"Open" Legend

[Kaworu]

I just downloaded Alpha Open Legend from Backerkit. I... feel disappointed.

Open Legend was advertised as an "open-source RPG" and I backed the project mostly because of that. What can I read in the actual PDF?

"OPEN LEGEND RPG, Open Legend keyhole, the Open Legend logo, Seventh Sphere Entertainment, and all other Seventh Sphere product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Seventh Sphere Entertainment in the USA and other countries. This work contains material that is copyright Seventh Sphere and/or other authors. Unauthorized use is prohibited. See the Community License at openlegendrpg.com/community-license for details on creating royalty-free derivative content."

I looked at the "community license" and it's not open source. You need to include the special image and if your work is "bad" you lose the license. I am not claiming that there should be, for example, hate speech in the fandom-made supplements, but the terms are definitely not open.

Just... I was expecting the second Eclipse Phase, but I got another DnD SRD. I feel betrayed, it isn't what I paid for. Now I cannot even translate the core rulebook, only SRD. It isn't what it was meant to be and it isn't what I wanted to make out of that. Where are my liberties as a backer and user in this "open source" (sic!) project?

Maybe I'm whining, but I needed to get it out of my mind. Any thoughts?

[ATHATH]

Protest this, perhaps with a petition?

Can you sue them for false advertising?

[The Glyphstone]

Did you try just asking for your money back, as a backer who was unsatisified with the final product?

[Kaworu]

I am considering suing them, hovewer, I live in Poland, and their publication is American, so I dunno how to do that. Do Polish judges have any authority over them? Also, I have never ever sued anybody before, so you know... but yes, that's a posssibility.

I do not want to be refunded, I want them to deliver their promise. It isn't about money, it's about values and being faithful to their own words. You cannot advertise a game as "open-source" and then write in copyright section "Unauthorized use is prohibited".

Eh, I feel like an idiot. Why did I ever believed them (the RPG designers)? But to be sure, I thought that people do not do stuff like that on Kickstarter. I had some trust to the company and way it handles such "details".

Should I contact Kickstarter staff and ask them what to do?

[ngilop]

I guess I am confused on what you are complainging about exactly.
he 4 rules for creating material is

1. You can only use content in the Open Legend SRD. If it’s on the Open Legend website but not in the SRD, then it cannot be used.

2. You must include the Open Legend Licensed Product logo prominently on the cover, front page, or packaging of your product.

3. You must include the License Notice and the associated URL to the full license text of the Open Legend Community License in a clearly visible place. In the case of a physical or digital book it should appear in the opening pages.

License Notice

“This product was created under the Open Legend Community License and contains material that is copyright to Seventh Sphere Entertainment. Such use of Seventh Sphere Entertainment materials in this product is in accordance with the Open Legend Community License and shall not be construed as a challenge to the intellectual property rights reserved by Seventh Sphere Entertainment. Seventh Sphere Entertainment and Open Legend RPG and their respective logos are trademarks of Seventh Sphere Entertainment in the U.S.A. and other countries.

The full-text Open Legend Community License can be found at http://www.openlegendrpg.com/community-license.”

4. Your content may not include anything illegal, slanderous, defamatory, fraudulent, obscene, pornographic, or abusive.

5. If you publish something you shouldn’t, for example, a plagiarized work or something that violates the rules in #4 above, your license is automatically terminated.

I guess that a company wanting to make sure their product is not being used for 'bad' as you put it purposes is for you inherently wrong?

what I am getting from what you are whinning about is you do not care about the money, you care about the fact that you have limitations on what you can do with another copyright and intellectual property even though said party said ' hey you can add to this stuff freely but you have to follow these rules?


it is open source actually: it is freey available . which is what open source is.

[The Glyphstone]

What advice has been given here is basically all we can suggest. Professional advice, such as the sort that would be involved in legal advice like 'how do I sue someone', is against the rules.

Ultimately, it comes down to this - you purchased a product. You are unhappy with that product. Your only realistic courses of action are to change one of these two things - undo your purchase, be happy with what you got, or remain unhappy and put it behind you as a harsh lesson in the fact that people don't always follow through on their promises.

