[UPDATED] DM's Guild No Longer Allows Creator Logos On Product Covers

The Dungeon Master's Guild - the WotC/DTRPG-run storefront where fans can sell their own D&D content - has updated it terms to clarify that creators cannot put their own logos on the covers of their products. The only permitted logo is the DM's Guild logo itself.

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It should be noted that creators can still put their own logo inside their products. The DMs Guild terms have been updated to reflect this.

Can I use the D&D logo on my DMs Guild title?

The only logo you can use in your title is the DMs Guild logo [found here]

Custom logos and other variations of existing logos are not allowed


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The policy change, seen in the image above, was (oddly) announced in a private DM's Guild Fan Club Facebook group owned by David Russell. Fortunately EN World member MerricB screenshot some of the replies to questions.

("CCC" means "Con Created Content")
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The policy will be applied for new products, but will not be enforced retroactively on existing products

DMs Guild is a popular way for fans to sell PDF content in exchange for a 50% royalty on sales of their product, along with an exclusivity agreement, and allows access to settings such as the Forgotten Realms. It's a model which has inspired a number of other publisher-led fan stores from companies like Monte Cook Games, Chaosium, even my own little EN Publishing.

Generally speaking, at a quick glance, most covers don't have much by way of personal branding - sometimes a small logo, or a line name like the Power Score RPG PDF shown below. One of the items below has D&D Beyond branding on it, and it would be interesting to see if the policy applies to that product. However, it does seem like this will make it more difficult for small companies or groups using different authors to build a following on the site; individual authors, on the other hand, should find it easier.

Last year, WotC announced a new policy where they promote a group of ten or so DMs Guild authors; these were called the "DMs Guild Adepts", who they give special attention to in marketing, podcasts, and so on, along with their own special gold branding logo. This was initially promoted as a way of sorting quality product from the thousands of items on the store.

OBS' Jason Bolte commented on the reasons for the change:

"There are a number of reasons for the change, and it’s something we’ve discussed internally for a while now. One impetus is to be consistent across all of our community creation platforms. Another reason is to have clearer rules that we can enforce given our existing resources.

The DMs Guild logo we provide is intended to satisfy a lot of the messaging that others logos would normally do. First, it signifies that the product is a member of the wonderful community that is the DMs Guild. Second, it signals that the product is for the Dungeons & Dragons game. We have provided it to this amazing group specifically for those reasons.

The problem comes with the other branding, which often trends toward copyright infringement or trademark violations. Variations on the Dungeons & Dragons logo, the D&D branding, other DMs Guild logos, etc are common on new titles coming into the site. As we see more and more permutations, the lines get fuzzier and grayer, and it’s difficult for us to keep up and enforce. And since we’re dealing with intellectual property, branding, and trademarks in a retail setting, there are a number of reasons for us to find clear and enforceable rules for creators both old and new.

So those are some of the many reasons a for the change in policy. We are always evaluating the site and watching its evolution, and we will continue to update our policies as the site grows and the community it makes more and more excellent content."

I've added some more information from the private Facebook group, since this information will be useful to anybody who uses the DMs Guild. Answers below are from OBS employees Jason Bolte and Matt McElroy.

• Can a text brand be included? "...yes, text is still fine, as long it does not approach branded text." (I'm not sure what that means).
• Is the logo mandatory? "We’re still heavily encouraging that people use that logo. It’s not mandatory at this time, but we will evaluate that policy as well"
• Does this only apply to community created content, or to Con-Created Content? "It only applies to community created content"
• Are the red "D&D sashes" OK? "I’d say they’re ok as long as they’re not used as branding. Namely, don’t try to emulate or make a spinoff of WotC logos. If you use the sashes as a byline, that should be fine (Written by xxx).... In my estimation, as long as the red sash is not used in a stylistic manner to promote a brand, it is fine. Once you start using it as a brand, then there are issues. If you don’t know if you’re using it correctly, then ask!"
• Is this actually new? "There has never been a time were D&D logos have been allowed on the covers. The only logo that was allowed before today is the same one that was only allowed previously. What we’re attempting to make more clear is that logos like “Bob’s Gaming Company” are not allowed on covers."
• Followup to above: "Basically the rules for community content have always been there. I was just bad at enforcing them and the FAQ wasn’t helpful, it actually made things more confusing. Adventurers League is not part of the community content program and has its own templates, rules and administration."
• About Fantasy Grounds. "FG logo is allowed on FG titles, we’re going to add a section to the FAQ linking to the FG section of the FAQ and clarifying that."

