| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, trying to retroactively change how things have been done for the last two decades is going to be an interesting trick for Wizards. A couple of the youtubers I watch have mentioned that, under US law, you can't copyright game mechanics per se (using a D20, hitpoints, STR and DEX as a stat, etc....)
I have no idea if that is strictly accurate but if that's the case, it will make the position of companies like Paizo a lot stronger if this whole thing winds up in court.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm amused by the timing of that PBS hit-piece on the OSR community that just so happened to drop right in the middle of this growing OGL situation. WotC doing a little media battlefield prep, if I'm not mistaken. Wizards really must be worried about the optics of this whole thing if they're already thinking along those lines....What they want is for everything to be handled by a license that is more draconian than the GSL was and may try to accomplish it, but their own words about the OGL would rise to the level of contract in a court and their attempts would be thrown out. The FAQ was used to make business decisions more than 20 years ago and they clearly state that every version of the OGL would always be permanent. I wonder if Hasbro even knows that FAQ exists as it has subsequently been removed from the WotC web site, but as we all know the internet is forever.
Nothing in law is forever. People get divorced (despite promising publicly to be together till the end), contractual clauses get thrown out by judges, obligations - even one you've imposed on yourself - get voided. That's what courts are for, among others, to untangle yourself from legal situations you did not foresee 20 years ago.
WotC has a VERY long shot here, but it has a shot. And in American law, where business-to-business litigation is brutal and frequently more about who has the money than who is right, a long shot might be all they need to win.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
WotC has a VERY long shot here, but it has a shot. And in American law, where business-to-business litigation is brutal and frequently more about who has the money than who is right, a long shot might be all they need to win.
Moreover, they don't necessarily need to 'win' any court case. They simply need to ruin the business model of their competitors. How long can Paizo exist, for example, if they can't sell 90-100% of their product? How about Hero Lab? Owlcat? Pathbuilder? etc. etc.
Court cases tend to drag on. If WotC can get make their new OGL enforceable while that goes on.. it's going to be game over. Because frankly, while the outrage among the rest of the RPG will be immense and overwhelming, the outrage among DnD fans is likely to be muted at best.
| 22 people marked this as a favorite. |
the outrage among DnD fans is likely to be muted at best.
Depends on what D&D fans you're talking about. Old grognards who cling to their OD&D copy will likely not care. But sensitive, centre-leftist anti-capitalist kids who got in the game through the Critical Role/cosplay/"I can be a trans nymph here, and nobody will judge me" pipeline? WotC might be severely underestimating how toasty and quick to self-ogranise against a corporate cash grab these rainbow folks are.
If they/them fairies of colour end up bringing the house down on Hasbro overlords and saving Pathfinder (and other games) in the process, some of the more conservative fans (including ones clutching their pearls this week over bioessentialism right now) might feel a bit awkward :D
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
My thoughts on this. Wotc wanted this version leaked so when the real one drops it'll be terrible but less so and people can say, see looks it's better than what was leaked and just go along with it.
**takes off tinfoil hat**
I'd say that is highly likely.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord.
They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord.
They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
TIL there's an official D&D discord. Is it DDB?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My thoughts on this. Wotc wanted this version leaked so when the real one drops it'll be terrible but less so and people can say, see looks it's better than what was leaked and just go along with it.
**takes off tinfoil hat**
I think this would backfire, personally. All it's gonna do is get more eyes on the issue, which is the last thing they'll want. They want people ignorant and out of the loop, not even knowing to listen to 3pps at all. You can't unring that bell.
Doesn't mean they wouldn't try it!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Depends on what D&D fans you're talking about. Old grognards who cling to their OD&D copy will likely not care. But sensitive, centre-leftist anti-capitalist kids who got in the game through the Critical Role/cosplay/"I can be a trans nymph here, and nobody will judge me" pipeline? WotC might be severely underestimating how toasty and quick to self-ogranise against a corporate cash grab these rainbow folks are.
