[MUD-Dev] Black Snow Revisited

[David H. Loeser Jr.]

I've been following this as much as I can (life is so hectic
sometimes) and it seems to me that two sides are forming. Those that
think BSI has the right to do what they are doing and those (me
included) that think they do not.

The question regarding who "owns" the character; seems to be the
seed question and with an answer to this question could we then
cascade it to other questions regarding ownership?

My own answer to who "owns" the character goes like this: If the
character can exist when I shut down the game servers, the database
servers, then I no longer own the character. Meaning the character
is "alive" and if the character is "alive" then can anyone really
"own" it?

I heard a pretty cool quote from someone at GDC, sadly, I don't
remember the name of the person, but here it goes. "If they want the
character, copy it to a floppy disk, delete it from the server and
send the disk to the owner."  Not much use for a floppy disk any
more let alone a character that you can't do anything with.

At any rate, we really need to be careful with all of this... What
if a writer using MS Word was charged by MS for using Word to write
his novel? That would suck. The difference here is that the writer
could use a piece of paper and a pencil and still create the
novel. The work stands on it's own out side of Word. Of course, here
in America the writer would be sued by the pencil and paper
manufactures alike so we really have a catch 22 :) Again, we really
need to be careful when it comes to IP laws. Each instance will,
unfortunately, have to defend itself - there are just too many
variables involved in every case for there to exist a broad
generalized rule/law.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser
Ages of Athiria - www.AgesOfAthiria.com

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