How long do we wait for WoTC to speak?

[CapnZapp]

If Paizo are serious about taking WotC to court should WotC try to delete 1.0a, it doesn't really matter what the fans think or accept. The strength of the legal arguments matter.

Paizo have essentially called WotC's bluff on this one - they may too be bluffing about going to court (though I doubt it) - but if not then WotC have to consider the actual strength of their legal claim.

(My personal suspicion is they already did and are backing off the "we deleted the OGL 1.0a" claim but we'll see.)

No.

All that matters is that nobody trusts WotC anylonger, or wants to stick around in their playground.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yes, but sadly we need to distinguish between

1. Legal reality, that WoTC almost certainly cannot legally revoke OGL 1.0 licencing of their SRDs even for future products, with
2. Commercial reality, that any future Kickstarter still including OGL 1.0 is likely to be seen as tainted by potential backers.

We can both advise #1, but the people like my friend, with money in the game, have to think about #2.

What we need to distinguish between is, the assumption that legal reality matters, and the fact that it doesn't matter whether they can or cannot legally revoke the license, since its value rested on the fact that people trusted WotC.

Now they don't.

Nobody's interested in sticking around to see whether the courts force WotC to walk back its changes. Everybody will have left WotC's playground, so it doesn't matter where the OGL ends up.

 

[S'mon]

What we need to distinguish between is, the assumption that legal reality matters, and the fact that it doesn't matter whether they can or cannot legally revoke the license, since its value rested on the fact that people trusted WotC.

Now they don't.

That's what I said, only less lawyerly.

 

[pemerton]

what are you even talking about? If the OGL 1.0a is successful defended, no-one has given up any licences.

I am reading about posts and threads about 3PPs creating new RPG systems and/or publish future material using those systems, and under new licences (like ORCS) rather than the OGL v 1.0/1.0a.

Back catalogues would remain what they are, but the general impression I am getting is of an OGL 1.0/1.0a-free future. Perhaps I've misunderstood what I've read.

 

[pemerton]

The fact that WotC put the OGL 1.1 out with those godawful comments, which are a combination of horrible "How do you do, fellow kids?" drivel and actual misrepresentations tells me they were getting bad legal advice, and or straight-up ignoring legal advice. I mean there is literally no way my law firm would have let that go out, we'd literally have stopped representing the client first (I base this on a couple of incidents I can't go into detail on but still). They sent this to a bunch of serious 40-60-somethings who run proper businesses, for god's sake! The commentary is infantile.

What does that tell you? I think what it tells you is that they have little respect for/regard of/understanding of the 3PP market. They don't even understand their competitors. They thought they could bring the big ones to heel, and force this on the smaller ones.

I'm not even sure they fully understood the collateral damage re: 1.0a being deleted, they just thought that people should only make stuff for 5E and only under their terms.

To me it reads as if it (OGL 1.1) HAS to have been drafted primarily by in-house Hasbro lawyers with no external reputation to lose. Both the weird informal tone/fake mateyness, and that they must have been told "Find us SOME way to say the OGL 1.0's no longer valid".

The two quoted posts seem to advance somewhat contradictory hypotheses, given that the primary reason to want to end use of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a is precisely an awareness of its importance to competitors and hence the damage that that would cause. And in this case the legal advice isn't necessarily incompetent at all - it may be the best argument anyone can see to support the specified end.

I don't think it's that unusual for an enterprise to take actions that are adverse to the interests of those they effect, that rest on doubtful legal claims, and that are presented in an informal and/or matey tone to those people. I don't think the tone belying the reality is strong evidence that the enterprise is ignorant of that reality.

 

[Nikosandros]

That was why our early drafts of the new OGL included the provisions they did. That draft language

A draft that went out to 3PPs with an attached contract to sign & return.

Yes, the density of horse manure in that press release is amazing. Anything more and it would collapse in a singularity and create a black hole.

 

[S'mon]

The two quoted posts seem to advance somewhat contradictory hypotheses, given that the primary reason to want to end use of the OGL v 1.0/1.0a is precisely an awareness of its importance to competitors and hence the damage that that would cause. And in this case the legal advice isn't necessarily incompetent at all - it may be the best argument anyone can see to support the specified end.

I don't think it's that unusual for an enterprise to take actions that are adverse to the interests of those they effect, that rest on doubtful legal claims, and that are presented in an informal and/or matey tone to those people. I don't think the tone belying the reality is strong evidence that the enterprise is ignorant of that reality.

Yes, you are right. I withdraw my prior comment, m'lud.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think it's that unusual for an enterprise to take actions that are adverse to the interests of those they effect, that rest on doubtful legal claims, and that are presented in an informal and/or matey tone to those people.

I do think it is. That's a incredible pile of unprofessional stupidity.

 

[CapnZapp]

They have already opened Pandora's box and no matter what they say, including "we'll forget about the new OGL entirely", it is high time to abandon ship.

WotC will never save this. They have already lost the industry's confidence.

Edit: as I have said elsewhere, just about the only way they'll save this is by announcing OGL 1.1 as an actually completely open license. Not "like" Creative Commons (or such), but actually legally bound to CC. But the probability of the current leadership going this way is exceedingly small.

Alternatively, exceedingly large...?