Third Party Character Creation iOS App Removed

The d20 Fight Club for D&D 5th Edition iOS app has been removed from the Apple App Store by its creator at the request of WotC. The creator reports that he received a Cease & Desist demand (although it's worth noting that some supposed recent C&Ds appear to have turned out to be amicable requests). This follows on from the removal of the D&D Tools website and the more recent online character generator.

The creator reports that "I received a cease and desist order from Wizards of the Coast. All D&D apps will be removed from the App Store as they weren't compliant with WotC's copyrights and trademarks. Hopefully they'll be back in some form someday. Til then, thanks for all the support."

Nobody has actually shared one of these C&Ds yet, and others have indicated that what they actually received was simply a friendly email asking that they respect WotC's trademarks, so it's not entirely clear what is happening. Hopefully somebody will share one soon!

It does look like this particular app contained text and stat blocks copied directly from the D&D books. Below is the DM version of the app (the companion to the character creation app).

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[Morrus]

I'll express my opinion in a polite manner dealing with the spheres of influence that I know.


Until then congratulations, welcome to the world of ignore and if you do not like to hear what I have to say in a polite manner then please go ahead and place me on your ignore list.

Bty you are my first.

Please don't publicly announce ignore list additions. If you want to ignore somebody, just go ahead and do it. There's no need for a parting last word.

 

[DaveMage]

Well, obviously some people get very emotional over this issue. I don't have a horse in this race at the moment since I'm not playing 5E. However, as someone who has been very impressed with the initial 5E ruleset (and the marketing rollout thereof), it's quite disappointing that the follow-up (fan and commercial licensing, software support, RPG products to come announcements) has not been as excellent.

 

[pemerton]

Ino guidance on what the community should actually be doing to comply with a game that has no actual way of compliance apart from releasing things under the OGL as a back door.

For me, this is the sticking point. The guidance is clear: comply with WotC's intellectual property rights.

That may not be the guidance you are hoping for, but it is nevertheless pretty clear guidance.

For those who want to publish for money, I would suggest that legal advice might be desirable.

For those who want to publish for fun, the stakes are overall much lower. In that case, I would say it is pretty simple:

(i) Don't reproduce any text from WotC products verbatim (this goes for their free products as well as their for-sale products);

(ii) Don't use any WotC images except in accordance with the Fan Site policy discussed upthread;

(iii) Don't try and pass yourself as WotC (and the Fan Site policy includes some WotC-approved disclaimer text for just this purpose).​

This is not legal advice, of course. Nevertheless, I think if you follows (i) through (iii) you will probably avoid infringing any copyrights or trademarks/trade dress rights that WotC owns with your not-for-profit, "for fun" fan-created content.

What I remember in the interwebs are the people that on their own time and effort that (IMHO) kept D&D alive in their web sites, The did this by creating their own created content

<snip>

It is those people who should be praised for their efforts. It is because of them that I am still interested in investing and creating content for 5thED. I have the financial luxury that many have here on this site don't have. So if I want to so something on a whim I can. I do like 5thED. The developers did a very good job in streamlining the game and should be commended on it. But I know Hasbro and how it does business, and because of their business ethics I am leaning towards Paizo in creating content. If there is as general license that is reasonable or a OSL is being offered it might get my interest back into 5ED in content creation.

For the sake of clarity - the people who have been getting polite messages and/or requests to C&D have not been creating their own content. They have been reproducing, without permission, WotC content. That is what WotC has stopped them doing.

You might wish that things were otherwise - eg that fans of D&D has some sort of rights in respect of WotC-owned content. You might even be right about that! (I'm not expressing a view.) But the law is very clear.

Conversely, if you want to create your own content, I think it's easy to do so . You don't need a licence from WotC if you are creating your own content rather than reproducing theirs: see steps (i) through (iii) above for some thoughts on how to avoid infringing WotC rights.

Have you heard of anyone being contacted by WotC for creating their own content for 5e?

 

[painted_klown]

I'm not assuming. I'm telling you what is known with the facts currently available.
At one time WOTC intended to release a digital tool. That release has been canceled. No subsequent announcements have been made on the subject. Therefore WOTC's intentions to release a new tool are unknown. Having neither stated that they ARE or ARE NOT going to release something, in a capitalist system default position should always be the easiest path for the producer: do nothing.

I have to laugh when people keep bringing up the deal with Trapdoor.

Let's take a look at the facts.

D&D was working with Trapdoor, so that Trapdoor could release officially licensed D&D digital tools. Nobody (outside of those two companies) knows exactly why that deal fell through, but logic would suggest that Trapdoor were unable to develop a product to the standard that WoTC required, within the timeframe and bugdet alloted. If they could have, it would have happened already.

After that, Trapdoor attempted to keep their software alive by switching to Pathfinder and creating a kickstarter that failed miserably. One of the biggest complaints I saw with the kickstarter was that the abilities of the software were never clearly defined. What could it do? What were its limitations? Etc, etc... Doesn't that tell you something about the quality of the software they were developing? Doesn't that maybe give us a clue as to why WoTC broke ties with them? It certainly does to me.

To try to say that WoTC have failed in this area is a stretch, at best. It's more a case of they attempted to work with a company to have these things available, and that company couldn't provide what they needed.

