Paizo's Partnership with Archives of Nethys ends on July 24

[graystone]

Unicore wrote:

I am not a lawyer.

But I do know that if I have a specific contract agreement with a third party, and I want to change one element of that agreement, I am going to have to pay lawyers to rewrite that agreement, or I can end that agreement and not pay lawyers rewrite that agreement unless there are dates written into the contract.

You don't have to rewrite or end the contract wholesale; amendments [change/remove/modify] or addendums [add] are a thing. While these follow the same requirements as a normal contract, they don't required the same level of work as the majority of the work is already done in the main contract. This is especially true if the changes are simple and both side agree from the start [wrangling back and forth over specifics can easily be the biggest source of billable hours]. Honestly, if they regularly do contract law of a specific type, it can pretty boilerplate.

It's a cost sure, but in this case I think it'd be a small one time one compared to the free publicity and good will AON will continue to brings in.

[Teridax]

Another thing I want to draw attention to is the following part of the Paizo blog:

Jim Butler wrote:

When we first broke the news to Archives of Nethys that we were going to end the license, we offered a marketing agreement to make the change less impactful, but those conversations were not concluded before they chose to publish their notice.

If the statement is accurate, it's quite telling -- Paizo chose to unilaterally terminate their partnership agreement first, and only then offer a different agreement. One would expect a two-way relationship to involve negotiating the original agreement first, and this is also a very similar situation to the OGL debacle, where a certain wizard company also announced they were unilaterally revoking an agreement of their own so that they could force the parties involved to sign onto a new agreement on their chosen terms. The blog does not specify what this marketing agreement actually entailed, but if AoN broke from conversations midway through to make a statement, something tells me it was not to the latter's benefit.

[Zoken44]

This is nothing like the OGL debacle. that is a ludicrous comparison. that comparison just tried to star in a fast and furious movie. that's how ludicrous it was.

and No, in a licensing agreement, I would expect them to first formally announce the ending of the licensing agreement, and then negotiate a possible marketing agreement. This isn't like they could go and sit down and talk with the folks at AoN. this is a corporation's PR, Legal, Licensing, and advertising departments, communicating with a volunteer group who do advertising for them.

Again, I have things I could criticize Paizo on here, but I get why they are ending the agreement. It sucks, but it makes sense giving the state they are in. and you want to know what makes me say this kind of thing. Over on Blusky one of the people I've seen defending Paizo, saying their financial position is that bad... IS ONE OF THE PEOPLE THEY JUST LAID OFF. If THAT person say it makes sense for Paizo to act this way, I'm gonna listen.

Again, I have made criticisms of Paizo here that I stand behind, but I think this... well, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Teridax]

Zoken44 wrote:

This is nothing like the OGL debacle. that is a ludicrous comparison. that comparison just tried to star in a fast and furious movie. that's how ludicrous it was.

and No, in a licensing agreement, I would expect them to first formally announce the ending of the licensing agreement, and then negotiate a possible marketing agreement. This isn't like they could go and sit down and talk with the folks at AoN. this is a corporation's PR, Legal, Licensing, and advertising departments, communicating with a volunteer group who do advertising for them.

They absolutely could have gone and sat down with the folks at AoN. AoN is one of their most well-known partners in the community, and these departments you mention aren't vast corporate spiderwebs either, because Paizo isn't a very big company. Someone at Paizo absolutely could have gone and sat at the table with people from AoN to try to discuss changing their existing agreement, and they should have done so before throwing all that goodwill out the window. Unilaterally terminating an otherwise stable and long-standing agreement and putting the other party under implicit threat of imminent legal action in order to negotiate a new deal in too little time is exactly the trick WotC tried to pull, and I suspect the expectation here was also to be able to steamroll a small group of people who, to the best of my knowledge, don't have a corporate lawyer on retainer.

[Zoken44]

They didn't put AoN under any threat of legal action. They actively encouraged AoN to keep posting all the rules under other existing legal framework. Neither AoN's post, nor Paizo's implied any sort of legal action or antagonizing of AoN by Paizo. All AoN has to do is take down artwork. It will be inconvenient not having early access to the information anymore, but they aren't threatening AoN with anything.

My read on all this is that Paizo was forced to do this for financial reasons (in the words of one of the people laid off: "Hi, 12 [people] no longer have jobs!") and while they were trying to work with AoN to figure out if they can get them on some special marketing access, AoN, not realizing how big a splash it would cause, made their announcement.

[rainzax]

Yeah this is stupid.

I never really criticize Paizo, rather the opposite.

Whoever made this decision chose poorly.

AON helps their business for free.

[graystone]

Zoken44 wrote:

Again, I have things I could criticize Paizo on here, but I get why they are ending the agreement. It sucks, but it makes sense giving the state they are in. and you want to know what makes me say this kind of thing. Over on Blusky one of the people I've seen defending Paizo, saying their financial position is that bad... IS ONE OF THE PEOPLE THEY JUST LAID OFF. If THAT person say it makes sense for Paizo to act this way, I'm gonna listen.

