I was recently following the discussion on RPGnet about Open20/OpenSys/Roleplay20, and thinking about our own "Mid20" D20 variant, and some of the open content (mostly stuff from D20SRD and Sleeping Imperium) it contains, and following the discussion on the WOGL and Gnu GPL and got to wondering about the nitty gritty of multiple licenses.
specifically, section 2 of the WotC OGL: >2. The License: This License applies to any Open Game Content that contains >a notice indicating that the Open Game Content may only be Used under and in >terms of this License. You must affix such a notice to any Open Game Content >that you Use. No terms may be added to or subtracted from this License >except as described by the License itself. No other terms or conditions may >be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License. This seems pretty clear: if you release something under the WOGL, you must abide by the terms of the WOGL precisely, without modifying them: no additional restrictions, no exceptions, etc. ok, makes sense--you don't want people claiming something is under the WOGL when they've actually changed the terms to allow reuse "provided the publisher is of Venusian descent", or otherwise violated the spirit of the license. But, unless i'm mistaken, the original copyright holder has not given up any rights by using the WOGL to distribute their work. So, the original author can do what she likes with her work, even if it violates the WOGL--such as making a change to a subsequent version that the WOGL wouldn't allow [hypothetical--for sake of my argument i don't care if there actually are changes you can make to a work that the WOGL "wouldn't allow"]. So, it seems to me that the original author can release the work under more than one license simultaneously. I support this with three examples and one interpretation of the license. Example 1: WotC's D20SRD and D&D3E Players' Handbook. the same material has been released both as OGC, governed by the WOGL (in the form of the D20SRD) and as closed content, governed by copyright and trademark (in the form of the 3E PH). Example 2: every time you release a work with the WOGL, you are in fact resting the strength of the WOGL on the strength of copyright and trademark: it is the legally-tested weight of these laws that enables you to enforce the WOGL, by threatening to invoke them should someone choose not to comply with the WOGL. So, effectively, you must license any WOGLed work doubly, once under copyright (where the "license" comes in the form of fair use and the ability of someone to reuse the content provided they change the expression), and once under the WOGL. as we have discussed here, it is worth giving up the rights that copyright give you, in return for the "safe harbor" of the WOGL, but most have also agreed that you could simply use your rights of reuse under standard copyright, and ignore the WOGL. (What exactly those rights would net you, in terms of what can be reused/derived from/drawn upon, is up in the air, but the fact that they exist doesn't seem to be in contention.) Example 3: D20STL and WOGL. Clearly, the D20STL adds other terms and conditions to the use of material, just not directly. That is, you can use the material of the D20SRD as outlined under the WOGL. But if you want the added benefit of the D20 logo, you have to agree to further terms, which restrict your reuse of the OGC in the D20SRD. This seems to me like "other terms or conditions" applied to OGC distributed using the WOGL, namely: "you may only alter this OGC in this way if you do not wish to use the D20STL. hmmm...not sure this particular example is sound, since the D20STL is a separate license, and, technically at least, doesn't apply to the D20SRD at all--but there *is* that list of reserved terms, all of which are drawn from the OGC of the D20SRD... now, my interpretation of Section 2 of the WOGL: it says that you can't burden material distributed as OGC with additional terms. It doesn't say that you can't apply more than one license to a work, so long as the others don't automatically change the terms of the WOGL (thus, the D20STL, which doesn't abrigate the WOGL, but lays additional terms on top of it--which (and this is the important part) you can choose to ignore, but the cost of so doing does not include giving up the rights that the WOGL grants you. So, adding all this up, it seems to me that the original author (but *not* subsequent users of OGC) could choose to release a work under two licenses as alternatives, rather than stacking them. In other words, just as using the WOGL implicitly says "you may reuse this work subject to the terms of the WOGL *or* subject to the terms of copyright", you could, say, release something under the WOGL and the OOGL (and copyright), or the WOGL and the Gnu FDL (and copyright). You could not demand that someone abide by both licenses to reuse the material (unless, perhaps, their terms were effectively identical?), but you could say that "you may derive from and/or reuse this work, provided you abide by the terms of *either* the WotC OGL *or* the OOGL". What do others think? Obvious holes in my logic that i missed? Misunderstanding of the WOGL or open licenses in general? Something else that you need to smack me upside the head with? [btw, i have several times referred to "the OGC within the D20SRD", or words to that effect. I'm aware that, currently and, according to current plans, in the future, all of the D20SRD will be OGC. i'm just trying to be redundantly clear that i'm only concerned with OGC here, and the D20SRD is my simplest example of such.] -- woodelf <*> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.home.net/woodelph/ If any religion is right, maybe they all have to be right. Maybe God doesn't care how you say your prayers, just as long as you say them. --Sinclair _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
