Conaill said:
It sounds like Joe here is talking exclusively from the point of view of the writers, whereas Arcady and I are looking at it from the point of the consumers. This is a clear example where what the *designers* want to publish differs from what the *customers* want to buy. Unfortunately, when the desires of the writers and the customers clash, it's pretty clear who's going to lose in the end... both of them.
I think it's important for both sets of people to understand the point of view of the other. Yes, I'm a writer, but first and foremost, I'm a consumer (I consume a heck of a lot more than I write, that's for sure). I like to think I know what a consumer wants - he wants the same thing I want... he wants the "best of the best" to become the standard. I hope it was clear from my initial response to your OGL query (where I said, "I wish it worked that way" or words to that effect) that I believe in a perfect world, things would work that way.
However, the consumer also doesn't want to pay for the same old stuff he already bought. So if all I do as a writer is reuse stuff, I'm bound to get into trouble with those who have bought all the sources I'm drawing from.
Trust me, writers would love to be able to grab from any source they wanted without fear of repurcussion - but the reality of the Intellectual Property world is that it's a very sticky beast and it's very easy for your IP to become "contaminated" if you are exposed to other peoples' IP. Thus, even though we as writers would LOVE to be able to do what consumers want, there are significant legal problems involved in doing so. I hope consumers understand that part of it... that even if I want what you want, I may not be ABLE to give it to you.
What can be done, then? How can writers effectively and easily deliver what consumers want? The answer winds up being, "they can't - at least not yet." The corollary is that "they will only become able to do so if there becomes a sufficiently large pool of work that is clearly OGC to work from." The next step, of course, is establishing that pool - it will only exist in the future if OGC designations are made both clear and generous today.
The problem is that some publishers see this as a sort of zero-sum game. If Publisher A has a bang-up idea, and doesn't make it OGC (or obfuscates it as much as possible with regard to re-use), that effectively gives him the ability to re-use that rule while denying its use to everyone else. He gets a competitive edge because HIS products can use this new, better concept and nobody else's can. After all, Publisher A reasons, why should I help out Publisher B by giving him access to this bang-up idea? He'll just cut into my sales of future products because I'll be effectively competing against my own work!
Obviously, not all publishers believe this way. WotC, for one, seems to believe that if they make something OGC, it effectively increases the exposure of that something and eventually drives sales of the original product.
Myself, I'm not a businessman and I don't pretend to be. I make my OGC designations very broad and very generous - and very clear (I hope) because it is my express desire to increase the pool of available OGC to the point where we CAN get to the point of "the best rules becoming commonplace and used by everybody." Maybe that will hurt my product's sales down the line.
But I'm a consumer first - if I help generate that "critical mass" of OGC that allows the "best rules" to become commonplace, I win! As I said, I consume more products than I write. With that in mind, why WOULDN'T I want the best stuff commonplace? So I personally make my rules very open to try to help push the way toward the critical mass of "perfect rules" - maybe I haven't even contributed ONE perfect rule, but if one of my imperfect ones sparks a later writer to write the perfect one, and then he declares it as OGC, my contribution is meaningful. I'll never know unless I make sure my stuff is Open.
Of course, that attitude is no way to run a business... in some ways, it's "giving away the shop..." and that's the problem (for the record, I *Don't* think generous OGC designations are "giving away the shop" since I think if you do a product right the first time, nobody will be able to copy the OGC fast enough into a competing product to dent your sales - and if you didn't do it right the first time, that's what's stopping your success, not your OGC designation).
At the end of the day, RPG companies run on very slim margins. A company that does things that are good for the hobby but bad for business probably isn't going to last - in other words, you need to be a good business. That means if you subscribe to the theory that opening up content lets others profit of your work to the point where they're cutting into your profits, it's not a good idea to open it up. If you don't open it up, of course, we never get close to that Critical Mass of OGC.
It's a complicated game, business.
I hope that you understand where I'm going with all of this, Conail. I don't do it because of ego or anything else - I do it out of practicality. If the world were perfect, I sure wouldn't avoid other peoples' products! But it's not, and so I have to account for those imperfections somewhat - and unfortunately part of that means both writers and consumers suffer. Consumers suffer because they don't get what they want from writers. Writers suffer because they CAN'T give to consumers what they want.
However, ultimately, the blame lies with neither party - it lies with our laws that protect "Intellectual Property." And since it is those laws that allow the writer to make a wage in the first place, thus allowing him to gain the capital necessary to commission artwork and buy layout programs and pay his electric bill for his computer to write on... well... I think it may be a necessary evil. Until the day comes where everyone's needs are met, and there's no reason to be cautious of lettting go of that which can put food on your table and shelter over your head, this problem will exist, because it is unwise to give your work away for free if you can't easily make ends meet without "not giving it away."
Sorry for the jump into the political realm; I just hope you realize that writers, in many ways, are as frustrated that they can't give you what you want as you are that you're not getting it.
--The Sigil
