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IRC Network GamesNet Sued By Founder
An anonymous reader writes "
The GamesNet IRC Network is being sued by one of its co-founders, Donald 'CoolHandLuke' Wasylyna. The suit names six of GamesNet's Board of Directors as defendants, and alleges a variety of misconduct stemming from the change of Mr. Wasylyna as administrative contact for the domain gamesnet.net to the GamesNet Board of Directors. The GamesNet site has the original complaint (PDF), along with a copy of the official response(PDF)." Another reader points to a Wayback Machine page listing Mr.Wasylyna as one of the two founders of GamesNet - Wasylyna says he was "growing the membership so a membership fee could be charged" before other administrators at GamesNet allegedly transferred the domain name away from him without his consent.
First, I am really glad the people who really care about GamesNET finally have control over it.
Second, some of the numbers in the suit are incorrect in regard to Donald's expenses as he is representing donations from outside companies as personal expenses.
Third, it would be interesting to know where James stands on this issue as he was the other offical founder of GamesNET.
I am, and yes, it is normal. Basically, the first thing you do, before you've investigated everything for your side, is preserve all your rights and objection that you might assert in the future by denying everything now. Since the lawsuit phase of this dispute has just started, the defendants probably don't know enough (or haven't had enough time to think about) the particular answers and defenses they will assert. The standard thing to do, then, is to deny the allegations because you don't have information sufficient to form a belief one way or the other.
/mode #gamesnet +lawsuit
Just as a clarification, even as I'm a server admin for GamesNET, my opinion is just my own personal viewpoint and doesn't reflect anything official or any other staff members' opinions.
Imo, and what seems to be a general mood as well, this is just another great show of what a justice system becomes when it works with money and money alone. Charging IRC users for using it? Get real, even ICQ or AIM aren't charging users yet and they're the ones that are perhaps closest to it.
However, as strange as it sounds, sometimes people and companies do emerge, willing to "buy out" some IRC networks. I remember this happening once way back at QuakeNet. But an IRC network is its people, its staff, and all of them are from all around the world, bringing their part to it. You can't just sell something like that as a whole. An IRC network in the top twenties is commonly supported by a huge amount of companies hosting servers and services, from USA to Australia and back.
I did once claim that there is potential for some market value in IRC networks and the network administration should not look lightly on companies willing to host servers that are usually just DDoS magnets. But this is more like having company logos available on a web based client and such.
Some ideas that just can't work right now include:
- charging IRC users for using the service. Users can just switch to the next network, plus the service has been free since its founding. Besides, no IRC network is THAT superior
- selling advertisement space based on things such as private messages spammed regularly to all users. This does have a certain idea, but it's way too easy to block out and quite irritating.
The latter might reveal a potential idea though, giving users the possibility to take part in for example surveys or perhaps having access to some stores and services via IRC might work, so long as these are things a user can voluntarily choose to do or not to do. If such services are designed carefully, they might attract users.
I suppose someone might feel that there's some potential in charging for the use of network services, but this seems a bit hazy as well. The fact is, as long as you can get equal or better service for free elsewhere, you'll rather go elsewhere than pay.
I've had the pleasure of working with many great IRC Networks over the years. It's taken time, effort and money from my pocket. Then again, having motorcycles as a hobby does pretty much the same. Most people don't do it to one day suddenly get rich, they do it because it's FUN and while at it, they learn many useful things which can be helpful with work or other hobbies.
To me, this is just simply sad and as a non-US-citizen, to me it looks like a waste of the justice system's resources.