No 4E Fan Content Allowed on the Intenet?

[davethegame]

You're accusing Morrus of trolling on his own News page? That seems a bit much. He plays 4E regularly and runs the largest 4E D&D website next to WotC. If he has some concerns about fansite policies I think they can be discussed in a thread without accusing him of trolling.

Nah, he's accusing ME of trolling... the internet, I guess?... just as he did in the comments of my site, without really being familiar with any of the context whatsoever. (Also, whomever sent the link to Morrus to post put a different spin on it than I did.)

The simple chain of events was:
1. Fansite Toolkit Released
2. Bloggers, of which I am one and know many, had some questions about it.
3. I asked those questions to WotC people who would know.
4. Thanks to GenCon and other stuff, it took a while for them to get back to me, which wasn't a big deal.
5. I posted the answers with some of my commentary to try to answer those concerns of bloggers.

Some additional commentary from me:
Fan sites are OK and don't need to use the kit (and everything that goes with it), though they'd like you to.

The GSL thing is a big loophole at the moment. The GSL specifically doesn't cover websites, but is the only official way to share 4e content, which lead to their answer that it's not authorized at this time. I expect it to be a loophole that gets fixed or at least is unenforced.

I think that's everything.

 

[JoeGKushner]

None.

There really is 'nothing to see here'. Post your content, have fun with it, if WotC someday sends you a C&D you might have to take it down. It's not like the thought police will show up at your residence and whisk you off to some secret gulag.

And the strange thing is there's 4e content on this very web site! Wizards of the Coast shuts down En World! You heard it here first!

 

[Mark]

Nah, he's accusing ME of trolling... the internet, I guess?... just as he did in the comments of my site, without really being familiar with any of the context whatsoever. (Also, whomever sent the link to Morrus to post put a different spin on it than I did.)

The simple chain of events was:
1. Fansite Toolkit Released
2. Bloggers, of which I am one and know many, had some questions about it.
3. I asked those questions to WotC people who would know.
4. Thanks to GenCon and other stuff, it took a while for them to get back to me, which wasn't a big deal.
5. I posted the answers with some of my commentary to try to answer those concerns of bloggers.

Some additional commentary from me:
Fan sites are OK and don't need to use the kit (and everything that goes with it), though they'd like you to.

The GSL thing is a big loophole at the moment. The GSL specifically doesn't cover websites, but is the only official way to share 4e content, which lead to their answer that it's not authorized at this time. I expect it to be a loophole that gets fixed or at least is unenforced.

I think that's everything.

Thanks, Dave! Always the straight scoop from you. Much appreciated.

 

[Derulbaskul]

You're accusing Morrus of trolling on his own News page? That seems a bit much. He plays 4E regularly and runs the largest 4E D&D website next to WotC. If he has some concerns about fansite policies I think they can be discussed in a thread without accusing him of trolling.

Woah there.

I am not talking about Morrus at all. My post is clearly aimed at the guy who contacted WotC and then posted about it. His post is effectively a troll and I have posted on his website too.

Please edit your post. There is explicit or implied attack on Morrus in mine at all.

[Edit after reading Dave's post] OK, so maybe trolling was the wrong word. Honestly, I don't understand why you contacted WotC for clarification when this clearly one of those "don't ask, don't tell" areas. The reason I used the word "troll" was because the only reaction to this could be one of getting people upset needlessly (perhaps "nerdrage" is the correct term here, but I am not sure if that is now considered offensive or not?).

When you publicly call out a US corporate with IP that it needs to protect you risk unleashing the lawyers whose job it is to protect that IP. I still find it unbelievable that 1. you did it and 2. you posted about it. Remember, large corporates don't run on common sense and goodwill when the lawyers are unleashed, and that is neither an attack on large corporates or lawyers: it's simply how the business world works in this day and age.

 

[Mark]

Woah there.

I am not talking about Morrus at all. My post is clearly aimed at the guy who contacted WotC and then posted about it. His post is effectively a troll and I have posted on his website too.

Please edit your post. There is explicit or implied attack on Morrus in mine at all.

I'm afraid your post isn't clear at all. My post starting this thread quotes Morrus from the front page of EN World, his News story. You accuse davethegame of "egregious stupidity" and then seem to unfavorably compare his reporting and the reporting of Morrus of being like News Corp. I'm sorry if your post reads that way but it seems you also posted over on davethegame's blog in a similar manner. You seem to be empassioned over this issue, and that's fine enough, but I can only go by what you post and how it reads. I'm glad you have posted further to clear up the misconceptions engendered by your previous post but editing a chunk of my above post would only confused the issue further so I am going to have to let it stand.

Edit: You'll probably want to remove "nerdrage" as it is no more polite than calling someone a troll, perhaps less so.

 

[Umbran]

Folks,

I think this thread is going to continue with a nice, polite discussion about WotC's policies, if it is going to continue at all.

It is no longer going to contain accusations of why people who have blogs about D&D ask questions about WotC's policies with respect to blogs, and report the answers to the D&D blogosphere. It will not contain any more instances of the words "troll" or "nerdrage".

If anybody sees further trouble brewing, they'll use the little button at the bottom of the problematic post that reports it to the mods. Some gentle prodding to please remain within EN World's Rules is okay, but if someone seems to be getting a bit off-kilter, don't get in a huff, or confrontational - just ignore it and move on with more constructive stuff, okay?

 

[Thasmodious]

How about the words 'troll rage'? Cause I got this adventure about troll barbarians...

But seriously, AllisterH is right. There is a big difference between what a game company can outright "authorize", while still defending their IP, and what they are fine with but can't give the weight of "official" support. As he says, someone will quickly take a mile.

The day WotC starts going after legitimate fansites or blogs, I'll lead the pitchfork mob myself.

 

[Jasperak]

Those were in the General Forum at various times over the last year. I don't recall if they were ever covered on the news page. You might do a site search of the General Forum to find out more.

That might have been one of them but at least two were American (or English) sites, anyway.

Okay, I was just wondering if there was anything that I had missed recently. Thanks.

 

[jeffh]

That's not what they said.



You can create new stuff and post it on a fan site as long as it adheres to the GSL.

But as was clear in the original context, and davethegame has since pointed out in this thread, there is currently no way to do this, because the GSL doesn't cover Web sites. And not in the sense of merely failing to mention them, but in the sense of explicitly excluding them. "[C]reate new stuff and post it on a fan site as long as it adheres to the GSL", therefore, is currently a contradiction in terms.

This is what davethegame was trying to get clarified, and the WotC answers, unfortunately, completely failed to clarify it. (So in a sense the people saying this is no news are right, but it's still of considerably more interest than, say, "grass continues to be green", for one thing because an opportunity for there to be news on this front was not taken.)

It's a bit encouraging, but far from maximally helpful, that WotC characterizes such material as merely "not expressly authorized by Wizards at this time" rather than coming right out and saying "no really, don't do this". But it remains quite possible to read the combination of the GSL and the Web site policy as disallowing any fan creations of any consequence.

My own reading of the situation is that there's a largely unspoken gentleman's agreement in place that, while WotC could go after any fan site it wanted to, they won't as long as no-one flagrantly violates their IP as some of the card generators and such have done. (For one thing, that's just about the only conceivable difference between "not expressly authorized" and just plain "not authorized".) But that's not something I would stake my freedom or livelihood on.

 

[jinnetics]

I don't understand why anyone would want to repost WotC-generated 4E content stat-for-stat. I do understand why you'd want to post your own characters/creatures/traps etc.