I just can't see it as a financial decision as I can't see the savings to be made here. They are still going to be paying the same people for the same work and don't see the time devoted to AON meaningfully changing their workload. None of the things listed are unique to AON. They are still going to have to send out DMCA's, still going to send out PDF's/images to demiplane, ect. Where is the savings?

[Deriven Firelion]

After reading the blog, seems they want to simplify their ability to control their IP. I know people don't want to read it, but I can't help but think part of it is to limit where it is posted so the AI LLMs can't scrape it as easily and they can have the content in more centrally controlled locations to prevent this.

AI LLMs are stealing tons of content posted on the internet to use in the LLM, especially for creative content creation. Companies must protect their IP and part of how they likely must do this is reduce the amount of content easily scraped.

I do wonder how creative companies like Paizo that pay artists and writers a good amount of money to make images, maps, and write narrative and rules will prevent that content from being swept up in the huge LLM AI content scrape. These things read massive amounts of content swept up off the internet in seconds, then create off that content.

I did not know Paizo changed CEOS to Jim Butler. He used to be a licensing and marketing VP. He must have an idea of how all this stuff is going to work and how best to protect Paizo's IP.

[Teridax]

Zoken44 wrote:

They didn't put AoN under any threat of legal action.

I don't know how this is escaping you, but Paizo terminating their agreement with AoN means AoN has to remove all artwork on their website that isn't compliant with the CUP (which is a lot), cease to host the original Pathfinder PRD, and all within the next nine days, or else be held legally liable for breaking the Community Use Policy. Again, when WotC announced they were terminating the OGL, this would have made every game creator reliant on the OGL liable to legal action from the company once the license ended, which is why there was such an uproar. In this particular instance, this is a massive and urgent workload dumped on the AoN team's lap all of a sudden, so I can't blame them for being short on patience.

[BotBrain]

In scope, it's obviously nothing like the OGL, which was an industry shattering event that if WOTC had their way would have overturned several different companies.

It is however, as Teridax noted a similar strat. End an agreement, propose a new one on your terms or fall afoul of the terms of the new agreement.

The only two distinctions are that WOTC did not have the authority to overturn the OGL, and there is the safety net of the CUP for AoN to fall back on, rather than just be legally vanished. This, at least IMO, does soften the situation somewhat, as it's not the same utter shakedown, but they both posses the same "shape".

[graystone]

25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

despite never donate enough to aon to make paizo care

There was NEVER a moment where this was ever going to be a reality and this was known going in by both parties. AON's business model wasn't a secret. If Paizo thought that this was a cash cow opportunity for some reason, that's on them.

25speedforseaweedleshy wrote:

somehow player feel like they own those art now

No one thinks that. What people do think is that it diminishes AON's value as a tool to advertise the game. You show a prospective gamer a few entries and the images can pull them in. Make a token for your VTT game and maybe they want to buy a book. There isn't really a downside I can see. Demiplane has all the images so anyone can just take the pictures from there; people go to AON because it works better, loyalty and knowing they do a good job. So easy access to the images isn't the issue. It just makes more work for everyone involved.

Now if they'd said 'we're pulling out in the hope it drives more traffic to demiplane', I could believe that as that makes some sense. All the reasons they gave in the blog? Not so much. Really people are more upset on principle and on it just seeming to be a baffling call. It seems equal parts scummy and shooting themselves in the foot and the losers are us, AON and IMO themselves.

[Bagpuss]

Did the senior Paizo folk pass the response statement to fellow humans and actually hear back "yeah, that's good, explains everything"? It's hard to believe they did, but they must have; God knows what the original looked like if this is the crafted, edited version after feedback

[moosher12]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

After reading the blog, seems they want to simplify their ability to control their IP. I know people don't want to read it, but I can't help but think part of it is to limit where it is posted so the AI LLMs can't scrape it as easily and they can have the content in more centrally controlled locations to prevent this.

AI LLMs are stealing tons of content posted on the internet to use in the LLM, especially for creative content creation. Companies must protect their IP and part of how they likely must do this is reduce the amount of content easily scraped.

I do wonder how creative companies like Paizo that pay artists and writers a good amount of money to make images, maps, and write narrative and rules will prevent that content from being swept up in the huge LLM AI content scrape. These things read massive amounts of content swept up off the internet in seconds, then create off that content.

I did not know Paizo changed CEOS to Jim Butler. He used to be a licensing and marketing VP. He must have an idea of how all this stuff is going to work and how best to protect Paizo's IP.

Even with the new context, I still remain skeptical that AI is the relevant threat (Mind you, I agree with you inasmuch as it's still a threat, just not the causal threat in this case). If the issue is that the legal upkeep to send C&D notices is too expensive for Paizo to eat right now, and that the royalties were to pay the legal upkeep, AI scraping itself would cloak the activity and be harder to notice in the first place. Basically a case where, if a normal artists draws a Pathfinder-style kobold, it's fine, and if an AI generates a Pathfinder-style kobold, it's gonna be harder to prove as directly stolen (As you can just feed it information directly from a pdf or other artist's commissioned drawings). It sounds to me more like the problem is 3rd party actors unreasonably using the direct pictures for more than just private use, using the pictures as is, rather than AI.

