WotC Backs Down: Original OGL To Be Left Untouched; Whole 5E Rules Released as Creative Commons

Hundreds of game publishers sigh in relief as, after extensive pressure exerted by the entire open gaming community, WotC has agreed to leave the original Open Gaming License untouched and put the whole of the 5E rules into Creative Commons.

So, what's happened?

• The Open Gaming Licence v1.0a which most of the D&D third party industry relies on, will be left untouched for now.
• The whole of the D&D 5E SRD (ie the rules of the game less the fluff text) has been released under a Creative Commons license.

OGL 1.0a & Creative Commons

Over the past few weeks you, the community, have made your voices heard. And we’ve listened. OGL 1.0a will remain untouched AND the entire SRD 5.1...

www.dndbeyond.com

WotC has a history of 'disappearing' inconvenient FAQs and stuff, such as those where they themselves state that the OGL is irrevocable, so I'll copy this here for posterity.

When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.

Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:

• 88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
• 90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
• 89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
• 86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
• 62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons.

These live survey results are clear. You want OGL 1.0a. You want irrevocability. You like Creative Commons.
The feedback is in such high volume and its direction is so plain that we're acting now.

1. We are leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched.
2. We are also making the entire SRD 5.1 available under a Creative Commons license.
3. You choose which you prefer to use.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don't control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It's open and irrevocable in a way that doesn't require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there's no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There's no going back.

Our goal here is to deliver on what you wanted.

So, what about the goals that drove us when we started this process?

We wanted to protect the D&D play experience into the future. We still want to do that with your help. We're grateful that this community is passionate and active because we'll need your help protecting the game's inclusive and welcoming nature.

We wanted to limit the OGL to TTRPGs. With this new approach, we are setting that aside and counting on your choices to define the future of play.
Here's a PDF of SRD 5.1 with the Creative Commons license. By simply publishing it, we place it under an irrevocable Creative Commons license. We'll get it hosted in a more convenient place next week. It was important that we take this step now, so there's no question.

• SRD 5.1-CC

We'll be closing the OGL 1.2 survey now.

We'll keep talking with you about how we can better support our players and creators. Thanks as always for continuing to share your thoughts.

Kyle Brink
Executive Producer, Dungeons & Dragons

What does this mean?

The original OGL sounds safe for now, but WotC has not admitted that they cannot revoke it. That's less of an issue now the 5E System Reference Document is now released to Creative Commons (although those using the 3E SRD or any third party SRDs still have issues as WotC still hasn't revoked the incorrect claim that they can revoke access to those at-will).

At this point, if WotC wants anybody to use whatever their new OGL v1.x turns out to be, there needs to be one heck of a carrot. What that might be remains to be seen.

Pathfinder publlsher Paizo has also commented on the latest developments.

We welcome today’s news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a. We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship. Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February.

Over 1,500 Publishers Support Paizo's Upcoming Open RPG Creator's License

Paizo has revealed some of the 1,500+ tabletop RPG publishers who have expressed an interest in their new Open RPG Creator's License (ORC), describing the group as the 'ORC Alliance'. The license itself is still being worked on, so these 1,500 publishers have not actually seen it or signed...

www.enworld.org

 

[pemerton]

That feels like a common-sense business approach to me - getting rid of the single dependency that could wipe me out.

My recollection is that you are in an OGL-based but non-WotC-centric ecology. If that's right, I don't see that you have a WotC dependency (as opposed to a OGL dependency).

In any event, it's not my place to offer unsolicited and gratuitous business advice!

 

[Mistwell]

(Half way through the thread, but if I don't do something with the quotes I have accumulated I'll have forgotten why I quoted them by the time I get to the end...).

That maybe true if all you care about is the 5e SRD. For anyone who cares about the vast library of non-5e OGC accumulated over the last 23 years, CC does literally nothing (or at least, pretty damn close to it).

Look these are all true facts:

1) You cannot alter or amend in any way 1.0 or 1.0a OGL licenses. You'd have to issue a 1.0b.

2) anything published under 1.0 or 1.0a would have to be republished using 1.0b. 1.0b, because of fact #1, it cannot "automatically" cover stuff issued under 1.0 and 1.0a.

