Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.

[CapnZapp]

Unless WotC makes an offical statement in person (not some other 'we' stuff) that justifies further trust, the damage is done. I can't imagine betting my company on it in this situation. The trust is gone.

Yep.

And there's very little they can say (that justifies further trust). Since we no longer believe in them.

Again, just about the only thing I can envision returning some trust, is if WotC would hand over the stewardship of the OGL to an open source entity, making it an ironclad deal that WotC would honor the OGL also for the future D&D One, and ensuring they could never renege on any deal in the future, no matter what.

That could bring back the trust.

...

...

Let that sink in. Doesn't seem likely, does it?

 

[jgbrowning]

Eh, you might want to look around you. You're the only one still in the play garden - everybody else has left.

Nobody is willing to risk the future of their plans on what a court is saying - especially since WotC has so clearly shown itself to be hostile to the idea to continued peaceful coexistence; even if the courts decide clearly against WotC, that victory would still be pyrrhic.

It's dead, Jim.

You have a very fixed opinion that trust and harmony is required for profitable business relationships that is absolutely counter to empiric reality. That fixedness is matched by your utter assurance that everyone is behaving as you believe you think they are, coupled with the belief that a failed legal challenge would net no beneficial to 3PP results.

You do realize that I'm actually an OGL publisher with 20 years of products produced under the OGL, right? That I'm not just talking to be talking about the hobby that I love, but someone who has actually supported himself by publishing OGL material for the past 20 years, and someone who is forming opinions and making decisions based upon fiscal and legal realities?

And with that statement, I'll bow out of responding to you about this anymore. You have repeatedly said what you believe, and I have repeatedly said that you are wrong in that belief. There will be no budging on my end until something actually changes in the status of the OGL, so it's a pointless conversation.

joe b

 

[mamba]

So perpetual and irrevocable have meanings in law. Deauthorize does not. If it were irrevocable, WotC would not go to court because deauthorize = attempt to revoke

we keep going in circles, but I prefer not to, so this is my last reply, unless you find a new argument.

In 2000 perpetual meant irrevocable as well, WotC knows that, there is good precedent too, WotC knows that as well. This is why they do not even attempt to revoke it. Instead they go for something with no established meaning that would achieve effectively the same.
Their chances are much better (this is a relative term, imo they are still pretty bad) trying this than trying to actually revoke it.

As I said, this is not about the merit of the case, it is about scaring everyone away. If no one dares calling your ‘bluff’, then you win the pot.

 

[CapnZapp]

You do realize that I'm actually an OGL publisher with 20 years of products produced under the OGL, right?

Please don't pull the "my opinions are more valuable than yours" card. After all, I'm sure the Hasbro executives have an even greater salary than you do, and look at where that got them...

Thank you and good day.

 

[CapnZapp]

As I said, this is not about the merit of the case, it is about scaring everyone away. If no one dares calling your ‘bluff’, then you win the pot.

And if everybody has fled your play garden long before any bluff is actually called and resolved, the merits of the case becomes irrelevant.


PS. Not sure I would characterize this clusterfrak as "winning" the pot though...

If WotC wanted to alienate its customers and provide its competition a year and a half's notice to come up with shiny new competitors right at the time D&D is released, then yes, they couldn't have pulled a wiser move.

But something tells me that's not what they wanted to accomplish...

 

[Cadence]

So perpetual and irrevocable have meanings in law. Deauthorize does not. If it were irrevocable, WotC would not go to court because deauthorize = attempt to revoke. Going in front of a judge and attempting to revoke an irrevocable license by saying you're deauthorizing it instead would probably get you laughed out of court.

"Really officer, I wasn't speeding. I was streaking down the street."

It took me a while to remember, but I got there!

"Perpetual, irrevocable, perpetually and irrevocably authorized, immortal, and eternal." ?

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Perpetual, irrevocable, perpetually and irrevocably authorized, immortal, and eternal." ?

"Wizards has announced 'takies backsies' on the OGL 1.0a, adding 'Double no undos.'"

 

[jgbrowning]

Please don't pull the "my opinions are more valuable than yours" card. After all, I'm sure the Hasbro executives have an even greater salary than you do, and look at where that got them...

Thank you and good day.

It is far from an appeal to authority or "pulling something" to say that I have some knowledge about what I've been doing for 20 years and the people that I've been working and associating with over that period.

It's similar to when one of the lawyers here says something regarding the law: one may not agree with what they say, but one understands it is at least an informed opinion, as opposed to just an opinion. Even if one doesn't agree.

joe b.

 

[mamba]

And if everybody has fled your play garden long before any bluff is actually called and resolved, the merits of the case becomes irrelevant.

yes

PS. Not sure I would characterize this clusterfrak as "winning" the pot though...

To WotC it is, they never wanted anyone to sign 1.1 anyway, they just wanted everyone out

 

[Greg Benage]

Please don't pull the "my opinions are more valuable than yours" card.

