GSL news.

[BASHMAN]

Hmmm. The choose 4E or 3.5 and only publish that choice / company rule seems sort of annoying. I don't think that it will have any teeth, since they already said that PAIZO can make 3.5 support stuff and Necromancer can make 4E stuff. All this would mean is that a company wanting to make stuff for both would have to make a subsidiary, perhaps nominally under the control of someone else.

For instance, Basic Action Games did make a couple 3.x OGL products, and may in the future, make more. If we wanted to make 4e stuff, officially we'd have to stop making 3.x stuff-- but in reality, we could just set up a new company called Action Basic Games, perhaps nominally headed up by say... my wife or something... that makes 4e stuff.

Sure, setting it up that way would be obnoxious, and perhaps confuse brand-loyal customers, but wouldn't really stop a company from making both (as long as they "seem" to actually be 2 companies).

Note to folks w/ flamethrowers lit-- I am not saying that Basic Action Games will be doing this-- it was just an example!

 

[Scipio202]

Epoch: I asked this in the OGL forum - how hard would it be to set up such a subsidiary? Is it just a matter of 10 hours of a lawyer's time, or would that be a real big pain to do?

Obviously the marketing would be a different issue. Though if Paizo gets to put its name on it's joint products with Necro, maybe it wouldn't be that bad.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Y'know, AFAIK Wizards said they would do it for Paizo, but remember Paizo distributes Necromancer so they can prove they aren't in the same unit.

If this has "teeth", WoTC will probably either say you have to get special permission to do this in writing (and they will determine how different your companies are), or they will reserve the right to revoke the GSL due to "non-compliance".

In other words, I think if people try to form "shell companies" to exploit what could be considered a loophole, Wizards probably has an out ready.

 

[Hussar]

A thought occurs to me.

Those who solidly support the OGL usually cite the idea of network externalities as one of the big plusses of the OGL. That keeping people in the d20 umbrella makes it better for everyone.

Why is this not being applied to 4e?

After all, if you go with OGL material, you are not within the GSL umbrella, you are playing a different system - it might as well be Storyteller as far as the GSL is concerned.

So, if one of the main reasons for the OGL was to keep people using D20, then why shouldn't the GSL contain clauses designed with the exact same goal? Why is keeping everyone within d20 a good thing, but keeping everyone within 4e a bad one?

 

[Scipio202]

Y'know, AFAIK Wizards said they would do it for Paizo, but remember Paizo distributes Necromancer so they can prove they aren't in the same unit.

If this has "teeth", WoTC will probably either say you have to get special permission to do this in writing (and they will determine how different your companies are), or they will reserve the right to revoke the GSL due to "non-compliance".

In other words, I think if people try to form "shell companies" to exploit what could be considered a loophole, Wizards probably has an out ready.

Depends if the "one open license per company" rule is a result they specifically want for its own sake, or an unavoidable side effect of avoiding some other OGL/GSL problem (e.g. if the same legal entity having rights under both the OGL and the GSL causes some problem).

 

[philreed]

OK I guess I have a moral POV on this anyway; if you can't copyright a system, it sounds very strange to me. WotC spends lots of money and time developing a system, and then anyone of the street can reword it and start selling it? It sounds weird. I don't doubt what you say though, I know next to nothing about US juridics.

See this:

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Those who solidly support the OGL usually cite the idea of network externalities as one of the big plusses of the OGL. That keeping people in the d20 umbrella makes it better for everyone.

Why is this not being applied to 4e?

Indeed you're correct that having everyone move over to 4e would create the same network externalities and everyone would benefit.

But the OGL is "safe." It can't be taken away. That is not true of the GSL.

The first and most important entity walking back from the OGL is WotC.

WotC always had the option to release 4e under the original OGL in the same tradition as 3e, with a new 4e SRD to bring everyone along to the mechanics as quickly as possible.

It's definitely not a question of whether publishers would be happier supporting 4e wholeheartedly. Of course they would. If 4e was Open in the same tradition as 3e, the publishers would be falling all over each other to adopt it. (And if you go back and read the history of 4e OGL/GSL announcements, you'll see that exactly that happened.)

The problem is that the GSL does not offer the safety of the OGL, and it is fact WotC who has put the 3PP in the position of having to support the prior edition.

As Ryan Dancey predicted, WotC split the base.

Literally nobody would be staying behind with 3e if a genuinely Open 4e was an option.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I saw a lot of prople get offended when White Wolf offered a copy of Exalted for the PHB and it was made known the book would be destroyed, yet in my mind this is worse on a much larger scale.

That is dissapointing- I can think of lots of organizations that would have accepted those books as a charitable donation. I donated a lot of gaming stuff to the USO, personally.

 

[The Little Raven]

The problem is that the GSL does not offer the safety of the OGL, and it is fact WotC who has put the 3PP in the position of having to support the prior edition.

Not "having," but "choosing." They chose to go into a business that finds itself somewhat reliant on another company's (WotC's) property. They knew, back when the OGL came out, that the next edition could be closed or under a different license, and this issue could occur. It's a peril of running a business that way.

As Ryan Dancey predicted, WotC split the base.

It's too early to judge whether this "split" is any more substantial than any previous split that occurs when editions change. If you want to get technical, Gygax starting splitting the base with AD&D, since there are people to this day that use OD&D and won't ever change... and Dancey himself was involved in splitting the base by pushing 3e over 2e. It's an unavoidable consequence to releasing new material and happens in pretty much every industry.

Literally nobody would be staying behind with 3e if a genuinely Open 4e was an option.

Not true. There would still be people staying behind, just like people stay behind with every edition. Hackmaster, yo.

 

[breschau]

Hey Phil... how about giving a bit more, like the next paragraph...

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable.

So, yeah, you can create a game with basically the same rules, but the entire rules description may be copyrighted, and good luck coming up with a similar enough description to convey meaning that is also distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit.