[MUD-Dev] DCMA -- another weapon in the fight against Emulators

[Richard]

From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban at darklock.com]

> It gets even iffier when you start getting into license agreements
> that involve the game company owning your data. Nobody would argue
> that you could use spreadsheet software without using a
> spreadsheet, and nobody in his right mind would say that the
> company who wrote the spreadsheet software also owns your
> spreadsheet. Likewise, while you must have a character to play the
> game, nobody would ever say that the people who wrote the game
> also own your character. Even if they *say* they own your
> character, they can also say you're a potato. That doesn't make it
> true.

Your analogy is bad.  Spreadsheet programs and paying for the
service of playing a game are disjoint.  A spreadsheet is an
incidental resource in a creation process, the creation process is
part of the service you are paying for.  In fact, its a core part,
if it wasn't you probably wouldn't be interested enough to pay for
it.

Does this give you ownership of your characters?  No way.  The
characters are part of your game experience only as long as they
are.  If they die, then thats all part of the experience - you
haven't lost anything - its exactly what you paid for.  If server
problems cause loss of them - then you haven't lost anything - the
service you are paying for is probably worth less that you thought
though.

> One of the things that keeps being brought up is the question of
> IP agreements you make with your employer. They say "when you sign
> an IP agreement with your employer, it's the same thing" -- but
> it's not. My employer *pays* me to come up with ideas for him. But
> when I sign onto some MMORPG, I pay *them* a monthly service
> fee. Why am I paying them to do all the work of creating something
> they would then own?

Your analogy of employment and paying to play the game have nothing
whatsoever in common with each other.

You are paying for the service of playing the game.  To claim that
you are doing work and creating something is completely slanted and
ignores the fact that _you are paying to play the game_.  That you
create something is a part of the game - if you couldn't do it, you
probably wouldn't have paid to play the game that was offered in the
first place.

> Personally, I think it's reasonably obvious who "owns" the rights
> to dynamic game data -- who paid the other party money? The guy
> who

I think what matters is -- who paid the other party money and what
were they paying for.

> foots the bill has the rights by default, and it is HIS decision

No, the guy who paid the bill should get what he paid for.  If that
was the ability to play a game then thats exactly what he should
get.

> whether to give them to the other person. If I pay to play the
> game, then I own the character. If you pay me to play it, you own
> it. So whether I buy the game at retail or pay to play it online,
> the saved games belong to me and I can treat them like anything
> else I own. Consider it a work made for hire -- you wouldn't have
> made it if I hadn't paid you to make it.

Another disjoint analogy.

Theres no comparison whatsoever between paying for the privilege of
playing a game online and paying for a game at a store and playing
it locally.  The saved game of a game you are playing locally is a
convenience, I don't care particularly care to argue whether you own
it.  The persistence of state of the MMORPG that you pay to play
online is part of the service.  If you log on and find that a
character is gone when it shouldn't be.. then the service is bad.

If players have a right to ownership over the intermediate state of
the MMORPG they are playing, then the games are going to be severely
limited by this.  No matter how much you might wish it, I hope to
god it never happens.  And I see no reason how someone could claim
for it to be valid.

Richard.
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