Please stop arguing with publishers about what publishers are going to do. At the very least, if you believe your opinion is valuable, advise them on what they should do. Your repetition of "the trust is gone" and insistence that you know what publishers are going to do is incredibly tiresome.

 

[Maxperson]

"Perpetual, irrevocable, perpetually and irrevocably authorized, immortal, and eternal." ?

Irrevocable is enough. If @mamba was correct in his assertion that perpetual means irrevocable, then lawyers would never have bothered to clarify licenses by adding irrevocable to them. They wouldn't have needed to because perpetual would have been sufficient. It's not.

The lawyers added it because perpetual only means that the license is good for an indefinite amount of time. Some courts only look at the document to see if a license was meant to be irrevocable or not, and some courts look beyond at other documentation and testimony. There is no clear precedent for WotC to hang it's hat on here. Lawyers here and elsewhere are split on whether WotC can revoke the license or not.

If OGL 1.0a had the term irrevocable in it, WotC would be stupid to actually sue anyone and claim "deauthorization" was different from revocation. Deauthorization is only being used right now because OGL 1.0a doesn't say that it's irrevocable.

 

[mamba]

Irrevocable is enough. If @mamba was correct in his assertion that perpetual means irrevocable, then lawyers would never have bothered to clarify licenses by adding irrevocable to them.

The GPL v2 is perpetual and irrevocable, it does not contain the word irrevocable. This was settled in court.

It was added to v3 when that was created just so it does not need settling. I suspect the same is true for many other licenses that came after this (the OGL came before…)

Finally, “A non-exclusive copyright license (such as most FOSS licenses) can be revoked at any time only if there was no consideration involved. The United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeal took this on in Jacobsen v. Katzer in 2008 and ruled that there is consideration exchanged in the use of FOSS by a licensee. This indicates that an FOSS license that's silent on revocation is likely revocable only for violation of it's conditions”

The OGL involves consideration

WotC uses deauthorization because no one knows what that is, it is not the same as revocation, because if it were, it would be clear what it is

 

[The Stray]

This seems relevant to the discussion:

 

[Greg Benage]

The OGL involves consideration

I think this is the key question that would need to be resolved by a specific court in a specific case.

 

[S'mon]

I think this is the key question that would need to be resolved by a specific court in a specific case.

It does actually say that licensees provide Consideration! Remember it was specifically created to stop what WoTC is trying to do now. Present WoTC is at war with past WoTC.

 

[S'mon]

This seems relevant to the discussion:

His IP analysis seems sound to me.

 

[The Stray]

His IP analysis seems sound to me.

I've been following him on this, and he's done his damndest to get as much info and clear analysis on this issue as he can, including one of the more in-depth interviews with Ryan Dancey. He's been really good at breaking this all down.

 

[Greg Benage]

It does actually say that licensees provide Consideration! Remember it was specifically created to stop what WoTC is trying to do now. Present WoTC is at war with past WoTC.

No doubt past statements by former WotC employees would play a role in resolving the question!

 

[S'mon]

I've been following him on this, and he's done his damndest to get as much info and clear analysis on this issue as he can

Yes - better than Leagle Eagle. I got the impression LE isn't an IP lawyer, at any rate he didn't engage with the important Idea vs Expression dichotomy.

 

[Jerik]

So perpetual and irrevocable have meanings in law.

Do they?

"Irrevocable" does not have an inherent meaning divorced from context and divorced from the parties' intentions. In a very real sense, "irrevocable" means whatever the parties to the agreement want it to mean; or perhaps it is better to say "irrevocable" means whatever the court thinks the parties to the agreement want it to mean. Different parties will have different intentions in different contexts.

The meaning of an agreement is the intention of the parties to the agreement, either as expressed in the agreement itself (the usual method) or through parole evidence of intention when there is ambiguity in the agreement. Very rarely does the meaning of an agreement depend on its use of magic words such as "irrevocable" in the text of the agreement itself.

Lawyers here and elsewhere are split on whether WotC can revoke the license or not.

Well, yes, lawyers here are technically split on that, but only in the sense that one lawyer posting in this thread said they could, and every other lawyer posting in the thread said that lawyer was wrong.

I don't think any other lawyer posting in the thread has agreed with the OP. I don't. @S'mon doesn't. @Steel_Wind doesn't. @bmcdaniel doesn't.

I won't even get into a discussion about the minefield and inapplicability of any principles of real property, easements, licensees and adverse possession on this issue - which is the legal context in which a license to enter onto land is considered. The entire principle under discussion of a license to enter property is, therefore, dramatically different. Indeed, it is so different, your reference to it confirms to me that you must be a junior lawyer with no experience in this area at all. It should be a cue to just stop.

He wouldn't listen to me when I gave this advice. I hope he listens to you. But I think you're correct - we're dealing with someone who can't have been practicing very long.