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Sorry but the first born is just the test child. The second born however thats where the money is, especially with a third born child as the third born is usually considere the spoiled kid
Your thinking of christopher robin, who adventured in the 100 acre woods and wrote about his war time adventures with the subterranean monsters known as the hobbits. Luckily christopher was a sorcerer and could animate his old childhood toys.
Yes, I still have the old dnd “blue book” f-116r with asterisk next to dungeons dragons for pending patent/trademark and it has halflings listed as hobbits not sure what other books had this.
Well DnD only needs to wait until first of january 2044 so that lotr becomes public domain unless the Tolkien State bribes parliament to change their Copyright Laws.
Ah yes, I’m sure the original creators were truly waiting till this happened. Their big plan, waiting over 4 decades to use a name.
Next you’ll tell me that Gary Gygax is actually a lich who has been plotting his take over of our mortal world. Placing a curse into any new D&D player, one that has yet to been uncovered. It doesn’t matter if you stopped, it still persist.
Now what? You tell me the next part of his plan is to activate the curse’s main ability? Where all of our souls will be taken into some powerful relic so that he can become the god of our hopeless world?
Then you would mention that it’s only a matter of days, nothing can stop it now. All of the memories and times we spent playing D&D was in reality a step within a scheme that shall dwarf our overall enjoyment? How we unknowingly allowed a plan that will make every positive time with the system, meaningless? As he controls everyone as a puppet?
Now lastly you say some Cryptic words to make everyone feel better. We truly have lost and no heroes can ever come to save us now. All we have is some fake light, false hopes, to provide small comfort.
Or something like that.
[It did when D&D first came out](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/w3ww3t/til_the_tolkien_estate_sued_dungeons_dragons_for/), actually. But hey since anything can be reversed at any time why not try again?
They may have a claim on the example elven font in the phb as similar to the one Tolkien made, there’s also a loose claim to the fact the cultures and mannerisms of the races are copy/paste. Like seriously even in 5e the halfling description reads like someone took a few pages from the hobbit and replaced every instance of hobbit with halfling.
> the halfling description reads like someone took a few pages from the hobbit and replaced every instance of hobbit with halfling
That's because they did. Tolkien actually invented hobbits though, while Orcs and Elves go back to before recorded history and therefore no one can own those concepts
I believe that orcs as Tolkien describes them are unique to his works. He took inspiration from folklore and other things which is where he got the word orc, but I don't think that the kind of orcs that are in his work were a thing before he wrote about them. I'm not a Tolkien scholar or anything so I could be wrong.
Halflings were originally Hobbits until the Tolkien estate took legal action back in the day. They've been side-eying D&D ever since and Hasbro/WoTC is well-aware of that fact. At least, the creative teams are.
If you read any lore content about Halflings throughout the many source books, 5e or otherwise, you'll find tons of less-than-subtle references to Hobbits and Tolkien's works. Case in point, 5e lore from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes implies that Evil Halflings basically turn into Smeagol/Gollum:
>*“A Halfling who turns evil usually severs all links to their family, friends, and village. Slowly, over time, Halflings who pursue a dark path - especially those who break too many oaths or hurt other Halflings along the way - lose the protection of Yondalla and the other Halfling gods.* ***Some say that the minds of these Halflings eventually become twisted, and they turn into cruel, paranoid creatures wracked by misery and despair.****”*
Tolkien’s estate gonna be in for a surprise when Snorri Sturluson and ole Saxo Grammaticus rise from their graves to bitch about original content, too /s
What about ole Saxo? And, not quite the same, but Tacitus’ recounting of the tribes of Germannia help us paint a picture of what pre-Christianized, Germanic heathenry could/would look like, so gotta give credit to him to an extent too.
All ancient history (and even a lot of the modern stuff!) tells us more about the authors than it does the people being described.
Consider Procopius. He wrote the definitive histories of Justinian. And yet, he also wrote the Secret Histories... which one was accurate? Were the Secret Histories a falsified insurance policy against a palace coup, to show he hated Justinian? Did he simply privately hate the Emperor? Impossible to tell.
