Electronic Freedom Foundation weighs in on the OGL!

[dave2008]

OSRIC

I have seen that acronym, but I don't know what it means.

 

[GreyLord]

I have seen that acronym, but I don't know what it means.

There are wars, and then there are wars.

Some feel the transition to 3e to 4e was a WAR, but those people never saw the War that preceded it, the one where AD&D died and D&D was slain and it's corpse buried as another called itself it's name.

It was by far the largest and most virulent war ever to occur among editions. Emotions ran high. There were many offshoots and outcroppings from it.

One response by one small group was to make a system document that recreated all the rules of AD&D 1e, but without using the copyright stuff from TSR or WotC. They used the mechanics are not copyrighted idea and made a system document so that others could make adventures to run with AD&D without referring it specifically to AD&D per se.

Thus was born OSRIC.

 

[Malmuria]

This, I think, is the most interesting bit:



So, the spell is called invisibility. But it's on the Wizard spell list as just "invisibility", and it's in several monster, NPC, and magic item entries. So the name merges into a game mechanic, because the game uses it as a game term. The same is true for "advantage" and "armor class" and "Strength" so on. Names used as game terms become game mechanics when they're used by other game mechanics. They do that everywhere.

Good lord. I used to think the SRD was 90% unprotected by copyright, but now I think the SRD is basically 99% unprotected by copyright, and the only parts of it that are... are the parts we probably don't care about. Like if you look at the spell description for Invisibility, the most copyrightable element is the description of the material component as an eyelash stuck in gum.

So this should be totally uncopyrightable:



Everything there merges because all the terms used are used as mechanics: Invisibility, 2nd level spell, illusion, spell, casting time, action, range, area, touch, components, verbal, somatic, material, duration, concentration, cast, invisible, target, attack, spell slot, 3rd level spell slot. All you've got left are adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

I don't know how I would even begin to try to explain this to a jury of non-gamers.

 

[see]

So, first thing first. The EFF statement has been updated in a quite important way that addresses my issue with their original statement. They are clarifying that there is a difference between a bare license without consideration, and a contract with obligations on both sides, and insofar as the OGL 1.0a was the latter, it is not revocable at will, whether or not it says it's irrevocable.

That logic applied to the GPL 2 avoids there being any emergency over the GPL 2 lacking the word "irrevocable".

That said, if you're still interested in

Spoiler: what I was writing when I saw the update because I was double-checking my accuracy

No. The rule isn't "without this magic word, it's revokable". It's "without some terms limiting the ability to revoke, it's probably revokable." The GPL v2 doesn't use the word "irrevokable" like GPL v3 does, but there's significant other text that effectively makes any attempt to do so unlikely to succeed. That language or something similar to it is not present in the OGL. The OGL has basically no text to it at all, especially compared to the GPL v2.

The argument you linked makes a distinction between contributors and the original licensor. The problem is that the distinction they make means the GPL 2 is revocable by the original licensor.

Sure, it's going to be pretty difficult for a mere "contributor", in their terms, to revoke their contributions under the GPL 2, because they needed the GPL 2 for the permission to make their derivative work. But the exact same situation applies with regard to contributors under the OGL and its equivalent clauses (sections 2, 3, and 4). If Paizo tried to revoke the OGL 1.0a with regard to, say, Pathfinder 1st edition, they'd have serious trouble, because their rights to use the 3.5 SRD were dependent on the OGL 1.0a to begin with.

The argument does not apply to the original licensor in either case, whether you're talking WotC in the case of SRD text licensed under the OGL 1.0a, or Linus Torvalds licensing Linux and Git code under the GPL 2. They did not need any rights under the license to distribute their work in the first place, so their rights are not dependent on the license, so they can revoke the license without it affecting their rights.

(It is entirely possible there's some subtlety in the GPL 2's text, not present in the OGL 1.0a, that somehow prevents the original licensor from revoking it at will. But the argument linked does not rely on or mention any such; it's based on the contributors being dependent on the license.)

The promissory estoppel argument for the GPL 2 that follows is the exact same one being made for the irrevocability of the OGL 1.0a. If the inability of an original licensor to revoke the GPL 2 is actually dependent on that, then it's a very big deal, and the EFF statement gliding over that whole argument is, well, disappointing.

 

[Reynard]

There are wars, and then there are wars.

Some feel the transition to 3e to 4e was a WAR, but those people never saw the War that preceded it, the one where AD&D died and D&D was slain and it's corpse buried as another called itself it's name.

It was by far the largest and most virulent war ever to occur among editions. Emotions ran high. There were many offshoots and outcroppings from it.

One response by one small group was to make a system document that recreated all the rules of AD&D 1e, but without using the copyright stuff from TSR or WotC. They used the mechanics are not copyrighted idea and made a system document so that others could make adventures to run with AD&D without referring it specifically to AD&D per se.

Thus was born OSRIC.

OSRIC didn't use the OGL?

 

[Dausuul]

Everything there merges because all the terms used are used as mechanics: Invisibility, 2nd level spell, illusion, spell, casting time, action, range, area, touch, components, verbal, somatic, material, duration, concentration, cast, invisible, target, attack, spell slot, 3rd level spell slot. All you've got left are adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.

The logic "X is composed of uncopyrightable pieces, therefore the whole is also uncopyrightable" is absolutely not sound. Literally every copyrightable thing is composed of uncopyrightable pieces.

 

[Composer99]

OSRIC didn't use the OGL?

Based on their wiki, they sure did.

 

[TerraDave]

This, I think, is the most interesting bit:
......

Good lord. I used to think the SRD was 90% unprotected by copyright, but now I think the SRD is basically 99% unprotected by copyright, and the only parts of it that are... are the parts we probably don't care about. ...

That was the big reveal for me. I found it easier to think in terms of non-fiction, and really boring fact based non-fiction, with which I am quite familiar.

For non-fiction, you can't copyright either factual information or common terms and expressions, including technical ones. Even if someone came up with that term--and they probably did.

Game mechanics works like factual information and common terms and expressions. Now apply all this to the SRD.

 

[Cadence]

@Greg Benage noticed it had an important update and posted about it in: Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.

To check it out yourself, revisit:

Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators

The company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is planning to revoke the open license that has, since the year 2000, applied to a wide range of unofficial, commercial products that build on the mechanics of the game.

www.eff.org

Or, here's the update:

 

[Rabulias]

I don't know if I would expect the EFF to take up this banner. They identify themselves on their website as "The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation." I mean, maybe the OGL would fall under free speech and/or innovation?

Many have mentioned the overlap the OGL shares with open source software. Maybe it would be better to bring this to the attention of the Open Source Initiative (or a similar organization):

Home Page – End of 2023 campaign

The Open Source Initiative in the news

opensource.org

Anyone have membership or connections to an open source foundation or the like?