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Creative Commons is a solid licence precisely because there is an existing body of case law. But WoTC chose an option without the viral features of the OGL, thereby destroying the possibility of a shared body of open content. The only reason this dream is still alive is due to the generosity of...

The last line is the important point. The plan to deauthorise the OGL might be on shaky legal ground, but we'll never get a definitive ruling. To fight it in court costs several million dollars. The US Court System operates on a Pay-to-Play basis. Justice is only available to the wealthy. And...

Correct. But I'm pretty sure it involves a contract with an American entity who owns the IP. This may be David Ellison's Skydance Media (who co-own the rights with James Cameron). But it is more likely to be StudioCanal (a French film company who own distribution rights for T1 and T2 through...

I think we will get a coherent legal framework for generative AI over the next few years. This technology poses deep ethical questions, but it is too powerful to ignore. The main concern is ensuring that AI doesn't become a walled garden controlled by a small number of tech giants. My concern...

That is based on a strict reading of the published guidance of the US Copyright Office. If you don't clearly identify which parts of a work were algorithmically generated and explicitly release those portions into the public domain, the entire work becomes ineligible for copyright protection. I...

I think you misunderstand me. I am not making any representation either way about the ethics surrounding generative AI. I have opinions, but they are not relevant. In this case, I am commenting in a narrow sense about why companies are crazy to touch AI generated images with a barge pole right...

The current guidance from the US Copyright Office is in the publication "Copyright Registration Guidance for Works Containing AI-Generated Materials" (Federal Register Version, 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 [Mar. 16, 2023]). Where a work has a mixture of human authorship and machine-generated content, the...

The issue at stake here is not whether AI generated art is good or not. It is not even how the machine learning algorithms work. It is the uncertain legal status of AI generated artwork. Recent rulings from the US Copyright Office suggest that inclusion of materials created by generative AI in a...

There have been companies who used the OGL in that way. But there have also been others who have been remarkably generous with their IP. WoTC have killed off future access to this IP. Creative Commons provides no easy way to distinguish between shared content and reserved content. So it tends...

Here are a few things to consider: WoTC did not rule out future attempts to invalidate the OGL. WoTC did not issue an update to the OGL fixing the loophole they were trying to exploit. WoTC released the SRD under CC licensing terms somewhat incompatible with the OGL, thereby splitting the...

This is why I wonder if the changes are going to be more extensive than what we have seen in the playtests. I fear they might make some changes not to improve the game, but to hurt 3PP. I can understand the temptation to build a walled garden. I really hope they don't, but given the financial...

That is definitely a factor. Book sales always slump a bit in the period between when a new edition is announced and when it is released. But I suspect there may also be fatigue factor. A lot of people already have enough 5e material to keep them going for years. This tends to occur towards the...

The analysis indicates a reduction in the Digital Products category under WoTC. We have some figures around the digital versions of MtG from other sources and have reason to believe it held up OK. Which leaves DDB as the most likely culprit for the dip. Remember that the success of Baldur's Gate...

I think that's true. But I have some faint hope that WoTC have learned their lesson. The collapse of goodwill and resulting bad publicity hurt things like the DnD movie, which are far more important to the brand strategy than the TTRPG elements (to be frank..)

We don't have actual subscriber numbers for DnD Beyond....but we can see a strange dip in revenue as they report this information to investors. Also...various web analytics companies report a slow but ongoing decline in the volume of traffic to the site. For example, multiple outlets report...

I notice the SRD has recently been updated with placeholders for Gate Pass Gazette content. Is there a big update pending?

This is largely based upon market analysis of Hasbro's Q3 earning results. Wizards had a solid result with Magic, but D&D seemed to be in a bit of a funk. Cross-referencing what we know with other sources of information, it looks like book sales dropped a small amount but DnD Beyond took most of...

There is evidence the cancellation of DnD Beyond subscriptions is only starting to hurt them now as the anniversaryof the event arrives. Most people had annual subscriptions. And a surprising number of them renew during the festive season.

How's this for a quick druid?