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WotC Talks OGL... Again! Draft Coming Jan 20th With Feedback Survey; v1 De-Auth Still On

Following last week's partial walk-back on the upcoming Open Game Licence terms, WotC has posted another update about the way forward. The new update begins with another apology and a promise to be more transparent. To that end, WotC proposes to release the draft of the new OGL this week, with a two-week survey feedback period following it...

Following last week's partial walk-back on the upcoming Open Game Licence terms, WotC has posted another update about the way forward.

Screen Shot 2023-01-09 at 10.45.12 AM.png

The new update begins with another apology and a promise to be more transparent. To that end, WotC proposes to release the draft of the new OGL this week, with a two-week survey feedback period following it.


They also list a number of points of clarity --
  • Videos, accessories, VTT content, DMs Guild will not be affected by the new license, none of which is related to the OGL
  • The royalties and ownership rights clauses are, as previously noted, going away
OGL v1 Still Being 'De-Authorized'
However, OGL v1.0a still looks like it's being de-authorized. As with the previous announcement, that specific term is carefully avoided, and like that announcement it states that previously published OGL v1 content will continue to be valid; however it notably doesn't mention that the OGL v1 can be used for content going forward, which is a de-authorization.

The phrase used is "Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a." -- as noted, this does not make any mention of future content. If you can't publish future content under OGL 1.0a, then it has been de-authorized. The architect of the OGL, Ryan Dancey, along with WotC itself at the time, clearly indicated that the license could not be revoked or de-authorized.

While the royalty and ownership clauses were, indeed, important to OGL content creators and publishers such as myself and many others, it is also very important not to let that overshadow the main goal: the OGL v1.0a.

Per Ryan Dancey in response this announcement: "They must not. They can only stop the bleeding by making a clear and simple statement that they cannot and will not deauthorize or revoke v1.0a".


Amend At-Will
Also not mentioned is the leaked draft's ability to be amended at-will by WotC. An agreement which can be unilaterally changed in any way by one party is not an agreement, it's a blank cheque. They could simply add the royalties or ownership clauses back in at any time, or add even more onerous clauses.

All-in-all this is mainly just a rephrasing of last week's announcement addressing some of the tonal criticisms widely made about it. However, it will be interesting to see the new draft later this week. I would encourage people to take the feedback survey and clearly indicate that the OGL v1.0a must be left intact.
 

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Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
maybe, I am still puzzled by what they think they get out if this. Still think they want the ability to change terms whenever they want to, I see nothing else worth risking this over
I mean, yeah, I do think they want that. The irrevocably of 1.0a created their largest competitor and is now getting in the way of their current plans, so of course they want to try to make it so they can change the terms of the license in the future, to prevent this sort of situation from arising again.
3pp products can be for VTTs, VTT producers can use the OGL 2.0 for their VTTs

VTT content. Any updates to the OGL will still allow any creator to publish content on VTTs and will still allow VTT publishers to use OGL content on their platform.”
Alright, guess I forgot that point. I still suspect their aim in this is a less competitive field in the VTT space. While the new version may allow OGL content on VTT platforms, the terms under which it allows it may be much more restrictive. We’ll have to wait and see.
 



Matt Thomason

Adventurer
Okay, so the conversation you came into was someone asking what sort of compromise between 1.0a and 2.0 could be achieved that might be acceptable to folks. I suggested that since WotC wants control over movies, computer games and VTT, that the new OGL be written as irrevocable and grant people the ability to use written works, PDFs and social media platforms as they did under 1.0a, but reserve movies and video games to WotC. I'm unsure about VTT. I personally don't want WotC to be the only VTT out there, but it seems likely that they won't budge on that.

As someone fighting to keep their livelihood here, I would feel really awful throwing anyone else under the bus just to get my bit safeguarded. For all I know, someone's been working on a movie for a year that somehow uses SRD material (seems unlikely, but it's a possibility). So absolutely no compromise based on types of content for me.

The only concessions I'm willing to make here is WotC get to decide content restrictions for anything they publish in new SRDs from this moment on by using a new license, and that anyone that agrees to that new license can be bound by it not to use the older ones any more. Anyone that simply wants to remain under the old licenses and use only the SRDs released under those needs to be continued to allowed to do so.
 

Multiple actual lawyers weighing in on this debate have repeatedly pointed out that this is not how it works in real life. The deepest pockets don't automatically win.
yes and no... there is a "you have to be this tall to ride this ride" of you need to be able to afford an IP lawyer for hours of research and handling briefs and motions, then negotiate and or go to the trial.

Once you hit that there is an amount of "you need money to do this"
 


Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
That is absolutely not true. That might have been the case up until 5 years ago or so, but today, "the OSR" has become such a vast field, there's both DMs AND players that weren't even born when WotC bought TSR, and yet they still enjoy "old and dated mechanics".

OSR is like vinyl: some people never abandoned vinyl for CDs, minidisc, mp3, and streaming, while more and more younger people keep discovering the joys of physical albums and hifi-setups.
Not to the level WOTC wants or how Amazon or Disney would want. The books they are based on are barely read by youth of today.
 

They can absolutely create a stronger license, and everyone encourages them to do so. Notably, they can do this without "revoking" or "deauthorizing" the existing license.
Yes, they could. However*, the existing license can never again be trusted, since apparently a massive corporation believes they can successfully revoke it. The only real way forward is a new license with a GPL3-like irrevocability clause.
*everything past here is 'IMO'
 


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