasing of a more detailed license text submitted in draft form to WotC, and doesn't represent my verbatim text).
I have read your documents before and know you to be a capable and clear writer. I assume that it lost a lot in the "translation." Whatever the intent I think it needs to be made clearer. This will solve a lot of problems down the road. I guess this is the intention, since it does have a version number.
Here's the deal, in a nutshell.
WotC has the ESD program in place, making a whole bunch of 1E/2E stuff easily available on the net. They know that there are people out there who want to use that content in 3E games.
And this same content can come from other places than ESDs, namely print versions bought on ebay or sequestered since the late 80's.
Furthermore, there's been an active conversion community almost since The Big Announcement at GenCon in 1999 (and long before the thing known as an "ESD" even existed). Most of that work was done in good faith by people who just enjoy playing D&D and want to spread the love, and represents an honest effort to make a "conversion" rather than rewrite a product or unfairly profit from WotC's work.
Yes, I agree.
However, there have been an increasing number of people who don't understand that the conversions are not authorized and aren't really legal; they exist in a quasi-legal state based on informal understandings between various WotC employees (and ex-employees) and a handful of proactive web site administrators.
Right and this needs to be taken care of, both for the sake of WotC and for the sake of the conversion community.
Those people have started to become a problem. The most egregious problems are people who have solicited, or announced that they indend to solicit, conversions of whole products (or parts of products like monsters, magic items & spells) to distributors as commercial products. Nobody at WotC has the time or the resources to try to educate these people about how copyright and trademarks work. Furthermore, there's a whole community of publishers who are using the OGL and the d20 license correctly who could be harmed inadvertantly if the framework those licenses create is jeopardized by the actions of a few rogue publishers.
Right. I agree with this.
It's pretty hard for someone who doesn't take the time to read up on the topic to understand the difference between the "licensed" content in the SRD, and the "unlicensed" content in a collection of monsters, spells, magic items, etc. on a web site which appear to be "official". The chances that some of that "unlicensed" content will get into a commercial product have recently increased substantially.
There's also been a subtle shift in the way that the conversions are handled on-line too. Originally, Eric's web site was totally non-profit. That has changed. Under the current management, the site sells advertising and operates a retail division. The original "deal" was that conversions could be offered in a "not for profit" environment - and that's no longer the environment that the largest conversion library is hosted on. WotC feels (rightfully, in my opinion), that if anyone is going to make money off of D&D, it should be WotC.
It would be great if there was a legal way for a 3rd party to create a conversion of those old products and let other people download that conversion. Starting from that premise, WotC evolved a basic policy that said "let 'em". (Which, if you think about it, is a pretty amazing thing for a company in the business of publishing games to do.) They took a couple of stabs at writing a policy, and eventually someone asked me to take a look at what they'd done. Instead of sending them back a bunch of comments, I just wrote them a short license they could use or alter as they saw fit. They did alter it in places, but most of the legalese I suggested is retained in the final document.
All things considered I agree that WotC has been quite gracious with their IP. We would not have seen this with TSR.
The objective, as I saw it, was to formally codify how to do a conversion. The issues to resolve were:
1) Where is the original source material going to be stored and to what extent can it appear in the conversion?
2) How are the issues of trademark and copyright handled, specifically how will they interact with the OGL?
3) What are the specific agreements between WotC and the person doing the conversion?
My answers to WotC (i.e., my opinions as expressed in the license text itself)
1) The ESD needs to stay on the WotC site. That means that the conversion shouldn't be a complete product; it should be a companion to the ESD and require the ESD for use.
Reasons: It retains the value WotC owns in the ESD program. It also ensures that the conversions act as free advertising for that program; driving people to the ESD system who might not otherwise know that it existed. It also removes a rat's nest of issues of copyright and trademark usage.
2) The agreement licenses the use of the copyrights and trademarks in the ESDs to you formally, and clearly identifies them as Product Identity. Thus, the ESD agreement is compatible with the OGL, and allows the OGL itself to be the enabling license for the whole conversion.
Reasons: Better by far than writing another license for the use of game materials. The OGL may be a bit prickly, but there's a huge number of resources available to help anyone understand it who needs help. This "lightweight" approach to the copyright/trademark issue is much easier on everyone than a whole new license.
3) The person doing the conversion agrees that the copyrights and trademarks in the original ESD are owned by WotC. They agree not to distribute the whole ESD itself. They also agree to assert WotC's ownership to the copyrights and trademarks explicitly. Finally, they agree to use the OGL as the binding license for the converted content.
WotC agrees to let them. Specifically, WotC agrees to let people use it's copyights and trademarks without prior approval, and without cost. Which is a pretty big deal, even if we've all gotten used to the old "don't ask, don't tell" policy that started the whole conversion movement in the first place. A formal deal that says you don't have to ask permission, and you don't have to pay is a damn sight better than an informal agreement to look the other way while copyright and trademark infringement is carried out. [and frankly, I'm astonished that WotC is going to allow it.]
I completely agree with this. People often think that if a file is in electronic form, its free. They do not understand that someone still owns that IP. The only difference is that it can more easily be moved around.
If the document had stated the above just as you have stated it, I do not think we would be having this discussion.
> First, it needs to define its vocabulary.
I really don't agree. Is anyone confused as to what an "ESD" is? Or the "OGL"?
No they really are not, but apparently some are confused between the ideas of a conversion document and a product.
> Second, it needs to look at how people make conversions. It does not address this.
The policy doesn't address it, because it's not important. The policy says "you can convert the ESD", it doesn't try to tell you how to do the conversion. Specifically, the agreement says "All you are authorized to convert to 3E are the mechanics themselves". If all you're converting are the mechanics, how many ways are there to do so? Is there any reason to have detailed instructions?
What I mean by that is it does not address the way people might reference somthing. If a conversion document converts in whole or in part. By in whole I mean someone has gone and converted a whole product, like a module. By in part I mean someone has gone and converted a piece of a product, like an individual monster or magic item. That is what the document needs to address. This ammounts to adding the words "in whole or in part" to a bunch of lines in the document.
> There is an obvious confusion between Jim Butler's ESD program and his ideas on making conversions.
Jim, like myself, doesn't work for WotC anymore. Jim happens to have evolved a policy with my prior approval, when we both worked at WotC, which could be loosely described as "unlimited conversion without oversight", with the only significant requirement being that the conversions themselves could not be used in a for-profit manner.
That policy was useful and it served everyone well. It has become less useful, and it has started to cause problems.
I can see this. The presence of the ESD program makes it easier for someone to bundle the conversion document with the electronic product (through confusion or disreguard) and distribute it online. That is obviously a big no, no. But that seems to be the only relation. You are using the OGL as a way for converters to save their skinin light of this situation.
WotC has now issued a formal policy which is more detailed. It doesn't matter what the prior policy was, all that matters is what the current policy is.
Right, I was not disputing the policy, I was saying that the document does not make clear the deliniation between the concept of conversion distribution, and the concept of distribution of ESDs in the same way that you have stated on this board. What I think WotC is saying is:
You can write conversion documents as long as they do not include any original IP that is not in the SRD. If you must convert a monster change its name and release it under the OGL.
I think I can clarify a few issues which might help...
Followed by a very helpful Q and A. -- Aaron.
I think adding a FAQ list to the document would be a good thing, especially after it is rewritten to be clearer on the issues. This is not a daunting task and can easily be done by reading this board.
Still no one has answered the question of the product reference. In a conversion document can someone say
Stinger (hp: 30), See
MONSTER COMPENDIUM: Monsters of Faerun pp. 80-81.
in a conversion document? It seems to me that such a reference would be alright. The only problem that I might see with it is that you are using a refernce to a non-SRD source in a document that is coverd by the OGL. Could you or someone in the know clarify this? Being able to do this makes conversion writing a lot easier.
I hope that this has been helpful.
Very much so, thank you.
Aaron Webb
Seattle WA
Sincerely,
Ryan S. Dancey
CEO, OrganizedPlay
{and big fan of conversions}