New and Revised Licenses

3. Copyright holders must protect their IP, or in the eyes of the law they lose rights to it. You can't actually just let people play with your IP without some kind of agreement or you effectively erode your control over it. If people can use your stuff at will, you can quickly find yourself paying to develop content that your competition will use.

The CUP was an agreement that allowed Paizo to both stake its ownership of protected IP while also allowing limited usage of it by fans in Pathfinder or Starfinder game material, or in reference resources where open rules and protected IP couldn't be easily extricated, or in fan-published adventures, creatures, items, etc. that used Paizo setting material.

The removal of the CUP and its replacement with the FCP, which explicitly prohibits the creation of such resources, is the point of contention. Especially when paired with the changes to what Infinite allows, it effectively revokes permission for any new or continuing resources that combine rules and setting material for Pathfinder First Edition or Starfinder First Edition.

Nobody is claiming that Paizo doesn't or shouldn't have the right to protect their copyrighted IP or trademarks. Especially around the FCP, people seem to largely be asking how Paizo's decision to abruptly reduce the permission they previously granted for fan content might affect—or expressing how it is actively and materially detrimental to—their projects.

The more procedural issues I've had with how this has rolled out are the lack of a public comment period, in which many of these questions might've been answerable before the CUP was removed, and the lack of outreach to registered CUP projects to clarify how these changes might affect them.

The new policies seem great to me, allowing fans to sell homemade Paizo merchandise is something I haven't seen any company intentionally allow rather than just ignoring. The removal of registration for compatibility license usage is also a great change that could open a lot of smaller opportunities for folks who would be hesitant otherwise.

Thanks for responding to questions. Wondering about how this impacts (totally free, labor of love) conversions of PF1 modules and APs to remastered PF2. These projects keep people buying and engaging with legacy material all over again.

Can you please lay out how to pursue that in the new licensing regime?

You can do that on Infinite. Just refer to P1 (OGL) content by proper name and then provide a Remastered rule to replace anything no longer available.

So a conversion of something including an (OGL) angel like a solar would need to refer to that NPC by name (which Paizo owns) and then provide stats for them using non-OGL material either of your own creation or taken from an ORC/Remastered product.

And since it'd be a conversion of Paizo's storylines and setting, you'd need to either release it as text in a general message board discussion or via Infinite if it were a downloadable PDF.

Will it be possible to use SF1e setting lore with SF2e rules in Starfinder Infinite once SF2e is out?

Lore is safe from these changes. You can do whatever you want with lore (so long as that lore isn't fundamentally something we've deemed too OGL-entangled to use in SF2, like drow). You just won't be able to do mechanics. If you want to make a book of SF1 solarian feats, you'll need to release that under the OGL (and if you choose, the Compatibility License) somewhere other than Infinite, and will need to make sure that our setting material is not included.

I'm even sitting here trying to figure out how I would publish my custom setting I'm working on (was going to use ORC licensing and current remaster rules terms that might be considered outside the bounds under this policy), and... I'm honestly just not sure how it would be licensed effectively, especially if I ever wanted to publish it outside of a pdf on Infinite... if I would even be allowed to under this policy.

If you're making your own setting, then it wouldn't be allowed on Infinite anyway, nor would it qualify you to use Paizo's other IP via the old CUP or new FCP. You're looking at making an ORC product (since you want to use the Remastered rules) and if you also want to use the Pathfinder Compatibility Logo and pathfinder-icons font, then the Paizo Compatibility License.

For this sort of project, the only thing that has changed with this announcement is that there are no longer 3 different Compatibility Licenses, but a consolidated license that lets you pick which logo and compatibility statement is right for your specific product.

So faction dice bags (faction name and color scheme maybe?) would be fine, but faction dicebags with a faction symbol copied from the blog would not, is that correct?

(It might be a good idea to make that more clear)

You are correct. You could use that art in a free piece of merch like you've always been able to do, but if it's being sold, you'd need to make your own interpretation of the faction symbol or just use the colors.

I will add this to the list of things to clarify in the FAQ and/or license.

Apologies if this has already been answered, but what does this mean for Pathfinder Second Edition content that was released before the Remaster? If I wanted to make a collection of feats or subclasses for Gunslingers, Summoners, or Thaumaturges, would I be out of luck? Are there plans to re-release the six still-OGL classes in Second Edition under the ORC in some future Player Core 3-esque product, or will we have to keep publishing them under OGL and not on Infinite for the foreseeable future?

I'm seeing this question a lot, so I am going to add it to both our FAQ and the Infinite FAQ.

But basically, these classes are all Paizo creations. We own them, and thus, you simply need our permission to use them, through whatever license that permission comes. You can use them via the OGL, or you can use them via another license granting you permission to use Paizo's IP—like the Infinite License. So if you want to make a bunch of feats or spells for these classes, you totally can. But after August 31, you will need to make sure that you're only referencing things that aren't OGL content, so your spells shouldn't have spell schools or use spell components or have alignments baked into them.

I don't see any reason to effectively cut them out of using these official channels to do that. "It's more convenient for Paizo" is not a valid reason to do that. If there is one, which I'm not ruling out given the obtuse nature of law, it hasn't been provided to the community in a clearly digestible or even complex and confusing manner. Please reconsider these changes.

This change is not "more convenient for Paizo" or I wouldn't be spending this much time clarifying them, nor would many members of the team spent the better part of the last year going back and forth with our counsel on what changes were necessary and how to go about them. Changing nothing is always more convenient than changing things.

