Legal Eagle has entered the chat, about OGL 1.1

[Ruin Explorer]

Legally speaking, for most of the content creators the OGL was and is useless, even if it does make them feel safe.

No.

That's a misunderstanding that a lot of people have because he didn't cover the OGC aspect of the OGL, except as if it was the SRD only. This seems to be misunderstanding he gained by talking to people, so I don't blame him for it.

It's not "legally useless". On the contrary, it provides legal safe harbour for content sharing. Not just of SRDs, but of other material designated Open Gaming Content (which includes all mechanics of games with the OGL).

The fact that you thus don't need to spring for lawyer and brace for lawsuits is huge, and very far from useless.

What he's trying to express is that you can, in fact, make a D&D-compatible product without the OGL or anything like it, but you WILL need to spring for a lawyer and brace for lawsuits (which he believes - and I agree - you will likely win - that won't stop them happening though). At the very least, the OGL 1.0a was likely to save you a lot of money.

 

[Clint_L]

Well, he is a Lawyer, with a channel focused in the legal aspect of issues. The psicological effects of the OGL are not really on the scope of his brand. Legally speaking, for most of the content creators the OGL was and is useless, even if it does make them feel safe.

I thought was sort of his point - that the OGL is more of a legal tactic than a legal necessity. It's meant to give the impression that WOtC has more authority than it actually does, and so coerce folks into publishing in the WotC-verse.

Edit: I also like that he starts by pointing out that context is everything: if Disney had suddenly released an OGL 1.1 for their content, we would be singing their praises for becoming radically more generous.