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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8883914" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm mostly just QFT, but also want to elaborate a little bit.I think some of this discussion is really suffering from a lack of focus on the clear legal issues, and associated risks.Also, some posters are writing as if this is mostly about corporate or commercial morality, and as if the OGL was a type of gratuity that WotC bestowed, thus creating trust and confidence; and is now cruelly removing in an unfair way. But that sort of moralised framework isn't useful for analysis, in my view. The OGL was a framework for vesting both WotC and the other parties to it with contractual obligations, contractual entitlements, and contractual powers. With that framework for analysis in mind: a lot of people, it seems to me, have misinterpreted the legal significance of the leaked information because (to be a bit blunt) they don't understand the legal framework that the OGL operates within - ie basic principle of private law agreement-making and interpretation. Because they read the OGL as a statute, rather than a private law instrument, they then read the leaked stuff from WotC through that lens and see "Oh no - the OGL is going to be 'de-authorised'!"Whereas once you look at the leaks through a private law lens, the most natural conjecture is that WotC wants to try an alternative but somewhat parallel path to the GSL - they still want a quasi-open copyright licence with a real SRD as its subject-matter, rather than a trademark and trade-dress licence (which is basically what the GSL was). This will require a parallel notion to OGC (they seem to have settled for the rather boring Licensed Content) and also a parallel clause to the current section 9 (allowing new licences to be issued so that publishers can "race to the top"); but for the royalty scheme to work, they will need to wall off this new ecosystem from the existing one (where the "race to the top" would always take publishers to the royalty-free OGL v 1.0/1.0a) and therefore will need a provision in the new licence that makes it clear that the old licence is not authorised for the distribution etc of new-licence Licensed Content.It also seems possible, likely even though not certain, that they will have a GSL-style "poison pill" that means once you come into the new ecosystem your promise to leave the old one behind, to some extent at least, perhaps altogether.And it seems pretty clear that they will revoke their standing offer under the current licence in respect of the current SRD.This does create some legal question-marks, like the status of existing licensees authority to issue future sub-licences in respect of that current SRD content. We can put forward plausible conjectures (ie that that power survives the revocation of the offer, because it is part of the grant under the existing licence) but given that [USER=1772]@bmcdaniel[/USER] said it's not clear, I'm not prepared to be anything like definitive on this.I think we can also say it's unlikely that WotC is going to try and terminate, unilaterally, all existing agreements, given that it seems to lack any power to do so. Though the OP disagrees, and so "unlikely" isn't the same as "it's certain they won't". But if they tried to do this, an existing licensee can sit tight on the rights they are confident they still enjoy, and wait for WotC to commence against them. And then plead their licence in their defence.The idea that the best way forward is to run away from the OGL - which in fact, as you explain, opens up a far greater risk of genuine infringement of WotC's IP claims - is in my view rather dubious.</blockquote>

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