Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
For a guy that said he was taking a break from blogging three days ago, I sure have had a lot to say. This is a follow up to yesterday’s threat to have my blog generated by artificial intelligence. A while back, I (and many others) shared through social media an AI rendition of Family Guy. Well, the inevitable has happened. There are tons more of them. You can find them here, but I’ve linked directly to my favorites below.
Why does Leela have two eyes? Was this trailer from the Cyber House Rules? If so, where’s Adlai?
We see too much of Kenny’s face here, and Wendy seems too old for Stan. Also, while AI seems to be learning how to handle hands, it still hasn’t mastered the fine art of tear ducts. Cartman is as confusing as an umber hulk, coincidentally with the same shape to his head.
Yes, these are my favorites because I never grew up.
Homer has too much hair.
They got Butthead’s braces right, and I’m glad to see Daria get a mention.
A lot of characters in the video look like they’re being played by the same actor, and as I said above, tear ducts (among other things) still aren’t handled correctly. Then there’s Nothing, Forever, an AI-generated episode of Seinfeld that’s been running since December. It’s 8-bit graphics, so the real “magic” is in the dialogue, but that often falls apart too.
I don’t think we have to worry about an AI takeover anytime soon.
Here’s something kind of funny. As you know, Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”) has continuously laid claim to copyright over monster names (which is impossible; let me repeat: impossible) or has leveraged their legitimate copyrights to restrict their use (which is copyright misuse). However lacking in legal force as either position is, that’s been their position. Now WotC has released the SRD 5.1 using the Creative Commons licensed, CC-BY-4.0. As Mike Myler pointed out to me, in doing so, many of these names are now expressly licensed even from WotC’s warped perspective. They’re telling you that you may once again state that beauty is in the eye of the beholder because they’re now licensing you the right to use “beholder.”
Seriously. Do you not see how stupid this sounds?
All of this can be found on page 254 of the SRD 5.1. Both pages 97 and 254 include use of “mind flayer,” so that’s now eligible for use. Or is it? Christian Lindke pointed me to a United States federal trademark registration for “Mind Flayer.”
So, by WotC’s arguments that continuously blur copyright and trademark, they can’t even use mind flayer in a sentence. It belongs to a Chinese dude(tte).
Seriously. Do you not see how stupid this sounds?
WotC legal is stupid, or they think you are. Probably both.
Matt Colville echoed sentiments similar to my own as to why Hasbro “surrendered.”
I agree.
I don’t want to diminish the effect rabid gamers had on causing WotC’s about face, but I do want to provide what I suspect is the proper perspective. The lifeblood of any company is acquiring new customers. Existing customers get older, which means they have less disposable income, and eventually die. You need new blood, and that should always be your primary focus. WotC continues to do exceptionally well gaining new customers, and all your rants (and mine) will not impact that one bit. I doubt we have middle-school children reading our blogs and watching our vlogs. If we do, someone needs to call the police.
Chris will do it.
So, if we all abandoned WotC, in the long run, they’d survive, and they know that. That’s at least part of why they continued to resist actual change for so long before their surrender. So, why did they surrender? Because we do have a short-term impact on them, and more to the point, on their partners. The creators of the Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D“) movie(s) and television show were probably overwhelming WotC’s telephone and email systems. Their investments in licensing the brand are short term, and I’m sure those investments were substantial. They demanded this change, and their demands could not be ignored.
Again, I don’t want to diminish your efforts. You made those partners aware of your concerns, and you were going to inflict a lot of damage, but if not for these partnerships, WotC would have stayed the course.
Once Again, a Prediction Sure to Come True
Those relationships won’t last forever, and when they dissolve, we’re sure to be in the same position we are now, but with even less of us complaining due to the attrition I described above. What if WotC creates its own movie and/or television studio? Then they won’t need Paramount+, will they? What then? Will we run to Paizo? As I said in a previous post, Mattel could decide to compete with its chief rival, Hasbro, in the role-playing gaming market. What’s the quickest way to accomplish that? My guess would be they’d buy WotC’s chief rival, Paizo, or perhaps one of the second-tier companies with a proven track record. Whatever open-gaming “license” that acquired company used will be just as vulnerable to revocation, de-authorization, or whatever contract principle you choose to misapply to that non-contract. We may be delaying the inevitable by not actually solving the underlying problem.
