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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DavyGreenwind" data-source="post: 8890210" data-attributes="member: 7035905">Great question! Yes, there is a distinction between revoking the license and terminating the agreement.An important, complex point is the difference between the license itself and the licensing agreement. A "license" is not a contract, but rather a limited permission to use a property not owned by the user. The license is the subject (i.e. the product received) of a contract, the contract being the licensing agreement. Often on licensing practice, the two entities will be part of the same document, but they are legally distinct.That's why interpreting the license merely with contract law will yield an incomplete picture. A licensing agreement is a contract between two parties, but a license is simply a set of permissions and conditions regarding a piece of property.So back to termination and revocation. "Termination" is something that happens to a licensing agreement, when an agreement is broken between two specific parties as a result of breach or some other event."Revocation," as I have been using it in this thread, means the withdrawal of the license itself, regarding the property. (Sometimes revocation has a different meaning in contract law, but here we are talking about revoking a license). No new licensing agreements can be made, because the license would no longer exist.There is a small chance that someone suing WotC or vice versa can claim that revoking the license is a breach of the licensing agreement, and win because of reliance or something. But even then, the winning party might only be entitled to damages (compensation for lost revenue), rather than specific performance (a court order to keep the license open), as specific performance is disfavored by US Courts (less so in Europe). It could end up in a situation where WotC has to pay damages to certain companies, but they still get to revoke the license.</blockquote>

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