Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 die Jun 08, 2008 6:31:44	Anyone know where its posted at? thanks
#2 ariasilverhands Jun 08, 2008 7:22:50	It's not and it won't be like it was before. There is no real SRD like there was for 3rd edition. People won't be able to be cheap bastards and play for free using the SRD. The GSL, which is the SRD replacement, will provide mostly formatting information and other stuff useful to publishers. The online searchable "srd" for 4e will only be a searchable list of page numbers of feats, races, etc. Nothing more. Not until they make DDI a subscription service.
#3 die Jun 08, 2008 7:43:24	I thought there was going to be one on the 6th, my mistake. People won't be able to be cheap bastards and play for free using the SRD. lol, I'm sure the cheap bastages will find a way in a day or two. Ever gamed with someone who had 47 3.5 books on a CD? I did once, I prefer having all the books lining the walls, anyway... I bought the three core 4th ed books yesterday and I was curious to see what you could use in a module. I have always wanted to make a free PDF campaign setting/adventure and now that there is a new edition thought it might be a good time before the floodgates open. The GSL, which is the SRD replacement, will provide mostly formatting information and other stuff useful to publishers. The online searchable "srd" for 4e will only be a searchable list of page numbers of feats, races, etc. Nothing more. Not until they make DDI a subscription service. Oh well, I have no interest in an online subscription, thanks again for the info
#4 ariasilverhands Jun 08, 2008 8:32:33	lol, I'm sure the cheap bastages will find a way in a day or two. Ever gamed with someone who had 47 3.5 books on a CD? I did once, I prefer having all the books lining the walls, anyway... Anyone that brings pirated copies to a game with me gets banned from the premises. I bought the three core 4th ed books yesterday and I was curious to see what you could use in a module. I have always wanted to make a free PDF campaign setting/adventure and now that there is a new edition thought it might be a good time before the floodgates open. The GSL isn't allowing any 3rd party publishers to sell 4e compatible products until October. Free stuff is ok I guess.
#5 Oldtimer Jun 08, 2008 15:14:48	Anyone that brings pirated copies to a game with me gets banned from the premises. I suppose you wouldn't even stop to check if he owned all the real books, but preferred the portability of PDF:s? A living 3.5e paladin...
#6 eldritch_lord Jun 08, 2008 15:58:10	I suppose you wouldn't even stop to check if he owned all the real books, but preferred the portability of PDF:s? A living 3.5e paladin... Presumably he would check to see if they were, in fact, pirated. A player's reaction to a simple "Did you actually buy the books, or pirate the copies?" can often tell you whether they're backup .pdfs or pirated .pdfs.
#7 insaneengineer Jun 08, 2008 17:14:26	Free stuff is ok I guess. GSL is supposed to be posted next week. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080606a the same article states that rules for fan sites will be posted later.
#8 jedrious Jun 10, 2008 22:34:16	Anyone that brings pirated copies to a game with me gets banned from the premises. As someone that purchased all but a small handful of 3.0/3.5 books and owns a scanner I'm offended, I have a bookshelf full of DnD books I've scanned because my backpack would break if I put them all in it, being able to put a term in a search box and find the relevant rule/feat/class/spell in minutes as oppossed to hours is invaluable as well, just because it's electronic does not mean it's pirated, even WotC sold some of their books as PDFs for just these reasons, and I've seen some pirated copies; you CANNOT tell the difference between them and the legal PDFs without spending a significant amount of time on someone elses computer just to sate your ego
#9 redcard Jun 11, 2008 10:24:05	Uh, he says anyone who brings PIRATED. I have a friend who used to have a roomie who never paid rent on time, always bought Transformers toys, and yet somehow managed to have all the 3e / 3.5e books on a DVD. Now, he had NO books IRL. None. That's the type of person he's talkin about.
