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

It's off-topic, so I'll PM you.

--matt

Could you not make personal insults please? If you feel anyone else has made insults to you or someone else in this thread, ask them not to or PM the moderator for the sub-forum. But returning in kind is not the answer. I'm surprised this post has not yet been editted. Isn't this a moderated thread?

John has a point. Let's try to avoid strongly-loaded terms in this thread. This thread has been admirably light on the flames so far. Let's keep it that way. I would prefer not to have to moderate as it just causes bad feelings.

--matt

Discussing Matt's ethics in-depth would both be off-topic and pointless. I could start another thread about it, but you could research itself, because another thread would immediately resort to flaming.

I was not attempting to guilt-trip Nhl. I was pointing out, as I've tried to say several times, that when you decide to publically lobby an argument that goes against a given social norm/rule, you should be ready for the inevitable ethical judgements that will be made against you by those who believe strongly in the status quo. I, myself, am aware of this rule of thumb, and do not think any less of Nhl's opinions on the DIKU license. Any fuzziness on what motivates his opinion on this issue is not really important for the argument.

See here:

"These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most "compilations" may be registered as "literary works""

Compiling the source code creates either a "derivative work" or a "copy", depending on the specifics of the compilation process. Modifying the code creates a "derivative work". Creating backups as a "copy". Letting other people connect to it is a public "performance" or "display". All of these are exclusive rights under copyright law.

the_logos April 30 2006,23:13
You keep repeating this argument in different forms.

How about the evidence that the Medievia representatives provide themselves? Like for instance Soleil repeatably requesting that Medievia be added to the 'professional games' list, which, if I recall right, has as one of the basic requirement that at least one staff member must be working full time on it? If you make a living from running a mud, (in fact, support a family on it), is that not making a profit?

Or how do you define 'turning a profit' yourself?

In a community such as ours, there are unwritten rules dictating behavior. Where I come from, that's articulated as 'Don't be a dick'. Contract or no, lawsuit or no, you don't f*** your parents over, and one would be hard-pressed to say that DIKU wasn't the father of the mud revolution, even if it wasn't the originator.

To use their contribution to our community inappropriately is not only inethical, it's dishonorable.

There is clear evidence that they do not have the diku or merc credits. Such credits are required by the Diku and Merc licences, and therefore it is clear to me that Medievia is not following those licences.

Do you disagree?

You may find of interest.  In particular:

If you register the work before the infringement begins or within three months of the date the work ispublished, you may be entitled to recover standard damages from the infringer, in addition to your actual damages:

* your attorney fees and court costs, and

* "statutory damages" -- special damages of up to $100,000 per infringement -- without having to establish what damage you actually suffered.

The Diku team could also claim that by using the mud commercially, the user was avoiding paying for the Diku II licence.

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,

Heya. You consistently seem to misunderstand me, and perhaps that's largely my fault. My points are all over the place at times. I am not saying a violation has not occured, I am saying the violation may well be unenforceable.

These are aspects of the situation I feel you have yet to address.

Whether we like it or not, there are other considerations over time than just the Diku team's license. Mud's very specifically are a strange amalgum between normal literature and programming, such that I doubt, for example, that the world design could be coopted by the Diku team as a derivitive work should the mud be moved to another code base.

It just seems your view on this is narrower than what evidence I can find just fishing around the internet would seem to indicate.

It would be a copyright infringement.  The licence is what you hold up as your defence. If the licence were deemed unenforcable, you'd have no defence against the Diku team's claims of copyright infringement.

I already cleared that up for you.  The US Copyright Office has stated that "".

I've provided links for each of my statements.

It occurs to me that the term "unenforceable" possibly has a meaning in legaleze that I am not familiar with.

To further clarify what I am talking about, say the Diku team accused you of making a derivative work of theirs. You are well known to have worked with Diku, so perhaps there is room for some suspicion in their minds, or whatever.

If they make that accusation in court, do you think that they are assumed to be correct until you prove them wrong, or do they not at the least have the burden of proof that the program you made is indeed a derivative work? How are they to do that if they have no right to look at the program?

That is what I mean by "unenforceable".

An implied licence - according to Wikipedia. However an implied licence is "created by law in the absence of an actual agreement between the parties. Implied licenses arise when the conduct of the parties indicates that some license is to be extended between the copyright owner and the licensee, but the parties themselves did not bother to create a license"

(Ref:

However we already have a licence.

It would be a derivative of both. If you incorporate chunks of Star Wars fiction into a modified version of DikuMUD, for example, then you end up with something which is a derivative of both Diku and Star Wars.

