D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[Parmandur]

Didn't the Baur AMA happen a few months after the launch of Tiamat's fun adventure? Was it done at Morrus or WotC's initiative?

And again, no Baker promo for PotA. Sort of weird.

I reference the AMA not because it is a promo, but because Baur gives some details on the process. He did some press interviews at the time, and on Twitter he was plugging it. Baker ditto on PotA via social media.

 

[pemerton]

One thing that's interesting about adventures in general is that very often a group can get a good experience even from a bad adventure - either the DM adapts the thing to mask to problems, or the group takes a path that simply avoids the problem areas

A related question is "what does it mean to use an adventure"?

In my case, "using a module" means incorporating certain parts of the module backstory into my campaign, including locations, NPCs and/or confllicts; and using maps or encounter set-ups from the module in play.

I don't think I've ever just used a module "as written" (or at least not for over thirty years!). Certainly not a module (like Bastion of Broken Souls, or the 4e modules I mentioned), that presuppose a dynamic story-line with player buy-in. But this is true even for more static, dungeon-crawl-y adventures: for instance, the last time I ran Castle Amber was for a brief 3E campaign in 2000, and (besides having to convert to 3E as we went along) I adjusted backstory to give the adventure some sort of connection to the loose campaign backstory that our game was pre-supposing.

 

[MoonSong]

On removing the OGL, I just had a weird idea that could work.

Step 1.- Incorporate a new company (call it Mexican WotC?) in Mexico. And a new Wotc in America.
Step 2.- Desincorporate the original Wotc, give everything but D&D to New WotC. Make Mexican WotC heir to the RPG rights and copyrights.
Step 3.- Have the d&D company issue basically a reprint of the SRD (word by word) as a cheap book. Distribute it worldwide.
Step 4.- Move all licensing to Mexican WotC.
Step 5.- Profit! the OGL stops having effect. (Mexican copyright law makes all rights licensing temporal, and you cannot give them out, and less for free. By making a mexican WotC, all copyrights become established in Mexico, which has a very rigid copyright law, and under it, the OGL isn't legal, by forcing all providers to use Mexican law for contracts they have to accept the MExican law that makes the oGL illegal.)

 

[Shasarak]

On removing the OGL, I just had a weird idea that could work.

Step 1.- Incorporate a new company (call it Mexican WotC?) in Mexico. And a new Wotc in America.
Step 2.- Desincorporate the original Wotc, give everything but D&D to New WotC. Make Mexican WotC heir to the RPG rights and copyrights.
Step 3.- Have the d&D company issue basically a reprint of the SRD (word by word) as a cheap book. Distribute it worldwide.
Step 4.- Move all licensing to Mexican WotC.
Step 5.- Profit! the OGL stops having effect. (Mexican copyright law makes all rights licensing temporal, and you cannot give them out, and less for free. By making a mexican WotC, all copyrights become established in Mexico, which has a very rigid copyright law, and under it, the OGL isn't legal, by forcing all providers to use Mexican law for contracts they have to accept the MExican law that makes the oGL illegal.)

Well at least the lawyers will make some money off that plan.

Does anyone other then Mexico actually use Mexican law?

 

[pemerton]

On removing the OGL, I just had a weird idea that could work.

I don't really follow your idea (eg what is "the D&D company"? and what is the point of issuing a reprint of the SRD? and what do you mean by "move all licensing to Mexican WotC"?).

Even if all IP rights in respect of D&D were assigned to a Mexican company, I can't see how that would affect the validity of perpetual licences that have already been issued by WotC to 3PP in respect of the SRD. And if the goal is to stop new licences being created, then WotC can just revoke its notice that the SRD is OGC, as I discussed upthread.

 

[jmucchiello]

Step 4 doesn't affect existing OGL licenses already in effect. It only prevents new licenses from being made. Any one wanting to continue using the SRD would just have to take the information from some other source of the SRD, such as the book reprints Mongoose made years ago, or the d20srd website, or any number of other books that contain most of the SRD. WotC no longer sourcing the SRD does nothing to stop people from sublicensing those same SRD contents from 3rd parties.

