kenjib said:
From a chat with Chris Pramas.
So this looks great for gamers but kind of bad for the sales of other publishers. It's certainly covered by the OGL, but at the same time it doesn't seem like "playing nice" to me, but as I'm not a publisher perhaps I just don't understand.
Agreed that it looks great for gamers and potentially bad for the sales of other publishers... but read on...
How do folks feel about it? I'm especially interested in the opinions of publishers with products out in the market that rely partly on new spells, like the Books of Eldritch Might, Relics and Rituals, FFG's new magic book, and tons of other similar books out there that are likely to have their content plopped into this book.
Well, the Books of Eldritch Might won't be affected simply because the spells in them are not OGC. You would be surprised at how much stuff out there is *NOT* OGC and therefore not subject to "re-use." That said, as a gamer, it would be nice if we could get all the content plopped together.
Did Green Ronin approach any other publishers to get support (I know that technically they don't have to)?
I can't answer that one for sure - only GR can - but my guess based upon the current "feel" of the publishing community is that unless they only planned to "borrow" a single spell or two, they probably asked. If for no other reason, to confirm that the material truly is OGC.
I think this is an interesting development and will be one of the biggest tests of the of the OGL system to date. I think it will be interesting to see how this will effect the bottom line for companies who have their OGL content duplicated/repackaged and also the effect it will have on the designation of OGC and amount of content that publishers decide to mark in their products going forward.
You know, personally, I really don't think it will have as large an effect as you might think due to the "lag time." Think of it this way... almost everyone who really wanted the stuff in R&R badly (as an example) already has it... I'm guessing that R&R sales now represent a VERY small portion of total sales (I am not in marketing, but I'm guessing that a graph of sales:time would look like a big mountain on the left of the graph, with the "graph" tailing off fairly quickly over a few months but never quite to zero as time goes on).
By the time GR produces the compilation it's 2 years later. At this point, R&R sales are almost nothing anyway; 90+ percent of their potential sales are done, so it has no real effect on SSS' revenue from R&R.
I'm thinking that the designation of OGC will start to become more of a strategic marketing decision than it is now.
To be honest, I don't think it will change things at all. Why? Well, if you look at most (not all) d20 products on the market today, you will find that they release very small snippets of OGC and most of the stuff that they release is (in my terms) "crippled" so as to be unusable. I have ranted on this several times in various forums (including the OGF-L forum). Some of the worst examples, IMO:
Publishers will release the full stats block of a creature as OGC, but not the name of the creature itself or its description (if I re-use the Fleshcrawler from the Creature Collection, for example, I can't call it a Fleshcrawler, I have to call it "Tendon Undead Dude" or whatever, making it difficult to recognize that these are one and the same - IOW, it's not easy to reference the original). Same goes for releasing the description of a spell but not the name of a spell itself. The Books of Eldritch Might do, to their credit, let you use the full name of the creature/spell/feat/whatever, BUT they only release a very small slice of the overall book (something close to the 5% minimum required by the OGL - the original BOEM, for example, has only the Magical Constructs as OGC - all the spells, feats, classes, etc. are closed).
Now, some publishers DO release most of their stuff as OGC... for example, Legions of Hell (Green Ronin) is probably about 95% OGC (at least the text is - the illustrations are not). Bastion Press' products are even closer to 100% OGC with all text completely open except a couple of selected terms (like the name "Bastion Press" which I think nobody could begrudge them).
However, I continue to await a publisher releasing a product where "all pronouns and prepositions in the text are OGC, but nothing else is." While this would technically meet the letter of the OGL in most cases, it certainly flagrantly violates the spirit. But to be honest, that is what those concerned with protecting every single thing they write in order to maximize profit *should* do... it's legal and makes sure that nothing they write can be re-used. And I'm only half-joking. :-(
So, IOW, I don't think it will change how most people designate their OGC for two reasons: (1) lag time, and (2) most stuff isn't OGC now anyway!
I also suspect that the smaller, less established, publishers have the potential of getting completely steamrolled by this.
For lag time reasons, I really think this is not an issue.
In an ideal world, information becomes free and distribution becomes the means of generating income.
Depends on who's ideal world you are living in. I guarantee you that many publishers would like to ensure that information does NOT become free - that is basically the whole purpose of the DMCA (among other pieces of legislation). Their ideal world is one in which content belongs to the author forever (i.e., there is NO such thing as public domain) but the distribution should be free. IOW, information is "pay-as-you-get" but "at least you get free shipping."
In my ideal world, both information and distribution are free. The internet has cut distribution costs to almost zero (there are of course bandwidth costs that must be footed, but let's be honest... electronic distribution is fairly close to free). It's the information we are paying for.
This would make things like Bearshare/Morpheus/Grokster/Kazaa distribution no longer as much of an issue. The OGL doesn't fully embrace this kind of model though - it's only half-way there.
The OGL only doesn't embrace it because it doesn't require EVERYTHING to be OGC.
What's the future of d20 publishing here? I see some very radical developments potentially arising from this publication. This really does put a lot of power in the hands of production and distribution at the expense of authorship and intellectual property.
Again, due to "lag time" and limited OGC designation I have to disagree... authors really aren't forced to put much out there as OGC (the stuff that is put into the hands of production and distribution). If the author didn't want to put stuff out there, he wouldn't have designated it as OGC.
