Despite the fact that I tried to organize a lawsuit against Medievia on behalf of the DIKU license holders I had, foolishly, never actually read the license, instead relying on the interpretations of the license bandied about by Kavir and others with an interest in this area.

I've got a fair bit of experience with licensing, both in terms of being the licensee (technology, the rights to Feist's work) and in terms of being the licensor (Rapture, Achaea codebase, our java client) and have spent countless hours pouring over the contracts for those various licenses and dealing with the lawyers on both sides. I'm not a lawyer and I'm especially not a lawyer who specializes in IP work but I have enough practical experience to have a couple comments:

1. Whoever wrote this license had no business writing licenses. Total amateur hour.

2. The relevant bit of the license reads as follows:
"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."

We can ignore the distribution clause as selling people things in-game, or charging subscriptions for access has nothing to do with distribution of the DIKU code. So, we're left with the prohibition against profit. However, the license completely fails to define its terms and that clause, at least, has no inherent meaning. Everything I write below is applicable in the US and isn't intended for application in other countries as I'm not familiar with the legal codes of other countries or the tax implications of actions in other countries.

If you're an individual and you're running a mud that takes money for any reason, you may be violating the license. I say may be because that entire clause would likely just be thrown out by a court since it's impossibly vague. The law does not recognize the concept of a virtual business (ie where cost can offset revenue in order to turn all or a portion of that revenue) except where there is a stated intention to one day generate a profit.

For example, without incorporating as a company or declaring a sole proprietorship, you could decide that you are going to become a video game consultant. In that case, you could likely get away with deducting the cost of video games purchased (research) but only for a limited time. If you show no genuine effort at trying to become profitable, the IRS will quickly disallow those deductions.

Since hobbyist muds are, by definition, not trying to make a profit, the IRS would not recognize revenue coming in from players of the mud as being offset in any way by costs for running the mud. The mud isn't a business and thus expenses to support it do not offset revenue gained from it. In other words, you are actually legally obligated to report any money you get from your playerbase (in the case of a hobbyist mud taking money to pay for upkeep costs) as income because it IS profit/income.

On the other hand, since profit is so ill-defined it is easy to simply not make a profit if you treat your mud as a genuine commercial enterprise. Form a company, partnership, or LLC, and then just pay yourself a salary high enough that there's never a dime in profit. Or, form a hosting company whose sole job it is to host the DIKU being run by your other company, and make sure you charge the DIKU-running company an amount that ensures there is no profit to the DIKU-running company. There are a thousand ways to not show a profit for the enterprise while ensuring the individuals who work for the enterprise get money.

These are easy, essentially rock-solid ways to avoid violating the license. There's very little room to quibble here too since wiping out profit in this manner is both completely legal and quite common. The movie industry does it all the time, for instance. (Which is a good reason why one should never accept a percent of the front end. Always insist on the back end as it's MUCH MUCH harder to manipulate the back end figures.)

Anyway, the fact is, the DIKU license doesn't prevent people making money from DIKU. Ironically, it just prevents hobbyists from taking money from the playerbase to support the mud (as, again, that money is all profit regardless of whether you use it to support the mud or not).

I'm sure the inevitable argument is going to be that my solutions violate the spirit of the license and in fact that's probably true, though that's purely speculation on my part. I'm not a mindreader. Either way though, it's irrelevant. Contracts stand on their own and have to say -everything- because anything they don't say isn't relevant or applicable. It is, in fact, unfair to a licensee to assume that the intentions of the licensor matter. A licensee only gets the contract and cannot be expected to do anything but follow the letter of the contract. If the licensor doesn't consider it worthwhile to write a decent contract, that's the licensor's problem. It's why lawyers get paid so much and use legalese: Detail and un-ambiguity are expensive.

--matt

Firstly, yes, the Diku license is poorly written. It was, after all, written by a group of computing students who weren't even native English speakers - all they wanted to do was share their work while keeping it free for the players.

And as to whether it would stand up in court - that is debatable for all licenses, and could be argued either way with the Diku license. Until such time as it is, however, I think it is reasonable enough to accept the authors definition and honour their intentions.

No, it's not reasonable at all actually. People start projects based on the license, not on the mindreading what a group of different individuals thought 12 years ago. It's completely unreasonable to tell those people that they should have to figure out what the licensors meant rather than what the license everyone is so hot and heavy over -actually- says. Further, what the licensors think can and probably does change over time (which is also irrelevant). Licenses are not living documents. They're set in stone.

