Stan! Talks "Life After Wizards (Again)"

[Morrus]

I can only quote how it was portrayed:

I see. But you're pursuing legislation to save the slaves nonetheless?

Or do you think you might be slightly overreacting to a standard non-compete clause? An agreement to stop you developing a competing product while taking money from someone? Something which is fine by most people; and those who do want to work on a competing product simply don't accept the job and go work on their competing projects instead. Like Stan! did, and maybe Monte might have. No puppies harmed.

If the people involved have no harsh feelings, why have them on their behalf? Especially about contracts which they've seen and you haven't?

It's fine to say you don't like the practice. It's just throwing out emotive terms like "slavery" and "indentured servitude" that's hyperbole a step too far.

 

[SeventhSon]

Common in the US

As many have said, it's quite common in the US for this sort of restriction to exist for creatives. They go through a lot of material that has great potential but is discarded, wisely or not, by management. You pay a guy to sit around and think of good ideas all day, he'll get a few he might not like to share. The obvious negative side of this is someone who then uses this material to compete against the company that hired them. Its a CYA issue if nothing else.

Stan!'s problem is he's been around since the Halcyon days of pre-Hasbro where love triumphed over profits and everyone was an independent creative in a world of unencumbered creation. That, and these old guys have different standards than eager kids ("Oh my god! I'm getting paid to design games!!!")


Happens every day.

 

[Kaodi]

Or do you think you might be slightly overreacting to a standard non-compete clause? An agreement to stop you developing a competing product while taking money from someone? Something which is fine by most people; and those who do want to work on a competing product simply don't accept the job and go work on their competing projects instead. Like Stan! did, and maybe Monte might have. No puppies harmed.

What Stan! was describing does not sound like a standard non-complete clause at all. And while I am not necessarily their greatest fan, for the purpose of this conversation I am assuming that the general practice of protecting trade secrets through their use is acceptable.

But the extension of such clauses beyond the scope of ones employment is not, to my mind, acceptable. The case may be that no judge would ever enforce such a broad IP claim. But that is just what I was saying: conditional on if they would in fact allow it, I think it would be worth legislating to explicitly disallow it.

You may think I am getting crazy in my old age (of 28), but the fact is that plenty of morally problematic things seemed perfectly innocuous until one day someone took a second look and said, "Hey, wait a minute..." Given how many people are in prison worldwide for something as relatively harmless as possession of marijuana, I think I can be forgiven for making the connection between the notion that a person's total creative output is something that is the proper object of ownership by someone other than the creator themselves, and unconscionable deprivations of freedom. It is not as if the idea that freedom and property are related is particularly uncommon.

 

[Evenglare]

No wonder there are so many kickstarters if this is a standard clause. It's a horrible thing to give up your creative freedom. I can't ever imagine doing it. I can't even believe people are arguing about this infavor of Hasbro by just accepting it and saying, "well, that's a normal contract clause". I take back all the malicious things I have said about kickstarters. Good for them retaining creative freedom.

 

[dd.stevenson]

He makes it clear that he has no hard feelings; tat his departure was due to a creative policy that he couldn't agree to - a policy he characterizes as "we place no value on nor have any need for experienced creative people with broad experience—we are only interested in raw, fresh creatives whose every thought we can control and own." and expresses his hope that it will one day change.

Personally, I suspect that this business approach is a bad match for an aging hobby, and hurts their efforts in this particular market. Doubt that matters to the decision makers, though.

I also hope very much that we don't see this kind of grabby/graspy attitude reflected in DDN's license agreement. Stan's posts make me more grateful than ever for the OGL.

And, as others have noted, this gives us a very plausible explanation for Monte's departure.

 

[Amurayi]

So... according to Hasbro's laws this means that Chris Perkins' Iomandra campaign also belongs toWotC/Hasbro already...


Time to publish it officially!

 

[Klaus]

It's just a price. No more, no less. Too high for some, not for others.

I agree with Morrus. It is a policy that some might agree to, some might not.

I see this policy as less of a "I will own everything that comes out of your brain! Mwa-ha-ha!" and more of a "please focus your creativity on company stuff, instead of going off on side projects". Some creative people like to be narrowed down in focus for their endeavours, others can't help but dream up many parallel stuff.

 

[Riley]

I've had one of these clauses in my past. It happens when you work for a company/institution which draws its lifeblood from developing new Intellectual Property.

For me, it was about any potential Next Great Medical Discovery which I might make. (I didn't.)

But in the world of toys/games, I believe that the ongoing legal dispute about Bratz dolls is is the kind of thing that clauses like Wizards' is about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratz#Legal_actions

In short, Bratz were created by a former Barbie creator, either during his time with barbie, or between periods of employment at Barbie. Bratz ate up a lot of the Barbie market, and the Barbie people wanted a piece of the action.

 

[Kobold Boots]

What Stan! was describing does not sound like a standard non-complete clause at all. And while I am not necessarily their greatest fan, for the purpose of this conversation I am assuming that the general practice of protecting trade secrets through their use is acceptable.

It sounds like the last three I've signed, so to me it's standard.

But the extension of such clauses beyond the scope of ones employment is not, to my mind, acceptable. The case may be that no judge would ever enforce such a broad IP claim. But that is just what I was saying: conditional on if they would in fact allow it, I think it would be worth legislating to explicitly disallow it.

You'd have to modify federal labor law to allow it as if you're salaried you're considered to "always" be on the clock; therefore you don't have "you" time that's yours. Additionally, your comments about political speech and such don't apply to a game designer's scope of employment so long such speech doesn't adversely impact the firm.

You may think I am getting crazy in my old age (of 28), but the fact is that plenty of morally problematic things seemed perfectly innocuous until one day someone took a second look and said, "Hey, wait a minute..." Given how many people are in prison worldwide for something as relatively harmless as possession of marijuana, I think I can be forgiven for making the connection between the notion that a person's total creative output is something that is the proper object of ownership by someone other than the creator themselves, and unconscionable deprivations of freedom. It is not as if the idea that freedom and property are related is particularly uncommon.

I don't think you're silly or crazy, but I do think that there's a certain level of drama to your point given the severity of the original topic. Using any example that denies free will (slavery, drug addiction) to further an argument where there's a clear free-will component (to sign or not to sign) is extreme and should be called out as such.

Now "some day" cultural relativity may take over and such things may be seen as oppressive but I'd imagine that in a corporate-government culture that won't necessarily be the case. I'd also ask you to think long and hard about whether the equality and social advances we've seen in the last 150 years have been to the detriment or benefit of corporate goals and I think you'd find what really drives freedom.

 

[Matt James]

Gah, I must be giving Kobold Boots too much XP. Need to spread it around! Good, thoughtful post.

My attorney has not replied to me yet. I think he's angry I stopped playing in our Friday night game. I'll need to prod him a bit. He's an IP attorney.