Well you're talking about burden of proof, and that's really going to depend on each specific case. In the case of Medievia, I'd say it's pretty clear cut.

If they had good reason to believe my mud was a Diku derivative then they could try and legally force me to reveal the source code, yes (although they wouldn't need to - I'd just show them, if they honestly thought my mud was a derivative).

I'm not at all sure why you think that any sort of mixture makes it harder to protect. The world is protected, the code is protected. Changing part of the whole or even 99% of the whole does not exempt the rest.

As for enforceability, it's likely that if a court felt that there was a case to answer, they would take action to ensure that the code was available to that court, the same way as any sort of evidence or documentation can be brought to a court.

There is only one thing with which one might disagree. They clearly do not have Diku or Merc credits listed, but, other than the code audit done on the stolen code 10 years ago, there is no proof that at this moment they are actually running a Diku or Merc derivative MUD.

Seeing how someone in the Diku team seemed satisfied with changing the structure, functions, etc behind the sceness as a condition to not being called Diku derivative in the case of Aardwolf (I do not really feel like looking it up but if any has a problem accepting that as true, PM me and I will do the lookup for you in these forums). Therefore, if we do not really know (eventhough we may be suspicious about it because they seem to have lied in the past about it), I feel pressed to assume that they learned from those past mistakes and actually rehauled they handful of code lines and code structures that 10 years ago made them a Diku derivative.

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 would be similar to adverse possession of real estate if it indeed works that way. It is not entirely outside the scope of the law as I know it, in any event.

Burden of proof, yes. And I think it is entirely possible that given Medievia's past dealings, if the Diku team were to bring suit that it would not be at all unlikely that an injunction to look at the code of Medievia would be forthcoming.

Coming from me it means little, but hehe. I don't know if I will ever have the energy to look more into the implied license thing or not.

Oh, well, that wound its way through my head more in relation to in the final weighing of all the circumstances what the final decision would be. One school of thought might have the world design itself as a derivative work of the code, such that moving the whole world to another codebase wouldn't even be allowed. I suspect that it WOULD be allowed.

Oh, well, that wound its way through my head more in relation to in the final weighing of all the circumstances what the final decision would be.  One school of thought might have the world design itself as a derivative work of the code, such that moving the whole world to another codebase wouldn't even be allowed.  I suspect that it WOULD be allowed.

P.S. this is getting seriously annoying.  Anytime one of my posts is supposed to begin a new page, it doesn't show up, so I repost it and get two.

Watch...

Voila.  Now my original post is right above.  I even went so far as to go back to the home page and hit the thread from there, then refresh.  

Bizarre.

PPS Also, series quotes get messed up. The tags in my edit appear correct, but you see that some of the quoted text now appears as regular text in the post itself.

Making a living or bringing in substantial revenue doesn't equal turning a profit. Profit = revenue minus costs. Salaries are one of those costs. A fortune 500 company could have 20,000 employees and fail to turn a profit. Medievia is owned by a company, and that company has certain costs, such as server costs, bandwidth, and salaries. If they simply adjust their salaries, they can easily ensure there is no profit. A salary is a cost that is no different from paying for a server.

So, without seeing their financial statements, there is no way to know whether they are turning a profit.

--matt

Oh, I agree that they're not displaying the DIKU or Merc credits. That's only relevant if you assume that the licenses are applicable to them though, and that's never been settled in court either.

--matt

It is relevant to the majority of DIKU-derived MUDs that do credit the authors and not attempt to make a profit off of the MUD. It does not need to be settled in court for the community here to say that it is wrong to do what they are doing. This has been repeated over and over again, by myself and others.

While it might be a difficult battle to fight in court(though certainly not impossible, considering how the judicial system works in this country), it is more clear cut within our community. Yes, there are those who side on both sides - however, the majority here has established an obvious social norm.

If you want to lobby against that, do so - skirting around the legal issues is all theoretical, and does not change the societal status quo. You'd need to show us philosophical insight into why it should not be considered "wrong" to do what License Breakers are doing.

Aardwolf invited Hans(of the DIKU team) in to inspect their code to give the stamp of approval. Hans inspected the code and said that he was satisfied that there was no longer any DIKU in the codebase.

Medievia once claimed that they had done the same thing, but KaVir exposed that they were lying and showed the DIKU that was still evident in their code. They then eventually claimed that they had rewritten the code from scratch again; however, this time they did not offer to let anyone, including the DIKU team, to inspect the code. If they allowed Hans to inspect the code, as Aardwolf had, and Hans found that they were telling the truth - then Medievia would have reckonciled its ethical issues with many here in the community(myself included), I'm sure.