[Beleriphon]

I am considering suing them, hovewer, I live in Poland, and their publication is American, so I dunno how to do that. Do Polish judges have any authority over them? Also, I have never ever sued anybody before, so you know... but yes, that's a posssibility.

Without breaking the forum rules you'd have to sue an American company in the USA, unless they have a Europe division that your lawyer can give you advice about dealing with through legal channels.

I do not want to be refunded, I want them to deliver their promise. It isn't about money, it's about values and being faithful to their own words. You cannot advertise a game as "open-source" and then write in copyright section "Unauthorized use is prohibited".

Keep in mind the document itself might be open source, but unauthorized use usually means you cannot use their logos and images and claim they are your own. Or use them to misrepresent your work as the original creators.

Eh, I feel like an idiot. Why did I ever believed them (the RPG designers)? But to be sure, I thought that people do not do stuff like that on Kickstarter. I had some trust to the company and way it handles such "details".

Should I contact Kickstarter staff and ask them what to do?

Sure, but they're probably going to tell you that you got the product as advertised. As it stands is this possibly a misinterpretation of what "Open Source" means based on language? Because open source usually just means you can do what you want with the source code of something (in this case the game rules) and not have to pay the creator but you might still have to follow rules. Firefox is an open source web browser, but the Mozilla people that run the organization that distributes still have rules if you want to add to or monkey around with the source code and then actually distribute it as part of Mozilla projects.

Do what stuff on Kickstarter? Sell a product before it exists in an effort to gain enough capital to produce the actual product? I'm really, really not understanding what your primary issue is with the rules as present for the license to use said RPG.

[JBPuffin]

When you say a "second Eclipse Phase," what kind of license did they have? I found one which said it was under a "creative commons" license, but my copyright/trademark/licensing experience is incredibly basic and from a Photoshop class, so...just curious how the community license differs from the Eclipse Phase one.

[Kaworu]

Hi people! I will try to answer everybody, ok? :)

I guess I am confused on what you are complaining about exactly.
he 4 rules for creating material is

1. You can only use content in the Open Legend SRD. If it’s on the Open Legend website but not in the SRD, then it cannot be used.

Well, I am complaining exactly about that. I had a peek (obviously, the Core Rulebook was put on the Backerkit just yesterday, so I haven't had any chance to read both SRD and the book) and the SRD isn't 100% the Core Rulebook. Even in the first, introductory pages they are paragraphs that are in the Corebook, but are missing in SRD. I am not even talking about pictures and such. So, according to my understanding, the system, although is advertised (even in its logo!) as "Open source RPG" isn't, in fact, open source - not more than is DnD is by letting you use SRD, but not share and remix the core rulebooks.

4. Your content may not include anything illegal, slanderous, defamatory, fraudulent, obscene, pornographic, or abusive.

I believe it also isn't Open Source. Don't get me wrong, I strive for morality in my sessions, but well, can you imagine, let's say, "open source" Linux system with such provision? It wouldn't be according to open source standards.

[I personally believe that there should be a serious fight with "illegal, slanderous" etc. materials. However, I also believe it should ba taken care of by national law instead of written in the license - at least when it comes to "open-source" content.]

I guess that a company wanting to make sure their product is not being used for 'bad' as you put it purposes is for you inherently wrong?

I wouldn't complain if it would be regular RPG system with regular SRD, but in context of open source, it limits freedom of use, which I believe is essential for something being open source. For me, it isn't about ethical values (on these grounds I would agree with them) but about legal ones.

what I am getting from what you are whining about is you do not care about the money, you care about the fact that you have limitations on what you can do with another copyright and intellectual property even though said party said ' hey you can add to this stuff freely but you have to follow these rules?


it is open source actually: it is freey available . which is what open source is.

