[MUD-Dev] Re: Black Snow Revisited

[Adam]

Fred Clift <fred at clift.org> wrote: 
> On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Norman Short wrote:

>> I just came across this thread, since I've been too busy to read
>> everything the list has been sending lately. But frankly I'm
>> amazed.  I think you game company people have your head in the
>> clouds ignoring reality.
 
> Oh, you mean game companies don't own the servers that their
> players play on?  You mean that a game company doesn't have the
> right to say what can and can't be done with accounts on their
> servers?  I'd say you were the one who isn't seeing reality.

The tone of the original post was without a doubt quite
obstreperous; however I feel you've replied to the tone rather than
the content. Or maybe you've missed the point, so I'll try and
rephrase it myself in less agressive terms:

  - If a service provider buys some hardware, it owns
  that. (generally the same basic property law everywhere)

  - If they develop software to run on that hardware, they "own"
  that - although note that by this point we're already getting
  close to divergence (ability to own software being a lot less
  identical in different countries)

  - If they write a contract/license allowing other people to use
  the software, then (please note this bit especially:) the contract
  is absolutely meaningless if it contains any illegal terms; for
  the benefit of non-lawyers, "illegal terms" covers a lot of stuff
  that may not sound unreasonable, but in fact just happen to be
  illegal. E.g. Microsoft's licenses are technically illegal in
  various non-US countries, due to the wide variation in which
  rights different countries consider
  "non-reassignable/relinquishable by contract". Of course, with
  this in mind, most contracts these days seem to include phrases
  such as "invalidation of one part of this contract will NOT be
  deemed to invalidate the whole contract" :)

  - If someone creates some WHOLLY NEW content using the
  contractually provided software/service, then at first glance it
  is VERY unclear who "owns" that - this is outside of property law,
  and into intellectual property law. Without knowing what
  precedent/case law there is in this area, I'd guess by default the
  creator of the CONTENT, not the software, would be given ownership
  by the courts. Examples where the opposite is true include,
  e.g. employment, where by default if you are working for a company
  the legal assumption (even without contract) is that you don't
  expect to "own" all the work you create for that employer - it is
  an assumed part of the employer/employee relationship. But please
  note that there are numerous cases where an employee has been
  awarded IP rights over their created content by the courts - so
  even this is not an absolute law.

> I repeat - can you tell a game company what to do with their
> property?  Note that in this case it _seems_ that

Yes; they may own the servers and software, but not necessarily own
what's on them. Hence, (this is a silly example, and I have no idea
if it is actually legally valid, but perhaps it explains how this
MIGHT happen) the owner of that content could theoretically order
the owner of the hardware not to delete the content - thereby
restricting the hardware owner's use of their own hardware. For a
casual example, look at web-hosting companies (not relevant to the
current situation regards Mythic, but the question you ask above is
a bit more general).

> having a monthly account with the game company is a contract for
> some type of service.  Are you implying that a company wanting to
> write a contract that lets them keep some control over their own
> property is unamerican or anti-business?  I suggest that the
> opposite is true.

"Anti-capitalism" perhaps ;) - i.e. restriction of free markets. Any
artificial, monopolistic control over markets seems to often be
publically declared anti-american and inherently bad; personally I'd
say that beyond very small protections, I agree.

Adam M
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