Authorship isn't an issue... you retain credit (if only in Section 15) as an author. Intellectual Property (IMO, a gross misnomer, but that's another rant) is not compromised either... anything you really want to keep as Intellectual Property, you simply don't release as OGC.
The bottom line is that the only stuff that is out there for production/distribution to "play with" is the stuff that authors specifically said, "I don't really have an abiding need to claim this as Intellectual Property." The author has made the decision that a particular piece Intellectual Property is not important as something from which every potential dollar should be wrung when he designates it as OGC.
And of course, this keeps out the logical conclusion of production/distribution that the internet provides... what happens to the producers/distributors that are in it to make money when some fanboy can undercut their costs by providing the information for free over the internet (legally, I might add... anything a Publisher can do in a book with the OGL, anyone can do on the web with the OGL).
At the same time, it actually seems like the "vision" of OGL coming to full fruition. Are we headed toward the point were distribution is the only means of revenue?
No. We are already headed the other way... where authorship is the only means of revenue. Walt Disney, Time/Warner, the RIAA, and others have way too much at stake to let it go the other way without a huge fight.
What effect does this have on the quality of authorship when authorship loses value?
I'm not really going to go there except to say that I currently vote with my wallet - if somebody produces an outstanding piece of mostly OGC material, I buy it. 95% of the time, if someone produces an outstanding piece of non-OGC material, I don't. Why? Because I feel that the more I support those who contribute lots of OGC, the more OGC there will be. The more I support those who DON'T contribute lots of OGC, the less OGC there will be. The notable exceptions are the truly outstanding authors (right now, my list contains exactly one of those) whose meals I don't feel bad paying for considering the quality of their work.
IOW, I am choosing to show that, at least to me, the less you try to force your authorship to be given arbitrary perceived value through legal wrangling, and the more public value you are willing to give your work by letting everyone use it, the more REAL value I will give it (by paying you for it)...
and vice versa... the harder you squeeze your grasp holding on to your "precious" Intellectual Property via legality to try to give it perceived value, the less likely I am to give it REAL value by paying for it.
Which has more value to the public at large, Beethoven's 5th Symphony or "Let It Be" by the Beatles? The answer is clearly Beethoven's 5th - since it is in the public domain, any member of the public may play it for profit without having to kick a fee back to the copyright owner. We could get into a discussion about how much people might be willing to pay for a performance, but that's not really the issue, IMO.
Which has more value arbitrarily attached to it from a legal standpoint? "Let It Be" - if you own the copyright, it's a cash cow - you get paid (in theory) every time someone performs it.
Now, which has more REAL value? Whichever one pays better, right? Well, (assuming Beethoven was still alive), I will pay Beethoven voluntarily (i.e., "you can use my music and if you want to pay me great, if not, that's fine too") LONG before I will pay the copyright for the Beatles stuff ("we have a gun to your head and you must pay us").
Why? Maybe I just like to have a choice in the matter of whether or not I have to pay for something. By the same token, I am trying in my own little way to incent publishers to release more stuff as OGC by saying, "if you do, even though I don't have to pay you, I will - but if you don't, I won't use your stuff and you won't get paid at all."
Do I expect my own spending habits to affect an industry. *laughs* Heck, no. But at least I can feel good about taking a stand for what I want and believe in, and if more people follow suit, well, perhaps WE can change the industry.
Now, I have published a PDF work. It's not a high-budget project as I'm not a huge publisher. But I *DID* designate all the text of my book as OGC - except the name of my imprint, my own name, and my e-mail address (don't want those effectively in the public domain for people to reprint willy-nilly
and I hope nobody begrudges me that).
Now, do I expect to make huge bucks from this book? No. I hope those who buy it are satisfied with it. Do I mind if someone else uses the stuff I put in there? Not at all... I think it would be a high compliment. If my stuff is that great, I'll make money. If not, I won't.
That said, I also have plans to do with it what I have seen done by others... if my profits from the book reach a certain level where I think, "that's plenty of compensation for my work" (somewhere in 4 figures area), I will release the whole thing (with the exceptions above) into the public domain - not as OGC, but totally free for anyone to use in any way they wish with or without the OGL. Why? Because it's the right thing to do IMO... I'm not going to try to squeeze every last drop of money out of my work... once I've been rewarded fairly (IMO) for my work, it should be made available to all... information wants to be free!
I believe I should be compensated fairly for my work, but once I hit that level of compensation, accepting more is... well... dishonest, IMO. Maybe that makes me a bad businessman (since I try to keep the public's interest in mind), but it's the way I am and I'm not gonna change easily.
Am I misunderstanding the scope of these books? If so someone please correct me ASAP so I'm not spreading rumors here.
I really don't know. Have to wait until we see them.
I may sound like I'm up on my high horse, I don't know... I'm a gamer AND a publisher and sometimes it's hard to walk the line. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but I am trying to explain my point of view as best I can. All opinions expressed here are mine and are just that - opinions. If you want to disagree with me, that's fine. It's great. But don't expect me to agree with you. ;-)
That said, most of the guys in the d20 industry that I know (or know of) are great guys. I am not trying to say they are greedy, evil, or anything else... they have a right to earn their living. I am not trying to attack anyone, but I do try to give concrete examples to support my points, and sometimes that means I name names (though not anything you couldn't find out just by going to your local hobby store). Hope it doesn't come across that way... I'm just a typical frustrating (NOT frustrated) consumer. ;-)
--Spencer "The Sigil" Cooley
