Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8909738" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think it means that. I am not saying anything about &quot;deauthorisation&quot;. I am saying that at any time WotC can withdraw their offer to license their copyrighted work to all comers. And they never said otherwise.What affect that decision of theirs would have on the rights of existing licensees under the existing licence is a different question.I'm not sure you are appreciating the difference between offering to enter into a contract with someone and actually entering into a contract with someone.For about 20 years now WotC has been offering to enter into a contract with me, to license one or more or their SRDs to me on the terms set out in the OGL. But I have never taken up that offer, and am not a party to a licence agreement with them. And I have no right that they keep that offer on foot into the future. (In terms of the FAQ you posted, I'm not one of those they are speaking to who may not like new versions of the OGL. Because I have no licence agreement with them.)On the other hand, Paizo has been a party to that agreement at least since 2008 or thereabouts. As a result they have contractual rights against WotC. What exactly the content of those rights are is a question of contractual interpretation. There are various possible arguments. I haven't seen any good argument that WotC has a power to bring the contract to an end, or vary its terms, unilaterally. I do think there is a plausible argument, though - not a knock-down one, but not a hopeless one - that the subject matter of Paizo's rights (ie the OGC that WotC has licensed them to use) might itself vary depending on whether or not WotC keeps its offer on foot.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8909738, member: 42582"] I don't think it means that. I am not saying anything about "deauthorisation". I am saying that at any time WotC can withdraw their offer to license their copyrighted work to all comers. And they never said otherwise. What affect that decision of theirs would have on the rights of existing licensees under the existing licence is a different question. I'm not sure you are appreciating the difference between [i]offering to enter into a contract with someone[/i] and [i]actually entering into a contract with someone[/i]. For about 20 years now WotC has been offering to enter into a contract with me, to license one or more or their SRDs to me on the terms set out in the OGL. But I have never taken up that offer, and am not a party to a licence agreement with them. And I have no right that they keep that offer on foot into the future. (In terms of the FAQ you posted, I'm not one of those they are speaking to who may not like new versions of the OGL. Because I have no licence agreement with them.) On the other hand, Paizo has been a party to that agreement at least since 2008 or thereabouts. As a result they have contractual rights against WotC. What exactly the content of those rights are is a question of contractual interpretation. There are various possible arguments. I haven't seen any good argument that WotC has a power to bring the contract to an end, or vary its terms, unilaterally. I do think there is a plausible argument, though - not a knock-down one, but not a hopeless one - that the subject matter of Paizo's rights (ie the OGC that WotC has licensed them to use) might itself vary depending on whether or not WotC keeps its offer on foot. [/QUOTE]

Verification