I'd love for that to be the case. I was thinking more that apathy and taking the path of least resistance seems to be the way things go these days and therefore most people wouldn't leave or be particularly perturbed by the move.
Lol. I'm jaded by life is all :P
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like the current Hasbro/WotC leadership doesn’t appreciate that the roleplaying community is kind of an ecosystem of many, many smaller roleplaying communities, of which 5e is currently the largest. If this comes to pass, they are actively trying to harm (and even destroy) many of those communities. Many people would take take this move as a personal threat to the game and community they are passionate about.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord.
They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
They probably really think that if they kill Paizo that all the Pathfinder players will happily play D&D then.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like the current Hasbro/WotC leadership doesn’t appreciate that the roleplaying community is kind of an ecosystem of many, many smaller roleplaying communities, of which 5e is currently the largest. If this comes to pass, they are actively trying to harm (and even destroy) many of those communities. Many people would take take this move as a personal threat to the game and community they are passionate about.
: /
I’m not alarmist by nature but damn, my hackles are dancing. I have a question for those with any kind of background in US law: how far into the current release cycle would we have if the worst case scenario were to present itself? Educated guesses are welcome.
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
Listening to the Know Direction podcast about this (with Ryan Costello, Alex Augunas, and the Owen KC Stephens):
Decided to pop in to pledge I would donate not less than $1000 to any legal defense Paizo needed/wanted to put up, and take a day or two to picket Hasbro at any court hearings if this proceeds as it currently appears.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would remind people that its not the average employees that are making these changes at Hasbro and WOTC so please don't go all agro on the regular people there.
I had this big rant on corporate structure which I still think if kinda relevant, but the whole point was that the current CEO is not going to back down from this due to the mentality they developed at Microsoft.
They might lose the court battle, but I doubt they would apologize for trying.
I think the best thing that Paizo can do is get with other 3rd parties affected by this and other like minded orgs like the EFF and share legal costs.
This could be a long drawn out fight and I can see helpers in the shadows for Hasbro, but I also see Paizo and others affected having champions as well.
I think the results will have long lasting implications. And I doubt that any ruling against Hasbro will be left un-appealed.
The good guys are going to have to play a very good game to come out on top due to resources. I think they have a good chance though.
I'm hoping!
|
I'm amused by the timing of that PBS hit-piece on the OSR community that just so happened to drop right in the middle of this growing OGL situation. WotC doing a little media battlefield prep, if I'm not mistaken. Wizards really must be worried about the optics of this whole thing if they're already thinking along those lines....What they want is for everything to be handled by a license that is more draconian than the GSL was and may try to accomplish it, but their own words about the OGL would rise to the level of contract in a court and their attempts would be thrown out. The FAQ was used to make business decisions more than 20 years ago and they clearly state that every version of the OGL would always be permanent. I wonder if Hasbro even knows that FAQ exists as it has subsequently been removed from the WotC web site, but as we all know the internet is forever.Nothing in law is forever. People get divorced (despite promising publicly to be together till the end), contractual clauses get thrown out by judges, obligations - even one you've imposed on yourself - get voided. That's what courts are for, among others, to untangle yourself from legal situations you did not foresee 20 years ago.
WotC has a VERY long shot here, but it has a shot. And in American law, where business-to-business litigation is brutal and frequently more about who has the money than who is right, a long shot might be all they need to win.
If they were still publishing 3.5E maybe they could have an argument, but the whole point is they're doing this to put out a new system. So the desire to "protect" their previous rules editions will be laughed out of court. Any judge will see what this is an attempt to do.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So everyone is an innocent victim in all this? I doubt that quite strongly.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just trying to sit back and absorb the confirmed information we get as we get it.
Hard not to comment, but I wouldn't put it past WoTC from leaking a harsher document to make what they do to the community more palatable.
