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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LWDRob" data-source="post: 4686035" data-attributes="member: 82583">Fair enough. I didn't read it that way, else I would have replied differently. Allow me to address that concern directly.We've been navigating these waters for a long time with our Army Builder product (10 years and counting), as Games Workshop is highly litigious. However, we've managed things pretty well and avoided any legal problems thus far.We read the DDI EULA awhile back when we first decided on this strategy. We also have an IP lawyer we work with on matters like this. The tie-in between the Authoring Kit and 4e was not a hasty decision on our part. In fact, it's all been in place for quite some time and waiting on getting the Kit completed and documented - not the other way around. That's why I didn't remember the EULA - only that we decided on this course many months ago after assessing everything back then.It's definitely possible that Wizards could take exception to the downloader and ask us to stop making it available. If they do, then we talk further with our legal counsel and decide how to proceed. But the notion that HL would cease to be a viable product, even for 4e, is quite extreme and makes the assumption that we are doing this blindly. The game mechanics of any game system are fair game for us to develop data files for. Only the content is protected IP. That's why we only provide the 4e data files with the mechanics and leverage the integrated Editor to let users easily add whatever content they want. The downloader is a separate tool that allows people who already subscribe to the Wizards product a means to use that material with another tool *also*. Since the downloader is in the public domain now, it could be readily adapted for other purposes or used with other tools. As such, Hero Lab itself is fine. The Hero Lab product is a generic engine that can be used with the full spectrum of game systems. We have licenses with a bunch of major RPG publishers. The d20 System is now supported under the OGL. All of that is unassailable. Based on our analysis, the only thing that Wizards could potentially take exception to is the downloader. And it's unclear whether they even could take action on it - let alone whether they would.Hero Lab's general architecture is the key distinction here. Other tools that are specific to 4e will have big problems trying to assert the same arguments, since the program code is clearly written for one game in particular. That's not the case with Hero Lab, and that same approach is what has enabled us to succeed with our Army Builder product for 10 years now. Developing a generalized tool is vastly harder than a game-specific tool, but it allows us to support virtually everything, including games that might otherwise be off-limits like 4e.</blockquote>

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