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Mythic Sued Over Blocking Auctions of Game Tokens
Lukenary writes: "Mythic Entertainment, creator of the excellent MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot, is being sued by BlackSnow Interactive, owner and maintainer of CamelotExchange - an online auction site for the exchange of in-game items, money, and characters/accounts. This could be a landmark case: if you spend (typically) weeks of playing time to garner 1,000 gold in-game, do you have the right to auction off that gold for real money? Mythic has not yet had an official response to the suit, but you can read BSI's press release at the CamelotExchange site above. Personally, I find it interesting that BSI is going after DAoC, calling Mythic a "software giant," while ignoring the more established compettion in EverQuest producer Sony, Asheron's Call producer Microsoft, and Ultima Online producer Electronic Arts. Mythic's only product at this time is Dark Age of Camelot, which was released last October."
i would say if you agree to the TOS when install and sign up for the game, you are bound by it. if it says no dice... no dice.
Is it acceptable / legal to hire people to play the game for you?
Is that the same question or not? I think it basically is.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
I feel almost guilty over this, as I'm rooting for the game companies here. As an alienated EverQuest player (what do you mean the stats don't matter?), this is difficult to stomach.
As a casual player, its hard enough playing against people with no lives who play 12 hours a day, muchless the farmers who play for a living.
Less Talk, More Beer.
This is ridiculous. These people have spent the time to obtain the rankings and items which means they should be allowed to sell them. What they are selling is what they have created. If someone decides to type a book in Word they should be allowed to sell that book at their will.
A lot of people think that because you did all of this work for your item in game then you should be able to do what you want with it, and there is something to be said for that. Unfortuantely in the grand scheme of things it's not so simple. A problem arises when a lucrative market springs up, then you have people who use the game as a means to make their living in the real life.We call these item farmers. These people are a problem for the game system because they spend vast amounts of times gathering items and resources in the game beyond what their character could possibly want or need. These items are of limited availability (they all drop on spawn timers or on a rare percentage of monster kills) so this results in the actual players of the game being pushed out. This of course works for the item farmer because it helps to create the market.
Creating and then maintaining a sustainable economy is a very difficult thing to do in an MMORPG (indeed, nobody has done it yet) and item farmers just make it more difficult.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I find this disturbing: people will pay more money for a fake character than they will spend on themselves.
Think about it. I can imagine an unemployed guy sitting home bidding hundreds of dollars for some imaginary characters, while in the same breath complaining to his friends that he doesn't have the dough to buy a suit to go interview for a job.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I find it hard to take seriously something that uses such turns of phrase, but then again I've never been one to scour complaints. At any rate, the lawyers hired to represent these people appear legitemete, even if the document reads like a high school essay.
Am quite interested in how it turns out.. this always was a sticking point between Verant and EQ players as well. Would be a nice precedent to have established in the books, because it would also cast shadows on the legitemcy of EULA's.
It's pretty clear why they aren't going after Sony,Microsoft or EA, that being relative resources. Do you want to get into a court battle with Microsoft and see who can afford it better?
/.?
First they target someone small, and assuming they get a judgement in their favour they then go waving it in front of other courts as precedent when similar cases rise.
I suppose I should mention IANAL but would anyone actually be stupid enough to base a case on legal advice from
People are making money off of *mythics* hard work; not their own.
Just because a gamer has no life and plays 10 hours a day doesn't mean he has a right to be compensated for it. It is not a job, no one owes him anything.
Players that sell accounts and objects for real money are capitalizing on the amount of work that mythic has put in to the game.
I think if this is to be allowed, Mythic should recieve a cut of all sales. Of course, since this wouldn't happen, I think it's perfectly right for Mythic to disallow this practice.
I mean really, if you want to make money, get a damn job. If you want to make money using games, become a game developer (Like me =) ).
I wonder if Mythic lost this suit (which I doubt), if they'd be liable for preventing fraud in the types of transactions BSI deals in.
If I were Mythic, I'd be pretty worried about players getting ripped off and then turning to me for compensation. That may be why they take such an aggressive stance on the issue now.
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
This is all well and good, but I think people should bear in mind that Mythic created and owns the entire DAoC set-up. I've never played it myself, so I'm a little sketchy on the precise details, but it seems to me that if Mythic chooses to restrict certain practices within the boundaries of their creation, then they are fully within their rights to do so. Players pay a monthly fee for access, not for rights to private ownership of what their character has. DAoC is hardly a monopoly and people play because they choose to, and within the rules set forth by the company. Whether players selling items is permitted or not permitted outside of the game, I believe it is Mythic's perogative.
--My purpose set, my will defined. Caress the air, embrace the skies.
"Personally, I find it interesting that BSI is going after DAoC, calling Mythic a "software giant," while ignoring the more established compettion in EverQuest producer Sony, Asheron's Call producer Microsoft, and Ultima Online producer Electronic Arts."
It's not interesting. It's called going after the littlest guy you can so you have a better chance of winning. Once you win, a precedent has been set, making it easier to go for the bigger fish.
That's like Lawyering 101.
Are they saying that all player interactions are a work for hire benefiting the company?
Just how does the Company control this in terms of a legal argument?
I am so confused.
--
* 2002-02-06 13:23:59 Google Programming Contest (developers,programming) (rejected)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Mark this.
This case could be the first splash on the legal scene that leads to the legitimization of non-physical economies.
Why is this important?
Imagine that at some point in the future, a corporation creates an amazingly successful MMORPG. The MMORPG is successful enough that the parent corporation spins off the division to form a new company. This new company maintains the virtual world of the MMORPG and derives all its profits therefrom.
Very possible.
If the company then made a move to allow players of the game to purchase commonly traded shares of the corporate stock for in-game currency, there is a tie between a physical-world economy and a virtual one.
At this point, it would take very little imo/ for the virtual world of the MMORPG to classify as a nation-state.
Consider. It _has_ an economy. There is an exchange rate (albeit an occluded one) between the money of the virtual and physical world. The virtual world has a defineable citizenry.
When enough people engage themselves as citizens of a virtual state, and bring enough income into that virtual state, and exchange income between that virtual state's money and the money of other states....
What happens?
Eventually, would a banking house take interest and provide an exchange rate from one economy to the other?
If so...
How long before the citizenry of the virtual world demands rights.
How long before the citizenry of the virtual world takes those demands to a world-recognized forum?
How long before the representative of Norrath addresses the UN?
Regardless of the way BSI thinks things "should" be, there are a few very simple facts:
1) To play the game, you have to abide by the EULA.
2) The EULA specifically DISALLOWS sales of items and currency, but (at the time of writing) allows the sale of ACCOUNTS in an "as-is" fashion -- specifically, that Mythic is not responsible if such a deal goes sour, etc. If you ebay your account and the buyer gets the account banned, don't be surprised if they hold the SELLER responsible as well, etc.
Since these provisions are spelled out in the EULA, I see no merit to this lawsuit. EQ, UO, etc. were gray areas because the original agreements don't discuss out-of-band commerce relating to the game. Mythic's EULA for DAoC DOES, and that makes their position all but impregnable.
They can legitimately say that the rules are in place to preserve the physical security of the game, and to preserve the enjoyment of the player base -- something that has DIRECT economic value to the owners of the game.
The players have NO right to break those rules or work outside of them; they're both paying to play, and agreeing to abide by the set provisions of the game when they do so. If they're not happy, they can save themselves 10 bucks a month and play elsewhere.
Bottom line, it's in Mythic's best interest as the owners and providers of DAoC to not allow the sale of items and currency -- they probably shouldn't even allow the sale of accounts, in fact. It's just like a bar or nightclub -- you can pay to get in, but if you try to grope the women or sneak your friends in, you should expect to get kicked out and black-listed.
The nightclub doesn't tolerate such behavior when it's expressly forbidden, and shouldn't be required to by any means. The same applies to Dark Age of Camelot and Mythic.
You shouldn't verb words.
But I have to get a job so I can buy a car so I can get to my job!
;-)
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I am just wondering what a cyber character will fetch you in the 2070 version of the Antique Road Show.
I would worry that if there is a precedent set that selling fake stuff IRL is legal, then game developers (the programmers, not the companies) would have an incentive to put backdoors into their games (e.g. talk to this shopkeeper, tell him the magic words and *presto* he gives you the most powerful weapon in the game).
For a game developer, protecting against this type of thing does cost money (in man-hours). Therefore, I say that they should be able to set whatever policy they choose.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
But what if someone finds a way to cheat in the game? Or a programmer modifies the game code to give himself extra weapons or gold or any other game-related item? Said person then takes the items and sells them for real cash. It may seem like a remote possibility, but when real money is involved, people tend to become pretty creative...
I find it obvious. Who is most likely to have the worse lawyers? The smallest company.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Employee abuse. Unlike real items, these virtual itmes can be made and unmade by the trillions with a few key strokes. If you are one of the programmers or better yet sysadmins that happen to have access to the database that controls all this, you could really make a killing by adding in tiems and selling them, with no effort.
There is also a legal concern. For example, suppose that your game features the Ultra-Rare Sword of Asskicking +10, of which there are only 3 total in the game. There were given out as a one time quest thing. So they get traded around for real money, and a fair bit of it. Well you then decide it's time to expand the game. You up the level cap, add in new abilities, monsters, etc. You also decide to make that sword just an uncommon drop from a high level monster.
Now the people that own the orignals are pissed. Their monetary investment has gone to shit, just because you decided to change the way the game worked, so they sue you. Stupid? Yes, but I've seen worse lawsuits that have been won.
1) IIRC, Verant updated the EQ EULA specifically banning the auctioning of items and plat on ebay because they got sick of whining bitches petitioning the GMs saying "I bought 100K off this guy on ebay and now he wont give it to me! Can you get it for me please?!?!?"
2) If anyone ever discovers an exploit which allows item duping, the items immediately become worthless. No doubt there would be a large amount of loud, vocal, hardcore gamers looking for a convenient scapegoat. Blame the company for its "crappy programming" and them "not testing enough for exploits".
3) Being able to buy your way to the top makes the game pointless. Parting of being uber is being uber enough to stick it out and work your way up all those levels. Getting to level 60 on Everquest requires months of dedication to a character. How pissed would you be if some little shit down the street got his parents to buy him a Level 60 character for his birthday and he goes around boasting about it?
...the company would do it itself. It would be great for them to be able sell high-ranking or rare items as a primary source of income. I've seen MUDs do that, but always on a very limited scale: a handful of select, not too powerful, items given to people who pay extra (or pay at all, as it's usually on otherwise free MUDs that I've seen this).
The problem is, that doesn't make a good game. It's like playing chess in a league where people who bribe the referee can have all their pawns replaced with queens at the start of the game. Either you have to spend your money just to get a level playing field, or you have a hell of a time getting a decent game.
So it's a matter of protecting the gameplay. They can't just allow it. The question of legality depends entirely on the contract. Obviously, you can set acceptable use rules in the user contract.
This challenge looks pretty ridiculous to me. It seems basically to me like people disputing the right of a sports league to ban players for taking bribes to throw the game.
In the case of a book, you are creating new intelectual property. You own teh rights to that by inherant copyright. You aren't doing the same with a character, you're just making changes to a database that Mythic designed and owns the rights to. The other thing is, in the case of the ISP they still do own the physical server you are working on, and can dictate how you use it. Suppose your ISP hates books for whatever reason, so they tell you to knock it off. If you don't, they can most certianly shut down your account. Same with an account in an online game. You sell an item, Mythic can shut down your account for it. For that matter, they can shut down your account for any reason. They don't have a contract with you gautenteing service. You pay for use of their game, they decide the terms of that use. If you dont' like it, vote with your dollars and go play elsewhere. If enough people cancel their accounts becasue they can't sell things, Mythic will either revise their polocy or go out of bussiness.
[snort] that sounds SO absurd. funny too.
Which of course means that everything has been done before, so creativity within a defined set of limitations is utterly impossible.
Actually what they are selling is right of use of gaming tokens as stored in the server. The right to flip those bits, which has been bestowed on you in consideration of the money you gave them.
Of course, if you had no right to flip the bits, then why did you give themn money in the first place?
But then, this is Microsoft logic. Sort of like buying the keys to a car, but not being able to let anyone else use the car.
If I as a character can bestow to any other character anything that I have, then to forbid me to do so screws up the game. To forbid me to speak or communicate about this to anyone else in the game really goes against good sense.
The only way to really enforce it would be to bond all of the players. and who would play the game then?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
BLACKSNOW INTERACTIVE SUES MYTHIC (DAOC) IN FEDERAL COURT FOR MMORPG PLAYER'S RIGHTS
Mythic Entertainment is named as the defendant in this case filed on Febuary 5th 11:50AM involving various anti-trust, copyright, and anti-competitive issues. BlackSnow Interactive (BSI) is a group of individuals that play, buy, and sell in various Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). Growing from only one person nearly two years ago, to seven full-time people, this group has successfully developed a market in which they are able to supply players with gaming currency, items, or characters at competitive prices. Mythic wants BSI to cease all sales immediately.
After entering the DAoC market, shortly after its release, BSI created a website and began listing their sales on various auction sites, such as Ebay. BSI's Director of Sales, Lee Caldwell, was quoted as saying, "What it comes down to is, does a MMORPG player have rights to his time, or does Mythic own that player's time? It is unfair of Mythic to stop those who wish to sell their items, currency or even their own accounts, which were created with their own time. Mythic, in my opinion, and hopefully the court's, does not have the copyright ownership to regulate what a player does with his or her own time or to determine how much that time is worth on the free market."
Caldwell goes on to say, "Mythic's attempt to stifle competition in their own game makes it possible for only full-time gamers to succeed in the game and most MMORPG players can't compete on that level. The person that plays just a few hours a week, can't put in the time required to build their character or collect the items needed to join others in the online battles. No one has stood up to any of these software giants, until now."
If you would like to take a look at the actual court document, please visit www.camelotexchange.com.
time to the game to level AND make money. Result:
I haven't played DOAC in a couple months, because
I have better things to do with my time.
It seems to me that Everquest is the other way around. Of course, my experience with EQ is
limited to the fact that when I tried it I gained
to about the 5th. level and just gave up because
it just wasn't fun at all. Anyway, in EQ, it
seems to me that it is easy to get stuff, and hard
to gain levels. Unless of course you get power leveled by some level 55 guy who just thinks he can score with you because you are using a female character model.
The way that items work in DAOC is that they degrade slowly, and they also are designed with a particular level. So for an item to work the way
it is supposed to, it needs to "con" around your level. Sooner or later, if you gain levels, your
stuff is going to be next to useless for you. And
even if you keep it, it will eventually fall apart.
So basically this forces players to spend TONS of time doing both leveling and earning if they want to have a decent character.
This is a problem. If it were easier to make money, players would not have to spend hours on
end playing, doing boring, repetetive tasks rather
than fighting monsters and other players. There
would be fewer people devoting their entire lives
to MMORPG games, and the scene would be much
more attractive to the casual gamer who wants
to play 2 or 3 hours a week and still have their
character advance at a decent pace.
I don't know what Final Fantasy Online will be like, but I hope that Square makes it much easier
to enjoy the game without forcing you to make it a
second job. The game would actually become fun,
and there wouldn't be losers out there who would
feel the need to try to turn EQ into a money
making business, or who want to be somehow
compensated for wasting 80 hours a week playing
EQ.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
> How pissed would you be if some little shit down the street got his parents to buy him a Level 60
> character for his birthday and he goes around boasting about it?
Sort of like the kid currently on Battlebots who bought his robot on Ebay......
Personally, I find it interesting that BSI is going after DAoC, calling Mythic a "software giant," while ignoring the more established compettion in EverQuest producer Sony, Asheron's Call producer Microsoft, and Ultima Online producer Electronic Arts. Mythic's only product at this time is Dark Age of Camelot, which was released last October."
Mythic doesn't have the money/lawyers to throw at the case that the others do...so it will be easier to win a precedent-setting case against them, and then go after the others.
Thomas Galvin
If you spend $10 a month playing a game, and 6 months into the game, the server crashes and you lose your data, or you lose all your items, or something strange happens, how are you to be compensated for the negligence of the company?
If there is adaquate precedence that character accounts are worth a certain dollar value, then upon this unfortunate loss, the company could be sued by the player for monetary compensation (encouraging the company to simply recreate the character)
Then you have the issue of cheating. Where before, cheating only gave in-game bonuses and the only potential consequence was the loss of the account, now you have some new issues. You can artificially inflate the value of your character. If this person is caught, should he/she be charged with fraud? One player cheating can lower the value of other's accounts. Can they sue the cheater? Can they sue the company for not stopping the cheating?
Of course, if the company forbids this, they're on better legal footing then if they condoned it or at the very least remained neutral.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I see this as a case with wide reaching repercussions. These MMPORPGs are virtual worlds and have always been in the name of entertainment. People, however, have been "gaming" for profit for quite a while. Just look on e-bay for Diablo or Everquest related items. What will happen if this case goes to court? There are two possible outcomes.
One, the court decides that players can "sell off" items for real world cash. If this happens, there will need to be laws in the virtual word if this is to continue. The Characters in Camelot will have to set up a virtual court system to judge the legitimacy of people's actions. The virtual court will have to determine that the item was acquired legitimately. "He stole my Sword of Burping +2 in a Non-PVP area!" Who is going to handle that if the courts give weight to the claims that virtual items can be bartered? Of course, there is the scenario that includes my friend, the programmer at "Magic-Tech MMORPG Company and he programs the game to drop the "SWORD OF GOD" when character named "flogger" pays some NPC named Gump 12 copper coins.
The other thing the courts can do is say, "Nope. No can do. Virtual items have no legitimacy and cannot be bartered for or against." What would this mean? (You try to explain to my wife how that would not apply to the stock market. Heh.) This would then outlaw those e-bay specials and force game companies to police their own areas to ensure this does not go on.
