[Fiendish]

I took the liberty of asking a lawyer. I know, a crazy idea. Why bother asking a real lawyer when we can all just vomit unqualified opinions?

Here is my question, and the response given so far. More responses may follow. If I receive any, I will post them.

Question: If a software license appears to mean one thing, but the copyright holders say they meant another thing in a logged discussion, but the copyright holders have made no efforts to alter the license agreement that is distributed with that software, what rule should the user follow? Should they follow the agreement or the proposed intent of the copyright holders, even though they have made no efforts to defend their product according to their intent and have made no efforts to correct the license agreement?

Reply: An agreement requires a "meeting of the minds." If the written agreement is clear in its meaning and was entered into by both parties, they cannot now say they didn't mean it. Clear meaning represents a meeting of the minds. Ambiguous meaning permits the parties to claim no "meeting of the minds" and, therefore, no contract.

Reply Posted By:
Sheldon G. Bardach
Law Offices of Sheldon G. Bardach
via LawGuru.com

This means that any claimed restriction on what you can or cannot do with the DikuMud code outside of the strict wording of the license is invalid (This is why EULAs are usually so strictly worded, duh). This means that if you allow donations to support server costs, then you allow such donations regardless of a reward system as no distinction is made in the distributed license agreement as long as no profit is made.

For the record, there is no gross profit made on this venture, so any distinction between net and gross profit is irrelevant.

---
I love you, Delerak, even if your threat is sexist.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Question: If a software license appears to mean one thing, but the copyright holders say they meant another

Which is hardly the question here. We're talking about a software license which isn't completely clear in meaning, but which has later been clarified by the copyright holders in such a way as to still fall within the wording.

Originally Posted by Clear meaning represents a meeting of the minds. Ambiguous meaning permits the parties to claim no "meeting of the minds" and, therefore, no contract.

Unfortunately for the budding license violators, this "contract" is the only thing giving them permission to copy, modify, distribute or display Diku mud. So yes, you can claim "no meeting of the minds" - but then you no longer have permission to run your mud.

[Fiendish]

Oh, no. You misunderstand. The license is absolutely clear. It says you may make no profit. That's 100% clear. The copyright holders may not then go back many years later and say, "Wait a minute, we didn't mean that. We meant something else." That is the point of the lawyer's response. The changes that you claim they wanted to make, absolutely do not fall within the wording of "Thou shalt make no profit. Thus spaketh the lord." I'm sorry you missed it. I'll explain further.

Since this is the only document distributed with the software that stipulates any restrictions on use, then it IS the contract. The user must agree to whatever it says in order to use the DikuMUD code. The person has no legal obligation to agree to whatever else the copyright holder said later on that is not a part of the contract. This is not a case of the user claiming ambiguous meaning. It is a case of the copyright owner claiming ambiguous meaning. In that event, it is entirely the copyright holder's fault for not making a contract that says what they meant. Since both parties agreed at the time of the writing of the contract that the wording of the contract was accurate, then neither party can then go back and say "Wait a minute, this means something else." This means that the DikuMud copyright is not violated by a mud taking donations as long as donations do not constitute profit, regardless of in-game rewards, because that is exactly what the license says.

Please remember that this is all from a lawyer, and anything you say, until shown otherwise, is not.

[Hephos]

Interesting

Would be fun to hear more laywer feedback. In particular for muds accepting donations for in-game rewards without running with profit. Is it violating the licence, or it is not?

Input from some respectable laywer would shed some light on this "grey area".

[Estarra]

I wonder what the statute of limitations, if any, is on the ability of the diku holders to instigate a claim if they ever choose to. In other words, if sleazymud were to write to the diku team, "I'm going to use the code for commercial purposes." And if there is no response (or even if there is a response and sleazymud retorts with "I'm going to do it anyway"), the ability to make a claim against sleazymud may eventually lapse from the time the diku team knew of the violation. (I'd hazard a guess that the statute of limitations may run for 2-3 years before diku loses their rights to make a claim.) Anyone know if there's a statute of limitations (if any)?