I think you didn't understand. Yes, according to the license, we can ADD to the system. However, we cannot USE FREELY the basic books, only the SRD. So i wouldn't call it "freely available". In case of SRD/Core Book, you have "the light version of rules and writing", which is bad enough. In case of the setting, you have literally nothing.

[I looked briefly at both SRD and Core Book - the Core Book is almost two times the size of SRD. And the additional content from Core Rulebook cannot be freely used.]

Ultimately, it comes down to this - you purchased a product. You are unhappy with that product. Your only realistic courses of action are to change one of these two things - undo your purchase, be happy with what you got, or remain unhappy and put it behind you as a harsh lesson in the fact that people don't always follow through on their promises.

Hm... two things on my mind:

1. I guess I read the forum rules, but since I am on many forums and I registered many years ago, I think that most part of it vanished from my mind. Sorry if I am putting you in a weird situation, I will ask for legal advice somewhere else on the Net.

2. Well, maybe I am being naive, but... hm... for example, in Poland we have an auction service site called Allegro. On this website, they are sets of rules, both for buyer and seller, that anybody has to follow. It is a well-known fact and rarely people trick each other on the website, for example selling something that does not exist. Not because they is a small amount of thieves in Poland (I think we have fair share of them just like any other country) but because the internal rules are strict and protect two sides of transaction. Personally, I was tricked only once on Allegro and the reaction of the administration/client service was immediate and effective. That's why the whole business, made on Kickstarter, is kinda... well, it's unthinkable for me.

I am either being naive or idealistic, maybe both. But still, I was being deceived.

Keep in mind the document itself might be open source, but unauthorized use usually means you cannot use their logos and images and claim they are your own. Or use them to misrepresent your work as the original creators.

Yeah, I suppose so, but I do not want to steal their text/artwork or something. I just want to, for instance, translate the rulebooks as they are instead of being forced to work on SRD which is not the same. And - maybe I am not a lawyer and I misunderstood something - according to my understanding of license, I cannot do so.

When you say a "second Eclipse Phase," what kind of license did they have? I found one which said it was under a "creative commons" license, but my copyright/trademark/licensing experience is incredibly basic and from a Photoshop class, so...just curious how the community license differs from the Eclipse Phase one.

Hm, this is very important to explain why I feel so outraged, so I will try to cover this thoroughly.

Eclipse Phase is truly open source. Their exact license is Creative Commons (Share Alike, Noncommercial, you have to provide authors if I remember correctly). This means that whatever you do with the system, you have to write "copyright of Posthuman Studios" and use the same licence. It's really small limitation if any at all. In return, you can translate the rules (there are translation in many languages - Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, partial German on Github etc.), you can do a "remix" (I saw both Eclipse Phase + traditional Cthulhu Mythos and something alike EP+ CthulhuTech), write additional morphs, enhancements, NPC, rules. They are whole websites with either fanmade materials or wikis with core materials, including images. You can do practically everything with the system as long as you do not change the license (which allows many things) or try to present EP as your own invention. It's very, very liberal.

Of course, the Creative Commons (which is a set of licenses instead of single one) is not the only way to create an open-source RPG, although it is from my perspective the most natural. You could also, for example, use GNU Documentation License (which is used more often for software documentation than work of fiction, but I guess it could serve with some effort) or just publish your work as Public Domain.

Returning to EP - not only the basic rules are open source, but every other book they have published. And yes, you can do everything with every single Eclipse Phase book. Comparing to Open Legend - you can use freely only SRD, the community license speaks nothing about pictures, Core Rulebook or the setting they have made. This is why I feel like my trust to the people behind this project was overused. Because instead of having fully open source book, I have another closet access with "mercifully made" SRD. It is, the Open Legend isn't anything special or unique. If I would be aware of how "open" it would be, I would never support them on Kickstarter. I dunno for other supporters, but I quess that openess was mayor driving force behing the successful action. So yeah, I believe I have the right to complain.