AI itself is not mentioned as a reason, and the reason mentioned frankly does not need AI to be a factor to still be a costly upkeep on Paizo's part. But lastly, C&Ding companies using AI is not something Paizo can even easily do due to the difficulty of proving it as a direct rip. The most they can really do is prevent AI from using keywords like "Hellknight, Desnan, or Red Mantis Assassin," but if it's producing generic fantasy, Paizo can't really do much about that. But ultimately, if AI scraping is the problem, removing AoN's rights to use Paizo pictures will do very little to fix that. I doubt it's the reason, because the execution is too unproductive to be a long-term decision. You simply don't need AoN to get access to Paizo artwork. Also, there is always the Pathfinder- and Starfinder-wikis. To stop AI scraping from free-to-use websites, they'd have to revoke their rights to Paizo artwork, too.

Another thing is, counteractively, lack of availability of pictures for GMs to send to players, I feel will cause an increase in AI use, rather than a decrease, because sending players good quality images was difficult enough before AoN started adding Bestiary pictures. And if they cannot easily send a picture, even if they own the book/pdf, because they still need to photo edit the picture clean from mechanical content, or otherwise use more sophisticated and expensive tools like photoshop to directly rip the picture from a pdf, the temptation to use an AI will frankly increase for some GMs, as it becomes an availability problem. I remember running Rise of the Runelords and spending whole days cleaning pictures in GIMP just to put into roll20.

[moosher12]

As for my post blog thoughts, I'll recompile to say, pragmatically, I get it. But I'm not quite sure I agree that it would be a net gain. Sure, Paizo is eating costs on upkeep for litigating against bad actors taking the pictures and running. And it sounds like the royalties were to pay for that upkeep. It also sounds like while Paizo was in the green, they seemed to be willing to eat the upkeep until things became tight. But my question is: Is that cost outweighing the amount of players that Archives of Nethys brings in who become future customers?

[graystone]

moosher12 wrote:

Sure, Paizo is eating costs on upkeep for litigating against bad actors taking the pictures and running. And it sounds like the royalties were to pay for that upkeep. It also sounds like while Paizo was in the green, they seemed to be willing to eat the upkeep until things became tight. But my question is: Is that cost outweighing the amount of players that Archives of Nethys brings in who become future customers?

The thing is, the same images are on demiplane right now. So taking them off Archives of Nethys saves them nothing. They'll still have to litigate, as anyone that wants free images to use just switches sites. So this saves them the free PDFs sent to Archives of Nethys?

As to royalties, as a site run off of donations and minimal ads, I'm not sure anyone could reasonably expect royalties from them to sustainably pay for anything, especially with the volatile, AI-driven surge in server costs from hardware prices due to massive global data center expansions and escalating cloud computing rates. Honestly, IMO, the fact that Archives of Nethys didn't cost them anything put them ahead of the curve.

[moosher12]

Pretty much. There are so many other ways to get the pictures than Archives of Nethys. I think the justification that people more easily mistake Archives of Nethys as being free use when it's not doesn't really feel like something to punish Archives of Nethys itself over, if they can just grab the pictures from anywhere. Even then, Archives of Nethys can always just make disclaimers more visible that the images they provide are not free for unlicensed use.

[Angwa]

That blog statement is just downright bad...

How would a contract that is already in place incur an upkeep in billable lawyer hours? How many addenda and changes could there have been over the years, and more importantly how many did they expect to make going forward because that is where the cost savings would be...

There are alternatives for the artwork besides AoN, so I don't see that work going away, and they have other partners besides them requiring tracking and actually charging royalties, which in the case of AoN is a big fat zero and hence very close to no work at all.

Most importantly however, because it seems the most transparent lie, I very much doubt that this so-called 'negotiating' they were supposedly doing amounts to substantially more than just the notice they are terminating the deal. AoN released their statement for a reason after all, which very much reveals that there was no good-faith two-way conversation going on. Also, the CUP is in place so what could be in this new potential agreement that is not the art and getting the content in advance? It does not leave much else on the table so what on earth is there to negotiate over in the first place!?

And would this new agreement also not cost billable lawyer hours both in drafting it as well as this mysterious upkeep?

[Gorgo Primus]

There’s since been a video statement made on AON’s Patreon going into more details, and yeah the negotiations sound like one or two emails of vague offers that AON wasn’t interested in like some of the art being grandfathered in. Followed by weeks of silence while AON kept asking for clarifications and the like.

Though it also said AON was given 6 months to change the site, so I can kinda see why Paizo wrongly thought there was no hurry to do or say anything.

[Teridax]

I will say, as someone who got drawn to several Pathfinder books specifically due to seeing art featured on AoN (Draconic Codex especially comes to mind), I do feel that art being hosted on the website was also a boon for the company, not a detriment. I'll be curious to know about all these incidences of copyright infringement that allegedly happened, but something tells me that if they're happening now, they're going to keep going regardless of AoN's status.

[ObligatoryHuman]

I've never been one for patreon subscriptions but I'm very much considering subbing to AON's.

[Gorgo Primus]

It’d be ironic if they only started pulling in significant money after Paizo dumped them. It’s almost like giving them a heads up and time to figure out a way to make royalties for them would have been a good idea…

[Lightning Sentinel]

That article was a Nat 1 Diplomacy roll...

