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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="pemerton" data-source="post: 8897644" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I agree with Greg Benage. If the concern is to avoid litigation, or even more so to avoid risky litigation, I'm not yet seeing how giving up one's licence from WotC <em>while still continuing to publish material which it can be plausibly derived is derived from their copyrighted work(s) achieves that result</em>.</p><p></p><p>A lot of the discussion seems to be focused on <em>getting an irrevocable licence</em>. But an irrevocable licence between X and Y does nothing to protect either from a claim by Z that they are infringing Z's copyright.</p><p></p><p></p><p>My view is that once again Paizo have played this very cleverly.</p><p></p><p>They are a commercial competitor to WotC, so the OGL v 1.1 (as leaked) seems utterly unviable for them. Thus they always had to either (i) defend their rights under the existing OGL, (ii) abandon the OGL and defend their rights in a copyright suit, or (iii) reach some sort of new settlement with WotC. By going down the ORC path, at least to some extent, they are making themselves the centre of a new 3PP ecology, potentially weakening WotC (to the extent that it is true that WotC benefits from its 3PP ecology) all the while presenting themselves as community-loving rather than commercially motivated. And they still have (i) and (iii) available to them, should (ii) not work out.</p><p></p><p>Conversely, it seems to me that WotC is gambling that non-D&D games have already pretty much reached their maximum level of sales, and so having the other 3PPs drift from D&D to something new is little or no loss to them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8897644, member: 42582"] I agree with Greg Benage. If the concern is to avoid litigation, or even more so to avoid risky litigation, I'm not yet seeing how giving up one's licence from WotC [i]while still continuing to publish material which it can be plausibly derived is derived from their copyrighted work(s) achieves that result[/i]. A lot of the discussion seems to be focused on [i]getting an irrevocable licence[/i]. But an irrevocable licence between X and Y does nothing to protect either from a claim by Z that they are infringing Z's copyright. My view is that once again Paizo have played this very cleverly. They are a commercial competitor to WotC, so the OGL v 1.1 (as leaked) seems utterly unviable for them. Thus they always had to either (i) defend their rights under the existing OGL, (ii) abandon the OGL and defend their rights in a copyright suit, or (iii) reach some sort of new settlement with WotC. By going down the ORC path, at least to some extent, they are making themselves the centre of a new 3PP ecology, potentially weakening WotC (to the extent that it is true that WotC benefits from its 3PP ecology) all the while presenting themselves as community-loving rather than commercially motivated. And they still have (i) and (iii) available to them, should (ii) not work out. Conversely, it seems to me that WotC is gambling that non-D&D games have already pretty much reached their maximum level of sales, and so having the other 3PPs drift from D&D to something new is little or no loss to them. [/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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