Class action lawsuit?

[Henadic Theologian]

If Paizo's releasing ORC, what is their financial incentive to fund an OGL case for any number of smaller publishers? I would reckon they would rather capitalize on WotC's error - like Sun Tzu said, when your enemy is making mistakes, don't stop them.

Paizo already promised to use WotC over revoking the OGL, and Paizi doesn't want to lose the trust of fans, plus that the upcoming DLCs for Wrath of the Righteous use the OGL, plus that they may want to do new print runs of PF1 & 2 to match the increased demand and because it's amazing PR that is already paying off, they look like paladin fighting a greedy ancient red dragon, they can crowd fund for help paying legal bills (might be a tax write off as well) and lastly because WotC pissed them off.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know if they CAN do that either to be honest... I mean if a company just gives money away how does that work?

They give the money away. Or they pay the other company's legal fees. Nothing prevents the companies from spending their money like that.

No company I have ever worked for and no example when I was in school for this ever just "gave" money...

Were you in the inner circle where they would have told you of all of their business expenditures?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, that ship has probably sailed as much as it's going to unless they decide to just drop everything and walk it all back in February when their survey closes and try to do a reset back to status quo. Even then they've riled up people for bad reasons so probably whatever impact it's going to have they're now stuck with. No lawsuit is going to impact the movie being released in March at this point, though community noise could have an impact I suppose.

(I suspect it'll have more of an impact on the narrative around the movie if the movie underperforms but is critically ok. Entertainment reporters love their narratives about why one movie succeeds and another flops and if it's a flop but reviewers say nice things about it, they'll be looking for reasons beyond "people didn't feel like going out to the movies at the end of March for whatever reason.")

I expect there is a good chance they do in fact give in on OGL 1.0a in Febuary there is no longer any upside, they just have to figure out how to do it without completely losing faith. Alternately they keep making concessions on OGL 1.2 until it's better then even OGL 1.0a (they will have go give away the metaphorical shirt ofc their back to make that happen).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I would have thought that if the board of a company (or the executives with appropriate delegated authority) resolved that supporting another party's litigation was an important matter for the company, then they could spend on that as they spend on anything else.

How do you think that raises problems different from your suggestion that they try and join themselves as defendants?

I don't know how that works either... in my mind it would (normally) only work if WotC sues and they combine defense AFTER they got sued, I have never seen a preemptive like this

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Were you in the inner circle where they would have told you of all of their business expenditures?

not always, especially not when I was younger... again... why i am asking

 

[Jer]

I expect there is a good chance they do in fact give in on OGL 1.0a in Febuary there is no longer any upside, they just have to figure out how to do it without completely losing faith. Alternately they keep making concessions on OGL 1.2 until it's better then even OGL 1.0a (they will have go give away the metaphorical shirt ofc their back to make that happen).

Interesting. I think they'll dig their heels in on a few key points and eventually tell folks to like it or lump it. It has the smell of some executive's baby around it to kill the OGL and it's tough to stop a bullheaded exec once they get an idea in their head.

And the 1.2 version can't be better than the 1.0 version because deauthorizing the OGL 1.0 means that they can yank away 1.2 at any point in the future too. They can put whatever language they want into it to claim it's irrevocable, but they can't expect us to trust that they'll leave it alone if they successfully deauthorize the current version. So even if the terms look better nobody should expect that they'll exist longer than the current executive team, possibly not even that long.

 

[Maxperson]

not always, especially not when I was younger... again... why i am asking

They can do it. The business controls its money and can buy everyone in the company Superbowl tickets if it wants. Or spend it on the legal fees of a company fighting a lawsuit that it has a strong interest in.

 

[pemerton]

If Paizo's releasing ORC, what is their financial incentive to fund an OGL case for any number of smaller publishers? I would reckon they would rather capitalize on WotC's error - like Sun Tzu said, when your enemy is making mistakes, don't stop them.

I don't know. I didn't post anything about Paizo. I just responded to @GMforPowergamers's question.

 

[pemerton]

they can't expect us to trust that they'll leave it alone if they successfully deauthorize the current version.

How does anyone know if this has happened?

 

[Aspirinsmurf]

How does anyone know if this has happened?

Sadly, that would have to happen in court.