OGL 1.2 Draft

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Ok, have I read this right.

The CC part only applies to mechanics.

1.2 applies to WOTC's intellectual property/trademarks.

In which case, there's a high chance they're "giving" us things they don't actually control anyway.
 
Looks good to me.

I see a lot of moaning online about about it purporting to give things that WotC can't give (you can't copyright mechanics et al) but that is what the OGL has always done anyway. Giving things a legal safe harbour is a good thing to promote certainty.

The only problematic element remaining is the de-authorising of the OGL1.0a, though by negative implication it does seem like they are leaving the OGL1.0 in place. That is something I would like WotC to clarify.
 
Skywalker said:
The only problematic element remaining is the de-authorising of the OGL1.0a, though by negative implication it does seem like they are leaving the OGL1.0 in place. That is something I would like WotC to clarify.
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They could easily release OGL 1.2a that clarifies OGL 1.0a and anything earlier is no longer authorized.
 
Sosthenes said:
But… badges?
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blazing-saddles.gif
 
I knew I was setting that up. Wonder how often we'll see that (or better the original), although I've seen little talk about those pieces of flair yet.
 
I debated where this should go, since this is discussing the OGL 1.2 here we go

The new OGL 1.2, What is Victory?




I thank you for taking the time to read this post. This hobby is supposed to be a fun pastime even when it is part of one's livelihood. The past two weeks have been anything but fun. So I appreciate the time you spent reading this post amid the many outraged voices making themselves heard.

The OGL 1.2


Today Wizards finally laid some of their cards on the table and offered a proposed OGL 1.2.
Starting the OGL "Playtest"
As an OSR publisher, several things stand out to me.
DnD and Creative Commons License

The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages), are licensed to you under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This means that Wizards is not placing any limitations at all on how you use that content.
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I edited the D&D 5.1 SRD into three sections corresponding to the page numbers above. You can browse through at this link.

Proposed Creative Common DnD mechanics

What they didn't release is most of the "lists" that comprise DnD 5e. Only the Equipment List is part of the CC-BY content they plan to release. Classes, Spells, Monsters, and Magic Items are not.

Overall this is a positive step. If nothing else is gained and they follow through on this, then moving away from the OGL becomes that much easier for the OSR. It would make what I need to do with the Majestic Fantasy RPG a lot more straightforward.

Deauthorization
They also planning to add a notice deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a

NOTICE OF DEAUTHORIZATION OF OGL 1.0a. The Open Game License 1.0a is no longer an authorized license. This means that you may not use that version of the OGL, or any prior version, to publish SRD content after (effective date). It does not mean that any content previously published under that version needs to update to this license. Any previously published content remains licensed under whichever version of the OGL was in effect when you published that content.
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Note the after (effective date), the intent here is to allow folks to continue selling or offering what has been previously released under the OGL 1.0a. Unfortunately, it cuts us off from building on or continuing the work we have been doing for the past 23 years.

Current authors and publishers can change the license on their original content, but for those who moved on to other pursuits or are no longer with us, this is not an option. Their work will remain unavailable to use until they enter the public domain decades from now.

I consider this unacceptable.

The D20 SRD
The D20 SRD is gone as a result of this section. Wizards wants to change the license for the 5.1 SRD and remove access to the d20 SRD THIS YEAR. This is not a "wait until OneDnD is released" proposal. Although they might build in a grace period. This section is from the actual license.

(a) Content Covered
(i) Our Licensed Content. This license covers any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons. You may use that content in your own works on the terms of this license.
(ii) Our Unlicensed Content. Only Our Licensed Content is licensed under this license. Any other content we release or have released is not licensed to you under this license.
(iii) Your Content. This is your creative contribution to your works that are not Our Licensed Content or Our Unlicensed Content. This license permits you to combine Your Content with Our Licensed Content and distribute the resulting works as authorized by this license.
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Likewise I consider this unacceptable for anything other than future Wizard's content.

Rob's Note: While the OSR relied on a stripped-down version of the D20 SRD, the same "hack" applies to the CC-BY content they plan to release although some spell names and monster names will have to change.

Other considerations
I did not touch on other areas as they don't impact my work as a OSR publisher. I do not plan ever to use the OGL 1.2 for my creative works. I recommend looking to others for more details on those clauses. However, one clause needs to be addressed.