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Oh, no. You misunderstand. The license is absolutely clear. It says you may make no profit.

Actually it says "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way". And as I've already demonstrated, even going by the IRS definitions there is more than one "way" to define making a profit.

Originally Posted by Please remember that this is all from a lawyer, and anything you say, until shown otherwise, is not.

A new poster appears, and with his first post claims to have spoken to a lawyer. Fair enough - except that not only did you ask him an extremely misleading question, you've also taken your own interpretation of his answer and started citing it as a legal opinion!

And FYI, the quote I gave in the previous thread concerning intent came from a Justice as part of a judgement in a case.

[Burr]

Regarding the statute of limitations, I doubt it would even be relevant until A) the person actually offends the license (rather than simply stating an intent to do so) and B) the owners of the license learn of the actual offense (and not simply the intent).

The license owners might also be able to sue for the stated intent if the civil court sees it as the financial equivalent of assault before battery, but I doubt that as well. But if so, then the statue of limitations might be relevant to that offense, but it still wouldn't yet be relevant to the other, I don't think. I'm just going by what seems to make common sense to me, though, not any significant legal training.

[KaVir]

Please don't forget that the statute of limitations would apply for each violation. So unless we're talking about a mud which violated the license on one occasion then didn't do anything for a few years, the point is really moot.

As an example, the statute of limitations for property damage and theft of property (called conversion) is usually three years from the date of the incident. But if your "victim" doesn't bring a lawsuit against you, that doesn't give you free reign to destroy/steal their property as much as you like for the rest of your life.

[Valg]

We're off topic. No one is suggested bringing legal action against Aardwolf to my knowledge. What they are seeking is the removal of Aardwolf from a privately owned website. If the owner(s) of the website decide that they don't like how Aardwolf sells in-game rewards, they can remove Aardwolf from the list.

In the past, this has been done to other games that violate the spirit of license agreements that led to solid, publically available codebases. Whether or not their actions would stand up once the lawyers get their paws on it doesn't matter at all.

[Lanthum]

Originally Posted by (Deathwing @ Oct. 31 2003,06:51) Originally Posted by The "problem" is that people who violate licenses discourage others from releasing back into the community - and I'm not just talking about the Diku team. If anyone lets what Aardwolf is doing - giving a tiny reward in return for help with server costs - stop them from releasing anything, then I think, frankly, that they shouldn't be in the "community" in the first place.

Well Deathwing, you have completely missed the point of what KaVir was saying.  The reason it discourages individuals from contributing is not JUST because they are giving away rewards, it is because they (and everyone who supports them) is trying to twist the DIKU's intent behind releasing the code in the first place.

I wasn't going to post, because I felt everything was being said nicely already, until I came across your post Deathwing.  It makes me sick to know that there are many, many people out there like the Aardwolf Owner(s), yourself, and everyone else who is begging the others to shut up about the truth!  If this kind of behavior continues, it makes others not want to contribute because we know, that no matter how hard we try, there will always be someone out there trying to pervert and subvert our intentions.  No matter the DIKU team didn't want people to GET/MAKE money of any kind, no instead you guys just TRY to figure out a loophole around it.  People like that don't even try to make their own completely original code to make money on - they just use someone else's, and then break the rules for use claiming "no violation".  All the while sitting behind a human wall of zealots who defend for them saying "nothing can be done until the vanished DIKU team makes a claim against them".

Utterly sickening.  But, I guess when the dust settles, everyone out there on the other side of this legal fence will feel some sense of accomplishment for finding a loophole around what has been commonly stated.

And Fiendish - yes, you can claim "no meeting of the minds", but the Justice Dept has already ruled that that doesn't give the "end user" free legal right to continue to use the item/object/product.  I'll let you and Google find the rest.

