Is it OK to distribute others' OGC for free?

[Ranger REG]

I don't think people or companies should attempt to socially strongarm other people to get around being held to their end of a contract which they are fully aware of when signing and which they are happy to take advantage of when it suits them. Ethics only enter into it, for some, because the legal situation is indisputable.

Well, you are right in the sense of "You made your bed, now lie in it" kind of argument.

But if that happens often, the company may decide to opt out of that by printing future products with no OGL and no OGC inside. That can result the cancellation of d20 product line that may or may not have been good and well-known, despite the low sale.

Even now, there are two factions battling inside WotC's office: those that support OGL/d20 STL, and those that do not. Which faction do you want to be the winner?

 

[Erratic K]

clearly ethical and legal to redistribute it for fee.

If the spirit of it is involved, it is patterned after the GPL license. Read up on it here:

www.gnu.org
www.fsf.org

If you are having problems with this paradigm shift... well I understand. It is in someways new (the 20th century was the first century with intellectual property rights stemming from mass media and computers revolutionizing distribution of information like the printing press did ~1500 AD in the west). It is also in someways new as intellectual property rights is a relatively modern invention.

The nice thing is with the d20/OGL license it is now difficult, if not impossible to take 3.0 and 3.5 edition away from the fans.

-E

 

[pennywiz]

Well, you are right in the sense of "You made your bed, now lie in it" kind of argument.

If people or companies want to use the license(s), they have to understand how they work and accept the terms. It's not an argument, it's the fact of the matter.

But if that happens often, the company may decide to opt out of that by printing future products with no OGL and no OGC inside. That can result the cancellation of d20 product line that may or may not have been good and well-known, despite the low sale.

Don't be foolish. Plenty of companies have figured out how to use the licenses and not leave themselves open to bancruptcy. Some actually figure it out without utilizing an attorney, though that isn't recommended.

Even now, there are two factions battling inside WotC's office: those that support OGL/d20 STL, and those that do not. Which faction do you want to be the winner?

Is the sky falling again? I guess the winners will be the ones who learn how to sell sky.

Your talk of factions is ridiculous. People all have opinions and they aren't as clear cut as to create "factions" within WotC so much as to be a lot of people with opinions, some more informed than others.

The bottom line is that utilizing the license(s) has a track record of success which trumps any of the supposedly, factional, annecdotal evidence that people try to prop up as false proof of the failure of that marketing approach.

If you have some actual proof that there are key decision makers who will influence the utilization of the license(s) (or otherwise) with the advent of 4E then spit it out. Don't try veiling it all in this goofy game of claiming there are "factions battling inside WotC". I suspect that what you are actually over-dramatizing is only that all employees of a company (some of which you might know) have opinions no matter what level of decision-making they hold, or even if they will be around a couple or few years from now when 4E becomes a reality.

"Factions battling inside WotC!' Hah! What's the going threat level color for that?

 

[wingsandsword]

Personally, I see it as completely ethical to redistribute OGC for free.

When the d20 System first came out, it seemed to me, from reading the commentaries of the time and looking at the licenses that the whole point of the OGL/STL was to make the rules ubiquitous and universal, the basic rules of the game, the vast majority of monsters, spells and the basic "nuts and bolts" of D&D were being opened up into a format that anybody, fan or professional, could tinker with, rewrite, redistribute and enjoy all for free. No more "dark days" of 90's TSR threatening to sue fans for posting some homebrewed spells and NWP's or their old characters on their web page, as well as letting companies who had an idea for a game setting have access to a good, well written and popular system to use for that suppliment instead of having to invent a pretty bad system and people just have to convert things around themselves to a working system.

The reason for companies to keep making books in this market was threefold (or so it seemed at the time):

Name Recognition/Market Power: WotC had the D&D brand name, and with it's big marketing muscle it could get it's books into all sorts of distribution channels that the little guys couldn't touch. WotC & other companies also could do licensed RPG's and those would sell to gamers and crossover audiences just based on the name (and if the game is good, then it sells even better).

Product Identity: Just the core of the game was open, the worlds we had come to love were still "closed". I was and still am a big Planescape fan, and love the Realms. I just can't go and download all my favorite setting material for free (not legally or ethically at least). If I want info on the settings I like, I've still got to go to WotC for it. Illithid, Beholders, Displacer Beasts and other very distinctly D&D monsters remain Product Identity and only WotC can legally write about them. To use the popular terminology of now, the "Crunch" is open to all, but the "Fluff" is what you really pay for.

