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Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.
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<blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 8891533" data-attributes="member: 20741"><p>When there are delays in speaking to commercial legal issues like this, you look to the following to cover most of it. This is a non-exhaustive "Occam's Razor" list of boring explanations:</p><p></p><p>1 - somebody who is charge of this PR rollout on it is unavailable, ill, bereavement, on vacation, etc..</p><p></p><p>Or, there is some other in-house legal concern involving some other aspect of their business which is time sensitive (D&D Movie, say, or sale of eOne) which is consuming people's attention right now and has delayed when they had expected to deal with this in PR terms by a few weeks.</p><p></p><p>It all sounds trivial, but this stuff <em>routinely</em> happens. It looks sinister from the outside, utterly banal from the inside.</p><p></p><p>2 - It seems evident that WotC has been planning this since at least April 2022, when they took down Dancey's comments on the OGL from their own website (Wayback machine confirms the timing). So their lawyers have had a while with this. Still "their lawyers" means in-House counsel and a maybe a partner and an associate (or two) in a retained firm to look at it and come up with a plan for something like this. These are relatively simple agreements to consider in terms of their length and scope (though not on their doctrinal basis and commercial impact - and that's before litigation prospects are evaluated (if they are)).</p><p></p><p>Sure, you'd think that among ~4 lawyers looking at it somewhat in depth that they would have their ducks in a row and a sufficient plan. And usually? That's true. But people miss things, group-think takes over and stuff just trundles down the road, oblivious to a potential legal pitfall and "bridge out" ahead. Then, the problem is seen and there are meetings, plans to re-draft and change, some guy is on Xmas vacay... it can happen.</p><p></p><p>And this thread should have twigged you to the fact that 4 or 5 lawyers can have quite a debate about things before they <em>maybe</em> get it ironed out. And that's coming at this from a variety of perspectives (and without hierarchy) to kick the tires and shake it vigorously to see if it all holds. WotC is unlikely to have that benefit.</p><p></p><p><em>My point:</em> you can miss stuff. It happens more often than you'd think.</p><p></p><p>3- It's easy to see this through legal lenses, but this isn't <strong><em>really</em></strong> about a legal problem -- it's about a commercial business plan. And how contracting partners reacted may have surprised them and forced a re-consideration about <em>this, that, and the other thing</em>. It's commercial considerations which drives the train here, the legal stuff just has an important car (so much so that it may be one of the engines, sure), but commercial concerns always take precedence.</p><p></p><p>OF COURSE it can be more than these relatively banal and straight-forward explanations, no argument. Sill, it is <em>more likely</em> to be something like the above which explains the delay than not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Steel_Wind, post: 8891533, member: 20741"] When there are delays in speaking to commercial legal issues like this, you look to the following to cover most of it. This is a non-exhaustive "Occam's Razor" list of boring explanations: 1 - somebody who is charge of this PR rollout on it is unavailable, ill, bereavement, on vacation, etc.. Or, there is some other in-house legal concern involving some other aspect of their business which is time sensitive (D&D Movie, say, or sale of eOne) which is consuming people's attention right now and has delayed when they had expected to deal with this in PR terms by a few weeks. It all sounds trivial, but this stuff [I]routinely[/I] happens. It looks sinister from the outside, utterly banal from the inside. 2 - It seems evident that WotC has been planning this since at least April 2022, when they took down Dancey's comments on the OGL from their own website (Wayback machine confirms the timing). So their lawyers have had a while with this. Still "their lawyers" means in-House counsel and a maybe a partner and an associate (or two) in a retained firm to look at it and come up with a plan for something like this. These are relatively simple agreements to consider in terms of their length and scope (though not on their doctrinal basis and commercial impact - and that's before litigation prospects are evaluated (if they are)). Sure, you'd think that among ~4 lawyers looking at it somewhat in depth that they would have their ducks in a row and a sufficient plan. And usually? That's true. But people miss things, group-think takes over and stuff just trundles down the road, oblivious to a potential legal pitfall and "bridge out" ahead. Then, the problem is seen and there are meetings, plans to re-draft and change, some guy is on Xmas vacay... it can happen. And this thread should have twigged you to the fact that 4 or 5 lawyers can have quite a debate about things before they [I]maybe[/I] get it ironed out. And that's coming at this from a variety of perspectives (and without hierarchy) to kick the tires and shake it vigorously to see if it all holds. WotC is unlikely to have that benefit. [I]My point:[/I] you can miss stuff. It happens more often than you'd think. 3- It's easy to see this through legal lenses, but this isn't [B][I]really[/I][/B] about a legal problem -- it's about a commercial business plan. And how contracting partners reacted may have surprised them and forced a re-consideration about [I]this, that, and the other thing[/I]. It's commercial considerations which drives the train here, the legal stuff just has an important car (so much so that it may be one of the engines, sure), but commercial concerns always take precedence. OF COURSE it can be more than these relatively banal and straight-forward explanations, no argument. Sill, it is [I]more likely[/I] to be something like the above which explains the delay than not. [/QUOTE]
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Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.
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