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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 8917946" data-attributes="member: 2013">I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.I'll just throw the following in here as I haven't seen anyone comment on one particular aspect of things... and that is the way that the OGL functions. As many have noted, it was based on the GPL and when a publisher uses either the OGL or GPL to either redistribute Open Game Content or create derivative works of Open Game Content and publicly distribute those, it takes on the form of a "contract" - you are being allowed to do something you are normally not allowed to do due to copyright law, and in return you must follow the stipulations for use set out by the one providing the terms of use.One of the things I haven't seen a comment on from the lawyer crowd is the concept of "Contra proferentem" - the idea that when any term in the language of a contract is ambiguous, the ambiguous language should be construed against the party that drafted the contract.  In other words, whether the OGL 1.0a was "poorly drafted" and has "ambiguous language" doesn't matter in terms of later arguments over interpretation - since WotC drafted it, their responsibility as the party drafting the terms was to make sure the terms unambiguously gave them everything they wanted so any power they didn't clearly reserve to themselves in the terms of the license itself, they don't have.So it doesn't really matter whether you think WotC's interpretation of the terms of the license are "moral" or "correct" or otherwise. If there is more than one interpretation over whether they have the power to do something - and clearly there is when it comes to the question of "do they have the power to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a?" - the answer by default is "no, they do not have the power to do that." This is almost certainly why WotC is using the language that the OGL 1.0a is "no longer authorized" instead of the word "revoke" the OGL 1.0a - because there is no language in the OGL 1.0a that speaks to revocation (other than breach of terms) but there IS language about Wizards being able to publish updated versions of the license and that "any authorized versions" may be used. There is no question that the OGL itself gives WotC the power to authorize new versions of the license (without that power, they could not publish updated versions) but it does not explicitly provide the power to deauthorize a previously-authorized version, and that's what any legal argument is going to come down to  - "does the OGL 1.0a unambiguously state that WotC has the ability to deauthorize previously-authorized versions of the license?" Of course, WotC asserts they do have that right (presumably their lawyers are prepared to assert that "the power to authorize necessarily comes with the power to deauthorize") and whether or not they actually do have that right will remain ambiguous and clarity as to whether the OGL 1.0a remains a document under which publishers can publish with the assurance without the threat of legal action hanging over their head will only come when (a) there is a ruling in a court of law or (b) WotC publicly and permanently abandons their claim to that right.(end lawyerly stuff)Does this add any clarity to the discussion? Probably not. There seem to be two parallel threads of thought here - whether WotC is within their moral rights to do this and whether they are within their legal rights to do so. This has no bearing on whether they are in the moral right, but perhaps it gives something for those that think WotC has the legal right to do this to consider that they might not have considered before. As a non-lawyer, when reading the OGL 1.0a with the concept of "contra proferentem" in mind, I think the answer of whether or not WotC has the legal standing to deauthorize a previously-authorized version of the OGL is clearly "no" - the powers of authorization and deauthorization are two different powers that are not necessarily tied together.</blockquote>

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