--matt

I don't think it's reasonable at all actually. People start projects based on the license, not on mindreading what a group of different individuals thought 12 years ago. It's completely unreasonable to tell those people that they should have to figure out what the licensors meant rather than what the license everyone is so hot and heavy over -actually- says. Further, what the licensors think can and probably does change over time (which is also irrelevant). Licenses are not living documents. They're set in stone.

Licenses are legal documents and only have meaning under the law. You're trying to slap extra clauses and definitions in this license when there are none.
--matt

The intentions of the license are relatively clear to anyone with a basic amount of common sense. The legalities of those intentions have been debated repeatedly over the years, by people far more qualified than you, and will most likely remain so until such time as they are tested in court.

I have no doubt they've been debated quite a bit but I have yet to see an expert weigh in either here or on TMC. I do know, however, that intentions simply don't really matter in a licensing agreement so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up. Contracts stand on their own and this one does not prohibit commercial activity, only profit.

Instead of this endless arguing between people like you and I who are not experts, why don't we get an expert opinion? Let's split the cost of a lawyer that specializes in IP and licensing and see what he or she thinks. It's such a simple, broken license that it won't cost more than $1000 or so to get an -actual- expert opinion.

Here's a good firm I've worked with before:
I suggest either Stanley Doty or Rodney Gilmore. They're both excellent. Mr. Doty in particular spends a large portion of his time dealing with technology and IP licenses and I'm meeting with him tomorrow about a technology license, as it so happens. I could happily bring this matter up with him then too if you're willing.

So, how about it? You seem pretty passionate about this issue (even going so far as to host a web page about it and offering to donate to my ill-fated attempt to help the DIKU authors sue Medievia) so I'm assuming you'd welcome an unbiased, expert opinion on the matter. (read: someone who has no interest in whether people use DIKU commercially or not and is a partner-level lawyer with a specialty in licensing.)

Interested in walking the walk or would you rather not have your illusions shattered?
--matt
P.S. Don't take this post insultingly. I was just shocked to read the DIKU license and discover that there is essentially no legal basis for a lot of the statements about what the DIKU license prohibits. There seems to be a sort of mythology that's grown up around the license, very little of which has a basis in IP and business law, at least as I'm familiar with it.

That would be very interesting to read about matt, unfortunately I'm to broke to contribute.

Oh, no problem. No need to apologize for that!

--matt

As I have repeatedly explained in the past (remember the Tolkien situation? Or the IMC license?) my primary goal has always been to help protect the interests of the creators, according to both the wording and the intent of the license. I have heard the views of lawyers (and people who have claimed to have spoken to lawyers) regarding the Diku license. I have seen your points argued many times over the years, and have studied many other licenses as well as drafting my own.

You agree that hobby muds are violating the license by accepting money, which only leaves us disputing those which are run as companies - and the only one of those that I am aware of is Medievia, which also violates the other parts of the license (such as the credits). So in short, no, I have no interest in giving you several hundred dollars to get an outside opinion on a hypothetical situation, particularly not at this time in my life.

Fair enough. I think I might pay to get an expert opinion anyway, which I'll happily post here and on TMC. If anyone else is interested enough to want to contribute, please let me know in the next week or so.

Incidentally though, hobbyist muds don't have to be violating the license. The solution is very simple and no different from a commercially-oriented solution: Form an LLC or a corporation and just never make a profit. It only costs about $250 to form an LLC somewhere like

I'll be happy to help any mud that wants it do this (not that there's much to help with. It's easy, albeit possibly intimidating for a first-timer). Letting muds accept money = better quality, more stable muds and that's good for all of us.

--matt

lgoos:
Until there's an actual legal opinion presented, I disagree with logos' assertion that a hobbyist mud which has ANY revenue (with no incorporation, LLC, etc.) is necessarily violating the license.

In the US, the IRS is a de facto legal yardstick for profit.

For IRS purposes, an individual can deduct hobbyist expenses from hobby income (but deducted expenses can't be greater than  hobby income).  The distinction between that and a business is that a hobby isn't intended to generate a profit. ($500 in server expenses/bandwidth and $500 in donations = no profit, so no income tax)

page 203, IRS publication 17

Just like a business, you're allowed to put a hobby "off to the side" from your other personal financial activity and compute whether or not you made a profit on it.

not a lawyer, and even if I were I wouldn't be YOUR lawyer, so here's hoping for Matt's inquiry :)

Stilton

Yeah, actually, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. I've used that provision before years ago when I was starting a movie review website as a hobby.

Thanks!

