[MUD-Dev] Histories and Legends

[Sasha Hart]

[Edward Glowacki]

> This is definitely a big hangup.  Consider a player who builds a
> town that eventually becomes famous and an integral part of the
> game.  Does the company that created the game (the world in which
> the town is built) have the rights to include that town in their
> advertisements?

I felt tempted to say "if the player didn't write up the town or
draw the textures or make the models, why shouldn't they? it's a
part of the world they seeded running on the hardware they own."

In light of the firestorm of controversy in here a while ago about
whether players own their own characters, I'll retract that
sentiment right away and replace it with "I think so." Except that
I'm not sure, for example, that the company should be able to put
players over the barrel if they reproduce the things they build in
one game in another, dedicate a web page to the city they made in
the game, etc.

I think the line would be a lot clearer if "builds a town" meant
more something like "arranged the funding and hired the contractors
and told them to put a fountain with his statue in the middle of the
whole thing" than "created the rooms and programmed the NPCs and
drew the textures." Of course, the former isn't even vaguely like
what it means right now to have built a town in a MUD, so right now
it would make a lot of sense to say "Of course not!" or "only if the
player sold their soul to the EULA," etc.

Sasha





_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev