Member Discussions

Okay, I wasn't entirely sure where to post this, but I think this is the best place to post.

I'm talking about SOPA. Why should you care? I'm a mudder of about four years, and I know that there are MUDs that would be considered copyright-infringing.

Yes, I know it's free and that you only mean to share in a common interest. Well, if SOPA passes, MUDs such as Harry-Potter, Duungeons & Dragons, and Final Fantasy may be in danger of being taken down forcibly and the administrators and players may be held responsible for any punishment for piracy.

So, MUDders, please take a stand against SOPA and the lesser known PIPA. The US cannot pass these bills or all copyright-infringing media will be taken down and censored for the sake of piracy. If anything is even remotely similar to a big-name video game, book, or movie.

Even Player Reviews are in the line of sights by corporate censorship. Because it contains material relating to a copyrighted item, it will be removed immediately and the player reviewer will be under fire.

Voice your concerns to big companies and media empires. We are in the age of Freedom of Information, I don't want to see it censored to death and completely stagnate all creativity and entertainment.

LOL, this isn't the first copyright law. And besides, no one
is going to care about a "mud" infringing on copyright. MUDs
have freedom to choose their theme now because muds are
obsolete when you look at the numbers.

If you want to make a Harry Potter theme before or after SOPA,
go for it. Nothing will happen.

CyberASSAULT is full of SOPA violations! Come and get us. We have guns and grenades.


SOPA violation Areas
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Mortal Kombat (simulation machine)
Beavis and Butthead (simulation machine)
Bladerunner
Terminator
Resident Evil
Shadowrun
DOOM

SOPA violation Items
-=-=-=-=--=-=-=--=-==
Dr. Who's TARDIS Machine
Luke Skywalker's Jedi Lightsaber
the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
diet coke




Hillary Rodham Clinton contemplates trading in cattle futures.

is hillary clinton a sopa mob?

The blatant disregard toward the subject matter of this
thread is sickening.

It doesn't matter that MUDs are unpopular, the US will not stop until either the other side surrenders or it kills itself trying. Heck, even MUDs in general are going to be in trouble because they are a blatant rip-off of Richard Bartle's idea, so SOPA can use that as a means to tear down this site and similar sites.

Also, MUDs with war themes are going to be taken down because it is similar to Electronic Arts Call of Duty games. So, CyberASSAULT, you should be worrying more than making sarcastic remarks. An, in addition, Hillary Clinton is all against SOPA even though her ideas of a censored internet are in the bill.

The thing about MUDders is, you seem to think you live in a community outside of the one you really are in. I'm not calling stupid or anything, it just seems like you are in a nice little paradise that won't be affected by any kind of laws.

Most of the people here GREW UP with the internet. How would you feel if the internet was censored to the point where the only websites are American Corporation websites with a listing of their products and how they won the Internet in an effort to stagnate change.

I only came to ask that you help in the stopping of SOPA. I live in the US, I know just how far American Corporations can get their hands.

Please educate yourself first. It's patently clear, pun intended, that you haven't a clue what copyright is.

Tyche,

The whole point of this thread is that current copyright protections are substantially eroded by this new legislation. The accuser does NOT need to prove anything; simply the accusation is sufficent to take a service offline. And if you think that EA isn't going to protect its cash cow, you are sadly mistaken.

The fact of the matter is that these laws affect pretty much everyone here, because they are Bad Laws. We may not have much power, and we may not have much influence, but I believe it is worth exerting what little we possess to make our voices heard. It is substantially cheaper to write your congressman now, than to fight your way through the federal court system against EA.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com

Jetra_Rise wrote:
Heck, even MUDs in general are going to be in trouble because they are a blatant rip-off of Richard Bartle's idea,

No, copyright doesn't protect ideas.

Jetra_Rise wrote:
so SOPA can use that as a means to tear down this site and similar sites.

SOPA is a proposed bill, not an entity. But yes, under SOPA the copyright holder could seek a court order against sites like TMC and TMS, rather than just targeting the individual muds. It's a really nasty bill which fortunately looks unlikely to be passed.

Jetra_Rise wrote:
The thing about MUDders is, you seem to think you live in a community outside of the one you really are in. I'm not calling stupid or anything, it just seems like you are in a nice little paradise that won't be affected by any kind of laws.

I hope you're not judging us based on Jodah's post. His wilful ignorance of copyright law (as well as many other subjects, including mud design and internet security) are well known on these forums.

I agree that SOPA and PIPA are serious issues that will ultimately kill the internet as we know it. But when the *CENSORED* hits the fan, we will be found as
cyberassault.onion
on the underground internet ;)



stop having such a cow everyone. relax and MUD.

dentin wrote:
Tyche,

The whole point of this thread is that current copyright protections are substantially eroded by this new legislation. The accuser does NOT need to prove anything; simply the accusation is sufficent to take a service offline. And if you think that EA isn't going to protect its cash cow, you are sadly mistaken.

The fact of the matter is that these laws affect pretty much everyone here, because they are Bad Laws. We may not have much power, and we may not have much influence, but I believe it is worth exerting what little we possess to make our voices heard. It is substantially cheaper to write your congressman now, than to fight your way through the federal court system against EA.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com

Hell, with a passed SOPA bill, you could decide that you no longer like this review of your MUD and see that it is taken down.

Given that a good deal of 'big players' in varying tech industries are opposing SOPA, it would seem that there is a good chance it won't pass. One can only hope so.

No, but asking a lot of people around about certain games, they have either never heard of them or know a little about it.

Thanks, KaVir, for the lesson on Copyright.

(Comment added by Jetra_Rise on Sun Jan 15 11:21:46 2012)

How do you put up a quote?

Kavir wrote:
No, copyright doesn't protect ideas.

Actually the very thought of copyright is to protect ideas
that have been implemented.

SOPA is a proposed bill, not an entity. But yes, under SOPA
the copyright holder could seek a court order against sites
like TMC and TMS, rather than just targeting the individual
muds. It's a really nasty bill which fortunately looks
unlikely to be passed.

SOPA can be referred to as an entity, although not a literal
one. Many news agencies refer to it as an agency. It's a
figure a speech known as a metonymy. You are undoubtedly
too uneducated to understand that.

You are also incorrect referring to the takedown of TMC.
TMC and TMS does not host any copyrighted material, nor does
it link to any copyright material. The telnet connections
do no constitute a "link" and the websites are essentially
original words talking about their particular favorite
theme. I know of no website that attempts to write a 15th
Robert Jordan novel. No action would ever be taken.

STOP trying to scare people as usual.

I hope you're not judging us
based on Jodah's post. His wilful ignorance of copyright law
(as well as many other subjects, including mud design and
internet security) are well known on these forums.

I certainly hope you're not worried over Kavir's
incomprehension of copyright law. He's not even American
for crying out loud. His willful deceit and scaremongering
is well known in the copyright discussions.

Fact: No muds will ever be taken down before or after SOPA.
It will never be worth it for them to even pursue it. With
all the counterfeit merchandise and the piracy on the
internet, they are going to go after a mud with 3 players?
LOL. Never going to happen.

The moral? If you want to make a mud based Final Fantasy or
Harry Potter, go for it.

I certainly hope you're not worried over Kavir's
incomprehension of copyright law. He's not even American
for crying out loud. His willful deceit and scaremongering
is well known in the copyright discussions.

Fact: No muds will ever be taken down before or after SOPA.
It will never be worth it for them to even pursue it. With
all the counterfeit merchandise and the piracy on the
internet, they are going to go after a mud with 3 players?
LOL. Never going to happen.

The moral? If you want to make a mud based Final Fantasy or
Harry Potter, go for it.

I take it you are fairly new to the mudding community. My brother Fraust knows KaVir very well and KaVir is a smart man. You, however, probably live under a rock.

On the contrary, Kavir is probably one of the least educated
people on here.

Frankly, I don't care about your opinion, you are essentially
irrelevant. Your original post, clouded in ignorance on
copyright law, is nothing more than a scare tactic.

SOPA is intended to take down websites toting counterfeit
merchandise often sold from overseas, as well as movie copying
which causes people to lose actual jobs (no one loses a job
over mudding, newsflash for ya). They have neither the
resources nor the inclination to come after a "mud". It's
very cute that you think muds, games consisting of 0.0001% of
the total gaming community (conservative estimate), are
anywhere near a threat to waste their time on.

(Comment added by Jodah on Sun Jan 15 17:51:35 2012)

My join date is 2001, yours is 2010. Who's new here?

Jodah wrote:
/>On the contrary, Kavir is probably one of the least
educated
people on here.

Frankly, I don't care
about your opinion, you are essentially
irrelevant.
Your original post, clouded in ignorance on
copyright
law, is nothing more than a scare tactic.