Either way, if this goes through the courts, some creative lawyers are really going to shake up "real life" along with the "virtual worlds."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
The funny thing is, that in Camelot the items and money are relatively meaningless. The drop rates in the dungeons are so out of wack that my characters have always had too much money, and items far above their level. On top of that, it is impractical to wield an item that is above your level, as it degrades too quickly.
What's so sad about it? It's judging the quality of others lives based up how you value yours. I wouldn't do it myself, but in consideration, suppose you were a collector of stamps and the one stamp you needed to complete a series was going for $10, with a book value of $20, or you could wait for another one to become available for less. If you choose to take it for the $10, the difference between $10 and perhaps a lower price would expense as the value of having it now as opposed to later. Same thing they're doing. As long as the server owner keeps the game going, the characters and eqz have value.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... (or at least the perceived scumbags) before they go after the good guys.
That's why they go after kiddie-pornographers first when what they really want to do is censor opinions they don't like.
That's why they go after terrorists first when they want to disarm the general population.
That's why they go after self-confessed promotors of the violation of copyrights first when they want to shut down competitive outlets for content.
And so on.
Getting a conviction of someone perceived as a "bad guy" - and the "badder" the better - is easier than going after someone who isn't harming others. Courts and juries, in their desire to make the "bad guy" stop dong "bad stuff", may overlook the fact that the prosecutor or plantif is using the wrong legal tool to go after him, or may overlook how the precedent could be appllied to a non-"bad guy". Once the precedent is established, it becomes a tool to go after people who are NOT "bad guys".
Additionally "Bad guys" also often have shallow pockets, leaving them unable to mount as effective a defense as the more affluent citizens. And that puts them in a similar situation to the "go after the little guy first" model in the previous post.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If this were a single-player game, would selling be an issue? If I buy a copy of and spend months getting high-level characters and finding cool equipment, no EULA can prevent me from selling the game to someone, even if I charge a much higher price than shelf-value. If there were a way to export individual items from one copy of the game to another, again no EULA could prevent me from doing so.
As an analogy, if I buy a book, highlight all the important passages, and auction it for more than I originally paid, no publisher has the right to stop me. If I could manage to auction off just the location of passages I highlighed to someone who already owns a copy of the book, it's absurd to think the publisher could have an EULA that prevents this.
So why should the fact that the game is multiplayer make it any different?
If my sister joins the game and I give her a lot of powerful equipment, it's ok, but if I sell that equipment to a stranger, it's wrong. What's the logic here? Nepotism is ok, but capitalism isn't?
If a friend does a favor for me in return for a powerful sword, it's ok. If the friend gives me cash, it's wrong? What's wrong with this picture?
If a mechanic friend offers me cash for a powerful item, but I'm forced to decline because that's against the rules, what if I strike a deal that in return for a magic wand he fix my car for free the next time it breaks down. Basically, what's happened here is that the mechanic has paid me with credit. No money has been transferred, but presumably there is no legal issue here.
Something is seriously wrong here. The items in the game clearly have value. They're going to be traded as valued goods one way or another. IANAL, but it seems like some sort of discrimination to prevent some forms of trade (online auctions) but not others (personal favors).
Mythic just needs to exert the power they control over supply and demand.
-- Dan
Allow the trading of only EARNED (by gameplay) items, and
TAKE A COMMISSION ON THE SALES!
This would prevent the inflation of the "currency" of game items, provide an "aftermarket" for people who tire of the game to recover some of their costs, limit the impact on players who don't want to fork out for assistance or extra equipment, and provide an additional income stream to the company (which could be partially converted to reduced cost to ordinary players).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Other unhealthy things people do, cramped up inside:
Read slashdot
Coin collecting
Stamp collecting
Watching TV
Reading books
Constructing models
Building home furniture out of Lego Brand Building Blocks (or Legos as they're commonly known)
Tweaking another 33MHz out of a CPU
In short, just about everything. So everyone should get up off their butts and go out and live life to it's fullest, teeth bared and snarling, or they're not doing a thing for themselves, society or the economy.
But, come to think of it, maybe they are doing something... Imagine the impact on the environment of tens or hundreds of thousands more people out and about, doing constructive things, I'm not sure it could take it. Maybe you should join the likes of Mike Vendeman, the one who trolls rec.bicycles.*, and drive people to do things or follow beliefs you value.
This was not intended to flame, but to underscore the differences in values and perception of others use of their time. I'm prone to it myself on occasion, but in a lucid moment recall I have my own hobbies and obsessions and wouldn't care to hear anyone sit in judgement on them.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I dont play online rpgs.. so maybe I'm missing something, but how can you sue a company for getting upset when you violate their TOS agreements.. If you agree that you can't sell in game items for physical cash, and then go around selling your in game items for physical cash, you are violating the terms of service agreement you signed to play the game. I fail to see how this online auction house thinks they can win this case.
From their own website:
Who is Mythic Entertainment, and what games have they done?
Mythic Entertainment is the most prolific and one of the most successful online gaming developers in the industry today. With eleven online games to its credit, Mythic has been a major part of all of its distribution and publishing partners pay-for-play games including AOL, the Centropolis Gaming Center, Gamestorm and ENGAGE. Our titles include some of the most popular online-only games of all time including Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, Silent Death Online, Rolemaster: Magestorm, Darkness Falls, Darkness Falls: The Crusade, Splatterball, Godzilla Online, and Dragon's Gate.
Mythic has more experience in developing and running multi-user online role-playing games than most of its competitors. Dragon's Gate is one of the longest running online RPGs out there, having just hit its 12th anniversary and is still going strong on the Centropolis Gaming Center. Mythic also has the successful Darkness Falls RPGs, which is available on the Centropolis Gaming Center.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The game manufacturers will see this and decide to monopolize this market themselves. You don't want to work up to level 10 then send us $20 and boom your level 10. Don't have enough cash in the game well for every $1US you give us we'll give you 100 gold. They can beat any auctioneer's price because it doesn't cost them anything. Then once this happens it will ruin every game and they won't be fun at all to play.
If your not cheating your not trying. If your not trying your not winning and if your not winning why play?
I can understand the temptation. Pretty much every progressive stats-dominated (IOW, MUD-style) MOG I've seen suffers from bunny-killer syndrome: when you start, you're pathetically weak, and you have to spend ages killing what most players consider pathetically weak creatures, the game-equivalent of (if not literally) rabbits and squirrels. Not very heroic.