If you want to change the terms of the license used to published all that stuff over 23 years, the ONLY way to do it would be to re-publish it under a different license.

And if you're doing that...why wouldn't you use the Creative Commons, which gives you more protection and more content to use, than a new 1.0b license?

Yes, WOTC will need to put 3.0, 3.5, and d20 Modern content into Creative Commons as well. I think they will, and just have not gotten there as they were simply trying to stop the hemorrhaging initially.

But if people want them to make a 1.0b that covers all that stuff, it's no easier or harder than them sticking that same stuff in the Creative Commons. Which, again, is a much more professional license with more clarity and protections and is not run by WOTC.

 

[Matt Thomason]

My recollection is that you are in an OGL-based but non-WotC-centric ecology. If that's right, I don't see that you have a WotC dependency (as opposed to a OGL dependency).

In any event, it's not my place to offer unsolicited and gratuitous business advice!

Your recollection is correct For my "day job" PF1/2 is reponsible for most of our traffic, 5e adds some but isn't as big as either of those. Huge parts of all that is 3PP material (assuming you don't treat Paizo as a 3PP for forking D&D 3.5). There's still that dependency up to WotC at the top of the OGL chain for that material, though. We're looking into alternatives right now to put alongside that, but Paizo's move to an ORC-licensed PF2 is likely going to provide what we need there if nothing else does, so it's unlikely we actually have to do much at all other than follow PF2's direction.

Outside of that, I still freelance occasionally as a writer, or doing book layout - as that's contracted work, I'm quite happy to do whatever's asked, be it ORC, OGL, CC, or a new license I haven't heard of - I only care about getting paid in those cases

 

[Cadence]

Look these are all true facts:

1) You cannot alter or amend in any way 1.0 or 1.0a OGL licenses. You'd have to issue a 1.0b.

2) anything published under 1.0 or 1.0a would have to be republished using 1.0b. 1.0b, because of fact #1, it cannot "automatically" cover stuff issued under 1.0 and 1.0a.

If you want to change the terms of the license used to published all that stuff over 23 years, the ONLY way to do it would be to re-publish it under a different license.

And if you're doing that...why wouldn't you use the Creative Commons, which gives you more protection and more content to use, than a new 1.0b license?

Yes, WOTC will need to put 3.0, 3.5, and d20 Modern content into Creative Commons as well. I think they will, and just have not gotten there as they were simply trying to stop the hemorrhaging initially.

But if people want them to make a 1.0b that covers all that stuff, it's no easier or harder than them sticking that same stuff in the Creative Commons. Which, again, is a much more professional license with more clarity and protections and is not run by WOTC.

Is the difference that I can publish someone else's 1.0a thing as "my copy of 1.0a thing" under 1.0b as long as 1.0a is still authorized?

 

[Mistwell]

I don't get why both you and @Mistwell stated that there is nothing they can do about it, and then immediately list the thing they can do about it. They could release a 1.0b which is identical to 1.0a except that it includes the word "irrevocable" in a couple of prominent places and gives a sensible definition for "authorised", and then release their SRDs under it. Section 9 would pretty-much take care of the rest. EDIT: Nothing is completely proof against bad actors, but that applies to the CC too. Nonetheless, everything you close off or clarify makes misbehaviour less likely.

Right they could do that, and now follow the path. So now there is a new license which is irrevocable, with an SRD of stuff. Which is EXACTLY what you get with the Creative Commons license.

And...and this is the super important part...nobody is covered by it until they publish using that new license. Which is EXACTLY what you get with the Creative Commons license.

It doesn't, in itself, retroactively fix anything. It can't. If you published under 1.0 or 1.0a, your stuff cannot be automatically and retroactively covered by a 1.0b. By the terms of the license you used, that's not allowed to happen. You would have to re-publish under the new license. Which is the same boat you'd be in for Creative Commons.

Which is why it's not accomplishing as much as you think it is. If you have to republish anyway, you might as well use the more protective and more certain license which does that (Creative Commons). Assuming, of course, they include the 3.0 and 3.5 and d20 Modern SRD in it too (which I think they will, let's see).