Convenience: Using an electronic format for gaming materials gets cumbersome at the gaming table, and most people I know generally prefer a hardcopy of things to read, and frankly as expensive as gaming books get nowadays, I know that to print out a 120+ page book on my color printer will cost me a lot more than $25 or so, just from the ink costs! It really is worth it (in my experience) to buy a physical hardcopy of a book you intend to use a lot.

Nothing is OGC that a company (or private individual) didn't give specific permission to do so. Everybody got into the OGL game knowing exactly what they were doing, and if you were releasing OGL you should be betting on either having brand recognition enough to sell your books on the shelf, or making your Product Identity good enough to make people want to come and buy it.

Even if companies started seriously cutting down on new OGL entering circulation, it's not the end of the OGL, or the "System-we-all-play-with-a-20-sided-die-with-the-trademarked-name" Because quite honestly, we've got enough OGC in circulation already to keep us all playing for many decades. Really, if we just had the Modern and "Original" SRD's, UA, and some of the better OGC rich 3rd party works to go with we could still play games for countless years. In it's own way, the OGL has ensured the immortality of D&D (albeit not with that name), by permanently putting out the heart & soul of it in the open to be copied, distributed and modified freely. Should the unthinkable happen and WotC/Hasbro stop producing d20/D&D, or switch to a highly unpopular new system/edition, we can happily keep on playing our same old game, even reprinting the rules perfectly legally (and 3rd party companies can even come along and make new rulebooks for us).

 

[Bleys]

"Factions battling inside WotC!' Hah! What's the going threat level color for that?

Kuo-T.... no, wait, that's PI. Ummm..... nasty little frog-like bipedal creature thingies green!

 

[Aristotle]

The spirit of the agreement is basically irrelevant. Primarily because noone knows what the spirit of the agreement actually is.

First, thanks for quoting me (and in a different thread even!). I hardly ever get responses, so you've made me happy even though you don't agree with me.

Now, I feel that the original intention of OGC was to encourage the sharing of information between publishers, and to encourage fans to publish new material based on OGC material without fear of reprisal. We've seen a little bit of the sharing between publishers (not enough IMHO) and a lot of "start up" publishing (some of which has been decent).

I'm not saying you can't rip all of the OGC from a product, regurgitate it word for word, and then distribute it for free if you like. We've already established that, that is legal. You can do it all you like. The question truly is one of ethics, and that's a shame as people so rarely agree on ethics.

As I posted before I think that, if the publishers begin to feel they are being infringed upon, OGC will become less available and more difficult to extract. Some of you are saying that if the publisher doesn't want to be ripped off (perceived or real) they shouldn't release so much OGC. So what your saying (IMHO) is that they've made a mistake that you'll exploit until they learn to fix it. That, to me, means that you’re actively looking to set back the open gaming movement. And I think that’s a shame, as (whether you like d20 or not) I think that the movement has done a lot for the industry.

 

[pennywiz]

First, thanks for quoting me (and in a different thread even!). I hardly ever get responses, so you've made me happy even though you don't agree with me.

You'll love this, then.

Now, I feel that the original intention of OGC was to encourage the sharing of information between publishers, and to encourage fans to publish new material based on OGC material without fear of reprisal. We've seen a little bit of the sharing between publishers (not enough IMHO) and a lot of "start up" publishing (some of which has been decent).

You might be right in your feeling. I'd caution you to expand that a bit since no one, publisher or fan, is restricted in whether they can contribute derivative material or wholly new OGC. There's really no distinction made within the license(s) between publisher and fan in regard to how they are required to use the license(s), as far as I recall. As far as "reprisal" is concerned, there is mention of that and it doesn't have seperate rules for publisher and fan either.

I'm not saying you can't rip all of the OGC from a product, regurgitate it word for word, and then distribute it for free if you like. We've already established that, that is legal. You can do it all you like. The question truly is one of ethics, and that's a shame as people so rarely agree on ethics.

It's only one of ethics if you disagree with the potential result of the legal actuality. Those who have no problem with the legal truth, don't need to bring ethics into the discussion.

As I posted before I think that, if the publishers begin to feel they are being infringed upon, OGC will become less available and more difficult to extract.