Seriously though, I don't buy DnD products for myself but my kid is getting into it and I just bought him the Players/Masters and Bestiary for 5e so they can dive in. If they pull the rug out from under the community in any way shape or form I don't think they understand the backlash the community can deliver when they come together.
Nor the support we will give to someone who supports us back. If they kill the original OGL and it affects content providers negatively. People aren't going to magically rally around their new version of the game the way they think they will.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would remind people that its not the average employees that are making these changes at Hasbro and WOTC so please don't go all agro on the regular people there.
Especially since a bunch of those employees came over to WOTC from Paizo in the first place (i.e. Wes Schneider, Liz Lydell, Jason Tondro, etc.)!
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
You shouldn’t even blame the higher ups. Blame the way public companies are legally required to be constantly increasing profits for their shareholders
I get where you're coming from, but I'd sooner say that the higher-ups are bad actors, and the system encourages and rewards them and helps bad actors gain greater power.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
If this ends up in the courts I'll buy every single AP while I still can, and would be happy to contribute to any crowd sourced defence fund.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here’s a article by a IP lawyer
https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-d-d-s-o pen-gaming-license-ogl-581312d48e2f
TL DR the $750,000 threshold is gross revenue not profits. Profits is what you get when you subtract the costs of making and selling a product from the gross revenue
It seems to revoke the original OGL and it may be able to be challenged in court.
An interesting and well thought-out take, but possibly mistaken based on precedent. Using the term "non-revocable" in Open licenses wasn't common practice at the time the OGL was written because it was thought to be unnecessary. Later on, after some court cases involving Open source software (which found in favor of Perpetual being the same as non-revocable), open source licenses started updating to make it clear by including non-revocable and avoiding any confusion. The OGL 1.0 simply predates those precedents.
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/4012/are-licenses-irrevocabl e-by-default
A non-exclusive copyright license (such as most FOSS licenses) can be revoked at any time only if there was no consideration involved. The United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeal took this on in Jacobsen v. Katzer in 2008 and ruled that there is consideration exchanged in the use of FOSS by a licensee. This indicates that an FOSS license that's silent on revocation is likely revocable only for violation of it's conditions.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Paizo chose not to create work for 4e primarily because it required adhering to a license that (1) prevented them from producing under the original license and (2) was revocable. The new OGL replaces the original license is likewise revocable: "“can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days’ notice.”
My guess is Paizo does one of two things: (1) fights WotC by claiming the original license has vague language was understood for 20 years to be irrevocable or (2) reframes Pathfinder 2e as non OGL and a separate non infringing work. Both approaches have merit in my opinion.
However, whatever path they take they will need to do so immediately because as soon as the new license takes effect they will potentially be incurring both consequential damages and statutory fines by selling their own (theoretically infringing) product. Their lawyer will tell them to pick one of the lanes above and then either seek a TRO/Pre Inj against the new license or a dec relief action to find that their product in non-infringing.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
This letter may be worth taking a look at. Paizo wouldn't be alone if it came to a lawsuit.
In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord.
They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
As a wise man once said: "you couldn't even boycott Chik-fil-a". Hasbro can expect a month of whining from their community at most, and after that if the court case goes well for them it'll be business as usual with more taken off the top.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Their lawyer will tell them to pick one of the lanes above and then either seek a TRO/Pre Inj against the new license or a dec relief action to find that their product in non-infringing.Or, their lawyer may help them negotiate a separate, individual licensing agreement with WOTC that only applies to Paizo.
I really don't see Paizo doing that. Lisa and those who are still there from the magazine days I think still remember the fear when they lost those licenses and weren't sure what was going to happen next for all of them. I don't think they want the company to ever be dependant on Hasbro/WotC again.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Boycotts work when they're organized and focused, and fail when the efforts are dispersed and without clear goals. The TTRPG community is a bit smaller than "people who like chicken", and as divided as we often are, this is an extremely bipartisan issue. I've seen people I disagree with 1000% on every other issue arguing my side here.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's actually not exactly certain. See, before Wizards of the Coast can shut down Paizo's production, Paizo (and other third-party publishers) will almost definitely sue to punish what is a blatant breach of contract on Wizards of the Coast's part. The letter I linked above says as much.
