25 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Was having a conversation on IMC about the profit clause of the Diku license and selling items on a website.

We all know about the no profit clause, what it says, and what the authors say it means. Two issues came up that were interesting, at least to me.

1. If you're running a Diku derived game, and the license for it does not clarify the no profit clause, what affect does this have if you setup item sales on a website, accept the money through a website, and then using web scripts or some other method, equip your players with the items that have been sold? Assume the items are original material created by the MUD's staff. This could also include sales of virtual real estate, such as guildhalls, player homes, etc as well.

2. Two players of your game have earned some unique items, property, quest points, or whatever. Unknown to you, they decide to sell these items to others in exchange for real money. They have not created these items, do not hold copyright to any portion of the game, and are not alts for your staff. How does the no profit clause come into play in a situation like this?
25 Feb, 2007, Tyche wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
We all know about the no profit clause, what it says, and what the authors say it means.


I don't know if everyone knows what the authors said to clarify it, but these links still work:
http://www.haslage.net/games/archives/TM...
http://www.haslage.net/games/archives/TM...

"I feel it is important that I make clear how I see the limits of the license; You should know I am not against donations as such, and he may sell his merchandise as he pleases, but he may not use the game directly for this. The way I usually define this is if the players get some tangible modification within the game for their donations. Then it becomes commercialized. They pay for a service that is within the game." – Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt

Seems pretty clear to me. I'm sure there are endless hypothetical situations one could come up with that would muddy the issues…but my position has always been there's really no need. I mean…

1) If you can't afford to run a mud, then don't. Hell there are free shells, $5, $10 a month shells. If you are too pooooor to run a mud, what the hell r u doing on the internet? Get a job. :-P
2) If you want to run a commercial mud there are probably 50+ other servers you could use. Some way better than Diku anyway.

There's a quote by Katya that goes even further. I can't find it anymore as it scrolled of TMC forums a few years back, but the gist of it is they didn't even like it that coders or builders might be hired by an owner of a mud. Arguably that goes way beyond what any license can restrict anyway, FWIW.
25 Feb, 2007, Omega wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
now how would the diku claus affect someone if say, they wanted to make certain actual merchandice.

case and point, there is a site that does custom coffee mugs, now say i had them put 'sandstorm'
on it with a picture or logo from my mud, and sold it from my website.

technicaly my mud is derived of diku/merc/rom, would this affect fall under the licence agreement.

I don't think it will because of the fact that it has nothing todo with the code, but the fact that the money gained by it would be profit towards the owners of the game which it leads to. Where would this stand in the licence, if anything at all.
25 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Darien said:
now how would the diku claus affect someone if say, they wanted to make certain actual merchandice.


This was already covered by Tyche's link:

"I have no wish, nor any legal background for stopping donations made from commercials on the website, that offer no compensation game-wise. Nor have I any wish for preventing people selling merchandise on their website that is related to the game (titled t-shirts, mousepads, etc.). In fact I recommend that you get your money this way." – Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
25 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Tyche's links don't seem to cover the situations I originally posted though.
25 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
The quote Tyche posted covers your first situation (i.e., "…if the players get some tangible modification within the game for their donations. Then it becomes commercialized. They pay for a service that is within the game"). Whether the transaction is done through the website, via telephone, or in the local park at midnight using a briefcase full of bank notes, the end result is that players are purchasing in-game benefits with real money - and that is against the intent of the licence.

The second situation is a different matter, as regular players aren't bound by the licence. The example you gave (normal players selling items without the knowledge of the staff) is fairly clear cut, but it's easy to extend the example into less-clear scenarios.
25 Feb, 2007, Conner wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
So, as the conversation from imc actually included, if the mud owner set up a web site to act as a clearing house for those player transactions and accepted a commission from each sale.. this would be a case of extending the example into less clear scenarios?
25 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
I suppose, although the owner would still be directly earning money from the sale of in-game items, so (in my opinion) that's still fairly clear.

By 'less clear' I was really thinking more along the lines of scenarios where the admin didn't actually make the money themselves, but instead encouraged or helped non-admin to make money from the mud.
25 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
I still think there's a huge grey area here when you're talking about the sale of virtual items or property which were created by the admins of the game. Not the stuff that came with the codebase. I can't help but think that it follows the same logic as selling anything else based on your world content from the website. Players who purchase things like this benefit from what you created. Your own derivative work. Not from what the Diku authors gave you.
25 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Players who purchase things like this benefit from what you created. Your own derivative work. Not from what the Diku authors gave you.


Just to clarify - are you talking about:

1) I download stock Diku, compile it, and start it up. I create a new area called "KaVir's Castle", which contains a weapon called "KaVir's Sword of Doom". This sword gives rise to a number of popular jokes, and so I start selling mugs and t-shirts via the website which have "I Fear KaVir's Sword of Doom" printed on them.

2) As above, but KaVir's Sword of Doom also happens to be the best weapon in the game. I load and sell these swords within the mud for $10 each.
25 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm talking about the grey area formed by #2.