I'm baffled that they expected that this would've gone better, unless they thought AoN would accept whatever they proposed without any resistance.

[Roadlocator]

Gorgo Primus wrote:

Though it also said AON was given 6 months to change the site, so I can kinda see why Paizo wrongly thought there was no hurry to do or say anything.

There is a difference between no hurry and not saying anything until a week and a half before the deadline. They could have taken time to write things carefully, knowing that this was gong to be an unpopular choice. This... doesn't feel like that

[The Raven Black]

Zoken44 wrote:

They didn't put AoN under any threat of legal action. They actively encouraged AoN to keep posting all the rules under other existing legal framework. Neither AoN's post, nor Paizo's implied any sort of legal action or antagonizing of AoN by Paizo. All AoN has to do is take down artwork. It will be inconvenient not having early access to the information anymore, but they aren't threatening AoN with anything.

My read on all this is that Paizo was forced to do this for financial reasons (in the words of one of the people laid off: "Hi, 12 [people] no longer have jobs!") and while they were trying to work with AoN to figure out if they can get them on some special marketing access, AoN, not realizing how big a splash it would cause, made their announcement.

I am 100% sure Paizo would have preferred not to have to lay off their 12 coworkers. And from what I read, they did treat them in a humane and respectful way.

I am also 100% sure Paizo would have preferred to keep their usual way of doing things with AoN and really felt they had no choices but to cut their losses there too.

And I am also pretty sure that, had they given AoN some respect, in the spirit of their 8 year partnership from which Paizo definitely benefited, then AoN would not have been so incensed that they decided to throw this on the public place and hurt Paizo's reputation as much as they could.

That Paizo did not even see this coming speaks volumes on how they treated their partner in the end.

"You shook Sinatra's hand, you should know better." Danny Ocean

[graystone]

The Raven Black wrote:

And I am also pretty sure that, had they given AoN some respect, in the spirit of their 8 year partnership from which Paizo definitely benefited, then AoN would not have been so incensed that they decided to throw this on the public place and hurt Paizo's reputation as much as they could.

AON has a week to remove assets from the site so I'm not sure "incensed" and "throw this on the public place" fits as they had to let people know why content would be vanishing. 'Hey, things are going to vanish and here's why' seems like a perfectly reasonable/rational thing they had to do and it wasn't a situation of their own making. It had to be done, and in public, so i don't really see what else could have been done on their side.

[Lightning Sentinel]

I need some clarification: Does the 6 months to change the site start on the 24th or is the 24th the deadline for them to remove the art?

[Dr. Aspects]

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

I need some clarification: Does the 6 months to change the site start on the 24th or is the 24th the deadline for them to remove the art?

My understanding is that the 24th is the official end of the agreement and they have 6 months from then to remove it.

[TheFinish]

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

I need some clarification: Does the 6 months to change the site start on the 24th or is the 24th the deadline for them to remove the art?

Per the FAQ video AoN posted on Patreon, July 24th is the official end of the agreement. From that point onward, AoN would need to follow the CUP and thus could not upload any new art not covered by the CUP. But, Paizo gave them a grace period, from July 24th, 2026 to January 24th, 2027, to get rid of all the non-compliant art already present on the site.

[Lightning Sentinel]

Ok, thank you both.

[Teridax]

The Rules Lawyer just posted an extensive breakdown of the AoN situation: unlike most of us who have commented on this issue, Ronald is in fact a lawyer IRL, and so is speaking from subject matter expertise when it comes to examining arguments around legal costs and IP. If you don't want to sit through the whole video, I would recommend watching it from around 19:26 to 31:32 to hear his take on several commonly-made criticisms, and to summarize some of them here:

* Paizo ending their deal with AoN is likely to have a tangible negative impact in supporting and promoting the game, even though the bulk of the rules will remain accessible.

* There is justification in criticizing Paizo's move, as this goes against the principles that built them goodwill within the community.

* AoN's team are clearly doing their work for love of the game, not for money, and were treated callously by Paizo leadership. Beyond the concrete impact of no longer featuring images and accessing rulebooks later, this partnership ending appears to have shaken the team's morale and may result in AoN releasing content with less commitment than before, which would negatively impact all of us who rely on the site.

I'd recommend watching the video in full, but I will say that this breakdown comes across as both much better-informed and much more empathetic than comments I've seen from other authority figures that I otherwise greatly respect, like Owen K.C. Stephens: sure, there may be a contract enshrining Paizo's partnership with AoN as something other than volunteer work (or at least, there was, the partnership ends today), but in practice, AoN's team are volunteers, they clearly aren't doing it for the money, and what few concessions they were getting from Paizo were purely in service to making AoN a better public resource. All of this contributed significant intangible value to Paizo in the form of goodwill and promotion of their game content, both of which are being damaged by the end of this partnership. I'd personally quite like Paizo to keep going as a company for many more years, and so I think it is in the interest of their long-term continuity to reconsider this decision, and rebuild the bridges they've burned.

[Lightning Sentinel]

One would think that with the past half decade of companies firing doormen and burning good will like it's kindling no one would have to learn that lesson themselves, but I guess you really do learn more from your own mistakes than others...