#10 geekazoid Jun 11, 2008 12:26:55	READ THE FINE PRINT "This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. ANY REPRODUCTION or unauthorized use of the material or the artwork contained herein is PROHBITED without expressed written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc." (emphasis mine) You will find this at the bottom of the credits page of EVERY WotC book. It is in the Eberron CS, Faerun CS, 3.5 PHB, 4E PHB, etc. Even my 1E Players Handbook 6th printing 1980 has it verbatim except it is copyright TSR not WotC. So, If you did not get it in writing from WotC that you could scan your hardcover into a pdf, it IS PIRATED and ILLEGAL!!!!! Even if you OWN the hardcopy. Backup copy is NOT legitimate. If you want a searchable pdf of your book, BUY the one made available for purchase. And it is not just WotC books. Pick up a novel, cookbook, schoolbook et al. and you will find in one form or another copyright protection notifications. Here is an example. A random book off my bookshelf... EVERWORLD by K.A. Applegate published by Scholastic Inc. 1999, first printing printed in USA. "No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher." That is U.S. copyright law.
#11 webrunner Jun 11, 2008 12:35:42	READ THE FINE PRINT "This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. ANY REPRODUCTION or unauthorized use of the material or the artwork contained herein is PROHBITED without expressed written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc." (emphasis mine) You will find this at the bottom of the credits page of EVERY WotC book. It is in the Eberron CS, Faerun CS, 3.5 PHB, 4E PHB, etc. Even my 1E Players Handbook 6th printing 1980 has it verbatim except it is copyright TSR not WotC. So, If you did not get it in writing from WotC that you could scan your hardcover into a pdf, it IS PIRATED and ILLEGAL!!!!! Even if you OWN the hardcopy. Backup copy is NOT legitimate. If you want a searchable pdf of your book, BUY the one made available for purchase. And it is not just WotC books. Pick up a novel, cookbook, schoolbook et al. and you will find in one form or another copyright protection notifications. Here is an example. A random book off my bookshelf... EVERWORLD by K.A. Applegate published by Scholastic Inc. 1999, first printing printed in USA. "No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher." That is U.S. copyright law. IANAL, but I believe It has been ruled that format-shifting and making backups have both been ruled as being legal fair personal use.
#12 kcmopd1913 Jun 11, 2008 12:44:56	Looks like the only pirating being done is going off the subject topic by you folks.
#13 llewelyn_mt Jun 11, 2008 13:11:07	D&D website[/url]"]Phase Two Wizards of the Coast will release the second phase of the developer materials on June 6th, 2008 with the free, public availability of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition SRD and OGL. The SRD will be live immediately upon release. (...) All of the material included in the OGL Designer’s Kit will be available for free starting on June 6, 2008. Parties who find the cost prohibitive can begin developing their products at that time. So where is it? It is a big problem actually. I'm cooperating with the Official Polish D&D Fansite that runs a user forum too (where I'm a moderator). The SRD is in Edition 3.x was a great help in answering rules questions. You could a) quickly look up the applicable paragraph, and b) post a citation right there to say "RAW guys, RAW". I'm awaiting the delivery of my D&D 4Ed Gift Set. When it arrives, and there are quite a few around already I won't be able to help as efficiently. Because of the lack of any SRD whatsoever I can't look up the rules anymore. That's doubly bad since the rules are new and it will take a while to memorize them. Even if I'd be lucky enough to find the given rule posing problem I won't be allowed to post it there, because it's a copyright infringement. As a moderator I'd heve to edit it out anyway. Get real. I know piracy is widespread, especially where I live, but I have never heard about anyone playing D&D 3.x without the printed rulebook and a few other books. I understand why WotC is cutting the number of companies eligible of publishing 5rd grade quasi-PH reprints, but as an Open Source advocate I can't understand why the no profit, fan activity should be blocked. One more thing. Don't BS me with D&DI subscription. I just won't do it. First because I primarily run Linux on my laptop and I don't have Windows XP. Second, since it's a 5yo laptop it doesn't even come close to the insane hardware requirements for most options. Third, I'm a casual gamer and sometimes I don't play for more then a month, and I won't pay whether I play or not. Fourth, and most important, the service is grossly overpriced. I'd rather buy an extra rulebook every other month. EDIT: I also reviewed this page referenced earlier. It says: We are also working on a new fan site policy, to be made public at a later date. This is great. I'm sure it couldn't have been released on June 6th. Because the rulebooks were so secret their use will be governed by rules due next year. Beautiful. Just perfect...
