Member Discussions

You're like a crazy person, with the 50.

Crat:
"Actually I think that anal trolls perform a
valuable service on forums."

Your avatar does have a frightening similarity to what I might envision a butt pirate as....


Keep on trolling, baby. Yeah.
-Ssol

Yarr!

-Crat

(Comment added by cratylus on Mon Aug 13 13:27:53 2007)

BTW those deleted posts are back, so hooray for TMS

http://www.topmudsites.com/forums/tms-announcements-feedback/4443-posts-undeleted.html

(Comment added by cratylus on Fri Aug 31 14:57:29 2007)

Well. they banned me for speaking out against their
deletion policy, so :(

http://lpmuds.net/moderation/

This thread, although interesting, looks a bit lopsided to me. It seems that more of the discussion is about the Builder's rights than the Mud's. It is of course easier to argue for the former, since the creators are at least theoretically guarded by the copyright law. But what laws protects the Mud?

Muds are things which do not have any rights.
They can't own property.

Most non-commercial muds seem to operate on an honor or implied contract. I've never helped out at one that required anything signed, although some did have policies written, and one you had to provide your email to actually sign the game, which may be arguable in court as a permissable form of signature. I would never work for a mud that required me to sign a work for hire or anything even remotely close to it, as the majority of MUDs die pretty quickly, or branch off. This is one reason why I mentioned the VisualMud graphical zone builder. Archived copies of your zones mean you can always have a copy on hand, and VM can be adapted to most any mud building formats.

That said, most people provide work on a MUD out of desire to affect their environment, to help the mud in question, a feeling of importance, and a few other various reasons. None of these are really too condusive towards signing contracts, especially for no tangible compensation. Not everything needs to be wrapped up in a neat little legal package though. Concepts like honor, integrity and dignity do still exist, although they may seem a rarity at times.

Asking for the zone to be removed in a non-hostile way will likely work wonders. If you take the time to explain your reasons you might also get the problem itself solved. But keep it under a paragraph, nobody really cares to read a long and emotionally distraught diatribe from someone who's already got negative anchors in their mind. If you've got much information on them such as their real name and city, you could even try calling them and talking it out in an honest and sincere manner.

Failing that, the DMCA is a very decent way to get issues fixed. Hosts can't and won't ignore it, because otherwise they could be liable for the infringement. It's been used a bit shadily in tech news, such as with the fedex box couch guy, but overall it's a useful piece of legislation.

Remember, even if the MUD Admin has no ethics, his host, or his ISP on the other hand are likely to. Go above his head if you have to, but just try to be reasonable and deal with it on a personal level first. It may be far more effective than you'd think.

(Comment added by OnceHour on Mon Aug 13 13:46:29 2007)

This post also works in reverse as an administrator dealing with builders. If someone is deadset on you removing a zone, it's generally a good thing to do so. However, the biggest problems I've seen in MUDs are from inadequate communication and a lack of effort put into solving issues.

Honest and frank discussion will get you much further than legal threats any day.

A man named Amos once used to make cookies and sold them for a living. One day, his company got bought out by a major conglomerate. The next day, he was prevented, legally, from ever using his OWN NAME again on any product he ever made in the future.

If I write a book while I am employed by a textbook-writing company, and leave that company, they OWN the book and everything written in it.

If I volunteer to write an advertisment for a non-profit organization to promote their Annual Fund-Raising Ball, and stop volunteering for their organization, THEY own that ad. I wrote it for THEM. If I wanted to write one for myself I'd create my own organization and write one for myself. I did it for THEM, they don't owe me anything other than what they agreed to give me in advance - which might be a ticket to that ball, or a free drink after I get there.

They wouldn't own the style of the ad. If I copyright that style, then yes it's mine. But once I give them the ad, the ad itself belongs to them - because, well, I gave it to them.

Same goes for building. If you build FOR SOMEONE ELSE - then that someone else now owns what you built for them. If you didn't intend for them to own it, you shouldn't have given it to them in the first place.

I hate when I lose the key to my trigger lock.

Desharei,

You are confusing contractual agreements with
the casual sharing of content. It's really not the same.

Also, there's no need to get excited.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Yeah, thread kind of died 3-4 posts back.

Time to toss it in the freezer and hope no one raises it from the dead...

Most non-commercial muds seem to operate on an honor or implied contract. I've never helped out at one that required anything signed, although some did have policies written, and one you had to provide your email to actually sign the game, which may be arguable in court as a permissable form of signature. I would never work for a mud that required me to sign a work for hire or anything even remotely close to it, as the majority of MUDs die pretty quickly, or branch off.