The Morality Clause
The proposed OGL 1.2 license contains the following provision

No Hateful Content or Conduct. You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action.
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This to me is unacceptable. I want to be clear about where I am coming from. A few years back I had to deal with racism, anti-Semitism, and hate speech from an individual I licensed IP from. I paid the price for my principles as well. Seeing my income from RPG material dropping from hundreds of dollars per month to tens of dollars per month.

Surrendering freedom, creative or otherwise, to an oligarchy like Wizards of the Coast will not solve the problems of racism and hate. Instead, their bias and their prejudices are substituted for your own moral compass. By agreeing to the OGL 1.2, you surrender your moral authority to them.

More importantly, you surrender it to their successors. Unknown individuals who may not share your ideals, and your belief in what is right, just, and fair.
Each of you reading this will have to decide for yourself what is the right course of action. For myself, I will not surrender my right to act in the manner I see fit, in the form I see fit. I have done so in the past, and I will do it again as circumstances dictate. I am not special in this, each of you reading this has the power to do the same.

For more a detailed essay on the problems of morality clauses and conduct codes, I recommend this guest essay by James Raggi on the Tenkar's Tavern blog. Also look up the details on the following: The Hays Code, and the Comic Code Authority. Each was born of a generation's belief in what was right, just, and decent.

Then ask yourself as James Raggi said, were the marginalized served by these codes? Will the marginalized be served by the code as set forth by Chris Cock CEO of Hasbro, Cynthia Williams CEO of WoTC, and their successors? Or are you the better judge of these matters?

What is Victory?

We won a battle but not the war for our creative legacy. In the words of Churchill,
Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
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I realize for some of you these are not the words you want to hear. You want the hobby to be fun again. Publishers are grasping for any type of certainty for their livelihood. You want this to end sooner than later.

So how does this end for me?
  • Wizards acknowledge OGL 1.0a as an authorized irrevocable license.
  • That all past open content remains open content under the OGL 1.0a and free to be used as they have been for the past 23 years. Works like the D20 3.0 and 3.5 SRD. The 5e 5.1 SRD as well remains under the OGL 1a.
  • In turn, I will acknowledge they have the right to license OneDnD any way they like. However, I reserve the right to make critical comments about their creative and legal choices.
  • The plan to release various sections under the CC-BY 4.0 license be followed through.
  • That Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro, and Cynthia William, CEO of Wizards of the Coast, each write and sign individual formal apologies to all the publishers impacted by their overreach and inept handling of the situation such as Paizo, Kobold Press, Troll Lord Games, Green Ronin, Gaming Ballistic, Frog God Games, and many others.
Fight On!
 
I have seen over on the D&D Beyond forums an prevalent argument from WotC apologists that "This is as good as we're likely to get from them so stop being '1. 0a forever or bust!'. It doesn't help negotiate!".
This is wrong. Here's the facts. WotC needs our money every year to show a profit. They hold no power. None. The most they hold is IP to some incredibly generic fantasy characters and extremely limited copyright power to some displays of mechanics. We don't need to bend to them at all. What's their option? Not produce D&D books? Shut down D&D? Ok wow. That is truly cutting the nose to spite the face.

So here's the deal. You want to sell us D&D products the you must make OGL 1.0a irrevocable and with no method of de-authorization. That's it. There is no middle ground. Take that or I keep my money. You aren't selling food. You aren't selling housing. Your selling entertainment. You have to earn my money. Not the other way around. Get that through you corporate head or get lost.

If anyone has a d&d beyond account I'd love that to be posted there however you need to edit it or paraphrase it.
 
I feel like the CC part (of game mechanics that can't be protected anyways) is just to invoke headlines like "D&D goes creative commons after community backlash!" that might help smoothing the shirtstorm a bit for people that don't look into the details.

robertsconley robertsconley already brought most of my concerns to the table, but there is another point I want to mention:

1.(b) Works Covered: Mentions the license ONLY applies to PRINTED MEDIA or STATIC electronic files (gives pdfs, epubs as example) + VTT under the additional policy. As a open source tool developer I think this lacks the inclusion of any non-vtt related software / website / tool targeting D&D. A website like a encounter generator is not a static file similar to a pdf, epub. It displays SRD data in a temporary / on-demand / highly dynamic way based on user input. If stuff like that would be covered why explicitly using the word STATIC and giving pdf and epub as example? I think they really narrow down the way you can license your SRD based creations. If it's not print-like either real or pdfs and not related to a VTT it seems like the usage is not covered by the OGL.
 
