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

[Vincent Archer]

According to Dr. Cat:

> Which brings to mind yet another odd thought.  Suppose for a
> moment that the courts rule in Mythic's favor, all the way up to
> the Supreme Court, and the law of the land is now officially that
> it's legal to give someone your Magic Sword of Oyster Slaying for
> free, but a violation of your contract with Mythic if you arrange
> for them to pay you cash to give it to them.  Now let's
> fast-forward to six months after the ruling...  A Mythic employee
> is logged into the game, and watches as a powerful knight walks up
> to a novice player and says "Hey Roderick!  I've been looking for
> you.  Here is a powerful +87 Sword of Holy Ultimate Oyster
> Slaying, for absolutely free!  Here you go!"
 
> What rights and what recourse does Mythic have to determine
> whether those two arranged some transfer of cash before this took
> place?

None, of course. But what is at stake isn't merely trading in-world
"stuff" for real-world cash. You have to realise the main problem
Sony and Mythic have with that kind of trading is the customer
support headhaches this generates.

  "Hey, I paid $30 for that 100% quality sword with enchantments
  laid on.  Give me now"

  "Sorry pal, dunno what yer talkin' about"

or

  "Dear Sony Online Entertainement, I bought this account with a
  level 60 character, but when I got it, it was completely naked,
  without any equipment on. I got gipped, can you track what it had
  and give it back to me? thx"

(abbreviated thx mandatory, of course :P)

That's where most of the problem is. How can you ensure a contract
is valid? In-game, it's perfectly easy: trade window is up, both
parties click on OK when they're satisfied. But when you get an
in-game transaction that matches a real-world transaction, all kind
of scams can start.

And, for the amount of cash paid, neither Mythic, nor EA, nor Sony,
nor Microsoft have the ressources to track whether or not there was
a contract and under what terms.

> monitor it and do something about it.  But what if they arrange a
> time and place by secret notes sent by carrier pigeons, get
> together in a secret cave deep underground, lined with lead and
> equipped with Maxwell Smart's old Cone of Silence, quickly
> slipping a five dollar bill from one person to the other and
> swearing a blood oath to never tell any other living human that
> the sword was really sold for five bucks and not given for free,
> in shameful and blatant violation of the EULA?  I think the law
> would probably say that if you happen to find proof someone's
> violating your license agreement you can

The EULA isn't there to prevent anyone from selling stuff.

It's there to cover your ass and be able to tell anybody who says
"not fair! got scammed! do something!" that they took their risk and
have no recourse.

In EQ it's a little bit more complicated, because "farmers" (people
who camp spots to get equipment for real-world cash resale) tend to
have a direct influence on everybody's game experience, which makes
it a little bit worse, but the other games suffer less of that
problem.

> Of course Ebay is convenient when you want to buy an extra 10,000
> game coins, and deep underground caves are only for people with
> way too much free time.  But I suspect if the way of things
> becomes that the game companies CAN keep trying to forbid the sale
> of game items, they'll just drive the Ebay item economy
> underground, as the players establish little hidden exchange
> places and auction places that shut down and move around whenever
> the game company gets wise to one and forces them elsewhere.

What I fully expect is that some game will cross the bridge and
offer real in-game/out-game enforcable contracts (i.e. an EBay
equivalent limited to their game). Then the EULA will specify that
sales out of their web site are strictly prohibited. Or without any
guarantee of anything.

But the mainstream population of these games is still very much
against EBay sales. And officially endorsing it by putting your own
sales site will be seen as "relatively offensive".

/em waits for Project Entropia...

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)
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