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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4366775" data-attributes="member: 1054">I am curious why, given that 4e has been in development for 3+ years, and copyright law hasn't changed meaningfully in that time, this sort of thing wasn't whipped out and gathering dust long before the actual game development was past the first alpha draft of the rules. It's not like licenses/policies need extensive public playtesting or the like. I'm rather surprised that the existing fan site policy isn't simply extended; if the FSP is purely non-commercial, it should be a lot simpler and more straightforward than the GSL.(For that matter, it seems that copyright/trademark law provides all the non-commercial fan site policy needed; I suppose there might be a TOS for use of logos/graphics or a registry of 'official' fan sites, but it's not lke WOTC could do anything about a site which doesn't use copyrighted images or otherwise violates existing IP law. I think the TSR "we own armor class" fiasco proved that quite handily. Really, all the policy can do is offer MORE than copyright law does; by definition, it cannot offer less. (The OGL/STL/GSL all offer less, but also have a major carrot -- commercial use rights of valuable IP. Remove the carrot, and no one will put up with the stick.) So it ought to be pretty simple, something like "You can't run ads, and you can use this cool logo as long as you don't post offensive/illegal material and otherwise make us look bad." I can't imagine what else it could be, but I suppose we'll know eventually. In the meanwhile, of course, people will be throwing up their own fan sites without waiting for 'policy', and the longer they exist on their own, the more resistance there will be to any changes unless the benefits are really worth it.)And the usual "If we publish something that by coincidence looks like something on your fan site, tough noogies" boilerplate -- but again, normal copyright law covers that pretty well, too.</blockquote>

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