OT: Open Gaming
 

Given the current debacle involving the D&D folks trying to retroactively cancel their open gaming license, does anyone know if 4e Twilight:2000 has any explicit terms that would prevent folks from making 3pp publications such as the ones that are currently on DTRPG?

All the fan-created 4e material on DTRPG is released under the terms of the Free League Workshop:

https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/...eague-Workshop

Notably, as I've commented elsethread before, the required copyright statement for every other Free League game line in the Workshop leaves original content ownership with the creator. However, the required T2k copyright statement omits that clause and seems to assign ownership of that content to Free League and GDW (ref: screen shot taken 19 March 2022 for reference).

- C.

Yeah, I read that and noted that there was no statement regarding the original content created by 3pp for Twilight:2000 like there is for FL's other games - just the copyright attribution and being used under license. That there is no explicit statement regarding your own copyright for your original content is what led me to question just how much protection 3pp would have against FL just trying to cut them off at the knees.

The required statement for Mutant: Year Zero also omits that clause. The clause is only included in games that are copyrighted only by Fria Ligan, and not by the two games licensed from Cabinet and GDW.

Which begs the question. For things that FL has licensed, (in this case, Twilight:2000) could the rights holder turn around and profit from your original IP while denying you the rights to it if you publish on the Free League Workshop?
Just because FL says you retain rights to your own original work, the idea of "merger" in IP and copyright law means that unless FFE states that publishing your original work isn't going to get you sued or that they'll try and use it without you permission, there could be a risk.

Doesn't Marc Miller retain the overall copyright to Twilight:2000? Might be worthwhile for someone to ask Marc.

Even more OT but here is the link to the open letter in support of open gaming

https://www.opendnd.games/

He does, but he also has a very "don't cross the streams" relationship with FL. For instance, Miller insisted that no material for 4e be included in the T2k Fanzine available thru DriveThruRPG. I don't think Miller has any say in how FL handles publishing, licensing, copyright, etc. for strictly 4e products. By the same token, AFAIK, FL had nothing to do with recent semi-official T2k products for v1-2.2 like the FFE-published Korea, Pacific Northwest, and Romania Sourcebooks. When I've asked Miller about potential cross-over (i.e. multi-edition) projects, or anything directly 4e related, he's always told me (and I'm paraphrasing here), "that's not my purview; take it up with Free League".

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That seems most sensible - a clean break between the two. What about Twilight:2013? Miller owns the rights to that too?

For that other game, it's getting interesting - Paizo just fired a shot across WotC/ Hasbro's brow... It's times like this I'm glad that I prefer less commercialized RPGs.