As for the why of it, there are many reasons, but the primary one is that we do not want any new content using our IP to be associated with the OGL. We have seen what can happen when the fate of our games (and to a lesser extent settings) and therefore our livelihoods are inextricably linked to another company's IP. Now that we have a complete game (comprised of the four Remaster core books) for Pathfinder Second Edition, and a complete game coming next year for Starfinder Second Edition, which we fully own, it is not in the best interest of our brands to continue entangling our IP with the OGL.

If there are creators who want to keep doing so, they can use the OGL for their own releases the same as they always could, just not in a product or on a platform that uses our non-OGL IP.

As far As I understand, we can still use previously allowed PCUP art for fan-based forums, youtube presentation, etc , as long as we don't monetize this at all ?

Right ?

Yes, the Community Use Package still exists, and we plan to keep updating it with more assets over time. You can still use the art in this package (as well as art from the blog) via the Fan Content Policy so long as you're not monetizing our art. If you want to sell something through the Fan Content Policy (which was previously not allowed under the Community Use Policy), you'll need to use original art instead of ours.

But basically, these classes are all Paizo creations. We own them, and thus, you simply need our permission to use them, through whatever license that permission comes. You can use them via the OGL, or you can use them via another license granting you permission to use Paizo's IP—like the Infinite License. So if you want to make a bunch of feats or spells for these classes, you totally can. But after August 31, you will need to make sure that you're only referencing things that aren't OGL content, so your spells shouldn't have spell schools or use spell components or have alignments baked into them.

I bet that's same for undead PCs in ORC.

How about replay-esque fanfic that has the Investigator/Inventor dual PC? Why mix of OGL and ORC are N/A?

(PFOA? Yes.)

There are three of us fans who translate and maintain the PF2 system for the foundry VTT platform. We use it to have the only existing wiki in French for PF2.

A team for SF2 was getting ready to use what we're doing to promote SF2 products and we're working with them to prepare the release of the Field Test.

Without our project, there are no resources to play with, excluding two-thirds of the French-speaking community (nearly 400 groups).

We have no choice but to put an end to our initiative. I'm angry because I spent nearly 15 years helping to develop Pathfinder on PF1 and then PF2.

Are you working with the PF2 system dev team on Foundry? Because none of these changes affect them. I am not familiar with your work, but we have official partners doing French localization of our games as well as official partners (Foundry) doing the core system release in English. There is no reason we can't incorporate your work into either of these projects.

As for the why of it, there are many reasons, but the primary one is that we do not want any new content using our IP to be associated with the OGL. We have seen what can happen when the fate of our games (and to a lesser extent settings) and therefore our livelihoods are inextricably linked to another company's IP. Now that we have a complete game (comprised of the four Remaster core books) for Pathfinder Second Edition, and a complete game coming next year for Starfinder Second Edition, which we fully own, it is not in the best interest of our brands to continue entangling our IP with the OGL.

If there are creators who want to keep doing so, they can use the OGL for their own releases the same as they always could, just not in a product or on a platform that uses our non-OGL IP.

Aren't the biggest pathfinder sites given special permission to mix though? Archives of Nethys, Demiplane and Foundry is allowed to do so with a special license and probably generate a ton more traffic than any of the small sites you are nuking that used the CUP.

The CUP doesn't exist anymore, and Hephaistos is an RPG product as defined by the Fan Content Policy so that doesn't apply either. This means that Hephaistos must now rely upon the OGL for Starfinder 1E content, and so existing content on the website must be sanitized to remove any Product Identity (as defined by the OGL). Is that correct? If so, is there a "grace period" for these changes to be made?

Yes, you have the basic understanding of it. There's no defined grace period, per se, but we also understand that changes of this nature take time, especially for community projects run by volunteers in their spare time. If you're making a good faith effort to scrub setting material from the resource, then that's good enough. If it's still there after months of no progress toward the end goal of compliance, that's a different issue.

Aren't the biggest pathfinder sites given special permission to mix though? Archives of Nethys, Demiplane and Foundry is allowed to do so with a special license and probably generate a ton more traffic than any of the small sites you are nuking that used the CUP.

Mark may not know about it.

Are you working with the PF2 system dev team on Foundry? Because none of these changes affect them.

Can we get a digital tool faq to clearly layout what can be used. Can the tools include copies of the spells, monster statblocks? Can only the monsters from the rule books be included? Or can statblocks from the adventures be included but the named npc statblocks cant be used?

It's really confusing since most people use AoN as a reference, but lots of people don't understand that they have a special license agreement in place.

The requested FAQ is in the works, as this is the most common question I'm seeing here and elsewhere.

To address your questions specifically since I'm here, all statblocks can be used, but proper nouns can't. If it's a game rule, it's licensed under either the OGL or ORC, but both licenses protect our ownership of specific charcters, locations, etc. So you can use the stats for Sheriff Hemlock from Sandpoint, you just can't include his name and will need to refer to him as "local coastal sheriff" or whatever.

As you mention, Archives of Nethys has a commercial license to operate and maintain a rules reference for the community, and part of this change is to ensure that that license (and those of other partners) actually means something, because someone else can't end-around that license by combining the OGL/ORC with the Community Use Policy and do the exact same thing.

Burt from PFOA told me that I need to ask if reworded version of rules are also allowed.

Link to PFOA.

I don't understand the question. I also don't see any rules on the linked page.

