Brairthorne's page

I expect Mercer and his crowd have already signed a custom licensing agreement with Hasbro/WotC. They are NOT going to talk about it, I don't even expect them to announce anything. They (both Mercer and Hasbro) absolutely do not want the public to know the terms of the arrangement and I fully expect those details to be under an NDA.

Hasbro wants every large publisher or the like to sign a custom, non-public, contract with them. OGL1.1 was built for that purpose.

That's the problem: That's fundamentally true. Whatever Mr. Dancey believed in 2000 and/or wrote into a FAQ in 2004, the actual text of the license does NOT make that license irrevocable, only perpetual. A perpetual license just never EXPIRES, it's not a license that can't be revoked or modified (clause 9 of OGL 1.0a explicitly reserves the right to unilaterally modify the license to begin with).

Ryan Dancey's intention may have been that the license be irrevocable. The problem is that Wizards of the Coast, which is the legal entity that crafted that license, never made it so. And any contract that is not explicitly irrevocable is not irrevocable.

I'm not happy with the change. But it's not actually fraudulent and anybody going to court on the supposition that it is is going to get their ass handed to them. OGL 1.1 is damage and because of the size of Hasbro/WotC, we just have to route around it.

I have to agree with this.

In other news Paizo has entered discussions with other game publishers to create a new OGL, one that isn't under the tyranny of Hasbro. Not sure who is all involved, but it does involve the Azora Law Firm. That is the firm that includes Brian Lewis, one of the people involved in the creation of the original 1.0 OGL!

Dancing Wind wrote:

Only if you agree to it Only if you want to keep earning income.

Essentially anyone who has IP rights they don't want to donate to Hasbro will have to stop creating new material and can't sell any old material starting 48 hours from now.

No. That's what WotC want you to believe. That is far from likely to be upheld in court.

Sadly that doesn't matter much.

It is a 3pp vs the vast legal resources of Hasbro. They don't have to win, all they have to do is litigate their competition out of profitability or out of business. I invite you to consider the court case between Harmony Gold and Battletech, it was a complete farce at the start and it lasted decades. Remember that we are talking about the successor to TSR who was colloquially referred to as 'They Sue Regularly'.

Any publisher that decides to not comply with the new OGL has to consider that any profits it could make may be lost in litigation, even if they win the case. If they lose the case (which isn't out of the realm of possibility), they can look forward to WoTC republishing the work as their own.

Don't fight the OGL, walk away and let it starve to death.
Paizo is more than capable of creating their own system with no substantial references to DnD, and then creating their own OGL.

Driftbourne wrote:

12Seal wrote:

Heard a rumor claiming 1.1 is already live. Can anyone confirm whether they rammed it through?

Would make sense if they're trying to harvest IPs.

It's not released publicly yet that I know of, but it's likely to have been given out privately. We know Kickstarter has cut a deal with it already. Everyone else is silent, suggesting a legal action, battle, or advice is keeping others silent which is why we likely haven't heard from Paizo yet on this.

Sounds reasonable.

Kickstarter and other publishers have already had the new OGL communicated with them. This is how we have the text available to us now.

It is already a done deal, and it takes effect on the 13th of January.

A. Delayed Collection: Though this agreement is effective January 13, 2023, no royalties will be due on any income

earned before January 1, 2024 – no matter how much that income is. We want to give Our community a lot of lead time
to plan for this. For clarity, all other requirements of this agreement are in effect from the time You enter into the
agreement