What you list in #1 has been pretty clear cut for some time now. But I don't think #2 is as brightly defined. If the *ONLY* item you're selling to people in the game is "KaVir's Sword of Doom" that item was still created by you, not by the Diku team.

It would be pretty clear that you would be forbidden from selling in-game copies of the generic swords that came with the code.
25 Feb, 2007, Cratylus wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Doesn't the sword count as a derivative work?

I would think it to be subject to the Diku license for this reason,
specifically the prohibition of making money, in the same way a
stock sword would.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
25 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I don't think #2 is grey at all. Take an example object from the original GodWars:

#29500
green planar ring~
the Green Planar Ring~
A ring of shining green glass lies here.~
~
9 1 3
25 0 0 13
1 1000000 0
A
19 15
A
18 15
A
13 500
Q
You vanish in a flash of green light!~
$n vanishes in a flash of green light!~
You twist $p around your finger three times.~
You appear in a flash of green light!~
$n appears in a flash of green light!~
$n twists $p around $s finger three times.~
130 29500


Now I could email you the above data in return for $10 - because I'm selling you my own work. You could then insert it into your own mud, ask someone else to insert it into theirs, or even print it out and hang on your wall.

But if you're paying for that data to be loaded into a specific Diku MUD, it's not the data itself that you're buying - it's what it represents within that MUD. And that mud is a Diku derivative, bound by the Diku licence.

It's like saying "If I create my own login screen, which is completely my own work, why should I have to put the Diku credits on it?". And the answer is the same: You don't by default, but if you're using that login screen on a Diku MUD, you have to follow the conditions of the Diku licence.
26 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Any running version of DikuMud must include our names in the login sequence.


Actually, by the letter of the license, you can indeed not put the credits on the opening login screen. The "sequence" is defined as anything between when you first connect and when you enter the game proper. Tradition is the only vehicle which has kept them there, along with other derived work licenses which get very specific about it. So with original Diku, I could put it on a second welcome screen that's not visible at the login prompt and customize my own login screen. So long as you are still made to see the credits before getting into the game.

Your argument about the item being covered by the license because you used the code to generate it doesn't wash. Otherwise Microsoft owns the copyright on every document Word users have ever written simply because they used their tools to do it with. Diku's license does not give the authors the right to say KaVir's Sword of Doom belongs to them just because you used DikuMUD to create it with.
26 Feb, 2007, Conner wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
For that matter, what if you've redone the tools in your game to make objects in-game and you're not even using Diku's tools anymore? Everything in-game is not automatically part and parcel of their license just because it's in-game running under code that contains some of their original coding. Let's consider this another way, do you give credit and legal IP rights to a builder who makes an entirely original area for you, or does it arbitrarily get credited to The Diku Team because it was made on a mud that's running as a Diku derivative?
26 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said:
Actually, by the letter of the license, you can indeed not put the credits on the opening login screen.


It was just an example - apply the same logic to ROM, if you prefer.

Samson said:
Your argument about the item being covered by the license because you used the code to generate it doesn't wash. Otherwise Microsoft owns the copyright on every document Word users have ever written simply because they used their tools to do it with.


Microsoft doesn't own the copyright on the documents, no, but when editing your document within Word you have to do so within the terms of the Microsoft "licence". You cannot sell copies of Microsoft word just because it's got your document loaded into it. Arguments about "I'm just selling my document" aren't going to cut it - sell your document, sure, but you can't sell copies of Word as well.

There are better examples than Word, though - such as the Borland C++ 5.5 Non-Commercial Edition. You still own your source code, and you're free to sell it as you wish, but you cannot use the executable commercially. It doesn't matter that it was your source code used to create it - when compiled with the Borland compiler, you must follow the conditions of the Borland licence, and it prohibits commercial activity. If you want to sell the executable, compile your source code with a different compiler.

The same is true with Diku. You own the copyright on your areas, and can sell them if you wish, but while loaded into a Diku mud it's no longer the data you're selling - it's the in-game representation of that data, and it falls under the Diku licence. If you want to sell in-game items, load your area files into a scratch-written mud.

Quote
Diku's license does not give the authors the right to say KaVir's Sword of Doom belongs to them just because you used DikuMUD to create it with.


No, but they certainly have the right to say how DikuMUD can be used, and KaVir's Sword of Doom is just data that DikuMUD uses to create something of value.
26 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Conner said:
For that matter, what if you've redone the tools in your game to make objects in-game and you're not even using Diku's tools anymore?


Makes no difference. Otherwise even stock muds could sell "player file modifications". And the lawyers who drew up the licence for Borland C++ 5.5 Non-Commercial Edition (or any other non-commercial compiler for that matter) would be in serious trouble.

Conner said:
Everything in-game is not automatically part and parcel of their license just because it's in-game running under code that contains some of their original coding.


It is while it's in-game, running under the code, that it falls under the licence.