My opinion on Paizo right now is far from irreparable, but it's gonna take some time to recover if they do reconcile with AoN.

That said, I really would love sales notices on a site like AoN!

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

That said, I really would love sales notices on a site like AoN

I’m not sure what this means. What is a “sales notice”? For clarity I’m in Australia and am also sometimes a bit dense, so if this is American-colloquial or similar please…clarify! :)

[Lightning Sentinel]

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

That said, I really would love sales notices on a site like AoN

I’m not sure what this means. What is a “sales notice”? For clarity I’m in Australia and am also sometimes a bit dense, so if this is American-colloquial or similar please…clarify! :)

The video suggested a hypothetical agreement with AoN for them to display something like banner whenever there is a sale, since Paizo is really bad about advertising them. He also suggested an affiliate link in general so Paizo can track how much traffic and sales comes from AoN while also supporting the site.

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

@Thanks for clarifying Lightning Sentinel!

Hmm. I guess I’d find banners etc first of all distracting, and a little discomforting.

I do see that there needs to be better support for AoN, but my fear is that options like “affiliate links” could lead to expectation and demand anywhere along that chain/ecosystem from either end of stakeholder interaction. What happens if sales slow right down? What happens if sales skyrocket? Then dip again? If any inherent tie between sales at Paizo and support of AoN is engendered I’d be extremely wary, for all concerned - Paizo, AoN; and users of AoN and Pazio customers.

[magnuskn]

Teridax wrote:

The Rules Lawyer just posted an extensive breakdown of the AoN situation: unlike most of us who have commented on this issue, Ronald is in fact a lawyer IRL, and so is speaking from subject matter expertise when it comes to examining arguments around legal costs and IP. If you don't want to sit through the whole video, I would recommend watching it from around 19:26 to 31:32 to hear his take on several commonly-made criticisms, and to summarize some of them here:

And that is what I meant in that other thread about "institutional believability". Ed Reppert, if you are seeing this thread, Ronald being falsely cited as an expert is exactly what I meant there.

To clear this up: Ronald is not a copyright lawyer, he states as such later in his video, has stated so more strongly in another video in the past where he was discussing an copyright related question and he is coming at this from a strongly activist-focused pro-AON side of things. In fact, he actively states that he is an ardent socialist activist in the above-linked video. Which is totally okay, but then he should not be cited as someone who is using his legal expertise to clear up things.

As someone who has been an assistant to patent lawyer for the last seven+ years (which is not the same as a copyright lawyer, but there is significant crossover), I can assure you that his video did not include anything which could be construed as a legal analysis for an IP-related problem. The best he could come up with was "many people and I think that this doesn't make sense" statements. That is far from a legal analysis, because legal problems often don't make sense for a layman, but they definitely exist in the eye of the law.

[Lightning Sentinel]

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

@Thanks for clarifying Lightning Sentinel!

Hmm. I guess I’d find banners etc first of all distracting, and a little discomforting.

I do see that there needs to be better support for AoN, but my fear is that options like “affiliate links” could lead to expectation and demand anywhere along that chain/ecosystem from either end of stakeholder interaction. What happens if sales slow right down? What happens if sales skyrocket? Then dip again? If any inherent tie between sales at Paizo and support of AoN is engendered I’d be extremely wary, for all concerned - Paizo, AoN; and users of AoN and Pazio customers.

Well, they already fired the figurative doorman already, so *shrug*

[Teridax]

magnuskn wrote:

And that is what I meant in that other thread about "institutional believability". Ed Reppert, if you are seeing this thread, Ronald being falsely cited as an expert is exactly what I meant there.

To clear this up: Ronald is not an IP lawyer, he states as such later in his video, has stated so more strongly in another video in the past where he was discussing an IP related question and he is coming at this from a strongly activist-focused pro-AON side of things. In fact, he actively states that he is an ardent socialist activist in the above-linked video. Which is totally okay, but then he should not be cited as someone who is using his legal expertise to clear up things.

It is deeply weird to bring up Ronald's progressive views when trying to impugn his credibility, just as it is disingenuous to assume that he cannot speak from a position of knowledge on this matter simply because his specialty as a lawyer isn't in a field that is itself not central to the issue he is analyzing in that video, which you should have been aware of by watching it. He clearly is speaking from knowledge when questioning Jim Butler's claim around legal costs and spending precious company resources on pursuing instances of image-sharing online, for instance.

I will also note that you went out of your way to try to discredit Ronald's take in this thread and the other discussion, but expressed no such opposition to Owen K.C. Stephens' take, which was similarly taken up on that same institutional believability you're railing against here. Brilliant as he is, Stephens is a game designer, not a lawyer, and left Paizo in 2019. He is therefore even less of an authority on this particular subject matter, and yet his word was taken as gospel by some all the same. I'm sure the fact that his opinions align more closely with the ones you've expressed have nothing to do with you failing to point out this fact.

magnuskn wrote:

As someone who has been an assistant to patent lawyer for the last seven+ years (which is not the same as an IP-lawyer, but there is significant crossover), I can assure you that his video did not include anything which could be construed as a legal analysis for an IP-related problem. The best he could come up with was "many people and I think that this doesn't make sense" statements. That is far from a legal analysis, because legal problems often don't make sense for a layman, but they definitely exist in the eye of the law.

