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Legal issues and MMOs
Medopine
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
So I know these things have come up in various other threads from time to time, but I think it would be fun to have a thread that sort of chronicles what's gone down as far as MMO's and legal problems that arise around them.
I don't personally have a ton of links to information, but I have a few discussion points to go with and I suppose people can hunt down any links or news articles that they remember or see in the future and post them here.
Issues:
I'll be back later with some more links if I can dig some up. These are kinda old.
Judge rules against Second Life TOS
Summary of an old case against Mythic where a company argued that selling in game items did not infringe Mythic's copyrights. Case was dismissed on procedural grounds (plaintiff apparently forgot to show up for hearings!). Link 2
I don't personally have a ton of links to information, but I have a few discussion points to go with and I suppose people can hunt down any links or news articles that they remember or see in the future and post them here.
Issues:
- Do users have a property interest into virtual items or currency that they've accrued through the game?
- What about selling your entire account to another party?
- The legailty of sales of virutal currency and how they effect the game
- EULAs - would they really stand up in court?
- Harassment/abuse between game users
- Hacking and restoration of characters - what rights do users have?
I'll be back later with some more links if I can dig some up. These are kinda old.
Judge rules against Second Life TOS
Summary of an old case against Mythic where a company argued that selling in game items did not infringe Mythic's copyrights. Case was dismissed on procedural grounds (plaintiff apparently forgot to show up for hearings!). Link 2
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For that reason alone, I'd like to see them all shot dead in the street.
is it okay to buy virtual hookers?
is rorus single?
?
And apparently Marvel decided they were copying their characters so well, they hired Cryptic to make their MMO.
That's the one. Of course, it turned out that Marvel itself had created at least some of the "infringing" characters that it featured in its suit, not regular CoH players. And for that and other reasons, the case was settled quietly, and Cryptic and Marvel are buds now working on MUO. But Cryptic polices CoH/V very tightly for other copyright infringing characters, which is a good standard to set.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Let's take a game like WoW, where it is outlined clearly that the fee you are paying is to rent the property of Blizzard. Your files are not stored on your own computer, Blizzard may delete anything from your inventory and not reimburse you (I do believe this happened to Doc, albeit accidentally).
But, as far as I am aware, the EULA of MMOs has rarely been challenged.
An MMO company is going to say, look, you pay us to play in our playground. That means you play by our rules. Which is the correct argument, I think. Second Life is sort of an exception, because part of their marketing is the idea that players can expect a return on their labor in terms of real money. Be curious to see how that one would shake out, if it were ever seriously considered via lawsuit.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat