Years after completely ditching the system, WotC makes their move!

[Dannyalcatraz]

Do any of you feel that Crystalkeep helped with 3e sales back in its heyday (which was why wotc tolerated its presence? And now that it has long outlived its usefulness...

I personally used CK only about 5 times...but I'm sure that its existence did earn some sales for WotC. OTOH, it may have also cost them some.

Out of curiosity, do you think any of those "lots of reasons" might also apply to EN World? And, if so, how do you feel about that?
RC

I don't think ENWorld is in any danger. The mods here do an excellent job of policing the site and keeping copyrighted material off the boards. And most of the stuff posted here is discussion (protected), review (protected), how to use RPG products (protected) and homebrew (protected).

Besides, given WHO posts here, I'm sure ENWorld would be shown a lot of courtesy and leeway- meaning time- to self-police if some offending bit DID show up here.

 

[TanisFrey]

Same reason- protecting their IP.

Was CK selling the stuff and sending WotC a check? Did they have a license? If not...that's a violation.

CK was not selling PDF to my knowledge.

I was referring to RPGDrivethrough.com, who was selling, under contract with WOTC, PDFs of Basic, 1ed, 2ed and 3.x ed materials at one point. Until Wizards yanked their ability to sell with no warring to the public.

I was more venting that WOTC did not have to pay for the web hosting of this older editions material but could just sit there and collect the royalties they were do for it.

After all there were plenty to people whom bought the older editions stuff to read for inspiration or to convert for their home games.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

CK was not selling PDF to my knowledge.

I was referring to RPGDrivethrough.com, who was selling, under contract with WOTC, PDFs of Basic, 1ed, 2ed and 3.x ed materials at one point. Until Wizards yanked their ability to sell with no warring to the public.

I was more venting that WOTC did not have to pay for the web hosting of this older editions material but could just sit there and collect the royalties they were do for it.

After all there were plenty to people whom bought the older editions stuff to read for inspiration or to convert for their home games.

Again, WotC's thrown everything behind 4E (and future editions *ducks*). Anything that hurts its success, even if that something is helpful to them, like older edition sales, is deemed overall a loss or hurting their product, just by virtue of existing as competition. I don't agree and think it's an asinine policy, so don't expect me to explain/defend it, but that's what it is. Any "small profits" made off of previous edition pdfs to them isn't worth the presumed impact on their 4E profits.

WotC also isn't known for being very intelligent about whether their actions will generate good or bad PR, or possibly not really caring about PR. So the whole "it's pissing a lot of people off" argument doesn't much matter, either.

As for myself, I'm just smiling (bitterly), thinking back when WotC announced the pdf move, pulling ALL editions from being for sale. They claimed it was for piracy protection. Myself and others at the time rightly identified that the 3E books had long ago been pirated and that was clearly not the motive behind yanking the older pdfs (several people citing the "3E is competition" angle specifically). I recall people reacting to that like we were crackpots or worse, "edition warring." It sure sucks to be right, I have to say.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was referring to RPGDrivethrough.com, who was selling, under contract with WOTC, PDFs of Basic, 1ed, 2ed and 3.x ed materials at one point. Until Wizards yanked their ability to sell with no warring to the public.

I was more venting that WOTC did not have to pay for the web hosting of this older editions material but could just sit there and collect the royalties they were do for it.

Gotcha.

Even there, yanking the license was probably done for business reasons. For instance, they may have felt that even this older material was cannibalizing sales from newer product. There may have been a coding issue that they felt was too expensive to correct.

They may have even had obligations of their own- say, royalty/license payments to some of the game's original creators (or their estates) who may have retained some of their rights- that were triggered by those sales, and they didn't want to keep paying those fees.

Who knows, they could even be stealing a page from The House of Mouse: Disney routinely releases it's older properties for sale for limited times to create rarity, and thus sales. Hasbro/WotC may be gearing up to release "Deluxe Platinum Dragonskin Editions" of old IP on a 10 or 20 year cycle.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As for myself, I'm just smiling (bitterly), thinking back when WotC announced the pdf move, pulling ALL editions from being for sale. They claimed it was for piracy protection. Myself and others at the time rightly identified that the 3E books had long ago been pirated and that was clearly not the motive behind yanking the older pdfs (several people citing the "3E is competition" angle specifically).

Just because the damage was done doesn't mean that WotC's motive in yanking their PDFs from sale wasn't motivated by anti-piracy concerns. That just means they were ill-informed as to the efficacy of the tactic in combatting piracy.

