OGL To Be Renamed Game System License (GSL)

[The Little Raven]

You don't think Company B has a case?

Considering that the "announcement" in question was actually a discussion with the competitors and they were told "You'll get more final details in January" (which they did)? No. They don't have a case. Any intelligent judge would see they started work on their product with full knowledge that the terms of the license were far from finalized, and thus any loss of revenue because of changes to an incomplete license is not the fault of the licensor.

This is pretty standard shady business dealing.

If you're wearing a tin-foil hat. Somehow their GenCon panel to discuss the future of the OGL in regards to 4th Edition morphed into an official final announcement of the terms in your mind, and there's no logical way you could have come to that conclusion if you actually listened to the discussion in question.

In short, Lizard, I think you've gone off the deep end. Sadly, this means you make my ignore list.

 

[Dragonblade]

Company A says to their competitors "This will be our policy, going forward, regarding our licensing of our product to third parties, such as Company B."
Company B then makes business plans based on that public announcement.
Company A suddenly changes their policy, costing company B money.

You don't think Company B has a case? This is pretty standard shady business dealing.

Companies make forward looking business statements all the time and they are not legal contracts. Companies are not bound to forward looking business statements. Only to the law and to legally binding contracts they have entered into. Company B has no claim against Company A unless they had a specific legal agreement.

If I sell racing kits for Honda cars, and Honda decides they will now only sell Acuras, I have no claim against them unless we had a specific legal agreement. Sure, I based my whole business on theirs, but that is not their fault I did so, and they have no obligation to me. So it would be with WotC and third parties.

 

[The Little Raven]

As for the "OGL" means "THE OGL," even the Open Gaming Foundation (the supposed hub of the movement) has a section called "open gaming licenses" that include more than just the specific D&D OGL, so the idea that people would use "OGL" to refer to open gaming licenses in general isn't so far-fetched.

 

[Melan]

Lots of smart points raised in this thread (by Lizard, JohnRTroy, etc.); the most interesting possible side-effect to me could be the closing of the 3rd edition OGC corpus before the 4th edition GSL. In particular, I am interested how this could affect Necromancer's ability to put out a revised "Tome of Horrors" type product for 4e; the 3e book was produced under a special legal agreement, and it remains to be seen if the 4e GSL will allow Necro to transfer its contents to the new edition. Scary.

 

[Vigilance]

I didn't say it was entirely unjustified. But unless they knew it was wrong when they said it, I think of it more as "breaking their word" than "lying".

I can't read their minds about that, but when confronted about the technical problems with "closing" the OGL, they seemed surprised. I don't get the idea that the current staff really got the technicalities of the license that their predecessors wrote.

It was probably more a matter of the executives saying "we want something like the OGL, only add this provision, and that provision, and oh yeah, this other thing!"

And when the lawyers looked at what new provisions the execs wanted, they informed them they couldn't do it under the old license.

 

[Vigilance]

Company A says to their competitors "This will be our policy, going forward, regarding our licensing of our product to third parties, such as Company B."
Company B then makes business plans based on that public announcement.
Company A suddenly changes their policy, costing company B money.

You don't think Company B has a case? This is pretty standard shady business dealing.

Ever read the huge boilerplate disclaimers most corporations put on any kind of public announcement, denying this announcement actually means what it says, just in case they change their minds later?

It's VERY unlikely anyone would sue over this, since the money just isn't there. But to claim it's not at least borderline is odd.

No, I don't think so, because their "policy going forward", the OGL, is the same as it ever was.

The OGL is eternal, and any book released under the OGL is still as viable as it ever was.

So if the OGL is that policy going forward you were talking about, nothing has changed.

 

[Ranger REG]

From Gamer Radio Zero episode 27 (12:20):

GSL, huh? It's like a rip-off of the other TLI, GPL (General Public License).

So, does that means OGC will be GSC (Game System Content), making it difficult to use 4e "open" material with OGLv1?

Sighs. It's OA and Rokugan all over again. Yet another disagreeable decision from WotC. :\

 

[Alzrius]

Doesn't work that way. Wizards of the Coast carved out a provision in the OGL that material it released was distinctly not a part of the OGL unless listed in the SRD. Save for one monster in one of the Monster Manuals, most of the Psionics system, and some of Unearthed Arcana, none of the material ever published by WotC (outside the core SRD) was considered OGL. That same would apply to the 4E materials.

