Hmm, new d20 STL quirk

[reiella]

Hmm, news I guess.

This is odd... And might get multiposted.

From the recent Revision 5 of the d20 STL.

4. Quality Standards
The nature of all material You use or distribute that incorporates the Licensed Articles must comply with all applicable laws and regulations, as well as community standards of decency, as further described in the d20 System Guide. You must use Your best efforts to preserve the high standard and goodwill of the Licensed Trademarks. In order to assure the foregoing standard and quality requirements, Wizards of the Coast shall have the right, upon notice to You, to review and inspect all material released by You that uses the Licensed Articles. You shall fully cooperate with Wizards of the Coast to facilitate such review and inspection, including timely provision of copies of all such materials to Wizards of the Coast. Wizards of the Coast may terminate this License immediately upon attempted notice to you if it deems, in its sole discretion, that your use of the Licensed Articles does not meet the above standards.

When was this updated? And the d20 STL isn't one of the licenses that allows you to use the 'old license' if it's benefical (unlike OGL).

Bit mixed on this, although I believe, the product can still be marketed as OGL (and thus lacking direct references to D&D, but still using the SRD material, no?).

[ If there's another thread on this, merge it ]

 

[ptrpete]

I think this is a response to the Book or Erotic Fantasy. I remember someone at WotC saying they weren't happy with it damaging the reputation of the d20 movement, but they couldn't do anything about it.

So they changed the rules, and now they can do something about it.

 

[HellHound]

I just posted an analysis of this to the d20 Publishers forum. Not going to repost here because I'm LAZY.

 

[Henrix]

Hmph, I'll just repost Ryan Dancey comments on the ogf-d20 list, as reposted on the RPG.net forum:

I'm pretty unhappy with the decision to alter the d20 System Trademark License to include post-publication content limitations.

In my opinion, the current version of the d20 STL is not a license I would be comfortable using in a commercial work unless I was able to secure a release from Wizards prior to publication exempting me from the content clauses. The potential for abuse (accidential or intentional) of the new clauses renders the "safe harbor" established by the D20 System Trademark License moot.

By altering the risk equation that must be considered by each party to the D20 System Trademark License in such a manner, in my opinion, it may now be more risky for a publisher to publish with the D20STL than without it. Thus the changes severely undermine the value proposition of the license as a whole.

Prior to these changes Wizards of the Coast was insulated from the contents of 3rd party d20 products through its inability to assert a review or approval right over such contents. By insisting on such a right, Wizards of the Coast has just made themselves liable for defamation, slander, trade secret, copyright, patent, and trademark litigation which would otherwise have been limited to the original publisher.

In addition, they've put themselves into a terrible PR position. Prior to these changes, Wizards of the Coast could refuse public comment on the contents of any product using the D20STL, claiming no prior knowledge nor approval responsibility for distasteful work. Now they will be forced to explain either a) why they support a work containing distasteful content, or b) when they'll be forcing the publisher to institute a recall of that work.

The net result of this change will be more work for Wizards of the Coast (with no related revenue), more danger of a public communications nightmare, less D20-logoed product, and an increase in the effort devoted to creating (and the value of) a publisher-sponsored D20 trademark replacement not controlled by Wizards of the Coast .

All those problems have been incurred to gain the ability to stop one product from commercial distribution to a limited audience. And in the end, Wizards of the Coast probably won't stop the release of that product. All they'll stop is the publisher's use of the words "Dungeons & Dragons" and a logo the size of a postage stamp.

Essentially, Wizards gets nothing for this change but heartache.

This is what happens when emotion gets in front of rational business management. And, in my opinion, it is an extremely unfortunate choice.

I hope you'll join me in asking Wizards of the Coast to reconsider its stance on this matter and retract this change to the d20 System Trademark License.

Ryan S. Dancey
Founder, Open Gaming Foundation

This article may be copied and republished provided the entire contents remain intact.

 

[Vaxalon]

Here's AV from the Valar Project boards:

Folks,
By now alot of you have heard about this change. Frankly I am not sure what the *full* implications of this change are. I haven't had a chance to review all of the new material (and there are alot of changes both for content and procedure).
When we have a better idea of the scope of this change and what it means we will let you know.
Please feel free to get on other boards and point out what this will mean for *all* d20 products. I can persoanlly think of a dozen different products that might be in violation off the top of my head (half a dozen Mongoose products alone).
The excessive gore provision will really trip some people up (what's "excessive"???).
And of course feel free to point out the hypocrisy (Book of Vile Darkness the upcoming Book of Exalted Deeds, the MM 3.5, I'm sure there are others...)
AV

 

[reiella]

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?t=63042

Link to the thread in Publishers that HellHound mentioned earlier.

I admit I missed it there.

It's a disturbing president to set, imo; and I see it causing more problems than it may be worth, especially given the relation the d20STL has a virus license.

 

[Shadowdancer]

The standars of what community? Who gets to judge? WOTC is opening a big can of worms with this.

The Supreme Court can't even adequately define pornography. What makes WOTC think they can define and enforce these new requirements?

 

[Trainz]

I think it's obvious this is in response to BoEF. But why couldn't WOTC implement this WHEN the BoEF was announced in pre-prod, instead of many months after the BoEF writers have spent a good chunk of their lives working on something they cherish ?

Their brains are full of grey ooze or somesuch. Someone at HQ missed a will save. Do they realise what this does to their not so shiny image ? I'm sorry guys, but TSR didn't go that far in the realm of stupidity.

Yup Bub, you heard me. I'm putting TSR above WoTC with the advent of those nooz.

 

[Belen]

I agree with WOTC's decision. I doubt that the issue would have come up if Valar had not decided to use the d20 license and D&D trademark so prominnently on their cover. So what if Wizards does not want the "Dungeons and Dragons" trademark on the BOEF? I doubt that they will pursue publishers like Mongoose. The change was designed to stop fetish-oriented porn from carrying the Dungeons and Dragons name on the cover.

Big deal. I happen to think the move it wonderful and I will fully support WOTC from this point on.

For me, it seemed that Valar and Tony Valterra were thumbing their nose at WOTC. They were saying, "Yeah, we are going to print this material, and put your trademark on it in big letters. Thanks for giving us the chance to make the extra money using your name."

The BOEF can still be printed under OGL. I am glad that they cannot use the D&D logo. This means that I will not have to explain that BOEF is not a part if DnD to lay people. If the trademark is not on the cover is it much easier to dissassociate the porn from the game.

You guys are worried that WOTC will use the new rules against people like Mongoose. That's bunk. They will only use the new rules against people like Valar. Period.

Kudos, WOTC!

Huzzah!

 

[Trainz]

I could reply to that, but I'll juuust sit right here with my pop-corn and watch the show.