[MUD-Dev] Peer-to-peer hosting of player created content in persistant worlds.

[Matthew Dobervich]

Edward Glowacki wrote:

> 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?  Spin-off games?  Spin-off
> movies/books/TV/whatever?  Make changes to the town? How about the
> player's rights to write stories/books about their own character's
> adventures in that town?  Transplant that town into a different
> setting (world/universe)?  Request that the town be erased when
> they retire from the game?

I'm not saying the company that created the game >should< own a
player created town, but the simple answer is yes they do, read your
Licensing Agreement town builder.  I think you're comparing apples
to oranges though because a player created town has to be hosted on
company servers.  I was talking more about peer to peer hosting
facilitated by player clients.

> Defining clear boundaries as to the ownership and rights of
> content is the key to opening up player-created content.  If you
> can create a simple ownership/rights concept, and explain it
> simply to your users, then you can encourage players to create
> things for you.

I don't think the lack of ownership rights to content will stop
users from creating it, it hasn't seamed to stop fans as of yet.  It
could be argued though that lack of ownership might be limiting its
quality though.

> There are a few major problems I can see with external (off-site)
> links:

>  1. Could be on a slow connection or unreliable server, possibly
>  resulting in them being unavailable for the majority of the
>  population.

Let's use the example of the sign hanging over a player placed
building.  Currently you have a texture stored locally that shipped
on the CD housing the game client.  A user has the option in the
"control panel" for the building to enter a URL for the texture.

When a "consuming" player walks into range the server sends that
player's client the URL.  The client then begins to download the
image behind the URL and caches it locally.  If the image is
unavailable or hasn't completely downloaded the client displays the
default image that shipped with their client.

>  2. How do you verify that the content on the other end of the
>  link belongs to the user?  A URL can point to anywhere...

By "you" are you putting yourself in the shoes of the company
presenting the persistent world?  If so, in short, you don't.  So
what are the concerns?  If the image is copy written by a third
party, the third party now has the URL and an avenue to take up the
copy write infringement.  If the image is offensive to other users,
you have a player violating their terms of service.  To me this is
no different that a griefing scenario, three strikes you're out, or
some such scenario.  The question is, would this create more
customer service overhead (i.e. create additional griefing) or would
it just represent a different avenue for the small existing greifing
population?

>  3. How do you handle when external resources are
>  moved/deleted/modified/etc.?

Without descending into if/then statements, the simple answer is
that if the consuming player's client is unable to retrieve the
content from the serving player's web space the consuming player's
client displays the default image that shipped with the client.

> For a consistent and reliable world, you probably want to host
> everything yourself.

Central hosting of content is the most reliable system, but the copy
write issues of central hosting seam to be the issue preventing
player created content in persistent worlds at present.

> Not really, because if copyrighted content appears in your game,
> regardless of where it comes from it will look like you either put
> it in there yourself or sanctioned its use by the player.  I would
> think legally you'd be in the same boat as if you were hosting the
> content yourself, possibly on the grounds that "the users can't
> tell the difference...".

Is Microsoft legally responsible for creating a piece of software
(Internet Explorer) that facilitates people viewing images that are
copy written by a third party?

To me the remaining issues are as follows.

  1.  What about dialup users?

  2.  What about role-players who don't want their immersion
  disrupted?

  3.  What about users who complain about the disk space being
  "wasted" by all this user created content?

A simple client switch to disable the viewing of peer-to-peer hosted
content is the first thing that comes to mind.


Matthew Dobervich



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