This came to me whilst I was reading the FH&W thread: has anyone producing retro-clone material ever had any heat whatsoever from Hasbro or Wizards?

Because I've never heard of any. No threatening letters, no lawsuits, nothing. I know retro-clone publishers use the OGL as the legal basis for what they do but when you look at the sheer range of products being cranked out there must be someone flouting important provisions of the licence, either deliberately or because they misinterpreted its provisions. And yet, nada.

For that matter, have they ever slapped down a publisher for failure to abide by the OGL, D20 licence, or the GSL? I know they didn't come after 4E Kingdoms of Kalamar, despite it not coming under the GSL, though given that Dave Kenzer is an IP attorney in his day job he probably did a decent enough job of skirting the line to make any case tenuous, and I'm pretty sure not every publisher had the benefit of having their own in-house lawyer.

I have not heard of any. But it is very possible it has happened and I just havent heard of it.

I know Hasbro has gone after bootlegs before. One publisher got hit for 1 mil in fines. Probably others out there. But those are not retro clones.

I know there are a few out there that SHOULD be shut down. but seems so far no one has acted.

Didn't Guardians of Order have to pulp/withdraw some books, or did i dream it?

Considering the ill luck GOO had back then. Probably yes.

GOO relied heavily on licensed properties - a strategy which, as with West End Games and others before them, would turn around and bite them in the ass - so whilst I do remember GOO having to trash some books, I don't recall whether this was due to D20 licensing issues or rights issues with the properties they'd made games for.

I experienced a 'concerned citizen' complaint over H&H's first printing, but other than that I've certainly never heard anything official.

I think until very recently WOTC probably didn't think any of it was relevant.

I know of one off the top of my head but I'm not at liberty to say...

The author of Squadron UK received, as far as I know, a C&D for the game based on Golden Heroes, so he rewrote and re-issued it so as to be able to sell it without problems.

The author of the retro clone of GH hasn't (as far as I know) heard anything from GW's lawyers.

Difference between the two is that Squadron UK was for sale, Codename:Spandex is free.

The Marvel Superheroes PDFs have been available - free - for all for years and still remain so. Either WOTC or Marvel don't know about them or think it's not worth their while to chase the site down.

With these companies I expect they'd look at what it is - a few hundred RPG players across the world keeping out of print games available as opposed to something they could be making thousands/millions of dollars from.

I would expect a smaller company to be more vigorous in their attempts to protect their games, but Flying Buffalo hasn't stopped someone from flogging their stuff without permission because they can't or the legal costs aren't worth it, I guess. Doesn't make it any less shitty what's happened there.

Quote from: Warthur;740022Because I've never heard of any. No threatening letters, no lawsuits, nothing. I know retro-clone publishers use the OGL as the legal basis for what they do but when you look at the sheer range of products being cranked out there must be someone flouting important provisions of the licence, either deliberately or because they misinterpreted its provisions. And yet, nada.

I haven't personally heard of anything. My opinion we been lucky for the following reason.

1) OSRIC took lot of heat when first released. A LOT of heat. But if they were contacted officially they effectively handled it and I believe there were IP lawyers on the design team.. OSRIC was deliberately designed to be as close as the line possible.  As such it is a sort of benchmark of how far you can go. Most of the retro-clone I read to back off further than OSRIC.

2) The d20 SRD without feats, skills, etc cover a hell of lot that went into classic D&D. Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors plugs some of the gaps in the monster list to the point that 95% of what you need for a retro-clone is clearly under the OGL.

3) The early OSR community talked a lot among each other and the major editions were quickly covered by various retro-clones. There was strong peer pressure not to piss of Wizards and kill the goose the lays the golden eggs. Subsequent clones tend to have more original content or focus on specific fantasy themes.

Despite the stereotype most of the OSR don't truly want to rehash old material over and over again. Once the basics were covered most of the community got into making their own stuff. Many focusing on variations of various themes and tropes that make up classic D&D.

4) People were aware of the handful of violations during the d20 boom. Particularly with James Ward's company Fast Forward Entertainment improperly using non-open content.


5) The OSR "boom" is no where near as large the d20 boom. It not surprisingly that TheDungeonDelver only mentions one that he knew about. Despite all the products released during the d20 Boom the number of violations was a low percentage.

In the final analysis, it may be a problem with some idiot in the future but has not been for now.

Quote from: estar;740110I haven't personally heard of anything. My opinion we been lucky for the following reason.

1) OSRIC took lot of heat when first released. A LOT of heat. But if they were contacted officially they effectively handled it and I believe there were IP lawyers on the design team.. OSRIC was deliberately designed to be as close as the line possible.  As such it is a sort of benchmark of how far you can go. Most of the retro-clone I read to back off further than OSRIC.

Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740118Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

So wait OSRIC is completely open source?

Quote from: Snowman0147;740120So wait OSRIC is completely open source?

Pretty much has to be.  Sort of the entire point of it.  I mean, you can't just cut and paste; that's still under basic copyright protection.  But OSRIC can't very well say, "We just copied AD&D essentially, but you can't copy us!"

Quote from: Sacrosanct;740126Pretty much has to be.  Sort of the entire point of it.  I mean, you can't just cut and paste; that's still under basic copyright protection.  But OSRIC can't very well say, "We just copied AD&D essentially, but you can't copy us!"

   In addition, by the terms of the OGL, anything designated OGC or derived from OGC material must be made and remain open content in perpetuity. I suspect this is one of the key reasons why one of Dancey's dreams for the OGL--get all the other companies to experiment, then fold the best ideas into the next edition of D&D--didn't materialize.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740118Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

I'm not sure it was deliberate lying, per se.  The biggest critics I saw of OSRIC were Clark Peterson of Necromancer games, and the Troll Lords.  However, in both cases, both men had legal advice (CP is an attorney, and Steve was married to one), and this kind of stuff was so new that nobody really knew what WoTC would do.  Realistically, the SAFER option is to copy less instead of copying more.  At the time, I do think their cautions was justified, and people who think they were deliberately trying to sabotage OSRIC were being paranoid.

But in the end, it turns out WoTC left it alone.  I suspect they probably see the retro-clones akin to "fan fiction", like some of the bigger companies treat web-published fan stories about literary properties.  They probably don't see it as a big enough threat to them.

Quote from: JRT;740142I'm not sure it was deliberate lying, per se.  The biggest critics I saw of OSRIC were Clark Peterson of Necromancer games, and the Troll Lords.  However, in both cases, both men had legal advice (CP is an attorney, and Steve was married to one), and this kind of stuff was so new that nobody really knew what WoTC would do.  Realistically, the SAFER option is to copy less instead of copying more.  At the time, I do think their cautions was justified, and people who think they were deliberately trying to sabotage OSRIC were being paranoid.

What's the card you like to play so often, John?  "I was there, you weren't"?

I was, and you weren't.  

There was at least one person who started a whisper campaign about OSRIC to try and have it buried.  Another individual who will go nameless crowed about how he'd "notified Wizards" of OSRIC's "copyright infringement" to have it taken down.

So don't talk about things you don't know.*


...


*=this has never dissuaded you in the past, so, I guess you won't stop now.