Why? How? Explain.
Like, I get that WotC is going to sue me to stop publishing. I want to know what actually happens.
Hypothetical: I ignore OGL 1.x
Like, I get that WotC is going to sue me to stop publishing. I want to know what actually happens.
Matt Thomason
Adventurer
Now both sides make their arguments and the case goes ahead and a decision is, hopefully, eventually reached.
This is where WotC would argue you are using copyrighted material, you would hold up your OGL 1.0a license and say "this says I can", and they would have to argue why that is not the case.
mamba
Legend
this is why it is hypothetical - unless this is really important for me, and I have the funds, we will not get there
mamba
Legend
They can try to stop you publishing, it has already been discussed that their chances of succeeding at that are slim to none. The main risk is you not having the money for a 5 year fight in front of a court, but that might very well be a US perspective (both cost and duration)
I'm kind of looking for a little more detail. Do these cases happen over the course of days? Weeks? Months? Years?
People keep saying that the court case will ruin you so WotC wins by default. Why? Is it just lawyer fees or are there other reasons?
I am curious how accurate or realistic this "5 year fight" idea is.
mamba
Legend
I forgot, but they go something like this
- WotC can demonstrate a high chance of winning
- WotC can demonstrate that not getting one is very detrimental to them
- something
they have a very slim chance on the first two already and they need to clear all three, with the third one not being in their favor either from the discussion. Basically the argument was that they would not even attempt it because no one attempts it when all three are stacked against them. Most try it with one, some with two, no one with all of them.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Literally impossible to say. Too many variables. "Yes" is thus the answer. You'd need to provide an actual lawyer with all the variables to even get an approximation. You can look at similar cases and guess though.
It's paranoid Hollywood nonsense with absolutely no basis in reality.
The two main situations which result in multi-year court cases are:
1) Incredibly complex litigations usually involving high tens of millions to billions of dollars of potential damages, and complex situations which need a lot of proof and scientific or forensic accounting evidence or both.
2) Not actually a single court cases, rather some basically vexatious litigant keeps suing and suing. There is zero possibility of a corporation doing this because the self-PR damage and potential other damage is insane. Especially as you usually have to be a litigant-in-person because lawyers representing you would get disbarred.
The costs could be significant but this is the US so you're not usually paying the other side's costs (for better or worse). In the somewhat similar GW vs CHS, which was a copyright case, CHS ended up paying $25000 and agreeing not to make certain minis, GW absolutely got wrekt though and found it didn't really have copyright on literally most of the stuff it tried to claim, and this ended up with them having to rename entire lines, take different approaches to describing stuff, and was one of the factors convincing them to go from WHFB to AoS. So yeah...
mamba
Legend
Not sure what you are looking for at that point. You both go into establishing what facts are on your side, which for the 'is 1.0a revokable' is not really a major drain on time, you can probably get that settled in a year, maybe half that if WotC does not see an incentive in dragging it out and burning both sides money. And if there is still something left to argue (i.e. WotC wins that round), then you go into the copyright side, and that will be a drag, expensive, lots of things to individually argue about, ...
EDIT: for a 'simple' case dragging on forever see SCO vs IBM, because it is related, from Wikipedia
"The lawsuit was filed in 2003, it has lingered on through the bankruptcy of SCO Group and the adverse result in SCO v. Novell, and was reopened for continued litigation by order of a new judge on June 14, 2013.[1][2] Pursuant to the court order reopening the case, an IBM Motion for Summary Judgment was filed based upon the results of the Novell decision.[3] On December 15, 2014, the judge granted most of IBM's motion,[4] thereby narrowing the scope of the case, which remained open. On March 1, 2016, following a ruling against the last remaining claims, the judge dismissed SCO's suit against IBM with prejudice. SCO filed an appeal later that month.[5] In February 2018, as a result of the appeal and the case being partially remanded to the circuit court, the parties restated their remaining claims and provided a plan to move toward final judgement.[6]"
In a way that was the 'can the OGL 1.0 be revoked' part, but blown to $5B in damages, and every side throwing everything against the wall to make it costly and long
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GMforPowergamers
Legend
I'm not a law guy (Unless it happened on Boston Law, LA law, of Suits) but in other threads people had examples of much more serous (life and death) cases going 5 years then being settled before it would have been done... so I guess it depends but it CAN be years
someone said simply filing to stop the injunction (that they most likely will not win) will cost $30k to $70k in court costs...
I have written checks to lawyers for simpler business law things. Some of these checks are $200k -$300k for less then 2 weeks work.
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