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

[Jd Smith1]

Except that the owner declared that you could, and even put it in writing

Marriage licenses are in writing, and are a legal contract with no expiration date. Yet they are regularly dissolved.

The bottom line is this: WotC owns the property.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Look at marriage: a spouse vows for life, but can still file for divorce.

man looking at this as a divorce makes me both sad and upset...

 

[Jd Smith1]

maybe not exactly... but in this case the guy next door with the pool is getting a bunch of people fired or losing there livelihood.

But not WotC employees (at least as applies in this situation). People who made business decisions based upon assumptions. Building on rented ground, as I mentioned earlier.

Small businesses fold regularly because the rent goes up or the owner wants to do other things with the property. Unpleasant, but reality.

 

[Jd Smith1]

man looking at this as a divorce makes me both sad and upset...

It is a very accurate metaphor, I believe.

 

[Prime_Evil]

See my post just upthread.

What do you mean by your question? As various of us anticipated, parties to v 1.1 renounce their rights to use the v 1.0/1.0a licence terms.

Parties to v 1.0/1.0a who do not become parties to v 1.1 retain their rights for all the reasons discussed at length in this thread. But to me, it seems their relationship to members of the v 1.0/1.0a OGC ecosystem is changed in weirder ways than was the case with the GSL. But I'm waiting to see what @S'mon and any others think of my analysis I've just posted. It's possible I've made mistakes in my reasoning.

Does it matter that the termination clause in v1.0a specifies that all sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License? Does this mean that OGC contributed prior to signing up to v1.1 remains usable?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

My understanding is that if I were to write and publish a D&D adventure without violating Wizards' copyright (let's for the sake of the argument assume I successfully navigated that legal minefield), I would be well within my rights to write "A Dungeons & Dragons (R) adventure for level 7 characters", as long as I have a disclaimer saying D&D is a registered trademark blah blah, and I don't use actual logos (which are probably copyrighted as well as trademarked). By using the OGL, I give up that right. That's not nothing.

my understanding is that in 3e companies did this... I know for a fact that in 2e Mayfair Games tried, and was sued but settled out of court before we got the definitive answer.

 

[pemerton]

Another consideration on the part of the licensee: they agree not to use any trademarks unless given a separate license to do so.

My understanding is that if I were to write and publish a D&D adventure without violating Wizards' copyright (let's for the sake of the argument assume I successfully navigated that legal minefield), I would be well within my rights to write "A Dungeons & Dragons (R) adventure for level 7 characters", as long as I have a disclaimer saying D&D is a registered trademark blah blah, and I don't use actual logos (which are probably copyrighted as well as trademarked). By using the OGL, I give up that right. That's not nothing.

Agreed, although I would probably not say "A Dungeons and Dragons adventure" which to me looks like you might be claiming the trademark for your work. "An adventure for use with Dungeons and Dragons" might be a better way to put it.

 

[mamba]

Marriage licenses are in writing, and are a legal contract with no expiration date. Yet they are regularly dissolved.

The bottom line is this: WotC owns the property.

and the other bottom line is that ‘perpetual’ also meant ‘irrevocable’ back in 2000, and courts have upheld that for the GPL 2.0, which is a lot closer to what we are discussing here than a marriage

 

[rcade]

Marriage licenses are in writing, and are a legal contract with no expiration date. Yet they are regularly dissolved.

By another contract agreed to by both parties.

A lot of bad analogies are being thrown around. The Open Game License is not a marriage or a rental agreement. It's an open source license, a type of agreement that courts have become increasingly familiar with in the last 33 years. These licenses don't get torn out from the roots to eliminate the entire corpus of work that was created with them over the span of decades.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Questions for the contract lawyers here.

Does the situation around OGL 1.1 fit the definition of coercion for designers and publishers?

Does the situation around OGL 1.1 fit the definition of undue Influence for designers and publishers?

Does the situation around OGL 1.1 fit the definition of unconscionability in the terms given to designers and publishers?

Does OGL 1.1 fit the definition of misrepresentation as it claims to be an open license, but does not fit the generally accepted definition, not being copyleft?

If yes to any of the above, does that undermine the ability of WotC to enforce OGL 1.1?

1. No, very probably not. Moreover, questions like this are wrong-headed in terms of the legal remedy which flows from it. Are you trying to escape a contract, or claim reliance damages? If not, this has no application. Going beyond that, coercion amounting to the tort of intimidation is to employ unlawful means towards a goal, to deny or discourage the other party of a right to do something he was otherwise lawfully entitled to do. A new contract, even if it contains some legally uncertain terms within it, is not clearly intimidation. You are off course and adrift at sea here. This isn't a helpful line of questioning.

2. Undue influence is an area of the law which arises in Estate litigation (re validity of a will), or less often, under a power of attorney for an inter vivos gift. It has no application here.

3. Unconscionability is an aspect of contract law which after Uber v. Heller now varies widely, even among common law jurisdictions. Again, its purpose is to avoid a contract or a part thereof - so the court can "blue pencil" and strike out a plainly unconscionable term(s), while keeping the rest of the contract as enforceable. I don't see how that has any application to the issues discussed here - at least so far. It might arise later though. Leave that one with a pink post-it note stuck to it and shuffle it off to the side for the time being. Unlike the first two questions above (which have no application here) this one might, depending on the context and circumstances.