[MUD-Dev] Ebay bans character selling

[Eric Lee {RAT}]

Dave Rickey wrote:

> Seems likely that Verant is concerned about the potential future
> issues that allowing items to be traded for real cash raises (just
> for example, what if they wanted to shut the game down, and were
> served with an injunction to keep it up so the items didn't go
> *poof*?), and has decided to wish the problem away.  

I just joined this list recently and I've really enjoyed the material
so far.

Dave brings up an excellent point.  Given that no one seems to really
understand the exact ownership status of characters and items, and (to
my knowledge) it's never been clarified in court, that leaves a lot of
fascinating questions up in the air.

What happens if Fred acquires a rare "Pixie Stick Of Doom" which sells
on EBay for thousands of dollars, and then the next morning something
bad happens to the game so that the database needs to be rolled back,
erasing Fred's PSoD?  Did Fred lose actual property as a direct result
of the game operator's actions, and can Fred sue for damages?

What happens if Joe steals Fred's PSoD in the game?  If the PSoD is
Fred's actual property, can Joe be prosecuted in a real-world criminal
court?  What if Joe steals Fred's entire account (by guessing the
password, for example)?  Is that a prosecutable offense?

What happens if Fred commits some violation of the game rules so
severe that his account is deleted?  Is Fred entitled to real-world
compensation for the value of his account?

What happens when (as Dave said) games reach the end of their
life-span?  If the game operator tries to shut down the game, can the
players sue to keep it open so they don't lose their property?  Are
game operators obligated to continue to provide service in perpetuity?

If it does turn out that characters and items are the property of
players, how can the game operator divest a player's property if they
need to ban a player or shut down a game?  Is it enough to send the
player a disk containing a binary representation of their account
data, even though the facilities to interpret that data are no longer
available to the player?  What exactly is the definition of the
"player's property", and how can the game operator get rid of it so
they're no longer responsible for it?

On the other hand, if players do not own their characters and items,
can the game operator make use of a player's character in some other
venue, perhaps for profit?  Does the player have any say at all in how
the product of his time and creativity is used?

I suppose all of this will be sorted out in court eventually, but it's
not going to be pretty.
 
Eric Lee
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