However, Medievia has a history of lying about the DIKU License and secrecy; that is their choice. They understand that it will make them be a target of open ethical judgement. Aardwolf took the route of working alongside the DIKU team for approval, and this is why I have never heard anyone attack Aardwolf on this issue, besides Matt.

If the code has been redone, then the credits don't matter, I think is the point.

I do wonder though if Matt's argument is that he feels there is absolutely no ethical problem with Medievia ever, or just that there is no hard evidence of it going on right now. I've said it before, just the history of the place makes it hard not to think bad thoughts about their overall professionalism.

Until participating in this thread, my overall impression was to be annoyed at the Diku crowd for carrying on about this all over the place, and I still feel it gets brought up at odd and unpredictable times, and in some cases with a tone that is offputting. Still, I think my new tactic is just to point out all the good, free to use and easily licensed software that has existed and that continues to come out such as DGD or Coffeemud or this new MUDMAKER site.

My main concern is that people not be put off of world building entirely by some sort of fear that making a mud puts them in some sort of legal jeapardy, or that they feel they have no options to go professional should their work turn out to be marketable. There are presently a lot of options, so my old outlook is somewhat changed.

I do think that this particular outlook is positive and worthwhile. There are DIKU alternatives to text-mmorpg creation that would allow for you to legally "go professional", assuredly. I take nothing away from those, especially as some them can be used quite well. I just uphold the standards that if someone creates a codebase for public use, and in turn allows for hundreds and hundreds of MUDs to be created, their wishes should be considered.

In the case of Medievia and lack of evidence; socially(not judicially), the burden of proof that they are not lying again and should be trusted to have finally honored the DIKU license is upon them. If they wanted to be looked at in a better way within the community, they would invite Hans or the like in to inspect their code in the same manner that Aardwolf has.

Not that I believe for a second that Medievia isn't a derivative, but one has to wonder what they gain from not acknowledging the contributions of the creators.  Medievia V is clearly based on Medievia IV, which was shown to be a DIKU derivative.  (Not even Team Vryce has claimed that they did a clean-room implementation.  They only claim that Medievia V has a lot more code and therefore the DIKU contribution is not important, oblivious to all legal definitions of a derivative work.)

It doesn't hurt to say "And thanks to... ... for providing a free tool which eventually grew into Medievia V.", include them in the credits as the DIKU license stipulates, and otherwise act like decent human beings, rather than bite the hand that feeds (*) them in an arrogant false "history".

(*): I almost wrote "fed", but Medievia wouldn't be where it is now without the foundation it used.

Donathin wrote:
I've never attacked Aardwolf. I've pointed out that it is a DIKU and it charges money for things in game. Both of those are indisputable. You may draw whatever conclusions you like from that, but it's only an attack to someone who believes there's something wrong with being a DIKU and charging for in-game items. I do not.

--matt

I'm thinking the "DIKU community", if I may be allowed to coin a phrase, is satisfied with them because they opened their code for inspection, thus demonstrating good faith.

But these same "DIKU community" people continually state that one of the reasons they are unhappy with Medievia is because Medievia charges money for things and is a DIKU, thus violating, in their minds, the profit clause. Aardwolf does exactly the same thing. It's just more evidence, to me, that many of the attacks on Medievia are about personal dislike of Vyrce rather than principle.

So we're clear, Aardwolf has -not- completed its clean-room transition and is still a DIKU selling in-game stuff.

--matt

The fact that this issue is constantly brought up again and again by many, many different of people is evidence of what the MUD Community thinks. The fact that other DIKU derived MUDs credit the DIKU team in their log-in is evidence of what the social norm on this issue is. I, as anyone else, speak of my opinion formed from my knowledge on the community and sociology.

It does not take a brain-surgeon to construe what is the accepted social norm when dealing with the DIKU License. You can twist whatever words you want to make me look like I am not credible, Matt, but your efforts are transparent. Whatever backwards arguments you might make, this forum is not a court of law - I don't need DNA and statistical evidence to prove what is socially proven overwhelmingly. If I were to document every DIKU MUD, show you their log-in sequence, then investigate to make sure that they did not charge players for their services, you would simply move on to some other word-twisting argument in an attempt to do whatever it is, exactly, you are trying to do.

Aardwolf has satisfied the DIKU team's inspection that they are clean of DIKU code, and thus, their co-operation and evidence seems to have satisfied the community. Again, do not assume I speak for everyone in the community. Common sense and social rules allows you to draw your own conclusions - if you want to argue things that aren't true in an attempt to attack my credibility, that is your choice.