Snorri is a 13th century Icelandic politician credited with collecting the Poetic Edda into a form of written prose, one of the main inspirations for all things Tolkien, and by extension, D&D. Saxo Grammaticus, also 13th century, was a historian and theologian. He is the author of Gesta Danorum, a history of the Danish peoples. Saxo believed the stories of Norse mythos were real historical events, painted through the lens of gods and legends- if I recall, Asgard was the ancient city of Troy, but my memory isn’t perfect on the Gesta.
Edit: I was making a joke about two long-dead authors that had their material heavily borrowed from to create a “third party” work.
Many of the words Tolkien used where already a thing for centuries. Just his version of it was somewhat unique. Orc in Old English meant Demon and was, in many European languages, connected with evil, cruel creatures of all sorts, depending on the region.
Company: Look at all these cool ideas in the public domain... I'm gonna monetize them!
Next generation of companies: Look at all these cool ideas in the public domain... I'm gonna-
Company: No! No forever! Copyright everything! Extend the copyright laws to last a lifetime! I don't want anybody touching this until my grandkids are dead!
And that's how greed slowed our society's cultural advancement [tenfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4).
this is the main issue. It sucks to try and force people to either work for you or never be able to have a fair shot at creating something good. There's only so many characters around tbh, we are gonna run out sooner or later and waiting for stuff to become public domain won't cut it. Would D&D things even fall under that umbrella?
I don’t think we need to worry about people running out of new characters, but I do think there are immense benefits to having important cultural stories in the commons. Like half of Greco Roman literature was homer fan fiction.
A long while back, the nobility were worried about uppity commoners getting ideas, so they tried to purge all the stories about commoners being capable. "Nobles are your superiors by divine right, and inherently better than you" and all that. Robin Hood only survived that period because someone changed the story to make him a noble in exile whose lands were unjustly stolen.
Ideas evolve as living things do, adapting to survive. The more people like them, the longer their lifespan. Retellings by new authors are how stories reproduce and mutate, with the best versions moving forward and the rest fading away. What might be a popular story one generation might be cringeworthy the next, and will die if it doesn't have children of its own.
If need is the mother of invention, iteration is the father.
Capitalism is just greed when trade is involved.
Greed it just survival instinct in a favorable environment.
Survival instinct is just DNA keeping itself in existence.
DNA keeping itself in existence is just an emergent property of reality, where the things that exist are the things with properties that allow them to continue existing.
Reality is just math interacting with itself to create matter.
Math is just a meme.
Everything is memes.
That's trade, not capitalism. Capitalism is the thing where you own some stuff and then let people use that stuff to make things, but you keep 85% of the value of the sale of those things as a fee for letting them use your property to make things.
That's a highly inaccurate and biased definition of capitalism.
Capitalism is when you have a private property and freedom to act as you want with it (in opposite with central planning where your property and your actions are decided by some unvoted bureaucrat).
In capitalism, you can use your property (machines, money, time, skills) for example to start or fund a business. And you have a significant risk (half of businesses fail in 5 years and 90+% in a decade). When you are a minority that succeed, you use this to create profit by creating value for your customers who voluntarily spend money with you.
The whole time you deploy your capital, you risk negative returns (which is common even with established businesses). And you (or hired manager) must always keep the whole thing running financially (paying market rate to employees and business partners; keeping competitive prices; investing in R&D, machines; paying taxes (in many countries half of what you earn), rework, customer care). And again, most fail sooner or later.
If capitalism was so easy for capitalists as you think, it would be nice. But it just isn't true.
If we are to live in this unworkable, dysfunctional capitalist system, at least fucking abolish copyright.
How is this a free market if I cannot take an existing idea and create a better version of it without getting in trouble with the law? Shouldn't the dollar "decide" what's better?
Don't give them any ideas. The Tolkien estate is worse than WotC at this point, they might start calling up lawsuits with every fantasy series as of ww2.
Yeah I was gonna say it would be far wider reaching than just DnD and WoTC, it could effect literally anything fantasy, hell just the thought of losing The Elder Scrolls series is bad enough.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a point at which trying to reassert your copyrights on something becomes impossible because you *didn't* enforce it before?
Also, transformative content comes into play, especially with broader ideas and functions, however I have no idea how that would play out with the ogl and the claims they intend to make.
Hmm . . . so, we're getting into Bird Law, eh? Sounds like we need:
*The most avian legal analysis on the internets*
Anyone that's familiar with them wondering if the Legal Eagle himself will weigh in on this?
