[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Ren Reynolds]

I just thought that I would note that I am starting to revise my
view over ownership of virtual items and their sale. In summary I
feel that games companies most likely have copyright in
player-characters, and possibly other virtual items; however I am
still unsure as to whether these rights are of sufficient scope for
a game company to use to prevent the sale of characters or items,
moreover (at first sight) there seem to be weak grounds for the use
of contract law also.

On the ownership side, as has been mentioned here the key is
copyright in collections (US & EU) and database rights (EU only).

An author (living person or company) is entitled to copyright where
there has been: selection and \ or arrangement of a
collection. Moreover the copyright is the collection itself; it does
not alter the status of any of the members of that collection.

So with an MMO the developer makes an 'arrangement' by virtue of
designing the database schema. So I would say that the developer has
a copyright in any of the databases that make up the game.

But there is an ambiguity here. Copyright applies to the collection
as a whole does not impact (by creating or changing) the status of
any item within that collection. So is a character or an item a
collection or are they simply items within a collection. I assume
that broadly speaking there is a part of a database schema that
pertains to a character and there are multiple instances (rows in
tables of sets of tables) of this.  Hence one presumes that
copyright would pertain to the both a character and a set of
characters. Virtual items, especially things like art works are
slightly more ambiguous I feel.

Now a player makes a set of game choices, to start off with they
choose a name for their character, they often select from a number
of attributes, the choose what to hold or drop at any time. Hence
there is an argument to suggest that a player has copyright in a
collection by virtual of these selections.

Where this is arguable is:

  1) Does this selection meet the test of originality ? It might for
  the name, and it might be for player created pieces of art or
  similar; but is collecting 100 gold pieces, original in the sense
  meant by copyright.

  2) What is the scope of the collection, a character and the things
  that it holds are part of larger databases, so does the idea of a
  collection pertain in the case of a player ?

However, even if we assume that the player has property rights in a
collection, be it their avatar, their gold or some art - the player
has agreed to a EULA, and the EULA transfers all such rights to the
games company.

So, it seems any copyright (and in the EU a database right) is held
by the games company. But, copyright is a 'limited' monopoly, it
does not grant absolute control:-

Selling a character or some gold does not involve making a copy of
anything. The database schema noted above is not copied nor is its
design, not part of the schema is copied. In the case of a transfer
of gold from one person to another (which is generally part of game
play) a table entry for two characters most likely changes - but
again, the right established is copyright in the collection, and the
collection has in no way been copied (or publicly performed etc etc)

It has been well established in law that what copyright does is
provide a monopoly on just those acts defined in copyright law, and
no more.

So what we are actually talking about here is transfer of control
for money (I presume that giving items to other players in game is
not contested (despite the 'world with out charity thread) so its
not the act in an of itself we are worried about) and whether it is
breach of contract, or to look at it in the other direction whether
contract terms that restrict such acts are enforceable.

Here I need to do some digging.

My current thought (by analogy) is that in the case of the
shrink-wrap game software, no one disputes that the developer owns
copyright in this (though it might be transferred under contract to
the publisher etc), but the software is sold to a distributor, who
sells it to a retailer, who sells it to a player. Would it be lawful
to restrict further sales of that software, say between players,
don't we get into restraint of trade, anti trust etc here ?

So, what's the difference with characters, gold etc (this is not a
rhetorical question btw) ?

Ren
www.renreynolds.com
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev