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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 8889791" data-attributes="member: 20741">I don't accept the suggestion that what was being offered in the OGL 1.0a was that it was ever revocable, once relied upon - as against those who relied upon it.I don't agree with the view of a civil rights attorney, no matter the law school she attended, on that topic. This isn't about freedom of expression or theoretical IP copyright in the main work -- this is about money and commerce, and what value exists and was poured into the licensed work in reliance upon the OGL 1.0a. Having done so, and having reasonably relied upon it -- what is the true construction of that contract?Let's move away from the theoretical (and let's be honest - theory is only an analytical tool - it truly doesn't matter a tinker's damn) and move to the real and the practical -- where the law actually matters and is actually applied.Paizo Inc. has relied upon the OGL 1.0a to construct the whole of its multi-million dollar business and has done so for 15 years, across the globe and in multiple languages and jurisdictions.It didn't just do so by reprinting the SRD 3.5 released under the OGL 1.0a. It did that and more. It changed the rules, it added to them to the most massive degree in a single RPG rule-system ever, and it produced over 35,000 pages of work premised upon it, over a course of 15 years. That investment was in the tens of millions of dollars.Is it your position now that WotC can declare the OGL 1.0a as "no longer authorized" and thereby undo all of that work that Paizo put into that business over the course of that time? If correct, if it is revocable at will merely by a statement that it is no longer authorized, is it your conclusion that Paizo can no longer publish Pathfinder 1 or 2 (to be clear - PF1 is still in print to this day) as a result of the "de-authorization" of the OGL 1.0a? If not, why not?That is certainly the key contention in all of this, if the revocable at will theory of the OGL 1.0a is accepted.And lets not play games about this: the fact situation that lead to Pathfinder 1 is an EXTREME fact situation, so extreme most would roll their eyes at it as an absurd premise if they read it on a law school final exam. Yet, that actually happened.I do not believe that there is a reasonable chance that a court will  accept the interpretation of the OGL 1.0a that it was revocable at will. WotC held out to others at all times that the OGL 1.0a was irrevocable. It maintained that interpretation of its own license contract for more than two decades. It maintained that interpretation -- and held out that interpretation to others in order to induce them to accept it -- during the whole of that course of time.Indeed, it maintained that interpretation of the OGL 1.0a under the most EXTREME of adverse market conditions  and weaponization of the license against their own core business when Paizo created Pathfinder 1 to directly compete with WotC and chased D&D out of the marketplace.  Yet even then, under that most extreme example of actual commercial use in the marketplace -- WotC maintained the OGL 1.0a was irrevocable, even as it was being used against them to drive it out of the seat as market leader.Yet on Jan 13, 2023, WotC will merely "unauthorize" the OGL 1.0a by way of press release and that will be that? Paizo will no longer be able to publish PF1 -- or PF2 -- that includes any aspects of the SRD, or what was later derived and built upon it?WotC will persuade a court that it could have simply "unauthorized" the OGL 1.0a in 2008 and through 2012, as 4th Ed was removed from the marketplace as it fought -- and lost -- a battle with a competitor. It didn't do this not because the OGL 1.0a was always understood to be irrevocable, but simply because it chose not to?That is utter nonsense. I don't care if Kit Walsh got a law degree from Harvard -- she is (most likely) either uninformed of the extreme historical commercial facts of how the parties acted under the OGL 1.0a from 2008 through 2014, or she's a civil rights attorney who is clearly out of her depth - and not a commercial litigator -  whose opinion is not worth one red cent.</blockquote>

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