And one thing: someone there has written (I remember reading it, but cannot find it right now) that maybe I was thinking "open source" in another language or something and there are cultural and/or linguistic differences. I was thinking in English (I am effectively bilingual and yeah, there are times when I think my thoughts in English, simply because of semantic differences and untranslatable words) and I was thinking of open source like in case of GNU/Linux, the whole open source software, and Eclipse Phase. So I think that the problem is not me, but rather them.

Anyway, thanks for everything. Sometimes you have to talk things out and it helps. Now I think I will ask Polish lawyers what can I do and how.

Really, I am grateful :)

[Anonymouswizard]

Just... I was expecting the second Eclipse Phase, but I got another DnD SRD. I feel betrayed, it isn't what I paid for. Now I cannot even translate the core rulebook, only SRD. It isn't what it was meant to be and it isn't what I wanted to make out of that. Where are my liberties as a backer and user in this "open source" (sic!) project?

That's your main problem, the EP crew are surprisingly willing to put their money where their mouth is, including the fact that they have literally put their books out there for free in pdf. It's actually a bit annoying for me, I'd love to run Transhumanity's Fate (the official Fate Core hack) but I literally can't buy the physical book (which I'd want if running it).

Eclipse Phase manages to succeed because people are willing to pay money for good stuff, and because it has found it's market exactly. I am not kidding, Eclipse Phase is only still around because people like what it is and it's lucky because of that.

When you say a "second Eclipse Phase," what kind of license did they have? I found one which said it was under a "creative commons" license, but my copyright/trademark/licensing experience is incredibly basic and from a Photoshop class, so...just curious how the community license differs from the Eclipse Phase one.

Basically 'you can do anything to the content, as long as you put the fact it's our copyright and don't charge', with a few extra wiggles. But it allows you to do stuff like take the pdf, cut out the GM information section, and then send that altered pdf to your players. There's also the fact that finding the books in pdf anywhere is legal, there's generally an officialish free download shortlyish after the release. But basically you get free reign over what you want to do with the product.

[Jay R]

I looked at the "community license" and it's not open source. You need to include the special image and if your work is "bad" you lose the license. I am not claiming that there should be, for example, hate speech in the fandom-made supplements, but the terms are definitely not open.

Step one is to realize that legal jargon is not English, even if it is composed of English terms.

Step two is to find out the legal definition of "open source", and determine if what they did meets the legal definition, not what you think the legal definition ought to be.

I suspect that the real issue here is that you assumed a far more expansive definition than the actual one.

[Tinkerer]

Too much to mention in this limited space.

You mentioned Creative Commons as an ideal to strive towards however Creative Commons can be just as limiting as other licenses. It does not mean "In return, you can translate the rules (there are translation in many languages - Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, partial German on Github etc.), you can do a "remix" (I saw both Eclipse Phase + traditional Cthulhu Mythos and something alike EP+ CthulhuTech), write additional morphs, enhancements, NPC, rules." There are several Creative Commons licenses which you can use which contain things like "This content can only be reproduced in it's original form with no alterations".

You wrote "So, according to my understanding, the system, although is advertised (even in its logo!) as "Open source RPG" isn't, in fact, open source - not more than is DnD is by letting you use SRD, but not share and remix the core rulebooks." however the D&D OGL license IS a type of open source license. In fact they were one of the first. Unfortunately I doubt that you would get very far in your lawsuit because they delivered what they promised. I checked out the website and Kickstarter and nothing on there seemed out of whack.

In short Open Legend is an open-source RPG, your definition of open-source is simply incorrect.

Note: I am not a lawyer (simply someone who has read too much about open source and creative commons) and the above should not be mistaken for legal advice.

[GungHo]

I do not want to get deep into legalese because as the mods have said, we aren't providing legal advice here, but open source does not in any way mean obligation-free licensing. A lot of folks took this concept from software design and the open source movement, but even with software design, "open source" has a lot of barbs, including restrictions on how and where things are used. It causes me no limit of consternation in my real life of what happens when people do not understand the nuances of "open source" product licensing. While I understand your unhappiness, I agree with Jay R that you may need to learn more about what open source is (which is well beyond the scope of this forum) and ask for your money back (as Glyphstone says).