SOPA is
intended to take down websites toting counterfeit

merchandise often sold from overseas, as well as movie
copying
which causes people to lose actual jobs (no one
loses a job
over mudding, newsflash for ya). They have
neither the
resources nor the inclination to come after
a "mud". It's
very cute that you think muds, games
consisting of 0.0001% of
the total gaming community
(conservative estimate), are
anywhere near a threat to
waste their time on.

(Comment added
by Jodah on Sun Jan 15 17:51:35 2012)

My
join date is 2001, yours is 2010. Who's new here?

Your continued ignorance on the subject matter is fairly
obvious to any reader of this site. Ever wonder why you are
so often out in the woods on your own?

Ignoring Jodah

American Corporations of the US will stop at nothing until they are the dominant market in every country. How would you feel if a US company such as EA or Microsoft or Apple told you you couldn't sell a certain product in a country say Germany or Greenland because it may create competition.

Companies absolutely hate competition. They want a monopoly. You think that they are going to let a single glimmer of hope such as MUDs be able to flare up? No, they will stomp it to put out whatever competition in left. There are many gamers, and those gamers, when cornered, will go back to the old games.

It should also be noted that most companies probably have one or two dozen people who either play, grew up with, or know of MUDs. You will not be off the radar for long. Type in mud in a search engine and a site similar to this will pop up. Maybe a game will pop up as well. Then they will poke and prod and search and then take down all copyright-infringing sites.

Should SOPA pass, every gamer, player reviewer, and YouTube celebrity will flock to MUDs as a last ditch effort for freedom of information. I, for one, should SOPA pass, will spread the word of MUDs by word of mouth if I have to.

A lot of MUDders here seem to be very educated and in the prime of their life, so your influence, while not that big, can still make an impact.

This is not a scare tactic. This is a plea for any support for going against SOPA. You will not lose just MUDs. You will lose the internet. Nothing will be posted anymore. Only advertisements will rule. No more search engines, no more Facebook, no more blogs, no more funny YouTube videos. All that there will be are Microsoft, Apple, and several other big-name companies. 99% of the net will be taken down. It will be monitored for any activity that could mean creativity and sharing. Censorship will win, and we will be flung back into the Dark Ages, forever living life with no Freedom of Information.

Please, please do whatever you can to stop SOPA and PIPA. Congress will convene on January 21 to decide whether the bill passes or fails. Should it pass, I hope that MUDs will still be around. I'm not a very active MUDder, but I will love them forever and would be torn to see such passionate players be forced to go back to the dreary lives that they are escaping.

Without MUDs, we would have no Internet as we know it.

(Comment added by Jetra_Rise on Sun Jan 15 18:06:18 2012)

And I've been playing MUDs since 2006, you arse!

(Comment added by Jetra_Rise on Sun Jan 15 18:10:04 2012)

And I've been playing MUDs since 2006, you arse!

Should SOPA pass, every gamer, player
reviewer, and YouTube celebrity will flock to MUDs as a last
ditch effort for freedom of information.

Oh dear. This statement alone is the very definition of
delusion and stupidity. Youtube celebrity flocking to MUDS,
where do you come up with this stuff?


(Comment added by Jodah on Sun Jan 15 18:21:51 2012)

"Without MUDs, we would have no Internet as we know it."

Oh my lol. What's it like inside your head? Get high much?

(Comment added by Jodah on Sun Jan 15 18:23:59 2012)

Congrats Kavir, you have a crazy man on your side.

Well, I can see that Jodah is going to be trolling this. Enjoy having SOPA buddy. Let the US tell you what you can and cannot post online.

I never said I supported SOPA.

Obviously you do because you are not even trying to help. In fact, it may seem you are trying to make people avert their eyes from this matter so that the bill may have a chance to pass. 100 voices may not be much, but it's still 100 more votes against an evil legislature.

Lol, how's that ignore working out for ya?

Unless the cops are knocking at my door, no one is telling me what I can do on my MUD or anything I do online. Even then, I'll still make backups and not give a *CENSORED* what some old ass congress loser has to say. Yes, I'm being ignorant and stubborn about this, but SOPA takes away our freedom in a sense. This is something I would defend till the end, even if it ends up with me being in jail. The court can order me to do whatever but that doesn't mean I have to abide by it. I will piss in their coffee and go about my business online as usual. So does this mean people can't play table top games like D&D but another theme in their own home? If so, this country is going to hell faster than I thought...