--matt

Hmm, IIRC there was a copyright lawyer at one of the Meet & Greet's of Ntanel's... if anyone has a log of that maybe his email addy was in it, or maybe someone (KaVir?) has kept it around, maybe he could review this little debate for free.

Just an idea.

His name is Matthew Becker, a Copyright/License Law Attorney, and he gave his email address as "matt@beckerlawfirm.com":



He has given me free legal advice on a different Diku issue in the past - but also stated that it was for personal use only.

Since DIKU was written in Denmark, does that mean US licence law doesn't affect it? I'm not a lawyer, and have no idea what danish licence law is like.

But since it was written in Denmark, wouldn't a US lawyer's opinion not legal? Of course, I have no idea how to contact danish licence lawyers, so this is moot.

There are U.S. lawyers that specialize in international copyright law. It's my understanding that most countries respect each other's copyrights (member countries are in something called the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, both of which protect copyrights internationally). I'm sure Denmark is a member of both conventions.

Of course, that's not to say that all countries are members. Read an interesting little article about Saddam Hussein and the great fantasy artist Jonathon Earl Bowser:

Surely, good sir, you do not suggest that the honourable Mr. Hussein would STEAL something! *horrified gasp* He has his critics, of course, but all they can do is point to little affairs like gassing the Kurds and invading Kuwait. While these lapses in judgement were clearly inappropriate, I think any man who sports such a fetching mustache must be given the benefit of the doubt.

--matt

I heard he stole that mustache from that wiley Marxist, Joseph Stalin? (Or was it the wiley Marxist, Groucho?)

The Diku team are indeed based in Denmark (despite registering their work with the US Copyright Office), and the specifics of copyright law do vary from country to country (as well as from case to case, and - within the US - depending on the laws in the federal circuit). Furthermore, until such time as a license is tested in court, there is no way to know for sure if it will hold up. The best way I can think of is probably to examine other similar cases and see what the outcome was.

However I believe the_logos is more interested in getting a professional outside opinion on how the license is most likely to be interpretted in a court of law. Hopefully he will provide a list of the exact questions asked, so that we can see the context in which they are answered. Unfortunately I still don't believe it will prove a great deal either way - the only way to really know how legally binding the license is is to test it in a court of law.

While that's true in a sense that's like saying "If I murder someone, I won't know if it's illegal under it's tried in a court of law." You don't, but if I walk up to someone on the street and shoot 'em I can be pretty sure it's illegal. Certain, no, as certainty is rarely theoretically possible but I can be darn close to certain. I'm not suggesting this license case is QUITE that clear-cut, but it's close.

The contract is pretty clear. It explicitly prohibits profit and says nothing about commercial activity. I understand that you're trying to protect what you believe were the intentions of the licensors at the time but while those may be relevant in certain forums they're not relevant in a legal forum provided the signing parties were in their right minds, not being deceived, not signing away inalienable rights, etc etc. I also have to say that given that you just said you don't think the issue is settled you're pretty strident that commercial activity in a DIKU is illegal.

And beyond all that, it's never going to get to court as the license holders suffer no damage from third parties generating revenue from DIKU. I mean, the DIKU guys clearly had no expectation of value from DIKU. As you say, they intended it to be used for free, etc etc.

--matt

Well IMO I believe most people (and MUDs, no matter if they are free or commercial) would benifit from a more lightened view of the DIKU licence regarding donations and accepting money. Personally I (we, Mythicscape) would benifit from it in a commercial aspect (aiming for a non-diku commercial game) in such a way that if smaller games started enforcing payments we would have a larger possible customer base.

Commercial games: If hobby muds and smaller games, especially those that is not as well developed as the commercial games (that can spend lots of money developing the games) would start to accept donations or even "force" people to pay2play it would benifit the larger  games. Players would then rather pay for a well developed game than a hobby game that enforces pay2play and hence the larger commercial games would get more customers.

Hobby games: Some of the games (not owned by rich admin kids) would greatly benifit from being able to accept donations for server upkeep costs and other monetary aspects such as for example banner advertisement campaigns. Being able to actually give something back (in-game) to the players that donate would greatly help out these games.

I cannot see anything "bad" with a lightened view of the diku licence regarding monetary donations and in-game rewards for anyone involved... In fact if someone contacted the licence holders and had them to lighten the licence it would benifit the mud community as a whole imo.

Ironically, the only ones I can see would NOT benifit from a more open licence to donations and in-game rewards are the muds currently already doing this (ie aardwolf, medievia to name a few). Atm they get money off their playerbases which they can use for gaining new players (advertisement) and keeping the game stable and running on good networks (expensive hosts). If other muds could do the same, the competition to them would increase.

