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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 1405555" data-attributes="member: 530">I agree that if WotC didn't want people to get the material for free, then this wouldn't be allowed under the OGL.  It's clear as day (well, in legalese at least) in the OGL and SRD.Any legal language needs to say what it does and expect to be fully used.  It needs to be clear and enforcable.  Anyone who accepts the legal terms should understand what they are agreeing to and be fine with it.  Creating a legal agreement in the hopes that people won't use it is absurd, in my opinion, and I seriously doubt that WotC would make such a big mistake.  It is very clearly bad business sense.  Now, if 3rd party companies don't fully consider the ramnifications of the OGL when they agree to it, then maybe they should hire a lawyer and be more careful about legal agreements they make in the future.  In any case, it's not fair to blame people for using licensed material just because someone else didn't understand what they were getting into when they opened it.I imagine that most of the 3rd party d20 companies out there know full well that their stuff can be copied at will and they are fine with it because the ability to leverage the d20 brand has given them much greater benefit than the potential loss due to OGL replication.  Furthermore, the OGL clearly allows them to determine which parts they want to open and some publications have been more protective in this regard than others.  If people don't want something re-distributed then they can leave it closed.  There are networking/referral/marketing benefits to having something open and re-distributed by others, regardless of whether those others charge or not.If companies want people to ask permission to use their material, or only want their material replicated in commercial products, or only want a certain percentage of open content replicated in any one place, then they need to create a different license, just like WotC did with the d20 license.  The OGL does not do these things.</blockquote>

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