Spellslinging Sellsword said:
It appears that they refuse to let go of revoking 1.0 and are running a smoke and mirrors creative commons "concession" that doesn't include classes, spells, magic items, or monsters. So most of what makes up D&D. The rest is fairly generic rpg stuff.
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Simple enough. We keep punishing them until they stop committing the crime.
Bunch said:
I have seen over on the D&D Beyond forums an prevalent argument from WotC apologists that "This is as good as we're likely to get from them so stop being '1. 0a forever or bust!'. It doesn't help negotiate!".
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Thing is, a lot of these WotC "apologists" are receiving their talking points straight from Hasbro. Compare a handful of them side by side, and there's no way that they all phrased the same arguments in the same key phrases independently.

  • "The OGL leak was fabricated by WotC's competitors"
  • "Wizards of the Coast gave us everything we want; the only people still complaining are clickbait artists"
  • "Wizards of the Coast doesn't make any money from the D&D movie, so there's no reason to boycott it!" (wrong on both counts)
  • "Boycotting the D&D movie now means Hollywood will never make another one" (if D&D is still run by fucking thieves, I don't want them to)
  • "Boycotting other Hasbro products doesn't have anything to do with Wizards of the Coast" (I also don't believe anyone's genuinely fucking dumb enough to believe this)
So what this tells me-- besides Hasbro's not negotiating in good faith, but I knew that-- is that Hasbro is really afraid of us doing to the D&D movie what we've already done to D&D Beyond and that pressure on other Hasbro brands is being felt by the people holding Wizards' leash.

People are still complaining about the "you can't sue us!" provisions, but those are absolutely necessary to protect Wizards of the Coast from lawsuits brought by OGL authors over (genuinely) coincidental or wholly imagined similarities between their own products and works that Wizards of the Coast has no interest in hiring someone to keep track of, much less read and incorporate into WotC content. If Hasbro/WotC executives actually cared about making money from selling D&D content, don't you think they'd be printing more of it? Their entire business model is based on rent-seeking behaviors parasitizing the D&D brand and the D&D community; they barely want to sell their own products, much less yours.

The OGL was originally written for the purpose of taking all of the shit that third-party content creators write and publish under the OGL now-- and getting someone else to do it without paying them. They just don't want to get sued by people who are making their own money off of D&D property for what are basically bullshit reasons. If you're a fairly big-time content creator and your "fan content policy" is anything more permissive than SILENCE!! I KEEL YOU!! or more supportive than Colonel Klink ("I see nozink! I hear nozink!') then you have at least a public statement that says anyone stupid enough to sue you for writing your own books is going to be screaming the words "countersuit filed!" in their sleep for the rest of their life.

Wizards of the Coast doesn't have that option because they're literally waiving it in exchange for you writing the bullshit little books they can't make money on.

Bunch said:
So here's the deal. You want to sell us D&D products the you must make OGL 1.0a irrevocable and with no method of de-authorization. That's it. There is no middle ground. Take that or I keep my money. You aren't selling food. You aren't selling housing. Your selling entertainment. You have to earn my money. Not the other way around. Get that through you corporate head or get lost.
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This is the thing that's rubbing me the wrongest way, beyond the cold-blooded horse-trading to buy people time to put their business models back on solid ground. This corporation that owns... one of the most important parts of my life... hates their customers (me) because we're standing in the way of them collecting their rent money?

Fuck Hasbro and fuck everything that they love.

If they back down and stop trying to deauthorize the System Resource Document 3.5 and launch a "revised" OGL that is not an assassination attempt against everyone who ever trusted them, I will stop boycotting them-- when they sell products I want (D&D Classics?) I will continue to buy them, and I will buy movie tickets to see their movies, and I will buy official D&D brand merchandise.

But the goodwill that might make we want to buy new products? The sense of community that I wanted to be a part of? The camaraderie that I wanted to share with other people, introduce new people to do? Hasbro fucking murdered it and literally the only thing Hasbro can do to restore my faith in Wizards of the Coast is to sell it to a less criminally irresponsible multinational holding corp.
 
robertsconley said:
Unfortunately, it cuts us off from building on or continuing the work we have been doing for the past 23 years.
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I don't think is correct. You can absolutely continue to use 1.0a for future work and carry on building on it, the only thing you can't do is take new stuff released under OGL 1.2 and re-license it under 1.0a. (Which, incidently, I think was always the intent of the de-authorising thing).
 
