An Unexpected Victory, Unconditional Surrender, and Unfinished Business.

[Cadence]

When the 3PP creator produced his product, a contract was formed between WotC and the 3PP. WotC can't unilaterally change the contract. The terms are set when both sides have agreed to the contract and performed what they need to perform. Deauthorizing 1.0a later applies to future products, not the ones already produced. If I were to use the Runeblades supplement's OGC for something I want to create, I would need to follow the terms of OGL 1.0a, which includes putting a copy of that license in my product.

Ok, and so this sounds different than what I thought you were saying above.

It didn't sound like you were.arguing that 1.0a effectively continued post "deauthorization" (assuming WotC could).

It sounded like you were saying publishers could come up with some new verbiage and continue on developing the chain of 1.0a content without putting the 1.0a license in and doing everything it said

 

[Maxperson]

You were the one that said 5.1 under CC means you no longer need the OGL for reusing OGC from derivative material (the 3PP works licensed under the OGL)

No. I said between CC AND the existing licenses in the 3PP products already created for 5e... Why are you leaving out half of what I said?

 

[Cadence]

No. I said between CC AND the existing licenses in the 3PP products already created for 5e... Why are you leaving out half of what I said?

I'm not sure I understand why the CC-BY is relevant. It gives you no ability to take something of someone else's under 1.0a and shift it to CC-BY.

If you could get eacher person from the 1.0a chain in order to shift their own, then it would certainly all be in CC-BY.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, and so this sounds different than what I thought you were saying above.

It didn't sound like you were.arguing that 1.0a effectively continued post "deauthorization" (assuming WotC could).

It sounded like you were saying publishers could come up with some new verbiage and continue on developing the chain of 1.0a content without putting the 1.0a license in and doing everything it said

Yes and no. It continues on in the 3PP already created. Part of the contractual requirements for creating that 3PP product in the first place was allowing others to perpetually use the OGC in it. One side of a contract can't unilaterally alter the terms.

If OGL 1.0a were successfully deauthorized, I could not go an use it to create an original work under it, but I could go to an existing 3PP that contains a still existing sublicense and use their OGC in combination with the SRD 5.1 in CC to create a work.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not sure I understand why the CC-BY is relevant. It gives you no ability to take something of someone else's under 1.0a and shift it to CC-BY.

If you could get eacher person from the 1.0a chain in order to shift their own, then it would certainly all be in CC-BY.

It's relevant because most 3PP don't use the vast majority of what is in SRD 5.1 and I'm assuming that to take only the OGC(PI needs permission from the author or his heirs) wouldn't leave you enough to produce much of a product, so you'd need to borrow from both sources to make a coherent product.

 

[Cadence]

Yes and no. It continues on in the 3PP already created. Part of the contractual requirements for creating that 3PP product in the first place was allowing others to perpetually use the OGC in it. One side of a contract can't unilaterally alter the terms.

If OGL 1.0a were successfully deauthorized, I could not go an use it to create an original work under it, but I could go to an existing 3PP that contains a still existing sublicense and use their OGC in combination with the SRD 5.1 in CC to create a work.

I'm virtually certain that last paragraph as stated is incorrect. But, as always IANAl.

Maybe one will pop in and let me know.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Lol. So just to recap they left the ogl alone AND put it out CC and it still isn’t enough.

At that point, wizards could glue a 50 dollar note into each phb, and some people would complain, that to use it, they might damage a page removing it...

 

[Matt Thomason]

No. I said between CC AND the existing licenses in the 3PP products already created for 5e... Why are you leaving out half of what I said?

No, what you said was:

What can be produced via OGL 1.0a that can't be produced via the CC SRD 5.1? All I can think of would be older edition stuff.

To which I answered

A work that wants to use anything from the vast library of third party OGC from over the past 23 years. The 99% of OGC that isn't in a WotC SRD.

To which you disagreed, and we've been disagreeing ever since.

 

[Iosue]

Ok, and so this sounds different than what I thought you were saying above.

It didn't sound like you were.arguing that 1.0a effectively continued post "deauthorization" (assuming WotC could).

It sounded like you were saying publishers could come up with some new verbiage and continue on developing the chain of 1.0a content without putting the 1.0a license in and doing everything it said

I think what Maxperson is getting at is, assuming that WotC’s putative ability to “de-authorize” is actually taken as an ability to rescind their offer to license (and subsequently allow sublicenses of) their SRDs, it does not appear clear that they have the ability to prevent creators who have already offered their own content to be licensed under the OGL’s terms.

If I understand pemerton, at best, they could claim copyright infringement on the text of the OGL, if that was included in the new work. But if it’s not included, then only the creator whose work is being used could bring claim against the sub-licensee for being in breach of the license. And if they don’t, well, WotC doesn’t have any standing to take it to court.

The key is that the OGL is not a statute enforced by WotC, but that each use of OGC content is an individual license between two parties. In the case of non-SRD content, WotC is not one of the parties.

 

[Mistwell]

The point of ORC is to have a license that no single company can unilaterally redact or alter.

It's not to make publishing easier/simpler. It's to make publishing consistantly reliable as something you can do with your own created content.

Why wouldn't CC, which is also a license no single company can unilaterally redact or alter, serve that same function but already exists in a great court-tested format?