Why I only buy open content

philreed said:
Now this means, to me, that if I'm reading the book and it sparks an idea I can create a product based on that idea. It doesn't mean to me that I should just scan in the text and post it online for free.


Should publishers be punished for using OGC declarations like the above?
Whose advocating posting the book for free?

Personally, I thought posting crippled content or highly restrictive content was kind of poor sportsmanlike.


I can understand retaining the rights and being somewhat propriatary over locations, names, characters, etc.

But over mechanics?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Warlord Ralts said:
Whose advocating posting the book for free?

This time it's Mike Mearls. There are a few threads (here at EnWorld and at RPG.net) discussing this latest round of "let's put all of the OGC in the world on a website!"


Warlord Ralts said:
Personally, I thought posting crippled content or highly restrictive content was kind of poor sportsmanlike.

I agree. But if sales are any indication most customers either don't notice or don't care.


Warlord Ralts said:
I can understand retaining the rights and being somewhat propriatary over locations, names, characters, etc.

But over mechanics?

No arguments from me.
 

Morrus said:
What I think sometimes gets publishers' goats is the occasional implication - meant or not - that, conversely, their decisions on the use of the OGL are "wrong", or worse, somehow unethical. I appreciate that that's not always meant, but there does often seem to be an element of that in such posts.
With respect, sometimes publisher's decisions are wrong or unethical (just like everyone else's decisions, in any field). A decision to mark off certain content as Closed when it should be, by the OGL, open - for example.
I agree with your main point, though, that often this derision is wholly unjustified. And this applies especially to the publishers participating in this debate. But that doesn't mean morality shouldn't be a valid concern and relevant issue in choosing to purchase a product. Morality is a consideration, and sometimes OGC designations are immoral.

Warlord Ralts said:
Actually, Mr. Cook is fairly reasonable about letting people use his open content.
... [snip]

But you should ask first, it's only polite.
The whole point of the OGL is that your don't need to ask, although of course contacting the person is polite. The whole point of the original poster, IMO, is that when you don't need to ask you become more creative and productive both individually and as a community (as in the open software community).
philreed said:
Now this means, to me, that if I'm reading the book and it sparks an idea I can create a product based on that idea. It doesn't mean to me that I should just scan in the text and post it online for free.

Should publishers be punished for using OGC declarations like the above?
Your expectations from the OGL are from a publisher's point of view, so you want it to be a resource for publishers and don't approve of free OGC repositories. WotC expects it to sell PHBs, so it expects it to lead to derivative d20 System or near-enough systems to consolidate around D&D, so it probably ain't too thrilled to have FUDGE or Action! or even M&M2 take away from its fans. The open-content-community (a la open source community) wants to use the OGL to set up a creative vibrant community, so wants everything to be free.
The OGL doesn't mean any of these things, it just makes them all possible. The decleration you quoted doesn't mean you should or shouldn't do anything, it just limits what you can(not) legally do.
I think what you're saying is that your desires out of the OGL aren't fully met by its terms. You want the OGL to work for the publishers, not for the free-content-community, and you want it to allow improvement over prior art and not just reiteration thereof. I can sympathyze, but frankly the OGL is just not set up to meet those goals.

And of course no one is punishing anyone.
 

Yair said:
You want the OGL to work for the publishers, not for the free-content-community, and you want it to allow improvement over prior art and not just reiteration thereof. I can sympathyze, but frankly the OGL is just not set up to meet those goals.

Exactly. And I -- stupidly -- thought that others working in the game industry felt the same way. For most people working with the OGC and OGC the concept that OGC is intended for publishers and not free online distribution isn't strange. And as long as the concept of an "all the OGC in the world for free!" website was being thrown about by people without any influence there was little chance of it happening.

Today, though, we have a "name" author pushing for such a site.


Yair said:
And of course no one is punishing anyone.

Except for those that have threatened to stop buying my PDFs if I drop the "all text is OGC declaration" I would agree with you.
 

philreed said:
Now this means, to me, that if I'm reading the book and it sparks an idea I can create a product based on that idea. It doesn't mean to me that I should just scan in the text and post it online for free.
But as Nellisir indicated, what does that have to do with this thread? This is just a thread about how one person makes the decision to buy or not buy books. At no time does the original poster talk about making a website.
 

Orcus said:
OK then, if you buy open content you better have bought the original Tome of Horrors. Not only is it totally open, but we even put instructions on how to reuse the content right there in the book!

I'm coming to your house to see if you have it, a copy of this thread in hand. :)

Clark

He's waiting for the 3.5 version. :p
 

philreed said:
Today, though, we have a "name" author pushing for such a site.
Link? (I admit it, I'm lazy.)
Except for those that have threatened to stop buying my PDFs if I drop the "all text is OGC declaration" I would agree with you.
And there are people who will threaten to stop buying your PDFs if you advocate owning cats. It's the same level of self-importance that the internet grants the essentially anonymous. Unless your sales actually drop, it's not worth worrying about.

But that doesn't mean you should antagonize people and threaten to close content either. Your choice of terms (threatening to do something) is confrontational. You essentially are throwing down the gauntlet: make a OGC website and I'll do something to make you regret it. This is not good customer service. I'm not trying to single you out Phil. But all the publishers who have ever said they would clam up the OGC if an OGC website were created are essentially threatening their customers and I don't think threatening your customers is a very good business plan.
 

philreed said:
And as long as the concept of an "all the OGC in the world for free!" website was being thrown about by people without any influence there was little chance of it happening.

Today, though, we have a "name" author pushing for such a site.
As one of the people that were throwing such ideas around.... for the most part, I agree.
There is still a strong possibility it will fail, even with name support, like all similar projects before it. I'm waiting by the sidelines. If a wiki forms, I'll try to use it to untangle crippled OGC. If it doesn't... well, I won't be the one to unleash this genie.

Except for those that have threatened to stop buying my PDFs if I drop the "all text is OGC declaration" I would agree with you.
Well, I would say what I think of such people but that would get be banned from ENWorld. :confused:

I understand being less inclined towards purchasing products the less OGC they contain, especially from people who rely on OGC to publish (whether commercially or just their campaigns). I can also understand not being inclined to purchase crippled OGC products. But not purchasing anything that is even partially closed, that... will leave you with just about the SRD :confused:
I think that's a severe misunderstanding of what the the OGL provides; there is PI and closed content, that's part and parcel of the OGL package. I admit I'm more inclined to purchase from the more generous publishers, but a boycott is something completely different.

For the record, I don't believe most of the market (pdf or even more print) cares or even knows about OGC, and I don't see this ever changing. They'll just download the free content and purchase products with no care for OGC -crippled, minimal, or generous. So I think the impact of a "boycott" will be minimal at worse. But of course, it's not my income on the line...

Yair, aka LoneDM
 

jmucchiello said:
But as Nellisir indicated, what does that have to do with this thread? This is just a thread about how one person makes the decision to buy or not buy books. At no time does the original poster talk about making a website.
Come on now, surely you don't expect the thread to stay on topic?!! What a blasphemous thought! :p
Sorry, I blame Firefoxe's tabs feature :D
 

jmucchiello said:
But as Nellisir indicated, what does that have to do with this thread? This is just a thread about how one person makes the decision to buy or not buy books. At no time does the original poster talk about making a website.

I think I'm getting all of these threads confused. There's another thread where he does talk about doing such a thing.
 

Remove ads

Top