Has Anyone Listened to the Opening Arguments Podcast on the Gizmodo coverage?

[Ondath]

So, yesterday was also when Opening Arguments (a podcast hosted by a Harvard law graduate and a non-lawyer) released their episode where they analyse the OGL v1.1 and Linda Codega's coverage of the debacle in particular. I was particularly concerned by the attitude they give on social media where they downplay the situation and claim Codega basically misrepresents the law and wrote a hitpiece on WotC.

OA675: Gizmodo’s Critical Hit (Piece) on Wizards of the Coast

The internet is aflame over a leaked draft of Wizards of the Coast new licensing agreement for Dungeons and Dragons. But, should they be? Our resident legal expert Andrew says no and calls the Gizm…

openargs.com

That said, I don't have the time to listen to something that will just raise my blood pressure in the end, so I don't really know what exactly they say. Did anyone listen to the episode by any chance? Are they making any substantial claims against Codega? Some lawyers in other threads said it sounded like OA was not engaging with the legal details of the situation but just made a blanked defence of WotC saying "Well they're allowed to change it". Is that still the attitude here?

 

[Gozzy]

I listened to it. It's terrible.

They take the original Gizmodo article to task, mention that Wizards are on "the same side as us" (they mean in terms of progressive politics, clearly they missed the Hadozee debacle), and focus on all the wrong issues. At one point they discuss other media but one host isn't aware of the upcoming movie, and neither mention the recently announced TV series. Overall they seem to lack even a basic understanding of the TTRPG community in 2023 and the OGL's role over the last 23 years. Avoid, for the good of your blood pressure!

 

[Ibrandul]

It’s nothing but cherry-picked information molded to fit their canned thesis: Journalist with grudge sparks moral panic over almost perfectly normal contract offer with just one unacceptable provision that nobody else is emphasizing! The one unacceptable provision is that WotC gets rights to all your creations, which to their credit they do recognize as exploitative, but they insist everything else is perfectly normal license contract stuff.

The moment when any already-informed listener probably ought to just press Stop comes really early: they completely misconstrue a sentence in Codega’s article. That sentence isn’t as clear as it could be but obviously means that content creators could produce far less under the new license, whereas OA takes it as saying there are new limitations on what WotC-owned content the license allows creators to use. They point out that the leaked license draft doesn’t change anything about that, and then they claim Codega is either inept at reading contracts or else is just lying, has ulterior motives, and so on. They really revel in catching their target in a demonstrable error, when in fact they are the ones who are misrepresenting the document they’re discussing.

It’s a bad show.

 

[yukigono]

I'm a regular listener of this podcast, so their poor take on the situation left me cold. However, they are regularly willing to admit when they are wrong, so I hope they talk to someone, or someone talks to them, who knows better about the OGL and its history.

 

[ThorinTeague]

So, yesterday was also when Opening Arguments (a podcast hosted by a Harvard law graduate and a non-lawyer) released their episode where they analyse the OGL v1.1 and Linda Codega's coverage of the debacle in particular. I was particularly concerned by the attitude they give on social media where they downplay the situation and claim Codega basically misrepresents the law and wrote a hitpiece on WotC.

OA675: Gizmodo’s Critical Hit (Piece) on Wizards of the Coast

The internet is aflame over a leaked draft of Wizards of the Coast new licensing agreement for Dungeons and Dragons. But, should they be? Our resident legal expert Andrew says no and calls the Gizm…

openargs.com

That said, I don't have the time to listen to something that will just raise my blood pressure in the end, so I don't really know what exactly they say. Did anyone listen to the episode by any chance? Are they making any substantial claims against Codega? Some lawyers in other threads said it sounded like OA was not engaging with the legal details of the situation but just made a blanked defence of WotC saying "Well they're allowed to change it". Is that still the attitude here?

I'm not a lawyer in my opinion is not expert. That said....

I have heard convincing and seemingly well reasoned arguments from numerous different internet lawyers about the legality of ogl1.1, specifically voiding 1.0 and earlier. Some seem to think that wotc has this power and/or right. Others do not. Now I wouldn't know How to compare and contrast the merits of these arguments one way or another. I lack the expertise and education to add a whole lot of insight or meaning to what has already been said. I would encourage you to duly and diligently research and consider different perspectives And take into consideration all sides of the story.

But this? This was a payoff. That podcast (at least that episode) is a blatant payoff and its commentators are obviously WoTC sock puppets... At least for this ep. Did you just glaze over the way they introduced themselves in the first few moments? I mean the way they describe THEIR OWN merits and creds...

I mean, this guy gives an analysis from a supposedly expert point of view, and asserts multiple times what the intentions of the original writers of the OGL were. I've never heard of a lawyer claiming to know the intentions of authors of legal docs who aren't present.

His credentials coupled with that tears this horseshit down pretty thoroughly, and I don't even need any of it to tear it down from the front end instead.

Some real doozies in here, but one gem in particular: he says confidently that he absolutely knows that those who wrote The Open gaming license version 1.0 did not intend it to subsidize competition. He literally has no idea that paizo is run by people who wrote that document.