This critically misses the point in the exact manner I cited in the post you are replying to: the main thrust of Ronald's video was never to make a legal argument against Paizo, but to point out that the criticism of Paizo has a valid basis on a broader level. It does not matter whether Paizo can legally do what they did (and they absolutely can), what they did is repugnant and will have a negative effect upon them and this community. Trying to dress up this discussion in purely legalistic terms or reducing it to a business contract does nothing but obfuscate the real reasons behind the community's negative response to this decision.

[magnuskn]

Teridax wrote:

It is deeply weird to bring up Ronald's progressive views when trying to impugn his credibility, just as it is disingenuous to assume that he cannot speak from a position of knowledge on this matter simply because his specialty as a lawyer isn't in a field that is itself not central to the issue he is analyzing in that video, which you should have been aware of by watching it. He clearly is speaking from knowledge when questioning Jim Butler's claim around legal costs and spending precious company resources on pursuing instances of image-sharing online, for instance.

I was bringing up his political views for context, since he cited themselves himself as his predominant viewpoint in his video.

Political views have no place in a legal analysis. Which his video wasn't, but you brought it up in that context ("Ronald is in fact a lawyer IRL, and so is speaking from subject matter expertise"), so I felt I had to clarify that he is not using legal expertise in a noticeable way in his video.

Teridax wrote:

This critically misses the point in the exact manner I cited in the post you are replying to: the main thrust of Ronald's video was never to make a legal argument against Paizo, but to point out that the criticism of Paizo has a valid basis on a broader level. It does not matter whether Paizo can legally do what they did (and they absolutely can), what they did is repugnant and will have a negative effect upon them and this community. Trying to dress up this discussion in purely legalistic terms or reducing it to a business contract does nothing but obfuscate the real reasons behind the community's negative response to this decision.

You yourself brought up his video in the context of him providing "subject matter expertise", which is missing in his video.

The point is, we don't know what legal problems are happening in the background. It is of course possible that Paizo just pulled a money-saving move without considering the likely community response, but I also would not rule out that Jim's explanation is as close to what is the truth as they are allowed to publicly state, without incurring even greater legal risks.

Also, assigning Paizo's actions the label of "repugnant" is over the top, IMO. But you do you.

[Lightning Sentinel]

I agree that it's ultimately unimportant that Teridax incorrectly cited Ronald's credentials. I'm confused why you bring up ip. Also, the lack of transparency is the source of all this frustration and jumping to conclusions.

[Teridax]

magnuskn wrote:

I was bringing up his political views for context, since he cited themselves himself as his predominant viewpoint in his video.

And what context is that, pray tell? Because as it stands, the context here is whether he is qualified to emit an opinion on the subject, which makes your attempts to foist politics into the discussion somewhat concerning.

magnuskn wrote:

Political views have no place in a legal analysis. Which his video wasn't, but you brought it up in that context ("Ronald is in fact a lawyer IRL, and so is speaking from subject matter expertise"), so I felt I had to clarify that he is not using legal expertise in a noticeable way in his video.

This is wrong on a number of levels. I never claimed Ronald's video was a legal analysis, I simply pointed out that he has more knowledge of law than most of us, which he clearly applied when critically examining the question of Paizo supposedly needing to file cease-and-desists to people sharing images of their products online. He isn't applying his political views to a legal analysis, because as you point out, that is not what his video is. It is plainly obvious you are trying to use Ronald's progressive activism to discredit him and his viewpoint, which says infinitely more about you than it does about his video.

magnuskn wrote:

The point is, we don't know what legal problems are happening in the background. It is of course possible that Paizo just pulled a money-saving move without considering the likely community response, but I also would not rule out that Jim's explanation is as close to what is the truth as they are allowed to publicly state, without incurring even greater legal risks.

You're right, we don't know what conjectural problems could be happening in the background, which is why we shouldn't argue off of conjecture. The facts are that Paizo ended a long-standing partnership with a team of people who dedicated a significant portion of their life to providing the community a free, high-quality resource. The leader of that team is clearly upset, as is much of the community, and with good reason.

magnuskn wrote:

Also, assigning Paizo's actions the label of "repugnant" is over the top, IMO. But you do you.

This is rich, coming from someone who just yesterday jumped to accusing someone of "spreading disinformation" for getting facts wrong. As it stands, I do not believe Paizo's decision stemmed from good intentions, nor do I believe it was made with any empathy towards the people most directly impacted by this decision who'd made significant sacrifices out of passion for the game. It is, in my opinion, a repugnant decision, and my esteem of Paizo as a company and its leadership has lessened for it.

[magnuskn]

Teridax wrote:

And what context is that, pray tell? Because as it stands, the context here is whether he is qualified to emit an opinion on the subject, which makes your attempts to foist politics into the discussion somewhat concerning.

