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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8879612" data-attributes="member: 42582">The issue of how a legislator can bind itself - in Australia, the UK and some other Commonwealth jurisdictions this is the issue of "manner and form" - doesn't seem to me to bear much on contract law. Because it's pretty clear how a private party can bind themself at common law: make an agreement with the intention to enter legal relations, with a meeting of minds over that bargain, and consideration in both directions. And to me the OGL seems to exhibit that character.I'm not sure I agree with [USER=7035905]@DavyGreenwind[/USER] that the consideration flowing from licensees under the OGL is not much - they agree to allow use of their copyrighted OGC by downstream users, and confer on those downstream users the authority to create further sub-licenses. (But I don't how important adequacy of consideration is in US contract law, either in general or in the licensing context.)Similarly to [USER=463]@S'mon[/USER] (who I've discussed this with before, including recently in the "not an open license" thread), I've got doubts that WotC can unpick all those contract unilaterally.This depends on the constitutional rules in a given jurisdiction. In the UK, for instance, there are no bars on retrospective legislation. In Australian that's also mostly the case, and retrospective legislation is relatively unremarkable.I agree that WotC can revoke its unilateral offer at any time, and I've posted the same on these boards many times over the years. I'm not so sure, though, that it can unilaterally withdraw the authority conferred on existing licensees to sub-license, especially as section 13 of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a provides that all sub-licences shall survive termination.Although, having written the above, I can see two arguments to the contrary: (i) the reference to termination is implicitly confined, in virtue of its context, to termination for breach; (ii) sub-licences survive, and hence parties who (eg) contracted directly with Paizo but only indirectly with WotC retain rights to distribute their existing products, but no new sub-licences can be granted.The leading case in Australia on promissory estoppel as analogous to waiver is Commonwealth v Verwayen. It concerned representations made in the course of pre-litigation negotiations, together with policy statements by the responsible minister. (The case concerned personal injury litigation resulting from a collision between two Australian naval vessels.) Chief Justice Mason referred to "a deliberate and considered decision ha[ving] been mad" by the Commonwealth as a defendant, and also noted "express representations to some claimants".Do you think the FAQ is enough?</blockquote>

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