Dungeons & Dragons released a statement today saying that the future of its open gaming license will include its core rules being placed under the purview of the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is "a nonprofit dedicated to sharing knowledge, and it developed a set of licenses to let creators do that," says the newest update from Kyle Brink, the executive producer at Dungeons & Dragons.
This decision is a direct response to a lot of the fears the community had after io9 reported on the initial OGL 1.1 draft on January 5. The CC license will cede Wizards of the Coast's control over the base rules and mechanics of D&D to the nonprofit that stewards the license, which means that Dungeons & Dragons and WOTC will be unable to touch it and will not be able to revoke it. Likewise, content that goes beyond the remit of using core rules will fall under a new OGL, dubbed 1.2, which will contain specific language denoting the license as "irrevocable"—a massive pressure point for creators who used the original OGL 1.0 and were worried about the implications of the 30-day termination clause in the OGL 1.1.
[...] Wizards of the Coast seems committed to having a firm stance on bigoted and hateful content—something that people praised in the leaked draft. "If you include harmful, discriminatory, or illegal content (or engage in that conduct publicly), we can terminate your OGL 1.2 license to our content," reads the statement. [...]
Additionally, Brink states that "what [Dungeons & Dragons] is going for here is giving good-faith creators the same level of freedom (or greater, for the ruleset in Creative Commons) to create TTRPG content that's been so great for everyone, while giving us the tools to ensure the game continues to become ever more inclusive and welcoming." [...]
Previously: Dungeons & Dragons' New License Tightens its Grip on Competition
(Score: 4, Informative) by MrGuy on Monday January 23 2023, @03:22PM (1 child)
Whether it's legal or not is something for IP lawyers (IANAL) to debate, but the basic gist is that the original license allowed derivative content to be created on "any authorized version" of their license, and they decided their new version could "deauthorize" the previous license. Via Gizmodo [gizmodo.com]
The original OGL granted “perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license” to the Open Game Content (commonly called the System Resource Document) and directed that licensees “may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.” But the updated OGL says that “this agreement is…an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement.”
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 23 2023, @08:27PM
Kind of sounds like their previous license's "everything is forward-compatible and you can use whatever version you like" was a terrible idea to begin with.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"