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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerLurker" data-source="post: 8473756" data-attributes="member: 7031660">Wow, that is a terrible licence.How terrible is it? So terrible that I had to stop lurking after over a year away from this site just to comment that it's terrible.Here's why it's terrible: firstly, it's a licence.A licence is a legal document. It's something you actively sign. You don't want or need one of those for a fan site, which shouldn't require formally signing a license with terms and services. After all, are they REALLY going to send C&D letters to fan sites that don't sign the licence? If not, then the purpose serves no purpose, as people gain no benefit from signing. If yes… then why would anyone want to start a fan site supporting such a company? A firm licence with hard rules just means you're inevitably going to have to shut down sites run by your fans, which will directly anger your biggest supporters. Even thinking about a "fan site" is almost awkward and dated. If the game is popular, someone might create a free Wordpress site, but that hasn't been the sole way of sharing homebrew content for years. There'll inevitably be a fan Discord with a channel of homebrew, via pictures on Twitter, or on a subreddit that shares content. You cannot expect everyone to sign a licence before posting on those sites. Instead, what you need is a plain text policy you can point to and say "these are the guidelines to follow so we won't sue you or send you unpleasant emails." Something you can direct fans running problematic sites towards before pursuing legal actions.  Because you WANT fan sites. Fan sites keep the game alive. They're free advertising for the system. They keep interest in the game going in the looooong time between supplements that occurs with smaller publishers. Fan sites fill the content gaps that make it harder for people to play. And lacking a slush pile or other way of attracting new talent, a fan site becomes a potential source of freelancers. (Rodney Thompson ended up at Wizards of the Coast because of his contributions to a Star Wars RPG fan site.)Making it harder to create fan sites for your game is like making it harder to stream games or to maintain a Discord: it's an unnecessary hurdle that just hurts the product line and engagement with the game.This is ironic given fan sites like <a href="https://marvelplotpoints.com/" target="_blank">Marvel Plot Points</a> have kept that game alive for many times longer than the publisher.And it's doubly ironic, given that Fandom runs Wikia, which has made its entire business off of fans making fan sites for other people's Intellectual Property. Wikis like <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main" target="_blank">Memory Alpha</a>, <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Wookiepedia</a>, the <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_Wiki" target="_blank">MCU</a>, and even <a href="https://dungeons.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">D&D</a>!! Heck, even <a href="https://twilightsaga.fandom.com/wiki/Twilight_Saga_Wiki" target="_blank">Twilight</a> has a Wikia site.The company has literally made their name doing the kind of thing they're trying to discourage and shut down.I imagine this licence was written by Fandom's legal team who have zero idea how RPG games and fan sites work. It reads like an "ass-cover clause", like you see in the fine print of contests. They assume ownership of the content done by fans, which covers their ass in the event they publish something similar, preventing a lawsuit. Or the DMsGuild, which grants irrevocable rights to posted content, so people can't pull their PDF and then demand OneBookShelf remove it from people's libraries or remove other PDFs that use formerly posted content. (So if/ when Matt Mercer removes the blood hunter class, every product that references it doesn't also have to be pulled.)But this is entirely ineffectual given all the places content might be shared. And I don't think there's ever been an example of a gamer even attempting to a sue a publisher for ripping off their homebrew. It's needlessly paranoid. Really, what Fandom should do is start an officially moderated Wikia, and include the ownership restrictions/ ass-cover clauses in the Terms of Use. Foster a community there, which just encourages fans to become familiar with their sites and pushes them to other Wikia communities. It unites the community and grows the brand.</blockquote>

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