Publishers Opinion Of PCGen

[Orcus]

Unseelie-

Actually, no.

etools is not an OGL product. So it would have a hard time using OGC. To use non-WotC content, the person would have to get the permission of the creator of that content or risk their being issues.

It seems there are "fan conversions" of both WotC and non-WotC stuff. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Distributing copyrighted material can really cause problems.

PCGen is not WotC, so to do what etools does PCGen really has to use the OGL/d20 STL. etools doesnt. Which is both good and bad for etools. Bad becasue they cant just automatically use OGC. Good for lots of other reasons.

Clark

 

[EOL]

As a D20 publisher who currently hasn't published anything (but is soliciting submissions and will be publishing soon ) I thought I'd offer some thoughts. The first thing everyone tells you when you look up information on OGL/D20 publishing is consult an attorney, so I did. By virtue of some social capital I had I was able to talk (for free) with what, in most peoples opinion, was the best IP attorney in the state. And without going into an too much detail, what he told me was that if "this sort of thing" ever did end up in court (which it never has) mynex might be right. That it may be possible to legally do most of the stuff people are doing with the D20 license sans that license, but with a lot of courtroom nastiness and very favorable (probably improbable) judicial rulings.

However this completely misses the point. The point is that the OGL/D20 license was created precisely to avoid this nastiness, to avoid a legal battle which WotC would very likely but not certainly win. It was a very generous (and very savvy) move on WotC's part (specifically Ryan Dancey's part) to create the OGL and the D20 license and as such every publisher (whether print or software) should do everything in their power to comply. This is the issue that keeps coming up. It may be that if these issues were every decided in a court of law that it might turn out we never needed the OGL or D20 license (which I believe is what mynex is saying), certainly Mayfair games thought so back in 1982 with their role-aids products. But I don't think so especially with the existence of a "safe harbor".

So I think what Clark and others are saying is that all of the D20 publishers and WotC have entered into a gentleman's agreement (in more ways than one) that this is the way IP law should work with respect to gaming (absent a clear ruling) and the perception is that PCGen was not part of that agreement, perhaps even that they were too good for it. Thus the percieved animosity.

I don't know how much I've added to the discussion this late in the game, but hopefully I've clarified both sides a little bit, and then again maybe I've just made everything messier....

 

[enrious]

Ross,

I think you hit a main point - if PCGen's right, why bother with the OGL at all?

 

[Twin Rose]

Okay, long time lurker, first time poster...

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If I understand this, as eTools is not itself OGL compliant, the publishers (WotC) can not release it with OGC data.

If someone else (not WotC/Fluid) decides to put together a series of datafiles (XML/plaintext/whatever) that carefully only uses existing OGC data, and happens to work with eTools, would this be valid?

I'm guessing that said datafile would themselves have to be OGL'd (wow, I can verb nouns) to be legal.

If someone were to release Open Content under an eTools data file, and if someone were not the orriginal owner of that copyright, then they have an uphill battle. First, they have to find a way to "clearly mark" all open content found in the eTools data file. THen, they have to find a way to include a copy of the Open Gaming License in the data file - with section 15 properly updated for each datafile of open content.

Those are two of the most basic rules for using OGC.

The orriginal holder could, likely, release his or her own information in an eTools datafile without doing these two things, but they couldn't do so and say it was open content in any way.

 

[Orcus]

I think you hit a main point - if PCGen's right, why bother with the OGL at all?

Because they will get sued, thats why.

EOL's summary is exactly right. My evaluation is the same as that of the attorney he consulted. It may be (but most likely would not be) allowable to do 90% of what we do with the OGL/d20 STL without it. There is no doubt there is some stuff we couldnt do (link logos, say "compatible with" etc).

WotC has crafted the OGL as a safe harbor. They basically said "listen, we will let you use some of this stuff that that you might not otherwise get to use and we otherwise would sue about, but you give up some things that you think you could do that we would also sue about." That way we get to play with their content without threat of lawsuit if we follow a simple license.

At the same time, from a copyright standpoint, this license has gone a long way to help WotC define what it consideres to be protectable IP. Frankly, it is a genius move. They knew there was a chance people would try to make D&D compatible products, the OGL lets that happen but on WotC's terms. Which is very smart.

The problem with PCGen's position of "we are just using copyright law, not the OGL" is that I am not sure that was their consistent position at the beginning and second, that just doesnt work. They are using OGC. By using OGC they are bound by the license.

So the bottom line is: try to do stuff under copyright law, get sued. Do it under the OGL, home free.

Clark

 

[Orcus]

Chris-

I dont see a way to use OGC through etools. But there are certainly more creative computer types than me.

Clark

 

[HellHound]

I'm just asking if there were any publisher who agreed because they believed that a given product (in this case PCGen) followed the OGL when it didn't.
[/B]

I ALMOST did this spring, when I was first approached by poeple claiming to represent PCGen. I wrote up my permission, but then began reading the d20 STL and OGL mailing lists and noticed the reasonable and valid arguments being raised by Clark in those discussions regardign the fact that PCGen was PURPOSEFULLY flaunting the OGL via a misconstrued argument about copyright law overriding the OGL.

Needless to say, I didn't release my material after that.

 

[Twin Rose]

Chris-

I dont see a way to use OGC through etools. But there are certainly more creative computer types than me.

Clark

I'm not familiar enough with the data files to say either way. If there was some sort of misc, generic field where you could mark the OGC .. and a generic text field where you could include the license.... But I would find it unlikely.

 

[Cergorach]

Orcus said:
Nice try, but no. The license is triggered by Use of OGC. The license applies to PCGen and they are in violation. Plus use of d20 logo and/or the d20 trademark or the trademarked phrase D&D and/or Dungeons and Dragons is problematic, even if there were operating solely under copyright law and outside of the license (which they arent).

Let's see... I have this bottle of air, on it is a labl that says, if you breath this your using the Mr.C Liscence. I now release the air into the atmosphere and it mixes with the rest of the air, you breath the air and are now using the Mr.C Liscence.

The above sounds (and is ridiccluess), but to me it's the same as saying that as you use something (text in a book), you automatically agree to something else (OGL Liscence). That sounds like a law, and as far as i know companies aren't allowed to make laws...

I can think up other less ridiccluess examples, but i hope you get the idea. Now i don't want you to loose your gov-job (isn't it wonderful, ensured from the crib to the grave ;-) so i can understand if you'll let this one go...

Another point, let's say that you create this E-Tools Necro/SSS pack, nicely liscenced to WotC. A smart dude(tte) comes a long and writes a database conversion tool. Now the E-Tools data gets distributed and the conversion tool gets distributed. A user in puts the E-Tools Necro/SSS pack and the conversion tool transforms it into files compatible with PcGen (or any other program). It's a bit more work for the end user, but the result is the same as directly allowing distribution of files for PCGen. (Note: The info doesn't change, just the way it is contained). Your thoughts...

 

[HellHound]

The problem with your bottle of air theory is that when you bought the bottle of air, you also bought the ownership of the air. You don't actually BUY the ownership of the content of an OGL book, and therefore do NOT have the right to redistribute it (just like when you buy a novel, just because you own the novel does NOT mean you can sell the story - you don't own it).

In order to redistribute the content of the novel, you need to secure legal permission to do so. Ditto for redistributing OGC. The benefit with OGC is that to gian legal permission to redistribute OGC, all you need is to follow the license in the book which clearly indicates how to get the legal permission.