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Comment by philipwhiuk | Hacker News Reader

Not a lawyer but I don't see how you can revoke a perpetual license. If it expired after a period sure, but it doesn't, that's what perpetual means.

So it'll be a problem for new products but not for stuff that was licensed under OGL 1.0 already

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In the law, perpetual and irrevocable are different. See here:

https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-tal...

From OGL 1.0: 4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive License with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/OGL%20License

From Gizmodo: One of the biggest changes to the document is that it updates the previously available OGL 1.0 to state it is “no longer an authorized license”

Some more background on the terms: https://www.larsenlawoffices.com/can-terminate-perpetual-lic...

That part in section 9 doesn't say that it invalidates the part in section 4, though. Reading it strictly, claiming an earlier license is "unauthorized" would merely mean that you can't use the earlier license to redistribute content put out under the later license, not that you can't use the earlier license at all.

Yeah, and crucially, all of the talk of WotC wanting to revoke OGL 1.0 as applied to existing material is speculation based on the leaked draft discussing its authorization -- there's no specific language claiming it is "revoked". My guess would be that they want to make it clear that despite clause 9, you can't distribute 1.1 material under the 1.0 license.

It's a clusterfuck of 1. The leaked license has some really shitty terms in it

2. Folk might be misinterpreting one particular part to mean something other than intended, but its getting the main focus right now (and also treated as absolute fact!)

3. It's leaked so WotC was completely unprepared to answer questions and/or do PR around this

If I was e.g. Paizo I would be very urgently demanding clarification, but since I'm not I'm content to wait and see what happens without getting too outraged, yet.

(I will 100% boycott WotC/D&D/MTG/etc if they actually do try to revoke 1.0 material, though.)

"perpetual" and "irrevocable" have two different meanings in licencing law.

They can't. They sure as hell are trying to/imply being able to, though.

> how you can revoke a perpetual license

The way the US justice system works is if you have more money than all of your opponents, you win.

... against domestic opponents. What about those based in other countries?

Ask Kim Dotcom.

when it comes to IP, you’d have to ask the RIAA/MPAA

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