Contract Drama: Wizards of the Coast OGL (Revisited)

Contract Teardown Show from Law Insider

Contracts are part of the whole customer experience, and getting them wrong can undermine relationships your business has fostered for years. In a special interview, three contract experts and gaming enthusiasts tell us how Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball when they rewrote their Open Gaming License.

In this episode, we discuss

• The history of the original Open Gaming License (find our original interview with Bob Tarantino here),
• Wizards of the Coast’s original attempts at revising the license (read the news here and here), and
• How contract language that’s misaligned with a company’s stated mission can undermine the business.

(UPDATE 2/3/23: Wizards of the Coast was so moved by this dust-up that they moved the Dungeons and Dragons content to a Creative Commons license. Learn more here.)

THE GUESTS:

Bob Tarantino is entertainment lawyer and Open Gaming License enthusiast. While working on his PhD research, he studied the OGL and its place in gaming culture. Bob can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobtarantino/.

Nancy Sims is the Copyright & Scholarly Communications Director at the University of Minnesota Libraries. She helps law library patrons and researchers across the world understand their intellectual property rights. Find out more about her work at copyrightlibrarian.com.

Joshua Lenon is Lawyer in Residence and Data Protection Officer at Clio. He helps lawyers understand the rules that apply to them, as well as the companies (specifically, Clio) who serve them. Connect with Joshua at https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshualenon/.

THE HOST: Mike Whelan is the author of Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law and host of the Lawyer Forward community. Learn more about his work for attorneys at www.lawyerforward.com.