Is it OK to distribute others' OGC for free?

[Belen]

Let's take Mongoose's books of "Ultimate" OGL material, like Ultimate Feats, which strip mines existing OGL and republishes them in one volume. Are these okay because Mongoose is selling the book, and thus it isn't a no-brainer as to whether or not someone buys it or the original product?

I do not like it. Of course, the ultimate books were horrible and I am not sure that any of them ever sold. I know that my FLGS still has the Ultimate books they ordered. They were just a bad idea and a blatant money grab.

 

[DanMcS]

First off, print publishing has not been displaced by PDFs. Most people I know consider PDFs to be a 'nice-to-have', but not a replacement for a published work.

How long will this continue? People have only been publishing electronic books for a couple of years, compared to 550-odd years since the printing press. Give electronic books a couple more years.

I can't take a PDF on the train to work or a dozen other places where a computer is problematic. Further, the layout of a printed work is both relevant and useful to me, something an OGC reprint won't offer.

I don't think these are relevant details. PDFs and books both provide material to use in role-playing games. Planes and trains both take people cross country. Planes didn't replace trains because they ran better on tracks and carried coal better. Similarly, PDFs won't replace books because they are better at being book-like; they'll replace books because they can be produced cheaper, sold for more profit for the publisher while being more affordable for the consumer, and provide the exact same information as a book, in addition to things books can't do, like hyperlinking and copy-and-pasting.

 

[Cergorach]

Well, if people fear that they might be the only people that are financially at risk, think again. I still have 10 unsold UA copies lying around, so i'm taking a risk as well... *wonders when he's ever going to sell those books*

 

[DanMcS]

But no NEW stuff will be produced.

If enough people do as you propose, WoTC will have two choices:

Let D&D die as a business. Which means that eventually, D&D dies as a game, except for a few people running 20 year old free content off the web.

or create a DND 4.0 that is incompatible with 3.0/3.5 and revoke the OGL/d20 licenses.

Pshaw. Vanity pdf publishing is too easy; the barrier to entry is low (the cost of a pdf program), it costs you nothing but your free time, and there are no sunk costs like there are in a print run, so you won't go broke doing it. Stuff will never stop being published.

In 20 years there could be 5 editions of Mutants and Masterminds, Castles and Crusades, Arcana Unearthed, BESM d20, or any other variant rule set based on 3.x D&D. They'll be a coupl'a bucks per pdf by then, not big bound books, but they'll be out there. So D&D won't die out as a game, it will just end up being supported by semipro publishers.

Even if 4.0 isn't OGL, which I doubt, they can't revoke the OGL that already exists.

 

[skinnydwarf]

But no NEW stuff will be produced.

If enough people do as you propose, WoTC will have two choices:

Let D&D die as a business. Which means that eventually, D&D dies as a game, except for a few people running 20 year old free content off the web.

or create a DND 4.0 that is incompatible with 3.0/3.5 and revoke the OGL/d20 licenses.

EDIT: The third choice, as Philreed has pointed out, is for "crippled" OGC to become the industry standard, in order to make it as difficult as possible for people to strip out the content.

Which do you prefer?

I need to nip this in the bud.

WotC cannot "revoke" the OGL. That's the whole point of an open license- it's self-perpetuating. That's why when you use OGC, you have to make your derived content OGC as well.

As to whether WotC can "revoke" the d20 license, that is another story. They can do so on an individual basis if you do certain bad things, like violate "community standards of decency." I am not sure if they can revoke it for everyone, ie if they decide to make a D&D 4.0 that is not OGL compliant. Perhaps someone else can answer that question.

In any event, the 3.0 and 3.5 SRD would be OGC until the the cold death of the universe (or Armageddon, the big crunch, Ragnarok, whatever), or the collapse of copyright law- whichever comes first. (This assumes laws don't exist outside of human experience, which I think most of us here can agree on. Whether ethics/morality exists outside human experience is another story- but I should stop now before I get too close to the dreaded "religion/politics" line of discussion.)

To get to the meat of your post, I think that your assumption is flawed. As was pointed out elsewhere, the vast majority of WotC's content is closed, even the rules stuff.* For the most part, they are not hurt by people distributing 3rd party publishers OGC for free. You can make the argument that it helps them. If I get someone's cool OGC free and think "ohmygod, this d20 thing is great! I'm going to go buy a PHB," WotC benefits. Of course, like any other company, they are hurt by the copying of copyrighted works on file sharing services.

Just because lots of OGC is distributed for free does not necessarily mean Wizards is losing sales, which, as you point out, could lead them to make D&D 4E. (For the record, 4E would have to be pretty darn awesome to pull me away from my beloved 3.0).

WotC will not let D&D die as a business. That would be stupid. They would put out 4E before that happened.