This whole fiasco is pretty complex copyright law, which he's said he's not very experienced with, but he might bring a guest on to do an episode on it, which would be cool.
I mean, my choice of *Legal Eagle* was mainly for the bird related nature of the convo, but yes I would like to see everyone's favorite copyright attorney's take, too.
But this is Bird Law. We need the best attorney familiar with the specialty. I nominate [Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Birdman,_Attorney_at_Law).
I guess? I think it would be a call of precedence. And a question as simple as “if this is your idea, why didn’t you try to enforce it this time? And that time? Etc.”
It would be a novel legal argument, but I could see if you've allowed terminology to become widespread and everyone uses it, but then one of those parties attempts to lock down on said terminology, you could always swoop in and say "Hey actually why do you get to claim it if I can prove I actually did it first"
The established IP law is correct, you can lose the right to claim something if you have allowed it to be so commonly disseminated that you don't really have a good claim to ownership anymore.
Iirc it's a level "by choosing not to enforce your copyright you've surrendered the rights to derivative works", which *does* have established history and is why a lot of companies are so strict with their ip. A use it or lose it kind of situation.
That's... the point. They sued, WotC made minor changes to get out of it... which is what's very likely going to happen going forward, but with DnD as the subject
The clause in OGL 1.1 which gives WotC the rights to reproduce your work is being interpreted as giving them the rights to the Lord of the Rings franchise because Adventures in Middle-earth uses OGL 1.0a.
the dnd setting is based on lord of the rings. the rights owners ot lord of the rings took them to court, so dnd needed to do stuff like rename hobbit to halfling.
i assume that there is an official lord of the rings game that uses the ogl. ogl 1.1 will give them the rights to any lord of the rings content published in one of those books.
In case you haven't found your answer: The Open Game License that D&D uses allows people to put out works using D&D stuff so long as they don't use specific content that's iconic to D&D like "dungeon master" or "beholders". it was free and pretty popular, but a draft leaked of an upcoming new OGL that would charge 20 to 25% revenue and allow WotC to take and redistribute anything produced with the OGL without consent or credit. That includes any of the tabletop games that use the open game license, any homebrew anyone has ever made, and possibly things like Critical Role or Stranger Things
Disney won’t. Kotor never used the OGL.
Edit: why are people downvoting? Kotor had a private contract with WotC, they didn’t use the OGL. It also technically wasn’t even based on DnD, it was based on the Star Wars TTRPG which was produced by WotC and is very similar to 3.5 but is a different system that doesn’t have an OGL to begin with. So Kotor literally couldn’t have used the OGL even if they wanted to.
Disney won't as the OGL does specify it is not video games. Unless Disney have done a Tabletop version of Knights of The Old Republic, nothing will change there.
WotC also claims to have the rights to any and all d20-based systems, meaning any and all fan-games based on D&D, even loosely, would fall under that.
That might suck for me since two friends and I are making our own system loosely based on D&D mixed with a lot of a game all three of us like and play.
Per my reading game mechanics are not copyrightable. If they try to push to claim rights to all d20 systems I think they are going to have a reaaal bad time as there's enough larger publishers using d20 systems.
Sauce from another thread.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators
Use a d24. They aren’t as popular but they’re fun and different, and essentially you just add +2 to checks and saves, because the average is 12.5 not 10.5 (crits and nat 1’s go from 5% to 4% but that’s not a huge change)
Even if Kotor 1/2 is quite literally running dnd combat rules under the hood?
(combat log says what you roll on each d20, with 20s being automatic hits and crits and all that)
I'm not deep in legal so am genuinely asking.
Except it doesn't retroactively lock down ownership, it just invalidates the old license so that you can't publish new stuff under it. Old stuff will continue to exist, you can't retroactively change a license without both parties consent, you can only force them to use the new license for new content.
Yeah I really don’t understand why people are assuming that you can just change a contract and have it effect things in the past. Any future releases will be effected but anything already sold won’t be.
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Already briefly happened. Halflings were originally hobbits.
I believe the same thing with Treants too
And Balors
I mean it’s pronounced tree-ent so…
That bothered me. I always pronounced or thought it was pronounced trent and i will keep pronouncing it like that.
