Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.

[Xyxox]

that is not a way of proving his position wrong

Unforunately, it is the ONLY way to prove the position of WotC/Hasbro wrong if their intent is nuclear lawfare.

 

[pemerton]

Personally, I’d just use CC-BY for the SRD. While it’s not quite in the same spirit, games can use your OGC and contribute nothing back by declaring their mechanics Product Identity, so the practical effect seems about the same.

I see that you did see my post.

I'm personally not 100% convinced that declaring mechanics as Product Identity is consistent with the OGL, which sets out a definition for product identity and also for OGC.

But anyway, without the two-documents-by-everyone approach I don't see how a network of interlocking agreements creating an ecology of OGC could be created.

 

[pemerton]

I agree, you can afford to wait until the Eye of Sauron has found you. My original reply was more for the worst case scenario of WotC having succeeded in revoking 1.0a

Suppose that were to happen (whatever exactly it means - "revoking 1.0a" is an ambiguous phrase). What harm would it then do to include the text of the OGL v 1.0a in one's publication?

 

[mamba]

Unforunately, it is the ONLY way to prove the position of WotC/Hasbro wrong if their intent is nuclear lawfare.

spending the money will be required to find out, agreed. But you saying now 'you won't have the money' is not proving his argument wrong

 

[Xyxox]

Yes, there is a very big difference between those two things. Section 9 is a provision whereby parties to the OGL agree that WotC can promulgate new candidate terms under which certain uses of OGC is licensed, enabling parties to then use those alternative terms as part of their licensing offers without being in breach of their section 2 and section 4 obligations.

As per my post just upthread the notion of "revocation of the licence" is ambiguous, and I don't know in which sense you are using it. But section 9 is not a provision (at least on any natural reading that I can see) that permits WotC to unilaterally terminate/revoke/rescind anyone else's rights.

Legally, what I think Section 9 is inferring is that yes, you can release under OGL 1.0 or even an OGL 1.x as it will be authorized, but you CANNOT operate under the ABCGenericLicense1.0 as it has never been authorized in this line of Open Gaming Licenses and I bet if you go back to Ryan Dancey, he would agree with that.

None of that matters in Nuclear Lawfare if that is what WotC/Hasbro is going to do. All that matters in that case is funding and if you can get the funding, you can definitely win in a court of law. With the right legal team, although the cost would be high, you can probably get an injunction against OGL 1.1 until such a time as the case has been decided, too. The cost would be extreme.

 

[mamba]

Suppose that were to happen (whatever exactly it means - "revoking 1.0a" is an ambiguous phrase). What harm would it then do to include the text of the OGL v 1.0a in one's publication?

WotC could tell you to remove it because it has been revoked whereas otherwise (and assuming you do have an independent RPG) they do nothing, but agreed, you can always comply then with no harm

 

[pemerton]

What I meant was

• If OGL v1.0a is revoked and Paizo thus loses the license to use the open content previously licensed under OGL v1.0a (which I think most of us believe cannot be the case, that while the license might no longer be offered existing licensees would be grandfathered); and
• Paizo has sublicensed the Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD) to their third-party publishers (as they have); and
• the PRD contains (now 'formerly') open content from the SRD that (in this scenario) Paizo no longer has license to use...

... does this invalidate the license they have given their third party publishers, because Paizo no longer has license to use the open content that was part of the content they licensed to us?

What do you mean by OGL v 1.0a is revoked? As I've posted, in this and other threads, that phrase does not have any determinate legal meaning.

In my post to which you replied, I already said what I think happens if WotC ceases to offer to license its SRD(s) under the terms of the OGL: although it's not clear (as @bmcdaniel said), I think one plausible view is that Paizo retains its right, conferred by its contract with WotC the terms of which are set out in the OGL, to sub-license WotC's OGC. But my view about this is tentative. I don't think you're going to get a more certain view without getting legal advice!

If WotC finds some way - which few legally trained people seem to think exists, but the OP of this thread is one of those few - to actually revoke its existing licence agreement with Paizo, then Paizo would no longer have permission from WotC to publish those licensed works. If it continued nevertheless to do so, then as I posted upthread it would need to be ready to argue that its works do not infringe any WotC-owned copyrights.

 

[Xyxox]

spending the money will be required to find out, agreed. But you saying now 'you won't have the money' is not proving his argument wrong

I don't intend to prove his argument wrong because I think there is about a 95% chance it would absolutely win in any court of law in the United States and I agree with it 100%. That's why I ask about the funding because that is what it will take to get it before any court in the United States. Get the money and it's a slam dunk. If the EFF can be brought on board it stands a damn good chance. They have beaten bigger corporations than Hasbro many times before.

 

[pemerton]

Which is one of the major sources of contention, I expect.

If they just called it something else (GSL 2.0, let's say) and said "this is not compatible with OGL and is not an OGL license, and if you accept this license you cannot use OGL v1.0a for any of this", even if it looks a lot like OGL v1.0a (and like a lot of OGL v1.0a, I understand it's something like ten times the word count!) then it is clear it does not supersede OGL v1.0a and is a net new license. A big part of the complication we have right now is that it seems to be positioning itself not as a new license but as an update that overrules the previous in ways many of us think are not supportable under normal legal interpretation.

I don't think anyone thinks the OGL v 1.1 is going to be an update in the sense intended by section 9 of the OGL v 1.0a, do they? That seemed to be ruled out as soon as the press release was issued last month.

 

[kenada]

I see that you did see my post.

Yep.

I'm personally not 100% convinced that declaring mechanics as Product Identity is consistent with the OGL, which sets out a definition for product identity and also for OGC.

I feel the same, but people do it anyway.

But anyway, without the two-documents-by-everyone approach I don't see how a network of interlocking agreements creating an ecology of OGC could be created.

That ends up sounding a lot like the OGL except probably custom and possibly MacGyvered out of other licenses.