The OGL, Ravenloft and You

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

If you haven't heard, WotC is changing the OGL for the first time in 23 years, despite promising to never do this. WotC is becoming very greedy and seemingly malicious with its current announcements (essentially saying One D&D will have what amounts to DLC, and now this).

D&D is in a slump. The last few books (going back to Fizban's at the earliest, for some) have been hits with the critics, but the fans haven't warmed to them; we saw that here with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. This video by DND Shorts sums up the situation well.

WotC will, with the new OGL. be able to just completely take the rights of something written by a third party, and say they own them. Take Quoth the Raven, say some WotC D&D developer sees something they like in a future issue. They can just take it wholesale from the issue, put it in their product and the writers and members of the Fraternity could do nothing to stop them.

WotC is saying you have to give 25% of anything earned over $750,000 to them. They're trying to kill the big 3rd party publishers. Hell, with the wording of the new OGL, WotC could literally tell Pazio that they could not publish Pathfinder 2.0 anymore and then release it themselves.

This is not good for D&D, this is not good for the industry or gaming in general.

The D&D Next subreddit has more information.

Twitter is a blaze with people criticising it.

There is also a Change.org petition, but they're rarely useful, but a good way of showing your discontent.

I think we here should be angry about this. Ravenloft was discontinued 16 years ago, but Quoth the Raven kept it alive for many. Under the new OGL, Quoth the Raven would die. Fan products will die. This is corporate greed at its worst.

Don't stand for it.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I agree the situation is deeply troubling.
Quoth the Raven is very clear about being made by fans, for free, for other fans under the unaltered OGL, so I don't expect we'd be sued over it as-is.
However, if some WotC employee who can't come up with new stuff of their own does start 'outsourcing' our creations and starts slapping copyright on it, could they then accuse us of violating copyright and order cease-and-desist?
I am asking in all seriousness: I don't know enough about copyright law or what WotC is trying to pull.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

.
However, if some WotC employee who can't come up with new stuff of their own does start 'outsourcing' our creations and starts slapping copyright on it, could they then accuse us of violating copyright and order cease-and-desist?

Essentially. Take the Whaetleys, which I wrote years ago in the Undead Seas Scrolls. Say some WotC dev is wanting to do a Cthulhu-inspired adventure, see what I wrote and like it. If this was the new OGL, that writer could take what I wrote wholesale, put it in their adventure and tell the Fraternity to take it down and tell me I no longer owned it.

[SkiBird]

One thing that comes to mind after reading this thread is the question: How much of this do we know to be true and how much of this is someone's opinion and they think it will be the case?

Basically, is the new OGL up for review somewhere?

I'll give some of those sources a read and/or listen. I'm sure they'll help to illuminate the issue very well.

[Mistmaster]

The OGL is a license; they have no legal right to change it retroactively that means that every thing wrote on the OGL up to the change is working under those terms. The problem starts with new products.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I do hope you're right. But even if you are, does that mean they can only clamp down on new material made with 5e or One D&D (and whatever comes after that), or all new material in any edition?
Because if it's the latter, we might still see some trouble.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I honestly don't know but I believe that since it applies to rules it is for that specific rule system and all the trademark monsters and places including Ravenloft. Here is were the alternative Ravenlofts article comes in handy...

I am the Ancient , I am Karovia...

[Mistmaster]

They can't actually clamp anything down, they can use it freely without owing you nothing but it would be not exclusive, so you could still use it for no profit, or they can ask you a quote of profits if you are profiting on OGL contents.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Since the reboot of Ravenloft I believe we will be OK with the classical setting of 3e and 2e...

[Lord_Pruitt]

Fair use and poor-man's copyright laws are on Quoth's side here. I haven't bothered to listen/watch/read much on the new OGL yet, but from what I'm seeing, it sounds like WotC are wanting to set themselves up for a lot of legal battles that they will lose.

[Jester of the FoS]

Some corrections:

D&D is in a slump. The last few books (going back to Fizban's at the earliest, for some) have been hits with the critics, but the fans haven't warmed to them; we saw that here with Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. This video by DND Shorts sums up the situation well.

Actually, D&D is doing quite well. Recent books have still been selling out and D&D has been on a streak for the last few years. If 2022 was a slump, it was only because 2021 and 2020 were D&D's best years ever. (Even including the height of D&D in 1983-84!)

WotC will, with the new OGL. be able to just completely take the rights of something written by a third party, and say they own them.

That's always how the OGL has worked. You've always been able to take something someone has declared open content and reprint it for free.
Early Pathfinder modules regularly featured monsters from Frog God Games' Tome of Horrors or modified by Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary.

Take Quoth the Raven, say some WotC D&D developer sees something they like in a future issue. They can just take it wholesale from the issue, put it in their product and the writers and members of the Fraternity could do nothing to stop them.