As to the merits/flaws of "crippled" OGC, I haven't given it enough thought, and to be honest don't pay close attention to what is closed and not closed in the products I buy. I am not a publisher, so it does not affect me. My initial feeling, however, is that "crippled" OGC is not so bad as some people seem to think. However, I wish that spell names/descriptions, prestige class names/descriptions and the like were not closed. Seems silly to me.

*My understanding is that since they own the original game, they are allowed to do that. They don't distribute stuff under the d20 license- they get to use the trademark without the license because they own the trademark. Now, if they make content derived from OGC (someone else mentioned they did this in Unearthed Arcana- I don't own the book so don't hold me to it), they are legally required to distribute it under the OGL. Again, if I am wrong, someone stop me before it's too late!

Disclaimer: IANAL.

 

[skinnydwarf]

OK, I read it as "I'm going to do something that will hurt your business unless you give me something for free."

I see it as a stick-up.

Your analogy is flawed. A stick-up is illegal. Releasing OGC for free is not.

 

[smetzger]

NOTE: This is not a troll. It's a detour for a threadjacking (by moi and others) of the UA SRD thread. Here are some issues that came up:

1) Some folks think that because content is OGC, it is okay to distribute it for free; others disagree vehemently (bias: I agree).

On a related note.
Is it Ok to charge for someone elses OGC? Does it change anything if that person is giving the OGC away or is also selling it?

2nd post in thread, by Dave, has it all right. Its perfectly legal. Now the moral question comes up. Is it moral to re-distribute someone elses OGC if they object to you doing so?
I am not sure, its murky. If they gave me a good reason for me not using their OGC I would most likely comply with their wishes.

On the flip side, someone who has developed OGC has agreed to let others use his OGC royalty free. Is it moral for this person to then object to his OGC being used without his permission?
I do believe this is wrong. They have agreed to open there stuff up with the OGL license and now they want to show favoritism. Thats just wrong.

 

[Crothian]

I do not like it. Of course, the ultimate books were horrible and I am not sure that any of them ever sold. I know that my FLGS still has the Ultimate books they ordered. They were just a bad idea and a blatant money grab.

But they at least put up some money and got them published where here there is no risk by whomever is putting them out for free downloads.

 

[smetzger]

As to whether WotC can "revoke" the d20 license, that is another story. They can do so on an individual basis if you do certain bad things, like violate "community standards of decency." I am not sure if they can revoke it for everyone, ie if they decide to make a D&D 4.0 that is not OGL compliant. Perhaps someone else can answer that question.

They can revoke the d20 license whenever they want to on an indivudual basis or on a blanket basis.
They can also change the d20 license whenever they want to, and they already have done this.
They do not have to release 4.0 under the d20 license or any incarnation of it. Nor do they have to release 4.0 underl the OGL. Its their stuff they can do what they want with it. Just as if someone else developed completly new OGC that wasn't dereived from any other OGC, the owner could release it sans OGL and/or d20 if they desired(basically closed content).

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Your analogy is flawed. A stick-up is illegal. Releasing OGC for free is not.

True, but that's not what I was referring to there. I was responding to this quote in regards to reasons why he would choose to not redistribute people's OGC:

Because we're working on a v.3.5 version and want to release that in six months => "Hmm... Yeah sure, but in return i want an electronic version of the updated book. In return i'll not distribute the OGC in there (or in the v.3.0 books) for the next two years. And i want to sign a contract."

Where he basically says, "I'll take sales away from you if you don't give me free stuff." I stand by my characterization. In other places the implication is that he'll distribute your OGC earlier if you annoy him by crippling the OGC.

Pshaw. Vanity pdf publishing is too easy; the barrier to entry is low (the cost of a pdf program), it costs you nothing but your free time, and there are no sunk costs like there are in a print run, so you won't go broke doing it. Stuff will never stop being published.

But if 3E becomes unsupportable because of it (which admittedly, is all highly theoretical) it will get smaller generation by generation. How tiny of a minority is Diaglo here? That could be the OGL market twenty-five years. Could be.

I need to nip this in the bud.

WotC cannot "revoke" the OGL. That's the whole point of an open license- it's self-perpetuating. That's why when you use OGC, you have to make your derived content OGC as well.

That's why I said that one option for WoTC would be to produce a 4.0 DND without an OGL. Make it different enough, and the majority of players switch, and all that OGL becomes less usable, and the free-DND crowd becomes like the current crop of 1st edition gamers - a very small minority when compared to those playing the current edition.

I understand that they can't revoke the 3.0/3.5 OGL. That doesn't mean they need to follow it or future versions of the game, I would think.

This is a tiny industry. D20 is already hemmoraging publishers. Do you want to give them an incentive to leave d20, or an incentive to stay?