 

[Mark CMG]

Any one wanting to continue using the SRD would just have to take the information from some other source of the SRD

Folks should probably grab it now before it becomes unavailable due to the license being rescinded.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/17705/Aid-SRD-35-Revised-Full-Bundle

 

[MoonSong]

Well at least the lawyers will make some money off that plan.

Does anyone other then Mexico actually use Mexican law?

I don't really follow your idea (eg what is "the D&D company"? and what is the point of issuing a reprint of the SRD? and what do you mean by "move all licensing to Mexican WotC"?).

Even if all IP rights in respect of D&D were assigned to a Mexican company, I can't see how that would affect the validity of perpetual licences that have already been issued by WotC to 3PP in respect of the SRD. And if the goal is to stop new licences being created, then WotC can just revoke its notice that the SRD is OGC, as I discussed upthread.

Step 4 doesn't affect existing OGL licenses already in effect. It only prevents new licenses from being made. Any one wanting to continue using the SRD would just have to take the information from some other source of the SRD, such as the book reprints Mongoose made years ago, or the d20srd website, or any number of other books that contain most of the SRD. WotC no longer sourcing the SRD does nothing to stop people from sublicensing those same SRD contents from 3rd parties.

Step 4 is to reassert the full text of the SRD and the OGL as copyrights as a mexican company, mexican companies have to follow mexican copyright law, and under mexican copyright law, they can only licence copyrighted works if it is temporal, for a specific purpose, and in exchange for royalties. The OGL wouldn't work as a valid license anymore, and nobody would be able to reprint the license ever again -and without the license you cannot use any open game content, so no more chances to print more pathfinder books, fate book, C&C books or anything...

 

[pemerton]

Step 4 is to reassert the full text of the SRD and the OGL as copyrights as a mexican company, mexican companies have to follow mexican copyright law, and under mexican copyright law, they can only licence copyrighted works if it is temporal, for a specific purpose, and in exchange for royalties. The OGL wouldn't work as a valid license anymore, and nobody would be able to reprint the license ever again

This doesn't respond to the point that existing licences, issued by WotC over the past 15 years and still in force (because perpetual), would remain in force.

You seem to be asserting that an assignment of copyrights in the OGL and SRD to a Mexican company would extinguish all those licences. Whereas it seems to me that all those licences would burden any assignment - especially because the assignment would be taking place according to the law of the US and whatever state WotC is incorporated in (Washington?).

I can't imagine any non-Mexican court, in resolving the conflicts of laws question to which you scenario gives rise, holding that the assignment of the copyrights to a Mexican company extinguished licences that were otherwise valid and not subject to extinguishment under the law of the forum. To be honest, I'd be a little surprised if a Mexican court would rule this way.

 

[jmucchiello]

Step 4 is to reassert the full text of the SRD and the OGL as copyrights as a mexican company, mexican companies have to follow mexican copyright law, and under mexican copyright law, they can only licence copyrighted works if it is temporal, for a specific purpose, and in exchange for royalties. The OGL wouldn't work as a valid license anymore, and nobody would be able to reprint the license ever again -and without the license you cannot use any open game content, so no more chances to print more pathfinder books, fate book, C&C books or anything...

You can't change the copyright date of something that is already copyrighted. No matter what is done in Mexico, I can take existing copies of the SRD with their existing copyright notices and use the OGL bundled with them with its existing 2000 copyright. You can also take the third party versions of the SRD and enter into the OGL with that third party to gain access to the SRD. It doesn't matter what WotC does in your hypothetical Mexican scenario. The SRD exists in places right now completely outside the control of WotC. There are perfect copies of the SRD PRINTED by 3rd parties (Mongoose released one). Mark's CMG company sells the verbatim SRD as a PDF. I'm sure there are more of them.

Worst case, I could take the existing OGL based retro versions of D&D and reconstruct 3rd edition D&D from them.

It's a wonderful thought experiment. But men in black making the entire population forget the SRD ever existed by going door to door to eliminate "the OGL menace" has a greater chance of succeeding than legal wrangling a viral, open source license.