Legality and source code usage

[spade88]

I was reading about Legal doctrines, and of course how they are formed and later made.

Wiki definition:
"A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, procedural steps, or test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about when a judge makes a ruling where a process is outlined and applied, and allows for it to be equally applied to like cases. When enough judges make use of the process soon enough it becomes established as the de facto method of deciding like situations."



So I'll switch gears now, and start to talk about video game companies (Stay tuned it's about to get interesting).

Gaming companies who develop online video games in my opinion should be held accountable for taking their video games offline when they decide to shutdown. But this is not to be confused with shutting-down their servers for upgrading or general maintenance of course (that's common). Video game companies should feel some sort of responsibility when they release games online for public use, they are profiting in it in some way or form and should be held accountable for their actions.

These video game companies should release their original source code of the game client, but only after they have decided to drop their online access. This would allow the fan base community to host their own private severs, and to continue their online game play.



If a legal doctrine were to be created to cater to this particular case then their would be some pros & cons which are listed below:

Pros:

- Games no longer collect dust
- Online communities slowly stop in declining
- Fans complaining about the absence of their favorite online games decreases
- Private severs become legal & are recognized by the gaming community and accepted
- Servers will most likely change their gameplay information to permit you to reach higher levels than you would usually be in a position to reach if you were playing on an official server.
- You would realistically be able to increase your levels to a new high
- These servers will probably have their own game items to offer to their players. (These game items could well be completely dissimilar from what is offered on an official server)
- Cash-shop feature in game or on general website


Cons:

- The original story mite get rewritten (lawsuit nightmare)
- New online game releases mite suffer
- private server will often limit the number of connections if it starts to become too populated
- private server can be difficult to join if the owners of the server don't make the game server well implemented
- The amount of people that may connect to the server at one time is usually a load less than what's offered on an official server
- The server operations are often run by players who become bored with the official game servers. (Because of this they have an inclination to disappear when they no longer would like to pay for the cost of hosting)
- The private server is available only when the owner decides to turn it on, instead of being available whenever you would like to play on a server.
- With aprivate game server you may often see more lag Problems

(their are other pros & cons I just wanted to give you a few examples)




This new legal doctrine (X) would allow set games that were once thriving online to have a second chance, and to be run by their fan base communities. From a video game companies stand point their in it for not only the creation of an amazing game but for making profit plan and simple. Where not making video game companies out to sound bad, its just not within the consumers best interests. Video game companies have a general interest in profit over game creation most of the time, and neglect their own gaming communities that they themselves create. Now that's not to say they aren't in it for making the best game ever, but shutting down for example their online games is like telling their consumers we give up or quit. Weather its because of money problems or legal issues that dig deep it still leaves the consumer left with nothing.








If this legal doctrine idea sounds like it will fail, an alternative solution would be if set video game companies would come to a financial agreement. By that I mean in order to release the source code for the video games the video game companies would decided on a reasonable way to sell the source code. What I mean is that a vender could buy the source code and open shop anywhere online and host private servers for it. (hope you follow that)






Let me know what you think, and if you felt this was to unethical or not...

[Sayara]

Video game producers always still have the right to their intellectual properties. Even if its a "dead game" or not. They have the right to do whatever they want with it. Not everyone is as open-minded as say Valve is releasing most of their resources to indie gamers or whatever.

On one hand, Letting developers play with or tinker with older source codes to try and develop games sure thats something cool, but I feel like they should never gain any monatary value using another companies direct coding or whatever.

[spade88]

The Legal doctrines challenges that and puts that idea to rest..

I would recomend reading "code" by lawrence lessig (you made some good points but lawrence lessig covers what i left out)


This a small review I found as an example for Lawrence Lessig works: http://www.kcoyle.net/lessig.html

[Nitro Vordex]

http://www.sega.com/eula/

SEGA made the rules for their game. It's their work, they have the rights and licensing to it, therefore they can do pretty much whatever the hell they want. Releasing the code wouldn't do much good, as it's their code, and they still have the rights to it, unless they actively sell it to someone. Someone else makes money, they could realistically sue them from it. The whole terms of agreement thing legally binds a person to not mess with their program. A certain private server that we know of actually makes money off of it, but Sega really doesn't care. It would probably cost them more money to go after him, rather than let him make money. As it is, he's already making money off a game he merely modded, which in itself is pretty lame. I think the thing is, making money off of "donations" is different than actively subscribing.

Sega.com has forums, and they actively stop any kind of discussion about private servers there. Instant lock there. Sega is protecting themselves, because it wouldn't be terribly difficult for someone to just take their program and mod the hell out of it, and make money. They release the rights, they can't do anything about it.

tl;dr It's their party and they'll cry if they want to.

You're still trying to get private servers on here? >_>

[spade88]

http://www.sega.com/eula/

SEGA made the rules for their game. It's their work, they have the rights and licensing to it, therefore they can do pretty much whatever the hell they want. Releasing the code wouldn't do much good, as it's their code, and they still have the rights to it, unless they actively sell it to someone. Someone else makes money, they could realistically sue them from it. The whole terms of agreement thing legally binds a person to not mess with their program. A certain private server that we know of actually makes money off of it, but Sega really doesn't care. It would probably cost them more money to go after him, rather than let him make money. As it is, he's already making money off a game he merely modded, which in itself is pretty lame. I think the thing is, making money off of "donations" is different than actively subscribing.

