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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8921480" data-attributes="member: 42582">There are two different things that I believe you're running together.WotC has entered, and in the future will enter, into many licence agreements. Some under the OGL, now some under CC. My view is that neither is revocable at will be WotC. WotC has never clearly asserted the contrary - the closest it has come (that I know of) is a hint in a leaked document associated with the never-revealed OGL 2.0 (I think I saw this in mid-Jan - if you want I can find the post that it was in).WotC currently also offers to enter into licence agreements, again under both the OGL and the CC. These are both gratuitous offers, in the sense that WotC is not legally obliged to make them: it chooses to do without compulsion. It can cease to make those offers at any time. No one that I know of disputes this in relation to the OGL; the FAQ on the CC site expressly recognises that this is a possibility for CC.The interesting question, if that second thing happens, what is the capacity of people who at that point don't have a licence from WotC to get one. Clearly they are not going to get one straight from WotC, as it has stopped offering them.I think the better, though not at all certain view - based on the text of the OGL alone - is that there is such a power under the OGL. This is because each existing licensee has, as part of their entitlements, the power to issue new licences in respect of WotC's material. So a newcomer would need to take a licence from one of those existing licensees (eg Hypertext SRD). I think this view becomes much stronger when one goes beyond the licence text alone to the fact that WotC made various representations about this, including but not limited to its FAQ, which have been relied upon by other parties.When it comes to CC, the mechanism for resolving the interesting question is quite different. Section 2.a.5.A provides that each person who receives the material from a licensee is automatically made an offer of a licence. And as this is attached to existing licensees, it is intended to endure even if the licensor withdraws their offer to enter into new licences.It's this "automatic offer" idea that I think is a bit mysterious - not if the licensor has not withdrawn their own offer, but if they have - because in that latter case it's not a real offer at all. That's why Van Houweling characterises it as a "servitude" - ie a quasi-proprietary phenomenon that is created by contract but then takes on a life of its own.</blockquote>

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