But you already can. Nobody is going to stop you and it's not violating the license. You're innocent until proven guilty and as Kavir said, the issue won't be fully settled until it goes to court, which isn't going to happen.

I completely agree with you, btw. Allowing players to give money to what they love is beneficial. You have to wonder why anyone would object to that.
--matt

I do not understand why you find this a big issue. Are most of the most popular muds heavely modified away from Diku ?
What interest should hte creators of diku have in preventing sombody from running their mdu wuch used double as much time on programming than themself ?

Well, the creators of DIKU have very little interest in it. It's been going on for years and they've taken no action whatsoever.

But, hypothetically, their interest could be in the fact that they DO have restrictions attached to the use of DIKU and those restrictions should be respected. Even if you wrote enough code so that the original DIKU code represented only 1% of the code you're still based on DIKU and that requires that you follow the DIKU license. Indeed, even if you start with DIKU and eventually replace ALL your code, you're still based on DIKU and thus still responsible for the license.

Really, it should not be a big issue. Muds taking money hurts nobody and only helps their stability. Text definitely faces a long-term danger of extinction. Anything we can do (and of course I have a strong interest here) to promote their long-term stability and attractiveness to developers is beneficial to us all.

--matt

I don't know how Mediavia grew, but you've missed the point with Aardwolf. Aardwolf did not grow to its current size based on "taking money from players". It reached its current size doing the simple things necessary to make a mud popular, consistently. At that point it was necessary to accept donations a couple of times a year (read: not constantly) to be able to continue. It also did not grow to its current size by advertizing - until last week Aardwolf has never advertized in its entire 7 year history (maybe one or two usenet posts in year one). We were not even listed for the free voting on this site until last week so probably promoted ourselves less than most other muds.

This is no attempt to debate/justify the Diku license, that is a conversation I will be happy to have with the license owners and/or their legal representatives and nobody elses business. This post is to put the 'history' in the right order and point out that being able to accept donations won't suddenly make your mud popular overnight.

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.

KaVir:
His example was pretty extreme, but his point is quite valid: your continued claims that we can't know if something is ok until there's a court case is ridiculous.

Think about how many agreements you are a party to: rental/mortgage, credit cards, etc.  You don't really claim that you don't have any idea of what your rights and obligations are just because you've never argued about any of those contracts in court, do you?  Sure, some of the fine points might be debatable, but what we're discussing is not a fine point.

Just as a hobbyist mud is generally not operated with the intent to turn a profit, but you attack them too if they accept donations that don't pass some strange requirements that have nothing to do with the license, but are derived from an email from a single one of the authors many years after the codebase was released.

I believe that you're confusing gross revenue with profit.  gross profit = revenue - cost of generating that revenue.

For an activity in which the primary activity is delivering bits to the "customer", bandwidth and server is clearly a direct cost. Please cite the relevant sections of GAAP, the UK equivalent, or some other authoritative source if you disagree.

Stilton

kavir how do you know what the intentions of hte licensors are ? Have you asked them ?

The analogy was used to illustrate how silly it is to claim that we have no way of having any clue about whether something is legal or not (nevermind that you have loudly and repeatedly made legal assertions about the license). You are correct about civil vs. criminal law.


I don't care about the spirit of the license as it's not relevant, particularly in a discussion of contract and IP law.

There seems no doubt that Medievia is violating the license. They may or may not be violating the profit part of the license (we have no way of knowing whether they are showing a profit or not) but they certainly do seem to be violating the bits involving proper credit.

As for Rapture, you go ahead and try to find a way to use it without paying royalties. If the contract we use gives you a way to operate without paying royalties then you're not doing anything wrong. The contract IS the agreement, just as the DIKU license is the whole of the contract between DIKU licensor and licensee.

A commercial enterprise is generally defined as an enterprise with profit as the goal. Profit as the goal does not speak to whether or not profit is actually being made and the license only prohibits the licensee from making an actual profit.


I'm talking about what the IRS treats as profit, which is distinct from gross revenue (the US doesn't really use the term gross profit). As someone (Stilton I think) pointed out earlier, the IRS is, in the US (which is the only country I'm talking about here), the defacto, court-accepted definer of profit.

But this is the legal forum. I'm curious where in contract or IP law you find precedent for significantly altering a license based on the claimed intentions of the licensor.