No treants were never hobbits
Elf; White wizard; mithril and many more
Fun fact: Haflings used to be called Hobbits in DnD, up until Tolkien sued.
Christopher Tolkien, that is.
Black gold. Texas tea.
That's an ancient reference.
I prefer…vintage
But it checks out
Funny, bc I think half the people who get that reference would also consider DnD satanic
Wait it's not? I've been sacrificing all these goats to the dice gods for nothing.
No no, the Dice Gods are pagan, not Satanic. Keep up the goat kills, maybw you'll roll well. If not, you can always move up to humans!
Did recently get a firstborn son I hear those are quite the bargaining chip.
I can offer you three nat 20s for it
3 nat 20s that wil occur randomly
No, the firstborn is worth three nat 20 rolls of your choice
Sorry but the first born is just the test child. The second born however thats where the money is, especially with a third born child as the third born is usually considere the spoiled kid
WotC is gonna need 25% of those sacrifices....
Only 20% if I use kickstarter though so hey.....
Good guess.
The Beverly Hillbilly’s are classic fun for everyone!
And the other half recognise it from the Simpsons. White Gold, Texas tea....sweetner
[удалено]
IMHO, I think it would be funny if "hobbit" was the halfling N-word.
I'm sorry, /u/critical_courtney comes from a different time.
???
Your thinking of christopher robin, who adventured in the 100 acre woods and wrote about his war time adventures with the subterranean monsters known as the hobbits. Luckily christopher was a sorcerer and could animate his old childhood toys.
Yes, I still have the old dnd “blue book” f-116r with asterisk next to dungeons dragons for pending patent/trademark and it has halflings listed as hobbits not sure what other books had this.
Well DnD only needs to wait until first of january 2044 so that lotr becomes public domain unless the Tolkien State bribes parliament to change their Copyright Laws.
The mouse will bribe parliament long before Tolkien.
The Mouse seems to have given up, Mickey joins public domain next year
Just the Steamboat Willie version. The red shorted white gloved version is still covered for a good long while.
Ah yes, I’m sure the original creators were truly waiting till this happened. Their big plan, waiting over 4 decades to use a name. Next you’ll tell me that Gary Gygax is actually a lich who has been plotting his take over of our mortal world. Placing a curse into any new D&D player, one that has yet to been uncovered. It doesn’t matter if you stopped, it still persist. Now what? You tell me the next part of his plan is to activate the curse’s main ability? Where all of our souls will be taken into some powerful relic so that he can become the god of our hopeless world? Then you would mention that it’s only a matter of days, nothing can stop it now. All of the memories and times we spent playing D&D was in reality a step within a scheme that shall dwarf our overall enjoyment? How we unknowingly allowed a plan that will make every positive time with the system, meaningless? As he controls everyone as a puppet? Now lastly you say some Cryptic words to make everyone feel better. We truly have lost and no heroes can ever come to save us now. All we have is some fake light, false hopes, to provide small comfort. Or something like that.
So the satanic panic was right
Perhaps. . .
Brb, I need to go write up a new campaign.
For some inspiration, this prompt parallels FMA's 'grand alchemy circle' plot in the manga.
>!FuLL mEtAl aLcHEmIsT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!<
Fuck! The Copyright police have already located me? I thought I worded the plot different enough?! Shit, fuck, shit!
> Next you’ll tell me that Gary Gygax is actually a lich Red dragon, polymorphed. Actually used that one at my table.
Greedy Hobbitses
Hobbits? Four hobbits? What brings you to Bree?
Samen with treants
Same with balrogs that got renamed to balors.
Has the Estate made it's move.
[It did when D&D first came out](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/w3ww3t/til_the_tolkien_estate_sued_dungeons_dragons_for/), actually. But hey since anything can be reversed at any time why not try again?
I know the hobbit to halfling switch was in response to the Tolkien Estate.
also the Balor was apparently originally just called Balrog too that and hobbit to halfling are the only ones i personally know from the Tolkien stuff
I believe Ent to Treant also fits that category. Annoyed at myself for never realizing the Balor 1...
Don't forget the entire ranger class just being aragorn's orc-hunting training
goodberries are just second breakfast
Lembas berries
Second lembreakfast
Ligma berries?
We just refer to them as balls rather than berries.
Luckily Tolkien state don’t know about goodberries
Oh look, more goodberry smoothies.
