[MUD-Dev] Where's The Line Drawn

[Kyndig]

Afternoon all,

Where does one draw the line for movements in the gaming community? By
movements I refer to organisations or group of people which have taken
up a 'cause' in the gaming community.

In recent events on my website, a text game was awarded a reward for
achieving the most votes, and highest rating for that given month. The
source code which runs the rate system checks extensively for any
cross voting, multi-voting, or proxy voting. There are 2 other levels
of checks, the final one being the staff going through every rate and
looking for any incosistancies.

This game is the topic and the 'banner' of an group of folks whom seek
out those who violate the Licensing agreement for which their game
server runs on. ( Let's not mention names or servers ) When this game
was rewarded their earned credit from my site, the organisation of
License caretakers ensured that I was aware I was promoting a game
which did not abide by the licensing restrictions.

It is quite a good thing that this subject has come up at an early
stage of my website development; as it allowed me to view what
guidlines, restrictions, and stance myself and those that work with me
will take on issues such as this. ( When first this topic arose, I did
not take the NEUTRAL stance which I hold now, and for those on the
list which know what I refer to, apologies, yet we (the staff and
myself) had not discussed how we would handle this and similiar
situations. I had posted 1 biased view to a public website, making a
statement for the game..rather than no statement at all. ) Yet the
fact remains that I (and my website ) Will not be taking part of legal
copyright infringements or Licensing regulations for third party
promoting on our site.

Some would say this is wrong, and some would shrug it off. I simply
wonder where you draw the line at this kind of issue. The actual
owners of the source code have made no requests to myself or any
statements to the community on this matter ( other than posts they
made awhile back ...stating they will no longer issue derivitive works
because of license breakers ).  As a programmer, this does indeed
upset me, and I would just remove this listing from my website were I
looking at it from that point of view. I however am not. I am looking
at it from the webmasters point of view. My browsers come to my site
to get information about Text Games. And that is what I offer them. It
is in the works right now under a new 'book' in the FAQ/HOWTO section
that Dionyza is creating to post License Laws FAQ. ( It is because of
this topic here that this new interactive FAQ is being written up now
on this subject )

On one hand, I promote this License breaker ( for the duration of this
month; after which a new listing will be chosen ..games only win this
award once per year ), and on the other hand I ensure browsers are
made aware of the Licensing regulations and agreements which game
owners agree to in running a stock server. ( Within this FAQ will be
an updateable listing of all known License breakers, and supporting
documents on the matter ).

I'm not asking for agreement or retribution for the 'neutral' view the
website will be taking. I am wondering however, if this subject should
have been an issue of my website in the first place. As the
maintainers of that License mention nothing on the matter.

In closing, there was one server source code which I was mirroring on
my website. The owner emailed me and asked that I remove their
work. Within 10 minutes of receiving that email, all works were
removed, and a static link was left in place pointing to his website
as being the place to attain the source code. I left a link there
since I felt it was a code that would further benefit the MUD Text
Game community. Does any believe that the maintainers of a Source code
would contact me and ask me to remove a game that is being listed
because said game is in violation of their Licensing agreement? I
doubt it, they would instead contact the game on the matter and pursue
it by other routes. I wonder why then that people feel 'Not linking to
kyndig.com' and making public denial of my website is needed. Wether
my website continues to grow or not, will have absolutely no affect on
the games listed there, the codes available there, the links which are
posted there, and those people which have created accounts in various
areas.

What says the list?

--
Regards,
---
Kyndig
Online Text Game Resource Site:  http://www.kyndig.com
ICQ# 	10451240
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