#14 geekazoid Jun 11, 2008 13:34:48	Looks like the only pirating being done is going off the subject topic by you folks. Well, it is somewhat on topic. GSL, SRD, OGL are all about copyrights.
#15 kdemonic Jun 11, 2008 14:09:00	Someone will make a 4th edition SRD. I myself prefer having physical books, but it does come in handy to have a quick refrence guide. I'm subscribing for D&D insider when it comes out, so I guess it doesn't matter to me anyways.
#16 llewelyn_mt Jun 11, 2008 15:09:47	Someone will make a 4th edition SRD. Great idea. When you discount the fact that it's illegal.
#17 aka_bait Jun 11, 2008 15:22:26	Great idea. When you discount the fact that it's illegal. Depending upon what the GSL and SRD say it may or may not be illegal. If the GSL and SRD identify specific passages and sections that may be reproduced in full in another work, I'd expect that an SRD which included a section with homebrew material as well would be perfectly legal.
#18 kdemonic Jun 11, 2008 15:41:59	Great idea. When you discount the fact that it's illegal. Did I say I was going to do it, or even that I approved of it? No. I said someone will do it, because people will find it convenient. People don't take copyright nearly as seriously as they should.
#19 llewelyn_mt Jun 11, 2008 16:46:18	Depending upon what the GSL and SRD say it may or may not be illegal. If the GSL and SRD identify specific passages and sections that may be reproduced in full in another work, I'd expect that an SRD which included a section with homebrew material as well would be perfectly legal. That's unreasonable. If SRD is not supposed to include rules it would make no sense for the GSL to allow posting specific passages. If it was allowed, the rules would be posted in no time as "unofficial SRD" according to the GSL. Therefore the lack of "official SRD" with these rules would make no sense at all. According to available information there will be no SRD with 4Ed rules, so there is no reason to believe that reposting of anything would be legal. Not that I care too much about US copyright law. I just try to be nice. Did I say I was going to do it, or even that I approved of it? No. I don't follow the reason of your previous post then, since you have stated yourself that it's not a solution. Actually it's already been done by the "unintentional" leak of the Core Rulebooks. I can't really say much as I haven't seen either the books or the files. As a D&D writer and D&D forum moderator I'm asking for a solid and legal solution to this obvious problem.
#20 aka_bait Jun 13, 2008 10:26:05	That's unreasonable. If SRD is not supposed to include rules it would make no sense for the GSL to allow posting specific passages. If it was allowed, the rules would be posted in no time as "unofficial SRD" according to the GSL. Therefore the lack of "official SRD" with these rules would make no sense at all. According to available information there will be no SRD with 4Ed rules, so there is no reason to believe that reposting of anything would be legal. It's a fine line to walk legally though. If you don't allow reproduction of passages then third party publishers will probably be upset. I'd be. I want to be able to include stat blocks of standard monsters in the text of the adventure and if I'm not allowed to then there is the tricky question of just how much I'm allowed to reproduce in relasing my own materials. Can the stats of the BBEG be printed if they are a templated monster? Can the powers be printed if they use the NPC creation guidlines? If so, which ones, and how much of them? I think you can see where I'm coming from here. Allowing reproduction of specifically identified passages worked pretty well for 3.x, and it allowd 3rd party websites and other publishers to create independent websites hosting the same information. If passages are not identified for full reproduction then it becomes much harder for 3rd party publishers to decipher where exactly the line is that they are not allowed to cross. To be honest, I'm not even sure how the GSL could practically function if it didn't allow reproduction of powers and blocks. It would be a very shaky third party product that could only list an NPC as: Karthis, Level 16 Elite Controller HP X AC Y See pages z, a, q, w, r for powers. Strike the words "at will' from power z and replace with "encounter" etc. As a D&D writer and D&D forum moderator I'm asking for a solid and legal solution to this obvious problem. As a player and aspiring third-party publisher, I'd like one too. The OGL had the benifit of clarity. What you could reproduce was clear since each and every word was identified. Hopefully, the GSL will be equally clear, although I worry that it won't be if it's just a list of page/paragraph/line/box references with guidelines and restrictions on useage.