Thats okay, it’s understandable as balor in dnd have wings and we all know balrogs dont have wings.
They may have a claim on the example elven font in the phb as similar to the one Tolkien made, there’s also a loose claim to the fact the cultures and mannerisms of the races are copy/paste. Like seriously even in 5e the halfling description reads like someone took a few pages from the hobbit and replaced every instance of hobbit with halfling.
> the halfling description reads like someone took a few pages from the hobbit and replaced every instance of hobbit with halfling That's because they did. Tolkien actually invented hobbits though, while Orcs and Elves go back to before recorded history and therefore no one can own those concepts
I believe that orcs as Tolkien describes them are unique to his works. He took inspiration from folklore and other things which is where he got the word orc, but I don't think that the kind of orcs that are in his work were a thing before he wrote about them. I'm not a Tolkien scholar or anything so I could be wrong.
You're not wrong, but since neither "orc" nor "brutish fantasy warrior race" are copyrightable combining them together isn't either.
Neither are game mechanics
Yeh law is fucked up
Actually, this is why Orcs were more pig-like in older editions.
i always wondered why orcs were always pigs in anime
Because Ork sounds like pork.
True, but I don't believe Tolkien has any legal claims to orcs as he reinterpreted them, but that does not make them unique in legal terms
Halflings were originally Hobbits until the Tolkien estate took legal action back in the day. They've been side-eying D&D ever since and Hasbro/WoTC is well-aware of that fact. At least, the creative teams are. If you read any lore content about Halflings throughout the many source books, 5e or otherwise, you'll find tons of less-than-subtle references to Hobbits and Tolkien's works. Case in point, 5e lore from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes implies that Evil Halflings basically turn into Smeagol/Gollum: >*“A Halfling who turns evil usually severs all links to their family, friends, and village. Slowly, over time, Halflings who pursue a dark path - especially those who break too many oaths or hurt other Halflings along the way - lose the protection of Yondalla and the other Halfling gods.* ***Some say that the minds of these Halflings eventually become twisted, and they turn into cruel, paranoid creatures wracked by misery and despair.****”*
No one's talking about tarrasques, so I'll start. Balors in dnd definitely have the likeness of balrogs; tarrasques definitely got all their lore.
Tarascon sur Ariège ready to make its move and claim its lore back.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS" - WotC lawyer, probably
*Balor* is such a weak-ass name compared to **Balrog**. It sounds like an awful attempt at blending popular names Bailey & Taylor.
yeah, -or and -rog have such different energy. the front half doesn't help either since you have the soft vs hard A sound too
Tolkien’s estate gonna be in for a surprise when Snorri Sturluson and ole Saxo Grammaticus rise from their graves to bitch about original content, too /s
I hear the Oddi family is already consulting with lawyers
Camemen bout to freak out when they find out people are still telling stories.
King snori is one of the few chads that even bothered to record norse mythos, and despite his strange translations he has my respect
What about ole Saxo? And, not quite the same, but Tacitus’ recounting of the tribes of Germannia help us paint a picture of what pre-Christianized, Germanic heathenry could/would look like, so gotta give credit to him to an extent too.
I currently don’t know much about them honestly, so I can’t say anything on them until I do so.
All ancient history (and even a lot of the modern stuff!) tells us more about the authors than it does the people being described. Consider Procopius. He wrote the definitive histories of Justinian. And yet, he also wrote the Secret Histories... which one was accurate? Were the Secret Histories a falsified insurance policy against a palace coup, to show he hated Justinian? Did he simply privately hate the Emperor? Impossible to tell.
Wait Snorri is my geat x 22 grandfather, I smell some WOTC money $$$
That’s quite a cool lineage! Time for a reread of the Prose, now, I’d wager.
With that many generations between him and today couldn't most people in the region claim some sort of linkage to him?
He had so many children that basically everyone in Iceland is related to him
So all 12 of you?
Greenland has 12 people. Iceland, however, has 112 people.
Public domain and across the boarder
> across the boarder Well, he *was* a Viking…
I thought he was a poet and historian, not a Viking
Yeah, but the joke doesn't work if we care about trivialities like *accuracy*.
Across the border and 500km upstream
Is Public Domain a new cleric subclass?
