Open content

[Mark]

I anything designated as Open Content it usable by anyone. If it is OC then theoretically it can be placed online, if someone wanted to. Correct?

If they properly follow the license, yes. But the best way to get publishers to limit the amount of content they open up in the future is to collect and freely distribute that content in an indiscriminate manner. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if someone who does that gets a lot of grief from the majority of the community. Course, I'll still love you.

 

[philreed]

I frequently wonder what people are looking for when they ask about OGC online. Is it the desire to get free stuff just for the sake of free stuff? Is it curiosity? I can never tell.

 

[jgbrowning]

I frequently wonder what people are looking for when they ask about OGC online. Is it the desire to get free stuff just for the sake of free stuff? Is it curiosity? I can never tell.

I always assume it's people who want to get free stuff but want to make sure the stuff they get is legally free as opposed to pirated.


joe b.

 

[Ranger REG]

I was wondering if there are other sources for open content other than the SRD. Each new suppliment has open content but I doubt each publisher goes out of their way to put it on the net.

Any Open Content sources?

Action! System Core Rules

 

[Mark]

I always assume it's people who want to get free stuff but want to make sure the stuff they get is legally free as opposed to pirated.


joe b.

Yup. That's my impression, also. I think the real trouble begins, though, when someone gets the idea in their head that they will then be the conduit for all of the free stuff they can get their hands on and if/when they do a half-arsed job with the legal end of things. Granted the effort of doing any work of this type usually outlasts the enthusiasm, because in the end it does actually turn out to be quite a bit of work. However, for what little does get done in those cases, the potential for incompetence can then perpetuate as each successive attempt to "share" by the next guy down the line becomes a continuous stream of mishaps, each time with less and less of a clear idea of how to handle that legal end of it properly.

Sometimes it starts with someone who is actually "publishing" and distributing. Heck, take a peek at any of the demos you see being distributed. There's no provision for OGC within a demo to not be needing a proper license and section 15 attached, but you see it all the time (demos without an OGL should not be confused with advertising and use of the d20 logo, as I'll hear some contend). It's quite clear in section 2 of the OGL that any OGC distributed needs the attachment of a proper OGL, no ifs, ands, or buts.

In plenty of other instances you'll see a demo with an OGL, but no proper section 15 designation of the new content or publication, and no designation statement of open content (or PI for that matter). Then there's the ones who have the d20 license fully spelled out within the publication. Take a trip to your FLGS and just pick up book after book looking for section 15 designations of the title and copyright of the book that is in your hand and see how many do it correctly, looking also to see how many slipped the d20 license text in there for who-knows-what reason.

Easier still, download the demos from RPGNow.com or the various publisher websites, and see who has proper OGLs with proper section 15s (and which also have the d20 license). If that is in order, the next step is to look for the OGC and PI designations. Now I won't get into the nebulous discussion of what form those designations have to take, since there's still some flexibility/ambiguity on what constitutes a "clear" designation (anyone who claims to know for sure should be asked to cite the court case that cleared it all up for us).

Anyway, once you get passed the would-be publishers who don't all lead by good example, it's no wonder that a fan or fan site (with the more limited time and lower level of commitment than someone who is publishing as a business that usually implies) has a hard time following the lead. Unfortunately, the worst thing a fan can do, if they want to see a continued stream of OGC being loosely released, is to start screwing around with compilations when they don't know what they are doing legally, and believe me, many (many, many) that I've seen do not understand.

*shrug*

Anyway, I rant so little about things like this these days I figured I'd get it off of my chest for a change.

 

[Ace]

I frequently wonder what people are looking for when they ask about OGC online. Is it the desire to get free stuff just for the sake of free stuff? Is it curiosity? I can never tell.

It can be any of those but hey at least they want legal material instead of warez

Another reason can be a desire to have the content in a form thats easy to cut and paste into something you are making (if its not a PDF)

Another reason to seek out free legal stuff is to aquire small amounts of crunch from a product, acouple of races/classes/spells or whatever --

It doesn't make sense to pay $30+ for a book when all you want are one class and 3 spells or the like

 

[Ace]

If they properly follow the license, yes. But the best way to get publishers to limit the amount of content they open up in the future is to collect and freely distribute that content in an indiscriminate manner. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if someone who does that gets a lot of grief from the majority of the community. Course, I'll still love you.

The grief part is true enough but no offense to the professionals here (folks I hope soon to consider colleagues) but an awful lot of D20 publishers overvalue the content they create.I can't blame them -- I know from experience how hard and underpaying it can be. Be that as it may most D20 stuff is workman like and nothing special

Even if the OGL dried up tommorow and all piracy ended there are more varients than can ever be used -there are countless spells,feats and classes just in published stuff

Also publishers themselves won't really be hurt as they mostly reinvent the wheel rather than recycle-- I rarely (outside of compliation products) see any OGL resused -- there are what - 4or 5 saling ships systems? at least 2 for airships,3 or 4 mecha books and thats just the tip of the iceberg

I don't suggest that anyone do this wholesale mind -- The publishers have made it clear this wouldn't be appropriate and we should treat the wishes of the creative folk with respect

However a few bits and pieces or even a chunk or two in accordence to the rules is perfectly appropriate -- actually I think its a good idea --

and yes if you want to post a few OGL spells I had published in Pyramid so long as you follow the rules -- go for it

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Sometimes it starts with someone who is actually "publishing" and distributing. Heck, take a peek at any of the demos you see being distributed. There's no provision for OGC within a demo to not be needing a proper license and section 15 attached, but you see it all the time (demos without an OGL should not be confused with advertising and use of the d20 logo, as I'll hear some contend). It's quite clear in section 2 of the OGL that any OGC distributed needs the attachment of a proper OGL, no ifs, ands, or buts.

On past occassion I have pulled out the Ghoul template distributed by Monte Cook on his website as example of how the OGL, OGC, and Section 15 work. At least partly because I find the fact that the OGL is longer than the article amusing...

The Auld Grump

 

[Gez]

Nope. The one you have pointed to is directly absconded from somewhere on the Wizard's site and trasplanted to someone's private site. Pretty cheezie to not even remove the Wizard's copyright from the bottom, too. If you even run across the knucklehead who did that, let them know that "campagne" is spelled "campaign", too, eh?

It would have been "cheezie" to remove the copyright, since it is copyright Wizards 2002. That's just an unmodified backup of a page from Wizards.com. Now the cheese lies in hosting it on a public server. At the very list, they should have added a line like "Used without authorization" somewhere in the copyright blurb. But it's unmodified, as previously said. I'd say it's about as illegal as Google cache.

As for campagne, it is definitely not spelled "campaign" in French. Look better at the URL of the site.
crpp0001.uqtr.uquebec.ca/
Oh! It's in Québec! They don't speak the Shrub's English there? Shocking! Tell this knucklehead he's not allowed to use his mothertongue on his personal homepage!

I'll have you know that it's campaign that is spelled campagne, since it comes from the French. You could argue, in turn, that it should then be spelled campagna, since the French word came from the Italian. Which in turn came from the Latin campania.

 

[reanjr]

I anything designated as Open Content it usable by anyone. If it is OC then theoretically it can be placed online, if someone wanted to. Correct?

The license stipulates you must add to the content. You can not simply reproduce content and post it online, but if you somehow took all that content and formed it into a larger and improved product, you could. Check with the license for specifics.