OGC Wiki?

[jezter6]

Because, for me, just because something is legal doesn't make it right. I have personal standards and values that I will not sacrifice, no matter how "legal" I would be.

Example: Mastering Iron Heroes includes a very cool set of rules on zones. I'd like to do something with those but the OGC declaration does not open those rules. Now many have argued that they fall under the "based on SRD" clause and are free to use. I will not, though, because it is obvious to me that Monte Cook did not intend them to be open or available to others.

This is me showing respect to Monte's decision to not open the rules for zones.

I see it as the foresight to not involve yourself into a legal battle. Monte has made plenty of dubious OGC declarations, and I believe he is probably #1 of the publishers I speak of who are given free tools to go out and create games and make money, yet don't want to play by the same rules and release stuff to others (and this is not an argument on if I want it on the web for free, this qualifies as released to publishers as well).

 

[jgbrowning]

It seems to me that there's a #3 available: make some of the material open content and other material not. If you publish a book of 17 magical pipe cleaners, make 5 of them open content. If they show up somewhere else, even in a free internet location, there are still 12 that you have the rights to, as well as a nice PDF presumably with illustrations and layout and stuff. And if the republishers are following the license, there will be a footnote referencing those 5 to your book of 17. Even if they muck that up, if I mention a magical pipe cleaner on these boards, there's a pretty good chance that Joe Poster will appear to inform me that there are 17 magical pipe cleaners in your book, and that the one I'm talking about originally came from there. I know that I find most of my small-press (meaning non-WotC) d20 publication info through the grapevine on message boards anyway...

There is that option, however, that's almost just like closing as much as possible because I'm now making other publishers contact me if they want to use one of those that I closed.

That's why me and Phil have such liberal OGC: to benefit those people who want to use it in a product of theirs without having to jump through additional hoops to use it.

That's why I'm a big proponent of the OGL: It's fricken awesome! I guess, I'd rather rely on the goodwill of others to understand that their behavior has an effect upon my business rather than try and defend myself legally. So far (3 years running) I haven't been burned.

However, I do expect it to happen one day unfortunately.

joe b.

 

[BryonD]

Phil, for what it's worth, you know that I completely agree with and share your position.

The reason I don't participate in these threads is because it's just the same arguments about how the material should be free, and how if we didn't want it to be free, we shouldn't have used the OGL, etc. etc., from the same people, pretty much none of whom have the slightest idea of how the license was intended and was communicated to publishers from the beginning.

There is no way to convince them, so I don't bother. My blood pressure thanks me.

There seems to be a pattern with you claiming to know exactly what everyone else understands and declaring a fiat on your magical insider knowledge.

You are wrong. But there is no way to convince you, so I won't bother.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because, for me, just because something is legal doesn't make it right. I have personal standards and values that I will not sacrifice, no matter how "legal" I would be.

Example: Mastering Iron Heroes includes a very cool set of rules on zones. I'd like to do something with those but the OGC declaration does not open those rules. Now many have argued that they fall under the "based on SRD" clause and are free to use. I will not, though, because it is obvious to me that Monte Cook did not intend them to be open or available to others.

This is me showing respect to Monte's decision to not open the rules for zones.

That seems like a different kind of case though. That sounds like "oops we accidentally opened the material," rather than "well, we decided deliberately to open the material but if you republish it anywhere you're a bad person." I've been claiming that the main reason why the material is free is because the publisher has deliberately designated it as free with full understanding of the implication of his actions. "Oops" is not a good counter-argument to that.

 

[Man-thing]

In regards to people refering to S15 to see the sources, was there an overwhelming poll on EnWorld in the last couple of weeks that said almost no one refers to them?

I know as I'm building the Expert Player's Guide, one publisher has asked me to have their company mentioned in the press release for it. If I can work that in, I won't use their content. As a moral decision and an courtesy.