Quoth the Raven doesn't *technically* use the OGL. Not really. We operate in a legal grey area because everything we do here violates copyright and trademarks.
We operate under the good graces of WotC who could shut us down at any time, with or without the OGL.
The OGL only applies to mechanics and doesn't include Intellectual Property such as proper names. Names like "Ravenloft" or "Van Richten." We've tried to stick close to some of the limits of the 3e/ 5e SRD and not include things like Mind Flayers, but everything we do here is effectively fan fiction and illegal.

WotC is saying you have to give 25% of anything earned over $750,000 to them. They're trying to kill the big 3rd party publishers. Hell, with the wording of the new OGL, WotC could literally tell Pazio that they could not publish Pathfinder 2.0 anymore and then release it themselves.

This is true. And, yes, it does seem like Paizo might be blocked from continuing to release Pathfinder.

I imagine this is less them trying to kill 3rd Party Publishers and more trying to get a piece of the Critical Role action. Crit Role has made millions included an animated series, books, comics, and the like off of WotC's game and IP. While I think they're going about it the wrong way and targeting smaller publishers that can't afford to give out 20-25% (especially of revenue and not profit) getting some money from CR seems reasonable.

[Jester of the FoS]

I agree the situation is deeply troubling.
Quoth the Raven is very clear about being made by fans, for free, for other fans under the unaltered OGL, so I don't expect we'd be sued over it as-is.
However, if some WotC employee who can't come up with new stuff of their own does start 'outsourcing' our creations and starts slapping copyright on it, could they then accuse us of violating copyright and order cease-and-desist?
I am asking in all seriousness: I don't know enough about copyright law or what WotC is trying to pull.

Unless we copy text from a book word-for-word we're not going to violate copyright.

It's highly unlikely they'll copy anything from the Quoth the Raven. They hire creative people to write their books who are likely to want to do their own thing, not copy from us. However, the point of the OGL is that content created from it can be used in other OGL products. So even if they do copy our text, that would be legal as we're using their license. Our creations become open content.

That said, while we're not violating copyright we ARE violating their trademarks. Like... constantly. Terms like "Ravenloft" and the like are trademarked and the property of WotC and we're using them without permission. They could have hit us with a cease-and-desist any time in the last two decades. They haven't because we're not making any money doing this and are just a fan site. And WotC tries not to go after its fans unless they really cross a line.

[alhoon]

That said, while we're not violating copyright we ARE violating their trademarks. Like... constantly. Terms like "Ravenloft" and the like are trademarked and the property of WotC and we're using them without permission.

Are we though? There are tons of Ravenloft products marketed in DMGuild. Same with Eberron, Mystara, Darksun, Dragonlance etc. For Dragonlance and Ravenloft with the campaign lines, there are a great many products. And Forgotten Realms? Easily in the thousands fan-made products that are marketed for profit using the DMGuild.

[DustBunny]

Actually, D&D is doing quite well. Recent books have still been selling out and D&D has been on a streak for the last few years. If 2022 was a slump, it was only because 2021 and 2020 were D&D's best years ever. (Even including the height of D&D in 1983-84!)

D&D (and WotC) is, but its owner - Hasbro - is bleeding money. A fair number of questionable business decisions means their stock is not doing well. Throw in the current economy (people willing to spend less on overpriced plastic toys) means investors are getting antsy. At their last Q3 report they were not happy.

So Hasbro is looking to squeeze more money from one of their few productive golden geese. They have done this recently with MtG - it brought in the money for a while, but overproduction is seriously reducing the overall long term value.

I imagine this is less them trying to kill 3rd Party Publishers and more trying to get a piece of the Critical Role action. Crit Role has made millions included an animated series, books, comics, and the like off of WotC's game and IP.

Oh you can bet their eyes lit up brighter than the sun at the thought of getting their paws on that CR action. However I think CR is somewhat owned/partnered with Amazon - who has lots of lawyers. But if they cripple Paizo in the meantime, I doubt they will shed any tears.

[Rebel Mage]

The Organisation for Transformative Works exists to protect fan creations (as long as fans don't make money off of it), so if there's trouble in that department, they could possibly help.

The OTW believes that fanworks are creative and transformative, core fair uses, and will therefore be proactive in protecting and defending fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. This help will not be limited to those fans or projects directly connected with OTW.

The OTW Legal Committee’s mission includes education, assistance, and advocacy.

We create and post educational materials about developments in fandom-related law on transformativeworks.org and on archiveofourown.org.
We assist individual fans when their fanworks are challenged, we answer fans’ questions about law relevant to fanworks, and we help fans find legal representation.
We partner with other advocacy organizations and coalitions in the U.S. and around the world.
We advocate for laws and policies that promote balance and protect fanworks and fandom. (Our policy comments and letters can be accessed here.)
And much more!