6 ms·

WOTC (Hasbro) was trying to revoke a license the authors intended to be irrevocable. Everything else was a red herring. I'm guessing their legal team had more t

by jron 4y ago

WOTC (Hasbro) was trying to revoke a license the authors intended to be irrevocable. Everything else was a red herring. I'm guessing their legal team had more to do with this change of heart than consumer/publisher feedback.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> WOTC (Hasbro) was trying to revoke a license the authors intended to be irrevocable. WotC was the legal author, and gratuitous licenses are revocable at will, anyway.
- jron 4y ago
  The original author is on record stating that it was intended to be irrevocable. There was also a quote on the official WOTC website stating the license couldn't be revoked. IANAL but I wouldn't take that case to court.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    The original author was an executive at WotC, with access to professional legal advice. If they wanted the license to be irrevocable, they would have put it in the license.
    - Macha 4y ago
      If we look at other contemporary licenses reviewed by professional legal advice, like the GPLv2, Creative Commons v1-3, MIT, Apache v1, they all have the same omission of irrevocable, and it was about another ten years before they released newer iterations with that magic language (or didn't, in the case of MIT). It's also not speculation that that was the intent of the original author, they're on record from both the time of license publication as a wizards employee and recently in light of the controversy and both 20 years ago and today were consistent they meant it to be irrevocable
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        > It's also not speculation that that was the intent of the original author, they're on record Yes, a corporate executive is on record making a claim like that. Do you take it a face value? This person is a sophisticated actor in a company that runs on IP. It doesn't matter what FOSS licenses said, and I don't have time to look into that. If Wizards wanted "irrevocable", it would say that. Did you see Wizards' attempt to redefine 'irrevocable' in the first revised draft? Same company.
        Macha 4y ago
        > Yes, a corporate executive is on record making a claim like that. Do you take it a face value? When there's twenty years of track record and a prior occasion (D&D 4e's GSL) where it would have been advantageous for them to try this, sure. You can't have a legal contract say an ambiguous statement then spend a literal decade promoting one interpretation then switch to another. This is why US laws about detrimental reliance or EU standards like promissory estoppel exist.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > You can't have a legal contract say an ambiguous statement then spend a literal decade promoting one interpretation then switch to another. OGL 1.0a isn't ambiguous; I didn't read anything ambiguous and I didn't see anyone point to ambiguity in it. Elsewhere, outside any license, they did promote another interpretation, but every IP attorney I read said that didn't matter.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Wizards wanted "irrevocable", it would say that It does, that's why when, when they wanted to revoke it without also. casting doubt on their next “irrevocable” license, they relied on the “any authorized version” language, and moved to deauthorize the original version.
        wolverine876 4y ago
- Macha 4y ago
  So the discussions from previous is that having consideration in return for a license makes it a contract rather than a gratuitous license. In this case the OGL specifies that licensing your work as OGL and including the OGL text in your work counts as consideration. If you think the claim for that being consideration is too frail, the Artistic License from old Perl versions is a similarly permissive license, and Jacobsen vs Katzer held up that it counted as a contract with all that implies for revocability and (in particular for that case), whether failure to uphold your end is copyright infringement or breach of contract. Some more context (and in particular how it applies to open source - if you use MIT licensed software, the idea that permissive licenses are gratuitous licenses is not a precedent you want set): https://lwn.net/Articles/747563/ https://lwn.net/Articles/747563/

by jron 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago

> WOTC (Hasbro) was trying to revoke a license the authors intended to be irrevocable. WotC was the legal author, and gratuitous licenses are revocable at will, anyway.

jron 4y ago
The original author is on record stating that it was intended to be irrevocable. There was also a quote on the official WOTC website stating the license couldn't be revoked. IANAL but I wouldn't take that case to court.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  The original author was an executive at WotC, with access to professional legal advice. If they wanted the license to be irrevocable, they would have put it in the license.
  - Macha 4y ago
    If we look at other contemporary licenses reviewed by professional legal advice, like the GPLv2, Creative Commons v1-3, MIT, Apache v1, they all have the same omission of irrevocable, and it was about another ten years before they released newer iterations with that magic language (or didn't, in the case of MIT). It's also not speculation that that was the intent of the original author, they're on record from both the time of license publication as a wizards employee and recently in light of the controversy and both 20 years ago and today were consistent they meant it to be irrevocable
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > It's also not speculation that that was the intent of the original author, they're on record Yes, a corporate executive is on record making a claim like that. Do you take it a face value? This person is a sophisticated actor in a company that runs on IP. It doesn't matter what FOSS licenses said, and I don't have time to look into that. If Wizards wanted "irrevocable", it would say that. Did you see Wizards' attempt to redefine 'irrevocable' in the first revised draft? Same company.
      - Macha 4y ago
        > Yes, a corporate executive is on record making a claim like that. Do you take it a face value? When there's twenty years of track record and a prior occasion (D&D 4e's GSL) where it would have been advantageous for them to try this, sure. You can't have a legal contract say an ambiguous statement then spend a literal decade promoting one interpretation then switch to another. This is why US laws about detrimental reliance or EU standards like promissory estoppel exist.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > You can't have a legal contract say an ambiguous statement then spend a literal decade promoting one interpretation then switch to another. OGL 1.0a isn't ambiguous; I didn't read anything ambiguous and I didn't see anyone point to ambiguity in it. Elsewhere, outside any license, they did promote another interpretation, but every IP attorney I read said that didn't matter.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Wizards wanted "irrevocable", it would say that It does, that's why when, when they wanted to revoke it without also. casting doubt on their next “irrevocable” license, they relied on the “any authorized version” language, and moved to deauthorize the original version.
        wolverine876 4y ago
Macha 4y ago
So the discussions from previous is that having consideration in return for a license makes it a contract rather than a gratuitous license. In this case the OGL specifies that licensing your work as OGL and including the OGL text in your work counts as consideration. If you think the claim for that being consideration is too frail, the Artistic License from old Perl versions is a similarly permissive license, and Jacobsen vs Katzer held up that it counted as a contract with all that implies for revocability and (in particular for that case), whether failure to uphold your end is copyright infringement or breach of contract. Some more context (and in particular how it applies to open source - if you use MIT licensed software, the idea that permissive licenses are gratuitous licenses is not a precedent you want set): https://lwn.net/Articles/747563/ https://lwn.net/Articles/747563/