He goes on, this man literally said with 100% confidence that he absolutely knows that the writers of the original OGL did not intend it to be permanent, and did not really mean "open' when they said open.

Like, how could you naughty word up your job THAT bad? Really, how could you be this bad at your job? Does the 0675 episode number imply that there were 674 episodes before this? 674 hours of these tools trying to provide legal commentary?

He just doesn't know the history. He was talking about events in 1999 and 2000 as if it were 2023 back then. Dungeons & dragons was well on its way to becoming and obscure relic. It was very close to death.

I'm just in awe of the blatantly obvious... Its either incompetence or its lying. Take your pick. I didn't list to anything else from oa.

 

[Enrahim2]

I listened to it and my main issue was that they presented 5.1 SRD as the only OGC. On their facebook I tried to point out this error, and they commented back the somewhat eye opening statement that it clearly isn't written as a open source license.

I am saying eye opening, as I realised someone searching for the ogl and wizards could find the srd5.1-ogl document from wizards. If reading only that documentm and thinking that is the only document wizards is refering to, I can see how it is easy to miss the open source quality. Especially as the premable of the OGL in that document clearly limits the scope of certain more ambigous terms required for the open source mechanisms to function for that context.

I hence think this was their major mistake. They likely only read the 5.1-OGL, and assumed this was the only affected licensed document. Or at the very least that as there are no forced mechanisms for declaring any non-derivative elements as OGC, noone in their right mind would give up their original commercial work to wizards under this license.

If this had been the case, that this license was provided as is only in the ogl 5.1 format, and never used outside the type of scope OGL-1.1 allow I think their take seem perfectly reasonable. As a B2C commercial license of IP this is par for the course.

As a legal loophole exploitation that allows for the wreckage of an entire commersial open source community this is horrible on a scale even the free software fundation should want to look into. Even if gpl is not prone to the same loophole, if the word gets spread, this could erode confidence in their open source platform as well.

Hence I hope those talking to media now can be conscious to emphasize that ogl is not just the srd-ogl issued by wizards. When reading the mainstream media with this misconception in mind, I get the impression it might be a very common one.

 

[ThorinTeague]

I listened to it and my main issue was that they presented 5.1 SRD as the only OGC. On their facebook I tried to point out this error, and they commented back the somewhat eye opening statement that it clearly isn't written as a open source license.

I am saying eye opening, as I realised someone searching for the ogl and wizards could find the srd5.1-ogl document from wizards. If reading only that documentm and thinking that is the only document wizards is refering to, I can see how it is easy to miss the open source quality. Especially as the premable of the OGL in that document clearly limits the scope of certain more ambigous terms required for the open source mechanisms to function for that context.

I hence think this was their major mistake. They likely only read the 5.1-OGL, and assumed this was the only affected licensed document. Or at the very least that as there are no forced mechanisms for declaring any non-derivative elements as OGC, noone in their right mind would give up their original commercial work to wizards under this license.

If this had been the case, that this license was provided as is only in the ogl 5.1 format, and never used outside the type of scope OGL-1.1 allow I think their take seem perfectly reasonable. As a B2C commercial license of IP this is par for the course.

As a legal loophole exploitation that allows for the wreckage of an entire commersial open source community this is horrible on a scale even the free software fundation should want to look into. Even if gpl is not prone to the same loophole, if the word gets spread, this could erode confidence in their open source platform as well.

Hence I hope those talking to media now can be conscious to emphasize that ogl is not just the srd-ogl issued by wizards. When reading the mainstream media with this misconception in mind, I get the impression it might be a very common one.

All very reasonable. As far as I'm concerned. In my entirely not at all expert opinion.

It's bedtime for me. Maybe I'll chat a little more tomorrow. All this hubbub has me and I'm sure not the only one a little keyed up lately.

 

[Ondath]

Well, this makes Legal Eagle's shoutout to this episode even more disappointing.

Thank you all for giving a summary, and shame on the OA people for completely being out of their element!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, this makes Legal Eagle's shoutout to this episode even more disappointing.

I think he must have recorded on the basis of OA telling him what they were going to do, which they then didn't do. I think he was also out of his element, but did a much better job anyway.

 

[Larnievc]

So, yesterday was also when Opening Arguments (a podcast hosted by a Harvard law graduate and a non-lawyer) released their episode where they analyse the OGL v1.1 and Linda Codega's coverage of the debacle in particular. I was particularly concerned by the attitude they give on social media where they downplay the situation and claim Codega basically misrepresents the law and wrote a hitpiece on WotC.

OA675: Gizmodo’s Critical Hit (Piece) on Wizards of the Coast

The internet is aflame over a leaked draft of Wizards of the Coast new licensing agreement for Dungeons and Dragons. But, should they be? Our resident legal expert Andrew says no and calls the Gizm…

openargs.com

That said, I don't have the time to listen to something that will just raise my blood pressure in the end, so I don't really know what exactly they say. Did anyone listen to the episode by any chance? Are they making any substantial claims against Codega? Some lawyers in other threads said it sounded like OA was not engaging with the legal details of the situation but just made a blanked defence of WotC saying "Well they're allowed to change it". Is that still the attitude here?

I’m listening to this as I write. Interesting stuff.