Dr Jack said:
I don't think is correct. You can absolutely continue to use 1.0a for future work and carry on building on it, the only thing you can't do is take new stuff released under OGL 1.2 and re-license it under 1.0a. (Which, incidently, I think was always the intent of the de-authorising thing).
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NOTICE OF DEAUTHORIZATION OF OGL 1.0a says
The Open Game License 1.0a is no longer an authorized license. This means that you may not use that version of the OGL, or any prior version, to publish SRD content after (effective date).
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Which means OGL 1.0a is not authorized from WotC anymore to be used on anything after the date. That means while already published stuff is safe you can't use 1.0a in any way to license new stuff that has todo with WotC SRDs. If they intended for the new OGL to only apply to onednd / 5.1 / 1.2 stuff while keeping 1.0a usable for older stuff they would have worded it in a clearer way. At least that's my take away :worried:
 
robertsconley said:
Current authors and publishers can change the license on their original content, but for those who moved on to other pursuits or are no longer with us, this is not an option. Their work will remain unavailable to use until they enter the public domain decades from now.
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Yes. If there's anything relying on the OGL on DTRPG right now, now's the time to get it.

For instance, Into the Unknown. Anders Honoré is still alive and working on it, but he has Lyme disease, and that might take a while for him to get back in shape to be able to scrub all the OGL content and release ItU 2e.
 
Skywalker said:
Looks good to me.

I see a lot of moaning online about about it purporting to give things that WotC can't give (you can't copyright mechanics et al) but that is what the OGL has always done anyway. Giving things a legal safe harbour is a good thing to promote certainty.

The only problematic element remaining is the de-authorising of the OGL1.0a, though by negative implication it does seem like they are leaving the OGL1.0 in place. That is something I would like WotC to clarify.
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No it's very problematic. For one thing it's not actually irrevocable. They write in the cover page that it "Contains the word irrevocable"* but they redefine this so that it means that something published under the license contains the irrevocable protection of the license**.

Actually they can revoke this license when they feel like it so you have no future surety using it.

I can see someone feeling this is ok to use for something they are publishing on the side. For for someone actually making plans for future business and products? No.

* Which tells us they are still trying to deceive everyone about what they are doing.

**Provided of course they don't use the morality cause against you of which they are the sole arbiter.
 
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:hehe: Does one's haughty hyperventilation undo one's public flatulence? WotC's asking for a friend... :clown: Keep going "corporate big brains", huff that stink away harder, it might just work!
 
I'm still catching up on new developments, comrades, but my quick hot take on the 1.2 is that the capitalist running dogs at Hasbro have merely swapped a poison pill for rotten food. Thank you once again to our man of the hour, robertsconley robertsconley for doing the heavy lifting. Surely a bronze statue of Rob shall be erected in the RPGPub Beer Garden for future generations to learn about.
 
So I take it that the survey went only to D&D Beyond subscribers? Good, nice little echo chamber, anyone?
 
AsenRG said:
So I take it that the survey went only to D&D Beyond subscribers? Good, nice little echo chamber, anyone?
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Did it go out yet? My subscription doesn’t run out until April (I’ve canceled, but I’m not deleting books I’ve paid for)
 
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Skywalker said:
Looks good to me.

I see a lot of moaning online about about it purporting to give things that WotC can't give (you can't copyright mechanics et al) but that is what the OGL has always done anyway. Giving things a legal safe harbour is a good thing to promote certainty.

The only problematic element remaining is the de-authorising of the OGL1.0a, though by negative implication it does seem like they are leaving the OGL1.0 in place. That is something I would like WotC to clarify.
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A major problem is this section:
Severability. If any part of this license is held to be unenforceable or invalid for any reason, Wizards may declare the entire license void, either as between it and the party that obtained the ruling or in its entirety. Unless Wizards elects to do so, the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist.
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That means if the attempt to deauthorise 1.0a doesn't go their way, they can nuke this entire license and try again. Bad news.
 
I wonder what happens if the severability part of the license is held invalid.
 
migo said:
I wonder what happens if the severability part of the license is held invalid.
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LOL :grin:

I doubt that would happen; a similar phrase was in 1.0a but without the poison pill of self-destructing the entire license.
 
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