What does that mean to us? That means WoTC had to start over again. Either working to develop digital tools in house, or searching to find a softaware company that could come through with what they needed, clear and concise descriptions of what their software does, and then they need to hammer out all of the financial and legal details.

I don't seriously believe this could happen in such a short span of time. It wasn't that long ago that Trapdoor failed.

Additionally, we have no idea of what is going on "behind the scenes" (nor should we). There could be something in the works as I type this, there may not...either way, to say that Wizards failed on the digital tools front is a bit out of line IMO. They didn't fail, Trapdoor did. Wizards has to clean up the mess and move forward.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

 

[Thyrwyn]

For the sake of clarity - the people who have been getting polite messages and/or requests to C&D have not been creating their own content. They have been reproducing, without permission, WotC content. That is what WotC has stopped them doing.

This. So much this. The Character Generation Process has always been protected (see the 3.5 SRD). The sites/apps that are being asked to stop reproduce (often verbatim) the class features, feat details, racial traits, etc... of content that is not in the basic rules or the online rules.

 

[Dausuul]

However, as someone who has been very impressed with the initial 5E ruleset (and the marketing rollout thereof), it's quite disappointing that the follow-up (fan and commercial licensing, software support, RPG products to come announcements) has not been as excellent.

With that, I can certainly agree.

I believe WotC has the right to do what it's doing. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see them do something different. They seem stuck on the idea of keeping control over their electronic tools, which is fine in theory, but after bungling it horribly for three editions in a row*, you'd think they'd start to consider alternatives. I would really like them to come out with some kind of licensing scheme where software developers can reproduce some content (the Basic rules, say) for free, and the rest for a modest per-user fee. I think the result would be a lot better for both them and us.

However, it's their decision and their property.

[SIZE=-2]*Four if you count TSR's attempts to shut down fan websites. Not quite the same thing, but I think it definitely counts as "horrible bungling."[/SIZE]

 

[Mistwell]

I was there. I usually listen rather than chime in, but there was nothing to correct about what they were saying. It was all fact about how they have been issuing cease and desist letters

So that's the first falsehood (these are not your falsehoods, it's falsehoods apparently uttered by people you overheard in a store). As far as we can tell, zero cease and desist orders have been issued. From what we can tell, some polite emails were sent asking people to stop using some content - no cease and desist (which is the first legal step to further legal action). And you know the only place that called them a cease and desist? That's right...message boards like this one. The original source didn't call it that, and no paper publication I know of called it that. So the only source for (falsely) calling them C&D's is message boards. So someone there was reading message boards.

with no guidance on what the community should actually be doing to comply with a game

And that is the second at least partial falsehood. We have not seen the letters WOTC sent, but it seems that perhaps (we're not positive) there was guidance in there on how to comply. So far the two people refuse to reveal what was in the letters, which at least to me is suspicious. Maybe not to you, but we don't know there was no guidance in those letters on how to comply. At least one of the companies says they plan on re-opening with some changes. Regardless, the least guidance we do have is "don't use their stuff without a license". That's pretty good guidance, it's just not satisfying guidance

There was talk about the silence we have gotten from wizards while other companies/games all have a fairly solid schedule

What is not solid about their release schedule? Looks pretty solid to me. You don't like the quantity of things they plan to release, but the schedule is real.

and make sure their relations are good within the community.

WOTC conducted the largest open playtest in tabletop RPG history, the largest ongoing surveys, the largest closed playtest, and is still doing surveys, and is more communicative directly with fans on Twitter than any other company as well. If you feel there are bad relations, it just goes to show there is nothing they can do for some people to foster "good" relations.

These people DONT go online to read the boards, they are friends who tag along to the shop and are being introduced to these games.

That looks false as well. Some of what you're mentioning is ONLY from being online on boards.

 

[Dausuul]

So that's the first falsehood. As far as we can tell, zero cease and desist orders have been issued. From what we can tell, some polite emails were sent asking people to stop using some content - no cease and desist (which is the first legal step to further legal action).

Is there actually a difference? In my (admittedly limited) understanding, there isn't a set format for a C&D. There's no rule saying they have to be threatening and hostile. They just have to notify you that you are violating their IP and ask you to stop. A friendly e-mail from Mike Mearls is just as valid as a scary letter from a lawyer.

 

[wedgeski]

Is there actually a difference? In my (admittedly limited) understanding, there isn't a set format for a C&D. There's no rule saying they have to be threatening and hostile. They just have to notify you that you are violating their IP and ask you to stop. A friendly e-mail from Mike Mearls is just as valid as a scary letter from a lawyer.

There's a world of difference between a polite letter, and a promise of legal action if nothing is done in a set time-frame.

This thread has obsessed over "perception"...well couching these things as "C&D's" does a very good job of colouring the perception of everyone who hears about them.

 

[Gecko85]

I was there. I usually listen rather than chime in, but there was nothing to correct about what they were saying. It was all fact about how they have been issuing cease and desist letters with no guidance on what the community should actually be doing to comply with a game that has no actual way of compliance apart from releasing things under the OGL as a back door.

Funny how the creator of the very iOS app we're discussing in this thread seems to have a different take than the "facts" people not involved in the process were discussing. He's hopeful about getting his app re-released, which flies right in the face of the supposed "no guidance" claims of those who aren't involved.