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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 1493813" data-attributes="member: 6398">Actually, I'm going to pull a part of your reply to Barsoomcore before addressing this... This is the "bad light" that AC put himself in. Also, I was only indicating why he received the flak he did; the statement itself is not flak. Alright... Threads sometimes gets two people at each other because of a third person's post. General statements are sometimes taken as targeted statements. You are you and he is he. I stand corrected. Alright. However, my own view is that the OGC portion of the work is too often associated with a company's profit line. The "Crunch vs Fluff" issue has led to "Crunch" being the main product of the d20 industry. Yet, it is this "Crunch" that is slated as Open Gaming Content. Thus, the line where it is "right" for the industry to reproduce the material after its original contribution is an unknown vector in the equation. If I buy a book today and get uber-inspired and create something from it during the next week, how long must I wait before Distributing my derivitive work with the re-used OGC? What is considered a "fair time"? Cergorach gave a scaled time-system, d20X has 6 months for any product. And while I don't know if Cergorach asked anyone "in the biz" before coming up with his system, I know that I suggested 6 months for the RD-proposed OGC distribution and that suggestion was adopted by d20X before I even joined. Actually, this is half-related to the fact that many statements made against a UA-SRD project (or any similar project) is mostly about publisher impact. What I'm saying is that the publishers are fully aware that OGC can be reproduced and distributed and should be considering this when developing their products. This, of course, relates to the "Crunch vs Fluff" issue above, being that there is such a demand for "Crunch" that publishers have essentially stopped paying attention to how much of their material was becoming dominated by Open Game Content and they forgot about the possible outcome of doing so. I think you missed my point (although that is a fair analysis). I was indicating that you needed to compare the attitude difference between the two posts; basically, I was trying to illustrate why AC was in a "bad light" from his post and why CP wasn't. Chris is both calm, courtious, and, most importantly, entirely factual (and I'm not just saying that because he's the head of one of my Top 5 Pubs) despite it being a topic he was obviously opposed to. Now, since you bring it up, I'd like to return to point of "Co-Adaptability Statements". There is some degree of "linking" between products. GR's Shaman references (but strangely enough doesn't require) S&S's Relics & Rituals. The OGL Interlink connects some GR titles with titles from other companies. M&M's Superlink allows 3rd Party M&M products (don't scald me if this isn't accurate; I'm not an M&M fan so that's more of an "outsider's view" of it). Indeed, it seems the leader in "Co-Adaptability Licensing" does indeed seem to be Green Ronin (way to go!). However, does it go far enough? Would it not be more beneficial, to Publishers and fan-projects if there was a little more open-air between those that produce derivitive works? Wouldn't Green Ronin benefit from another entity's product if said product had a "Required to Use" list on the back cover that included GR's Assassin's Handbook? Thus, rather than waiting to release derivitive material, or risking redistribution before the origating source is comfortable with it, or re-inventing the wheel just to avoid the problem entirely, I could instead just include an NPC that uses the Assassin Base Class with the reader refered back to the Green Ronin book? Wouldn't that promote sales and further distribution of the original product far more than huddling over coveted OGC and hoping that no one will reproduce it? That's the problem with the business model for the entire Open Gaming industry; it puts companies into competition for the same gaming dollar when they could be working more cooperatively. I'm not saying that it should be some big, smoochy love-fest between publishers, but rather an attempt to "offficialize" some form of standing agreement. For instance, the license could be as simple as  "By using this License, You may indicate that Your Work contains material derived from any Distribution included by the Participant of this License. You may not claim that the originating Distribution requires Your Work unless it is factually true. You may not claim compatibility. You may not dispute Copyright. By accepting this License, You are accepting the limitation of not reproducing OGC directly from the source; the Item may be used in scenario design (such as a Character with a Feat), but full reproduction of the OGC will be limited to only that which has been altered by You." Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but I think the idea here is clear enough. Now, GR can decide that they will participate. They "sign in" and include the following Product Lines: Master Class, Races of Renown, and Secret Arcana. Now, in my product, I can include a line on the Title Page, Back Cover, or Both, "Contains material derived from the Secret College of Necromancy by Green Ronin." Then, within the product, I am talking about a specific group of Sorcerers, and I include the line, "These Sorcerers may only gain spells taken from the Necromancer's Spell List in Secret College of Necromancy." However, in doing so, I have made a change to the spell ray of palsey. I will then reproduce ray of palsey with my changes. And, naturally, SCoN will be in the Section 15. So, I've now plugged SCoN on my back cover, title page, or both; I have referred to the Spell List from SCoN, and I have left all of the spells from that list except the one I changed out of my distribution, all the while remaining compliant to the OGL. If publishers want to "reign in" OGC distribution on the web, than this is the sort of step they need to take. Most probably haven't thought of it because, per the OGL, it's a no-no; except, however, that the OGL does provide an exception: "...except as expressly licensed in another, independant Agreement with the owner..." Such a license as I (probably most ineptly) describe above would serve as just that. Well, in Chicago (my home town), "California Stops" get you tickets. True, but they were also not released under the OGL and Wizards indicated that, over time, these books would be added. UA is a different beast altogether: It is under the OGL, and WotC has not indicated if or when it will go into the SRD or into an SRD-side document. And, personally, I don't think it will happen, per my comments on page 1 of this thread. Alright, here's the "unspoken critisism" from myself about a project like this. First, we have two-three people claiming to have scanned/OCR'd the document. Second, we have people (like myself) that indicate that they are willing to transcribe the information. However, transcription seems a waste of time if a scanned copy that is OGL-compliant is available; Why type when you can copy/paste? So the folks with the scans aren't sending them (either non-comunicating, held to a "time lock", or persuaded by Andy's post on page 1 not to). Regardless, I feel like I'm spending too much time transcribing Insanity when I know Breakdaddy can email me that section after a few minutes of scrubbing the PI out of it, so I'm getting distracted easily while trying to do so. So I'm left wondering if this project is even still going. Either way, if transcribed, it will be months before it is near completed, thus the idea of waiting months seems kinda non-sequitor. If scanned, it probably should be "held back" for a few months, but we come again to the question: How long is long enough? Slim, I think. Over all, the OGL/d20STL has been relatively successful, although the economy has been in a slump for a while so it's likely not showing compared to the "forecast" made in the bumpin' economy of '99. Yikes... To bad. I'm not going to ask for more details, nor even speculate who, but that is unfortunate. See, that's the catch right there. Supposedly, by releasing material as OGC, my re-use of it should not ever be considered against the will of the Contributor because the Contributor consents to all forms of re-use by using the license. That's the first "price" of Open Gaming; The second being that you must acknowledge all contributing sources in your Section 15. There are several things to consider. First, the OGL allows D&D (in form if not name) to continue forward without WotC. This was absolutely intentional. Second, the writers/staff could easily go their own ways, produce d20 on their own or for somebody else, etc. Third, by now, the d20 logo has become nearly synonous to D&D (indeed, just indicating a product is SRD-derived is enough for an OGL-only product). While the "groundwork" marketing of D&D would be lost, there's little reason to believe that such groundwork couldn't be formed in another manner by another publisher. Cooperative marketing, plugging SRD-derived products in-total would be a big start. Don't get me wrong, I feel no ill-will towards WotC as a business entity; I just don't see them as an indispensable necessity for the RPG industry. Except we still don't know how this will pan out. But one must also consider the speed of this project. For instance, has my having W&V in my material effected sales? Will it effect sales when I add Taint? Will it effect sales when I add Sanity? Will it effect sales when I then take these three and put them together into a single document on their own? Will it effect sales if someone sends me a transcription of Legendary Weapons and I add that? At what point does a collection of OGC actually become a threat to the sales of the product that OGC originates in?</blockquote>

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