What leads you to believe that things will be any different in the future than they have been in the past? Some companies have always tied up their OGC with PI and IP in a way that made it difficult to extract, while others have not. None of this has lead to the wholesale stripmining of OGC. It's doubtful that it ever will and even more doubtful that it would have any effect on any person, company, or the market as a whole. My evidence is the last four years. What is your evidence?

Some of you are saying that if the publisher doesn't want to be ripped off (perceived or real) they shouldn't release so much OGC.

I won't post for others but I have been saying that there are some companies that tie up OGC with PI and IP in a way that makes extraction difficult, and I have said that others companies could follow suit if they wished, but I am also saying that I don't think that it would matter. My evidence is the last four years. What is your evidence?

So what your saying (IMHO) is that they've made a mistake that you'll exploit until they learn to fix it. That, to me, means that you’re actively looking to set back the open gaming movement.

That's a straw man. You are putting forth an assumption, and attributing less than ideal motives to those who disagree with you, in an effort to bolster your own position and denegrade those who disagree with you. Don't do that. People see through that sort of tactic, they call you on it, and it only serves to make you look bad and weaken your position.

And I think that’s a shame, as (whether you like d20 or not) I think that the movement has done a lot for the industry.

Funny how the licenses have survived just fine regardless of the ethical arguments being raised and without trying to put a social stigma on how someone chooses to use the license. I, myself, like the license(s) just fine the way they are and think that people can negotiate their usage just fine without other poeple trying to restrict thier fair usage through imposing their own ethics and morals on others. Some people believe that a person's word, and the contracts they agree to honor, are the best way to judge someone's ethical and moral nature.

 

[Aristotle]

That's a straw man. You are putting forth an assumption...

It truly wasn't meant to be. I'm not trying to restrict anybody or raise myself up above other people because they are doing something I don't agree with. At the same time, we're discussing this issue on an open forum so I took the liberty to express how I feel about it honestly... and the straw man statement was honestly what the argument sounded like to me.

I'm not looking to bolster my side. I don't have a side. What's being done is perfectly legal, and if the publishers don't want it to happen they'll deal with it in some way in future products. They pay people to fight these battles for them, so I don't feel a need to do their dirty work. I simply wanted to offer my point of view in a discussion that interests me even though I already know that the 'answer' is: That its completely legal and we are all free to do whatever we like with that content so long as we follow the rules of the license(s).

Heck, I'm planning to release a campaign setting sometime in 2005 (I know, campaign settings don't sell... but I've always wanted to do one anyway). That alone gets me interested anytime the licenses are being discussed. I definately plan to use OGC from UA as well as other sources.

 

[skinnydwarf]

NOTE: This is not a troll. It's a detour for a threadjacking (by moi and others) of the UA SRD thread. Here are some issues that came up:

1) Some folks think that because content is OGC, it is okay to distribute it for free; others disagree vehemently (bias: I agree).
2) Some folks think the OGL is primarily (or solely) intended for the benefit of 3rd-party publishers, to make sharing of for-pay content easier and facilitate game development (bias: I disagree).
3) If an author signs over the legal right to redistribute (by, say, OGL), but then asks folks not to do so, is it unethical to go against his wishes? (bias: none; undecided).
4) Something to keep in mind is that Section 4 of the OGL explicitly grants a royalty-free license to use, modify, and redistribute OGC. Should we be following the letter of the license, or the spirit of it? What is the spirit of the license?

Disclaimer: IANAL. I don't claim to be an expert on copyright law in general or the OGL in particular. However, I have been following the OGL since before 3E came out, and I do know a bit about copyright law from research I did while at university. Also, I used to read the open gaming mailing list on the opengamingfoundation site religiously- Ryan Dancey (sp?) used to explain things like this really well, so I think I have a good understand of how the OGL works.

First, some general remarks.

I think it's ok to distribute open gaming content (OGC) for free, because, well, you are allowed to. I think the problem is that some people misunderstand what is and is not OGC.

Just because a product is released under the OGL doesn't mean you can redistribute the whole product for free. You can only redistribute *parts* of it- the open parts. Remember the part in the license that talks about how you need to designate what content is and is not open? And how in every OGL book it talks about what content is and is not open? For example, after the OGL is presented in the Monster's Handbook (excellent book by FFG) it says it says that regarding chapters 3-11 "All of the text describing new monster feats, prestige classes... is considered Open Game Content. All other text, except that derived from the SRD, is designated closed content." So basically, they are saying that only some stuff is OGC, and thus only some stuff is allowed to be redistributed.

