Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

KaVir · 06-03-2003, 07:37 PM

I have spoken with members of the Diku and Merc teams, and they have made it very clear that Medievia went against their wishes. Vryce's actions harm the mudding community as a whole, but it seems there is little we can do except ostracise him, and inform the public about his activities. Many of us do this in an attempt to protect our hobby, so that other mud developers will continue to release their work, knowing that someone will stick up for them. In most cases, the approach works, and the muds in question will return to following the licenses. There are the occasional exceptions, but we cannot selectively ignore them or it would undermine our efforts with all other muds.

I have not spoken with the Tolkien estate, and apparently so far neither have you. There is a considerable amount of Tolkien fan-fiction such as muds, and an equal amount of precedent for the Tolkien estate rapidly (and heavily) "dealing" with those it doesn't want using its work. The mud owner has told them that he's planning to use their work (as they requested), and is using it in a similar way to numerous existing muds, some of which have been around for over a decade. Furthermore, the Tolkien copyright is not a mud issue - and while I would most likely report someone who I knew was violating such a copyright, I cannot right all of the worlds wrongs. You'll notice that people don't complain about abortions here, either, or about animal testing, or hungry children in third world countries. This is Top Mud Sites - a site about muds - and it is aspects of mudding that should be discussed. It doesn't make is inconsistent, it just means that we fight our battles in the appropriate places. When charities ask me for a donation, I don't berate them for giving all that money to old people when it could be used to enforce mud licenses - do you?

Let's imagine a scenario where this forum wasn't about muds, but instead about fantasy fiction. Within this scenario, let's imagine that there's someone called "Traithe" who had claimed credit for Tolkien's work, and earned large sums of money from it. Within this scenario, let's say that Tolkien didn't have the resources to deal with Traithe, and so he gave up writing after book 1, telling us that "Traithe was indeed one of the major reasons I stopped writing books, and found other places to spend my energy". Now, that would be comparible.

Your points, however, are not.

Nonsense. Implied licenses are perfectly valid within certain situations.

06-03-2003, 07:37 PM	#51
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	I have spoken with members of the Diku and Merc teams, and they have made it very clear that Medievia went against their wishes. Vryce's actions harm the mudding community as a whole, but it seems there is little we can do except ostracise him, and inform the public about his activities. Many of us do this in an attempt to protect our hobby, so that other mud developers will continue to release their work, knowing that someone will stick up for them. In most cases, the approach works, and the muds in question will return to following the licenses. There are the occasional exceptions, but we cannot selectively ignore them or it would undermine our efforts with all other muds. I have not spoken with the Tolkien estate, and apparently so far neither have you. There is a considerable amount of Tolkien fan-fiction such as muds, and an equal amount of precedent for the Tolkien estate rapidly (and heavily) "dealing" with those it doesn't want using its work. The mud owner has told them that he's planning to use their work (as they requested), and is using it in a similar way to numerous existing muds, some of which have been around for over a decade. Furthermore, the Tolkien copyright is not a mud issue - and while I would most likely report someone who I knew was violating such a copyright, I cannot right all of the worlds wrongs. You'll notice that people don't complain about abortions here, either, or about animal testing, or hungry children in third world countries. This is Top Mud Sites - a site about muds - and it is aspects of mudding that should be discussed. It doesn't make is inconsistent, it just means that we fight our battles in the appropriate places. When charities ask me for a donation, I don't berate them for giving all that money to old people when it could be used to enforce mud licenses - do you? Let's imagine a scenario where this forum wasn't about muds, but instead about fantasy fiction. Within this scenario, let's imagine that there's someone called "Traithe" who had claimed credit for Tolkien's work, and earned large sums of money from it. Within this scenario, let's say that Tolkien didn't have the resources to deal with Traithe, and so he gave up writing after book 1, telling us that "Traithe was indeed one of the major reasons I stopped writing books, and found other places to spend my energy". Now, that would be comparible. Your points, however, are not. Nonsense. Implied licenses are perfectly valid within certain situations.