3e Conversions

Vuron · Mar 14, 2002

I think that the rules for ESDs clearly indicate that hardcopy rules bought back in the day are subject to the same restrictions for use, ie once a product is ESDed it is henceforth covered by the ESD agreement regardless of original format. Any materials not yet ESDed are still restricted as per WotC existing copyrights.

Henry · Mar 14, 2002

I would prefer to have the actual stat blocks added (personal coversions) rather than a page reference. My reason? I do not own Monsters of Faerun, or the Manual of the planes, and I have no wish to do so. A conversion full of page references would make a conversion document absolutely useless to me.

Also, note Ryan Dancey's comment:

Q: What if my conversion looks just like a conversion in another WotC product like "Monsters of Faerun"?

A: All OGC is derived from the System Reference Document. If you happen to put the pieces together in the same order that WotC did in another product, so much the better.

In other words, if your conversion DOES look remarkably like a non-OGL monster, then it really doesn't matter that much.

If I wanted a conversion full of no stats, I could do that myself, and come up with the same results - because I didn't own the book. In fact, owning the book in question seems to be more of a liability than not owning it.

Henry · Mar 14, 2002

Vuron said:
I think that the rules for ESDs clearly indicate that hardcopy rules bought back in the day are subject to the same restrictions for use, ie once a product is ESDed it is henceforth covered by the ESD agreement regardless of original format. Any materials not yet ESDed are still restricted as per WotC existing copyrights.

The problem there, though, is that according to Anthony V, this conversion rules covers ESD's, hardcopy, or any other obtained form of the original product. Therefore, even products not ESD'ed can be converted under this license.

All in all, assuming these statements made by Ryan and Anthony are correct, it doesn't look that bad, especially mentioning the "customary" link references, which were a real sticking point.

Now, the only sticking point is if WotC changes the license significantly in its final form, and the capricious aspect of WotC being able to cancel this thing at any time, which would totally destroy the fan-based conversion effort in the first place.

The sad part is that it's the law-abiding ones who have to go through the hassle.

The ones that Ryan mentions bundling and selling or giving away both ESD and Conversion are the ones who will likely never be found or prosecuted. C'est la Vie.

EricNoah · Mar 14, 2002

Re: Re: Not deadly clear, rewrite the document.

RyanD said:
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.

As has been pointed out by Morrus, this "subtle shift" is so subtle as to be completely non-existant. As a matter of fact, I did make a tidy profit on the website -- at first from sales of D&D stuff through Amazon.com, and then from a stipend paid to me by Gamespy. So if you have a problem with a fan website making money off of D&D, then the problem started with me.

Florin · Mar 14, 2002

Heh, I was worried about all of this at first, then I sat down and thought about it. The whole ESD conversion policy is really a very clever idea, but probably not the way many people think about it. What the policy does is open up a whole lot of previously off-limits stuff to be released as OGC.

So, bullywugs aren't in the SRD, but if someone converts them from an old 1st ed module, there are OGC stats for bullywugs. Of course, you can't call them bullywugs because the name is claimed as PI, but at least there is a legal way to use the stats. It also helps out projects like the Netbook of Monsters, because they can now go back and include hundreds of old monsters that they couldn't before.

So, the way it looks to me, the ESD conversion policy will annoy people who weren't following the restrictions of copyright law and/or the OGL, but if you were following those restrictions, the ESD conversion policy just made things a lot cooler for you.

EricNoah · Mar 14, 2002

Florin said:
the ESD conversion policy will annoy people who weren't following the restrictions of copyright law and/or the OGL, but if you were following those restrictions, the ESD conversion policy just made things a lot cooler for you.

Well the problem is that we WERE following the only rules we knew about -- Jim Butler's "cart blanche" rules. And then suddenly, with no grace period or warning we're told we've been doing it wrong all along. That's what irks me.

If WotC can be reasonable with a grace period then I see less of a problem with the whole situation.

Vuron · Mar 14, 2002

Well to be honest the previous policy was more of a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" type of situation that some employees encouraged without fully consulting the legal types. WotC no doubt views current conversions as having a negative effect on it's bottom line. Now they are changing the rules to a definitive policy effective immediately.

Henry · Mar 14, 2002

Vuron said:
...WotC no doubt views current conversions as having a negative effect on it's bottom line. Now they are changing the rules to a definitive policy effective immediately.

Which is the surest way to tick off a large fan base - tacitly imply one policy, then switch it out from under you.

Florin said:
...the ESD conversion policy will annoy people who weren't following the restrictions... but if you were following those restrictions, the ESD conversion policy just made things a lot cooler for you.

The only problem here Florin is that NO ONE was following the restrictions. Name one conversion author who was including the OGL, including a copyright notice, NOT using the official names of creatures, and making links to the ESD available in the document. It was not required nor even suggested, so if anyone followed these procedures it was by a total fluke, not by design.

I don't mean to sound insulting, if I come off that way; I am merely pointing out that those who are in violation under the official policy are so because of no fault of their own. On the other hand, this group of people Ryan mentions who were bundling ESD's with very lengthy conversions (an OBVIOUSLY illegal practice) will most likely "thumb their nose" at this policy. A sad but true state of affairs.

The only other thing that would improve this policy, other than a grace period, is the inclusion of allowing the inclusion of proper creature and object names in the conversion. If someone converts "bullywugs" to "frog-men" or has to convert Pit Fiend to "big-*** Devil," it makes the module less clear, though most readers will still get the hint.

Oracular Vision · Mar 14, 2002

Re: Re: Not deadly clear, rewrite the document.

RyanD said:
SNIP.....

> 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.

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.

I think I can clarify a few issues which might help. These "clarifications" are of course, informal, and don't represent any kind of offical statement. However, I'm in a unique position to understand how the OGL works, how the ESD policy works, and how they both fit together, so hopefully my thoughts will be helpful.

It is problematical to attempt to, after the fact, change what you and Mr. Butler did. The company can attempt to reassert its rights from this point on, but in an open environment, it might not be defensible to change already performed work under a previous arrangement.

Q: How do we handle monsters in ESD products that aren't in the SRD?

A: You convert 'em as you see fit. WotC asserts ownership to the "Product Identity" of all proper nouns in the ESDs, and that includes the monster names. Your converted stat block is just Open Game Content, like you'd see in any OGL licensed work. The "name" of the monster remains WotC's exclusive property and isn't OGC.

WotC only owns coined proper nouns, not monster names like Minotaur or Dragon derived from history. In fact, titles cannot be copyrighted either, unless they use coined words. This is why so many products you buy have weird spellings "Windex" - those can be copyrighted. Certainly, if I make my own "Temple of Elemental Evil" module, they can sue, but as long as everything inside is mine and does not violate copyright, they have no case. That's how it is.

Q: What if my conversion looks just like a conversion in another WotC product like "Monsters of Faerun"?

A: All OGC is derived from the System Reference Document. If you happen to put the peices together in the same order that WotC did in another product, so much the better.

I doubt they will allow this, if they are going to attempt to 'own' the proper nouns. But I hope you are right.

MORE SNIPPAGE...

I agree with your other comments...

jester47 · Mar 14, 2002

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.