Well, I'm willing to go with the interpretation of our lawyers, and they -are- well-versed in IP law. The lead has over 15 years experience and IP law is his specialty. Now, that's not to say he's right. A lawyer's opinion is still just an opinion, albeit in his case a highly educated one.

Yes, they're fairly clearly uninterested in pursuing action. But is that any indication that they disapprove? No. The DIKU people are also clearly uninterested in pursuing action against Medievia but that doesn't make what the Medievia idiots are doing right.


I'm not on a witch hunt, and it's not just civil law. It's criminal law as well. Infringing on property worth more than $5000 (or maybe it's $2500. In this case, it's irrelevant since the value of the Tolkien IP is in the tens of millions.) can also be criminal.

Incidentally, were I on a witch hunt against you in particular I'd simply force Tolkien Enterprises hand. It'd be a reasonably simple matter to create a situation in which TE must either shut down all Tolkien-based muds or suffer devaluation of their IP because of it.

Well, first off, I have seen plenty of evidence that what you and other people like you are doing causes TE financial harm. We're in a position to buy IP and we would pay considerably less for the massively multiplayer text rights to the Tolkien IP because of the existence of muds like yours. Now, I'm not saying that the fact that muds like yours cause TE's IP to be worth less is necessarily not balanced out by extra indirect profits from people whom your mud convinced to buy more Tolkien products, but let's face it, fat chance. All your players are already Tolkien fans. People who play an RP-intensive Tolkien mud don't need convincing. Ii'm willing to simply concede this point though, as it's rather immaterial to my argument.

My point is simply this: You can't know, and so you're putting the Tolkien IP at risk. The only people that have the right to do that are the Tolkien people.




What's so f-ing difficult about getting permission first, and if you cannot, simply not running the mud? I just find myself baffled at this feeling that a lack of reply somehow constitutes permission. If you can't get permission, don't f-cking do it. I get the sense that you and the others posting in your defence mainly don't give a #### about the ethics involved. You just love the IP (justifiably so too) and feel like you have some right to use it as you will. That's fine, you can feel that way. I, however, feel you're stealing it, and I have yet to hear any defence that convinces me otherwise. They all come across as shallow justifications for taking the easy way out (too difficult to actually obtain permission, just want to play in a tolkien mud, etc. All incredibly lame excuses.)

--matt

Ah hah, that's exactly the point. You CANNOT know that. For instance, look at the infringing Tolkien muds. I can point out easily definable ways in which they blatantly reduce the value of the Tolkien IP. There are possible ways they may increase the value too. I believe that the people who have the right to decide which will do which are the IP holders and no one else.


The Holocaust had no direct effect on the majority of Americans. Not worth stopping then, is that what you're saying? (Incidentally, for the logically-impaired, that's an -analogy- not a comparison. Obviously the Holocaust dwarfs any possible IP violation by several orders of magnitude.) Whether a codebase's license is violated also has absolutely no effect on the majority of us (in fact, Medievia's existence doesn't even have a harmful effect on the DIKU license holders. I was interested in helping to fund action against Medievia purely on principle.).

--matt

I just wanted to apologize for this. It was over the top and prompted by my frustration with what I view as a self-righteous ethical nonchalance on the part of a few posters. Many mud administrators are highly imaginative people, as well as highly ethical. I didn't mean to give the impression that or even most mud owners are of the unethical, thieving variety. Having not looked at all or even most muds in existence, I wouldn't know.

--matt

Nothing "supposedly" about it - I have spoken to them.  If you don't believe me, email them yourself.

Of course it is - by using the "free" diku codebase, Vryce is not only avoiding purchasing the DikuII license, but also discouraging other people from buying it as well.  It is/was possible to get a free copy of the Borland C compiler, as long as it's not used for commercial purposes - by the same reasoning, Borland wouldn't be losing money if you decided to use their free compiler for commercial products...

Exactly - that's the very point I've been repeatedly making.  So why do you keep suggesting otherwise?

I am actually reading posts about how having shire in your mud is illegal. It would be a pretty sad state of affairs to see every mud on the net forced to remove the shire. Though to be honest that area does suck. But anyway, I don't think they'll do much about Shadows of Isildur, because it isn't commercial is it? Hope you eventually get that permission confirmation you need, Traithe. If the worst happens, well, you can count me on the list of people who think that's unjust.. for what its worth.

Speaking briefly as moderator: In a topic like this, there will obviously be differences of opinion, which will result in heated debates (and often flames).  That's fine - this isn't the Advanced Mud Concepts forum, and I'm far more relaxed about the conduct here.

However when your post adds absolutely nothing to a huge debate like this other than to try and stir up more flames, I will delete it.  I have had to do this twice now - one post which was a personal attack on the_logos earlier on, and another just now which attacked pretty much everyone.  If you want to dispute or attack points that people have made, then that's great - but please make sure that your post adds at least a little to the discussion, otherwise things just get out of hand.

[EDIT: Just to clarify, this point was NOT aimed at Davairus]

(Moderator mode off)

I did. I offered them money to help them shut down Medievia. I got no response.