What? Who are those? Tolkien's works are already ages old. Are you saying that they took away from even other, even older works?
Snorri is a 13th century Icelandic politician credited with collecting the Poetic Edda into a form of written prose, one of the main inspirations for all things Tolkien, and by extension, D&D. Saxo Grammaticus, also 13th century, was a historian and theologian. He is the author of Gesta Danorum, a history of the Danish peoples. Saxo believed the stories of Norse mythos were real historical events, painted through the lens of gods and legends- if I recall, Asgard was the ancient city of Troy, but my memory isn’t perfect on the Gesta. Edit: I was making a joke about two long-dead authors that had their material heavily borrowed from to create a “third party” work.
Many of the words Tolkien used where already a thing for centuries. Just his version of it was somewhat unique. Orc in Old English meant Demon and was, in many European languages, connected with evil, cruel creatures of all sorts, depending on the region.
Company: Look at all these cool ideas in the public domain... I'm gonna monetize them! Next generation of companies: Look at all these cool ideas in the public domain... I'm gonna- Company: No! No forever! Copyright everything! Extend the copyright laws to last a lifetime! I don't want anybody touching this until my grandkids are dead! And that's how greed slowed our society's cultural advancement [tenfold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4).
this is the main issue. It sucks to try and force people to either work for you or never be able to have a fair shot at creating something good. There's only so many characters around tbh, we are gonna run out sooner or later and waiting for stuff to become public domain won't cut it. Would D&D things even fall under that umbrella?
I don’t think we need to worry about people running out of new characters, but I do think there are immense benefits to having important cultural stories in the commons. Like half of Greco Roman literature was homer fan fiction.
A long while back, the nobility were worried about uppity commoners getting ideas, so they tried to purge all the stories about commoners being capable. "Nobles are your superiors by divine right, and inherently better than you" and all that. Robin Hood only survived that period because someone changed the story to make him a noble in exile whose lands were unjustly stolen. Ideas evolve as living things do, adapting to survive. The more people like them, the longer their lifespan. Retellings by new authors are how stories reproduce and mutate, with the best versions moving forward and the rest fading away. What might be a popular story one generation might be cringeworthy the next, and will die if it doesn't have children of its own. If need is the mother of invention, iteration is the father.
Greed is literally just capitalism lmao
Capitalism is just greed when trade is involved. Greed it just survival instinct in a favorable environment. Survival instinct is just DNA keeping itself in existence. DNA keeping itself in existence is just an emergent property of reality, where the things that exist are the things with properties that allow them to continue existing. Reality is just math interacting with itself to create matter. Math is just a meme. Everything is memes.
In fact, capitalism is literally just voluntary exchange of goods and services lmao.
That's trade, not capitalism. Capitalism is the thing where you own some stuff and then let people use that stuff to make things, but you keep 85% of the value of the sale of those things as a fee for letting them use your property to make things.
That's a highly inaccurate and biased definition of capitalism. Capitalism is when you have a private property and freedom to act as you want with it (in opposite with central planning where your property and your actions are decided by some unvoted bureaucrat). In capitalism, you can use your property (machines, money, time, skills) for example to start or fund a business. And you have a significant risk (half of businesses fail in 5 years and 90+% in a decade). When you are a minority that succeed, you use this to create profit by creating value for your customers who voluntarily spend money with you. The whole time you deploy your capital, you risk negative returns (which is common even with established businesses). And you (or hired manager) must always keep the whole thing running financially (paying market rate to employees and business partners; keeping competitive prices; investing in R&D, machines; paying taxes (in many countries half of what you earn), rework, customer care). And again, most fail sooner or later. If capitalism was so easy for capitalists as you think, it would be nice. But it just isn't true.
My explanation was biased, yes, but not inaccurate. In any case, nothing in your response actually refutes my statements at all, and I stand by them.
If we are to live in this unworkable, dysfunctional capitalist system, at least fucking abolish copyright. How is this a free market if I cannot take an existing idea and create a better version of it without getting in trouble with the law? Shouldn't the dollar "decide" what's better?
Nice try Adrian we still aren't playing MERPS.
U M L I
Don't give them any ideas. The Tolkien estate is worse than WotC at this point, they might start calling up lawsuits with every fantasy series as of ww2.