What calling it the GSL instead of the OGL essentially is locks it out from those who would say, "Well, the 4E SRD is covered by the OGL, therefore I can use any prior version of the OGL if I so choose, therefore I don't have to pay any attention to the release dates." It takes any kind of soothing of Part 9 of the OGL out of consideration for use of the 4E SRD, as the 4E SRD is not covered under the OGL, it is covered under the GSL.

As the materials in 4E do not fall under the OGL, using the 3.5E SRD to recreate them falls into a very dangerous spot, legally. The system IS in fact so substantially different that to make the tortuous gyrations with 3.5E to make it work like 4E would be looked upon with an unkind eye by any judge who has to deal with such a situation.

WotC isn't doing this to bash the fans; fans will do whatever they want, really. They are doing it to keep publishers who would try to sell such products out of the running, and rightfully so. The distinction is a major hammer that can be used to stop anyone trying to publish such material; when money really is involved, that hammer is a good weapon.

Respectfully, Mystaros, I don't think that was what the poster you were responding to meant.

The 4E materials in the GSL won't be part of the OGL in any way; we know that. However, it's perfectly legal to take the existing materials in the OGL and reconstruct them to mimic the GSL materials as closely as they can (including by writing similarly new material).

The 4E pit fiend is a good example of how that'd work. It's called a "Large immortal humanoid (devil)." Now, that's part of the GSL - there's no reason I couldn't write an OGL product introducing the "immortal" creature Type, with "humanoid" as a subtype, and "(devil)" as a secondary subtype, or descriptor, etc. So long as I don't reprint any text from the GSL word-for-word, or use any original intellectual property in the GSL (e.g. the names of brand new monsters), there's nothing I couldn't use the OGL to replicate.

While such a system wouldn't be perfect, I'm guessing it could get upwards of 90% compatibility with 4E (if not closer to 99%). This was the same thing that OSRIC did to basically replicate OD&D using the OGL, and it worked great (especially since they were copying a system that was very different from the base OGL materials). With such a system, companies can then make products that are, for all intents and purposes, 4E-compatible, while avoiding the tighter restrictions of the GSL, since they're publishing them under the OGL instead.

At some point, someone is going to make an OGL-replication of the GSL (and if someone else doesn't, I will ).

 

[Voadam]

Doesn't work that way. Wizards of the Coast carved out a provision in the OGL that material it released was distinctly not a part of the OGL unless listed in the SRD.

What provision are you talking about? I don't see it.

OGL:[sblock]The following text is the property of Wizards of
the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the
Coast, Inc (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.
1. Definitions: (a)”Contributors” means
the copyright and/or trademark owners who have
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derivative works and translations (including into
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compilation, abridgment or other form in which an
existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted;
(c) “Distribute” means to reproduce, license, rent,
lease, sell, broadcast, publicly display, transmit
or otherwise distribute; (d)”Open Game Content”
means the game mechanic and includes the methods,
procedures, processes and routines to the extent such
content does not embody the Product Identity and is
an enhancement over the prior art and any additional
content clearly identified as Open Game Content by
the Contributor, and means any work covered by
this License, including translations and derivative
works under copyright law, but specifically excludes
Product Identity. (e) “Product Identity” means product
and product line names, logos and identifying marks
including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters;
stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue,
incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs,
depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts,
themes and graphic, photographic and other visual
or audio representations; names and descriptions
of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities,
teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities;
places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment,
magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos,
symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark
or registered trademark clearly identified as Product
identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and
which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;
(f) “Trademark” means the logos, names, mark,
sign, motto, designs that are used by a Contributor
to identify itself or its products or the associated
products contributed to the Open Game License
by the Contributor (g) “Use”, “Used” or “Using”
means to use, Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify,
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Open Game Content. (h) “You” or “Your” means the
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15.COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000,
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and Dave Arneson.[/sblock]

Note that the MMII OGC monster and the Unearthed Arcana OGC material are OGC but not in the srd. They are included in the website www.d20srd.org but not in the actual srd.

Stuff not released under the OGL is simply not OGC. Whether you can modify OGC material to create stuff that is equivalent to nonOGC stuff without crossing boundaries is not explicit.

The license explicitly prohibits compatibility statements with trademark stuff (like D&D) without an agreement such as the d20 STL or using OGL product identity without such an agreement.

4e stuff is not going to be released under the OGL and therefore cannot be product identity. The OGL only prohibits indications of "compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content." I expect 4e to have some trademarks which cannot be used, but that is irrelevant to whether you can make an OGC version of compatible stuff under the OGL deriving from OGC.

The OGL is not a barrier to making stuff compatible to nonOGC things outside of the compatibility indication prohibitions.

Normal copywright laws apply to works designed to be compatible with 4e rule mechanics absent other agreements such as the new GSL.

 

[JohnRTroy]

While such a system wouldn't be perfect, I'm guessing it could get upwards of 90% compatibility with 4E (if not closer to 99%). This was the same thing that OSRIC did to basically replicate OD&D using the OGL, and it worked great (especially since they were copying a system that was very different from the base OGL materials). With such a system, companies can then make products that are, for all intents and purposes, 4E-compatible, while avoiding the tighter restrictions of the GSL, since they're publishing them under the OGL instead.

OSRIC does serve a purpose, to support a game system Wizards won't license, and its creator said he'd shut it down if there was a legal version of it available similar to the 3e OGL license.

Most publishers--the truly professional ones, the ones who want to create complimentary and supplementary products from D&D, the ones who would pay the license fee to get the early adopted ruleset--will likely want to use the GSL. I'll bet there are enough incentives for them to use it--can say "D&D compatible" on it--and it will also likely protect their own derivative works from being reused. They want to make a decent amount of money.

One of the problems with the OGL is that a lot of people used it in an exploitative manner. I'm not even talking about publishers who creating alternate PHBs. I'm talking about the people who would compile OGL rules on-line for free from people's products. Here are examples.

Wizards releases a 100% OGL content book, Unearthed Arcana. People start taking the whole book and making it part of their online OGL-SRD collections. Instead of showing support for this with buying the book, people just cut-and-paste the whole thing on-line. I think Andy Collins was right to be annoyed.

David Pulver said GOO released their own SRD for their D20 rules. When they released D20 Mecha, lots of clones showed up immediately, making GOO's own product redundant.

Somebody puts up a SRD clone of Green Ronin's True20 ruleset. He then defends himself online saying that's what the OGL is about, and that you "shouldn't use it if you don't want this to happen". And some people would berate people like Monte Cook for releasing what they called "Crippled OGL", since sometimes he'd keep certain monster names and other items from being reused.

So, basically, the OGL in my opinion is flawed because of this viral nature. It's a virus all right, it's like a contagion. I fully suspect the new license is designed to be complementary to people allowing the secondary publishers to protect themselves from behavior like this.

There's a lot of people out there who want a free lunch. The OGL was too open. I think this new license would help the secondary publishers protect their own content. Unless the GSL is incredibly draconian, it will be embraced by most publishers and I think many fans as well, in fact it may offer the protections they need to prevent the freeloaders from taking their hard work.

If you want total control over your IP, make your own game, don't reverse engineer D&D.

If you want to support the OGL, use the 3e rules. Be like Richard M. Stallman, show that you will only play 3e because of the OGL. He only uses Free Software, he doesn't try to go reverse engineer Windows or the latest game, he takes a moral stance.

The only incentive to "reverse engineering" the 4e D&D game and attempting to release it under the OGL is to continue the exploitation, to say "f--- you Wizbro, I'm gonna take your game and publish it online". You have the GSL, and the game is still being published, so there's no excuse that you can't use it freely. If you say "game rules can't be copyrighted", then do it but don't use the OGL as an excuse or a shield (and I think if Wizards wanted to push an RPG might seem more like a book than a game, legal precedent could someday be set protecting RPG's copyrights, but that's an aside).

I personally would take a dim view of anybody doing that, and I hope Wizards decides to make an example of anybody who does.