Sega.com has forums, and they actively stop any kind of discussion about private servers there. Instant lock there. Sega is protecting themselves, because it wouldn't be terribly difficult for someone to just take their program and mod the hell out of it, and make money. They release the rights, they can't do anything about it.

tl;dr It's their party and they'll cry if they want to.

You're still trying to get private servers on here? >_>

To put this into better words I will use Lawewnce Lessig views:

"For those of you who followed the development of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) from the 1994 Department of Commerce Green Paper on copyright through the World Intellectual Property Organization meeting in 1996 to its passage in Congress in 1998 , Lessig's chapter on intellectual property will not be startlingly new. He takes much of his analysis from Pamela Samuelson and other advocates of public access and argues that the intent of copyright law in the past was not to give total control of their works to authors or publishers. To Lessig the fallibility of copyright law, that is the fact that people could and did make some copies without the permission of the copyright holders, was an inherent element of our copyright protection, not a mistake that must be corrected with new technologies. Although one can argue that the ability to make a few copies for oneself and friends and not get caught was not explicitly written into copyright law, you can also argue that the law could have been made more restrictive if the need had been there. The option of "fair use" shows the intention to allow personal use of copyrighted materials entirely apart from the desires of the copyright holder. Throughout the book, Lessig's message is that we must read the entire context of the law, not just the letter.

The copyright issue allows him to put forth another of his important theses, privatized law. His example uses the work of Mark Stefik of Xerox Parc. Stefik is a well-known proponent and developer of technology for copy protection systems and watermarking of digital intellectual property. To a constitutionalist like Lessig, the creation of such systems is essentially a matter of taking the law into ones own hands. Technology trumps the law in this case because the technological protection is immutable and absolute. The law, on the other hand, contains both checks and balances (as in fair use) and some ambiguities. These ambiguities are what allow the courts to re-interpret the intent of the law over time and in different situations. The copy protection program will be mechanical, not thoughtful. And the worst of all is that it has no constitutional basis for its existence and therefore is entirely a private mechanism of control. There are no code courts that can determine if a system of this type violates the rights of the public."

[Nitro Vordex]

The thing about the free use is that Free use is explicit, saying it's only meant for educational and non-profit use, which the private servers are pretty much neither.

[spade88]

The thing about the free use is that Free use is explicit, saying it's only meant for educational and non-profit use, which the private servers are pretty much neither.

Well thats very arguable because they actually could be educational and non-profit.

[Nitro Vordex]

They could, but they're not going to be. There was private server issues for PSO because one of the people decided he didn't want to work on the software anymore, because people at the private servers were being dicks. Now if anybody has questions, they don't help because they want to keep their grip on the private servers. If someone else were to make another private server, that could put them in jeopardy of losing money. Don't be fooled into thinking that private servers are free and everyone is happy and keeps everything faithful. It's not. The reality is, people can and will make money off these servers, and SEGA isn't stupid enough to willingly let them do that. Private servers alter a lot of things, for better or worse, and trying to make it legal would be, quite frankly, a nightmare.

[spade88]

They could, but they're not going to be. There was private server issues for PSO because one of the people decided he didn't want to work on the software anymore, because people at the private servers were being dicks. Now if anybody has questions, they don't help because they want to keep their grip on the private servers. If someone else were to make another private server, that could put them in jeopardy of losing money. Don't be fooled into thinking that private servers are free and everyone is happy and keeps everything faithful. It's not. The reality is, people can and will make money off these servers, and SEGA isn't stupid enough to willingly let them do that. Private servers alter a lot of things, for better or worse, and trying to make it legal would be, quite frankly, a nightmare.

A nightmare possibly for them, the patents for some games legitimacy are now coming under fire and some companies have lost already.

Thanks to DOCTRINE OF LACHES its been possible that copyright laws really would not hold up in court in some cases...(IN SOME CASES)



Best definition:

Laches is the legal doctrine that an unreasonable delay in seeking a remedy for a legal right or claim will prevent it from being enforced or allowed if the delay has prejudiced the opposing party. The doctrine is an equitable defense that seeks to prevent "legal ambush" from a party who is negligent in failing to timely make a claim. It recognizes that the opposing party's ability to obtain witnesses and other evidence diminishes over time, due to unavailability, fading memory, or loss. Disallowing the negligent party's action on the ground of laches is a form of estoppel.

"Laches is an equitable form of estoppel based on delay. The theory behind allowing the defense is that the law shouldn't aid those who "sleep on their rights". For a defense of laches to succeed, it must be proven that the party invoking the doctrine has changed its position as a result of the delay, resulting in being in a worse position now than at the time the claim should have been brought. For example, the delay in bringing the claim may have caused much larger potential damages to be awarded; the ability to pay the claim is lacking due to assets being otherwise used in the meantime; the property sought to be recovered has already been sold; or evidence or testimony may no longer be available to defend against the claim."

[amtalx]

Source code is protected for a reason. Releasing it can easily destroy an entire company.