It's really only necessary for signed written agreements when those running the mud ask for rights to builders' works that rise to that which require it, particularly ownership or co-ownership of the work or rights to exclusive use of the work. And even then this is only necessary if and when the author of a work objects to its use. It's certainly perfectly reasonable and quite common that an author of a work fully intends and allows another to use it exclusively or exercise all the rights normally accorded to the copyright holder absent any written agreement. I myself have contributed code to dozens of open source projects and muds where the copyright is held de facto by someone else.

This is one reason why I mentioned the VisualMud graphical zone builder. Archived copies of your zones mean you can always have a copy on hand, and VM can be adapted to most any mud building formats.

This is mostly a convenience issue. The author of a work can certainly recreate their work from memory, local copies, a database dump, text file, logs or even screen scraping. I'm not aware of any legal obligations that would require one using or receiving the work to provide reverse copies to the author on demand. I'm not familiar with VisualMud graphical zone builder, but I would guess it would be practically useless for Mush, Muck, MOO, Cold, LPMuds, and many others.

Not everything needs to be wrapped up in a neat little legal package though. Concepts like honor, integrity and dignity do still exist, although they may seem a rarity at times.

True. It's probably wise for those running muds to make it very clear to those contributing to them what they intend or might wish do with their work at some point. Just for example, I can think of a number of possible points of confusion which if ignored might come back to bite you later...

* I had no idea I could be banned from the mud and you'd still be using my work.
* I had no idea you'd turn over the mud to Bob the asshat, otherwise I'd have never have contributed to it.
* I didn't know you were going to go commercial. I want to be paid for my work.
* I had no idea you were going to release the mud and distribute it publicly. Leave out my work.
* I had no idea you were going to heavily edit and change my work. Stop it.

Desharei touched on a couple of good examples, which I tried to express earlier using my analogy of creating something while in the employ of a company.

Something we all seem to be forgetting is that these areas are created, almost always, for a specific mud, tailored to fit that specific mud. Most often builders do not turn around and create something for the sole purpose of creating it, with no mud at all in mind, etc. That shows an intent for the area to be used for a specific purpose, as an addition to an already created work. So, for all intents and purposes, aside from the rare exception, the builder would not be building if that mud didn't exist, the area is built for use in that mud and while the builder should always be credited for their work, the work itself should become the property of the medium it was intended to become a part of.

Regardless of whether or not the area can be used by another mud. Remember, in most instances, the area must be "tweaked" before it can be included in another mud. This means, from my point of view (both as a builder and as an admin) that the area becomes changed into a "new" area if significant tweaking is done (alteration of file format, re-writing portions of it, adjusting monster/item levels, whatever). For the developers out there, here is an analogy for you: If you write a program and then later alter it, (bug fixes, modified some of the features, added new features, whatever) you would alter the version number most likely, would you not? While version 1.0 and 1.1 are substantially a similar program, they are no longer the same. Example: Zmud v. 5.x and Zmud 6.x are similar pieces of software, but they have been changed and are not the same. So therefore whether an area can or can't be used on another mud isn't really germane to the topic, which is substantially, can a builder force a mud to remove their area(s)? Legally speaking, probably, provided the area hasn't been given over expressly to the mud or put into the public domain. However, once the area is hooked into the mud, and other parts of the mud interact with it (ie: if some other builder added part of a quest into that area, or added additional rooms or monsters or items, whatever) things become much more muddled because that removal would impact on other people's IP.

Mud's are rarely a solitary venture, and what the builders do is create something on par to the old "American quilt" where all the quilters would add to the quilt, creating something amazing.

When a builder attempts to force their will, without just cause (and being banned for cause by an admin is not just cause for removal of an area) he/she is pulling the old, "I don't like you anymore, I'm taking my ball and going home!" disrupting the neighborhood baseball/basketball game. If the admin banned you without just cause, well, he/she has pretty much shown their colors and yelling and screaming for your area to be removed will fall on deaf ears. If you feel it necessary and feel you have a case for it, go for the DCMA, though you're screwed on that if he hosts on his own server unless you can find his ISP.

The end result is chaos, not just on that mud, but as the OP found out, it can have a ripple effect which brings chaos to places uninvolved.

Same goes for building. If you build FOR SOMEONE ELSE - then that someone else now owns what you built for them. If you didn't intend for them to own it, you shouldn't have given it to them in the first place

Not in the US, unless you specifically sign something to that effect. Things you do personally at work are not automatically owned by the company.

Further if I make an area for a MUD, they are not a company, they havent made me sign my IP rights away. They have no legal right to my 'words'. They may have a case for the file structure and the things they contributed, but there is no contract. There is no right to the IP of the area beyond what the creator allows.

-Syn

How can this be any clearer?

If you create something for someone else, that someone else has the right to keep it. The operative term is "for someone else." If you create something for yourself, using someone else's supplies, then one would assume you and that someone else worked out a deal in advance, to avoid any confusion as to who gets to keep the finished creation.

But - if you do it for someone else, they get to keep it. Now - unless something is signed in advance, they can't tell you that -you- can't also keep it, or do with it whatever you wish. But - you can't make them give back what you created -for them.-

If you paint a mural on my wall, and I catch you stealing from my house and kick you out, you do -not- have the right to demand I paint over the mural.

If you tell me a story of your own creation, and we have an arguement and I toss you out of my life forever, you do -not- have the right to demand I never tell the story to anyone else.

If you show me how to use visual basic to create a program that lets me do some nifty thing on my computer, and you decide your talents are better spent elsewhere, you do -not- have the right to demand that I remove the program from my computer.

It doesn't get any clearer than this. If you did it FOR ME then it's up to ME to decide if I want to keep it or not.

Desharei,

Your access to your opinion on this is
obviously crystal clear. You are not in the slightest
bit confused about your opinion on the matter.

The problem is that your opinion does not conform
to the way IP actually works, in legal terms.

Your moral position seems a fair one, and I'm not
saying you're necessarily morally wrong.

But you are acting like your sense of ethical
propriety regarding area ownership is the same thing
as IP law, and that is just not so.

You seem to be arguing what is *right*. Fine, your
position could not be more clear. You can stop
repeating it.

What others are arguing here is what is *legal*.
It is not the same thing, and if you
research the question, you will find that the
legalities do incur material for debate that
your moral certainty does not settle.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

A contractual agreement is between a person and either one or more persons or an organization whereas both parties commit to certain things. Whether this be for money or not is not a part of the issue.

A builder enters into a contractual agreement with a mud admin (or head builder, or whomever "hires" them and brings them onboard) to create areas, monsters, objects for the mud, contribute to the mud in various ways, etc. In return, the mud provides them a place to show off their work, greater than "normal" user access, grants them certain abilities to complete their areas, monsters, objects, and other duties that may be a part of their signing on. The agreement is that either party may cancel their affiliation with the other at any time, for any reason.

So, whether they sign something or not is immaterial. They agree when creating an immortal account, or having their normal user account upgraded to the status of an immortal (or whatever it is called on a specific mud) to do certain things, such as, but not limited to: building areas (and all that it encompasses), respecting and adhering to the mud's policies, enforcing said policies if that was agreed to, etc.

When I speak with people interesting in becoming immortals on my mud, their responsibilities and the things that are expected are spoken and discussed until a mutually satisfactory agreement is reached and they join the mud, or one of us decides that person doesn't make a good fit and the discussion ends and we both go on our merry way.

How come this is so difficult for people to comprehend? An agreement doesn't have to be in writing, electronically or otherwise. A verbal agreement is also valid under the law, if I recall. It doesn't matter if no money or other "tangible" goods changes hands. Its no different then if I agree to tell everyone that little Johnny painted my bedroom. Johnny doesn't have the right to demand for me to repaint my bedroom because he and I are no longer speaking to each other or no longer friends. We agreed that he'd repaint my room and I give him credit. THAT is a verbal contract.

A builder enters into a contractual agreement with a mud admin (or head builder, or whomever "hires" them and brings them onboard) to create areas, monsters, objects for the mud, contribute to the mud in various ways, etc. In return, the mud provides them a place to show off their work, greater than "normal" user access, grants them certain abilities to complete their areas, monsters, objects, and other duties that may be a part of their signing on. The agreement is that either party may cancel their affiliation with the other at any time, for any reason.

So, whether they sign something or not is immaterial. They agree when creating an immortal account, or having their normal user account upgraded to the status of an immortal (or whatever it is called on a specific mud) to do certain things, such as, but not limited to: building areas (and all that it encompasses), respecting and adhering to the mud's policies, enforcing said policies if that was agreed to, etc.

Not in the US. Have fun legally backing that though..

-Syn

*reads original post*

*reads three endless pages of legal garble and hopes her eyes stop bleeding soon*

Taren, dude, you built for a mud. Note the term 'build'. This is not (in most instances) a fly-by kind of project. You are not just adding in a zone here and there, you are actually helping to construct the mud as a whole. Unless it was otherwise stated by you or the admin of the mud when you first came on to work, your contributions were assumed to be permanent.

(more simply, unless you said, "the work only stays as long as I am with the mud, do you agree" and the admin said, "yea, sure" then just drop it an move on)

Yes, it is crap to put time and effort into a mud and get booted off (it has happened to me) but it does not justify pulling your area(s) out and leaving the mud with gaping holes.

(no matter how much you really, really want to leave the jerks with a bleeding mud-grin)

At least you know what you want from any future muds you build on and can (hopefully) avoid this problem in the future.

(I am not sure who would hire you with the whole 'my zones go with me' requirement but good luck to you anyway.)

Kitkat - really, really big gaping holes of despair -

From Snynorel:

<snip>
Not in the US. Have fun legally backing that though..
</snip>

Yes, they are:

http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/contract/verbal.html
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/contract_law.html#2 (read the Oral Contract part)

Basically, while verbal/oral contracts are difficult to prove, they are legally binding in most instances, except for things that would fall under the "Statue of Fraud" prohibitions.

Basically, while verbal/oral contracts are difficult to prove, they are legally binding in most instances, except for things that would fall under the "Statue of Fraud" prohibitions.

And the transferral of copyright ownership IS one of those "things".

Yes, they are:

http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/contract/verbal.html
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/contract_law.html#2 (read the Oral Contract part)

Basically, while verbal/oral contracts are difficult to prove, they are legally binding in most instances, except for things that would fall under the "Statue of Fraud" prohibitions.

In most cases is a good way to put it. If I write a story on a mud, its my story unless you and I specifically agree that its yours. If I create an area, the actual IP is mine, unless you and I specifically agree its not. I hold the copyright on the IP unless I give that right away in some contract which would specifically state as much.

Much like a company has no right to simply walk over and take a diary you write in during lunch unless you sign a waiver that anything at all you write on the premises is theirs and you for some reason actually agree to that.

If your not paying for the work, and do not explicity state in a contract form that the originator gives up their rights to their own IP, you don't have a leg to stand on.

Your links really have no bearing.

-Syn

All I was doing was rebutting your statement that verbal agreements are not legally binding in the United States. I was not speaking of IP, nor copyright.

As far as IP/copyright goes, I have a question, if an author of a book has it published, can the author then require the publisher to recall all copies of the book, just because he/she owns the IP to the book? I'm curious, because I'm trying to get a short story I wrote published.

No, barring some sort of imaginary publisher so incompetent as to let himself be put into that sort of situation. Said publisher isn't going to be in business long in any case.

Part of a publishing agreement is the author signing the publishing rights over to the publisher. Exactly what rights, for how long, in what territories, and so on are part of each individual contract and differ from publishing house to publishing house as well as from author to author.

--matt

I didn't bother reading all of the inane ideas spouted here, so I apologize incase someone else has already cleared this up:

Desharei and Kingarthyr seem to have an implied contract confused with a real contract. You could potentially argue that the builder is making a derivative work from your original theme, if indeed their work is not a seperate entity and incorporates parts of your theme in it.

You could also try to argue in court that there would be an implied contract, but as I said in an earlier post it really just depends on personal discussions. Few people on a non-commercial basis are going to sue in either regard.

If someone *really* doesn't want their work on your mud, would you keep it against their will? And in the other vein, if a mud administrator loved your work so much they specifically asked you to please allow them to keep it, would you turn them down?

We can argue night and day about the legality of this issue, but unless anyone's going to court it's just armchair lawyering. Some of it's not even particularly good armchair lawyering. The options the grandparent of this thread has, and that anyone reading this thread for their own options are this:

1) Discuss your problems and wants with the administrator.

2) DMCA the host of the MUD. Understand that the administrator can counter-claim.

3) Complain about the administrator on mud forums to vent your frustrations and hopefully reach them.

4) Sue the administrator in either small claims or standard court.


Ideally in that order. Anyone who tries to tell you it's cut and dry one way or the other is just armchairing unless they are your copyright attorney and giving you specific legal advice at that time.


-Once

All I was doing was rebutting your statement that verbal agreements are not legally binding in the United States. I was not speaking of IP, nor copyright.

I was specifically speaking to your example, and unless that is specifically stated, no. Not in the us. Have fun with that.

-Syn