[nhl]

Matt and the staff of Medievia are seen by certain zealots on these forums as the ultimate evil, and no statement, fact or reasonable debate will sway them. I believe Donathin Frey's statement in which I alledgedly group myself with Matt and Medievia, was intended to shut me up, as apparently posters are expected to practice selfcensorship so not to upset the line of the zealots. Failure to do so, will bring your ethical world under scrutiny (or to quote Donathin, it "brings your own opinion and value-set into the line of ethical fire" if you defend, even from a legal standpoint something which differs from what the "text mmorpg-community" (as they see and define) find acceptable), and you will be called a liar by a TMS moderator.

Really, all these guys would need is a godhatesmedievia.com domain, and they'd be just like Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist church - equally sticking their noses where it doesn't belong, and enforcing their views as the ultimate truth on everybody else. Copyrights, ethics and legalities aside, it's amazing that the same individuals are allowed to wage a crusade year after year in a public forum such as this, turning the community ever more bitter while driving away anybody who doesn't feel the same way these individuals do.

[Sombalance]

From the Wikipedia link Shane provided - Fan art is usually a violation of the original creator's copyright, but since it is usually intended as a tribute, the copyright holders tend to tolerate (and oftentimes even encourage) it, though some artists will not tolerate fanart of their creations being sold for a profit.

From this, it seems clear that MUDS based on published works would be in violation of copyright which the original copyright holder has decided to take no action to halt. Which seems very similar to the entire DIKU situation - at least from where I stand. If the MUD community wants to enforce one - shouldn't it enforce all?

Sombalance
-who now hopes there isn't a special hell for people who quote from the Wikipedia.

[Shane]

I didn't realize Matt had anything to do with Medievia. I thought he was Iron Realms related.

[Shane]

Well, I'd submit for your consideration that, while the "free gift" of Diku is not as free as some have tried to make it out, it was still a pretty darned admirable release of a lot of hard work under the idea that people would use it in the spirit intended.

Another difference is that fan art is not for profit. It makes a big difference whether you are just a bunch of people enjoying material that has a copyright or if you are using someone elses material for gain as if it were your own.

One of the resolutions to the whole affair would be for the Diku team to come out publicly and let people off the hook just as the aforementioned authors have done. I doubt they have any more intention of doing that though than they do of going ahead and trying to take legal action against Medievia.

[nhl]

You are correct, there is no formal link between Matt and Medievia. Medievia is hated by some for the DIKU licensing issue, Matt (and IR) is hated (or strongly disliked, if you will) for their stance of being a "free-to-play" game. This forum is full of threads about these two issues - as a matter of fact the same zealots have turned basically any thread that mentions IR or Medievia during the past few years, into a total flamewar.

[Shane]

Hrm.

Well, I find myself largely in agreement with Kavir and Donathin about the ethics of using the Diku code, if not Kavir's understanding of the legal situation, but I am at a loss as to how free-to-play is unethical. From a player standpoint, I am always leary of a game where people buy in game advantages, thus my near total lack of interest in paybased muds personally, but unethical?

Hmm.

[DonathinFrye]

It's pretty simple - if a Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, or Wheel of Time/etc MUDs attempted to make a profit off of their game, they would legally be required to buy a license that would allow them to make money off of the author's original works. They would also be likely to pay royalties.

As long as your goal isn't to make money off of someone else's original works without their consent, it seems that the text-gaming community does not consider it to be unethical.

[DonathinFrye]

Nhl, I am no zealot. I am not against commercial games, I am not against free games, I am not against Medievia. And my commentary was, of course, not meant to shut you up. Until you resorted to name-calling, we had gone thus far without resorting to flaming in a conversation that is prone to flamewars.

I will restate what I said, and again use a very recognizable comparison to re-enforce. If you seek to change the social acceptance and attitude towards MUDs that break the DIKU License through forum lobbying, you are more than welcome. If everything stayed the same, there would never be any progression. But, as this community largely feels very strongly about the DIKU Licensing issue, you should expect before you make even your first post that by siding with others whose acts have already been judged by the online society as unethical, that you put your own motives and opinions into ethical fire.

I'm not judging you, beyond the fact that you insinuated that I am some sort of zealot. If I were to politically lobby against women's rights in the workplace, because I honestly believed that, genetically, they could not do as well as men in certain fields of work - I would be ready for and even expect the social backlash, as I recognize that my point-of-view(whether or not it is valid) would be vehemetly disagreed with and possibly even viewed as unethical.