Bear in mind, the "courts shut it down while they figure things out" rule can cut both ways. The courts are just as likely to say, "this new license doesn't take effect until we work out if it's legal". In fact, I'd think that's more likely, since it's less intrusive and changes less than shutting down 80% of the industry overnight. I think that's a court's preference, all else being equal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Their lawyer will tell them to pick one of the lanes above and then either seek a TRO/Pre Inj against the new license or a dec relief action to find that their product in non-infringing.Or, their lawyer may help them negotiate a separate, individual licensing agreement with WOTC that only applies to Paizo.
And this may also be WotC's strategy. Cut agreements with the big companies that basically leave them alone (Paizo, Kobold Press, Critical Role, Green Ronin, etc.) then go after everything medium to small level and cut their monetary throats with endless lawsuits.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a wise man once said: "you couldn't even boycott Chik-fil-a". Hasbro can expect a month of whining from their community at most, and after that if the court case goes well for them it'll be business as usual with more taken off the top.In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord.
They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
Boycotting Ender's Game as a movie DESTROYED it as a cinematic universe. It bombed at the box office and ended any hope of additional movies, because of a boycott.
The same could eb done with a certain movie that is close to release...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
We don't know that they can cut off all Paizo's income. Wizards of the Coast needs to get this license out the gate first, and they're likely to get sued long before they're able to sue everyone else. Considering their own website told third-party publishers that they would never do what they're doing now (not to mention the guy who wrote the OGL being on the record multiple times saying the same), it seems much more likely to me that the license is what courts will put "on hold until we resolve this".
The courts like to do everything in the least disruptive way possible. That’s why a lot of restraining orders related to lawsuits are temporary.
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am a very cynical person, and on top of that have had conversations with (though am not friends with) people who make a living in corporate legal gray spaces. In particular the space of “we know what we are proposing is legally wrong, but not wrong enough that we could be disciplined for trying it.” And what they do is try to make the cost-benefit analysis from the viewpoint of anyone they are taking advantage of come down to “we would probably win in court, but even if we did it isn’t worth the effort it would take. Let’s just accept what they are offering.” Think of health insurance horror stories you have heard.
From that viewpoint, it’s worth it for Hasbro to try to push the boundaries. Because there is a huge set of roadblocks to be thrown up to encourage settling and acceptance.
1) Who has the money to fight this in the first place? Paizo and maybe a couple of other companies.
2) If a lawsuit is filed, we can file for a preliminary injunction forbidding them from using the OGL while the lawsuit is ongoing. Don’t know if we will get the injunction but if we do, we win. There’s no way they can survive for the years we can drag this lawsuit out if they aren’t publishing. They will have to settle.
3) If we don’t get the injunction, we start a laborious discovery process. Whatever we can do to drag this out and hike up their legal costs.
4) After a month or so, once it’s clear this is going to take a while, we propose a settlement. We drop the lawsuit, they publicly agree to accept the terms of the 1.1 OGL. In a contract covered behind an NDA we privately agree not to require any money from them (or just a pittance), regardless of how much they make.
5) This is actually what we’ve been after all along! Once Paizo and a few other big publishers have publicly accepted 1.1, we’ve reset the expectation and everyone will agree to 1.1. Thanks to the NDA’d contracts we aren’t making money off the big ones (for now) but we have set that bar for everyone else AND for the future OGL 1.2.
6) They aren’t dummies, they can see how this plays out. Most likely the big guys will go straight to negotiations.
7) Our real worry is some little guy fighting “on principle.” But if we can delay that confrontation a few years, we can point at the precedent of the 1.1 license being in use for a while and agreed to by all these entities.