When I write for Behemoth3, I want the kinds of rights I enjoy if I'm writing fiction under a SFWA model contract. If most or all of what I write is OGC, some of those rights are going to fall by the wayside -- I'm not going to have the same kind of control over how my work is reprinted or attributed, or by whom. And although I generally prefer royalties, there's no way for me to ensure that I get paid for each publication that has my OGC work in it.
When I put on my publisher's hat, Behemoth3 wants to have maximum flexibility in using an authors' work. The provisions of the SFWA model contract are designed for a different publishing environment than gaming, and it's at best frustrating and at worst disastrous to need an author's permission before each different kind of legitimate use I might come up with.
Work for hire contracts are the ordinary solution to a publisher's needs in gaming, but it seems to me that a contract based on an author being paid to develop OGC, which anyone can then reuse under the OGL, does a better job of meeting the desires of both authors and publishers. The publisher gets full reusability, and has first crack at publishing the OGC plus the ability to get the Word files from the author, request specific edits and additional materials, etc. The author gets to have the OGC attributed to them and can get paid up front without signing over their rights to the publisher; instead, they're just giving up their rights to the OGL as they would have to anyway.
Any experiences with how the OGL works in the author/publisher relationship, or thoughts about the ideal way to handle its role?
- Tavis
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