[FC-discuss] Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Announced; Details of Licensing Pending
Chris Sakkas
The 5th Edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game (possibly now the world's second most popular roleplaying game) was announced today. (Read more about it in several places, including here). It's currently unclear if or how it will be licensed, but the lead designer is sympathetic to open source (here, includes some thoughts about open gaming).
D&D 3E was what I'd call free content, although I understand that its Open Game License is not included as a free culture licence. I assume that's because it allows Product Identity to be declared, blocking off part of the content of the work from reuse. However, the OGL is the only licence I know of to be designed by a corporation for commercial use, rather than by a university or not-for-profit. It has a couple of properties that reflect this:
- An explicit mechanism for clearly delineating free and non-free content. As well as declaring which parts of a work are Open Game Content (e.g. "Chapter 3"), the publisher can also declare which parts are forbidden to be used (e.g. "The words 'Sauron' and 'hobbit'; and all spells in this book"). This is particularly important when a gaming company creates an RPG based on a franchise (examples include Game of Thrones, DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, Dr Who and many others). Franchisers are obviously leery of their content being considered free.
- Codified rules for where attribution is required and forbidden. All attribution must be in the 'Section 15' of the OGL, which is typically printed at the back of the book. It cannot be made elsewhere. It is easy and perfectly legal to conceal sources by swamping them with attributions for other works that were not used or weren't heavily used. This is very different from the attribution-hungry Creative Commons licences, although I believe it matches some free software licences. Wizards of the Coast was more concerned with protecting its brand than publicity.
Sorry if the history lesson is unnecessary for you. The meat of my post is:
- The design process for 5E is going to be more open to the public than that of 3E or 4E. Can we in the free culture community apply pressure to have 5E released under a free culture licence?
- Has the free culture community resolved to not describe the OGL as a free culture licence, or simply not examined it yet?
- If the former, what changes to the OGL would Wizards of the Coast have to make if it wanted to release 5E under a new licence, let's call it the Free Game License, that was free culture?
- Would it be viable for Wizards of the Coast to use an existing free culture licence, presumably CC BY-SA, for 5E to avoid splitting the commons?
Please let me know your thoughts,
Chris Sakkas
Admin of the Year of Living Free Wiki * Twitter * Blog * Forum
Rob Myers
>
> D&D 3E was what I'd call free content, although I understand that its
It's open content rather than free culture IMO. ;-)
> Open Game License is not included as a free culture licence. I assume
> that's because it allows Product Identity to be declared, blocking off
> part of the content of the work from reuse.
Yes that's right. It's like the FDL in that it allows invariant
material. If you don't include product identity it's basically copyleft
IIRC. So, like the FDL in Debian Legal's opinion, it's free if you don't
use that provision.
Ryan Dancey, who was the person responsible for the OGL, talked about
the licence on the old cc-bizcom list in 2004:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-bizcom/2004-September/000052.html
I highly recommend this conversation as it contains in-depth discussion
of the thinking that went into the OGL. (warning: contains me.)
> Sorry if the history lesson is unnecessary for you. The meat of my post is:
>
> * The design process for 5E is going to be more open to the public
> than that of 3E or 4E. Can we in the free culture community apply
> pressure to have 5E released under a free culture licence?
Yes. What do we do?
> * Has the free culture community resolved to not describe the OGL as a
> free culture licence, or simply not examined it yet?
I don't believe it's been examined.
It's worth asking the FSF (lice...@fsf.org), particularly if there's a
chance the license can be improved.
And CC are revising their licenses at the moment. There's a lot of input
from computer gamers going into the discussion, and input from the D&D
community into CC and vice versa would be good as well.
> * If the former, what changes to the OGL would Wizards of the Coast
> have to make if it wanted to release 5E under a new licence, let's
> call it the Free Game License, that was free culture?
They could change it so PI must be copyrighted or trademarked characters
etc. rather than just random words that get a "super-copyright". And for
their own materials at least they could rely on trademark law.
> * Would it be viable for Wizards of the Coast to use an existing free
> culture licence, presumably CC BY-SA, for 5E to avoid splitting the
> commons?
I'd certainly rather D&D was BY-SA. BY-SA isn't a trademark licence, so
D&D's trademarks wouldn't be affected by BY-SA-ing the text of the
rules. And you can't copyright game rules anyway (which was kind of a
dirty secret about the OGL...).
