WotC Unveils Draft of New Open Gaming License

As promised earlier this week, WotC has posted the draft OGL v.1.2 license for the community to see.

A survey will be going live tomorrow for feedback.

Starting the OGL ‘Playtest’

In this article, you can review a draft of OGL 1.2, submit feedback via survey, and learn about a Creative Commons license that puts D&D's core mech...

www.dndbeyond.com

The current iteration contains clauses which prohibit offensive content, applies only to TTRPG books and PDFs, no right of ownership going to WotC, and an optional creator content badge for your products.

One important element, the ability for WotC to change the license at-will has also been addressed, allowing the only two specific changes they can make -- how you cite WotC in your work, and contact details.

This license will be irrevocable.

The OGL v1.0a is still being 'de-authorized'.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

For an open licence I'd expect to see a severability provision like the one in OGL 1.0, in case of illegality sever the illegal clause & the rest remains in effect. Whereas this one says WoTC get to decide at their option whether to sever the clause or terminate the licence. I definitely don't think anyone is being hysterical.

If the license (and this is the OGL par- remember that they have expanded use u dear the CC which everyone is ignoring) is HELD (found be a court because someone has challenged it) to be unlawful, then it is severable. Obviously, if the term is important to WoTC then the license is void.

 

[dave2008]

As it stands, this draft says a compliant publication contains only WotC's content and your content.

Sounds like a good thing to comment on in the survey!

 

[dave2008]

I think it is too restrictive and I would want it improved before I sign off on the OGL

To be clear, the VTT is separate issue from the OGL. All the OGL says is: you have to use their VTT policy. So holding off on the OGL because of the VTT doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you are saying you want it included in the OGL, which I don't think is ever going to happen and I am OK with that. Let them be separate.

It is also relevant that the de-authorization of 1.0(a) is also separate from the OGL. The OGL 1.2 does not de-authorize 1.0(a).

 

[pemerton]

As it stands, this draft says a compliant publication contains only WotC's content and your content.

Where is this? I'm looking at section 1(c) which says:

Your Licensed Works. To be a Licensed Work under this license, it must:
(i) be a covered work as defined in Section 1(b);
(ii) contain both Our Licensed Content and Your Content; and
(iii) not contain Our Unlicensed Content.​

There is nothing here that says a licensed work must contain only WotC's content and your content.

And section 5 has express rules for how a party to the licence can licence their work to another party, which might also include WotC licensed content.

 

[Cadence]

For an open licence I'd expect to see a severability provision like the one in OGL 1.0, in case of illegality sever the illegal clause & the rest remains in effect. Whereas this one says WoTC get to decide at their option whether to sever the clause or terminate the licence. I definitely don't think anyone is being hysterical.

In this case, say for example that the "no challenging obscenity decisions" is ruled bad for some reason. If it was fully severable, but the morals section is in the group that can never be modified, then WotC could never go in and fix that section. Right?

 

[Justice and Rule]

that is why I will be providing feedback about what needs improving. That seems to be the whole point of this exercise

Having a backdoor like that doesn't make me feel like the whole point of this is to get feedback, but rather to sneak in a trapdoor that allows them to terminate this new version of the "OGL" with no sort of contestation, and then impose a new one with 1.0a out of the way. I expect them not to remove it, and without removing it nothing they say can be taken at face value.

 

[mamba]

It's not that a contributor designates their copyrighted work as Open Game Content and then other people automatically get to use it. It's that a contributor agrees to give someone who agrees to and abides by the terms of the OGL a license to use their copyrighted work.

using a different version of the OGL is one of those terms, isn’t it?

So in your interpretation, this cuts off everything licensed under 1.0a from being used in works licensed under 1.2 unless it gets licensed under 1.2 by the original creator first. Correct?

