[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,16:43) My interpration? Even you agreed that by omitting the credits they're in violation of the Diku licence. Are you now withdrawing that opinion? I'd be interested to hear how you believe the wording of the licence allows you to remove the credits.

No, what I said is that the license appears to require the credits (though again, I am not a lawyer) but that I don't believe the license necessarily applies to them.

--matt

[Shane]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,16:20) Originally Posted by (Shane @ May 01 2006,18:59) It appears the Wikipedia entry is saying that a sufficient length of time allowing a known infringer to use something establishes the implied license. It says "it may" - it's also Wikipedia, written by random people on the internet. But please read my link on implied licences. You might find this link on Time Limits For Filing Suit of more interest: "Any infringement action must be brought within three years after the infringement occurs. {FN82: 17 U.S.C. §507(b)} But in many instances, the infringement is of a continuing nature, such as distributing copies or performing the work. For example, consider the making of a large number of infringing copies and distributing them until all the copies have been sold. If it is over three years since the copies were made, the copyright owner can’t sue for infringement of the reproduction right but can sue for infringement of the distribution right if any copies were sold within the previous three years. However, if the copyright owner acts in such a way as to lead people to believe that he or she will not bring an infringement suit, such as ignoring open infringement for a long time, with no other reason preventing him from bringing suit, a legal principle called “laches” may prevent a later suit. The determination is very fact-intensive, based on the actions (or lack of action) of the copyright owner, the amount of delay, and the prejudice worked against the infringer by the delay." Thus if Medievia were to shut down today, three years from now they would indeed be untouchable.

I did read your link on implied license, and what I was saying was that you appeared not to notice that there may be other ways of creating the implied license than the very limited scope allowed for in that one, single link you provided.

If you do a little more reading on laches, I think you will find that your interpretation of this most recent link is not correct.

"In general, when a party has been guilty of laches in enforcing his right by great delay and lapse of time, this circumstance will at common law prejudice and sometimes operate in bar of a remedy which is discretionary for the court to afford."

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l056.htm

In other words, it is not a matter of it applying 3 years after the last infraction. It is a matter of it applying at the descretion of the court for any amount of time the court might deem considerable. The 3 year limitation and laches are two distinct things, the way I read that.

Yeah, and uh, disclaimer, I too am no lawyer!

[DonathinFrye]

Originally Posted by Quote (Soleil @ May 01 2006,22:23) As far as I know it, Aardwolf has NOT yet transitioned over to the code that Hans looked at and that is being done in a 'clean-room' environment. Therefore, as Matt has said, they are doing the exact same thing we are.. they are selling in-game items for money, right now, based on their DIKU code. Unbelievable...after all these years, you finally admit you're based on Diku.

If Medievia admitted that it is DIKU-derived then it would probably earn back a little bit of respect and trust. Even still, to take someone else's work and then not credit them at all is hard to validate.

As far as the charging in-game for perks goes - I do not agree with it on a fair-gameplay level. And I do not agree with Aardwolf breaking the DIKU License by charging for in-game items(although it is used to keep the MUD running, and not as a profession). I do respect their open co-operation and their crediting of their origins.

In the end, as far as this thread goes, Medievia remains the most accessable and complete example of DIKU license-breaking, which is why they are used as an example and not Aardwolf.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ May 01 2006,22:44) Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,16:43) My interpration?  Even you agreed that by omitting the credits they're in violation of the Diku licence. Are you now withdrawing that opinion?  I'd be interested to hear how you believe the wording of the licence allows you to remove the credits. No, what I said is that the license appears to require the credits (though again, I am not a lawyer) but that I don't believe the license necessarily applies to them.

Based on what?

Do you disagree that Even if you completely replace the program with new code, nonliteral elements also protected by the original program’s copyright are likely to remain and infringe?

And if you believe the Diku licence doesn't apply to them, what else do you feel would give Medievia the legal right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform or display the work publically? These are exclusive rights granted under copyright law, they have to come from somewhere.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (DonathinFrye @ May 01 2006,22:57) If Medievia admitted that it is DIKU-derived then it would probably earn back a little bit of respect and trust. Even still, to take someone else's work and then not credit them at all is hard to validate.