Only rules stuff is *required* to be OGC, though a company can make other stuff open. Expeditious Retreat made *all* of the Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe book OGC (except for things like art and authors names).

However, in general, intellectual property is *not* OGC. Only rules derived stuff is. Like it says above, things like monster stats, prestige class stats, feat stats, spell statistics (the game effects) are all OGC. Names, places, etc., unless derived from other OGC or the SRD, are not OGC (unless otherwise noted, as in the case of MMS: WE). They are closed content. So you can't freely distribute campaign world information, for example. You could freely distribute the new feats in the campaign, though.

To respond directly to the poster and to the points above:

1) I think it's OK to freely distribute OGC, though you need to know exactly what is and is not OGC.

2) I think that the OGL is for the benefit of WotC *and* 3rd party publishers. I think the issue you are getting at is that you think others think the purpose of the OGL does not allow for freely distributed content. I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of the OGL. The purpose of the OGL, for WotC, is to make WotC money by selling more PHBs (Of course, this is done when the OGL is combined with the d20 license). Basically, Ryan Dancey saw the RPG market was fractured because lots of people played lots of incompatible systems. By making an OGL and then putting out D&D under that license (via the SRD), lots of people could play one system and the world would be better. Also, with the d20 license, WotC could make lots of money by selling more PHBs.

The purpose of the OGL for 3rd party publishers is to allow them to make products that utilize the most popular RPG system in the world. After all, a product may be awesome but are you going to buy it if you have to learn a whole new system to use it? Sure, you can try and convert it to whatever system you use, but not everyone has the time or inclination to do that. Without a unified RPG system across multiple companies (like the d20 system), some people won't buy stuff that they would otherwise buy. Having a house system (like the Masterbook or d6 system from WeG) for one company is one thing, but that only solves the fracturing problem for that company. And it means that people who use rival systems will be less likely to buy their products. The purpose of the OGL for 3rd party publishers is that more people will buy their stuff, because they can easily utilize it in their games! Of course, most of this should be old hat to people around here- just covering all my bases.

That said, the OGL *does* allow for freely distributed content- only content that is OGC, which some people think covers more than it really does. After all, look at the free supplements over at RPGnow.

3) I do not think that it is unethical. After all, if the author does not want his work redistributed, then he shouldn't make it open. This of course only applies to open content. D20 authors should rightfully complain when their work is freely redistributed whole cloth (ie, people distributing *.PDFs of scanned books of d20 stuff on file sharing services).

4) Like others have said, it is hard to define the spirit of the license, and you should really only be required to follow what the license actually says. That being said, it is nice to follow the "spirit" as others see it. Just don't be surprised when others don't.

Well, that's my opinion and short analysis. If anyone thinks I made a mistake, please correct me.

 

[Yair]

I would like to raise the question of whether it is desirable to freely publish OGC. I think there is no argument that it's legal (assuming no PI or closed content is distributed). And the ethical arguments are, well, it seems to me each has its own ethics (for the record, I am generally in favor of free republishing of OGC). But on a purely selfish basis, do we want to?
I think all of us here would like there to be more OGC, and of better quality, and for publishers to keep publishing new books and products. I also think many of us would like to have all this content in an accessible manner, electronically. The question I'm trying to raise is whether freely publishing OGC is benefital to this end.

I personally think that it is, but only after a singnificant time has elapsed for example. Most books don't sell much past a certain point, and so after say six months the publisher has made about all the profit he can from the work (as have the retailers; don't discount any step in the purchase chain!). At this stage I think having free OGC from the book is not detrimental, and can even increase sales as a form of promotion.
Also, I think it is not desirable to republish stuff that is open if the product can be purchased electronically for cheap. For example Atlas Games is in the habit of publishing out-of-print books as fairly-cheap PDFs. I'd be less inclined to republish these products' OGC for free as anyone that wants the material can just purchase it. That said, there are benefits to having a free or OGC-only source, so I'm not sure here.
Last, I think it especially benefitial to publish works that have crippled OGC, i.e. OGC that is so mixed up with bad designations (in violation of the OGL! That frankly annoys me) or PI so as to be very hard to extract. By providing a firm OGC source for such content the republisher opens it up for the use of the community at large.