Not sure if table top games will be in any danger, but given Congress's agressive lobbyists, I might say they will at least try to take a swing at it and see if they can't dominate even more of their precious market earnings.

dentin wrote:
Tyche,

The whole point of this thread is that current copyright protections are substantially eroded by this new legislation.

I presume the "whole point of this thread" is apparently to repeat misinformation and spew propaganda about SOPA without objection.

Copyright protection is extended to the creators of works. If anything the law strengthens their hand rather than eroding it, through stiffer penalties against all infringers and sanctions against foreign infringers. It doesn't change what can or cannot be copyrighted, nor does it change what is or not copyright infringement.

dentin wrote:

The accuser does NOT need to prove anything; simply the accusation is sufficent to take a service offline.

Wrong. First, SOPA targets foreign-based sites not US-based sites. Current Federal law for US sites already allows US sites to be shut down by the Federal court and U.S. attorney general. The process works as follows. Under the DMCA a copyright owner sends a notice to the provider that they are hosting an infringing work. The provider gives the person hosting with them an opportunity to file a contra notice denying that they are or shuts them down. This process indemnifies the provider from legal action, not the infringer. Presuming the content remains online and the author still believes it is infringing they file a suit in Federal court, and almost invariably with an injunction to shut the site down. A judge examines the motion, and the counter motions and determines whether the site will be temporarily shut down while the suit proceeds.

This is almost identical to the process outlined in SOPA. This is known in our system as due process. A simple accusation does NOT take a site down without judicial review. In fact, a new provision in the SOPA law punishes those who file false accusations.

U.S. Federal Law doesn't extend to foreign-based sites, so the DMCA process does not apply (they can't lose immunity provisions they never had), and any Federal court ruling or U.S. attorney action ruling on shutting down a foreign site is extra-jurisdictional. So SOPA provisions allow the Federal court or U.S. attorney general to order the foreign domain name resolution blocked, seize a US registered domain they might be using, order U.S. based advertisers/financial institutions to suspend any accounts owned by the foreign entity, and order search engines to restrict searches from reaching the foreign site.

When the DMCA was passed, it was going to kill muds.
The TCPA chip was going to kill muds.
A failure to pass a Net Neutrality law was going to kill muds.
Now SOPA is going to kill muds.

Sorry, but once again the sky ain't falling.

Copyright infringement is NOT free speech.

dentin wrote:

And if you think that EA isn't going to protect its cash cow, you are sadly mistaken.

The fact of the matter is that these laws affect pretty much everyone here, because they are Bad Laws. We may not have much power, and we may not have much influence, but I believe it is worth exerting what little we possess to make our voices heard. It is substantially cheaper to write your congressman now, than to fight your way through the federal court system against EA.

Electronic Arts is a wonderful company that employs hundreds of creative software engineers and graphic artists and has brought joy to millions and millions of people. I have nothing against EA, nor do I have anything to fear from EA.

The recent shutdowns of dozens and of U.S. based warez sites hasn't affected my life at all, because I don't steal software, music, movies, etc. I purchase what I want. SOPA doesn't change that. Nor do I fear copyright infringement, because I've never made myself dependent on any authors' works that I don't have permission to use.

Jetra_Rise wrote:

I take it you are fairly new to the mudding community.

He is, Jodah's own mud was a failure so now he just spends his time trolling the forums, spreading misinformation and terrible advise to prospective mud owners. He goes around telling people they can ignore copyrights while criticising muds based on copyrighted works - just like he tells people its offensive to use the word Christmas in their muds while at the same time using the term himself. His suggestions for mud design are nearly as funny, where he pushes his "unique" ideas...that other muds had already implemented over a decade earlier, or lists old features from the 90s (that modern muds have long since replaced with something better) and claiming they are needed to compete. It's no coincidence that the only place he posts is TMC - the other big mud forums are all moderated, and would simply delete his worthless drivel.

Tyche wrote:
Copyright protection is extended to the creators of works. If anything the law strengthens their hand rather than eroding it, through stiffer penalties against all infringers and sanctions against foreign infringers. It doesn't change what can or cannot be copyrighted, nor does it change what is or not copyright infringement.

The problem is that SOPA would allow you to block entire domains, and you wouldn't even need to prove you were the copyright holder to do so. It's little wonder that so many are opposed to it.

Perhaps more relevant to the subject of muds: Online Gamer... And Congressional Rep. Jared Polis Discusses Problems Of SOPA In Gaming Forum

Fortunately the White House has now rejected it, stating “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet”