[MUD-Dev] BlackSnow sues Mythic for online property rights

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 06 February 2002 at 16:55, Raph Koster wrote:
>  http://www.camelotexchange.com/PressRelease.asp

>  BLACKSNOW INTERACTIVE SUES MYTHIC (DAOC) IN FEDERAL COURT FOR
>  MMORPG PLAYER'S RIGHTS

I just got back from Milia, where I shared a panel with (among
others) Vincent Sheurer, a UK lawyer who specialises in games.  He
has an article in "Develop" magazine on this very subject - the
degree to which a game service provider "owns" a community through
its treal-world trappings.

His opinion was that if the Terms of Service were written tightly
enough, then a games service provider could indeed insist that
people couldn't transfer in-game items (including personae) without
their consent. However, composing a tight enough Terms of Service is
going to be very difficult; I got the impression that it'll take a
few law suits in order for lawyers to see where the major problems
lie in order to address them. For example, it would be a relatively
simple matter not to allow people to transfer ownership of accounts,
so that if person X bought a character from person Y, then person Y
would still be billed for that character's account; however, that
action in itself could be open to a legal challenge.

I wonder what the effect of having persona death in a game would
have on this kind of trading? If a player paid $300 for a character
which immediately died (that's DIED, not retired hors de combat)
within the rules of the game, would they be able to claim any
redress? Or would it be like buying a chainsaw and accidentally
dropping and breaking it - tough luck, but you don't get a new one
under the guarantee?

		Richard
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