thread about OGL and fan campaign sites?
- Thread starter GlassJaw
- Start date
Desdichado
Hero
It's pretty much the same as for any publisher, really. All I did was reread the OGL and the d20 license very closely (although technically my website is OGL, not d20, as I haven't bothered complying with the specifics of the d20 license, or putting the d20 logo on them.)
The tricky part is art, and without specific written permission, you're probably better off not using anyone else's art.
The tricky part is art, and without specific written permission, you're probably better off not using anyone else's art.
Steel_Wind
Legend
Lorraine Williams is no longer at the helm of D&D.
While complying with the OGL is a fine thing, and any answer which recommended it would be - of course - the academically "correct" answer, the fact that you did NOT comply with it for your fan based campaign site, in respect of which you are not selling material, is really a very different question than confronts a publisher in its practical effect.
Does the fact that you are a fan site "change" the law of copyright? No it does not.
As a practical matter, does it change the likelihood of anyone caring at all what you do?
Most assuredly it does.
The practical answer is that if you do what you like and are not selling the material, shy of reprinting massive amounts of material so that you have a real adverse commercial effect on the rights holder in your doing whatever it is that you are trying to do - no one is going to care much and the chances of an injunction, lawsuit or even a cease and desist letter are woefully remote.
The correct practical answer is simple: spend more of your mental energy on your site - and less of it being concerned with the issues raised in this thread.
While complying with the OGL is a fine thing, and any answer which recommended it would be - of course - the academically "correct" answer, the fact that you did NOT comply with it for your fan based campaign site, in respect of which you are not selling material, is really a very different question than confronts a publisher in its practical effect.
Does the fact that you are a fan site "change" the law of copyright? No it does not.
As a practical matter, does it change the likelihood of anyone caring at all what you do?
Most assuredly it does.
The practical answer is that if you do what you like and are not selling the material, shy of reprinting massive amounts of material so that you have a real adverse commercial effect on the rights holder in your doing whatever it is that you are trying to do - no one is going to care much and the chances of an injunction, lawsuit or even a cease and desist letter are woefully remote.
The correct practical answer is simple: spend more of your mental energy on your site - and less of it being concerned with the issues raised in this thread.
Last edited:
Desdichado
Hero
Well, I wasn't quite ready to go there, but yeah, Steel_Wind covered it pretty well. Even if you're not correct in your application of the OGL, or any other copyright law, nobody really cares. Even professional publications have blown it in the past without any repurcussion.GlassJaw said:
wedgeski
Adventurer
Some of the advice sounds a bit fly-by-night for my taste but there are more experienced people than me on this thread. In terms of sites designed to be used by only your players, I dealt with this problem very simply: password protect areas with potentially infringing material. That way the internet at large has no access to it.
2WS-Steve
First Post
Morrus has an article on WotC's policy regarding fan sites posted in the articles section. It's pretty loosey goosey but the info did at least come from WotC (at some time in the past).
Henry
Autoexreginated
GlassJaw said:
To put it simply -- it depends on how legal you want to go. (I, of course, am not a lawyer, and this is by no means legal advice, so ponder this at your own risk):
If one wants to jaywalk on an empty street at 2 a.m. at night, it's still illegal.
If one wants to jaywalk in front of a policeman, at rush hour, it's still illegal.
One will far less likely get you a fine. The policeman, while not necessarily caring what you do on an empty street early in the morning, is duty-bound to stop you if you're in flagrante delecto.
In the past, other websites have had this happen, and the absolute worst they got was a "cease and desist" order from lawyers with a "breach and cure" period attached.
So, in a nutshell, it depends on how legal you want to go.
Desdichado
Hero
I purposefully went with the approach (on my current campaign website) that I wanted to be completely legal. Anything I've posted that is rules oriented is carefully documented. Some rules are my own, but most are not. For convienience, each subpage has a separate title as a document, and therefore has a separate copy of the OGL with a separate section 15. As I said earlier, I decided not to even mess with the d20 license itself; technically my site is OGL rather than d20 simply because of that.
And I don't have any art that I didn't make myself. Which means that (as of yet) I don't have any art. I can do some that's any much worse than some I've seen in print in some recent d20 products, but I haven't gotten around to it yet...
Other than that, I looked at the FAQ for the OGL on the Wizards website, read the OGL several times carefully, and looked at any Q&A articles on the issue, of which there are a few posted on the site. I got some feedback from some other publishers as well, who's information I was using. I was surprised to find that many of them had not done their own section 15s correctly, and I was unclear on how to proceed with my own (for example, Freeport is incorrect, and I use the Freeport firearms rules, with the proper names of the weapons changed.)
I'm not sure of a thread you're referring to, but pretty much anyone can find the information they need in the articles and interviews section of this site, the Wizards website on d20, and the text of the OGL itself.
And I don't have any art that I didn't make myself. Which means that (as of yet) I don't have any art. I can do some that's any much worse than some I've seen in print in some recent d20 products, but I haven't gotten around to it yet...
Other than that, I looked at the FAQ for the OGL on the Wizards website, read the OGL several times carefully, and looked at any Q&A articles on the issue, of which there are a few posted on the site. I got some feedback from some other publishers as well, who's information I was using. I was surprised to find that many of them had not done their own section 15s correctly, and I was unclear on how to proceed with my own (for example, Freeport is incorrect, and I use the Freeport firearms rules, with the proper names of the weapons changed.)
I'm not sure of a thread you're referring to, but pretty much anyone can find the information they need in the articles and interviews section of this site, the Wizards website on d20, and the text of the OGL itself.
