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Message: <blockquote data-quote="czak" data-source="post: 5810900" data-attributes="member: 60571">Yeah, it sort of evolved out of the OGL / OSRIC licensing discussion. But I can swing the conversation back round that way by looking at the GSL - there are clauses in the GSL specifically designed to prevent another OSRIC jurisdiction issue and to circumvent the common law doctrines around contracts we've been discussing.For example:[sblock][/sblock]Clause 18 forces a venue and a choice of law on licensees - which gets around the common law rules / conflict rules of what law governs a contract (typically where the contract is signed). This prevents the strategy that the publisher of OSRIC used - publish in a location that has a more favourable costs regime and a more familiar law (cheaper to get advice in your home jurisdiction than try to hire a lawyer in Washington to advise you).[sblock][/sblock]9.4 Allows WOTC to get costs, and opens up equitable remedies - something not typically allowed for a contracts case - the usual remedy for breaching a contract is just a damages (money) award. Normally breaching a contract isn't seen as immoral - its a rational economic decision and you just pay money to compensate the otherside. This might modify the old sword vs shield thing with equity as well, but its been a while since I've looked at equitable remedies.[sblock][/sblock]10.4 Lets Wizard's go for injunctive relief - a powerful equitable remedy that allows you to bar someone from taking an action (or force them to take an action) before a case has been decided. For example, greenpeace might run to court try to get an injunction to prevent the logging of an old growth forest before a trial actually starts or is brought. Normally you have to get over a pretty high hurdle (irreparable harm) and post a sizable bond (which gets paid out if you lose) in order to get an injunction, things like preventing someone from pulling the plug on a loved one, or destroying a heritage building or hunting a whale - you probably wouldn't be able to get one preventing the sale of an rpg book without this clause.And you have to pay Wizard's legal fees. This again discourages pushing the edges of the license - you are going  to have to pay their legal fees if you want to dispute or disagree about  the terms of the license. Again not typical for an american  jurisdiction, where you usually don't pay the other sides fees.[sblock][/sblock]16 Gets wizards out of the doctrine of contra proferentem that I mispelled earlier. Normally in a standard form contract like this any ambiguity is resolved in favour of the party who didn't draft the contract (or against wizards) - this clause gets around that.You can compared the GSL to Paizo's compatability license (<a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility" target="_blank">http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility</a>) and see some similarities (choice of venue/law clause) and some differences (construction, fees, equitable remedies etc..) Or the OGL which doesn't even have a choice of law clause. The first version of the GSL had some other fun clauses iirc.Comparing all the licenses you can see that Paizo really bought into the whole ecosystem / network philosophy and so have an incentive to provide a more licensee favourable license but take the risk of not being able to automagically get an injunction or fees for example.Further to that point, they continue to make the license more valuable by consistantly OGLing their new rules - allowing 3pp to produce support material or adventures for new releases. I believe WoTC has been a bit slow adding things to the 4th ed SRD so new 3PP GSL adventures can't use the new monsters / classes etc...</blockquote>

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