Boy, it's sure warm in here.
This actually involves some of the topics that are close to home with me (and apparently some others).
In my mind, here are the issues (in no particular order):
1.) Let's deal with the issue of the FanCC giving "permission" for the inclusion of material into PCGen. I am not familiar with PCGen, however, provided it complies with the Open Gaming License, there is no real way to preclude most FanCC material (which is by and large Open Game Content) from being included. As Sigfried Trent has mentioned, when you release something as OGC, you have literally given permission for anyone to use it provided they do so pursuant to the terms of the OGL. That PCGen contacted Team Leaders and Council members of the FanCC (as the "publisher") is nice, but unnecessary in the full sense of the word. Similarly, the "permission" so granted is more of a blessing than permission - the FanCC has no right to stop PCGen from using any OGC material, provided such use is made under the OGL.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that under the terms of the OGL, a cure period of 30 days applies - meaning if you goof you have 30 days to fix it. While I am not suggesting that this legally shields you from the consequences of using someone else's copyrighted material (it doesn't - I couldn't publish Lord of the Rings, slap an OGL on the end of it, then tell Tolkien's estate they have to give me 30 days to stop distributing it), it seems to me that the 30-day fix clause is there as a gesture of goodwill among all publishers of Open Game Content.
But I digress... on to the meatier issues.
2.) I absolutely agree that PCGen has a legal responsibility to respect the rights of others' IP - and as far as I can tell, they have made a good-faith effort to do so. However, WotC has a moral and ethical right to assist PCGen in their efforts or deny them permission to use material... something that apparently they have failed to do until this time (WotC's policy seems to be to ignore communication regarding request for permission - and I don't mean they don't give permission, I mean they won't even tell you "no"). In my mind, this puts WotC in the wrong, not PCGen - silence on a question can be interpreted as implicit permission or implicit forbiddance. Who is to tell which one the silence means?
3.) Preferred file formats - If WotC wants to use a proprietary format as their preferred format, that is their right, I suppose. That Fluid seems to have permission to host these files indicates that WotC *is* ignoring certain terms of the license agreement for pragmatic reasons. The issue of "other publishers' stuff" being included is a sticky one, though - E-Tools does not use the OGL - because WotC doesn't have to (a sore point for me - if they want to set the rules, they should at least play by them), and therefore, in the strictest sense, anything NOT published by WotC that ends up on Fluids site puts them in serious jeopardy. I don't know whether to hope it won't happen so that WotC doesn't crack down and I can get a lot of files, or hope it will happen so WotC gets dragged into court and forced to void the terms of its license agreement (since it wasn't obeying them in the first place).
Wow. This is a great thread. It seems like Brown Jenkin is mad because his (and a lot of people's) favorite program is being forced to change in some way to comply. And he sees that this new product (eTools) is not being forced to comply in the same way.
It's certainly within the bounds of legality, but is ethically and morally bankrupt. Similar to WotC's continued delays on approving - and adding to - the SRD. That thing should have been approved by WotC's legal beagles within a month of the MM's release. It's been almost two years. Bleah. Don't get me started on that either. Get on the ball, WotC - it looks REAL unprofessional and in bad faith.
4.)
f course no other industry has been able to get a law passed that allowed something that was tangibly purchased to be construed as a license to use the product instead of an outright possession.
Precisely. Software companies are NOT interested in "innovation." If they were, all programs would be open source so ANYONE could innovate on it (the largest talent pool possible). Software companies are interested in MONEY (which is not in and of itself a bad thing - if they weren't they'd cease to exist) but there is much truth to the barb that "software companies only innovate when they litigate."
5) This is insulting...
There is no issue. WoTC owns the IP, they can do with it as they please. The real facts are that pcgen have been commercially exploiting all sorts of IP for the past two years with no say so from the owners. The hoped to exist under the blind eye of a large corp and succeeded, until now.
What I find funny are group of people that somehow manage to ignore common sense and feel they have a right to pirate material all in the name of Open Source.