#21 Malckuss Jun 13, 2008 11:29:13	Actually, Geekazoid, Fair use law states you may have back up copies of anything you own, as long as it is for personal use alone.
#22 nellisir Jun 13, 2008 12:21:20	Actually, Geekazoid, Fair use law states you may have back up copies of anything you own, as long as it is for personal use alone. It's worth pointing out that this should be taken pretty literally; ie, you can have backup copies of anything YOU own -- or in other words, your PH, not your buddy's PH. You can make a copy, but you cannot distribute that copy, even to someone else with the same material. On slightly other topics - there will be a SRD for the GSL; it just won't look like the 3e SRD. As others have pointed out, WotC wants to disable the cut-n-pasting that went on with the 3e SRD. I'm not sure exactly how it'll function, but Rouse says "No rules. It will contain terms, tables, templates." Maybe 3pproducts will have to directly reference the core books. Maybe they can reprint monster stat blocks but not classes or races. Maybe they'll limit the amount of "core" GSC in a product.
#23 aka_bait Jun 13, 2008 12:32:14	It's worth pointing out that this should be taken pretty literally; ie, you can have backup copies of anything YOU own -- or in other words, your PH, not your buddy's PH. You can make a copy, but you cannot distribute that copy, even to someone else with the same material. On slightly other topics - there will be a SRD for the GSL; it just won't look like the 3e SRD. As others have pointed out, WotC wants to disable the cut-n-pasting that went on with the 3e SRD. I'm not sure exactly how it'll function, but Rouse says "No rules. It will contain terms, tables, templates." Maybe 3pproducts will have to directly reference the core books. Maybe they can reprint monster stat blocks but not classes or races. Maybe they'll limit the amount of "core" GSC in a product. Indeed and the extent of the limitations will determine how easy/practical it will be for third party publishers to produce materials without fear of liability. It will also determine the fate of homebrew communities from 3.x that are already beginning to switch over.
#24 nellisir Jun 13, 2008 13:45:05	It will also determine the fate of homebrew communities from 3.x that are already beginning to switch over. True. Franky, I found the reference to fan sites in the announcement last week slightly worrisome. Ah well. Hopefully all questions will be answered this afternoon...or maybe next week. Ish.
#25 aka_bait Jun 13, 2008 14:29:01	True. Franky, I found the reference to fan sites in the announcement last week slightly worrisome. I found it to be more than slightly worrisome. One of the things that made 3.x such a wonderful game for me was the ability to find really fantastic homebrew creations online from people like The Vorpal Tribble.
#26 draconbitz Jun 16, 2008 18:08:39	Thing is, they -have- to have a provision for fan-sites.... so you know what the boundries are. This is definately a step up from the days when T$R would sue people on the Usenets for referencing Fireball. If you want those old days back, that's fine by me, but I'd rather have some open language saying what fansites can do, and expression written permission to do those things. The fansite provisions, believe it or not, are there to protect the -fan's- ass as well. Otherwise, when a trademark violation happened, Wizards would be legally obliged to challenge the violation or lose the trademark. (Trademark law is not copyright law, btw.) Language permitting the use of those trademarks for specific purposes is only good for the community. By listing fansites as different than commercial enterprises, they actually can open up the license so that considerations don't change hands, and that certain things that Wizards wants to protect their properties from (like competing rules books) don't apply (like online lists of feats referencing the main product)
#27 guivre Jun 16, 2008 18:22:01	Thing is, they -have- to have a provision for fan-sites.... so you know what the boundries are. Actually they don't. There are already boundaries provided for by the various spheres of IP law. Any provisions they provide on top of that allow you to do things that aren't allowed by default. Sometimes they take away things you are ordinarily allowed to do in exchange for letting you do things you're not.