And to all those people out there who wish to argue the legal stand point of "gross profit/net profit allows us to get around the agreement" ... better point your favorite browser to the IRS's webpage and take a look at the meaning of Non-Profit and Tax-Exempt.  As someone already said on this thread (that was completely ignored), just because you don't actually make any money from your venture, doesn't make you "non-profit".  The Feds only allow very specific types of business to be non-profit.  And by their qualifications, Aardwolf would never qualify as a Non-Proft venture.  And if you aren't considered "Non-Profit" by the Feds, then you are considered "For Profit" - no matter how good/bad your bottom line is.  And THAT IS AGAINST the letter of the agreement.

So you can try and twist the meaning of PROFIT around every way you want, but even under legal definitions, they are taking in money.  And even if their expenses = take in (which I doubt), they are still considered by the IRS as "making profit", just not doing a good job of running the business.

[relic]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ Nov. 03 2003,04:26) Fair enough - except that not only did you ask him an extremely misleading question, you've also taken your own interpretation of his answer and started citing it as a legal opinion!

Misleading questions? Your quote from one of the diku authors is meaningless unless it can be corroborated and presented in a complete manner. Even then we'd probably see the questions were misleading, as the crucial term of the contract, "profit", was not mentioned in your quotes.

And those quotes are the basis for practically every posting against rewarding in-game donations. Just partial extracts of answers when we don't even know what the questions were.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Misleading questions? Your quote from one of the diku authors is meaningless unless it can be corroborated and presented in a complete manner. Even then we'd probably see the questions were misleading, as the crucial term of the contract, "profit", was not mentioned in your quotes.

I provided the full questions and answers, to a scenario that is very similar to that of Aardwolf. I cannot see how the quotes could have made the situation any clearer (and yes, the did include "profit") - but if you believe I made them up, you are of course free to contact the Diku team yourself and ask their opinion.

[relic]

Are the full quotes still up somewhere?

Originally Posted by I cannot see how the quotes could have made the situation any clearer (and yes, the did include "profit") - but if you believe I made them up, you are of course free to contact the Diku team yourself and ask their opinion.

Mainly suggesting you are mis-representing the quotes.  But anything's possible as the full exchange hasn't been posted that I have seen.  Granted I can't stand most of these ludicrous arguments and don't read everything...

[FyreSturm]

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                            DikuMud License

                     Program and Concept created by


Sebastian Hammer
Prss. Maries Alle 15, 1
1908 Frb. C.
DENMARK
(email quinn@freja.diku.dk)

Michael Seifert
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1370 Copenhagen K.
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(email seifert@freja.diku.dk)

Hans Henrik St{rfeldt
Langs} 19
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DENMARK
(email bombman@freja.diku.dk)

Tom Madsen
R|de Mellemvej 94B, 64
2300 Copenhagen S.
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(email noop@freja.diku.dk)

Katja Nyboe
Kildeg}rdsvej 2
2900 Hellerup
31 62 82 84
DENMARK
(email katz@freja.diku.dk)


This document contains the rules by which you can use, alter or publish
parts of DikuMud. DikuMud has been created by the above five listed persons
in their spare time, at DIKU (Computer Science Instutute at Copenhagen
University). You are legally bound to follow the rules described in this
document.

Rules:

  !! DikuMud is NOT Public Domain, shareware, careware or the like !!

  You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in
  any possible way. You may under no circumstances charge money for
  distributing any part of dikumud - this includes the usual $5 charge
  for "sending the disk" or "just for the disk" etc.
  By breaking these rules you violate the agreement between us and the
  University, and hence will be sued.

  You may not remove any copyright notices from any of the documents or
  sources given to you.

  This license must *always* be included "as is" if you copy or give
  away any part of DikuMud (which is to be done as described in this
  document).

  If you publish *any* part of dikumud, we as creators must appear in the
  article, and the article must be clearly copyrighted subject to this
  license. Before publishing you must first send us a message, by
  snail-mail or e-mail, and inform us what, where and when you are
  publishing (remember to include your address, name etc.)

  If you wish to setup a version of DikuMud on any computer system, you
  must send us a message , by snail-mail or e-mail, and inform us where
  and when you are running the game. (remember to include
  your address, name etc.)