But I wouldn't want BY-SA modified to allow copyrighted material such as
character likenesses to be excludable. So unless there was some way of
recognizing their use in BY-SA as Fair Use (and doing so
*internationally*) I don't think there could be a BY-SA Star Wars RPG
for example.
> This is an exciting time for gaming. Wizards took a brave step in 2000
> in releasing D&D 3E under what I'd consider a free licence. I think
> tabletop RPGs are the only industry in which the market leader was a
> free cultural work - it is yet to happen in operating systems, books or
> music! I'd like to see 5E continue that tradition.
Absolutely! 3e was a real win for Free Culture even if it didn't go all
the way. The economic case Ryan Dancey made for adopting an alternative
license was compelling, and the cultural results were clearly a
renaissance of the game.
> Please let me know your thoughts,
I'm very glad people are considering this! CC and Hasbro should be
talking, and fans should be making the case to both for a truly Free
Culture license that strongly supports pen&paper roleplaying games.
Who do we shout at? :-)
- Rob.
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Greg Grossmeier
> And you can't copyright game rules anyway (which was kind of a
> dirty secret about the OGL...).
Citation? I was wondering about that. I have spent a lot of time
thinking about copyrightability over the years w.r.t. medical
images/drawings, but never about game rules. That is an intriguing
thought process.
Best,
Greg
Chris Sakkas
"Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form."
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Cheers,
CS
abram stern
http://post.thing.net/node/2026 ... Anyone know how this story turned out?
-A
Rob Myers
> <quote name="Rob Myers" date="2012-01-09" time="20:34:53 +0000">
>> And you can't copyright game rules anyway (which was kind of a
>> dirty secret about the OGL...).
>
> Citation? I was wondering about that. I have spent a lot of time
> thinking about copyrightability over the years w.r.t. medical
> images/drawings, but never about game rules. That is an intriguing
> thought process.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
http://www.godsmonsters.com/Features/copyright-game-rules/
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19590090/Copyright,_Game_Rules,_and_GSL
- Rob.
Alex Leavitt
Alexander Leavitt
Rob Myers
> This is an important distinction in copyright, especially when it comes
> to 3D printing, because it basically means people can create their own
> boards and pieces now (eg., see the Settlers of Catan board project on
> Kickstarter).
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/3d-printing-settlers-catan-probably-not-illeg
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/settlers-catan-makes-legal-threats-can-it-bac
Greg Grossmeier
> http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
>
> http://www.godsmonsters.com/Features/copyright-game-rules/
>
> http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19590090/Copyright,_Game_Rules,_and_GSL
Awesome, thanks Rob (and Chris!).
Greg
Adi Kamdar
Adi
Rob Myers
> This is fascinating. Thanks for sending it out. The upcoming issues and
> questions around 3D printing are something I need to start reading about...
3D printing is something CC really want to consider for the upcoming 4.0
licences. I recommend that anyone who is interested in this area joins
the cc-licenses and cc-community lists, where people are discussing this
at the moment.
Pharos
Fortunately, patents have a rather shorter term than copyrights though.
Thanks,
Richard
Chris Sakkas
I did find the conversation with Ryan Dancey very informative, thanks for that. Am I right in thinking that when I ran out of 'Next pages' on that list of emails, the conversation was over? (That is to say, there aren't any related emails outside of that archive?)
In terms of lobbying, I'm not sure what would be most effective. We should chime in regularly at the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition OGL? thread to defend and advertise free culture. I was thinking of writing an article and trying to get it published on ENWorld or RPG.net. I'm not sure what else to do apart from that. Maybe get in touch with publishers who've benefited from the OGL and have them make statements?
In terms of having the OGL recognised as a free culture licence, I asked the FSF whether it would qualify as a free documentation licence (in retrospect, it certainly wouldn't qualify because it's not interoperable with the FDL, but it could be listed under 'Other' with CC BY and CC BY-SA). A volunteer who doesn't represent the organisation's opinions (but who helps answer their many questions) kindly answered that they probably won't be reviewing the licence, at least not any time soon.
The volunteer also gave his private opinion that the OGL wouldn't qualify as a free licence "because of the restriction on "indicating compatibility" with other works. This would probably be considered a non-permissive, GPL-incompatible further restriction under section 7 of GPLv3 and perhaps also as a non-free restriction as well." I think that's a valuable insight and not one I'd considered before.
Given that the FSF avenue is cut off to us, what would be the right process for trying to get the OGL listed as a free culture licence on the wiki (provided it is a free culture licence, of course)? Would consensus in this community qualify?