#28 middlemonster Jun 16, 2008 18:59:11	Anyways, I'm sure WotC will keep a lot of things open for 3rd parties but those 3rd parties will just have to own a legite copy of the rules thats all, no big deal. I would never push my friends out the door for stealing a copy of a DND book. I don't care about WotC more than my friends. If pirating and kids stealing books out of the stores hurt WotC so much, why are they still a multimillion dollar corporation. I don't condone stealing and I love having a bookcase full of text/rpg books, but I would never get ****** at one of my buddies for having a copy of a book or 50. No big deal. Its not like he's stealing from his neighbor or selling drugs to children. Lighten up.
#29 aka_bait Jun 17, 2008 9:54:19	Thing is, they -have- to have a provision for fan-sites.... so you know what the boundries are. No, depending upon the language in the GSL they don't. There was no need for such a provision under the old OGL. The reason they need a provision for fan sites is because whatever the plan to permit on fan sites is probably more restricted than what is in the GSL. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something like "homebrew using the GSL identified materials must be posted on Gleemax", particularly since the addition of the 'post it here and we can use it royalty free' language to the user agreement. This is definately a step up from the days when T$R would sue people on the Usenets for referencing Fireball. I'm concerned it might be a step back toward those days. If you want those old days back, that's fine by me, but I'd rather have some open language saying what fansites can do, and expression written permission to do those things I'd rather have a document similar to the OGL. I'm not going to get it though. The fansite provisions, believe it or not, are there to protect the -fan's- ass as well. Otherwise, when a trademark violation happened, Wizards would be legally obliged to challenge the violation or lose the trademark. (Trademark law is not copyright law, btw.) Language permitting the use of those trademarks for specific purposes is only good for the community. Thing is, again, that doesn't need to be a separate document from the GSL. The only reason I can see needing it is because of the new registration requirement with the GSL. Presumably, whatever the fan site stuff is, it will be more restrictive since you don't need to register with WotC ahead of time (which incidentally makes you easier to sue). By listing fansites as different than commercial enterprises, they actually can open up the license so that considerations don't change hands, and that certain things that Wizards wants to protect their properties from (like competing rules books) don't apply (like online lists of feats referencing the main product) It can be used to open or close. It remains to be seen how much of which and in which areas they do each. I think it is a mistake to ascribe all benevolent reasons for creating separate legal documents, since we already know that WotC is going to be less free with its IP under the GSL than it was under the OGL. Oh, at the OP: When there is an SRD and GSL you are allegedly supposed to be able to find it at www.wizards.com/d20
#30 nellisir Jun 17, 2008 11:28:01	Thing is, they -have- to have a provision for fan-sites.... so you know what the boundries are. This is definately a step up from the days when T$R would sue people on the Usenets for referencing Fireball. If you want those old days back, that's fine by me, but I'd rather have some open language saying what fansites can do, and expression written permission to do those things. The fansite provisions, believe it or not, are there to protect the -fan's- ass as well. Otherwise, when a trademark violation happened, Wizards would be legally obliged to challenge the violation or lose the trademark. (Trademark law is not copyright law, btw.) Language permitting the use of those trademarks for specific purposes is only good for the community. By listing fansites as different than commercial enterprises, they actually can open up the license so that considerations don't change hands, and that certain things that Wizards wants to protect their properties from (like competing rules books) don't apply (like online lists of feats referencing the main product) The exact quote is "We are also working on a new fan site policy, to be made public at a later date." A policy is not a provision. T$R had a policy. That policy was "No". I'm expecting a big push for Gleemax.