Driftbourne wrote:

Will it be possible to use SF1e setting lore with SF2e rules in Starfinder Infinite once SF2e is out?

Lore is safe from these changes. You can do whatever you want with lore (so long as that lore isn't fundamentally something we've deemed too OGL-entangled to use in SF2, like drow).

Is there a reference of what is and isn't "too OGL-entangled to use in SF2"? Or will this be like the Pathfinder Remaster, where the community has had to determine what lore Paizo is and isn't using anymore and compile such lists ourselves?

Will third party publishers still be able to publish PF1 and SF1 OGL conversant content outside of Pathfinder Infinite/Starfinder Infinite? I mean, Paizo is still currently a storefront for digital third-party PDFs - so a publisher could still, after August, publish PF1 OGL content and sell them here, or elsewhere, anywhere but Infinite?

We have no ability nor desire to restrict what people can do with Open Game Content (OGL) or Licensed Material (ORC) for any of our games. We offer the Paizo Compatibility License to further allow people using those game rules via either license to also use an easily recognizable logo to express their game's compatibility with our system(s). All we're changing is the ability for someone to combine our Product Identity (OGL) or Reserved Material (ORC) with those licenses.

The Paizo Compatibility License is the only license that should ever be used in conjunction with a different license (either the OGL or ORC, or both if done correctly). Anything else should use solely the Infinite License or the Fan Content Policy.

hephaistos_official wrote:

The CUP doesn't exist anymore, and Hephaistos is an RPG product as defined by the Fan Content Policy so that doesn't apply either. This means that Hephaistos must now rely upon the OGL for Starfinder 1E content, and so existing content on the website must be sanitized to remove any Product Identity (as defined by the OGL). Is that correct? If so, is there a "grace period" for these changes to be made?

Yes, you have the basic understanding of it. There's no defined grace period, per se, but we also understand that changes of this nature take time, especially for community projects run by volunteers in their spare time. If you're making a good faith effort to scrub setting material from the resource, then that's good enough. If it's still there after months of no progress toward the end goal of compliance, that's a different issue.

So the answer really is "we want the 1e community to stop existing."

Infinite products get to keep existing but nobody can expand on them, so the 1e community that wants to keep going inside the setting has to die. AoN gets to keep existing because they have an official partnership. But all the excellent tools that the community has made over the years have to scrub all the Paizo IP out of it.

Hephaistos is the best tool for SF1e that exists, and forcing it to shift to exclusively OGL when as it stands its a better resource than AoN ever was is such a disservice to the community at large as well as Paizo themselves.

If there was any sense here, Paizo should have reached out to Hephaistos and offered them a partnership.

The fact that as it stands, the only way to get a character creator that actually supports Orgplay properly is to pay Demiplane for PF2e and impossible for SF1e is downright comical.

You say you've been going back and forth about this with Counsel for a year, but for so much of this to be a surprise to everyone and done in such a way that is so negative to the creators that love the systems and in a way that seems to have no perspective on what made the CUP so great, and what attracted people to Paizo in the first place...

This isn't the Paizo that earned my respect and my loyalty.

Laclale♪ wrote:

Link to PFOA.

I also don't see any rules on the linked page.

The list

• Reference and disclaimer.
  
• Level 0.
• Level 1.
• Level 2.
• Level 3.

Is there a reference of what is and isn't "too OGL-entangled to use in SF2"? Or will this be like the Pathfinder Remaster, where the community has had to determine what lore Paizo is and isn't using anymore and compile such lists ourselves?

The latter. It is the responsibility of each publisher to determine the provenance of anything they didn't create and ensure they have a license to use that material, and compiling an exhaustive list of those things Paizo created and those created by other parties is not something we have the resources to do, and it could open us up to legal situations we'd rather not be in.

So the answer really is "we want the 1e community to stop existing."

I'm sorry, but apparently I don't have a brain large enough to handle the process the simple act of breathing, so you'll have to explain this to me. Where exactly in any of this are you reading that if you still play with OGL content, and want to publish OGL content, that Paizo is going to contract Seal Team 6 to eradicate you and your entire lineage from existence?

As you mention, Archives of Nethys has a commercial license to operate and maintain a rules reference for the community, and part of this change is to ensure that that license (and those of other partners) actually means something, because someone else can't end-around that license by combining the OGL/ORC with the Community Use Policy and do the exact same thing.

So this confirms the intent, any open-source, community-driven alternatives to AoN, Demiplane, etcetera can no longer contain any of Paizo's IP, not even proper nouns (and thus having to muddle their accuracy to the actual rule books). No true-to-form competitors can rise without explicit permission from Paizo.

Glad to have that settled and put those projects in the past.

Are Paizo-IP video games allowed on Infinite, provided that the uploaded product does not include prohibited file types?

Video games are not allowed on Infinite. If you want to make a Pathfinder or Starfinder video game and would clear the bar for a commercial license (see that section of paizo.com/licenses) then please reach out to us with a game proposal.

Previously, I commissioned a PF1 adventure set in Golarion which I gave to some people essentially distributing it under the CUP.

Am I understanding correctly that I now couldn’t do that? If I got a module written for me and wanted to give it away, I’d have to not use a license and take the risk?

This is an issue of what qualifies as personal use and what's publishing. If you're having something written, even commissioning it for a fee, and are then distributing it to a handful of friends as a gift, that's personal use, similar to if you wrote up the game notes for your campaign and shared them with your gaming group.