Conner said:
Let's consider this another way, do you give credit and legal IP rights to a builder who makes an entirely original area for you, or does it arbitrarily get credited to The Diku Team because it was made on a mud that's running as a Diku derivative?


The area files themselves don't fall under the Diku licence - it doesn't matter where or how they was created.

Objects within a running DikuMUD do fall under the Diku licence - it doesn't matter what data was used to generate them.
26 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Microsoft doesn't own the copyright on the documents, no, but when editing your document within Word you have to do so within the terms of the Microsoft "licence". You cannot sell copies of Microsoft word just because it's got your document loaded into it. Arguments about "I'm just selling my document" aren't going to cut it - sell your document, sure, but you can't sell copies of Word as well.


Nobody was advocating selling copies of Diku with the items or property in question. You're adding things to the equation that I wasn't asking about. If the website falls outside the scope of the license, then it stands to reason that it will always fall outside the scope since the Diku license makes no mention of what you can do with your website.

KaVir said:
There are better examples than Word, though - such as the Borland C++ 5.5 Non-Commercial Edition. You still own your source code, and you're free to sell it as you wish, but you cannot use the executable commercially. It doesn't matter that it was your source code used to create it - when compiled with the Borland compiler, you must follow the conditions of the Borland licence, and it prohibits commercial activity. If you want to sell the executable, compile your source code with a different compiler.


Borland's license does not contain the same ambiguity about profit. Even with a restriction on selling the EXE, it can't prevent me from selling virtual swords created with a MUD built by Borland C++ compilers. Selling a virtual sword is not selling the program that created it. Again, the same way selling Word documents is not selling copies of Word.

KaVir said:
The same is true with Diku. You own the copyright on your areas, and can sell them if you wish, but while loaded into a Diku mud it's no longer the data you're selling - it's the in-game representation of that data, and it falls under the Diku licence. If you want to sell in-game items, load your area files into a scratch-written mud.


I think this assertion is dubious at best, even with the clarifications made by Hans over the years. Certainly their license covers their own work in such a way. I can't sell copies of stock swords. But my own derived work is under my own copyright, and that derived work includes virtual swords and real estate. And further still, if the representation of that data falls under the license then players selling their in-game gear to other players should be covered as well and you've already conceded they fall outside the scope.

This is why these debates keep coming up so regularly. The terms are not specific enough to stop this sort of thing if you're basing it only on the Diku license. Other codebases have in fact gone on to further clarify that they don't want you using it for commercial activity at all. The problem is though that this issue is unlikely to be settled properly until someone gets sued. And it's not going to be a cut and dry case either. Even with a license that specifically prohibits the collection of any kind of money at all.
26 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Nobody was advocating selling copies of Diku with the items or property in question.


You were talking about selling a part of a Diku MUD (i.e., equipment). When loaded into a DikuMUD, the area file is used to generate part of the game.

Quote
You're adding things to the equation that I wasn't asking about. If the website falls outside the scope of the license, then it stands to reason that it will always fall outside the scope since the Diku license makes no mention of what you can do with your website.


The website in general is outside the scope licence, but certain activities may still fall under the Diku licence, even if they're done via the website. For example, you cannot charge people $10 to download copies of DikuMUD from your website, or sell t-shirts with the Diku source code printed on them. Nor can you sell in-game benefits.

Quote
Borland's license does not contain the same ambiguity about profit.


Well now we're into Vryce and the_logos territory. What I'm talking about here is how the in-game representation of items/etc fall under the Diku licence. If you want to start arguing that the licence has abusable loopholes, or that the Diku team "won't get you", then that's really a different kettle of fish entirely.

Quote
Even with a restriction on selling the EXE, it can't prevent me from selling virtual swords created with a MUD built by Borland C++ compilers. Selling a virtual sword is not selling the program that created it.


Selling a virtual sword within the running program is a commercialisation. You're using the executable to make money.

Quote
I can't sell copies of stock swords. But my own derived work is under my own copyright, and that derived work includes virtual swords and real estate.


If you write your own areas then they aren't even derived works - the copyright is completely yours.

But when you load them into the mud, that data is used to create a derived work (much like compiling your source code with the Borland compiler). And that derived work falls under the Diku licence.

Quote
And further still, if the representation of that data falls under the license then players selling their in-game gear to other players should be covered as well and you've already conceded they fall outside the scope.


No, what I said was that "regular players aren't bound by the licence". They don't copy, distribute, display, perform or create derivative works based upon DikuMUD. Those are the activities prohibited by copyright law, and therefore the activities which require you to adhere to the Diku licence.
26 Feb, 2007, Tyche wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
If you write your own areas then they aren't even derived works - the copyright is completely yours.
But when you load them into the mud, that data is used to create a derived work (much like compiling your source code with the Borland compiler). And that derived work falls under the Diku licence.


I don't think the sword itself becomes a derived work. More likely while running that program (DikuMud) you are under the license restrictions of use and performance.
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