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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Scythian" data-source="post: 9243113" data-attributes="member: 6875986">I'm putting two quotes from two different responses together because they're related.Nobody who runs a business goes into every contract assuming that the other party is a bad actor.  In general, even outside of running a business, people don't enter into contracts assuming that the other party is a bad actor.  Obviously, people are going to attempt to enter into contracts that they benefit from, whether it's signing up for the Criterion Channel or renting a theater space to put on a play or a publisher getting books printed, but they don't prepare for the possibility that the Criterion Channel might take their money but not provide service, or that the theater owner will attempt to unilaterally dissolve their contract, or that printers will arbitrarily decide to not ship products they are contractually obligated to provide.That's because the whole reason we have contracts is so that people can conduct their business with a degree of security.And no.  Business owners aren't bad people if they don't have plans for what to do if another party arbitrarily decides to renege on their contract.  If a producer rents a theater to put on a theatrical production, they're not a bad person if they don't book a second theater in case the owner of the first one decides to renege on their contract.  That's just silly.  (And where would it end?  Because maybe both the first and second theater owners might attempt to dissolve their contracts, so the product would need to book a third theater, ad infinitum.)At this point, what you're saying is so divorced from reality that I have to wonder if you're trolling or engaged in some kind of bit.I see a double standard emerging.On the one hand, you imply that third-party publishers are bad people (or at least not "actively being good [people]") if they enter into a contract with WotC in good faith, abide by the terms of that contract, and expect WotC to do the same.  They should be prepared in case WotC acts in bad faith, and if they're not, it's on them.On the other hand, you keep asking us to look at things from the point of view of WotC and put their motivation and actions in the best possible light.  If they acted in bad faither, well...  The deal was unfair!  Of course, they wanted to renegotiate!  Wouldn't anyone?First of all, the theory that WotC saw the deal as unfair, or felt that they were unfairly saddled with it, is something that people who decided to defend WotC came up with back in late 2022 or early 2023, presumably in an attempt to garner sympathy for them (which is what I believe you to be doing here).  To the best of my knowledge, WotC has never claimed that they attempted to revoke the OGL because they felt it was unfair.But, yeah, it's possible that they felt it was unfair.  However, it's also possible that they saw a bunch of successful OGL-based crowdfunding campaigns and told their lawyers to find a way to let them wet their beaks.  There are also other possible motivations, such as the ones that they actually did put forward and virtually no one bought, like not wanting third parties to make D&D NFTs.  I see no reason to privilege the theory that WotC felt aggrieved by the contract's unfairness over any of those other potential motivations.Second, I don't think their motivation matters as much as what they ended up doing.  Which was not, as you have claimed, renegotiating the OGL.  What they actually did was attempt to revoke the existing OGL and replace it with a completely different license, one that was open in name only, and they planned to do it in an underhanded way.  If things had gone as intended, the vast majority of existing licensees would have learned about the new license just seven business days before they were expected to agree to it and the old one was revoked.Perversely, WotC intended to use a clause in the OGL intended to protect licensees from exactly what they were planning.  (And before you ask, no, I'm not a lawyer, but a FAQ about the OGL that was up on WotC's own website for a number of years and Ryan Dancey, the architect of the agreement, both made it clear that the language concerning authorized versions of the license was intended specifically to allow licensees to use earlier versions of the agreement in case WotC attempted to change the terms.)</blockquote>

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