Florian Emmerich asked about the product depicted below. OBS' Jason Bolte confirmed that "If you’re asking about the P. B. Publishing Presents part, then yes, that would be would qualify as what we don’t want on the cover".

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[Morrus]

Has anyone asked a lawyer about this policy? I would think it has dubious legality as it is actively obfuscating who produces a product making it more likely to be confused as a product produced by WoTC.

It’s a contract. You can transfer all sorts of rights by signing a contract.

 

[MidwayHaven]

I'm currently writing content for Storytellers Vault (the White Wolf version of DMsGuild on DTRPG). I don't write for the money, I just want to get my name out there (though I have to admit I currently have more money coming in from the sole accessory I wrote so far for SV than the two I wrote for DMsG).

Storytellers Vault is I guess a good idea if you're going less for the crunch and more for the fluff, and considering that they allow work for all Vampire: the Masquerade editions it's a very flexible experience for me.

In addition, with what I can gather from SV's guidelines, no other logos other than White Wolf's supplied ones could be used on the cover.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Has anyone asked a lawyer about this policy? I would think it has dubious legality as it is actively obfuscating who produces a product making it more likely to be confused as a product produced by WoTC.

That's not actually a legal issue, as you're operating under license, and thus under their terms. They could say that every released product has to have a cover that is entirely black with nothing on it, meaning every single 3pp DMG release would like identical on the outside, and you still wouldn't have a legal case. As any mediator would point out, again, it's their license and you're the one choosing to play in their sandbox. How difficult that makes it for you to differentiate your products is not relevant to the legality of the license's terms.

At best, if they switch this to be retroactive, someone could try taking them to court to prevent it or to recoup costs associated with a re-release, but you'd be banging against WotC's legal team and funds, so don't hold your breath.

I've been warily watching the DMG for a while now, wondering if I should try dipping my toe in with some basic conversions of existing Misfit Studios products to 5e, and this is the decider for me. Branding doesn't matter if you're "Bob the DnD Fan" looking to make some extra cash, but if you're an actual publisher -- even small press -- this is very damaging. Companies gain reputation, and thus customers, based on the strength of the brand they attach to good products. If people are skimming thumbnails and can't say "oh, look, a Misfit Studios 5e product! I've liked their Pathfinder stuff so I'll give this a shot!" just by looking at my logo on the cover, that's a big part of brand loyal impulse buyer's incentive out the window.

Screw that.

 

[Mistwell]

That's not actually a legal issue, as you're operating under license, and thus under their terms. They could say that every released product has to have a cover that is entirely black with nothing on it, meaning every single 3pp DMG release would like identical on the outside, and you still wouldn't have a legal case. As any mediator would point out, again, it's their license and you're the one choosing to play in their sandbox. How difficult that makes it for you to differentiate your products is not relevant to the legality of the license's terms.

At best, if they switch this to be retroactive, someone could try taking them to court to prevent it or to recoup costs associated with a re-release, but you'd be banging against WotC's legal team and funds, so don't hold your breath.

I've been warily watching the DMG for a while now, wondering if I should try dipping my toe in with some basic conversions of existing Misfit Studios products to 5e, and this is the decider for me. Branding doesn't matter if you're "Bob the DnD Fan" looking to make some extra cash, but if you're an actual publisher -- even small press -- this is very damaging. Companies gain reputation, and thus customers, based on the strength of the brand they attach to good products. If people are skimming thumbnails and can't say "oh, look, a Misfit Studios 5e product! I've liked their Pathfinder stuff so I'll give this a shot!" just by looking at my logo on the cover, that's a big part of brand loyal impulse buyer's incentive out the window.

