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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 1493850" data-attributes="member: 530">I have two points.The first is that if so-called ethical use of the OGL requires that you understand some kind of "spirit" that isn't in the word of the license and indeed only exists in the inner circles of some OGL mailing list for publishers or buried two years back on the message board of each respective publisher, then the OGL is a very, very, poorly written legal document and anyone who releases material under it has poor business sense.  If making a free PDF release of all of the open content in Unearthed Arcana is not completely okay, ethical, and uncontested by WotC, then WotC needs to draft up a new revised license and start releasing material under that instead (including re-releasing all prior material, such as the SRDs).The second is that if someone doesn't want people to copy their entire book and redistribute it, then they should not release it as 100% (or approaching 100%) open content.  It's that simple.  The burden of responsibility here does not weigh on the person who re-uses the material.  It lies on the person who makes the business decision to sign a legal agreement and be bound by it's terms.Once you get into talking about "spirit" and whatever else is supposedly implied but not stated in the OGL, you are actually making it very difficult for anyone to operate with the license because nobody knows what the rules are.  If nobody knows what the rules are, then the chance that ugly disagreements will result just increases.  Ambiguity breeds disagreement.  The simple solution is for people to be clear in their legal language and make sure that their legal agreements do what they say and say what they do.Why the heck are people signing on to this license if they don't want to agree with what it says????</blockquote>

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