If they restored all the credits as well, perhaps. There would still be negative remarks about the selling of items, but far less than they get now.

[Shane]

Wikipedia's reliability

Let's not get too bogged down in the source wars either please. I am merely a lay person where the law is concerned, and we are going through all this together here to learn what it is that is true, what makes people feel one way or the other about Diku issues, and so forth.

Whatever else may be true or untrue about Wikipedia, the organization is not just a bunch of yahoos posting whatever they like about every topic they can get their hands on.

[Spoke]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,15:11) The difference is that Aardwolf is creating a second mud completely from scratch - totally independent of the existing mud. Once again, the link I listed states "Although there is no case law on this point, it would seem that the only way to break the chain of infringing works is by some extraordinary act, such as a clean room implementation". What Aardwolf is doing isn't truly "clean room" (because some of the developers of the new mud also worked on the old mud) but it's a much cleaner break than just modifying the existing code until you feel it's no longer recognisable.

From a practical point of view though, how could you tell if they did or did not redo everything from scratch once the code has changed so much that it is no longer recogniseable?

It seems that we could keep debating about derivative works forever, but, if not even a code audit would suffice for Medievia team to come out clean (ie. people accepting that they are not a Diku derivative any longer), then I do see little value on even worrying about these lengthy discussions.

I guess it is important to mention also that you can change all the background structures and functions yet have the game look the same as it has always looked like, so, for a player there would be no difference between the "derivative" and the "from-scratch" versions.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Shane @ May 01 2006,23:26) Whatever else may be true or untrue about Wikipedia, the organization is not just a bunch of yahoos posting whatever they like about every topic they can get their hands on.

I'm just pointing out that anyone on this thread could very easily change or add to the wikipedia entry.

[Soleil]

Originally Posted by Unbelievable...after all these years, you finally admit you're based on Diku.

Did you not read History of Medievia ? It states that in the first and last paragraph. That link has said that for quite some time.

Originally Posted by What is your objection to restoring the credits?

You'd have to ask Vryce that. I don't really know for sure. I would assume though that it's because Vryce does not feel he needs to credit them. *shrug* As I wrote in my first post, he has told me that he tried to communicate with the diku authors way back in the beginning to help them with fixes and he was told they weren't interested. Maybe it's just bitter feelings from the start but honestly, Medievia is the work of Vryce and all the people who have worked on it since it's inception. Medievia is the vision and work of Michael Krause and all the people that have volunteered their time and talents to help him with it. Call me disrespectful or whatever, but no one in Denmark created Medievia. The engine it was originally built on has nothing to do with what it is today.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Spoke @ May 01 2006,23:33) Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,15:11) The difference is that Aardwolf is creating a second mud completely from scratch - totally independent of the existing mud.  Once again, the link I listed states "Although there is no case law on this point, it would seem that the only way to break the chain of infringing works is by some extraordinary act, such as a clean room implementation".  What Aardwolf is doing isn't truly "clean room" (because some of the developers of the new mud also worked on the old mud) but it's a much cleaner break than just modifying the existing code until you feel it's no longer recognisable. From a practical point of view though, how could you tell if they did or did not redo everything from scratch once the code has changed so much that it is no longer recogniseable?

You couldn't - however by inviting a member of the Diku team to track the progress, they pretty neatly sidestep the issue.

Originally Posted by It seems that we could keep debating about derivative works forever, but, if not even a code audit would suffice for Medievia team to come out clean (ie. people accepting that they are not a Diku derivative any longer), then I do see little value on even worrying about these lengthy discussions.

Well I think the issue is more that they wouldn't allow a code audit - combined with the fact that they actually admit they've just modified the Diku code (rather than started over).

Originally Posted by I guess it is important to mention also that you can change all the background structures and functions yet have the game look the same as it has always looked like, so, for a player there would be no difference between the "derivative" and the "from-scratch" versions.

