![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
WOTC/Hasbro and the OGL
If the new OGL includes language that allows WOTC to make changes down the road - and it will - they WILL restore all the most odious conditions as soon as they think they can get away with it. Which will be soon.
That "We'd never steal your work" bit? If you sign the document, you have AGREED to give them a free license - and again, even if they don't include that in the language, it will be added back to it almost immediately. And if you've agreed to give them a license, it's not "stealing" - right? That's what they'll argue.
Lastly, look up the outstanding article by Cory Doctorow "Good Riddance to the Open Gaming License" [https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception]. He makes the point that the OGL 1.0a is NOT a wonderful representation of generosity from WOTC. Rather, it "gives" signatories only some of the rights that they already had through standard copyright law, and actually DENIES them rights that the law would otherwise give them. It's a cheat, and shouldn't be misrepresented as some sort of key to the Golden Age. It's not.
Businesspeople have been trying to screw gamers for money going back to the old days; look up threads on rec.games.frp.dnd back in the early 90s if you want to get an incredible feeling of deja vu. What WOTC is trying isn't anything new. It's just that they got caught. But they're counting on gamers losing interest, because in their eyes we're nothing but a bunch of empty-headed socially inept geeks who are keeping them from "their" (i.e. OUR) money. That's why the people who are now claiming that we've "won" might as well be in the pay of WOTC/Hasbro. They're still dead set on robbing us all blind. They don't understand gamers, they don't like gamers, and they certainly don't respect gamers.
That "We'd never steal your work" bit? If you sign the document, you have AGREED to give them a free license - and again, even if they don't include that in the language, it will be added back to it almost immediately. And if you've agreed to give them a license, it's not "stealing" - right? That's what they'll argue.
Lastly, look up the outstanding article by Cory Doctorow "Good Riddance to the Open Gaming License" [https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception]. He makes the point that the OGL 1.0a is NOT a wonderful representation of generosity from WOTC. Rather, it "gives" signatories only some of the rights that they already had through standard copyright law, and actually DENIES them rights that the law would otherwise give them. It's a cheat, and shouldn't be misrepresented as some sort of key to the Golden Age. It's not.
Businesspeople have been trying to screw gamers for money going back to the old days; look up threads on rec.games.frp.dnd back in the early 90s if you want to get an incredible feeling of deja vu. What WOTC is trying isn't anything new. It's just that they got caught. But they're counting on gamers losing interest, because in their eyes we're nothing but a bunch of empty-headed socially inept geeks who are keeping them from "their" (i.e. OUR) money. That's why the people who are now claiming that we've "won" might as well be in the pay of WOTC/Hasbro. They're still dead set on robbing us all blind. They don't understand gamers, they don't like gamers, and they certainly don't respect gamers.