[MUD-Dev] Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos?

[Travis Casey]

Tuesday, November 14, 2000, 8:49:37 PM, KevinL <darius at bofh.net.au> wrote:
>>>> "Christopher Allen" wrote

>> The beta of Skotos' Castle Marrach game has now been going on for a
>> month. Have any of the Mud-Dev'ers had a chance to take a look? What
>> do you think of our client? The start story? The game parser? Our 
>> weird mix of MUSH & MUD?
>> 
>> The beta test is free, and signups are at:
>>        http://www.skotos.net/games/marrach/
>> 
>> Any comments (including critical) would be appreciated.

> So, I went to have a look at Castle Marrach - and read the Terms of Service I 
> was agreeing to.  22 points (with sub-points), comprising a declaration of the 
> things I can and cannot do.

> In amongst that, I appear to sign away the rights to anything I might do on 
> there, any ideas I might offer, etc. etc., but not the responsibility.  Sigh.

> What I found more intruiging is that to play, I have to immediately break at 
> least two of the terms - thou shalt not use someone else's name ('Darius' is 
> not my actual name, but it does apparently belong to others, and it is my 
> standard 'net name), and thou shalt not store any portion of the game (which 
> makes my squid and netscape caches rather, uh, problematic).

> I understand by normal people's standards I'm being picky, but damnit, so is 
> whoever's writing this legal crud.  Can someone please explain to me why I'm 
> put in a position of breaking the contract technically every time I sign in 
> for one of these things?  Have the lawyers gone too far already?

I've seen the same problem a lot of other places as well.  For
example, I once saw a web site which had a copyright notice on every
page, stating that this web page is copyright XX year by so-and-so,
and that copying them in any media is forbidden without written
permission from the copyright holder.  Of course, in order for me to
see that message, copies were made in the form of network packets, on
my hard drive, in my computer's memory, in video memory, in phosphor
on the screen, and, to take it to its ridiculous conclusion, in my
brain.

> Am I the only one that finds being forced to technically break the conditions
> on a document that exists purely to _be_ a technical nitpick, in order to
> play, offensive?

Nope -- I find it offensive as well.  Given the current craziness
surrounding copying of software, music, etc., I wouldn't put it past
someone to try to sue me based on their info being in my browser
cache.

> KL
> (Still debating whether to sign up for playing or not - I'm not even qualified 
> to know whether "
>        You hereby grant Skotos a perpetual,
>        irrevocable, non-exclusive, sub-licensable,
>        worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce,
>        modify, adapt, publish, distribute, publicly display
>        and perform any and all of your Participatory
>        Content in all media now known or later
>        developed.
> " would mean they can harass me for taking ideas I've had on Marrach and 
> building my own mud areas or not.  It's almost getting so a prospective game 
> developer shouldn't play anyone else's games, for fear of legal ramifications.)

Since it's non-exclusive, that means that you can grant rights to it
to others as well.  Nevertheless, I find this license *extremely*
offensive and heavy-handed.  By this, if I login to Skotos and create
an interesting character, they have the right to publish books, make
movies, etc., etc., with my character, without ever paying me a dime.
Depending on what they're defining "Participatory Content" to be, it
could be even worse.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_    Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)   





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