If you commissioned the same adventure and then put it behind your Patreon paywall or made it available for anyone who came to SteveGeddes.com, that's publishing, and you'd need to use the appropriate license. In the latter case, you'd just need to make sure it was hosted not on SteveGeddes.com, but on Pathfinder Infinite.

This includes sharing news, translating articles, creating and sharing game aids, homebrews, adventures, AP add-ons and other products made by the community under the PCUP. Most of those things are no longer possible under the new policy, which is a really harsh blow both in concrete/practical ways and to the morale of all the fans.

The CUP did grant translation privileges that the FCP does not. We are looking into what options we can make available for international content creators. We appreciate your passion and patience, and thank you for bringing this to our attention.

sevenveils wrote:

Thanks for responding to questions. Wondering about how this impacts (totally free, labor of love) conversions of PF1 modules and APs to remastered PF2. These projects keep people buying and engaging with legacy material all over again.

Can you please lay out how to pursue that in the new licensing regime?

You can do that on Infinite. Just refer to P1 (OGL) content by proper name and then provide a Remastered rule to replace anything no longer available.

So a conversion of something including an (OGL) angel like a solar would need to refer to that NPC by name (which Paizo owns) and then provide stats for them using non-OGL material either of your own creation or taken from an ORC/Remastered product.

And since it'd be a conversion of Paizo's storylines and setting, you'd need to either release it as text in a general message board discussion or via Infinite if it were a downloadable PDF.

Thanks for fielding so many questions in an emotionally-charged setting - I hope you're able to field a follow-up here.

The above seems like advice specific to named NPCs with OGL "structure" (whether race/ancestry or class). What about creatures in 1e APs that come from OGL-adjacent, third-party publishers? As a specific example, take the gray nisp in Serpent's Skull. It isn't a proper-named creature, and it comes from the Tome of Horrors book, not published by Paizo but which used the OGL to publish PF1e-compatible creatures.

If I were converting Serpent's Skull ultimately to publish in Infinite and I wanted to bring that creature over into 2e, would I need to make up a new name for it in order to include it in the conversion?

Mark Moreland wrote:

As you mention, Archives of Nethys has a commercial license to operate and maintain a rules reference for the community, and part of this change is to ensure that that license (and those of other partners) actually means something, because someone else can't end-around that license by combining the OGL/ORC with the Community Use Policy and do the exact same thing.

So this confirms the intent, any open-source, community-driven alternatives to AoN, Demiplane, etcetera can no longer contain any of Paizo's IP, not even proper nouns (and thus having to muddle their accuracy to the actual rule books). No true-to-form competitors can rise without explicit permission from Paizo.

Glad to have that settled and put those projects in the past.

I mean....correct? Let's be really clear here: Those projects operate under a license from Paizo in order to do what they do. That's not changing. If you're so worried about not getting to use proper nouns, I'd point you to Pathbuilder's success, which otherwise gets to say "Gunslinger" under the right license no problem, just not other Golarion-specific nouns.

So the answer really is "we want the 1e community to stop existing."

Or, and stay with me on this one, Mark was being completely honest and transparent about the fact that nothing about Paizo's existence can any longer afford to depend on Hasbro's good graces to continue existing, and they would never survive a legal challenge from them.

Y'all, I get that there can be uncertainty and confusion around something like a licensing change, but if you've been a fan of Paizo's work for this many years and still think they'd come at this in bad faith that deserves these kind of rude comments, then I don't know what reality you're living in.

Expressing concern and pointing out what types of projects may have fallen through the cracks is one thing. Throwing up your hands and saying "Wow, Paizo just did what was easiest for them and decided they don't care about us anymore" is wildly another.

Thanks for taking the time to address all of these questions and concerns Mark, it must be draining.

I do have a question about how these changes interact with stock art with proper names. This is something that Infinite clearly allowed and still allows (see my art of Daclau-Sarh as an exemplar). No changes on that front.

However, if I wanted to create stock art of Aldinach, would the new Fan Content Policy clear the way for me to sell that new stock art with the proper name on DTRPG instead of Infinite? Would the answer be any different if it was on Patreon?

Again, really appreciate the clarifications!

Your website header still points to Community -> Community Use page which was last updated Sept 01, 2023.

Thanks for pointing that out. We'll get that redirected to the Fan Content Policy.

As to your other points, which I will not quote for the sake of brevity, the number one request we have received for years from content creators has been to be able to put Paizo IP behind paywalls in order to increase the value of their Pathfinder or Starfinder channels.

When the Community Use Policy was first created, there was no Pathfinder Infinite, so the CUP was the only way for someone to make RPG material using our IP, but it then had to come with the rider that it couldn't be sold. We now have Infinite that allows for the complete use of our IP in RPG products (and more) with the added benefit that it can be monetized. So now that there's a place for such content, we would prefer people use it. And we want to make sure that if you're monetizing our IP in an RPG product you're doing so there, and not via a Patreon or other channel.

To be honest this is all way too confusing. I was writing an adventure based around the Brainchild, a non-ORC monster, and was planning on releasing it for free. Now I am not even sure if I can reference it (since it isn't ORC). If I can reference it I would need to wade through all this legalese to figure out how to reference it, what licenses to use and where I could release this adventure.

My solution is to just give up creating Pathfinder content and I feel I am not the only one.

Mark,
Early this morning, people in Europe learned about the replacement of the PCUP by the FCP. In my community, Pathfinder-fr, the last time I felt this level of despair and low morale was during the OGL-Gate. WOTC decided to change the game, ensuring every product would be released through their platform, giving them the final word on what is acceptable in a creator’s product. This was just one of many changes the OGL-Gate brought.

On Sunday evening, the developer team in charge of the Pathfinder 2e game system for Foundry publicly praised one of our members for her work. The next day, after reading the content of the FCP, we realized that all the work done by our volunteers, not only for our translation projects but also all our adoption initiatives, would have to stop or be considered illegal. The PCUP was replaced by the FCP without any notice—this is a cold shower.

With this announcement, I don’t know if Paizo botched its diplomacy check or critted on a demoralized check for our community, but all our volunteers are totally discouraged.

From your previous answer to Rectulo, I understand that you are not aware of the situation abroad. Briefly, our community has been actively working on the adoption of Paizo products since Pathfinder RPG was released, providing translations where there were none, generating game aids, and building a community through wikis.

Yes, English can be a showstopper in non-English speaking countries, to the point of being a factor of exclusion. Your partner in France, although doing a great job, has a huge backlog. Neither the Book of the Dead nor Guns & Gears are available, and the same goes for many adventure modules or most APs. They have to be selective in what they translate and publish.
Thanks to the PCUP, our translators deliver translations of PF2E Foundry compendiums usually within a month of their publication instead of selectively month or years later. This unofficial fan-based French translation cannot be used for any commercial ends.

We had a team ready to translate the Starfinder playtest and run numerous playtest sessions to raise interest and adoption of this new game in French-speaking regions, but this project is now at a standstill.

Here are a few use cases for which I would like to understand how to proceed under the FCP (considering how it worked under the PCUP). Please keep in mind that all these:
• Fan-made translations to bring adoption to new players who don't speak English. Using Golarion or Pact World lore is crucial to facilitate their later transition to commercial publications.
• Publication of community-written adventures for beginners, including a VTT module, usually set in Golarion or the Pact Worlds to ease the transition to mainstream publications. Of course, we could use Infinite, though it means removing all illustrations as they are AI-generated and ensuring we choose subjects that you “unilaterally” consider suitable.
• Publication of YouTube videos intended to explain how it’s played or to introduce potential players to Pathfinder or Starfinder. These are not “live play of game sessions,” but tutorials that would need to quote rules and lore, showing illustrations of Verces.
• Use of the translations to populate a rule-oriented Wiki.
I also wonder what translations would look like where nouns (your IP) are replaced by others to fit the FCP. Pathbuilder replaced the “Pathfinder Society Agent” feat with the “Guild Agent” feat, but still uses Abadar, etc. However, a translation where every noun is replaced would be confusing when it comes to helping people adopt Golarion. Looking at the result as a whole, it would just be plagiarism.

I appreciate the part of the FCP where fans can monetize a modest batch of their work, but for people who have been using the PCUP and spending hours providing free content, we have lost a lot.

I hope you will have the time to answer these questions, and I would really appreciate a second thought about people who have contributed to Paizo’s success as volunteers.

Communicating copyright/licensing decisions made for legal reasons is one of the hardest things you can do. I do not envy Mark's position here.

Thank you for the empathy and understanding. You have no idea how much I appreciate it this morning.

Your other points are salient, but I think it's worth emphasizing two of them:

These changes aren't something we're doing lightly, and are the tail end of us divesting ourselves as a corporate entity from the OGL that we began back in early 2023 and that has manifested primarily as the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project and advent of Starfinder Second Edition.

Second, we must protect our copyrights. The vast majority of what we create is licensed for free for everyone to use. That makes those elements which aren't that much more valuable, and we have to ensure that our ownership of that material is more tightly controlled than some may prefer.

And finally, while I aim to be as transparent about this transition and our decisions as possible, much of it does boil down to legal issues that we can't really be incredibly transparent about.

Exactly where the lines are drawn for some of this is probably my biggest point of uncertainty. I AM thankful to Mark for answering so many questions, but sifting through so many comments is definitely taking up quite a bit of time. Unfortunate, but it's out of my hands. Still, there's things I'm so uncertain of that I'm genuinely kind of afraid here, and I know I'm not alone in this.

As an example: If I were to post a pdf with a small selection of homebrewed creatures complete with descriptions and stat blocks to...Let's say the pathfinder2e subreddit (completely for free, of course), and I gave them all an alignment trait or had them do chaotic damage, but gave one of them the planar tether spell, would that even be acceptable? Or if I were to do a similar thing with deity stat blocks, but mentioned the Plane of Metal by name, is there some violation I'd be making by doing that?

I, like many others here, are not familiar with legal jargon and otherwise find a lot of the wording here uninformative in addition to not having the time to read EVERYTHING, so all clarification is and has been greatly appreciated!

Mark Moreland wrote:

Laclale♪ wrote:

Link to PFOA.

I also don't see any rules on the linked page.

The list

These appear to be campaign journals. This has always been allowed and continues to be so.

If I were converting Serpent's Skull ultimately to publish in Infinite and I wanted to bring that creature over into 2e, would I need to make up a new name for it in order to include it in the conversion?

If it were me, and this is just advice (and not legal advice, at that), I'd just say something like "replace the fey creature in area X1 with a Whozitwhatzit (Monster Core 256)" and then you never use the OGL name while still providing players with the info they need to run the adventure using Remastered rules. There are other ways to handle it, but this is how I'd do it.

Mark,

Early this morning, people in Europe learned about the replacement of the PCUP by the FCP. In my community, Pathfinder-fr, the last time I felt this level of despair and low morale was during the OGL-Gate. WOTC decided to change the game, ensuring every product would be released through their platform, giving them the final word on what is acceptable in a creator’s product. This was just one of many changes the OGL-Gate brought.

On Sunday evening, the developer team in charge of the Pathfinder 2e game system for Foundry publicly praised one of our members for her work. The next day, after reading the content of the FCP, we realized that all the work done by our volunteers, not only for our translation projects but also all our adoption initiatives, would have to stop or be considered illegal. The PCUP was replaced by the FCP without any notice—this is a cold shower.

With this announcement, I don’t know if Paizo botched its diplomacy check or critted on a demoralized check for our community, but all our volunteers are totally discouraged.

From your previous answer to Rectulo, I understand that you are not aware of the situation abroad. Briefly, our community has been actively working on the adoption of Paizo products since Pathfinder RPG was released, providing translations where there were none, generating game aids, and building a community through wikis.

Yes, English can be a showstopper in non-English speaking countries, to the point of being a factor of exclusion. Your partner in France, although doing a great job, has a huge backlog. Neither the Book of the Dead nor Guns & Gears are available, and the same goes for many adventure modules or most APs. They have to be selective in what they translate and publish.
Thanks to the PCUP, our translators deliver translations of PF2E Foundry compendiums usually within a month of their publication instead of selectively month or years later. This unofficial fan-based French translation cannot be used for any commercial ends.

We had a team...

This is so messed up. Mark, Paizo... a game lives and dies by its community. You can't just shut them out like this. This is worse than the OGL debacle, because this was done TO YOU first by Wizards. And now you're pulling something similar with Pathfinder's community? How is this remotely fair?

This is so messed up. Mark, Paizo... a game lives and dies by its community. You can't just shut them out like this. This is worse than the OGL debacle, because this was done TO YOU first by Wizards. And now you're pulling something similar with Pathfinder's community? How is this remotely fair?

Orion, I don't think we should go on that direction, we are providing input to mark. I really think that we are missing a part of the CUP that facilitate non-monetized fan content that contributed to Paizo's successin the last years.

I wouldn't have adopted Paizo without those content and decided to contribute because the CUP allowed to do more. And I know I am not the only one by speaking with other players accross the world.

I really consider the FCP should take non-profit usage with more consideration and flexibility... somehow aren't we hidden marketting force for Paizo TTRPGs ?

However, if I wanted to create stock art of Aldinach, would the new Fan Content Policy clear the way for me to sell that new stock art with the proper name on DTRPG instead of Infinite? Would the answer be any different if it was on Patreon?

This specific example is a bit more complex than the generic circumstance because Aldinach, while an ancient Egyptian demon associated with earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters, exists in the Pathfinder setting via the OGL as the demon lord of scorpions. That interpretation of the character is Wizards of the Coast IP, so we can't give you any permission to do anything with it.

If you were instead asking about Cyth-V'sug, who originated in Pathfinder, then giving a clear(er) answer is easier.

You can only sell the illustration as a hand-made print or other physical item, as the license only grants permissions for physical merch, not digital goods. The intent here is that you can sell these on Etsy for people to hang on their wall or at a local convention from your Artist's Alley booth, but not that you are selling digital art with no cap on units able to be sold.

You can sell it as digital stock art on Infinite, but not on DriveThruRPG or other marketplaces.

If you have this and other art behind a Patreon paywall, as a benefit to subscribers, that would be permitted, as long as you're selling access to a library of materials and not marketing your Patreon as the "Cyth-V'sug stock art community." The purpose of the Patreon needs to be for you as a creator, not our specific IP locked behind it.

I was writing an adventure based around the Brainchild, a non-ORC monster, and was planning on releasing it for free. Now I am not even sure if I can reference it (since it isn't ORC). If I can reference it I would need to wade through all this legalese to figure out how to reference it, what licenses to use and where I could release this adventure.

First, I guess I need to know if your adventure is going to use any of Paizo's non-rules content? Is it set in Golarion? Does it involve the Pathfinder Society or a temple of Sarenrae or the Whispering Tyrant? If not, and it's just a generic adventure usable in any setting, you can publish it under the OGL and (if you so choose) the Paizo Compatibility License. Such a product could be sold or distributed anywhere you want, except Pathfinder Infinite.

If it uses our setting, you'll need to publish it on Pathfinder Infinite. And since the brainchild isn't something that requires the OGL to use (having never appeared anywhere prior to Bestiary 3) you can use it via the Infinite License alone.

And since you wanted to release it for free, you can set the product price as $0.00.

Hi i'm actually managing a website similar to aon+ pathfinderwiki, but in italian, if i understood correctly till 31 August 2024, content can still be done with the Cup licenze and will not be subjected to be deleted after.
From 1 September 2024 there is no way to continue working like we are doing now, currently we are translating the part of pf1 rules that has not been done by Giochi Uniti (due to end of support to the line).
There is a way for such sites to get the same type of licenze that aon use to continue to operate, or we have to make the same operation done by d20pfsrd to remove paizo's specific term like grey Gardner?
Here the site: https://golarion.altervista.org/

Mark,

Early this morning, people in Europe learned about the replacement of the PCUP by the FCP. In my community, Pathfinder-fr, the last time I felt this level of despair and low morale was during the OGL-Gate. WOTC decided to change the game, ensuring every product would be released through their platform, giving them the final word on what is acceptable in a creator’s product. This was just one of many changes the OGL-Gate brought.

On Sunday evening, the developer team in charge of the Pathfinder 2e game system for Foundry publicly praised one of our members for her work. The next day, after reading the content of the FCP, we realized that all the work done by our volunteers, not only for our translation projects but also all our adoption initiatives, would have to stop or be considered illegal. The PCUP was replaced by the FCP without any notice—this is a cold shower.

With this announcement, I don’t know if Paizo botched its diplomacy check or critted on a demoralized check for our community, but all our volunteers are totally discouraged.

From your previous answer to Rectulo, I understand that you are not aware of the situation abroad. Briefly, our community has been actively working on the adoption of Paizo products since Pathfinder RPG was released, providing translations where there were none, generating game aids, and building a community through wikis.

Yes, English can be a showstopper in non-English speaking countries, to the point of being a factor of exclusion. Your partner in France, although doing a great job, has a huge backlog. Neither the Book of the Dead nor Guns & Gears are available, and the same goes for many adventure modules or most APs. They have to be selective in what they translate and publish.
Thanks to the PCUP, our translators deliver translations of PF2E Foundry compendiums usually within a month of their publication instead of selectively month or years later. This unofficial fan-based French translation cannot be used for any commercial ends.

We had a team...

A bit above your post Mark acknowledged that currently there is a gap in the FCP vs the CUP in allowing translations, and they are looking into options to make that available again.

Hello, I'm inaugurating my account on this forum to ask a couple clarifications regarding the state of open source System Reference Documents (SRD) and existing databases allowing fellow non-english-speaking players to actually play Pathfinder-RPG.

Firstly, can you explicitely confirm that as of now, no active licence supports the use of rule content that include proper nouns, like say, PF2e's deities profiles and PF1e's regional exclusive character options ?

If yes, does that mean anyone planning on creating (more realistically maintaining, at that point) a srd based on the OGL/ORC must rename those options *and* rely on the Compatibility Licence in order to include them in their work, to kind of act like it's the original option without actually naming it properly ?

Secondly, as the main contributor on the main french PF1e srd, do I have to scrap 15 years of hard benevolent job if I want to keep expanding on it, or should I rely on your french partner (Black Book Editions) and their own content licenses (which as of today still allows me to use proper nouns with their translation) ?

Thridly, you mentioned the team working freely on the PF2e system for FoundryVTT is not affected by this. Is it because of a special licence similar to what the team behind Archive of Nethys has regarding proper nouns usage, InDesign illustration files, and your explicit validation ? Or is it more of an agreement ? Either way, should the people maintaining other languages for the PF2e system on FoundryVTT contact you in order to be "in the loop" with these changes ? If so, how are we/they supposed to do that ?

Lastly, are you willing to include other languages to the Archive of Nethys, or allow other sites the same rights this site has to render your game freely available internationally ?

Here are a few use cases for which I would like to understand how to proceed under the FCP (considering how it worked under the PCUP). Please keep in mind that all these:

• Fan-made translations to bring adoption to new players who don't speak English. Using Golarion or Pact World lore is crucial to facilitate their later transition to commercial publications.
• Publication of community-written adventures for beginners, including a VTT module, usually set in Golarion or the Pact Worlds to ease the transition to mainstream publications. Of course, we could use Infinite, though it means removing all illustrations as they are AI-generated and ensuring we choose subjects that you “unilaterally” consider suitable.
• Publication of YouTube videos intended to explain how it’s played or to introduce potential players to Pathfinder or Starfinder. These are not “live play of game sessions,” but tutorials that would need to quote rules and lore, showing illustrations of Verces.
• Use of the translations to populate a rule-oriented Wiki.
I also wonder what translations would look like where nouns (your IP) are replaced by others to fit the FCP. Pathbuilder replaced the “Pathfinder Society Agent” feat with the “Guild Agent” feat, but still uses Abadar, etc. However, a translation where every noun is replaced would be confusing when it comes to helping people adopt Golarion. Looking at the result as a whole, it would just be plagiarism.

I appreciate the part of the FCP where fans can monetize a modest batch of their work, but for people who have been using the PCUP and spending hours providing free content, we have lost a lot.

Hi Fred, and thanks for the thorough reply. First, I want to apologize if this announcement has been demoralizing for you and your team. I guess the situation is more in the "failed our Diplomacy check" realm than the alternative, since we never intended this to be an attack on anyone. I appreciate your understanding and for laying out the specific ways this will impact your efforts.

First, the intent was never to cut off all translation efforts, and we are looking at the various iterations of the license to see when that particular portion the CUP was removed and why. It may take a bit of time, what with needing to go back and forth with our attorneys and most of our team leaving for Gen Con early next week, but we are looking at getting provisions to allow for translation put into the license as soon as possible. They may not be exactly what they were in the CUP, but it is not our intent to prohibit any translation of our material as the current license seems to do.

Of the examples you mentioned, the YouTube videos are for sure Fair Use and always were. You can provide guidance on how people play the game or use the forum to discuss the games in any language you want without needing a license from us.

The rest likely to get caught up in the new division between non-RPG and RPG material and so we will need to look at that more closely. Would it be a deal-breaker to have those items distributed via Infinite (even for free)? Some of our localization partners sell their non-English books on the site (Ulisses Spiele, for example) and I wonder if that would be a means by which you could continue to produce the intro adventure and other material within the confines of the FCP.

