[MUD-Dev] RE: BlackSnow sues Mythic for online property rights

[Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Dr. Cat wrote:
>> (John Buehler)
   
>>> In brief, if players want to be able to transfer the privileges
>>> that they have paid for, they have to subscribe to a company's
>>> entertainment that includes the privilege of transferrance.  As
>>> an example, the leasor of an automobile is not obligated to
>>> permit you to transfer the lease to another person.  Same thing
>>> with a rented home.

>> One slightly odd aspect of this case, though, is that apparently
>> Mythic DOES give players the privilege of giving each other money
>> and items in the game.  Whatever their motivation for giving
>> stuff to another player, or even if there's no motive at all
>> other than random generosity to strangers, it's permitted to give
>> things away in the game, is it not?  Apparently Mythic feels it
>> only becomes unpermissible if the giving is preceeded by a
>> certain real-world occurence - i.e. the recipient agreeing to
>> give real world cash to the giver to motivate them to give the
>> virual item or money.

> This situation has multiple physical-world parallels. Prostitution
> for instance. You can go out and give sex away all day long, but
> as soon as you charge money for it, it's illegal. Same with organ
> donors currently, I believe, or giving up your kid.

Theres a big difference between acting in a way that can be
interpreted as contrary to an EULA and doing something that is
illegal. This is why BSI is suing Mythic, and not the other way
around.

Secondly, wasn't one of BSI's arguments that they took money, not
for the item, but for the action of 'loggin in, obtaining and
transfering the item to you', which is not an action that Mythic has
any copyright on (or did i misunderstand that totally?). Also in
this process, when does the item leave Mythic's control?

If we presume that BSI _is_ 'selling Mythic's property' the legally
accountable party in this would(should?) be BSI, since they may
provide (beyond their capability) a service that is unsupportable,
since the virtual property belong to Mythic. The consumers may sue
for damages against BSI here.

If the argument from Mythic is that they own all the rights to the
virtual objects in the game, i presume that 'virtually giving the
virtual item' is just as much a violation as 'virtually selling the
virtual item', which would make no sense in such a game setup (i
presume).

Thats a lot of 'if's :-)

I presume that these are some of the pitfalls you need to include in
your EULA to prevent such lawsuits.

Hans Henrik Stærfeldt   |    bombman at diku.dk    | work:  hhs at cbs.dtu.dk      |
Address:                |___  +45 40383492    __|__       +45 45252425     __|
DTU, Kemitorvet,        | Scientific programmer at Center for Biological     |
bygn 208, CBS.          |  Sequence Analysis, Technical University of Denmark|

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