That attorney makes clear they are not an IP lawyer. Here's an IP lawyer, who specifically works in gaming, who says the opposite:
https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-tal...
https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-tal...
Those are just facts, not a legal opinion on whether it is revokable at all.
> I do believe that there are potential legal challenges to the revocation of OGL 1.0a, especially given the length of time Third Party Creators have relied upon OGL 1.0a and the speed with which WotC has taken action to revoke it. However, these challenges would have to take place in court.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/p...
How could it possible for a court to "pre settle" a dispute between 2 private parties , based on only one side presenting their case?
What GP is asking for is a way to get an actual decision from an actual court, before it's needed.
> I reached out to the architect of the original Open Gaming License, former VP of Wizard of the Coast, Ryan Dancey, and asked his opinion about the current plan by WotC to 'deauthorize' the current OGL in favour of a new one.
> He responded as follows:
>> Yeah my public opinion is that Hasbro does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.
* https://www.enworld.org/threads/ryan-dancey-hasbro-cannot-de...
If intent matters in contract law, then the intent of the license was (per WotC and its representatives at the time) for it to be non-revocable. WotC had publicly stated that this was their intent:
> 7. Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?
> Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.
* https://web.archive.org/web/20060106175610/http://www.wizard...
Further:
> Q: What is meant by the term "Open Gaming"?
> A: An Open Game is a game that can be freely copied, modified, and distributed, and a system for ensuring that material, once distributed as an Open Game will remain permanently Open.
* https://web.archive.org/web/20010429033432/http://www.wizard...
So was WotC lying about intent in the past, or are they lying about intent now? If there was deceit, does that open them up to civil action?
Regardless, it's doubtful that anyone has the money to battle WotC/Hasbro to settle this in court.
Also, Dancey didn't issue the license, WotC did. Intent matters, so the WotC FAQ is relevant IMO, but Dancey's personal intent is irrelevant.
He also doesn't have the best track record at anything he touches surviving the experience - Five Rings, Last Unicorn Games, getting laid off from Hasbro two years after the OGL shipped, OPC getting eaten by Alderac, overseeing CCP's marketing during the CCP/White Wolf debacle, architectung the utter failure of Pathfinder Online - such that the guy is like the Forrest Gump of RPG industry failures.
Giving Hasbro an OGL loophole 20 years ago would still be top-3 for him but it's like, did somebody botch an RPG IP decision today? Odds are either Dancey or Jordan Weisman were in the room when it happened, even just coincidentally.
Dancey was the VP in charge of the product at WotC at the time. Obviously what he says is relevant because he wasn’t talking strictly in his name but in the name of the company.
Dancey's statement this week also wasn't from his time at Wizards, nor as a representative of the licenser - indeed, he now works at AEG, a competitor with a catalog including OGL v1.0a-licensed works for sale and a vested financial interest in the OGL v1.0a working the way he describes it.
The WotC FAQ from that time, again, is relevant IMO. Maybe Dancey wrote it. But it's relevant because Wizards published it. 2022 Ryan Dancey is not.
It doesn’t matter than Dansey’s name isn’t on the license. Writing document exists from the time when he was representing WotC where he says that the licence is intended as perpetual which is the point of him commenting on the whole thing. It’s not about 2022 Dancey.
I understand you don’t like the guy but that doesn’t preclude him for saying relevant things.
This is still not relevant here, it is about irrevocible. But apparently he also said that and it was in the official FAQ. If official FAQs are meaningless, then this just gives room for open fraud.
Dancey-as-individual may not matter, but Dancey-as-officer-of-company may. At the time he was presumably acting on behalf of WotC and stating what WotC's intent was.
So when he says that the intent at the time of issuance was that it could never be revoked, wouldn't there have to be evidence put forward to contradict it? Either internal documents or from someone else involved in the OGL giving a contrasting opinion?