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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7661127" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think there are two ways of responding to this.The first involves denial: it's not bullying for a commercial publishing house to try and stop another commercial publisher from profiting, without licence, from intellectual property produced by the first of the two publishers. And it's not as if WotC is just squatting on its rights: it's selling thousands, presumably tens or hundreds of thousands, of books.The second involves modus tollens: Let's add to your claim the premise that WotC is not a bully; and then we get the conclusion that WotC has clear intentions to release some sort of character generator. Sound pretty plausible to me!I think it's more likely that Wizard's legal department just doesn't share your view that fans should be able to reproduce WotC's copyrighted text without permission.I don't think it's that straightforward. All WotC has to make money from, on the D&D side, is its IP - trademarks + copyrighted text and images. If they just decided to squat on it all and stop others enjoying it, that might be one thing. But manifestly they are not doing that. They are publishing rulebooks, and adventures, and almost certainly in due course will publish some sort of digital tools.It's their prerogative to decide what the best way to do this is. That's the nature of a market economy: private property owners get to decide what to do with their property. In this case, that means that WotC gets to decide who can digitally publish their rules text.The relationship between WotC and its employees is a topic for another time and place. I gather that by American standards they are a relatively respectable employer as far as salaries and benefits go. The broader merits of American labour laws is something that forum rules preclude expressing an opinion on.I suspect that WotC doesn't regard Pathguy as deserving respect. They want to control how people encounter their game and come to their material. That is their prerogative: they are the publisher.As for their fans, most fans didn't spend years playtesting the game for free. They spent years playing the game for free, ie without having to pay for it. If that's hardship, sign me up for more of it!</blockquote>

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