Even in the RW, a lot of people and corporations do things based on erroneous assumptions or knee-jerk reactions: people close barn doors long after horses are gone; dump significant others due to mere suspicion of cheating; base business or political models on unproven theories...

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think ENWorld is in any danger.

That isn't what I asked.

I didn't ask would WotC apply the same concerns, I asked could they apply the same concerns.

And how would you feel about that?

RC

 

[Deset Gled]

To everyone speculating about timing - remember that we only know the time when CK decided to comply with WotC's request. We have no idea when WotC first approached them. I can easily imagine that WotC first contacted CK months (possibly years) ago with the first complaint, and has been escalating threats or discussion with CK since then. CK may only have taken down content now because the legal threatening (which is very justifyable on WotCs end) got serious, or because discussions on how to keep things legal broke down.

 

[Ryltar]

I wouldn't have to, because the Court doesn't care how long it took for WotC to get around to CK as long as its within the statute of limitations. Essentially, its a non-issue.

This may be slightly off topic, but since you appear knowledgeable in US IP matters: is there no way to forfeit a right through continued inaction? I'm asking because this is a valid legal construction under various European legal systems, provided that the court is sure the claimant either knew of or could have known of the infringement if he had done his due diligence. Just asking because it's always interesting to see the differences between the various systems.

Back on topic: I wonder if WotC's decision was really worth it. They won't be able to prevent distribution of said files anyway - seeing how the threads the OP mentioned already contain several links to mirrored versions of said documents. My guess is that they will just be uploaded elsewhere, and then elsewhere again ... kind of a battle against windmills, and certainly nothing I as WotC would want my legal team to spend time on.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That isn't what I asked.

I didn't ask would WotC apply the same concerns, I asked could they apply the same concerns.

And how would you feel about that?

RC

I guess I'm not seeing what you're getting at.

My point was that in the time I've been here, I've seen nothing going on here that is actionable that doesn't get swatted down by ENWorld's mods, so even if WotC (or Hasbro) got a bee in their bonnet, their own legal department would tell them there's nothing worth pursuing. There's no significant activity here that WotC could base a lawsuit or C&D on: ENWorld does an excellent job of self policing, and even the rank & file membership is generally respectful of ENWorld's policies...even those who don't repect WotC's IP rights.

This may be slightly off topic, but since you appear knowledgeable in US IP matters: is there no way to forfeit a right through continued inaction? I'm asking because this is a valid legal construction under various European legal systems, provided that the court is sure the claimant either knew of or could have known of the infringement if he had done his due diligence. Just asking because it's always interesting to see the differences between the various systems.

There are IP rights you can lose by mere inaction in the US, but copyright isn't one of them...which is one of the underlying factors why you're more likely to see a copyright suit (or its threat) when dealing with old IP.

Back on topic: I wonder if WotC's decision was really worth it. They won't be able to prevent distribution of said files anyway - seeing how the threads the OP mentioned already contain several links to mirrored versions of said documents. My guess is that they will just be uploaded elsewhere, and then elsewhere again ... kind of a battle against windmills, and certainly nothing I as WotC would want my legal team to spend time on.

My bet is that 90% of WotC's legal department's work boils down to a couple of jobs: contract drafting/negotiations/review (internal & external) and IP rights enforcement.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I guess I'm not seeing what you're getting at.

My point was that in the time I've been here, I've seen nothing going on here that is actionable that doesn't get swatted down by ENWorld's mods, so even if WotC (or Hasbro) got a bee in their bonnet, their own legal department would tell them there's nothing worth pursuing. There's no significant activity here that WotC could base a lawsuit or C&D on: ENWorld does an excellent job of self policing, and even the rank & file membership is generally respectful of ENWorld's policies...even those who don't repect WotC's IP rights.

Surely there are downloads on EN World that make use of non-SRD 3e material, and I assume 4e material as well.

In any event, I think your "there's nothing worth pursuing" is evidence of a lot of assumptions that I, for one, am not willing to make. If WotC decided EN World was cutting into their profits, could Morris afford to defend against WotC? If not, does WotC actually have to win a legal battle to close EN World's virtual doors?

There is evidence, as linked upthread, that CK had a good relationship with WotC, too. After all, you generally don't recommend people go to a website that you think is causing you problems, do you?

Nor, again, does your post answer my questions:

(1) Could WotC make the same sort of claim against EN World?

(2) How would you feel about that?


RC