An IP lawyer just broke down the new OGL draft (v1.2)

MacMathan · Jan 20, 2023

Interesting take from an IP lawyer on the most recent ogl draft:

https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/...pdated-open-game-license-ogl-1-2-5b95fe8889b2

If I am understanding correctly it would appear:
WotC can force a new license whenever they want, kick you off the license whenever they want, and introduce royalties whenever they want.

Also only a fraction on the SRD content appears to be going to CC.

The Stray · Jan 20, 2023

He was just on a livestream with Nerd Immersion talking about this, too.

Haplo781 · Jan 20, 2023

MacMathan said:
Interesting take from an IP lawyer on the most recent ogl draft:

https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/...pdated-open-game-license-ogl-1-2-5b95fe8889b2

If I am understanding correctly it would appear:
WotC can force a new license whenever they want, kick you off the license whenever they want, and introduce royalties whenever they want.

Also only a fraction on the SRD content appears to be going to CC.

The Stray · Jan 20, 2023

Haplo781 said:
View attachment 273182

Yup. It's still a dog

sandwich, they just picked out the corn.

The Stray · Jan 20, 2023

Scribe · Jan 20, 2023

MacMathan said:
Interesting take from an IP lawyer on the most recent ogl draft:

https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/...pdated-open-game-license-ogl-1-2-5b95fe8889b2

If I am understanding correctly it would appear:
WotC can force a new license whenever they want, kick you off the license whenever they want, and introduce royalties whenever they want.

Also only a fraction on the SRD content appears to be going to CC.

I dont know, that doesnt sound 'open' to me...

Yaarel · Jan 20, 2023

Scribe said:
I dont know, that doesnt sound 'open' to me...

The term "open license" has a legal definition.

Albeit, the term is still formative.

For Hasbro-WotC to even misrepresent a closed license to be as if an "open license" seems actually criminal.

Iosue · Jan 20, 2023

Yaarel said:
The term "open license" has a legal definition.

Albeit, the term is still formative.

For Hasbro-WotC to even misrepresent a closed license to be as if an "open license" seems actually criminal.

What statute that defines “open license” would WotC be in criminal violation of?

S'mon · Jan 20, 2023

Iosue said:
What statute that defines “open license” would WotC be in criminal violation of?

It could be fraud, which could be a common law non-statutory offence.
Obviously I don't think it's criminal though. Plenty of reprehensible behaviour is not criminal.

Aspirinsmurf · Jan 20, 2023

S'mon said:
It could be fraud, which could be a common law non-statutory offence.
Obviously I don't think it's criminal though. Plenty of reprehensible behaviour is not criminal.

If they're actually lying about their belief in being able to "deauthorize" the OGL 1.0(a), that seems to me to be misrepresentation. And if that lie leads to someone signing a contract, I believe that's a tort?

In a civil law jurisdiction, it might just be criminal fraud though, depending on how bad the contract is. You can't legally defraud me of my rights by willfully misrepresenting your own. It's up to 2 years in jail for doing that where I'm from.

This would usually be really hard to prove. But in the case of WotC right now, we have their own damn FAQs to go by:

Q: Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

A: Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.