 

[jezter6]

I'm not ojecting to someone's legal right. I'm telling them that if they do so on a large scale, their "right" will become less and less as the creators of OGC will make less and less OGC.

..snip...
joe b.

Is there that much left to do that hasn't already been done 20 times before? There are times when I really think people are writing up stuff JUST to be a publisher and have products out there so they can join the 'BOYS CLUB.' Do we need another variant sorceror? Variant bard?

Spells...come on...there's gotta be about 10,000 of them out there, and with no quality control to determine if they are legit balanced, it's just a giant mess. How can you even look through that many spells to determine which ones your wizard memorizes?

Personally, I think there's enough open content to sustain gaming for another 10 years without any new content created.

I understand the whole "we don't want it to be free" argument. I am in partial agreement there. What I am against is crippling OGC or obscuring OGC for the sake of trying to protect content which is reqired to be open. And I'm against anyone telling me how I have to use your open content. And that's where my argument lies. Too many people are acting like they have a right to determine my use of content.

 

[jgbrowning]

I agree with you 100% regarding the negative impact on publishers would have. My gripe is when publishers start attacking others for using OGC in an authorized way. And calling immoral meets that criteria to me.

Ya. Unfortunately, ripping something off wholesale and putting up for free/sale IS and authorized way of using OGC.

Other than that use, I really don't think publishers have any gripes about "morally" using OGC. Just follow the rules and don't rip it all.

I agree with you that it would impact you in a way you don't want.
Can you agree with me that this does not make it unacceptable or immoral?

With the caveat above, sure. I really do want[b/] people to use my OGC. I just want them to use it in a way that means I'll be able and willing to make more OGC for them to use.

That's why these threads always start out with someone asking when someone ELSE will start producing this free stuff for them.

Heh, human nature, eh? I'm not a big fan of the wiki idea for customers because I really do think it would do more bad than good in the long run for both the customers and the publishers.

joe b.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Unfortunately, that's a pretty big if. I had a recent problem with a publisher reusing some of my OGC and changing the names of my products in the Section 15. Anyone looking for my products will never find them because they'll never find products with those names.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean that the publisher is in violation of the OGL, and therefore in violation of copyright law? If the answer is yes, then I agree that they should not have violated the OGL. They should have correctly satisfied the requirements of the license regarding the section 15. But that's a legal issue, and doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand, which is whether it is right or wrong to legally redistribute OGL material.

 

[philreed]

That sounds like "oops we accidentally opened the material," rather than "well, we decided deliberately to open the material but if you republish it anywhere you're a bad person."

Not what I meant. Monte isn't the one saying the material is open, it's other people. According to Monte (I assume, because he was the publisher), the zone rules are not open. Now I happen to feel that they should be (because they're obviously based on the SRD), but if he wants them closed then I can respect that.

 

[Yair]

Because, for me, just because something is legal doesn't make it right. I have personal standards and values that I will not sacrifice, no matter how "legal" I would be.

Example: Mastering Iron Heroes includes a very cool set of rules on zones. I'd like to do something with those but the OGC declaration does not open those rules. Now many have argued that they fall under the "based on SRD" clause and are free to use. I will not, though, because it is obvious to me that Monte Cook did not intend them to be open or available to others.

This is me showing respect to Monte's decision to not open the rules for zones.

The thing is that Monte decided not to open the section, while you decided to open them but would like to limit this to publishers only. I am sorry, but the license says that what's open is open. Monte is free to choose not to open stuff and I can understand not "punishing" him for inadvertably publishing material he didn't intend to, but no one is free to both release and not release stuff using the license.

Perhpas it wouldn't suprise anyone, but I must admit I was tempted to purchase Iron Heroes for the sole purpose of trying to extract its tangeld OGC and publish it. A moment's perusal infromed me the designated content was so miniscule it wouldn't be worth the enormous effort and legal risk. [Any comments regarding it are from memory only, as I didn't purchase it, so - IIRC.]