Screw that.

I kinda don't get this claim that the branding from your company comes from that tiny little thumbnail's much more tiny branding symbol on the cover of the pdf image...as opposed to the relatively gigantic text saying it's coming from Misfit Studios. If I am looking for Misfit Studios products, it's not from trying to discern little symbols in little images, it's form the big text next to it saying who made the product.

 

[fantasmamore]

The only problem is that they allowed custom logos on the covers until now. I wouldn't even allow a custom cover if it didn't meet my quality standards. Because, it's their brand. You do some awful graphic work and a third person that sees the cover or the interior of the pdf will think "how unprofessional this D&D product looks". I am sure that they would never open their IP if it wasn't for the free work that people are willing to provide.

Yes, free work. Like, I give you the platform, you create content for me for free and I take half of your profits in order to maintain the platform. So I have a constant stream of new content, fresh ideas and continuous advertising, without paying a dime. Which is not a bad decision businesswise, obviously, and it's not bad for the authors and the designers that choose to follow that path. It gives them a good, universally known system to work on, it provides visitors to their products, it gives them the opportunity to become famous in our small world and maybe earn some money.

We just have to understand that we work for WotC. We have to respect their IP and any decision that they make about how they want their covers to look. It's either that or go away, do something else, design your own world and system.

 

[M.T. Black]

Is it, though? On what comparisons are you basing that? How much extra does the average seller make by adding Elminster to their PDF?

I think it made a difference to our sales that we could publish "Elminster's Guide to Magic". But it's very hard to prove such matters one way or the other.

 

[Morrus]

I think it made a difference to our sales that we could publish "Elminster's Guide to Magic". But it's very hard to prove such matters one way or the other.

But if you had made “Garglrthimp’s Guide to Magic” and funded/marketer it using Kickstarter and the OGL, you could have made an initial sum, and then be selling it on DTRPG, Amazon, and other places (and have it print on demand, retain all rights, pay less commission, no exclusivity limits, etc).

The question I was asking there - or the suggestion I was making, I guess - was whether DMsG + Elminster > Kickstarter. I’d be inclined to wager no, but obviously I don’t know your profit on that book.

I guess you could answer that question better than me, since you have access to your figures and can see public Kickstarter figures, whereas I only have one of those figures. But then, A Touch of Class is doing pretty well on Amazon and DTRPG, and did very well on Kickstarter. I would be surprised if it could have done nearly as well for us on DMsG, even if we’d put some Realms IP in/on it.

Have you considered a Kickstarted book as a trial? It would be interesting to see how it worked for you.

If they dropped the exclusivity requirement, I'd be very tempted to Kickstarter a book and then put it on DMsG to see what happened. It would be a killer combo getting the benefit of both platforms.

 

[M.T. Black]

But if you had made “Garglrthimp’s Guide to Magic” and funded/marketer it using Kickstarter and the OGL, you could have made an initial sum, and then be selling it on DTRPG, Amazon, and other places (and have it print on demand, retain all rights, pay less commission, no exclusivity limits, etc).

Well, we've earned $13,665 in royalties on "Elminster's" so far. Would we have earned that much on "Garglrthimp's" via kickstarter? It's hard to tell. I don't know that comparing it to "A Touch of Class" is apples with apples, as you've obvoiusly built up a large market over a number years (partly through running the #1 RPG website!)

I may well try OGL in the future, but if I enjoy success there it will probably be because I've built up a fan base on the DMs Guild.

 

[schnee]

I've worked in publishing off and on for 25+ years, as a designer, people manager, and art director. So, hopefully, what I say here can clear some stuff up for most (but knowing this place nothing will ever satisfy a few).

