Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

arkanes · 10-29-2003, 10:46 AM

The intent of the license is of minimal importance in court - not totally unimportant, but certainly less important than the actual wording. This, after all, is why we have contracts at all and why people pay lawyers to write and interpert them.

The fact that they were non-english speaking students doesn't really matter - the license is as it is, and if it doesn't make thier intent clear, then thats tough luck.

Theres a variety of ways that the profit clause can be interperted - the others are pretty cut and dried. Obviously, a US court is likely to use the IRS definition of profit, as Stilton posted.
Something to bear in mind is that the license does NOT make a difference between donations for in-game benefit and donations in general. If you make money off of running your DIKU mud, then you're in violation. Period. Note also that the license doesn't care about commercialism per se, only profit.

The Diku's team intentions, as quoted by KaVir are more about commercialism than profit, so it was a poor choice of words on thier part. However, the quote provided (that by providing an in game reward it becomes a commercial transaction and not a donation) doesn't reflect US law that I'm aware of. For example, the "free gifts" you recieve by making donations to any variety of nonprofit organizations.

One last point - reading the license and then acting on your own interertation of it is actually the normal course of action (well, having your legal counsel read it, anyway). Thats another reason why, in general, they're written to be unambiguous. If the other party to the license doesn't like the way you're interpeting the license, then the normal recourse is negotiations and then court if it can't be resolved through discussion. The SCO/IBM case is an excellent example of this - SCO tells IBM that they believe IBM has violated thier license, IBM replies that they have not, and the case procedes from there.

The license certainly does NOT mean what KaVir says it does. It means what it says. KaVirs interpertation is (of course) legally meaningless - even the Dikus team is only meaningful in that they have the power to go to court if they want to.

10-29-2003, 10:46 AM	#77
arkanes New Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 3	The intent of the license is of minimal importance in court - not totally unimportant, but certainly less important than the actual wording. This, after all, is why we have contracts at all and why people pay lawyers to write and interpert them. The fact that they were non-english speaking students doesn't really matter - the license is as it is, and if it doesn't make thier intent clear, then thats tough luck. Theres a variety of ways that the profit clause can be interperted - the others are pretty cut and dried. Obviously, a US court is likely to use the IRS definition of profit, as Stilton posted. Something to bear in mind is that the license does NOT make a difference between donations for in-game benefit and donations in general. If you make money off of running your DIKU mud, then you're in violation. Period. Note also that the license doesn't care about commercialism per se, only profit. The Diku's team intentions, as quoted by KaVir are more about commercialism than profit, so it was a poor choice of words on thier part. However, the quote provided (that by providing an in game reward it becomes a commercial transaction and not a donation) doesn't reflect US law that I'm aware of. For example, the "free gifts" you recieve by making donations to any variety of nonprofit organizations. One last point - reading the license and then acting on your own interertation of it is actually the normal course of action (well, having your legal counsel read it, anyway). Thats another reason why, in general, they're written to be unambiguous. If the other party to the license doesn't like the way you're interpeting the license, then the normal recourse is negotiations and then court if it can't be resolved through discussion. The SCO/IBM case is an excellent example of this - SCO tells IBM that they believe IBM has violated thier license, IBM replies that they have not, and the case procedes from there. The license certainly does NOT mean what KaVir says it does. It means what it says. KaVirs interpertation is (of course) legally meaningless - even the Dikus team is only meaningful in that they have the power to go to court if they want to.