D&D 5E Community Content Enforcement in the DM's Guild (Does it literally even?)

[Mark CMG]

It's not Open Gaming in terms of the OGL, but neither is it fully closed gaming either. Ajar Gaming?

(. . .)

Or, indeed, a d20 License alongside the OGL.

And during the rollout of 4e we saw WotC ending (or simply not renewing) a number of licenses: d20 was cancelled, the Dragon/Dungeon license ended, Dragonlance was brought back in-house, and so forth. I strongly suspect that they would have pulled the OGL too, if they could have done so.

Naturally, the same could happen again.

I hear ya but these, as far as game licenses go, are mostly apples and oranges. The d20 STL was for a single trademark meant to layer on top of some OGL works. The various private property licenses like for Dragon Magazine, etc, have nothing to do with anything I am discussing. The GSL and the DMs Guild, however, are both meant as direct OGL alternatives.

I wasn't aware the GSL had been cancelled? In fact, I was of the impression that [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] was still using it for his 4e products. But I might be wrong about that, of course.

I am probably the one that is wrong. We'll see what they do about it, since they do have the option. I wonder if enough people are using the GSL for 4E material and not switching such that WotC would consider it advantageous to exercise that option?

 

[Morrus]

I am probably the one that is wrong. We'll see what they do about it, since they do have the option. I wonder if enough people are using the GSL for 4E material and not switching such that WotC would consider it advantageous to exercise that option?

It hasn't been cancelled. We're just using it to close out the last two adventures in the 4E version of the ZEITGEIST adventure path, but there's no plan to do anything new with it.

 

[Mark CMG]

It hasn't been cancelled. We're just using it to close out the last two adventures in the 4E version of the ZEITGEIST adventure path, but there's no plan to do anything new with it.

Can you continue to sell 4E GSL'd products as print or PDF if they cancel the license? Not just make new ones but sell ones already being sold?

 

[Morrus]

Can you continue to sell 4E GSL'd products as print or PDF if they cancel the license? Not just make new ones but sell ones already being sold?

Nope. But we don't sell many 4E stuff anyway, so it's not a drastic worry as long as we get the next two adventures to those who subscribed from the start.

 

[Mark CMG]

Nope. But we don't sell many 4E stuff anyway, so it's not a drastic worry as long as we get the next two adventures to those who subscribed from the start.

Thanks for the info. I imagine those who subscribed will have to be understanding if it becomes impossible to finish the series (though it would seem the numbers aren't going to drive WotC to cancel in any event). In that regard, I suppose the DMs Guild is a different animal since it involves more WotC IP and they hold the reins to distribution.

 

[Xethreau]

This conversation changed topic; it was from my review thread but now the conversation is more appropriate for here. @Giant2005 got the banhammer for his Epic Level Handbook.

Yeah it got the ban hammer. I'm not sure what you mean by the outcome to me? It is gone, that is the outcome.

I think the translation for "outcome" may be "were you sued?" What does your ban look like? Did you receive formal communication from DMs Guild admin? Your ELH v2.0 is still available for me (and presumably other customers with it in their library) to download; what does the ban look like from your side of the screen?

 

[Giant2005]

I think the translation for "outcome" may be "were you sued?" What does your ban look like? Did you receive formal communication from DMs Guild admin? Your ELH v2.0 is still available for me (and presumably other customers with it in their library) to download; what does the ban look like from your side of the screen?

LoL no I wasn't sued. My ban doesn't look like much of anything really - all of the money it generated prior to being taken down was left in my account untouched and they didn't actually send me any notice that it was taken down at all. I noticed it missing by chance and had to investigate the issue myself. I think the term "ban" is being misued in this case though - I wasn't actually banned, just that one piece of work was removed. I removed my other homebrew on there voluntarily, and the account is still active.
As for it being still available to be downloaded by you (and I assume others that previously downloaded it), I am very, very glad! I was actually a little worried about removing my other content from the site as I thought that I may have been ripping off anyone that donated money prior to then. But now I am fairly confident that they still have access to the files that were there at the time of purchase.

 

[Echohawk]

Are there report buttons on the Guild that I don't know about?

In an effort to answer this part of the original post (which if I missed an earlier answer to, apologies): There is a "Report this title" link on the right hand side of each product page. Clicking on that gives four different options (content, copyrighted/trademark, title, other) plus a text box for details. If you didn't know about that, now you do .

 

[Xethreau]

...they didn't actually send me any notice that it was taken down at all. I noticed it missing by chance and had to investigate the issue myself. I think the term "ban" is being misued in this case though - I wasn't actually banned, just that one piece of work was removed.

In the other thread you said

They just said the equivalent of "Don't do that again" they even suggested re-writing the book and publishing it again but that suggestion was kind of pointless considering they didn't tell me what went wrong the first time. I'd likely make the same mistake again.

How did you investigate the status of your product?

 

[Giant2005]

How did you investigate the status of your product?

By E-mailing them. I am still E-mailing them trying to find out exactly what went wrong,although they seem less willing to respond now.