He is of course entitled to his opinion, which he did state in his video. You are conflating however his qualification as a lawyer with his opinion piece. He did not express himself in anything what I would perceive how a lawyer would approach expressing himself when analyzing legal matters, he made a summary of the situation and then expressed an opinion which came from an activist point of view, which he himself pointed out in the video.

I am bringing his politics only into the discussion because he himself mentioned in his video that he was approaching the situation from his political point of view, i.e. him stating that he is an ardent socialist.

Teridax wrote:

This is wrong on a number of levels. I never claimed Ronald's video was a legal analysis, I simply pointed out that he has more knowledge of law than most of us, which he clearly applied when critically examining the question of Paizo supposedly needing to file cease-and-desists to people sharing images of their products online. He isn't applying his political views to a legal analysis, because as you point out, that is not what his video is. It is plainly obvious you are trying to use Ronald's progressive activism to discredit him and his viewpoint, which says infinitely more about you than it does about his video.

You are projecting here something onto me which I haven't said. I am a leftist myself. I am not trying to use his progressive/socialist views to denigrate his opinion, I am pointing out that he approached his video from that point of view, rather from a legalistic point of view.

Paizo's reasoning that they incur large legal costs for having to file cease-and-desists sound actually pretty reasonable to me, since I know how much these cost and how many man-hours go into compiling materials to sustain such cease-and-desist cases, if they ever go anywhere near a court. Man-hours which have to put in on the case of Paizo first, before their attorney comes into it, since Paizo as the client needs to prove that they own the artwort, are using it, etc. Which probably is a bit easier than the commercial cases I am working with in my own workplace, but still would entail affidavits from the artists, compiling images, invoices, etc.

Teridax wrote:

You're right, we don't know what conjectural problems could be happening in the background, which is why we shouldn't argue off of conjecture. The facts are that Paizo ended a long-standing partnership with a team of people who dedicated a significant portion of their life to providing the community a free, high-quality resource. The leader of that team is clearly upset, as is much of the community, and with good reason.

Yes, so much is clear and fact. I was, and still am to some extent, upset about it. But in restrospect and with more information I also view the side of Paizo with more clarity, given how AON only gave a two-hours notice to their announcement (a clear sign that they did not want Paizo to respond to them) and didn't send a follow-up reminder to Jim Butler before doing their announcement. Owen pointed out in his video that this was clearly pretty deliberately done to put Paizo into a bind and that he thought it was a good tactic to get Paizo back to the negotiating table. I think another kind reminder and then doing their announcement five days later, if there was no response from Jim in-between, would have been more professional, but then again they are not professionals, but volunteers.

Teridax wrote:

This is rich, coming from someone who just yesterday jumped to accusing someone of "spreading disinformation" for getting facts wrong.

Yes, that is actually what "spreading disinformation" is. Also, that dude clearly is not acting in good faith, if you've seen his other posts. Some of his posts were actually deleted for "baiting".

Teridax wrote:

As it stands, I do not believe Paizo's decision stemmed from good intentions, nor do I believe it was made with any empathy towards the people most directly impacted by this decision who'd made significant sacrifices out of passion for the game. It is, in my opinion, a repugnant decision, and my esteem of Paizo as a company and its leadership has lessened for it.

As I said, you do you.

[Lightning Sentinel]

sincere question: What is you point? I'm confused because you seem to just be pointing out small mistakes and I don't know to what end.

[magnuskn]

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

sincere question: What is you point? I'm confused because you seem to just be pointing out small mistakes and I don't know to what end.

The point is that the situation is still in flux and we still got upset people, who just heard of it, coming in, often with false information, like "Why is Paizo shutting down AON?!?".

After seeing his video, I was concerned that Ronalds position, him being a lawyer, would be used to give what I called "institutional believability" to the arguments against Paizo, while I myself perceived his video to be more of an opinion piece. Notice that he never cites any legal procedures, he just states something to the effect of that "he and many other people" think that Paizo's arguments do not sound convincing.

Teridax then comes in and makes the exact argument I was wary of, namely that Ronald, being a lawyer, is speaking from "subject expertise". Which, IMO, he clearly is not in his video, he is making a value judgement from a pro-AON side of things and not really adressing the Paizo side of things (which for example Owen did in his video). Which is totally okay, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the matter.

It's, in the totality of things, a minor gripe of mine, but it kinda stuck in my craw. And here we are.

[GM Anonymous...]

Everyone, roll initiative!

Then I need a Diplomacy, Deception, or Intimidation check.
Alternatively, you can strike each other with pillows.

[Lightning Sentinel]

magnuskn wrote:

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

sincere question: What is you point? I'm confused because you seem to just be pointing out small mistakes and I don't know to what end.

The point is that the situation is still in flux and we still got upset people, who just heard of it, coming in, often with false information, like "Why is Paizo shutting down AON?!?".

After seeing his video, I was concerned that Ronalds position, him being a lawyer, would be used to give what I called "institutional believability" to the arguments against Paizo, while I myself perceived his video to be more of an opinion piece. Notice that he never cites any legal procedures, he just states somethinf to the effect of that "he and many other people" think that Paizo's arguments do not sound convincing.