I find this more than a bit insulting. One provision of copyright law is the right of "transfer of medium" (IANAL, so that may not be the legal term for it) but essentially, it is the right of someone who purchases a work to transcribe it - or cause it to be transcribed - into another medium for their own personal use. I own a CD burner. I use it to make copies of my audio CDs. I take the burned copy in my CD player and play it. I put the original copy into archive/storage. Some of my CDs I instead transfer to MP3's and put onto my hard drive so I can play them from the hard drive (the original CD stays in storage). By the same token, if I transfer data - even copyrighted data - into a digital format because I prefer to have it that way, that is my right. I have pirated nothing (though there are many forces out there working hard to take away that right, believe me). What does PCGen offer? As far as I can tell, it offers to me (personally) the same data I have in my bookshelf in an electronic format. I have every right to access that data in that format.
That the distribution method happens to be an Open Source program makes no difference - you're confusing the issue there. Open Source <> piracy, though apparently you are of the opinion that the two are essentially one and the same. That in and of itself tells me that we disagree on some fundamental points (below). You certainly have a right to your opinion, and in many ways, the legal system agrees with you. I happen to think that makes it a morally bankrupt legal system and the true "pirates" of IP are companies that continue to pirate the public domain by continuously extending copyright length (remember your history - classic "pirates" from the 17th century usually operated under a charter and with the blessings of a government - one that was corrupt and in collusion with the pirates - pirates did not operate outside the law), but that's beside the point.
6.) Those of you who don't want to listen to a long rant on PI and IP and social contracts and copyright will want to stop reading here.
The whole concept of Product Identity ("PI") and Intellectual Property "IP" are two very different things... and I believe some of the posts here have confused them.
Myself, I personally am of the opinion that the term "Intellectual Property" is a gross misnomer and that the concept that an idea - or the expression thereof - is some form of "property" is morally and ethically reprehensible and invalid. I understand that copyright does not protect the idea, merely the set of words and/or images used to express that idea.
However, the original purpose of copyright was essentially to compensate the person who took the time to transcribe the idea, taking it from a nebulous concept to a set of words and/or images (or sound, or what have you - essentially, into a communicable medium). There was never any concept of "ownership" of the idea - or the words/images involved. They were and are not property in the traditional sense because of the lack of exclusivity of ownership (i.e., my owning a thing naturally precludes you from owning it and vice versa - if I own a car, you cannot own that same car - you may own another car just like it, but it is a different car with a different VIN, etc.). However, companies and individuals have twisted the definition of copyright to create the concept of "intellectual property." My owning the exact same idea as you in no way interferes with your right to own and use that idea. I could go on, but suffice to say that I personally feel that copyright as it exists today is pure bovine scatology.
Society originally invented the concept of copyright to incent the person who took the time to make an idea communicable - with no incentive to transcribe something, why take the time to do it? - before eventually passing that "Transcript" into this nifty thing called the "public domain" where EVERY member of society could be enriched by it freely. However, the current twisting of copyright law to make things such as "intellectual property" essentially permanent, hence completely stopping the flow of ideas into the public domain, attacks the very reason society granted copyright in the first place. Anyone who argues for intellectual property rights is very literally placing himself at odds with society at large. This being the case, Intellectual Property is an enemy of society and should be attacked vigorously by society (it is not attacked by lawmakers, because they are in the pockets of those who claim to "own" the IP, but Napster, the Internet, and other such technologies clearly show that society itself is at war - and rightly so - with the concept of IP).
I have digressed considerably from the main stream of the arguments here, so let me pull it back. The argument that, "it's WotC's intellectual property, so they should be able to bully people into non-use or allow free use as they choose" does not hold water for me. Something can be legal but immoral and unethical. Since I hold morality and ethics in higher esteem than law (call me Chaotic Good if you must), I will tell you that WotC has the legal right to do so, but not the "true" or "natural" right to do so. If the law is unethical, is it ethical to obey the law (pose THAT one to your LG paladin some time)?
Bottom line:
Is WotC within its legal rights to "bother" (for lack of a more neutral term) PCGen? Absolutely.
Is WotC's position unassailable? No. WotC's silence on many issues is an ethical and moral shortfall, and they ought to have suspected that something like PCGen would happen due to the incompetence shown in the development of Master Tools.
Do I agree with Sm!rk? No, because I proceed from a different set of premises.
Does my opinion matter? Probably not.
Why is this post so long? Because I am long-winded and ramble.
Flame on!
--The Sigil