If my experience holds true, this is almost entirely about reducing their burden of policing their products for ignorant designers/content submitters who will get them into trouble with copyright infringement. And there's a decent chance it's even being driven by Wizards' legal team based on their legal exposure via proxy.

They are trying to create an automated, turn-key system with as few touch points as possible that require active human intervention. They also want to reduce the burden on 'expert' employees, people who have a lot of training, cost a lot of money, and who are a scarce resource that needs to focus on things that have the most bang for buck for the company.

You know who's really expensive? A Lawyer. Especially one that has a narrow skill set that isn't necessary in running the business day to day, and must be kept on retainer, or paid for even when they're not being used.

You know what screws up an automated turn-key system, in a way that requires expensive people? Fending off copyright claims, cease-and-desist orders, or lawsuits resulting from content creators using copyright-infringing logos on material that they are wholly responsible for.

So, here's the scenario:

Content Submitter A submits their module. The cover has their logo next to the JG logo. Here's the nightmare scenarios they are trying to avoid:

• That logo is done in exactly the same font as the D&D logo, with the same ampersand, attempting to look official
• That logo is a knock-off of any number of previous D&D edition logos
• That logo uses art that was not granted permission to use, probably snaked from a Google Images search
• I could go on, but you get the point.

The distinction between having 'text' of a company name and a 'text logo' of that same name is really telling. It means that a company name in a bog-standard, commercially available font (like Helvetica, Papyrus *ugh*, etcetera) doesn't worry them, but someone using a logo with letter forms specifically designed to stand out or function as a single piece (like the official D&D logo with the ampersand - with a font that is either custom or extensively tweaked). They really want to avoid anything on the cover that can be construed as a logo other than one they control.

It's obvious they don't have the staff or the bandwidth to handle this stuff, because they haven't even properly worked through all their materials to catch the inconsistencies in their policies even to this point. And having to deal with even a few of these can be brutal to the bottom line.

It gets worse because companies *have* to protect their brands, and they are getting increasingly hair-triggered about it because the process is getting so much easier to do. It's also cheap for them to act on potential 'false positives' - it's just an automated letter - so many firms send out letters to situations that meet a relatively low standard of possible infringement.

It's going to get even worse, too. Look at how YouTube automates the process of copyright challenges entirely. Machine learning is making image recognition trivial. It's also poised to eliminate a huge number of positions of people in the legal world, because law itself is about creating a replicable logic flow and process, and once image recognition gets hooked up to a legal bot that can send out an infringement notice at the cost of pennies, and the cost to the company that responds has to measure that time spent in three-digit dollars per hour - it's going to get crazy.

So, IMO, this is a good policy for them. They're not executing on it as well as the could have, but IMO that just signifies the necessity of them to do this for their own good. They can't afford to have people good enough to evaluate copyright claims on staff to handle them, even if they did it wouldn't be worth fighting it out, so they're punting, and this is the most efficient way to eliminate that huge risk.

It kinda sucks, sure, but it's a natural consequence of how things are.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

I kinda don't get this claim that the branding from your company comes from that tiny little thumbnail's much more tiny branding symbol on the cover of the pdf image...as opposed to the relatively gigantic text saying it's coming from Misfit Studios. If I am looking for Misfit Studios products, it's not from trying to discern little symbols in little images, it's form the big text next to it saying who made the product.

Because my company's BRAND is important to its BRANDING.

Your brain is a complex thing. It recognizes images like a logo faster than it understands text while scanning through product listings. It will identify and focus on a recognized logo faster than it can make sense of words. So, if you're a satisfied customer loyal to the Misfit Studios brand (for example), you're going to stop scanning when your brain perceives my logo even if you're not making a conscious effort to read the publisher names on a cover.

Just think of this forum as an example. If you were looking for one of my posts in a long thread, would you more easily identify it if I have, say ... my logo as my account avatar or the (non-searchable) words "Misfit Studios"?