Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="timbannock" data-source="post: 8473614" data-attributes="member: 17913">Yes this is confusing. I think it works to their detriment that they are creating a FAQ and answering questions in one place for what are technically two different (though obviously related) licenses: one "fan" (non-commercial) and one "publisher" (commercial). Elements of one might seem like they have crossover when legally they do not.I can't read their minds, but I can conjecture a whole bunch! Here we go:1. I think the upcoming Creator Studio is going to be like D&D Beyond but on steroids. Meaning, it will much more fundamentally bring in the "homebrew" building tools you see in D&D Beyond into the infrastructure of how the rules referencing works. More cross-referencing, more tools to "build your own full game" by referencing the core rules, your homebrew rules, and other people's homebrew creations, etc. The idea being that you can build a sort of wiki of your group's specific iteration of Cortex with all the mods linked together in one place, rather than forcing your players to remember to click links ABC, LMNOP, and YZ and figure out how it all comes together.Because of that -- and a bunch of other completely financial and legal reasons -- it makes a lot of sense to protect themselves in this ecosystem from running afoul creators wanting to homebrew stuff but somehow also claim ownership, or create things that get incorporated into many people's homebrew stuff and then suddenly take those creations down, breaking links (either literal website links or whatever internal reference links) and rendering some people's versions of a toolkit-built system useless (or at least incomplete).That's my big-picture guess.2. Much more realistically, it's a case of them simply being okay with keeping as much of their branding and system in-house as they can so you don't see a "Pathfinder situation". I get that that's a pretty corner-case situation that is fairly unique to the D&D-D20-Pathfinder ecosystem, but it's not impossible, and it's a perfectly reasonable business choice. Less corner-case is all of the completely pirated materials people are selling with D&D branding: it's easily a multi-million dollar business (not for any one single company, mind you) that directly infringes on WOTC's branding and is so widespread it's nearly impossible to squash. It's even harder when people have a legal recourse to hide behind the OGL, even if just temporarily. Folks always talk about how big corporations are happy to bleed individuals dry in court cases that technically have little merit but one side can afford the lawyers, but as someone who's worked for big companies with big IP, I can tell you that the legal fees cut both ways. Certainly not to the same degree, but it's not something a company is looking forward to spending their money on.Anyway, point being that Fandom might rather spend their time making a fun closed ecosystem and be okay with the folks who want an open ecosystem finding their fun elsewhere. Both are legitimate ways to have fun.Case in point on pirating silliness:[MEDIA=twitter]1466317153188073478[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

Verification