\nPreviously, we looked at the sorts of rights you get on your work and how you can protect your rights. Today we\u2019re going to look at how people traditionally license games.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most licenses apply to the copyright of a game and its trademarks, with a notable exception in the form of the Open Game License and a handful of custom licenses that expressly separate copyright and trademark law.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What this means is that with a general license provided by someone like the Creative Commons, you\u2019re giving up the same degree of control for both copyright and trademark. In a practical sense, this probably doesn\u2019t matter all that much, since you probably aren\u2019t going to see anyone following those terms do anything that makes you uncomfortable given the rights you\u2019ve already granted, but it is worth noting that big companies generally don\u2019t use general licenses other than those specifically designed for games (either the OGL or their own license).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Call a lawyer if you want questions answered surrounding your personal situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this case, you reserve all your rights (duh). People can access your game in the method you prescribe (e.g. by obtaining a print or digital copy from an authorized distributor), and the whole deal is over pretty quick.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the default everywhere, so far as I know. It\u2019s worth noting that there are a lot of myths about reserving rights, but generally it\u2019s not necessary to explicitly say you\u2019re reserving rights (check jurisdiction).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reserved rights give you the most control. In games, remember that your game mechanics are not protected, though all of your text, art, and trade dress will be protected by appropriate intellectual property laws. You may need to register your work with the copyright or trademark office of your jurisdiction in order to bring a case to court.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep your reserved rights this if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In most jurisdictions, you can always choose to give up rights down the road, but you can\u2019t always get them back. In addition, you can still give away your work for free if you so desire. Note that there are cases where all rights are reserved, but permission is granted to reproduce or redistribute for noncommercial purposes. This is sometimes used for character sheets and quick-start guides, but also for whole games.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If permission is not granted, even if a work is given away freely, it cannot be redistributed (if said redistribution involves making a copy; this doesn\u2019t apply to someone giving away a copy you printed and gave to them).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t choose to reserve your rights if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The absolute antithesis of reserved rights, in most places you can waive all your rights (except, perhaps, moral rights).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone can do anything they want with your stuff.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As far as licenses go, the big downside here is that the only incentive people have to reward you for your work is wanting to see you do more work. That\u2019s not actually impossible to pull off, but you leave yourself vulnerable to people doing things like repackaging your work and selling it. If they don\u2019t give you credit, you may not have a recourse.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note that you do generally need to choose an actual public domain license, since just saying \u201cIt\u2019s public domain\u201d doesn\u2019t mean anything. Creative Commons has a good public domain license. Unlike other general licenses, there isn\u2019t any gray area with using a public domain license with your work because other licenses have to worry about enforceability and games have weird copyright status.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choose a public domain license if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t choose a public domain license if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
General licenses (licenses that are granted to the general public, as opposed to individuals through contractual arrangements) strike a middle ground between the two extreme approaches to copyright law. There are really four common ways to do general licenses in games that I\u2019ll talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The General Public License and some forms of Creative Common licenses (Share-Alike licenses) are what is known as copyleft. These are sometimes referred to as \u201cviral\u201d licenses because they include a clause that any work that is a derivative of your work must be licensed under the same terms.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t like these licenses very much. They were originally created for software, where they serve a very useful purpose, but most tabletop games don\u2019t neatly fit the original use cases.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If someone writes supplemental content for a roleplaying game, or makes new cards for a collectable card game (assuming no trademark issues), but they don\u2019t use any of the existing content, there\u2019s already a large legal gray area and copyleft licenses add another layer of confusion. You don\u2019t have that problem in software because derivative works always will include code from the software. Yes, I have seen tabletop games that try to use the GPL, and no, it doesn\u2019t work well.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Creative Commons license is better, but it\u2019s still hard to argue what\u2019s a derivative work of a roleplaying game. With reserved rights, you tell people that they can\u2019t take anything from your work and put it into their work. With a copyleft work, you wind up saying \u201cYou can use my stuff, and anything you put alongside it needs to be licensed the same way.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is likely to face legal challenges when push comes to shove, because it\u2019s not clear if a game with setting, rules, and visual content will be considered the same as, say, an illustrated version of a novel (which would definitely infringe the original\u2019s copyright) given that many parts of a game cannot be copyrighted and there are gray areas specific to games that are interacting with gray areas specific to copyleft licenses.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that said, there is a point to a copyleft license when you have a game system that people can layer additional content over while keeping the core in place.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Use a copyleft license when:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t use a copyleft license if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate these with a passion. They\u2019re in the middle of a very large legal gray area. I\u2019m not comfortable with the ability to enforce these in most game-related cases anyway, and they create a massive chilling effect on people making content for your game. In my opinion, they\u2019re only a notch more free than reserving all rights, but I think they\u2019re more dangerous because at least with traditional copyright you\u2019ve only got one gray area.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least with Share Alike but not Non-Commercial licenses, people can profit off of their work (even though they can\u2019t strictly control how it\u2019s distributed once they sell it). This specific license is both viral and restrictive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Permissive licenses, also known as free and open licenses, give a lot of freedom to the people who can work with the stuff.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My favorite of these licenses is the Creative Commons Attribution license, which is basically a full entry into the public domain with the added caveat that you only give that license to people who give you credit for your work.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lot of games have their own licensing schemes that use this method, and we\u2019ll talk about one particularly interesting form in a bit.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One notable downfall of a lot of these licenses, especially ones made for software, is that they\u2019re quite limited in scope and only cover copyright. Others are incredibly complex and not made with games in mind. Even the Creative Commons Attribution one doesn\u2019t specifically apply to roleplaying games.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Use a permissive license if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t use a permissive license if:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have a love-hate relationship with the OGL. It\u2019s one of the best licenses in tabletop gaming, and one of the most confusing and misunderstood ones.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At its heart, the OGL is a permissive license. It\u2019s just a permissive license with a bunch of swiss-cheese holes cut in it and lawyerese a mile thick.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Open Game License comes from a Wizards of the Coast initiative to make it possible for anyone to build a game based on their third edition Dungeons & Dragons core game mechanics (and was used for some of their fifth edition content as well). It was successful in making it possible for pretty much anyone to make a game. This works because it\u2019s paired with a System Reference Document, a pared-down version of the game that is nonetheless essentially similar to the full game and simply lacks certain content.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where the OGL is different from traditional open licenses is that there\u2019s no official human-readable version, in part because it\u2019s very carefully worded.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OGL\u2019s restrictions are basically as follows: You don\u2019t get any trademark licenses, and you can\u2019t use original setting content we made, but you can take all our game mechanics. Just use what we\u2019ve presented in our System Reference Document and give us credit.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I used to rage about the OGL when I was a young Richard Stallman worshipping rebel, because game mechanics are basically the one part of a thing that aren\u2019t copyrighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s also not viral, meaning that you can use OGL content and then release your game under whatever system you want for your own content. It\u2019s a little difficult to stack other permissive licenses on top of the OGL, but you can definitely have all rights reserved on your final product. Do note that WoTC distributes OGL content separately from their complete games to further help negate any gray areas surrounding what is and isn\u2019t covered. People have duplicated this by using the same method with other licenses; the Resistance Toolbox takes the core mechanics from Rowan, Rook, and Decard\u2019s excellent Spire and puts them under a Creative Commons license in a very similar fashion. Use the OGL\/SRD method if: Don\u2019t use the OGL\/SRD method if: A handful of games use custom licenses. The main reason for this is that they\u2019re aiming for a human-readable version of the OGL, they want to give fans free access to make non-commercial derivative works, or they have very specific needs due to weird legal situations (for instance, being in a place where US-centric licenses don\u2019t work and not wanting to use Creative Commons). Savage Worlds is an example of a game that has multiple custom licenses. I\u2019m also particularly fond of the Open Legend Community License (disclosure: I playtested and made small contributions to Open Legend, including having some discussions with Brian about its licensing arrangement), as a very open license that has perfect clarity about attribution. The real downside of using a custom license is that it requires you to be very much into intellectual property while also working on your game. Getting lawyers involved is almost certainly a necessity, but they need to be experts in intellectual property who understand what you do well enough to make a general license that protects everyone, which given the gray area surrounding tabletop games is almost certainly a great way to rack up a lot of billable hours as you discuss what you need in particular. I have my own custom license that I use in my work because I wanted to blend the OGL\u2019s trademark protections with a fully permissive copyright license, for instance. Be forewarned that getting to a license that meets legal standards and gives you everything you want is not an easy task. Getting it wrong can make your license unenforcable, meaning that you won\u2019t have any recourse if someone does things you don\u2019t want them doing. Use a custom license if: Don\u2019t use a custom license if: Understanding copyright and trademark law in the field of games is tough; there are a handful of gray areas. Hopefully you feel more comfortable knowing what is and isn\u2019t protected, and what your options are for using licenses to protect your work or set it free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Previously, we looked at the sorts of rights you get on your work and how you can protect your rights. Today we\u2019re going to look at how people traditionally license games. Most licenses apply to the copyright of a game and its trademarks, with a notable exception in the form of the Open Game License…
Except, of course, there\u2019s one thing that is a saving grace: it covers the mechanics and text<\/em>. It\u2019s basically saying that you can use their ruleset for exactly what you want so long as you don\u2019t touch the pieces they\u2019re keeping for themselves. That\u2019s nice because you can copy and paste a complete set of rules into your game and then just make them fit without worrying about issues.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. A Custom License<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nWrapping Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,13,22],"tags":[26,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tabletopdesign.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}