Is the AD&D 1E Revival here to stay?

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Does the OSRIC product land in the US and do you purposely avail yourself of a channel of commerce that lands the product in the US? Is your argument that the situs of any actionable act is only the UK?

Are you suing me, Rothe? On what grounds?

I'm also pretty sure the US and UK are both signatories to international treaties on the enforcement of intellectual property, contracts, etc.; in addition to extradiction treaties.

The international treaty in question is the Berne Convention. Extradition, I think you'll find, is for criminal law.

The OGL may also have provisions on governing law and where you agree you can be sued when you operate under it.

Read it; it's freely available.

If your lawyer really advised you that you have only the UK law to worry about when you distribute something through the internet to the US, and you can't be extradited, I'd be amazed, especially if Knights & Knaves Alehouse or this site are on servers in the US.

I'm not distributing it from this site, and I strongly doubt if ENWorld would come into the equation. Having said that, Morrus is British, and it's quite possible that the servers are physically situated in the UK (I don't know and don't think it matters.)

I'm not distributing it from K&K either. Someone else is (and they won't be the target of any successful action). The only place from which I've distributed OSRIC is my UK email address.

The antitrust claim is interesting, if conducted in the UK do you have the same problem that if you lose you pay the other sides fees?

I see no reason why I should specify under what law I might issue a possible antitrust claim.

 

[Goblinoid Games]

Yes, you're right of course. It's just that I was a bit perplexed by the preachy tone that was used by some back then...

I understand what you mean. It's really hard to say. Aside from the legal issue there could be other feelings involved.

 

[Rothe]

Mythmere is a retired US attorney (although none of us are his clients and nothing he says should be construed as legal advice.)

Edited to add: I see you asking for citations, but as I'm sure you'll understand, I don't intend to rehearse all of my legal arguments on a public messageboard.

Fair enough, also saw you have looked at the OGL terms regarding governing law, etc. Sorry about the confusion on Mythmere, it makes sense now, sometimes he seems like he is going over the legal picture, sometimes not. I guess he is just cahnneling your counsels advice, heck for all I know your counsel is (and probably is) a UK attorney.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Fair enough, also saw you have looked at the OGL terms regarding governing law, etc. Sorry about the confusion on Mythmere, it makes sense now, sometimes he seems like he is going over the legal picture, sometimes not. I guess he is just cahnneling your counsels advice, heck for all I know your counsel is (and probably is) a UK attorney.

*grins*

She's a solicitor and former barrister; the system and terminology are somewhat different here. Her view is that the potential case "presents interesting complexities" and she "wouldn't want to be acting for the other side."

Myth's in a slightly awkward position because he's the original author of OSRIC. The concept was his, and I think it could only have come from someone like him: a legally-qualified mind, with the time available really to drill down into the case law and think through the possible arguments, backed up by a profound love of the 1e ruleset. We'd been told so often that the OGL could NOT be used to create 1e-compatible material that I think most of us had come to believe it, and I suspect only a real lawyer would challenge the view that prevailed at the time.

Myth shared his original vision with me, and with the help of various editors, I expanded upon it and substantially rewrote it. The decision to publish it was mine.

The original, central nugget of OSRIC (as well as certain rather elegant mechanics, like the variable experience point rule which enables so much of the rest of the system) were Myth's ideas, even though they're now my property.

 

[Rothe]

Are you suing me, Rothe? On what grounds?

Not at all. Just some of the conceptions people have about jurisdiction on the internet do not seem to be the product of a reasoned opinion of experienced counsel.

The international treaty in question is the Berne Convention. Extradition, I think you'll find, is for criminal law.

Fair enough.

I've gone a little beyond my original point, which is really be careful, and if you feel secure, feel secure for the right reasons based on opinion of counsel experienced in the appropriate areas of law. Of course, we all can't necessarily afford that luxury.