So, Is the Problem Solved?
No, but I think it’s close enough. I advise cautious optimism.
You may recall that I demanded that they dedicate their material to the public domain. They didn’t do that, but they’re slapping the CC-BY-4.0 directly onto their SRD 5.1, which is almost what I suggested. Dedication to the public domain is probably no more than a grant of a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license with no restrictions, and that’s almost what CC-BY-4.0 purports to be.
Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to: 1. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and 2. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.
Section 2 – Scope.
The potential problem is that the Creative Commons licenses are similar to (though enormously better than) the OGL with respect to acceptance, and they haven’t been tested in US courts. In fact, they’ve barely been tested in international courts. So, we should still be worried?
For now, no. In order for a licensor (that’s WotC in this case) to win a case for infringement, they’d have to argue that license they provided was horseshit. That’s one hell of an argument to have to make.
WotC: “The defendant infringed our copyright.” Court: “How can you say that? You licensed them the works.” WotC: “Oh, that license is complete bullshit, your honor.” Court: “The license you forced them to use?” WotC: “Yep. Complete bullshit. We suckered them in.”
Warning: Gratuitous use of the word, “asshole,” follows.
This, by the way, is exactly what WotC would have had to do if they were taken to court over the OGL, and they would have succeeded by simply reading my posts to the Court. However, as I said, how CC-BY-4.0 is applied is a little bit better than the OGL. It avoids some of my concerns, and for all we know, it could be upheld by courts for that reason. It could also be upheld because it’s been used successfully in other industries almost since its first publication. Everyone’s been cool about its use. No one’s been an asshole. Therefore, the CC-BY-4.0 gives the gaming community time to adjust and diminish WotC’s stranglehold on the industry.
Of course, their stranglehold will remain unless you’re willing to broaden your horizons and not make matters worse for yourselves.
Not Being Assholes
It’s really easy to allow inertia to take over. We’ve spent so much energy in the past few weeks calling WotC assholes that we could go too far. Many years ago, my cousin, Kessel Junkie, once called me out for a nastygram I wrote to a company that had pissed me off. In it, I informed the company that I was no longer doing business with them. If that were the case, why write the letter? If you want to go, just go. The only proper purpose of the letter should be to get them to change their ways, but if they know I’m a lost cause, my letter will do nothing to effect that change. If you enjoy WotC’s products, then don’t let the inertia put you in that same position.
*sigh*
WotC corporate and legal have behaved as assholes through this entire process. They kept having to go back to the well and make edits because doing the right thing doesn’t come natural to them. They’re definitely not our friends, but we shouldn’t be assholes either. Whatever brought us to this point, this is where we are, and it’s exactly what you wanted, and pretty close to what I wanted. So, there’s no reason to engage in the overstatement that plagues American discourse. There’s no reason to continue to criticize companies for doing what they exist to do: Make money. There’s no reason to continue calling for boycotts at the expense of good people who are the creatives at WotC, or even just the bench warmers so to speak. Those people probably agree with you about their employers’ behavior, but their ability to pay their rent depends on their continued employment. You’ve won, so don’t be a sore winner, but also . . . .
Don’t be Naïve
Whether you realize it or not, your “victory” keeps you in a morass of uncertainty. If you’re okay with that, I’m in no place to stop you. If you choose to ignore the status quo and defer having the rug pulled out from underneath the community, that’s your business. It probably won’t take another 20 years for that to happen, but that still may not necessarily be a bad position for you, just those that follow you. This mirrors our approach to the environment and the economy, passing off future ills to future generations, but the consequences aren’t nearly as dire. They’re just games, and you’ll find others to play if you’re still playing them when this happens again. However, if you want to play the next iteration of D&D, it may affect you as well. All of this applies to 5th Edition, not to “One D&D“. There’s no guarantee that OneD&D will use either CC-BY-4.0 or OGL 1.0. OGL 2.0 may be in the near future after all.