But why are you the one making this argument? Even the licensors themselves apparently don't feel they've suffered damages significant enough to sue, even when offered money to assist in a lawsuit. You can make all the hypotheticals you want but we can all read the license, and the license is clear. Further, it's also clear that the licensors don't believe they've suffered significant damages, if any damages at all.

--matt

From a legal standpoint, what the licensors think isn't particularly relevant. The license is a contract, and a contract doesn't get modified by the claimed intentions of the licensor years later.

--matt

Whats all this nonsense about lightening the DIKU license about?

I’d like to know what business/economics school the making profit from/accepting donations for DIKU games proponents attend?

Free games have a highly competitive advantage that cannot be surpassed, other than paying people to play them, they are FREE. Only a moron would sacrifice this to raise funds to buy advertising space. In doing so a game would surrender this advantage to compete with profit centred games with weapons of their choosing.

“I see you are highly skilled with the sabre, would you like to choose firearms as the weapons of choice for the upcoming duel, go and trade your sabre for a flintlock while I load up my howitzer.”

That being the case the move would not benefit free game providers as a whole, but merely offer the more naive developers a fast-track to the gallows with certain P2P muds as the hangmen. In regard to offsetting operational costs you don’t have to be a rich kid to set up a game, that’s one of the great beauties of muds. Granted, in times past server space did cost an arm and a leg, but now it is relatively cheap – and in some cases free, especially considering the monthly tariff P2P muds charge. A single developer could easily run a game for the price of their yearly subscription; we aren’t talking Richie Rich millions here. The only time it really becomes somewhat expensive is if you wish to service vast player numbers.

What it would do, as KaVir said, is destroy the community by bringing money into the development equation. Why should I develop and give away all this code just so others can earn money off my hard labour, I think I will withhold it. Coded gifts dry up, new entrants are faced with the daunting task of coding from scratch to keep up with developments, the possibility of creating attractive games becomes the sole domain of large scale operations and the community collapses bit by bit.

The only time such a move would be viable is if someone wished to profit from such an interim strategy in order to fund the development of a fully fledged P2P game, wherein they would be forced to play with firearms eventually, with no choice of doing otherwise. The move to a lightening of the DIKU license would in this case ease their guilty consciences and provide them with nefarious cash infusions. It would allow them to proceed with their pre-planned agendas with a sense of ethical correctness that is currently denied them.

Taken from Sharune Forums

Well, we are in dire need of money for webhosts, advertisement and similar.

Many games give in-game rewards for donations. It is a matter tha is highly debated in the mud community because of the diku licence. However, since many of the top games do this (example medievia, aardwolf etc) we are considering the possibility... It would without doubt increase the donations we would recieve. The idea of having on going advertisement campagins funded is nice.

So what do you think?

Do you think people that donate to make the game better should get something in-game? And if so, what could it be?

NOTE - And the presence of a new donate button would indicate that the POSSIBILITY has become/is becoming a very swift ACTUALITY. And in this particular case the donations won’t be going to support the current DIKU game that is generating the donations, and providing any linked incentives, it will be used to create a new game (profit).

Hephos - just because someone else has done it that doesn’t mean others can do it with impunity. And before you whine about being persecuted, the reason people cast aspersions about your ethical character is because you give them good reason to. You don’t seem to be concerned with what is ethical, but more, what can I get away with and make a profit from. This is perhaps why people doubt your integrity in a variety of matters.

Cutting aside the superficial elements of this specific topic it seems painfully obvious that a pattern has been emerging for a while.

On the one hand we have the same representatives of some P2P muds attempting to affect change, which would directly enhance their own profit making activities – frequently under the guise of false benevolence, ethical concerns, or ethical expositions.

And on the other hand members of a community who prise fun and enjoyment above profit and seek only to truthfully preserve ethical provisions and enable others to actively engage in the joy of mud development.

When push comes to shove I know which ones I would trust and which ones I would scrutinise for ulterior motives geared towards mercenary self-interest. I don’t have anything against earning money from a game per se, providing the tenures of rightful ownership are followed, but enough of the Machiavellian shenanigans they are becoming embarrassing.

You can still accept donations, like medievia or aardwolf, and be completely FREE overall.

Right now, medievia has a large advantage over every existing game in the mud community due to their breaking of the licence. They get both money for whatever they need it for (magazine ads etc), and exposure. Even though the exposure in the mud community might be "bad", ie lots of bad reputation, it generates new players.

I might clarify that we DO NOT accept donations for in-game benifits at the moment and have never done so in the past.

We have had donate buttons available at our site(s) for several years (hence it is not new) and have in the past received some smaller donations (without giving in-game benifits). The people that have donated are visible in our credits on the website.

The donations for our old game "sharune" are in no way used for our upcoming game. We have other means to donate to the mythicscape company on the website which also states what the money are used for and what they will gain from donating. (We send out a contract to people that donate for this company startup which gives them free subscriptions in our upcoming game).

The post we did on our website was just a research to see what our players feel about in-game rewards for donations. We are not actually planning to go that path, but considering the possiblities in case that the diku licence infact allows it. Our own java engine is soon done anyways and we will be thrashing our old diku game for good so accepting donations for our old game is not something we really are bothered with. And yes, there will be javadocs and in-detail description about the engine (so you can confirm it is totally unrlated to diku in every aspect) which also will be available for licencing. We will also show our source to anyone that would like to confirm it and has some reason to do so.

Umm... yeah right. IMO it would do the opposite.

Setting up a MUD may be relatively painless cost wise, but if your playerbase, and thus your bandwith usage goes up a lot it may get pretty expensive. I know the mud i play (Aardwolf) has to pay around $800 a month for it's own T1 connection.

Well IMHO that is stupid way of thinking.

Personally I would without doubt put up snippets and smaller guides on how to code a lot of things if I and others could use it to receive donations.

If someone else use my work to attract more players and receive more donations I would just be happy with it. I'm not greedy (like some other people). And in fact if others that used my work were able to receive donations and become large through it (magazine ads, banners, whatever) it would just be good for myself. I would receive a #### lot more advertisement for myself having my name in such a mud's credits than in some lowlife, underground game (that may be extremely good) that doesn't get more than 10 players at a peak.

If someone got rich off my work (and their mud became huge in the process), my name would still be stamped in their products credits, and i can with pleasure use it as reference and think of it with enjoyment.

I would have to say THAT is a 'stupid way of thinking.'  There is a reason why companies protect their IP privileges religiously.  Players may very well see your name and thank you ( if they notice... you'd be surprised how many people there are who have played a RiP mud for two years but do not know who 'that Darrik guy' is ).   With a pay-to-play mud, however, a player on another mud is just lost revenue.  Why would you clone your mud by releasing the code and create an even greater risk for losing players?

You may feel honored, but I would not take the risk of losing players/revenue by releasing my code.

Of course, since I am no way expecting to ever start a P2P mud, that really is not an issue.  In all honesty, running ( or playing ) a mud is a hobby for most people.  Why pay when you can play another mud for free?

Darrik Vequir

It seems that in this sudden keenness of dismantling the Diku licence, some of you conveniently have forgotten a couple of basic facts:

1. Years ago the DIKU Group donated their codebase to the Mud Community, so other free muds could use it without cost. From this code several other codebases developed, and most existing free Muds are now based on any of those. Don’t you think they deserve some gratitude and respect for this gracious and unselfish donation?

2. The DIKU group only expressed two conditions in return for their donation: That the credits be kept and that no profit whatsoever should be made from the code. Don’t you think they deserve the courtesy of the society respecting their wishes?

No matter how many ‘holes’ there may be in the licence itself - (and I am sure the ‘right’ lawyer could find several) - their intent still was, and is, totally clear. Trying to circumvent the licence is in my eyes nothing but unethical, and I am frankly amazed (and appalled) that someone running a Diku based Mud would even consider doing it. Isn't one Medievia enough?

WHY would you do that as it is now? You still face a risk of loosing players if you run an own game based on the same code.

Now everyone do not run their own games and they give code free. These people would just benifit from others being able to use the code to "make" money (ie they get more exposure and advertisment for themselves). Probably people that work on their own derivate codbases (which are available for public). They would only benifit (imo) from others being able to accept donations and give in-game rewards, so that their muds grow and the creators of the derivate receive more advertisment...

Molly:
dismantling? Poor word choice, and obviously an attempt to set up anyone who disagrees with you as being unethical.

Correcting a bogus reading of the license does not mean that the corrector wants to "dismantle" it.

On a personal note: when discussing a factual issue (legal forum, what does the license require) please stick to facts and avoid unwarranted personal attacks.

It's possible to argue that something is legal without having intent or desire to do it. A persons desires for the way others should act should not cause them to claim that something is illegal just because they don't like it.

Not only irrelevant, but a sleazy personal attack. You attempt to categorize anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of the license in legal terms as failing to have respect for the authors.

Pretending that the license says something it doesn't does no favors either for the original authors or anyone else thinking about releasing a codebase under similar terms.

The rest of your post is basically similar "Anyone who disagrees with me has no respect for the authors" attacks and doesn't deserve further comment.

Stilton

Honestly, Molly's comments point out how several of the posters advocating this 'true' interpretation of the Diku license are appearing to those self-respecting mudders who respect the Diku authors enough to follow the intentions of the license.

And its the advocating ignoring those intentions in favor of taking a more literal interpretation in order to make money that is causing what you call 'attacks.'
DV

No one is suggesting that a profit be made from DIKU. That's the entire point of this thread: It's quite possible to take money and simply not show a profit.

The license says what the license says. No more and no less. Some people seem to think it SHOULD say other things but certain people are also living in fantasyland.

The very reason we have written licenses and written contracts are because just relying on the intentions of the licensor or licensee is inherently unfair to one side or another. Contracts exist to ensure that both sides of an agreement are working with the same data and the same rules. Expecting a licensee OR a licensor to have to guess at whatever the other side claims were its intentions at the time is unreasonable. I mean, if the DIKU authors piped up and stated that they intended for nobody to have a black dragon in a DIKU-derived mud, would those of you clamoring to include things that aren't in the license be clamoring to enforce that? It's no more in there than a prohibition against taking money from players is in there.

--matt

For those that are making claims focussing on ‘the letter of the law’ an understanding of implied contractual principles may be in order.

A contract expresses the terms of use for something, usually conditions of use or expectations on the part of the drafter.

An implied contract "presupposes an obligation 'arising from mutual agreement and intent to promise but where the agreement and promise have not been expressed in words.'"

Case v. Shepherd, 140 W. Va. 305, 310, 84 S.E.2d 140, 143 (1954)

A contract does not have to detail implied terms – and if it does then these terms precede the implied connotation. Which basically means, if you include an implied condition within a contract it is taken as an expressed condition.  

"[a]n implied contract and an express one covering the identical subject-matter cannot exist at the same time. If the latter exists, the former is precluded.

" Rosenbaum v. Price Const. Co., 117 W. Va. 160, 165, 184 S.E. 261, 263 (1936).

Implied promises are as legally binding as the contract itself, providing that these implied promises are documented separately.

"[a]n implied promise must be as distinctly alleged in a declaration as an express one."

Bannister v. Victoria Coal & Coke Co., 63 W. Va. 502, 61 S.E. 338 (1908).

Declarations of implied promises, relating to the usage of the DIKU code, can therefore extend to previous, subsequent or concurrent documents created by the copyright holders, DIKU. The applicability of such being linked to the time a party enters into the contract, when they make use of the code, apply for use of the code. This additional documentation could include release notes, posts detailing the creators expectations of use or their reasons for releasing the code, any form of documentation that is separate and distinct from the contract, applies to the owners intentions for usage, and does not replicate the contents of the contract. The fact that such implied promises are not SPECIFICALLY detailed in the contract is the very thing that ensures their legal merit.

The case examples given as precedence for legal decisions are from the American legal system, but in Europe the same system applies – but it is arguably more developed with a greater legal precedence behind it.

The Principles Of European Contract Law 1998

Article 6.102 (replaces 5.108) – Implied obligations

In addition to the express terms, a contract may contain implied terms that stem from

a) The intention of the parties
b) The nature and purpose of the contract, and
c) Good faith and fair dealing

The license is certainly vague, but in relation to implied contractual terms – with associated forms of documentation – vagueness is to its credit. Whether the DIKU teams intentions surrounding their release of the code where given to each user in person, and whether the absence of such case by case documentation would impact upon any decisions is debatable. However, the general consensus of opinion regarding their intentions and numerous replications of their intentions in documented form must be considered to their favor – it could be harder to prove a lack of knowledge that an expectation of knowledge.

NOTE – It is also useful to note that the license restricting usage is not limited to profit, it also states “charge money for distributing parts of’. Since output is a form of distribution, albeit not physical, the second clause extends the scope of the contract to undermine ‘non profit’ loopholes. If any money is charged the user is in breech of contract regardless of whether they accrue profit or not.

Indeed, implied promises are, but there is no implied promise in the DIKU license.

But what we have here is mutual disagreement, even if we assume that we know what the intent of the licensors was. Certainly we DO know that the licensors don't feel injured enough to do anything about it. I've got no interest in using DIKU for anything but were I to desire to start a commercial DIKU product there would certainly be no mutual agreement not to charge money.

But where is the implied promise? The DIKU licensors haven't promised anything. There's certainly no implied promise from the licensee's point of view, especially when a licensee can explicitly disclaim such an intention.



