Recent content by bmcdaniel

Not actually correct. There is a legal instrument called a Deed Poll which a private person can use to bind themselves to the entire world. I use them frequently in international agreements where countries only weakly support 3rd party beneficiaries. Originally arose out of real property but...

Not my area of law, so I have only weakly held views, but I'm curious for the basis of your belief. Is your belief that the law prohibits restrictions on parties intervening in cases? or that the agreement, as properly interpreted, does not apply to interventions? ------ The law, including...

As fairly extensively described in the thread OGL - Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion., the legal quagmire on this is based on a misunderstanding. Licenses are not revocable or irrevocable based on magic words; instead they are...

One more point on Section 9(e): "Governing Law/Jurisdiction/Class Action Waiver. ... Each party hereto irrevocably waives the right to participate in any class, collective, or other joint action with respect to such a dispute." This would prevent several small publishers from joining together...

I'm hoping to continue this excellent discussion with regards to the new draft OGL 1.2 in this newly posted thread: https://www.enworld.org/threads/legal-discussion-of-ogl-1-2.694656/

Four things strike me immediately: 1. As a technical matter, the license is modelled off Creative Commons licenses and is much better drafted and clearer than OGL 1.0a. 2. With respect to the de-authorization of OGL 1.0(a), the license itself is silent. However, there is a separate notice...

This thread is to discuss legal issues around OGL 1.2. I hope to attract many of the legal professionals that discussed the OGL 1.0(a) and OGL 2.0.

I'm also nonplussed at Goodman Games. Dungeon Crawl Classics use OGL 1.0a but is extraordinarily stingy on contributing Open Game Content, reserving just about everything as product identity; even labels that they clearly could not copyright, eg "spell check" and "luck check." The result is that...

Perhaps, but even if Paizo is taking a big legal risk, my guess is that its still a smart move for Paizo. Paizo has told us that they intend to scrub Pathfinder 2E of elements that they consider to infringe on WOTC copyrights; I expect that this means that "magic missile" and "bag of holding"...

I would not be confident in that conclusion. For one thing, non-parties can inform and argue point through amicus briefs. But also, I don't think it would be too hard for Paizo to intervene as a party. For example, 3pp might make a counterclaim against WOTC, which Paizo might join in. I think...

I was an engineer at NASA during the 90s, a time when the Challenger disaster left deep impressions, and we were very aware we were putting humans atop barely-controlled explosions and had many discussions about risk, including (in Rumsfield's words) the "known unknowns" and the "unknown...

Perhaps. But my own view is that a thorough understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of OGL 1.0a helps avoid repeating mistakes with whatever replaces it.

Agree, and there are other connotations they carry, just to much to write in a single post. For example, if an agreement covered multiple subjects with multiple rights, I'd be likely to use "revocation" describe the cessation of a specific right, but "termination" to describe the cessation of...

[Removed accidental double post. I seem to have a problem with that. Maybe because I have too many tabs open.]

Thank you for your kind words. For what its worth, much of my day-to-day work involves explaining little bits of the law or interpretation of agreements to clients trying to be useful and helpful. To be useful necessarily involves tightening the focus to the issue at hand, rather than a grand...