Thread: Diku license
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Old 10-15-2003, 08:21 AM   #26
KaVir
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Name: Richard
Home MUD: God Wars II
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Oh come on, that's a terrible analogy - for starters, we're talking about civil law, not criminal (and on that note, your "innocent until proven guilty" comment in a later post is something which only applies to criminal law, not civil law).

But even so, what we're talking about is not even comparible to murder - we're talking about the wording of a license. As you pointed out, it's unlikely to go to court anyway, so what you're basically arguing is whether or not it should be "acceptable" to violate the spirit of the license, if the wording allows for a reasonable excuse to do so.

But then, why stop with Diku? I could see this spinning out of control and resulting in just the sort of negative impact on developers as Medievia has already had by violating the Diku license. Supposing, for example, I were to hire some lawyers to look for loopholes in your Rapture license, and managed to find a way that I could avoid paying you royalties. I could even argue that it was "beneficial" for the community, because it would allow developers to put that extra money into development, rather than giving it to you.

It says you may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way. A "commercial" enterprise is generally defined as a for-profit agency, as opposed to a non-profit corporation (which might be a more reasonable argument).

However it's also worth noting that the license states you cannot "make profit" in "any possible way". Well, one "possible way" of profiting is to make a gross profit - that's your profit without any deduction for losses (as opposed to "net profit", which is what you seem to be talking about).

As a side note, some of the Diku derivatives have specifically clarified some issues, such as Circle's "no donations" clause. As most people don't use the original Diku any more, they may well find themselves dealing with people who take a much more active interest.

I am protecting what I know were - and still are - the intentions of the licensors. Until such time as the license is challenged in a court of law, I feel that that is the appropriate way to treat it.

We've been over this before, Matt, and I said the same then that I'm going to say now. It could be reasonably argued that people using the Diku engine for commercial purposes are taking away money from Diku II (which has a commercial license). In addition it's possible to reclaim your attorney fees and court costs, in addition to "statutory damages" of up to $100,000 per infringement, without even having to establish what damage you actually suffered.
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