Finally, in terms of changing the OGL to be freer or CC BY-SA to be usable for D&D 5E, I have a few thoughts. I think you're right that BY-SA's integrity would be undermined if it gave the option to license piecemeal. I also suspect that if D&D 5E is released under a free culture licence, it will be the OGL. To do otherwise would be to split the RPG commons, which I think would be unwise.
However, all Open Game Content is usable under any version of the OGL. Perhaps we could come up with a recommended OGL 2.0, which would implement the changes you recommended to avoid Product Identity abuse? That might encourage them to make some changes to the OGL if they do decide to use it.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Chris
Chris Sakkas
Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki and the Living Libre blog and microblog.
Rob Myers
> Thanks for your reply, Rob. I've been digesting it (and, I'll be honest,
> distracted by other things).
Yes I'm having a surprisingly busy January as well. :-)
> I did find the conversation with Ryan Dancey very informative, thanks
> for that. Am I right in thinking that when I ran out of 'Next pages' on
> that list of emails, the conversation was over? (That is to say, there
> aren't any related emails outside of that archive?)
That's correct.
I found that conversation (and the articles on Wizards of the Coast's
site in which Ryan explained his motivation for the OGL strategy) very
useful in understanding what the benefits of a free/open strategy can be
for a cultural business. They map surprisingly directly onto the
arguments used in favor of free software - customer confidence, network
effects, etc. I feel its an excellent case study and one that should be
wider known than it is.
> In terms of lobbying, I'm not sure what would be most effective. We
> should chime in regularly at the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition OGL?
> thread to defend and advertise free culture. I was thinking of writing
> an article and trying to get it published on ENWorld or RPG.net. I'm not
> sure what else to do apart from that. Maybe get in touch with publishers
> who've benefited from the OGL and have them make statements?
That all sounds good. An article would be a very good idea.
> In terms of having the OGL recognised as a free culture licence, I asked
> the FSF whether it would qualify as a free documentation licence (in
> retrospect, it certainly wouldn't qualify because it's not interoperable
> with the FDL, but it could be listed under 'Other' with CC BY and CC
> BY-SA). A volunteer who doesn't represent the organisation's opinions
> (but who helps answer their many questions) kindly answered that they
> probably won't be reviewing the licence, at least not any time soon.
Yes that sounds right. And don't even think about proposing it to
debian-legal, they'll freak out at the "super trademark" aspects of the
license. ;-)
> The volunteer also gave his private opinion that the OGL wouldn't
> qualify as a free licence "because of the restriction on "indicating
> compatibility" with other works. This would probably be considered a
> non-permissive, GPL-incompatible further restriction under section 7 of
> GPLv3 and perhaps also as a non-free restriction as well." I think
> that's a valuable insight and not one I'd considered before.
Oh I'm not familiar with that, it's new to me as well. :-)
> Given that the FSF avenue is cut off to us, what would be the right
> process for trying to get the OGL listed as a free culture licence on
> the wiki (provided it is a free culture licence, of course)? Would
> consensus in this community qualify?
Sorry, which wiki? The SFC one?
I would love to be able to say that the OGL is a free license.
*Possibly* if the FDL is free as long as invariant sections and cover
texts aren't used then the OGL is free as long as there's no product
identity? But then there's the compatibility claim ban.
This would have to be an in-depth discussion...
> Finally, in terms of changing the OGL to be freer or CC BY-SA to be
> usable for D&D 5E, I have a few thoughts. I think you're right that
> BY-SA's integrity would be undermined if it gave the option to license
> piecemeal. I also suspect that if D&D 5E is released under a free
> culture licence, it will be the OGL. To do otherwise would be to split
> the RPG commons, which I think would be unwise.
Yes that's a very good point. The OGL, for all its flaws, is a widely
used and trusted license.
> However, all Open Game Content is usable under any version of the OGL.
> Perhaps we could come up with a recommended OGL 2.0, which would
> implement the changes you recommended to avoid Product Identity abuse?
> That might encourage them to make some changes to the OGL if they do
> decide to use it.
Or BY-SA 4.0 could be nominated as OGL 2.0, or a trivial OGL 2.0 could
be created that has a one-way cross-licensing clause covering BY-SA
(like FDL 1.3).
I was hoping to be able to share some news about a wargames publisher
we've helped decide to use NC-SA, but they haven't quite gone public on
that yet. I'll let you know as soon as I can...