As for Pathbuilder renaming content, that's how anyone not using Infinite should be using our Open Game Content (OGL) and Licensed Material (ORC). "Abadar" as well as other Paizo-owned proper nouns should not be there, but I assume it's an oversight.

Anyway, I want to reassure, as much as is possible, that we're looking into the translation use-case of the CUP and will endeavor to ensure that as many of these use-cases are still covered under the FCP, even if not all of them.

FallenDabus wrote:

However, if I wanted to create stock art of Aldinach, would the new Fan Content Policy clear the way for me to sell that new stock art with the proper name on DTRPG instead of Infinite? Would the answer be any different if it was on Patreon?

This specific example is a bit more complex than the generic circumstance because Aldinach, while an ancient Egyptian demon associated with earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters, exists in the Pathfinder setting via the OGL as the demon lord of scorpions. That interpretation of the character is Wizards of the Coast IP, so we can't give you any permission to do anything with it.

Just jumping in quick here (and to offer just how complicated things are when it comes to handling what is and isn't OGL content), the version of Aldinach we have in our game is NOT WotC OGL content. This version of Aldinach, based on mythology but significantly changed to fit the role of a demon lord in Pathfinder, was created by Paizo (by me, to be specific) and not WotC.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Will third party publishers still be able to publish PF1 and SF1 OGL conversant content outside of Pathfinder Infinite/Starfinder Infinite? I mean, Paizo is still currently a storefront for digital third-party PDFs - so a publisher could still, after August, publish PF1 OGL content and sell them here, or elsewhere, anywhere but Infinite?

We have no ability nor desire to restrict what people can do with Open Game Content (OGL) or Licensed Material (ORC) for any of our games. We offer the Paizo Compatibility License to further allow people using those game rules via either license to also use an easily recognizable logo to express their game's compatibility with our system(s). All we're changing is the ability for someone to combine our Product Identity (OGL) or Reserved Material (ORC) with those licenses.

The Paizo Compatibility License is the only license that should ever be used in conjunction with a different license (either the OGL or ORC, or both if done correctly). Anything else should use solely the Infinite License or the Fan Content Policy.

Community members please help: Did Mark say “yes”?

If so, I guess I’m trying to work out why folks are decrying the “end of PF1 and SF1” third party content creation when…it is still just as possible as it was before, only less “available” because of the walling away of Infinite.

As an example: If I were to post a pdf with a small selection of homebrewed creatures complete with descriptions and stat blocks to...Let's say the pathfinder2e subreddit (completely for free, of course), and I gave them all an alignment trait or had them do chaotic damage, but gave one of them the planar tether spell, would that even be acceptable? Or if I were to do a similar thing with deity stat blocks, but mentioned the Plane of Metal by name, is there some violation I'd be making by doing that?

I think the distinction here is between someone homebrewing content and discussing it in a forum and publishing material. No one expects everyone who ever comes up with a new monster to also include a ton of legal text along with it when they post it online. In fact, if you've made up the monster entirely, and it doesn't use any of our copyrights like god names or nations or individuals, that's your IP—not ours. You get to decide how it's licensed, or if it's licensed at all.

So in your example, you're just posting this on a forum. It being a PDF instead of text in the body of a comment complicates it a little bit, but ultimately, you aren't publishing anything. To be absolutely safe, you'd include the requisite ORC or OGL text on the PDF just to be safe (and so someone else who wants to use your homebrew creation in their own publication can do so legally).

If you are instead creating stats for a named character that Paizo owns, then your safest bet is to put that free PDF up on Infinite and then link to it in your Reddit discussion. But if you're just spitballing how you'd build the Whispering Tyrant compared to someone else, or trying to get feedback on it before you run it in your game later this week, you're having a discussion not publishing.

Hi i'm actually managing a website similar to aon+ pathfinderwiki, but in italian, if i understood correctly till 31 August 2024, content can still be done with the Cup licenze and will not be subjected to be deleted after.

First, nothing released under the CUP has to be deleted. It's grandfathered in.

Second, we're going to be looking at the license and how it can better serve our international community in ways the CUP allowed. That will take time, and we appreciate everyone's understanding and patience. As long as you're operating in good faith as we make these adjustments, no one is going to come after you to delete anything.

Mark Moreland wrote:

FallenDabus wrote:

However, if I wanted to create stock art of Aldinach, would the new Fan Content Policy clear the way for me to sell that new stock art with the proper name on DTRPG instead of Infinite? Would the answer be any different if it was on Patreon?

This specific example is a bit more complex than the generic circumstance because Aldinach, while an ancient Egyptian demon associated with earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters, exists in the Pathfinder setting via the OGL as the demon lord of scorpions. That interpretation of the character is Wizards of the Coast IP, so we can't give you any permission to do anything with it.

Just jumping in quick here (and to offer just how complicated things are when it comes to handling what is and isn't OGL content), the version of Aldinach we have in our game is NOT WotC OGL content. This version of Aldinach, based on mythology but significantly changed to fit the role of a demon lord in Pathfinder, was created by Paizo (by me, to be specific) and not WotC.

Oh no, I fell into a hole!

This is why we want to ensure that our content and OGL content are two separate things in as many places as possible. It's inconvenient for us (and even we can get it wrong, as I've shown), and we know it's inconvenient for the community. But once we're on the other side of it, it will be easier for everyone.

Community members please help: Did Mark say “yes”?

Yes