So what DOES 1.1 allow?

[Scribe]

I mean, in the snarkiest way possible...

It gives you the right to publish stuff based on their rulesets, with the added features that they take a cut if you do well, can change the amount of cut with 30 days notice, and can revoke your right to publish at any time, while they retain the right to publish your stuff without paying you in perpetuity.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Which, afaik, they could do on DMs Guild and with anything designated ogc.

Not quite, no, with OGC.

With OGC the licence was terminated if you failed to comply with the OGL 1.0a terms.

However there was no other provision for terminating it. You actually had to screw up. They couldn't change the term so you wanted to terminate either. Further, it wasn't just them who could use your OGC forever, it was anyone who was making stuff under the OGL 1.0a - which was actually a major benefit for the OGL 1.0a, because 3PPs could have 3PPs and it was super-easy.

DM's Guild I don't know, but that was always a spectacularly terrible deal.

 

[mamba]

Which, afaik, they could do on DMs Guild and with anything designated ogc.

no, because whatever that is, is not using the OGL

 

[TheSword]

I mean, in the snarkiest way possible...

It gives you the right to publish stuff based on their rulesets, with the added features that they take a cut if you do well, can change the amount of cut with 30 days notice, and can revoke your right to publish at any time, while they retain the right to publish your stuff without paying you in perpetuity.

“If you do Well”? That’s the understatement of the year. The threshold is $750,000 dollars a year (not even aggregate - every year). Surely that means the majority of medium producers would be untouched financially and only the largest would be affected by questions of profitability. Surely even EN World only falls into this camp when there is a huge kickstart like Level Up.

Secondly my understanding of the right to use creators work is not to intentionally steal it but because Joe Bloggs in his basement sells 15 copies of something on Drive Thru RPG that happens to resemble something WOC put out 5 years later and then sues WOC. It costs WOC $10k to defend that suit from a nobody and there are thousands of people like this that they couldn’t dream of keeping an eye on. Even if it’s spurious and add a couple of those together it’s just not worth it.

Lastly the need to be able to revoke the rights to publish is necessary to prevent some idjits publishing Anschluss 5e. They can’t be getting into a debate over free speech if this happens.

Wizards are allowing people to use their own work for profit (up to a point). I would be amazed if this license would have been rejected with such antipathy if it had been offered up in the nineties!

 

[Jack Daniel]

Curiously, the dropped text doesn't explain how you accept this license. No language addressing Acceptance, Consideration, or anything like that. Must've been in the accompanying contracts that needed signing.

But it's telling. So far, there's no apparent mechanism for opting in.

 

[Reynard]

Curiously, the dropped text doesn't explain how you accept this license. No language addressing Acceptance, Consideration, or anything like that. Must've been in the accompanying contracts that needed signing.

But it's telling. So far, there's no apparent mechanism for opting in.

You opt in by using the license, no?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wizards are allowing people to use their own work for profit (up to a point). I would be amazed if this license would have been rejected with such antipathy if it had been offered up in the nineties!

Of course it wouldn't have been.

Because it would be seen as trying to improve the situation.

Whereas in this case it's like trying to drive a tank over the situation. That's not to say it would have been beloved in the '90s. Probably only a small number of companies would have signed on with it, especially as D&D's star wasn't exactly rising.

 

[Jack Daniel]

You opt in by using the license, no?

That's the rub, isn't it? OGL v1.0(a) had very clear language to that effect: you accept the license by using it, and you use it by publishing something that complies with the terms of the license (one of those terms being the inclusion of the text of OGL v1.0(a) somewhere within or attached to what you publish, along with a properly updated Section 15 and your own declarations of PI and OGC).

This purportedly "complete" text of OGL v1.1 doesn't clearly spell out anything with respect to the particulars of either accepting the license or using it.

 

[TheSword]

Of course it wouldn't have been.

Because it would be seen as trying to improve the situation.

Whereas in this case it's like trying to drive a tank over the situation. That's not to say it would have been beloved in the '90s. Probably only a small number of companies would have signed on with it, especially as D&D's star wasn't exactly rising.

So it is a fair deal… it’s just not as beneficial for 3rd parties as they would like.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So it is a fair deal… it’s just not as beneficial for 3rd parties as they would like.

No lol.

It is not a "fair deal".

That's not supported by logic, facts, rationality, or linear time.

That's your problem here. You're neither Doctor Who nor Inspector Spacetime. You have not in fact, travelled back to the 1990s to provide this wonderful licence to the unenlightened, Nirvana-listening, plaid-wearing denizens of that time.

Is is the year 2023 AD and there is only war an existing licencing agreement, which for 20+ years, has purported to be impossible to retract. It kind of looks, as we analyze this further, that actually maybe the OGL 1.0a really isn't possible to deauthorize, and WotC really just wishes it was. That maybe, if push comes to shove, Tenkar was right that it was opt-in. But the WotC comments in the agreement suggest otherwise, very clearly. So either it's opt-in and they're pretending otherwise, or we'll see them in court, I guess.

I mean, put it like this, if you got a first-gen Tesla Roadster (2008) and took it back to say, 1995, it would be amazing piece of technology, people would be delighted, amazed, fawning over you. But if you declared in 2023, that you were going to do an Over-the-Air update to all Teslas made since, bricking them, and in return, you'd be offering Tesla Roadsters (2008 model) to everyone as replacements, people would be outstandingly mad.

What your problem here really is, is linear time though. I'm sorry buddy but until the Tardis is working, we have to live in the present. What's a good deal in 2023 is different to what was a good deal in 1995. You know this.