>>That sounded rather elitist, but that's okay - I don't expect a lot of >>people to be looking ahead. > >Forgive me, but THAT sounds elitist: claiming that you have more foresight >than others.
No, that sounds cocky and/or self-righteous (and in hindsight, it absolutely did, and I apologize for my poor sentence structure). Elitist means, "we're part of the group (in this case publishers) and you're not (so we don't need to listen to you)." If you're going to flame me, at least get it right. ;-) I never claimed that I had more foresight - the idea of fansites going under the OGL was, for the record, NOT my idea, but rather the idea of one Brad Bemis. Fansites currently exist at the whim of WotC - you remember the TSR "web persecution" of a few years back? WotC's policy towards current fansites is "we'll leave you alone" - but that IS subject to change. A site that publishes (correctly) under the OGL is iron-clad and cannot be removed at the whim of WotC's legal department. A "fansite" can be removed at their whim. >There IS a distinction between publishers and fans. They have different >needs and different perspectives. For the fan, the OGL will likely never be >a matter of great financial risk. For the publisher, it usually is. That's >the biggest distinction, but there are certainly others. Not sure I concur with you here - in theory, the fan has more to lose than a company. While it is true that a publisher usually has more assets than a fan and therefore more at stake in absolute terms, what happens if a publishing company is sued and goes under? The employees are protected from personal loss and in theory could simply start a new company with little real damage to their own lives. A fan who is sued has no protection - his house, car, future wages, and so forth are in real danger. To say nothing of the fact that he is likely to crumble quickly because he can't afford continuing exorbitant legal fees to defend himself. Of course this is a doomsday scenario, and I don't really see any company putting the "legal smackdown" on the fans to quite this degree but in some ways, the fan's financial risk is FAR GREATER than the publisher's. And need I remind you again (as one poster already has) of the TSR "web persecution" policy of a few years ago, when many fansites were shut down completely after TSR threatened legal action? To say that the fans have no more risk than the publishers ignores recent history (unfortunately). Do I think WotC learned that this killed a lot of the goodwill TSR had in the bank? Yes. Do I expect them to do their own brand of web persecution? Other than making sure that you really are using the OGL correctly if you claim you are doing so, I think the answer is "no." Nevertheless, the possibility DOES exist. --The Sigil P.S. - Please read through all 6 of my posts before replying. Thanks. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