You can, yes. However the second Circuit has adopted the "abstraction-filtration-comparison" three part test to analyse non-literal infringement claims in computer software.

[Shane]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,17:45) Originally Posted by (Shane @ May 01 2006,23:26) Whatever else may be true or untrue about Wikipedia, the organization is not just a bunch of yahoos posting whatever they like about every topic they can get their hands on. I'm just pointing out that anyone on this thread could very easily change or add to the wikipedia entry.

Anyone can, but you can easily check and see if someone has.

Your understanding of laches seems flawed, as I pointed out earlier, and gave source for, if you are still interested.

[Sombalance]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ April 30 2006,23:37) quote=Shane,April 30 2006,23:32 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. Yes, they'd need the cooperation of government prosecutors for a criminal prosecution, but the scale here is so miniscule that they wouldn't waste their time on it. They have limited resources and are going to reserve those resources for cases where there is real or potential harm being done. --matt

I've heard this argument before, but I just don't buy it.

Is this less of a crime than the guy who steals the $200 tv from someone's house? By what criteria do you consider this to miniscule? From my understanding (which is far from complete), the amount of money made by either party on the product is not a factor in copyright law.

Has anyone actually been involved in a copyright dispute that resulted in some level of criminal charges being brought forth? Is the process of filing a claim drastically more involved that filing a claim for theft of private property?

Sombalance

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Shane @ May 01 2006,23:53) Your understanding of laches seems flawed, as I pointed out earlier, and gave source for, if you are still interested.

Actually it was me who pointed it out to you, as something you might find of interest, as I felt it was a more reliable source than Wikipedia.  The "laches" principle is a potential issue, certainly, but it's not one you can easily rely on one way or another: "The determination is very fact-intensive, based on the actions (or lack of action) of the copyright owner, the amount of delay, and the prejudice worked against the infringer by the delay".

[Sombalance]

Originally Posted by (Sombalance @ May 01 2006,05<!--emo&[img http://www.topmudsites.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif[/img])]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.

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ May 01 2006,07:46) I fail to see any evidence which would suggest that. The fact is that the Diku team are the copyright holders - they don't need to follow their own licence, because as the authors they already have the rights granted under copyright law.

Kavir, I based my assumption on this part of the DIKU license:
You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in
any possible way. You may under no circumstances charge money for
distributing any part of dikumud - this includes the usual $5 charge
for "sending the disk" or "just for the disk" etc.
By breaking these rules you violate the agreement between us and the
University, and hence will be sued.
Not knowing what the agreement between the DIKU team and the university might be, I guessed (and I could be wrong) that it might also limit there ability to profit from the code.


And, thanks for the link to the article. It helped to add some light to this topic.

Sombalance

[Splork]

Thats an incredibly ignorant attitude to have towards the Denmark team Sol. Especially when you should consider the fact at how different your life and game could very well of been if it hadn't been for this "engine" that your husband used to create it with.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Sombalance @ May 02 2006,00:08) Not knowing what the agreement between the DIKU team and the university might be, I guessed (and I could be wrong) that it might also limit there ability to profit from the code.

The wording of the licence would imply that, but whatever that agreement was, it's the Diku team who hold the copyright. And the copyright holder is the one with the exclusive rights, unless they've signed them away (although not even that is permanent).

[Soleil]

Originally Posted by Thats an incredibly ignorant attitude to have towards the Denmark team Sol. Especially when you should consider the fact at how different your life and game could very well of been if it hadn't been for this "engine" that your husband used to create it with.

I honestly mean no offense. I will admit that its possible that without them creating diku, Medievia may have never started, but I doubt that. As far as I know it, Vryce was testing out many different options. But much of this is above my level of expertise because I was not 'around' in those days. I don't like to write about things I'm not sure about around here, and talking about the origins of Medievia when I wasn't around to have first-hand knowledge is one of those things. For more direct answers, email Vryce.

I've been through this for many many years now and if you are t