I created 2 areas, named the Shi'ar Jungle and Ahm'Sher. Both are original areas created by me. I made them for a friends mud "questionable insantiy" and then ALLOWED another mud (SOTN) to use those areas. I have just found out that yet another mud that OSTOLES (the owner of SOTN) co-own is also using the areas and is not giving credit to any of the builders of any of the areas. My roommate and good friend built the area the Labyrinth for SOTN but they are also not given credit on either mud, as a matter of fact, no credit is given anywhere for over 90% of the areas on those muds. Is there anything we can do to get them to remove the areas, I have already repeatedly asked Ostoles to remove mine and he keeps brushing it off like its nothing.

Port addresses for muds in question:


SOTN: sotn.darktech.org port 9000
AOP: mud.darktech.org port 7000

It is not the same mud, just the same server, and I own a mud on the dune server and there are about 20 other muds that use the same one, so that cant be an excuse for him to copy and distribute our areas.

I hope you can answer my questions, I have so many, thanks for your time.

My advice is that you contact the administrator/abuse center of the server. Give him/her/them good evidence that those areafiles are rightfully yours like little quirks only the builder would know or such. If these are good and honest people and they see your evidence as good enough, they will prolly ask the MUD in question to stop using the area, or they'd manually delete it.

I am speaking to Ostoles as I type this. Legally, he has no right to do this, and I believe this makes him a license violator as well.

At best, he had an explicit, non-exclusive use of area license. Considering you explicitly told him to not distribute said area, and never gave any of those MUDs any sort of license....

-shrug- You can demand them to remove it, and be within your right.

I suppose you can get the MUDs removed from their listings even if it comes to that. While I may be strictly a coder, there _are_ certain things such as 'builder rights'.

-D

First of all, you were a builder for SOTN.. Second, I did not distribute your area. When you quit you threatened the staff that you would "delete the mud" and that "if i did not do as you asked i would be losing all of my data" and you would "keep me from ever running a mud again". I dismissed your threats and sent you the areas you had made.  SOTN and BtS merged into a consolidated mud with the staff of both muds called AoP(Age of Prophecy). So the areas were not distributed, as they were kept in tact at the owner's discresion. As I let you build on my system possesion became mine. As for credit for your areas Ahm-Sher or whatever is not even used as you left while you were creating it, and The Jungle has credit given to you. Why dont you cut the crap and stop lieing for once in your life.  Also, i really wouldnt think your so called "good friend" considers you a friend seeing as how you kicked her out of your house because she continued to build for SoTN. Anyway, i am done with this conversation as it is already 5 months old(all this happened in january and havent spoken with her since then due to her blocking my im messages when trying to resolve this). Why not just tell everyone the truth? you just want attention and thats all. Thats half the reason i didnt object when you said you wanted to quit. Anyway, unless you actualy talk to me yourself, not pretending to be your "friend" in order to get information, this is over.

-Ostoles

Ostoles, considering you stated that she was a builder for SOTN, then I am not sure, but I think that you could not place her areas in AOP without her explicit permission - even if the MUDs did merge.

Why?

It is a seperate entity. The license was granted to SOTN, not AOP. Considering comments from people such as Noximistic, as well, I honestly doubt your side of the story is all there is to it.

-D

That's a common misconception (in fact I once heard a mud hosting provider claim that all muds running on his servers technically belonged to him!).  However please let me clarify that the above statement is NOT true - transfer of ownership requires a signature, and to own a copy is not to own the copyright.

As for the other points - well, this is a prime example of why builders (and coders for that matter) should provide written licenses for their work.  Did the agreement give permission for Ostoles to use the area, or for SOTN to use it?  I'm sure if I asked both of you, I'd get two different answers.  It's not an easy situation to resolve (although either way, credit should be given).

-nods KaVir-

See, what really makes me doubt his story is that there wasn't credit given to the builder when I logged on and checked out the MUD. That, in and of itself, gives a large amount of credibility to Cerise's story, while causing O* to lose credibility.

-D

Bah, was checking back in on the posts, figured I would atleast spread the truth to those that are unwilling to look. At the entrance to areas in which builders have created for my mud and the immortal has left there is a sign that states the creator and the email that was last known by them, this is placed their at their request, and was placed there back when the issue was started in january. It might also be interesting to note, immortals can have these signs say whatever they wish. This sign is just the generic one used.

>look sign
Credit for this area goes to: Merande.
She can be reached at:

Anyway, as to the thoughts that it only goes to the mud that it was built on. It was built on sotn while we were merging and all imms where aware of that and either had the chance to quit at that time or continue to build. She continued to build until she had a mud of her own up.

-Ostoles

Well I am glad you merged your muds, thats bound to be an improvement for you. However, NEVER did you tell me about any such merging while I was building there. Because in truth, what is the point in building an area when you will be merging muds and I DONT want my area passed around like a 2 cent whore. With that said I FORMALLY ask, again, that you remove my areas from any and ALL muds that do NOT have explicit permission by me to use those areas.
As far as my "friend" goes, did you even bother to ask her where she is living now? and exactly HOW does that pertain to your using and distrubuting my areas without permission? I'm sorry I dont see the connections so if you will in the future stick to the facts of the matter and not deviate to things:
1. you have no proof of or facts of
2. that do not pertain to the subject matter.
To try and discredit me in such a lewd and personal way only makes you look worse. I'm sorry Ostoles, but you will be removing the area from AOP, or I will take advice as mentioned above.

To let everyone know, I dont agree with removing her areas. But as i look through it, only one was completed, there is to much work that needs to be done as the proper protocol for areas etc was not followed. All the items were to over powered, so decided to let her win, if you can call it winning, and deleted her areas. Hope this makes you all happy, seeing as how you all are involved, or rather were involved. So, hopefuly this thread can die now, so i dont have to keep checking it to see what the next slanderious message posted is. Anyway, rest assured the areas are deleted.

-Ostoles

Wow.

Someone stupid enough to accuse KaVir of slander? Yow. That's a new one.

Meinh. And for the record: Not even I am that dumb. :P

-D

Didnt acuse Kavir of slander. no where in my post did i mention names.

-Ostoles

You said "Hope this makes you all happy, seeing as how you all are involved, or rather were involved" (emphasis mine). Thus you're implying that everyone posting on this thread has been slandering you.

Just for the record, slander must be expressed in spoken words, signs, or gestures. It's libel which is written. However in order to be libellous the statement must be both defamatory and false.

In fact, having checked through the thread, the only person who appears to have made any potentially libellous statements is you; your first post is a perfect example - rather than countering Cerise's points, you instead focused on discrediting her.

This thread has highlighted the fact that builders and owners have different opionions on what the rights are for an area. I fear that this thread may soon deteriorate into a mix of self-defense and attacks which serves no purpose in helping the building community.

I believe that KaVir's suggestion for a written agreement is a very good one. I am starting a thread on creating a usage agreement for builders and owners. The thread is not meant to be a forum to attack other people or parade past misdeeds. It is meant for us to work together to come up with key points for an agreement that owners and builders can use to avoid further conflict.

Neranz Laverani, Seeker of Knowledge