We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions!

[Art Waring]

is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?

Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible

Yeah I don't know myself, this is becoming surreal. I'm just reporting the pertinent information so that folks can stay informed as things develop further.

 

[S'mon]

If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.

Yes, that's my understanding.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don’t know what to tell you. There aren’t any smoking guns. All we have is the reputation of the OP and what we can guess is why the creator of the Griffon’s Saddlebag would say he needs to take time to navigate the OGL 1.1. Either that’s enough, or it’s not. If it’s not, then no one is indeed a valid answer.

I didnt ask whether there’s enough to accept as fact, I just asked who the most credible source was. You could have all extremely incredible people and still say which of those is the most credible.

 

[Cadence]

is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?

Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible

Which SRD(s) seems like it would be important too. (3.5? 5? The upcoming one?).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am absolutely convinced that they are sure that this is the actual language being used by WotC behind-the-scenes right now

I have seen other contracts (and, heck, signed some) from WotC and other entertainment companies that include that kind of informal language. It's not the norm, but it does happen.

And even if Mark and Stephen are right and the final language doesn't change, it may not be nearly as bad as it seems out of context. It could be a sub-clause that only kicks in if someone wants to use OGL 1.1 material. There may be some legal nicety that isn't included in the leak, which change what it means.

That was a good post and I just wanted to highlight those three things.

1) Whatever is happening, it really seems like someone is leaking behind-the-scenes non-finalized stuff from WotC, presumably in an attempt to create enough of a kerfuffle that WotC goes "Hmmm this isn't a great idea!". This is far form unprecedented - it happened with videogames on a number of occasions (usually via datamining of beta tests and the like rather than individual leaks, but sometimes it is the latter), and with Western companies has usually proven sufficient to get them to change their mind. The fact that the email the guy was reading out had [LINK] instead of an actual link is obviously how a lot of us format stuff that we're writing up, but that isn't finalized yet.

2) The informal language would tie in with the non-finalized content being leaked to warn WotC off this approach. What I've seen happen before, working at corporate law firms, is that a client or even an internal non-lawyer writes what they want a contract to say, then the lawyers go over it and put that in proper legal terms - if possible - or contact them to explain why that's not possible or is a bad approach. But as you say, some contracts do just contain informal language. You don't have to have a lawyer look at your contract - you can, in theory, write a binding contract up yourself, even with colourful language. However, it's a bit like representing yourself in court - unless it's incredibly low stakes (like a parking ticket), it's kind of a terrible idea.

3) Yeah and we can certainly hope that's the case. It's even possible (perhaps likely) that there are multiple version of the OGL 1.1 floating around WotC at the moment, and this is just most evil of them, and maybe not the favoured one even, just one some people are arguing for.

Yes, that's my understanding.

IANAL but I don't think anyone should be relying on that. Actual lawyers discussing the issue (including those who think this leak is nonsense) have suggested that's not how it works. At best you'd be risking WotC taking you to court.

Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible

If you watch the video, he reads it out and it's very clear that this only applies to newly released products after the 13th. Not extant products.

Also yes "which SRD", but they may mean all of the WotC ones. I think it's more likely that it'll be clarified to mean the 1D&D SRD, but we shall see.

 

[kenada]

is there a difference between ‘SRD based’ and ‘licensed under the OGL’ ?

Earn any income, including for already released products? Didn’t think this is even possible

If the change is only for SRD-based content, then the OGL 1.1 shakedown presumably won’t affect games that don’t use the WotC’s SRDs but are licensed under the OGL (e.g., the Fate Core SRD, Open D6, etc). That’s not very many.

 

[S'mon]

"This licence did not mean what you thought it meant - and what we said it meant in our FAQ - at the time you signed up to it" seems like an argument unlikely to win in court.

Even if they have a chance to get a judge to restrict the functioning of the OGL - which would threaten how a lot of similar computer software licenses work - this seems like a scorched-earth policy by WoTC guaranteed to create massive ill will. And they are not Microsoft in 1995, so that seems a really bad idea to me.

 

[Alzrius]

While I personally don't think that WotC is trying to revoke (or otherwise prevent people from publishing new content under) the OGL v1.0a, apparently as of January 13th based on what we're hearing (as opposed to simply trying to prevent material originally published under the OGL v1.1 from being used with the OGL v1.0a, which I think is their goal), the level of uncertainty right now makes me think that it's possible they are going that far.

In which case, I wonder if their motivation is that they (WotC) are aware of the possibility of someone using the 5.1 SRD (and potentially the 3.5 SRD also, since there's nothing prohibiting them from being used together in the same product) to kludge together an almost-identical facsimile to a possible 1D&D SRD, rendering the restrictions of the OGL v1.1 moot.

That's really the only thing I can see motivating WotC to go that far, if they really are going that far (which seems both dubious and unlikely to work).

 

[S'mon]

While I personally don't think that WotC is trying to revoke (or otherwise prevent people from publishing new content under) the OGL v1.0a, apparently as of January 13th based on what we're hearing (as opposed to simply trying to prevent material originally published under the OGL v1.1 from being used with hte OGL v1.0a

The problem is that they could do that easily by simply not calling the new licence "OGL". Then Section 9 would not apply.

 

[Alzrius]

The problem is that they could do that easily by simply not calling the new licence "OGL". Then Section 9 would not apply.

Yeah, that would have been much more straightforward on their part. If they're calling it that just to avoid negative press, then – given the current state of things – the irony is quite pronounced.