Issues of Copyright (was RE: [MUD-Dev] Ebay bans character selling)

[geoffrey at yorku.ca]

-----Original Message----- 
From: the_logos at www.achaea.com 
Sent: Mon 1/29/2001 11:51 AM 
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Ebay bans character selling

> I agree, it's not clear. I would like to believe they have been
> violated though as I do not believe you as a customer own the
> database entry in their database

A couple of years ago, I came across an interesting article on the
future of intellectual property written by Mike Godwin of the EFF.

I can't find it now - see below for the relevant links I did find -
but it made a very interesting point.  It stated that in the past, IP
law worked by covering the vessel, not the content.  I.e., you owned
the bottle of wine, not just the wine.  You owned the book full of
words, not the words.  It was set up this way because they couldn't
figure out the legal language to cover just the intangible idea.  As
far as I know, they still haven't.

The comments about owning an entry in a database struck me as a
perfect example of this.  Does/Would the customer own the supporting
code, the text in the database field, or just the
manifestation/representation of that code within the game?

I did find the following links.  I haven't read the longer one in its
entirety, but at a quick glance it looked interesting.

10 Big Myths about copyright explained:

  http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/cpyrt_myths.faq

SOFTWARE LICENSING FLEXIBILITY:  COMPLEMENTS THE DIGITAL AGE:

  http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/software_licensing.paper

Cheers,

G.
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