The Perfidious Treachery of WOTC: Does OGL 1.1 Mean the End of Open Gaming?

[Morose]

The Perfidious Treachery of WOTC Does OGL 1.1 Mean the End of Open Gaming?

[Morose]

If you’re under the illusion that we live in a country with a court system that rewards the righteous, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The American justice system is pay-to-play, and the amount you have to pay is unfathomable to those who haven’t gone through it. I consulted with one of New York’s top IP litigators last week to find out how much money I’d have to raise via GoFundMe to fight Wizards. When I asked him if $100,000 would be enough, he laughed. He said I’d need $500,000 to even have a chance of summary judgment, and $4 million for a trial. Wizards has a war chest measured in millions and will fight this out for 4-6 years.

[Morose]

Imagine this hypothetical: Paizo files a lawsuit against Wizards. A year later, after about $500,000 of expense on motions, they begin to proceed to trial. Their lawyers estimate they have a 70% chance to win. At this point, WOTC now offers to settle, offering Paizo a perpetual irrevocable license for the 3.5E SRD in exchange for Paizo’s agreement not to exploit the 5.1 SRD in any way and other minor concessions. If you’re Paizo, do you spend another $3.5 million and 3 years in trial for a 70% win — or do you take that deal?

Most companies take that deal.

[Morose]

But WOTC Can’t Sue Everybody!
Many people believe that small independent studio won’t be affected because they can avoid being noticed. “WOTC can’t sue everybody,” they assert.

Allow me to disabuse you of this notion, too.

WOTC doesn’t have to sue everybody. All they need to do is to persuade the gatekeepers — Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, DriveThruRPG, Amazon, and a handful of other companies — that they are better off cooperating with WOTC than opposing it. Then the gatekeepers will deplatform us when WOTC tells them to.

Think of how easy it is to get de-platformed on YouTube if we use a string of music that’s a little too long, and it gets flagged by Warner Music. Think of how little recourse we have if Nintendo decides our Twitch stream violates their IP. The world we live in is one of centralized corporate control. They don’t have to litigate against us. They can simply wall us off, and leave it to us to sue them — which we cannot afford to do.

[Morose]

You really want to read this whole article. Very enlightening.

[drelish]

Perfidious Treachery, tell us what you really think! I like it.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Good title and it is not the end, just a new beginning and I think the birth of a lot of competition. I saw someone whining about the fan base being fragmented, but that is nothing new and not a bad thing.