In summary, if you are prepared to lobby for a change of the social status quo, know that when you prod at a sensitive issue that you should be ready for backlash(possibly flames in the case of an online society). If you cannot accept that, then(as you are told if you desire to become a political lobbyist) you probably do not feel strongly enough about your opinion to really want to change the status quo.

---

Back to the thread itself, though - all of this talk of ethics and sociology originates from my response to Matt's statement that law should be the pencil that draws the ethics line for online code. I personally believe that the DIKU License should be respected for what DIKU has given the community, but either way - I have mostly just been using the laws of sociology(particularly online sociology, which tends to be unique and is very interesting to me) to explain the issue.

[Murpe]

I know this might be out of context, but has anyone from the original DIKU team actually brought a case against any said license violators and took them to court?

-- M

[Shane]

To be fair, what you seemed to have said was that Medievia AND Matt were both icons of unethical behavior, and it did seem as if you were then telling Nhl that he was going to suffer a little guilt by association in taking up any argument in their defense.

As I said earlier, I am somewhat confused how Matt is some sort of a symbol for unethical behavior.

I have a feeling there was a miscommunication somewhere along the way, but the wording of that post did come across as somewhat inflamatory, at least to me, even though I am not connected with either Nhl nor Matt.  Matt seems to have taken the accusation without even acknowledging it.

[Shane]

This right here... Mat and Medievia, both symbols of unethical behavior. And then the bit about questioning nhl's values.

[Shane]

Weird. Didn't post, then double post. Sorry.

[Sombalance]

So, if someone created a new MUD using the DIKU code, but stripped out all of the credit information related to DIKU no one would complain as long as they don't make money off of it?

I went back and reread the posts in this forum and I think you (DonathinFrye) were probably on the money when you said
It does make DIKU sound like the little brother you need to protect from the bullies, but it sort of explains the level of intensity applied to this issue.

Another thing I've wondered is why does the DIKU team have to sue for copyright infringement? Base on the blue screen at the beginning of all the DVD's I watch, it is a federal crime. Couldn't they as the original copyright holders, file a claim?

Sombalance

[Shane]

"Though many jurisdictions impose criminal penalties for certain blatant acts of copyright infringement and may try to stop certain infringing imports at the border, copyright infringement is still mainly prosecuted through private lawsuits by the copyright holder or their exclusive licensees. When successful, these lawsuits will typically impose monetary damages against the infringer as well as injunctions against future infringing uses."

Also, I found this interesting.

"The failure of a copyright holder to bring a timely lawsuit against known infringers may later block such a claim by establishing an implied license, as may other acts or omissions that could informally signal consent to use the work."

[Sombalance]

Simply because the majority of copyright cases are handled privately, it doesn't mean that is the only option. In a situation like this, where "no profit" is part of the issue, a private lawsuit for monatary damages would probably not be productive and would be expensive for the original copyright holders.

I suspect (but do not know one way or the other) that the DIKU team is also limited to not profitting from the DIKU code. which may impact their ability to consider monatary damages in a civil case.

Sombalance

[the_logos]

DonathinFyre wrote:
So in other words, you don't have any evidence but since it is "commonly accepted" none is required. I'm curious in what field of social science you believe that the assertion that the MUD community supports your personal interpretation of the Diku license is commonly accepted?

The real answer is 'none' of course, because there's never been any real research on this question, and thus there is no real evidence for it.

Let's not forget notifying the DIKU authors that you're running a DIKU. You and someone else (Emil) have asserted that the majority of DIKU-derived MUDs follow the license or the spirit of the license, but nobody's yet demonstrated that they've audited the majority of MUDs and somehow discovered proof that all of them notified the DIKU creators.

I'm also not aware of any proof that Medievia, or any other MUD supposedly violating the profit clause, is turning a profit. Do you have some? Have you seen their financial statements? If so, please, share them with us. Share the evidence with us.

In the real world, evidence is required, and your assertions don't appear to be backed up by any but your favorite type "common knowledge." Sounds like the sort of common knowledge that held the earth was flat to me, though no doubt you're going to reply that my refusal to recognize this "common knowledge" makes me unethical or something.

--matt

[the_logos]

Sometimes there's just no point in responding to silly accusations and dignifying the attacker thereby.

--matt

[the_logos]

No. Which probably says a lot about how much they actually care about this issue or how much they think they've been harmed.

--matt

[Shane]

Likely some district attorney, or the Attorney General of the US(!?) would have to sign on to make it a criminal prosecution if the mud is based here. Just getting here to make the official accusation might be more trouble than it is worth to the Diku team.

I guess my point was that it appears that by and large the blue screen on DVD's is just a scare tactic, but that the majority of the time it doesn't happen that way.

[Shane]