I am fair, Matt. I do not know Vryce, beyond that he is demonized within the community for his open defiance of the DIKU License. I do not personally demonize him, or Medievia. I do personally disagree with Medievia's decision making.

As far as my own personal opinion on Aardwolf goes - that is not something that needs to be part of this thread. I do not agree with any free-to-play game charging money for in-game perks, on a gameplay level. However, each admin chooses their personal business model; the point of this post is the DIKU License, and as far as it goes with Aardwolf, Aardwolf seems to have satisfied Hans of the DIKU team. That's enough for me.

It should be noted that if Medievia did the same thing, I would think nothing less of them, ethically, than I do Aardwolf. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

I do not disagree with this. I do not fall in with the "pack mentality" when deciding my ethics. I have described my reasons for my defense of the DIKU License; other reasonings may be the same or different.

On other issues within the MUDing community, I am oftentimes considered progressive and boat-rocking. I have my own personal set of ideas, ethics, and opinions; in the case of the DIKU License, I happen to agree with the majority.

Now let's get some self-moderation and move away from the flame-direction the moderator has been leading this conversation in the past few posts. The topic is the license, not myself, and not Matt.

My mentioning of Matt before was only meant to use an example to show that when you lobby for an idea that offends a strongly defended social norm(such as the DIKU License), you should assume that you put your own ethical cards out on the line. I have lobbied for unpopular political/social ideas with U.S. Government officials and have actively protested social norms; there is a rule when you do this - the rule is that you accept that your own ethics and morality is laid open for judgement when you do this.

It is no different in internet society.

Yet they themselves admit that all they've done is change the code over time - and according to the link I pointed out earlier, "There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement, particularly if the reimplementer had access to the source code of the original program, even if none of the original source code remains".

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.

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 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.

Well as I pointed out, the licence would be their defence against claims of copyright infringement. If the licence was somehow not applicable to them, they'd have no defence.

Donathin wrote:
How many times does this need repeating? Aardwolf is still a DIKU. Aardwolf has satisfied one of the five members of the DIKU team that the re-write that is in progress meets clean room standards. When that re-write is complete and they start running it, then they will not be a DIKU. The current Aardwolf is a DIKU. It says so right on the login screen. Further, as Derek (Aardwolf's owner) stated, Hans disagrees with their selling of items in-game while still a DIKU, but Derek has agreed to disagree with him.

I would never assume you represent anyone but yourself, don't worry.

He is regularly demonized by some people in the community for openly defying what those people believe the DIKU license means and to whom it applies. He's supported by thousands of people in the community who play his game, and I suspect most people in the community just want to play their MUD.

--matt

I'm honestly not interested in a legal arugment with you. It's like having an argument about coding between two non-coders. In any case, there's no need to argue about it really. I've already obtained an opinion from an IPR attorney (an actual expert in other words) on this specific situation, and in any case, the legal avenue is clear: The DIKU creators are free to sue if they believe it's worth it and there is a case.

Law is decided in a court, not by third parties arguing on an internet forum.

--matt

Different people have a different amount of tolerance. Some people only care about stripping out the credits, and as a result don't care about Aardwolf. Others will overlook small amounts of money as long as it is only used to support the mud, and as a result tend to overlook Aardwolf.

Personally I consider any licence violation bad, but my main reason for responding is to bring those violations to light. Medievia constantly deny any wrongdoing, and as such I feel compelled to draw attention to what they're doing (the website I put together in 2000 was purely focused on revealing the facts). Aardwolf, on the other hand, admit their wrongdoing outright - there's not really anything I can add to that.

On the other hand, take a look at other muds over the years which have violated licences and then denied wrongdoing, and you'll see my responses are much like those I've made towards Medievia.

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

Yes, but you'd have to stop violating the licence first - that means no more changes, no more compilations, no more backups...and no more access to the public.  Then wait a few years, and you should be okay.

So are you saying that if Medievia just said, "Yep, we're breaking your interpretation of the DIKU license. Tough." you'd stop agitating against them more or less completely?

Hang on, while I wrote this, you just said they admitted they're a DIKU. Can we expect you to stop now?

--matt

It's too bad I already have a signature.

Right now, we have two MUDs. One is working with the DIKUMUD creators to establish a "clean" implementation, as well as crediting them for their role in making their game possible.

The other is taking a big dump on the DIKU lawn, going so far as to insult the DIKU team's contribution, even though it provided the foundation for their present household income, and they still use a derivative of it.

If you can't understand why people would be more annoyed with one than the other, I don't know what else to say. In any event, the behavior of other games doesn't justify the behavior of Medievia. "He did it too!" doesn't make you less guilty of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

What is your objection to restoring the credits?

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.