Does WOTC have the right?

[Rykion]

Well, does the STL say that termination of the license means that those who use (and therefore agreed to the terms of the license) will then destroy all unsold inventory? All I read was that when the license terminated so to would all publication rights. I don't recall seeing anything about also agreeing to destroy all remaining inventory, but its been a long time since I read the STL license.

Yes. Section 6 of the D20 license states that upon termination of the license a company will destroy any inventory and marketing material with the d20 logo.
edit: as lurkinglidda has already mentioned
Really more than 7 months seems plenty of time to sell off any d20 product, and pdfs and future product can be changed to OGL.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Heh. There is a typo in there. "In Wizards sold discretion...".

So, since they sold their discretion, they no longer have that discretion..... right?

 

[haakon1]

The bit about WOTC saying you can only publish a product for one system, not 3.5 and 4.0, seems telling to me.

Rouse says "of course" they'd do this, since they want us to buy 4.0. Yes, I agree it's typical WOTC behavior.

But it seems outside the norm of behavior for similarly place corporations.

I don't see software operaring system vendors saying third-party software vendors can't make stuff that works on their current operating system and older versions -- or even competing versions. E.g., if you make Quark for Mac, you can't make it for Windows, or if you make it for Windows Vista, you can't make it work on Windows XP. In fact, they are usually heavily in favor of backwards compatibility.

With video games, I also see the same game coming out on multiple consoles -- I'm not sure if they ever do multiple generations of the same system, but I think some games do that.

I figure there's 2 reasons WOTC says my latest version and none other:
1) WOTC doesn't care as much about its end users. Backwards compatibility is the consumers problem, not the monopoly producer's.
2) WOTC fears 4e is an inferior product, so it'd frogmarching third parties and consumers into having no other choice. I'm not clear on whether they are not allowed to publish with non-WOTC games, like Hackmaster or Castles & Crusades, or if this is simply anti-3e, anti-consumer (no backwards compatibility), and anti-Paizo. If it says no Hackmaster if you want 4e, it sounds like an anti-trust issue to me. If the RPG industry was big enough for governments to care about (e.g., 1000x larger revenue), WOTC might be in the hot seat with the EU!

 

[Gundark]

noooo I came to the general discussion forum to escape GSL talk!!!!!

 

[Greylock]

Well... I don't know for sure either way. But just in case, I went out today and finally bought Necromancer's City of Brass, to be on the safe side.

 

[trancejeremy]

At any rate, I realy doubt most publishers have huge stocks of their d20 stuff laying around anymore. Most of it has probably been fire saled or pulped.

 

[Gundark]

whoops double post

 

[Darrin Drader]

Stickers that cover up a small logo on a book cover this issue entirely. The BoEF proved this. There's no reason to destroy perfectly good (and sellable) product.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Stickers that cover up a small logo on a book cover this issue entirely. The BoEF proved this. There's no reason to destroy perfectly good (and sellable) product.

Bwah? Since the legal text includes (or at least is supposed to include) a mention of the D20 license, a sticker on the back really won't do the trick by itself.

 

[Tazawa]

Upon entering into agreement with WotC on the d20 STL, by providing a signed confirmation card, entities agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the license, including the destruction of product upon termination of the license. This is legally binding, so the answer to your question is yes, WotC does have the right.

This is clearly stated in section 6 of the d20 STL v 6.0.

For more information, please view the license here:

http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/d20stlv6.rtf

Respectfully, I don't think that's what the license says. I'm not a lawyer, but reading the license text, the only apparent provision for termination of the license is through the breach of the license by the licensee, not due to Wizards revoking the license.

Now, of course Wizards could always revise the license to include terms that would revoke the license on a certain date and require destruction of material after a defined period, but its not in this current version of the license. Such after-the-fact revisions of the license may not be enforceable (depending on the jurisdiction).

More importantly, such bad-faith behaviour on the part of Wizards would make potential licensees of the GSL less likely to agree to it, if the GSL contains similar terms to the STL.

To work well licences such as the GSL and STL require a high degree of trust between the parties; Wizards needs to be careful not to lose the trust of third-party publishers during the transition between licenses.