 

[mamba]

Exactly this. As I just posted in another thread, you can't consider 1.2 a version of the same thing as 1.0a, the mechanisms just aren't there to support its use as "any acceptable version." It's an OGL in name only.

well, that kinda is a showstopper then

I'm now convinced this is by design. OGL 1.0a allowed a licensee to sublicense their work, meaning their recipient licensees would enjoy not just the bits of OGC added by their licensor, but everything else up the chain, sublicensed solely through their licensor. So in other words, you'd get bits of the SRD (potentially even the whole SRD) without actually having a license with WotC.
I think this is one of the things they've specifcally wanted rid of. Under 1.2, any new user has to have their own 1.2 agreement between themselves and WotC, due to the lack of the viral sublicensing they cannot get it through other works.

probably, at the same time if they make it irrevocable (and they mean it… which is not that easy to believe) then this would not matter

 

[mamba]

What does 3.5 have that 5e doesn't?

if I knew that I wouldn’t be asking Also that is not entirely correct. 3e was not BX or 1e either, yet compatible games were created out of it.

 

[Matt Thomason]

well, that kinda is a showstopper then


probably, at the same time if they make it irrevocable (and they mean it… which is not that easy to believe) then this would not matter

Yeah. That irrevocable thing, with various clauses that still allow them to terminate at-will Meanwhile, they do not appear to be able to terminate, revoke, deauthorize, or otherwise affect in any way whatsoever an agreement using the OGL where a third party is the downstream licensor to the licensee. This likely had legal minds at WotC absolutely furious that it had sat like that for 20 years.

 

[pemerton]

OGL 1.0a allowed a licensee to sublicense their work, meaning their recipient licensees would enjoy not just the bits of OGC added by their licensor, but everything else up the chain, sublicensed solely through their licensor. So in other words, you'd get bits of the SRD (potentially even the whole SRD) without actually having a license with WotC.
I think this is one of the things they've specifcally wanted rid of. Under 1.2, any new user has to have their own 1.2 agreement between themselves and WotC, due to the lack of the viral sublicensing they cannot get it through other works.
Under 1.0a, I can pick up a Mongoose Pocket Player's Handbook and get the SRD content from that directly, in a license that's solely between me and Mongoose which sublicences WotCs parts to me, and thus totally uncontrollable by WotC.

The sub-licences create a licence from WotC to you. Sub-licence describes the mode of creation of the licence, not its content.

As for the substantive aspect of your post, and also this:

at the same time if they make it irrevocable (and they mean it… which is not that easy to believe) then this would not matter

The following seems like it is relevant to what you're discussing:

As for the draft OGL 1.2, I haven't tried to analyse it closely. I do notice that section 5 says the following:

5. YOU CONTROL YOUR CONTENT. You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available. . . .

You may permit the use of your Content on any terms you want. However, if any license you offer to your Licensed Work is different from the terms of this license, you must include in the Licensed Work the attribution for Our Licensed Content found in the preamble to the applicable SRD, and make clear that Our Licensed Content included in your Licensed Work is made available on the terms of this license.​

And section 2 says:

In consideration for your compliance with this license, you may copy, use, modify and distribute Our Licensed Content around the world as part of Your Licensed Works.​

So I don't see that there is any power granted to licensees to sub-license. To me it seems that if WotC were to retract its offer to licence than existing licensees would retain their entitlements under section 2. But they would not have any power to licence content pursuant to an offer that WotC has withdrawn.

 

[Aspirinsmurf]

Yeah. That irrevocable thing, with various clauses that still allow them to terminate at-will Meanwhile, they do not appear to be able to terminate, revoke, deauthorize, or otherwise affect in any way whatsoever an agreement using the OGL where a third party is the downstream licensor to the licensee. This likely had legal minds at WotC absolutely furious that it had sat like that for 20 years.

They can terminate for breach of contract, as per section 14. Or rather, this happens automatically. Which is how it should be. Agreements ought to be kept.

 

[mamba]

To be clear, the VTT is separate issue from the OGL. All the OGL says is: you have to use their VTT policy. So holding off on the OGL because of the VTT doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you are saying you want it included in the OGL, which I don't think is ever going to happen and I am OK with that. Let them be separate.

I do not want these strong restrictions on VTTs using the OGL however, so they are not really separate, and if the can change the restrictions later, who says they won’t (sounds more like a guarantee right now)..:

I found my solution around this dilemma though, just need more ‘support’, i.e. people bringing it up in their feedback to WotC.

My solution is for them to put into the OGL that their VTT is also bound by the VTT policy. Keep it separate then, but this levels the playing field

 

[mamba]

Having a backdoor like that doesn't make me feel like the whole point of this is to get feedback

well, then include that in your feedback. Not providing any won’t change anything, just like not voting

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You're lines don't matter because

because someone on the internet doesn't like them...

No, they found out that certain people are just really willing to accept whatever they will give them

you mean that they accept what they are willing to accept... but you think that we are accepting anything, when we are happyish with it...

Because you actually haven't gotten anything because you have no way of assuring that what you want stays.

except I am not signing a contract... I can still switch to TORG, or Vampire or Savage World later... I am not 'locking myself in
I am saying "this is acceptable, but I reserve the right to find any future changes unacceptable.

No, there's just nothing that assures that those stay in there.

what is there that assures them I will agree to any future changes?

Uh, it'll be a bit too late by then. You've already given up the defenses and they are already in the house. Trying to fight back at that point is basically useless.

no I have NOT... the defense is "I will take my business' elsewhere

What? No, it's more like they're trying to get you to sign a contract, you say "There's no bad stuff in there, right?" and they go "Uh, yeah, suuuuuure."

wow...except like I said above, no contract, I can walk away anytime.
It's "Here is this deal"
"Okay sounds good"
if they change the deal I can say "Hey, that's not what I agreed to, and I am no longer interested"

Man, this feels like a live demonstration of how people get themselves into rug pulls.

by finding a compromise they can live with and saying they will make some suggestion but this is good enough... sounds like how MOST deals are made.

No, my argument is "It doesn't matter what price they say they are going to sell at because without a binding contract, the word of a known liar is worthless."

I;m not taking there word, I am saying "this is okay, but if you change it I may not find it okay"

If you want to trust a company that has been going around breaking contracts left and right on their word, feel free. I prefer my lines to actually be enforceable and not made up of hope and dreams.

no hope and dreams... just good old fashion self interest...

They don't "win" by changing... they win by finding the compromise and sticking to it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This sounds like the piece of information gotten from the "leak" which was probably at least partially fake. So it has fullfilled its goal...

my bet is that false leak will still be messing with the truth for years to come

 

[GMforPowergamers]

As it stands, this draft says a compliant publication contains only WotC's content and your content.

in lack of mentioning it does that not then fall to you and other company to decide?

 

[mamba]

Yeah. That irrevocable thing, with various clauses that still allow them to terminate at-will

yeah, those obviously need to be worked on as well. While I give them the benefit of the doubt that these are more legitimate concerns than intentional loopholes, they have proven themselves entirely untrustworthy, so they still need to be closed / narrowed

 

[GMforPowergamers]

if I knew that I wouldn’t be asking Also that is not entirely correct. 3e was not BX or 1e either, yet compatible games were created out of it.

if you could use the 3e SRD and OGL to make 4e content (and I can't imagine 2 D&D games more different, how can they stop useing 5e to make 3e?

 

[Bohandas]

No no no no NO!

Look, WotC, I get that you want to de-authorize the OGL v1.0a really, really badly, but it's a complete and utter non-starter! Framing it as "but we NEED to make this the only version of the OGL available, so we can terminate products that have hateful content" doesn't make that any better; it just makes it sound better. And, as noted many times before, if you're reserving the ability to unilaterally determine what is and is not hateful, as well as the ability to cancel any such product (Section 6(f)), then the license is by definition not open!

Agreed. They're just using hateful content as a convenient bogeyman. Frankly I'm almost surprised that they haven't tried to claim that the new OGL prevents terrorism, cybercrime, and child abuse as well.