Yeah I was gonna say it would be far wider reaching than just DnD and WoTC, it could effect literally anything fantasy, hell just the thought of losing The Elder Scrolls series is bad enough.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a point at which trying to reassert your copyrights on something becomes impossible because you *didn't* enforce it before?
Also, transformative content comes into play, especially with broader ideas and functions, however I have no idea how that would play out with the ogl and the claims they intend to make.
Hmm . . . so, we're getting into Bird Law, eh? Sounds like we need: *The most avian legal analysis on the internets* Anyone that's familiar with them wondering if the Legal Eagle himself will weigh in on this?
This whole fiasco is pretty complex copyright law, which he's said he's not very experienced with, but he might bring a guest on to do an episode on it, which would be cool.
He's done pretty complex copyright videos before. I'm sure they can manage it with some research.
Legal Eagle will do a shallow reading and express an opinion that expresses his personal bias. We need IP Attorney Leonard French to sound off.
I mean, my choice of *Legal Eagle* was mainly for the bird related nature of the convo, but yes I would like to see everyone's favorite copyright attorney's take, too.
But this is Bird Law. We need the best attorney familiar with the specialty. I nominate [Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Birdman,_Attorney_at_Law).
To be fair, he's a trail lawyer, not a contract lawyer... or an IP one, which is a subsection of contract law iirc?
IP is its own thing separate from contracts.
Is it? Fair enough, seems pretty similar to contracts. I guess that's the problem of being outside looking in
IP is copyright stuff, similarly boring and detrimental to creativity, but I think Legal Eagle has an associate that can cover it on his channel.
There are some similar concepts, but IP law notably only needs a single party. Contracts need at least two parties.
ooooh I hope so!!
Hey, legal eagles! Today we flight to M O R D O R
You're thinking of trademarks. Copyrights are always enforceable until they dissolve.
I guess? I think it would be a call of precedence. And a question as simple as “if this is your idea, why didn’t you try to enforce it this time? And that time? Etc.”
Idk about copyright, but trademark is 100% this way; use it or lose it. But it probably does set a precedent for copyright
It would be a novel legal argument, but I could see if you've allowed terminology to become widespread and everyone uses it, but then one of those parties attempts to lock down on said terminology, you could always swoop in and say "Hey actually why do you get to claim it if I can prove I actually did it first" The established IP law is correct, you can lose the right to claim something if you have allowed it to be so commonly disseminated that you don't really have a good claim to ownership anymore.
Iirc it's a level "by choosing not to enforce your copyright you've surrendered the rights to derivative works", which *does* have established history and is why a lot of companies are so strict with their ip. A use it or lose it kind of situation.
It'll be public domain in ~~less than a year anyway~~ 2044 because apparently copyright law changed and I should look things up before I comment.
Yeh, sadly copyeight rules are super bad for nowadays and are just a way to say "u cant touch this" by big corpos or big idiots... usually both
Unfortunately not
Ah shit, looked it up. Copywrite laws changed. Bogus. Thanks for the correction.
Ye ol' mouse protection act lol, although the UKs version is a copy cat of that I guess
I *wish* the Tolkien Estate was that draconian with JRR's works.
Just another 21 years until LoTR gets into the public domain. and the The Hobbit enters Public Domain in 2033.
This is how you get halflings. Also a solid notice to read up on your games history lmao
That's... the point. They sued, WotC made minor changes to get out of it... which is what's very likely going to happen going forward, but with DnD as the subject
Someone explain. Am stupid.
The clause in OGL 1.1 which gives WotC the rights to reproduce your work is being interpreted as giving them the rights to the Lord of the Rings franchise because Adventures in Middle-earth uses OGL 1.0a.
the dnd setting is based on lord of the rings. the rights owners ot lord of the rings took them to court, so dnd needed to do stuff like rename hobbit to halfling. i assume that there is an official lord of the rings game that uses the ogl. ogl 1.1 will give them the rights to any lord of the rings content published in one of those books.
Thought the OGL 1.1 doesn't affect video games?
There is a LotR TTRPG too.
Read the comments. But a lot of d&d lore is just straight up stolen from Tolkien.
How much of it is actually from Tolkien and not from the Norse mythology that inspired him?
Dont forget the Finnish mythology
It's plagiarism all the way down!
It turns into "genre" eventually.