I am a regular viewer, and I can confirm that he's not a law channel beyond the punny name. He's very opinionated and I think trying to make heads and tails of the situation is under the umbrella of opinions.

magnuskn wrote:

Teridax then comes in and makes the exact argument I was wary of, namely that that Ronald, being a lawyer, is speaking from "subject expertise". Which, IMO, he clearly is not in his video, he is making a value judgement from a pro-AON side of things and not really adressing the Paizo side of things (which for example Owen did in his video). Which is totally okay, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the matter.

It's, in the totality of things, a minor gripe of mine, but it kinda stuck in my craw. And here we are.

It really feels like you're going beyond correcting people, and that's what I think the issue is. I also agree about getting the facts straight and not assuming the worst, but I do think you're belaboring it.

[magnuskn]

Lightning Sentinel wrote:

It really feels like you're going beyond correcting people, and that's what I think the issue is. I also agree about getting the facts straight and not assuming the worst, but I do think you're belaboring it.

Alright, that's totally possible. I also am very concerned about the entire situation and probably not thinking straight 100%.

[Unicore]

A couple of things that strike me about the larger situation that really are out of people’s control:

Who should be paying for art and at what price points? Those are questions that feel like are getting harder and harder to answer monthly if not weekly on a society scale, and can only be more complicated at the small business scale that is wrestling with these questions at a business survival level.

People generally do want artists to get paid, but you also have a lot of people who would happily cut all the art costs out of their gaming experience entirely if it means the game could be significantly cheaper. Those are competing customer demands that have to be balanced against each other. There is also a reality that bad art makes any “product” look less professional and good art makes a product look more professional, with higher and higher expectations being placed on companies to publish polished professional art. In the game book publishing industry the art is an absolutely instrumental part of the game book and is not detachable from the tone and style of the game. I think it is pretty fair to say that art is lore. It is a part of the fabric that brings a game world to life and it makes sense for Paizo the company to value their art as much as they value the setting and adventure lore, even if there is a non-insignificant part of the gaming community that really only values the mechanical game rules.

I think this is the difficult double bind that Paizo finds itself in. The companies profitability is largely tied up in people buying books because they want to support the company and insure high quality adventures, settings, art and game mechanics exist, but not because the majority of people buying the products are using the exact products they buy to actually play the game. It has to be a very nervous tight rope to walk, especially as a very large number of people have recently come to the company because they are angry about how a larger gaming company has thrown its customer base under the bus at the point they tried to figure out how to sell the usable product again instead of the aesthetic of being the game most in touch with its fan base. (I am talking about the OGL fiasco but also the original attempt to control access to the mechanics of 4e that created pathfinder in the first place).

I think AoN is amazing and love the websites existence. I have also never donated a dollar to them dispute using the website daily and completely ignoring all the ads I ever encounter from them. As times have gotten tight for me personally, I have stopped buying one Paizo subscription after another until I had to drop them all, but I didn’t stop playing the game, or being interested in the new products. I still playtest classes and do the surveys and such, but it is probably going to be another year or two before I am back on my feet enough to start buying rule books again. That is not going to stop me from letting my players use content from Impossible Magic though, so what obligation does Paizo have to make any of the material they produce available to me? I don’t think they have any, and yet it feels like Paizo still is keeping to a business model that is going to let me play their game for the next year or two, I just might not be able to use any official new art until I start buying the products again and can reference it again at my own table.

I think there are scary questions for companies like Paizo about players like me (I will submit to being called financially lecherous at this time) that dig into “will they be satisfied AI generating their art and plot hooks enough to never come back to the official content?” For me? No, but that risk has to be pushing constantly up against Paizo’s bottom line as many players say yes.

[Lightning Sentinel]

no worries. we're all worked up about this

[moosher12]

Toward Magnuskin, I've seen your posts around, and I can at least agree that a commentator for a more legalistic point of view is needed.

But I think the primary importance around the Rules Lawyer and Own Stephens, Alex Augunas, and Jacob Blackmon is that they do serve a purpose. Paizo customers only have what they have as far as information. They are confused, not sure what to be angry at, and need focus so that their disconent is not misplaced. These folks did a job directing it more appropriately. For example, while their net bias was in favor of AoN, a common sentiment among these people was that Paizo itself was not being greedy in these matters. And each of them did their due diligence to try to reduce the vitriole being directed at Paizo toward a more healthy level. They are given talking points to make, are diffused from not believing what is not true, and are guided away from blaming Paizo of having malicious intent.

And they still have a degree of authority, not as legal, but simply as people who keep close eyes on Paizo. The devs have a history of working with Paizo, and The Rules Lawyer made it their YouTube career to study Paizo, preferable to me than a general tabletop YouTuber or journalist who pays little attention to Paizo and the Paizo community as a whole, and lacks those contexts when examining the situation.

I don't want to be the person to say you do it, because I know it's not so simple. But in all honesty, if you have the expertise to put out a video from a legal point of view, someone does need to step up to the plate and do it. Because unless someone does it, these folks are simply what we have to work with. Paizo folks see the forums, but the majority of customers (and potential customers) who are mad at the situation do not. So trying to diffuse anything here, will have a limited effect. I'm hoping that someone like Legal Eagle or Roll of Law will cover it, but the fact of the matter is they didn't.