Massive Open Content SRD

[reanjr]

Any massive undertaking such as this will hurt publishers and burnout those involved. Not to mention the possibility of significant mistakes seeping into the final work -- it's not hard to properly identify OGC in most products but people still get it wrong quite frequently.

I like the ones that say Chapters 1, 9, and 10 are Product Identity. Chapters 2-8 are open content. Those are easy.

 

[reanjr]

Once such a database was created, it would have so much inconsistency in the level of quality that its usefulness would be questionable.

Well, if you truly had a database, you could allow filtering by original publisher, author, and/or product. That could go a long way towards weeding out stuff you don't like.

 

[Henry]

Isn't there some sort of abstract clause that the product must contain some indeterminate amount of new material? Or is that for D20?

Caveat: A Lawyer, I am not, and construed as legal advice, the following should NOT be:

According to the OGL and d20 STL,

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/20040121a

the d20 license is the only one that makes any requirements on percentage of content that I can see, and if I'm reading it right, it makes no designation for "new" or "old":

A minimum of 5% of the text (word count or letter count) of a Covered Product must be Open Game Content and must comply with the terms of the Open Game License version 1.0a.

All the OGL says is that what comes into your product open, must STAY open, and be properly designated.

 

[reanjr]

I'm not american, but it is my understanding that there is a legal term of "the spirit of the law". Something can be done that is strictly legal, and yet not in accordance with the spirit of the law. Are you saying such a concept doesn't exist?

Well, America (except for Louisiana) falls under common law, which I suppose could be thought of as "Spiritual". But lawyers are trained to kill spirits.

preferrably linked to the original products for purchase.

You definitely can't do that.

[edit] or at least can't afford the legal fees to wrangle it.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hi Wulf - I have to admit that I don't really understand this. Why would it matter to you whether they scan it in or type it out by hand? If anything, the latter seems more likely to introduce mistakes (apart from OCR typos, of course).

The only mistake that counts where the OGL is concerned is in the Section 15 copyright designation. The one time that my work was incorporated by a major publisher, they stripped my name out of the copyright in the Section 15.

(S15 mistakes happen all the time, God knows I empathize far more these days, but to just "make up" a copyright notice never made sense to me, when you have the book right there in front of you.)

Since that time, I've tightened up my OGC designations. If, at the very least, it results in publishers dropping me a line first to ask about the OGC, that's great. It's not required, it's not necessary, but it's appreciated and it certainly makes using my OGC easier, to the point that I will PROVIDE the publisher with the electronic files and make sure that my S15 copyright is clear and correct.

You want a good example? Adamant's Hot Pursuit.

For the record, my Section 15 copyrights read like this:

Book Title, Copyright 2005 Benjamin Durbin, published by Bad Axe Games.

Very simple. I also make sure that freelancers get their names into the copyright as well. It's nice to know that, if the OGL is used correctly, your name and your contribution is recorded in perpetuity.

Why is "putting a bit of effort into it" a favor to you?

Because I go to a lot of effort to do the writing in the first place. I am a very clear writer with a very clear voice (that, I think, does a very good job of mimicking the voice of the core rulebooks), particularly where it matters: in the crunch. I am concise. I am clear. I am (I hope) even occasionally funny.

In terms of Bad Axe Games' "product identity" I think that my mastery of the "rules voice" is one of my marketable points.

It sounds to me like you don't really like the open and free use the OGL advocates. Could you say some more about how you feel about this as an author and publisher?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, that's bullsh*t. I expect I said everything else I needed to say above.

 

[reanjr]

Hi Wulf - I have to admit that I don't really understand this. Why would it matter to you whether they scan it in or type it out by hand? If anything, the latter seems more likely to introduce mistakes (apart from OCR typos, of course).

Have you heard of 0-day wares?

A good setup (I'm not saying many people have such, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who have access to such) could do turnaround from book to html in a single day depending on how the book is printed (for instance Malhavoc's books would generally be pretty easy to do this with as they have sparse and consistent layout).