And you say nothing is proof against bad actors but I assure you a CC license is far more proof against bad actors than a new license drafted by the company that's the bad actor. CC is outside of WOTC and not under their control at all. You're calling for the wolves to make a new henhouse because it's the type of henhouse we're all used to.

 

[Dausuul]

All that CC means is that instead of drafting their own licence terms, WotC picked some terms of the shelf. It doesn't change the ownership of anything that anyone cares about, and it just swaps one set of legal questions for a new set - which may be easier, but are not obviously so. There has been litigation over CC licences - which is to say, they are not proofs against disagreements between the parties.

That is true. But any attempt to create an OGL 1.0b would bring its own set of legal questions; it would not have been tested in court as the CC presumably has; it would still be under WotC's control; and it would not tie the SRD to a huge external group of stakeholders with an interest in defending the commons from litigation.

All in all (and granting that you are a legal expert and I'm not), I think the CC license is safer than any iteration of the OGL I could imagine. Unless you see specific weaknesses in it pertaining to RPGs?

 

[Guythegard]

Ha! like they needed a survey to know no one wanted 1.0 to be revoked

 

[Matt Thomason]

That is true. But any attempt to create an OGL 1.0b would bring its own set of legal questions; it would not have been tested in court as the CC presumably has; it would still be under WotC's control; and it would not tie the SRD to a huge external group of stakeholders with an interest in defending the commons from litigation.

All in all (and granting that you are a legal expert and I'm not), I think the CC license is safer than any iteration of the OGL I could imagine. Unless you see specific weaknesses in it pertaining to RPGs?

Safer, perhaps.

Actually useable by 3PPs? A big nope, the work involved in splitting out the bit of your book you want sharable into a seperate document under CC so you're not also giving away your reserved Product Identity just isn't worth it.

This was discussed on the ORC Discord, whether we needed to make a new license at all and why not simply use CC, and there was very little support for it.

The majority just want to put in a little box somewhere in their publication "this is the parts we're declaring Open, and this is the parts we're declaring Product Identity" - there's no existing CC license that supports that type of declaration.

 

[pemerton]

That is true. But any attempt to create an OGL 1.0b would bring its own set of legal questions; it would not have been tested in court as the CC presumably has; it would still be under WotC's control; and it would not tie the SRD to a huge external group of stakeholders with an interest in defending the commons from litigation.

All in all, I think the CC license is safer than any iteration of the OGL I could imagine.

Well, as I've posted I don't see any real point in creating an OGL v 1.0b. I think v 1.0a is fine enough.

I am not as sanguine as many about the benefits of the CC licence - I've been doing a quick review of the literature and have read one recent case (Great Minds v. FedEx Office & Print Servs., Inc., 886 F.3d 91 | Casetext Search + Citator), and I haven't yet seen a discussion of what would happen if a licensor really wanted to roll back their licence. (In that case, the licensor was not wanting to roll back their licence and rather was insisting that the defendant had accepted their offer and hence was bound by the licence terms; the court found for the defendant.)

But each publisher needs to make their own decision, based on their own legal advice.

 

[Dausuul]

Safer, perhaps.

Actually useable by 3PPs? A big nope, the work involved in splitting out the bit of your book you want sharable into a seperate document under CC so you're not also giving away your reserved Product Identity just isn't worth it.

This was discussed on the ORC Discord, whether we needed to make a new license at all and why not simply use CC, and there was very little support for it.

The majority just want to put in a little box somewhere in their publication "this is the parts we're declaring Open, and this is the parts we're declaring Product Identity" - there's no existing CC license that supports that type of declaration.

When the ORC is completed and released, I will happily join an effort to persuade Wizards to put the SRDs under it. Who knows, they might even do it! (I don't think it's likely, but if you'd asked me this time yesterday, I'd have said there wasn't a chance in hell of the current situation happening, either.)

In the meantime, the CC is a powerful disincentive for Wizards to pull this stunt ever again; which means the OGL 1.0a is also safer than it was. I certainly won't complain if they also put out an OGL 1.0b, but it's not something I'm going to go to the mat for.