Easy enough. Don't charge for the distribution then. In our games, for instance, distribution is free. We charge for the service of maintaining certain database entries.

(Still debating whether to get an expert opinion on this. On the one hand, it's not really relevant since the DIKU licenseholders aren't interested in enforcing the license anyway but on the other hand it'd be kind of neat to see.)
--matt

Delayed reply due to being without internet access for a few days.

Of course not; but I'm not the one arguing that point of view - you are. I am defending the intended interpretation of the contract (much like the intended interpretation of the rental/mortgage/etc contact), while you and the_logos are arguing your own counter interpretation. I would not state that a credit card contract had a loophole in it until it was tested in a court of law, nor shall I do differently with the Diku license. Argue as much as you like, the situation is far from clear cut.



gross profit (n.) The total business receipts less cost of goods sold, before operating expenses and taxes are deducted.

Yes, several times, at great length.

KaVir:
A license is a contract between two parties.  Reading just the license, what grounds do you have for suggesting that it should be obvious to other people reading it that "profit" isn't really what they wanted to say?  I certainly didn't think "oh, they obviously mean 'revenue', not 'profit'" when I first saw and agreed to it.  Did you?

Rather than posting links for a basic dictionary site rather than a dedicated financial authority, please take a look at a genuine quarterly report submitted to the SEC for a business which pushes bits over a wire, Digital River:


Look at the calculation of gross profit closely, and note the breakdown on what's included in direct cost of revenue.  

By discussing this, I'm not stipulating that "gross profit" is the correct standard- the license only says "profit".  I'm simply choosing to demonstrate that even if it were, that still wouldn't prove the case you want it to.

Stilton

And more specifically, a private grant of the right to use intellectual property which otherwise could not be used.

I not saying it is completely obvious, just from reading it (although the general idea behind the license shouldn't be too hard to grasp). However just because something isn't obvious, it doesn't mean that the licensee can choose their own interpretation!

Excellent research.  Intent is a consideration in contract law.  
I've previous claimed that a US court would most likely interpret the Diku "no profit" clause as "for non-commercial use only" as they have done so before.

KaVir:
Exactly. The license says what it says, and what it says is "profit."

I assume from your lack of response that you agree with me now that some of the expenses a server operator might incur can be properly construed as being deducted from income to get gross profit, and certainly to get final profit?

Tyche:
Yes. Someone would be hard-pressed to argue that a commercial enterprise was not attempting to earn a profit.

At the same time, I can't see a court ordering damages against a hobbyist for recouping $200 in money from players against $500 in hosting costs that he has receipts for.

Stilton

No. I agree that it could be interpretted that way (and have never argued otherwise). However I have also stated that it could be interpretted differently. That is why I base my interpretation on the intent of the Diku team, until such time as it is proven otherwise in a court of law.

Basically Stilton, Kavir is saying that the right to interpret a license belongs to the person who wrote the license, until and unless a court orders otherwise. Furthermore, Kavir has hashed this out in great length and detail with the DIKU folks, and even has a website dedicated to much of the discussions between them and himself on this very issue.

The person agreeing to the license does not have the right to pick and choose how they will agree. They agree to the letter of the license, and if there is any question on its intent, then the person agreeing to the license must by default go by the intent of the person writing the license. That intent has been made clear by the DIKU people, through Kavir and in numerous discussions in the past.

The straight dope on the matter:

You cannot CHARGE money for anything involving a DIKU game. You can charge for access to the HTML bulletin boards, but you cannot offer game advantages or game perks or game benefits for the fee. The builders, storytellers, or admin cannot collect a salary for their work. The two must remain separate.

You cannot RECEIVE money for anything involving the DIKU game. You cannot take donations in exchange for access, you cannot accept real money in exchange for game perks, you cannot accept real money to pay the builders, not even in donation form.

This is not only the letter of the license, it is also the intent. I don't see any way to get around it with an obscure loophole. Even if you take the part that says you can't PROFIT and try to work around that by taking money and not profiting, you still have to get around the rule saying that you can't CHARGE. No one is allowed to get paid, no one is allowed to charge. No money is allowed to end up in anyone's pocket. You can write off expenses til you turn blue in the face, but those expenses you incur, all by yourself, for the privilege of running the game in the first place. You're not entitled to compensation for that.
The DIKU license essentially tells you that by running their code in your game, you are DONATING your time, your efforts, and your own expenses, and you are not allowed to recoup any losses by doing so.