Not My Problem
I don’t really have a dog in this hunt. I don’t play 5th Edition anymore, I own every WotC/TSR product I’ll ever want, and I’m not creating content for others. With my 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons Character Builder functional, that could change if I get it into a suitable form for publication, but the last time WotC threatened me, I told them to pound sand, and they immediately blinked. They can’t harm me because I know they’re full of shit (as are their licenses). I know what I can and can’t do, and I don’t care whether they acknowledge that publicly. But mark my words: This will happen again. Most of you didn’t listen to me the first time, so I don’t expect you to listen to me now, because even those of you that did listen seem happy living in the “open gaming license” hole they’ve dug for you.
History will repeat itself.
But it will happen again, and next time, WotC will have prepared itself to be able to tell you to pound sand. Even if CC-BY-4.0 is used for One D&D and is ultimately deemed legally enforceable, it’ll be another scary time for small-time third-party publishers. I’ll reserve my “I told you so” for that day. Now, I’m off to obscurity and some much-needed rest from meaningful blogging.
While the hubbub over the OGL is finally settling, it inspires yet another video for Mythology Monday. Today, it’s the Greek, Narcissus, the god of vanity and arrogance.
Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I’m still too busy dealing with preparations for Winter Vantasy. However, I’ve written what will likely be my last post on the OGL controversy, and it’s scheduled for Tuesday. I also expect that to be my last post for a little while. My last streak was over 370 straight days posting, and my current streak stands at 151 with today’s post. I could use a break.
I know. WotC made a huge announcement. Everyone’s talking about it. I want to as well, and more than one person (three) directly asked me to comment on it. However, I’m really busy putting my house back together after contractors messed with it, and preparing for Winter Fantasy and Winter Vantasy. I need to prepare a DDAL adventure I’ll be running in the van, and finish my prep for 1st Edition White Plume Mountain, which, if anyone buys a ticket, I’ll be running. So, for now, as I warned some of you, I’m just doing a silly Caturday post. As I’m a busy cat at the moment, here’s another busy cat.
In my focused post on consideration (or lack thereof) in the OGL, I analogized the Open Gaming License (“OGL”) 1.0(a) and System Reference Document (“SRD”) to a lease of an apartment and the rules and regulations document for that hypothetical apartment complex. That made it easier to understand the problem with consideration. I had another thought last night, which popped a memory into my head. Here’s a moderately-NSFW video from HBO’s movie, Don King: Only in America.
You Tube videos get deleted all the time, so let me give you the important (if not funny) part. Don King hands George Foreman a blank contract to sign. Foreman hesitates, but King assures him that he’ll fill in the details later. Do you need to be an attorney to realize that such a contract, once filled in, is not enforceable?
The OGL
So, let’s return again to the OGL’s language on consideration, copying what I wrote before almost verbatim. It licenses you “methods, procedures, processes and routines” as well as “any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the” game designer. The first part of that grant mirrors language in the Patent Act and patent law practice defining what can be patented. Likewise, these same words are used in the Copyright Act (specifically 17 U.S. Code § 102(b)) and copyright law practice to describe things not copyrightable. So, for a company like WotC that isn’t using the OGL to license patented subject matter (which I believe is the case for all RPG producers), that first part clearly licenses nothing.
The second part of that grant is meant to reference the System Reference Document (“SRD”), but by its own terms could mean a press conference. A clear statement is a clear statement, it can be oral or written, and it can always be restated. However, more importantly for today, it doesn’t even have to exist at the time the OGL is deemed accepted by the licensee (i.e., you). We saw that with the OGL 1.1, which was sent out before the SRD 5.1 existed. So, even if the contents of what eventually is “clearly identified” are copyrightable, because they don’t exist at the time you accept the contract (by mere use of the game mechanic!), and assuming no patents on the game in question, you’re basically signing a blank contract. The game designer will just fill in the details later. This also means that, if you assume your acceptance of the contract is valid, it occurs not when you act or speak, but when the game designer does so. That is, the game designer makes the offer and then accepts on your behalf, all on terms you didn’t know at the time the contract became valid.
This is legal nonsense of course, and it’s why you can’t sign a blank contract and fill in the terms later. That’s not a “meeting of the minds” required for offer and acceptance. This will be the case for all of these so-called open gaming licenses. If you buy into any of them, you’re escaping from a crocodile’s jaws by running into the jaws of a leopard (viral video omitted).
Aw, how cute.
None of this works. It’s all (mis)perception, so it can all be taken away the second corporate philosophy changes, which eventually will happen.
Play What You Want 