Ah hah! I was not aware that there's a commercial version of DIKU available. It's owned by the same license holders as DIKU I?

If this is in fact the case then I will definitely concede that Vyrce's trespasses exceed Traithe's in my eyes at least.

To my knowledge, Tolkien Enterprises has not requested that Traithe or any other mud admin assist them in increasing the value of their IP.

--matt

Yes. DikuII, aka Valhalla, has been around for some time and has a commercial license available for use.

"...that's not your determination to make. If the IP holder wanted help, he'd let you know."

Joke of the day: I just received a TMS PM which stated "...I take it Achaea pays quite a bit in advertising since you seem to keep defending the person who runs the game"

How odd, considering no advertising dollars would go to you anyway. Lot of idiots floating around I suppose. *shrug* (We've not yet paid to advertise here either.)

--matt

my god people! How much longer must we endure this debate? People are either going to side with Logos or with Traithe. They are not going to change their minds on the topic so why in #### are we still arguing over it?

Stryph

I don't look for trouble...I just seem to find it everywhere

I'd hope people are siding with the issues, not the people, but that may be too optimistic of me. Whether you like Traithe or me is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

I might suggest that if you find the debate tiresome, you don't read it. Simple solution.
--matt

What makes you think this is about Traithe? As far as I see it, this is about Logos attacking the position of those who actively defend mud licenses, such as myself. Traithe just had the misfortune of having his mud cited as an example, but it could just have easily have been someone else - this isn't the first time Logos has raised this very issue, and last time there was no mention of Traithe or his mud. Now, like then, it is my own position that I am defending.

Do you mind? While long winded, I'm finding this discussion quite fascinating. Shhh.

Well... So the copyright holder needs to approach you formally and demand things, for you to not rip off their work?

What if the copyright holders have no clue about what you are doing? And they probably have no clue at all about what is going on in particular muds, or in the mud community as a whole.

Its like your local gansta drug dealer works on your street selling drugs to your kids, without you knowing it. And his policy is "#### if their mom comes down and tell me not to sell drugs to their kids, sure i'l stop without discussion!".

But if someone else on the street walks up and says its illegal, he give a ****, and tell them to mind their own business.

I would like to formally dispute three parts of this assertion:

1. That there is, in fact, a bus. I've seen no bus.
2. That the bus has wheels. Perhaps the bus is a hover bus.
3. That EVEN if there is a bus and EVEN if the bus has wheels, there's no proof the wheels go round and round. Perhaps it is a short trip and the wheels just go around once instead of going "round and round."

Get your facts straight before posting, sir. There's no room for such irresponsible speculation here.

--matt

Probably

That's the entire point of copyright law.  Controlling when works enter the public domain.  You fail to make the distinction between public domain works and copy protected works in your post.  It doesn't become part of the public inheritence until it's public domain.  

So is a movie just as different from a book, yet you don't see Hollywood making unauthorized movies from copy protected books.

Completely illogical.  Tell me why Diku mud code and zones (or yours or mine) should enjoy greater copyright protection than Tolkien's LOTR or StarWars?  What's to stop me from saying Diku or your mud and zones are now part of the common cultural inheritence and appropriating them?  What makes you think it is right to do that to another author yet you think it's wrong for someone to do to you?

They shouldn't. If I went to some discussion forums for fiction authors, and saw some posts about someone who had made a few changes to a copy of LOTR, replaced Tolkien's name with his own, and started selling it, then I would expect to see the same sort of responses I see here concerning Medievia.

But if someone on that fiction authors discussion forum had written a non-commercial fan-fiction story based on a mud - a mud which had been used as the basis for dozens (if not hundreds) of other short stories over the last 30 years - and that author had contacted the mud owner to inform them that if it was a problem, they would delete their story, then I would be quite surprised if they got the same sort of response on that fiction authors discussion forum that Traithe has received here.

I made my post in good faith, as an example of a phenomenon that I think exists in a very large number of muds, namely references to well known things in our contemporary world, be it books, movies or comic strips. I was hoping for a serious discussion. Next I know, I get compered to a drug dealer.

If this is the level the argumentation will sink to, I will withdraw from the discussion again.

Sure, I plead guilty to having some planets named Endor and Hoth in my Mud, and also to using the phrase ‘May the Force be with you’ as a common greeting phrase in our Future Dimension. Personally, I don’t believe that things like that constitute a copyright infringement. If they do, we might just as well close down 90% of all existing muds, since I bet you could find similar things in most of them, even though they are more likely to be references to Dungeons and Dragons than StarWars. And even though their owners may not be quite as candid about it as I have been, for fear of being flamed by people like you.

You apparently believe otherwise, but why would I care about what you think? You are not a lawyer, you are not the copyright holder, you are not the FBI, you are just stating your opinion - (and doing it in a very rude way, I might add). So what makes your opinion more worth than mine?

If you cannot see the difference between using a few names from a commonly known book or film in a mud, and ripping off an entire codebase, zone - or book - and presenting it as your own work... then either your intelligence must be very limited, or you may have some ulterior motive for just picking a fight.