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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matt Thomason" data-source="post: 8896293" data-attributes="member: 6777331">My opinion is they should be free to release any future content on any terms they wish, and not be beholden to doing so under the OGL 1.0a.  However, their past content is released under specific terms in that license, terms both sides agreed to at the time. The biggest issue for creators here is much of our work over the past 20 years has been done so under OGL 1.0a.  That also means we gave everyone else similar rights to those we received, and the whole thing has spiderwebbed since into a huge interrelated tangle of collaborative effort between hundreds, possibly thousands, of people.WotCs leaked plan would have destroyed many people's rights to continue to use that content.  Not just the SRDs, but everything spawned on top of those SRDs by third parties.  That is why so many people are angry that WotC feel this is something they can unilaterally do despite not being the owners of the majority of the IP involved. So, lets put it this way.  I rent you a bit of land, to do whatever you want with.  Our contract states you can rent it for as long as you like, indeterminately, and that instead of paying in cash you instead agree never to use any of the trademarked names owned by my business, even where fair use allows you to do so.  The agreement includes only one termination clause, which is triggered if you specifically break the terms of your tenancy in some way. We sign the agreement.  You now build a house on that land.  After a couple of years, you also build a factory.  You create all kinds of interesting stuff in your factory, that you built on the land I'm renting to you.  There was even room for you to let some friends build things.Now, 20 years later I get a little mad that I didn't realize quite how well your factory was going to do, and wish I'd also put in that I want a percentage of your profits.  I'm also a little mad that your factory makes widgets and sproggins because I also decided 2 years ago to make widgets, so I want to change your agreement to prevent you from operating a factory on that land that makes widgets (although sproggins are fine, I'm happy for you to continue to make those).You, quite rightly, will point to your contract with me that gives me no way to back out of this deal.  I may  be very upset at the terms now, 20 years later, but quite frankly that's my own stupid fault for not having the foresight to write it into our original contract.  Meanwhile, I've done very well for myself, and own ten factories of my own, so I'm not exactly short of cash.I tell you that unless you agree to this new, updated contract, I am kicking you out of the house you built and demolishing your factory, and your friends are homeless too.</blockquote>

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