Back to the OT, I think OSRIC counts as a revival of 1e AD&D. It has spurred the production of commercial 1e compatible material. Even if it is sold primarily to the 1e loyal, that counts as a revival to me. Is it here to stay? Sadly I think not, I feel P&P RPGs (3.x e included) will go the way of wargames, as game appliances (e.g., X-Box, Playstation, etc.) take over. I hope I'm wrong, especially about the wargame part.

 

[tx7321]

Rothe, I didn't mean to say Pepsi Cola couldn't take legal action (anyone at any moment can in the good ol' USA) and I'm not saying they couldn't drag this out forever (effectively sealing your fate under attorney bills)...that said, waiting around for years until a violator starts making money before legally objecting is frowned upon by the courts (Mythmere wrote: There are other constraints than statutes of limitation involved. In essence, you can't just bide your time in a situation that you're later going to claim was damaging to you.") without saying too much on a public board, these "other constraints" are extremely important. Something else I alluded to in my example: what if Pepsi lost in court...what happens to their IP? They might loose the rights for that intellectual property forever. Whoops! So, speed of action is paramount. And just an informal "stop" isn't considered much of anything. There is a procedure (customary as it is) companies protecting their IP are expected to follow.

But all that said, your basically right, this is not a "clear cut" area of law.

One thing to remember which I think most of you are missing is this: what if OSRIC or ER did get challanged in court, whats the worst thing that could happen. Likely the offender would simply have to correct the violations. Big freakin' deal (I seriously seriously doubt they'd have to pay the other sides legal bills). And with todays printing technology you can POD or do very small runs and still make a profit 50 at a time, 500 or what have you), you don't have to worry about being stuck with alot of inventory (like 10,000...the old minimum run in the 80s when I was in the bizz...and that was considered a small run). Where in some industries this could devistate a company (say a major publisher sitting on 100K books), I don't think the small publisher like ER (or even TLG or GG if they chose to) would ever have to worry. WOTC would first have to give you a chance to correct any violations in good faith (and thats just changing the source document held by your POD printer). Assuming WOTC did make those demands, and the company corrected the product in question, that product would still be closer to AD&D 1E then C&C or any other system for that matter. OSRIC would still be "out there" building Brand identity which gets shared by all the little printers. And then there's the negative hype this would generate for WOTC, HASBRO would just love that....the big guy beating up the little guy...just what they need. :\

 

[tx7321]

originally posted by Phil. "(Incidentally, I agree with you that OSRIC and C&C go hand-in-hand. I'm using OSRIC products in my C&C game, and it would be just as easy to use C&C products in a 1E/OSRIC game, too.)"

Agreed. infact, I'm using C&C material in my AD&D game. Reminds me of the old Recee's Peanut Butter cup commericals of the 70s, "someones got chocolate in my peanut butter...".

BTW, how many OSRIC publishers are there, and what are the company names? I think they deserve a round of applause; it takes balls to stick your neck out like that...to be the first.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I feel P&P RPGs (3.x e included) will go the way of wargames, as game appliances (e.g., X-Box, Playstation, etc.) take over. I hope I'm wrong, especially about the wargame part.

I hope you're right!

Any RPG that's half as profitable as (for example) Warhammer 40k is a runaway success.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

BTW, how many OSRIC publishers are there, and what are the company names?

Counting only those with material that you could buy today, there are five. In the order they produced material:

Expeditious Retreat Press
Ronin Arts
Mob United Press
Goblinoid Games
0one

Counting those who propose new releases in the future, there are about a dozen.

 

[Mercule]

D&D 3.5 is the only true game. All other editions were just half finished beta versions.


Wow, that's fun, isn't it?


That being said, I wouldn't mind playing a game of 1E every now and then. But not on an ongoing basis.

I've still got all my books. I read my 1E DMG just for fun every once in a while.

Exactly.

I fear that whenever 4E does materialize, whether in 2007 or 2020, I may join the grognard crowd. It's finally come to the point that I have enough rules, ideas, and gizmos that I'm not sure I could ever explore all the bits I want.