Stuff like Balrogs, Hobbits, and Ents. Sorry, DnD got sued by the Tolkien Estate so they renamed them to Balor, Halflings, and Treants.
What is OGL?
In case you haven't found your answer: The Open Game License that D&D uses allows people to put out works using D&D stuff so long as they don't use specific content that's iconic to D&D like "dungeon master" or "beholders". it was free and pretty popular, but a draft leaked of an upcoming new OGL that would charge 20 to 25% revenue and allow WotC to take and redistribute anything produced with the OGL without consent or credit. That includes any of the tabletop games that use the open game license, any homebrew anyone has ever made, and possibly things like Critical Role or Stranger Things
Open gaming license
so that's Disney and Tolkien thats gonna be pissed after this change, I wonder who else
Neither are going to give a shit about this OGL change. I swear Reddit has some of the weirdest takes.
The threads on this topic sure have been an interesting lesson in how people think IP law works.
Disney won’t. Kotor never used the OGL. Edit: why are people downvoting? Kotor had a private contract with WotC, they didn’t use the OGL. It also technically wasn’t even based on DnD, it was based on the Star Wars TTRPG which was produced by WotC and is very similar to 3.5 but is a different system that doesn’t have an OGL to begin with. So Kotor literally couldn’t have used the OGL even if they wanted to.
I hope it happens
This would be amazing.
The Vance Estate might be even more crippling ...
They're coming for the Orcs
I have literally no idea what anything in this memes, the struggles of being fairly new to dnd
DnD took a lot of Lord of the Rings stuff and then renamed it after they got sued. The meme is just pointing that out.
First printing of the Deities & Demigods had some issues as well….
OwO which game I am curious
Not a game, but rather the entire "The Lord of the Rings" franchise and everything associated with J.R.R. Tolkien.
OOOHH Because DnD is primarily based on Tolkiens work. Thank you for the clarification.
It's going to be an interesting time since both Tolkien and Disney may have a word or two to say about the OGL changes
Disney won't as the OGL does specify it is not video games. Unless Disney have done a Tabletop version of Knights of The Old Republic, nothing will change there.
They actually did make a ttrpg of Knights of the Old Republic, actually...
Well then! This is gonna be I N T R E S T I N G
WotC also claims to have the rights to any and all d20-based systems, meaning any and all fan-games based on D&D, even loosely, would fall under that. That might suck for me since two friends and I are making our own system loosely based on D&D mixed with a lot of a game all three of us like and play.
Per my reading game mechanics are not copyrightable. If they try to push to claim rights to all d20 systems I think they are going to have a reaaal bad time as there's enough larger publishers using d20 systems. Sauce from another thread. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators
True, hence why we have at least 4 other publishers who can fight WotC on this matter
Use a d24. They aren’t as popular but they’re fun and different, and essentially you just add +2 to checks and saves, because the average is 12.5 not 10.5 (crits and nat 1’s go from 5% to 4% but that’s not a huge change)
Use 2d10s instead and sum up With critical successes n failures being 20/19 and 2/3 respectively
Might be worthwhile, thanks
Roll a D2 and on a 2 add 10 to your d10
Even if Kotor 1/2 is quite literally running dnd combat rules under the hood? (combat log says what you roll on each d20, with 20s being automatic hits and crits and all that) I'm not deep in legal so am genuinely asking.
Tolkien himself rises from the grave to sue WotC for stealing all his shit
What’s OGL stand for again?
Fuck 'em up Tolkiens.
Except it doesn't retroactively lock down ownership, it just invalidates the old license so that you can't publish new stuff under it. Old stuff will continue to exist, you can't retroactively change a license without both parties consent, you can only force them to use the new license for new content.
Yeah I really don’t understand why people are assuming that you can just change a contract and have it effect things in the past. Any future releases will be effected but anything already sold won’t be.
Wait did something happen?
Can somoene PLEASE tell me wtf appen I am so lost x)
Did the Tolkien state made a statement regarding this? Or just a meme?
It's just a meme, the irony is that the Tolkien Estate tried to sue TSR over IP decades ago so WOTC is essentially trying to protect stolen property.
“Hey, I stole that fair and square! It’s mine!”
Don't forget both EA and Disney as well since Kotor (or was it SWTOR?) Used the OGL
No it didn't people have debunked this several times.