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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark" data-source="post: 2096592" data-attributes="member: 5">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.</blockquote>

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