[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Dave Rickey]

>"The End of Smurfs?"
>Written by: Bruce Rolston
>Published: September 1, 2000
>http://www.avault.com/articles/getarticle.asp?name=3Dsmurfs
>
>I would be disgusted by a nation that criminalizes community volunteers,
>because that would injure all communities, financially self-sufficient
>communities first, but all eventually.


   However, online communities have no legal recognition.  Although the
substance of the situation is that the volunteers serve primarily because
they want to benefit their online communities, the plaintiffs are taking =
the
stand that since some profit-making entity is gaining from that, they are=
 in
fact unpaid labor.

>The meat of the legal complaint:
>
>http://www.observers.net/complaint.htm
><quote>
>21. That in connection with maintaining, providing, servicing, and
>continuing such "content" as a part of its AOL service, which was critic=
al
>to the defendant AOL=92s profits and survival, the defendant AOL had var=
ious
>persons, including the individual plaintiffs, the FLSA class plaintiffs,
and
>the New York Labor Law class plaintiffs, through different programs and
>relationships that the defendant AOL consented to, encouraged, regulated=
,
>defined, and/or otherwise consciously participated in, provide labor and
>services to maintain, service, create, and provide "content" for the
>defendants AOL=92s service which labor and services AOL claims were prov=
ided
>by such persons as volunteers.
></quote>
>
    Obviously, the article didn't take me by surprise (I'm the same Dave
Rickey that was quoted in it), unfortunately, the action by Origin that
provoked it didn't surprise me, either.  This has been on the horizon sin=
ce
the AOL lawsuit was filed, and I was told by lawyers I know that the case
had enough merit on its face to bring the courts into what is currently a
muddy portion of labor law.

    As near as I can tell, this shouldn't affect small, non-commercial
MUD's, at least not unless the court decision is more sweeping than the
complaint at hand.  Essentially, the plaintiff's position is "We provided
content to AOL, AOL made money because of that content, AOL predicated th=
eir
business model on that fact, AOL therefore owes us money."

    But it could *seriously* impact the development of commercial efforts.
For example, NWN is predicated on the notion that players will develop th=
eir
own content and let people into their worlds, what if Interplay had to pa=
y
these people royalties (since this free content is an assumed part of the=
ir
product)?  iD released Q3A with minimal included gameplay, Deathmatch onl=
y,
expecting the fans to implement more sophisticated game types for free, d=
oes
iD owe them money for finishing iD's deliberately incomplete product?

    I've argued that eventually OLRPG's are going to have to enlist the
players in the process of creating content, that the world scales will gr=
ow
too large for it to be commercially viable to create them any other way.
Obviously this would shoot that down completely.

    All this being besides and in addition to the impact it would have on
customer service in these games, which is hardly stellar now and would ta=
ke
a major hit.  If the plaintiffs win on this one, it will be a major victo=
ry
for bottom-feeding lawyers, and a major defeat for everyone else concerne=
d.

    Our only hope is that the courts will draw a parallel between this an=
d
cases such as "candy stripers" at commercial hospitals.  The fact that th=
e
hospital is a profit-making entity that requires them to work certain hou=
rs
doesn't preclude them from utilizing volunteer labor, because the vountee=
rs
are serving the community, not the corporation.

--Dave Rickey




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