It doesn't matter what they call the bunnies, or how fearsome they make them look, you still have this situation where 99% of the creatures could squash you like a bug.
This may work fine for a single-player RPG, because you're the center of attention all the way along, and not exposed to the stronger creatures, but in a MOG, your pathetic weakness is rubbed in your face by the relative strength of other players. This is escapism?
It seems that these games would be a lot more fun without the grind of the stats-building process, but that's also a lot harder and more expensive to make (they won't be leveling, they won't be farming items, what will they be doing? there can't be enough earth-shaking heroic quests to go around...). Also, the stats-building process does have an addictive quality that keeps people playing even when they're not having fun (camping, anyone?). It makes economic sense.
It's bad for the game on the whole, but it makes sense for the people buying. Building up your character from a puny noob just isn't the fun part.
So if nothing was created, I can't have sold anything either, so the EULA has no meaning, right? No?
When it comes right down to it, everything done on a computer comes down to flipping a few bits. The assumption that they own the rights to the code when they've used a third party tool (compiler) to make it, but that the characters someone have made using a third party tool (the game) holds no IP rights of their own lacks foundation at best. Now, I don't know what possibilities the game holds, but if I can make f.ex. a guild sign, that graphic is copyrighted to ME, no matter if I created it in Photoshop or in Mystic's editor or drew it on a paper, unless the EULA explicitly says otherwise.
It's not your property, it's not your IP, but not for any of the reasons you mention. It lacks uniqueness. A compiler won't accept reserved words (names it doesn't allow) or handle invalid syntax (characters the program can't interpret), that's the programs right to define what is valid input, however there's no transfer of rights from the one who inputs it to the program it was inputted into.
In the end it comes down to if an EULA can limit what you can trade things against. Personally I think DAoC could keep their noses out of if I trade gold for in-game items, USD or a blowjob.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
look, if i go out and buy Cakewalk Pro Audio, make a #1 hit song, should the Cakewalk people say that I cannot have rights to my song and not sell it?
if i purchase Adobe Photoshop, can i not sell any images i create with it? or are the images only there for me to enjoy personally.... um.
i don't exactly like the fact that some rich newb can purchase a character more powerful than the one i've built with hard work.
BUT, i think online items, real estate, etc will be a very real future of virtual, real-time applications.
if worse comes to worse, i suppose MMORPG companies can always insist that all auctions of game items must be done on their own game auction web site. that way, they could make a small percentage of the sales.
"you can read BSI's press release..."
Perhaps I've wasted too much time here and at E2, but am I the only person that saw 'BSI', and though:
"What does Block Stackers Intergalactic have to do with this?
Followed by: "Hell, since when have they released press releases?!"
I guess I'm odd...
The point is that if it is possible to buy an advantage, it makes the game suck. If people are farming for money, this makes the game suck more, as they interfere with the people playing for fun.
So taking a cut would not only hurt their image, but legitimize and encourage farming, hurting their gameplay, either costing them more in development and support to compensate, or costing them paying accounts.
I don't think it's like that at all. It isn't a spectator sport. No one is betting on the outcome. Nothing is produced. Time spent in DAOC or EQ is utterly unproductive, besides the intangible "fun factor."
It may infringe the integrity of the game, but the game is a self-contained system that exists for no other purpose than to occupy your time -- so how wrong can it go?
All this talk about company XXXX blocking auctions of in game [MONEY | CHARACTERS | EQUIPMENT] .. what about Karma, eh? I seem to recall slashdot [FIDDLING WITH | DELETING] the accounts of those who try to sell their high-karma accounts on eBay.
too much pepsi today.
Was join a good guild. While they won't hold your hand, they will help you out. I've recieved a fair amoutn of finincal and item support form my guild, and they continue to give it. I also give support to lower level characters, and make trips to rez epople and so on. DAoC really seems to be built on the idea of cooperation.
...items is it favors the uubers, and is bad for gameplay.
Face it, the majority of people with cash do not play EQ or DAOC 24/7... they would if they could, but they have jobs and cannot. On the other hand, they will tend to take longer to "finish" the game, and may offer a higher longevity of play (at $xx per month).
So, you've got a choice. Focus (what's sold as) a long-term game on 4-month-life players, or focus on people who may play it for up to a year or more... at $xx per month, both cases. Not exactly tough guess which one you'd pick.
The problem with selling items is it promotes farming. We all remember "EverCamp"... people waiting IN LINE to go kill a freakin mob. I've seen entire zones camped, by people who stayed there for weeks on end - long after the kills or item drops did anything for them, they simply exploited their high status to get items they'd sell for cash. And in doing so, they made it impossible for legitimate players to get and use.
Farmers certainly piss off the casual, 4-hour-per-night player. Especially if there's a "waiting list" over 8 hours long, and big time if the farming causes an item unavailability. Real-cash sales of in-game items, if the game does not have anti-farm tactics, alienates game customers like crazy... because of the farming it causes, no other reason.
I don't think the game vendor has legal right to prohibit such sales, however... such item transactions within the scope of a "game service" would simply be considered value-add. Their remedies are strictly limited to coding.
Character sales, otoh, can be prohibited. The game is marketed as a service, and services usually cannot be transferred. After all, go sell your catv service to your neighbor some day. Or, your Triple-A auto-service. Or the extended warranty on your car. You can't sell your health insurance coverage, and you can't arbitrarily sell your mortgage. It just doesn't work... the agreements (contracts) are with you, period. Most times, the ability to sell a vendor's service to someone else generally requires a franchise agreement. And, no vendor is required to GIVE such agreements to anyone... nor should they be. You can't just open up a store and start re-selling Verizon Wireless, you can't decide to re-selling new (or used) AOL accounts... you need to get their permission. After all, they are the one entering into contract with the customer, and God Help Us All of you think you have implicit proxy authority just because you know them.