  Any running version of DikuMud must include our names in the login
  sequence. Furthermore the "credits" command shall always cointain
  our name, addresses, and a notice which states we have created DikuMud.

  You are allowed to alter DikuMud, source and documentation as long as
  you do not violate any of the above stated rules.


Regards,



The DikuMud Group


Note:

We hope you will enjoy DikuMud, and encourage you to send us any reports
on bugs (when you find 'it&#39. Remember that we are all using our spare
time to write and improve DikuMud, bugs, etc. - and changes will take their
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If you make any major improvements on DikuMud we would be happy to
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new updates and improvements made to the game.


I believes thats the original and only license the DIKU team made.

Main Entry: 1prof·it
Pronunciation: 'prä-f&t
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin profectus advance, profit, from proficere
Date: 14th century
1 : a valuable return : GAIN
2 : the excess of returns over expenditure in a transaction or series of transactions; especially : the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost
3 : net income usually for a given period of time
4 : the ratio of profit for a given year to the amount of capital invested or to the value of sales
5 : the compensation accruing to entrepreneurs for the assumption of risk in business enterprise as distinguished from wages or rent

thats the definition of profit according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Some points :
Point A. - the license just mention PROFIT .. not gross profit nor net profit.
Point B. - Aardwolf is not a business ... it's a hobby. The expenses are supported by the owner and some players.
Point C. - Unless the DIKU team rewrite and/or ammend this license, Other MUDs can receive donations without violating it.
Point D. - If the Admin/Owner of TopMudSite feels that Aardwolf needs to be banned, they will do it and will explain to Lasher the reason. And not because some dissatisfied Moderators feels they need to be banned.
Point E. - Aardwolf has flourished through these years without TMS ... I believe it was just an experiment of Lasher to see how it is stacked up against other muds if ranked.

And no, I'm no expert. I just play the game. But I do have common sense. And I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I'm just stating facts as I see it. Feel free to quote me and "feel good about yourself" and point out things you don't agree with me.

[FrankyB]

I will start off by admitting this is my first post and that I am an Aardwolf player, so if you want to you can completely ignore me.

I have been following this thread for a while now and one thing has been troubling me.  Has the licence been changed to reflect the supposed intent of the Diku team?  Alternatively, does it now include the phrase "postings on the TopMudSites.com discussion database are legally binding" or words to that effect?

If not then all the discussion on here is pretty much meaningless, isn't it?

[abharsair]

As someone who runs an LP Mud and does neither charge any money for anything nor accepts donations, I do not really have any interest in interpreting the DIKU license one way or another, but after reading through many of the related threads, though, I think you can summarize the whole thing pretty easily:

"Is it legal to accept donations in exchange for in-game benefits as long as you do not make any profit (revenues after subtracting costs)?" - Possible, since the DIKU license is extremely poorly worded in that matter.

"Is it RIGHT to accept donations as stated above?" - No, because Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt stated that it was not the DIKU-team's intention to allow that kind of thing; everyone who runs a DIKU-derivative profits from the work he and his friends invested many years ago and therefore should respect their opinion in that matter.

As we all know, legal does not automatically mean right and vice versa. Additionally, I'm not a lawyer, so I have no clue what would happen in a court. But that's the conclusion I have as someone unbiased when watching the whole discussion.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by relic wrote: Mainly suggesting you are mis-representing the quotes.

I am not. They are extremely clear, and I have spoken to the Diku team at considerable length about this issue. I have posted the quotes at least twice now, include once in direct response to your request to read them. If you're not going to read them here, where should I post them that you won't conveniently forget next time?

Originally Posted by FyreSturm wrote a load of stuff that has already been answered repeatedly, including: Point A. - the license just mention PROFIT .. not gross profit nor net profit.

It mentions profit "in any possible way". Gross profit is a "possible way". This point has been covered again and again and again. Please at least have the good manners to read the thread before posting.