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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
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