You can, by law, sell or transfer the game license and media that was purchased in the store. You cannot arbitrarily sell or transfer the account used to play it, nor should you be able to.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Trade the whole damn thing. You remove your credit card and address information from the account info screens and stop automatic monthly billing. Put your account on ebay (including a possible 5 characters on each server) and sell the whole package. Asheron's Call already is setup this way and it doesn't stop anyone from selling anything. There does seem to be one beneficial part to the selling and tradeing of accounts. You end up with people that haven't earned thier levels or equiptment and don't have a clue how to effectivly use them. They get bored quickly and leave the game in many cases which in turn reduces the number of high level characters.
When does the commission on providing for the safe sale of in game items and characters become more valuable to the company than the monthly income of the people that leave or won't play due to this "feature."
since you don't have any items. sure, you can sell "your item," but they can just as easily say you broke the rules and delete the record of your ownership of that item from their databases. who are you to tell them what to do with their own databases?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's also acceptable / legal for them to delete your account if you break their rules. Remember, they're not taking away any actual property from you, merely terminating your service because you did not agree by the terms of service.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Mythic wants to keep "cheaters" out of Camelot, because they feel newcomers who don't have a lot of cash will be miffed at not having the real goodies, and won't subscribe to their service. They don't want the game to turn into something like "Magic: The Gathering".
On the other hand, look at how successful Magic cards have been. Maybe they ought to rethink their strategy.
TheSHAD0W's law of Magic Card games: The winner will be the person with the most disposable income.
Some friends and I were discussing this the other day. We were discussing how if gold/etc rewards from killing things scales up with levels, it is trivial for a high-level character to supply low levels with gear. Therefore, what should happen, is items should have wear and tear, and the wear and tear should be too expensive to repair on a too-powerful-for-your-level item. This is one key to a functional economy, since the major problem with a MMORPH economy is there is eventually infinite supply, because nothing ever is destroyed. IE, give us entropy, or give us a joke economy.
That said, people seem to have forgotten the "RP" in MMORPG. I'm waiting for a company to not only make a game like Everquest or DaoC, but enforce roleplaying so that idiots running around going, "d00d, the sword will spawn soon, let's get it!" are simply slain irrevocably and directed to read some "don't be an idiot" FAQ. Of course, this is the good thing about Neverwinter Nights -- it will form communities that do just this, and without the profit motive that Verant/et al have to permit any player, regardless of their crappy roleplaying. The sale of items, and more so characters, completely undermines the RP in a MMORPG. You should, over time, get to know what a person behaves like -- are they aggressive, generous, noble, etc? Of course, if they actually made a balanced game, then they could take an important step: permitting unwanted PKs to occur anyhow. A game isn't "competitive" if players can't compete against each other in a meaningful way. Racing to a certain level is not meaningful, because it indicates nothing more than time available to play. Best equipment? normally the same. But if players can take things from other players by force, killing them against their will -- that's different. Now its a fight to survive, a hunt to kill people off, etc, and you wrap that up with excellent roleplay, and its an unbeatable blast. Several muds do it well -- for example, Avendar or Carrion Fields. This REQUIRES some sort of active enforcement. Not a lot, but some, because it is important to not let the game be ruined by non-roleplayed mass murder, especially aganist the helpless/uninvolved, just for kicks (this was a serious issue with UO).
Time spent in DAOC or EQ is utterly unproductive, besides the intangible "fun factor."
A productive activity being what? Productivity is relative. What's the fixation on being able to measure tangible results from an activity?
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I'm NOT fixated on that, but everyone in this thread keeps talking about people being "owed for their work in the game," and I am trying to illustrate how that is not a good way to look at it.
Just as Microsoft is Turbins publisher for Ashrons Call, EA for UO and Sony for Verant's EverQuest (though i belive Sony owns verant).
the strait dope can be found at site mythics site
The only MMORPG game i've heard of that didn't have a large company as a publisher was Anarchy Online, which unfortantly seems to be failing badly.
-Jon
this is my sig.
Edward Castronova, of the economics department at California State University at Fullerton, studied thousands of EverQuest transactions performed through eBay to determine the real-world economic value generated by the inhabitants of Norrath.
Castronova discovered that Norrath's gross national product per-capita is $2,266. If Norrath was a country, it would be the 77th most wealthy in the world, just behind Russia.
Castronova also found that Norrath's virtual currency is more valuable in the US than the Yen. And his research shows that EverQuest players earn an average of $3.42 for every hour spent playing the game.
...
Launched in 1999 by Sony, EverQuest is one of the largest role playing games on the internet. According to Sony, the game has 400,000 users in total, with up to 60,000 inhabiting the game at any one time.
AC = Asheron's Call - run by Turbine and Microsoft.
The worst aspect I've ever seen as a result of people buying established characters is that they have missed out on a lot of finer points of experience from game play. In short you end up with stupid high level characters, which on a whole can drag the game down, but only if more experienced players make the error of being led by these sorts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's a game. The game has rules and you have to play by them, you can't sell of your high score.
It would be like manchester united taking legal action because the rules of football don't allow them to auction of goals they scored to another team for real money. Nobody prevents them from trying, but the football authorities would just ignore any change in the match scores.
And to anyone who things this is a good idea, I've got a good space invaders high score for sale!
Sig is taking a break!
I think it's a pretty interesting idea to try to go after Mythic than Sony or M$. Well at first anyway. From a legal tactics POV it would be smart to get the ruling against a small(er) company, then use the precendent as a weapon against a larger company and their expensive evil bloodsucking lawyers.
MMMmm.. Wand of Precedence +7
5 dollah!
-=o
A document you type in word is just a 'variable' So is the text I'm writing now (both in IE and slashdot). What's your point? When you write something, you own the copyright it doesn't matter how small it is, it doesn't matter where you wrote it or in what software program.
It would do you a lot of good to learn the difference between 'intellectual property' and real property 'Intellectual property' doesn't even appear in the law, unlike 'real' property. IP is just a buzzword thought up by pro-IP groups to give themselves more moral authority.
In reality, there are four kinds of IP. Patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. None of this has anything to do with trademarks, patents or trade secrets. It's all about copyright.
But, the fact that they have copyright over something doesn't give them any extralegal control over you. I buy your book, I can sell it to whomever I want for however I want. The book is your 'Intellectual property' but it's my actual property. Copyright doesn't give you control over what's done with something, copyright gives you the right to copy. No one is copying these objects. They are just selling them.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Google only gets a non-exclusive license. That would be like the ISP or pencle owner demanding that they get a (single) free copy of the book.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A deal's a deal, and if their TOS says that your character/swag/whatever aren't transferrable, then you're honor-bound to play the game by the rules.
Buying another player's character is cheating, as far as I'm concerned.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I recently attempted to sell one of my old UINs for ICQ on eBay, as it is very low and quite desirable; I received an email telling me that AOL had requested my auction be pulled as they were the "verified rights owner" of this number
Seems that AOL have the monopoly on numbers now...
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Bah, believability is something that was thrown out the window in the earliest days of Ultima Online. EQ derivatives don't even try. Why?
People don't want a virtual world. Every time it's been offered, they've shied away from it.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
The whole point of buying a game is to play the game. If you then go and buy a pre-generated character or extra doo-hinkeys from someone else, you are NOT playing the game. You're cheating. There's no point in buying the game if you're going to cheat, you're just wasting your money.
"Information wants to be paid"
Look. It occurs to me that this is not about intellectual property or rights or any of that shit.
What this is about, in my opinion, is that the game makers want people to earn objects BY PLAYING THE GAME, and not to cheat by buying them off other people.
That's what it is. Cheating. I just don't see the point in spending money on a game and then cheating on it, the only person you're really cheating is yourself!
Basically, what the game makers are saying is that if you want a 10th level sword of arsekicking, you need to play the game and obtain it yourself - not just take a shortcut and buy it off someone else.
That's the whole point of having the game in the first place!
"Information wants to be paid"
It's not cheating if the league rules allow it. And that's what I am suggesting: the game provider build support in, or even sell in-game items or abilities for cold hard cash.
If it's the system, it isn't cheating. It's the way the game is played.
I don't play online MMORPG. The reason is that I would be paying to knowingly suck time away, and since I've had previous bouts with game addiction, I'd be setting myself up with motivation to get the most out of my $10/mo expense.
If on the other hand, the game company had a purely and explicitly laisser faire policy on item sales, as an outsider, It would greatly enhance my odds of paying and participating.
Its less of a time waste if there is an opportunity to cash out. Odds are I would probably never bother selling, but the assured choice makes all the difference in my decision to play.
Yes, TOS's banning the sale of items are quite common. The problem is that the EQ case showed that there's a way around it: sell the service of handing the item over (not "$25 for this sword" but "$25 for my time in logging in, meeting your character, and transferring a sword to them"), or the service of obtaining the item for them ("$25 for my time in logging in, adding you to my party, going to kill the R0X0R DRA60N where I deal 99% of the damage, then letting you have first pick from the loot window").
I think the copyright argument is rather vague, too, especially for selling characters. It would be entirely reasonable to argue that the series of actions that a player chooses for their character to take in the game is the PLAYER's copyright, which is tangibly fixed in the character's logs and present statistics. Also, it is not clear if the sale of the server owner's intellectual property is an issue because after all the server owner does not lose it as a result of the sale (it is still on the server)
But, at the end of the day, it really just shows that 90% of MMORPGs stink at the moment. Playing them is not fun; the only fun is in the reward you get for enduring the boring stuff for a while. Allegiance and Shattered Galaxy were quite playable, but every other MMORPG I've played has sucked rocks.
Well, they probably can't (and have no right to) stop someone paying someone else for a name and password. However, I don't see any reason they have to respect that name/password and let them continue to be used on their system, if they're not used under the conditions for which they were created (e.g., by the same user). That means the buyer bought worthless information, but that's not Mythic's problem.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Think of it this way:
Someone buys a membership to a gym (these games are memberships to, for all intents and purposes, a service or a club). Said person spends a lot of time working out with the bench press. So much time in fact, that he hogs it up 12 hours a day, during prime time hours.
Eventually, said person doesn't want or need to use it all that time, so, they decide to sell off usage. He figures that he has the potential of using that entire time, so, why not sell some of "his" time to other members?
It's basically the same concept. You are leasing an intellectual property that belongs to someone else. You should not be able to profit from it, without an agreement with the property owner.
Same thing goes for movies, music, books, software and the list goes on.
The big question I have though, how do we know that the majority of said auctioneers are not indeed employees at Verant Interactive - Sony, or whatever the associated software company is?
If I was a manager at VI/Sony and I seen the interest in people buying in game items for real money, I would probably setup auctions as an official, un-written, policy. What better way of making more money with your intellectual property? Heck, they could probably make as much or more on selling items in auction then they do on membership fees. =)
Of course, you would have to have an official policy that stated such things were not allowed, to help defeat competition from members doing the same thing. =)
Laters,
CRT_Leech
If anything they are so "hands off" on matters that most people complain about the LACK OF enforcement .
The issue here is, if trades like this are allowed who is ultimately responsible for their validness?
The fact remains that when trades go sour the scammed person usually goes to the host of the game to get it fixed, even when they know that is wasn't allowed in the first place and heavily warned against.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As we spend more and more time in virtual worlds issues like this will become more important. It is not inconcievable that, in five or ten years, most communication and interaction will happen in virtual space. Should people interacting in virtual worlds be limited in their rights and choices any more than those operating in the physical world? This question may sound silly, but there are important social and political ramifications as we spend more and more of our lives online.
... and not at all once those markets become dominated by oligarchies or monopolies).
What about communications? Does a private company running a virtual world have the right to tell you what you can and cannot say to another person in that world? Under current law, perhaps. Is this desirable or, if and when we are spending most of our time communicating with one another in that sort of context, acceptable. Probably not, if you really think about it.
The telephone company is a private corporation that owns most of the equipment and infrastructure necessary for one person to talk to another over any but the most trivial distances. For many people, most of their interpersonal communication takes place over the telephone.
We decided early on that, despite the fact that the phone company is a private corporation, they may not deny service to anyone on the basis of what they say, may not in any way limit what one person may say to another using their equipment, and so on. In exchange they were granted "common carrier" status, meaning they bore no liability for the content of communication over their lines.
These game worlds are precursors to a form of virtual reality (I hate the term, but cannot think of a more accurate one, assuming the original, unmarketdroid meaning is used) many of us may be spending much of our lives in down the road. Doubly true when we are extremely elderly and bedridden. As long as we've paid for the service, should we really be subjected to draconian TOS that decide if and how we may interact with others?
Right now it is just a game, and most of us snicker at those who take it so seriously as to buy and sell virtual items with real money. But the precedents being set here will most likely have very far reaching ramifications into our own lives down the road, in contexts that are much more significant than a mere fantasy game. Do we really want non-democratic corporate Terms of Service dictating our rights and limits?
The knee-jerk, libertarian response of "the TOS is paramount," go elsewhere if you don't like it shows that these people really haven't given much deep thought at all to where the technology is going, what the social implications are, and what the consiquences of allowing unfettered and unchecked corporate authority to trump individual liberties (remember those constitutional checks and balances? They don't exist in the corporate context, and only exist minimally in competetive markets
Today it is about buying and selling virtual toys outside of a gaming context, i.e. regulating how consenting players may interact with one another and trade items they value amongst themselves. Tommorow it could be a much more compelling concern, but if so it is likely to be affected in no small part by the precedents we set today. It would be advisable if we thought long and hard on just what we want those precedents to be, rather than simplisticly dismissing the entire debate with "the company's Terms of Service are paramout, all other concerns are irrelevant."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ummm lets see. Native Americans have tried to claim their own country. So has Hawaii, so has Quebec, so have Kurds in Turkey and Iraq etc etc etc. These people have failed to get a country AND ITS WHERE THEY LIVE. They have seperate religions, backgrounds and language and yet cannot seperate form the countries they contain.
And your idea is that A GAME, a series of 1s and 0s will address the UN.
Sometimes people really should be made to study history and the evolution of nationhood. It took a war against the then dominant world power to create the US, then another internal war to get the country that exists today. The UN is _not_ going to recognise a virtual world. Neither is any other country, its a stupid idea for many reasons but of course the most blatent one is
How do you become a citizen you have to either
a) Be born their
b) Be accepted as a national
Now given that you have to have people before you can become a nation then b doesn't apply. And you can't be born their because
IT DOESN'T REALLY EXIST
THOSE AREN'T REAL PEOPLE, its an avatar system, saying that people in these games exist is like claiming that you can declare the nation of "NetMeeting" because lots of people are using that too.
Can people on Slashdot PLEASE go outside sometimes
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
And if the "EverQuest" universe of Norrath were a country, its per-capita gross national product would be $2,266--comparable to the 77th richest country on Earth and ranking it between Russia and Bulgaria. Platinum pieces, the in-game currency known as pp, end up with an exchange rate of about a penny per pp, making "EverQuest" currency more valuable than the Japanese yen and the Spanish peseta.
Which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers ?
Its the same damn question. A _single_ Yen is worth less but the CURRENCY is JUST as valuable as the Dollar at any point in time. It can then move up or down and people make money (or defraud it) on those differences, but the Yen currency is worth about 133 Yen to the Dollar. The Currencies are therefore equivalent.
X = n * Y
X is equivalent to Y and in terms of currency the WORTH is calculated on the CURRENCY not on the individual element of that currency.
Is _the_ cent worth less than _the_ dollar ? Of course not _a_ cent is worth less than _a_ dollar.
For the person at CNET who wrote that
1) Get a life
2) Get a clue
3) Get a dictionary
4) Get a degree
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The User's License Agreement may or may not hold up in court, but the fundamental reasons for banning the sale of virtual items are unsupportable.
The argument is that sale of virtual items is damaging to the in game economy, and hurts the other players of the game. If this is true, then the in-game economy is already broken.
People can and will give powerful items and commodities to other players for free, whether they are friends, guildmates, or a second account owned by the same person. To the game, this is exactly the same effect as player A selling some pile of junk to player B for real cash.
Over time the line between 'real' money and virtual money will become increasingly blurred. ULA's like the ones existing game companies enforce are going to fail in the court system eventually.. I suggest game makers start making their economies robust enough to deal with it.
-Zaphod
I think you're reading way too much into the intentions of prosecutors when they go after 'scumbags, Rod. Well, maybe I shouldn't say "go after" because that implies malice. They're just doing what they're paid to do.
They go after kiddie-pornographers first because they want to punish monsters who try to profit from the abuse of children.
They go after terrorists first because they want to prevent terrorists from killing people.
They go after self-confessed promotors of the violation of copyrights first because violating copyright is against the law and they already have a confession, so it's an open-and-shut case.
But that kid actually drives the robot pretty well. And his is the kind of robot that really needs a good driver, 'cause the weapons are just a ramrod and a wedge. For most of the robots (the Whyachi's are a notable exception) driving is 90% of what it takes to win a battle. Building the thing is the easy part.
I have no problem with someone buying a Battlebot off of eBay, anymore than I'd have a problem with someone buying a modified motocross bike and entering a rally with it.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I have no problem with someone buying a Battlebot off of eBay, anymore than I'd have a problem with someone buying a modified motocross bike and entering a rally with it.
But there is a huge gap between your examples and characters in a game. Purchasing a 'bot or a bike does not increase the abilities of the purchaser. If you can't drive a bot, you'll still lose the competition, if you can't can ride the bike, ditto.
If you purchase a high level character, it allows you do things that you would otherwise be unable to do. It offers an unfair advantage over those who work within the rules of the game. (You can stomp through the less dangerous area's, essentially robbing spawn and treasure from lower level characters.)
There is a relationship between Mythic and Vivendi-Universal. Thats some serious ambulance chaser power on tap...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
They do - if you die and release (don't get resurrected by another pc) - you lose points of constitution and have to pay to get them back...It gets very expensive at high levels
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
It's their game, they can make up any rules they want. You don't have to play if you don't like them...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
hey, I know Slashdot isn't terribly interested in validation of stories, but can't the editors at least make sure each story points to further information (or provide it as an article)?
the only links in this story are to the companies mentioned, NOT the alleged lawsuit. so much for journalistic integrity...
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.