The online document could be available before most consumers could find the book at the FLGS.

 

[reanjr]

(for example: the fact that you can't take any action when dead is, IIRC, not explicitly stated in the rules, but it sure is in their spirit).

Actually I believe someone tracked down that sordid tangle of rules. Something like, dead creatures are objects (this can be 100% inferred, from what I recall, even though it never states it directly), objects don't have an Int or Str and so can not take actions.

Ehh.... I'm not going to ruin the industry here. Really, even if the entire content of every product will be released nearly instantenously, I'd be surprised if a significant reduction in sales will manifest. I would be more concerned about piracy than free extracts (not that you can do much about either).

The thing with piracy is that there aren't nice, neatly formatted indexes for searching for and downloading pirated content. I believe if something like that were created for open content (as long as it is available in a timely fashion), it would definitely have a bad affect on sales.

It will be useful for a small percentage of the already-small percentage that is extensively on-line and uses the internet significantly. As that small portion of the market includes me, I am interested in pursing the idea.

Broadband penetration in the U.S. is up to like 50% of households. I can only imagine most English speaking countries where RPGs are prevalent are either right behind us or ahead. I only personally know 1 family without internet access (middle class neighborhood). I actually look at people weird they tell me they don't have an e-mail address. Each generation is successively more and more savvy at finding pirated or free material.

I work at a company where the hi-lo drivers almost all fall into the category of uneducated, slightly under middle aged, lower middle class and, if I may express a humble opinion, are not exactly the cream of the crop of computer users or anything else that might be perceived as intellectual. I see them exchanging burned DVDs and copies of Windows 2000 and Photoshop all the time. Many of them aren't even aware that this is illegal, much less unethical. I know because I pointed it out to them.

When I bought the Book of Iron Might and showed it to some of my players, 3 of them immediately wanted me to furnish them a copy. I refused, so two of them pitched in together to get their own copy.

 

[reanjr]

I can understand your not wanting everything Open, given a lot of the litte products are mostly rules. But, I do think a Grim Tales SRD would help your system and it's add on products sales.

I personally would download it, mine it for ideas, expose them to other people (perhaps mentioning where they came from if anyone asked), and never buy a product. I don't have the money to purchase all the books I would like to check out, since most of them never see use in my campaign. When they do, it's usually only a couple of spells, or a feat or two, or maybe a rule variant. It's just not worth my money. If a publisher releases an SRD for their book, it tells me that they believe the rules are simply add-on to something else actually worth something, and I would not feel at all bad at downloading them with absolutely no intention of purchase.

I didn't even buy the 3.5 books because they're available online (though all of my players did...).

That said, I would not download an SRD made by a third party. That's just how my ethics work. But there are many people out there with a different ethical standard.

 

[reanjr]

Easiest way would be to simply have each product sampling taken from a given product in it's own file, with it's own OGL setup.

No need to designate paragraph's 1-8 as from one book and paragraphs 9-20 from another, simply split them into two files.
Yeah, it'd make for an awful lot of OGL's, but it'd be clear where the material is from. It being an electronic media, the extra page wouldn't matter a whole lot.

If it's online, you can simply have a prominent link to the license (from what I recall). So this would be very easy to do. Each item has a property defining its Sections 7 and 15 to be added to the static sections 1-6; 8-14 when someone clicked to see. Could have a little license link after each feat for example.

 

[reanjr]

As a creator and publisher of open content, having it be clear to the reader where the material comes from is important to me. I'd rather that it be done as Yair suggested, by having my source product identified by name & with a link to the website where it can be purchased -- for the same reason that I'd like retailers to display Behemoth3's books on the counter next to the cash register instead of buried in the back under a pile of 2E splatbooks.

Perhaps you should (maybe you do, but I've never seen anyone do this) grant a limited license in your products for use of your product name for this purpose.