[MUD-Dev] Blacksnow revisted

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

From: "Jessica Mulligan" <jessica at mm3d.com>
> On Mon, 25 Mar 2002 02:49:55 -0800, "Caliban Tiresias Darklock"
> <caliban at darklock.com> wrote:

>> Whether the *item* is Mythic's property is really quite
>> irrelevant, and whether I got paid for the service is also quite
>> irrelevant.

> Allow me to respectfully disagree.  They are specifically
> forbidden to do it by the DAoC license, and always have been.

If the license cannot legally forbid players to do something, it
does not matter whether it forbids doing that or not.

> The fact that cash trades hands is perfectly relevant, in that
> context.

Actually, no it isn't. In legal terms, a transfer is a sale whether
money changes hands or not.

> Your statement also ignores the critical point that persistent,
> online-only games are both a product *and* a service; they are
> inextricably linked.

The game doesn't enter into it.

  1. I talk to you somewhere else.
  2. I say I can do something for you if you pay me.
  3. You give me money to do it.
  4. I go onto the game.
  5. I do what I said I would do.
  6. You come onto the game.
  7. We meet in a prearranged location.
  8. I deliver the results of the promised action.

Now, the important thing to realise here is that there are TWO
SEPARATE TRANSACTIONS. Steps 1 through 3 take place OUTSIDE of
Mythic's service and without the use of Mythic's property. Steps 4
through 8 take place on Mythic's service, and Mythic has control
over whether and how these are permissible.

The *problem* is that steps 4 through 8 are in most cases perfectly
permissible (or at the very least not preventible), and there's no
way Mythic can prevent them without irreparably damaging the appeal
of the game.  So Mythic wants to say that their players are not
allowed to conduct the first three steps.

Mythic can't say that. It's beyond their rights as a vendor of goods
and services. You can't sell me a product on the condition that I
don't do certain things with it after I own it, and you can't sell
me a service on the condition that I *don't* purchase certain
services from others. These are anticompetitive practices. So even
if Mythic's EULA says things like that, it can't legally enforce
them.

I'm ignoring the rest of the message because it completely missed
the above distinction and I don't feel like editing EVERY analogy to
account for it.


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