Ethical discussion on private servers

Off Topic
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This has been interesting, and quite well-behaved for a controversial topic. FYI, at least part of the reason 2 Admins and a Mod have posted in this thread is to let people know we’re paying attention. :slight_smile:
This is from the Video guy’s website…seems relevant:

Legal analysis roundup (for USA)

May. 4, 2019

Since I’ve made the “Games as a Service” video, several US attorneys have weighed in on the legal portions of my video. There’s not a total consensus and in some cases there was minor misunderstanding, but the conclusions all point in the same direction: GAAS is either not fraud or else extremely difficult to prove it’s fraud. Furthermore, even if it was established as fraud, it would be on such a minor level under the law, that it may not even carry a penalty. Barring new information, I’m leaning towards declaring the USA a lost cause on this manner and focusing on countries with stronger consumer protection laws.

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I think it’s more analogous to leasing a car than purchasing one. If the dealer declines to continue your lease, it’s not stealing. In truth, it’s a bit of both leasing and purchasing since there’s client and server components.

The client software that runs on your computer may be a good that you purchase, but the software that runs on the servers and all the hardware, etc. that support the servers is NOT.

It’s a service, just like the online banking service offered by your bank or the tax prep services available from TurboTax. You don’t own their software that makes that service possible.

Life is full of things that become unavailable. That make of car you really liked. That brand of pizza you loved. Those shirts that fit so well. We don’t get to compel the manufacturer to release their schematics/recipes/patterns just because we love them and would be glad to make our own.

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No, it is not. Theft is clear in that when I take something from you, you are deprived of something. In terms of IP you are not deprived of anything. The fact that people equate the two is a huge problem.

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You should listen to that video that was posted, as he explains that if the software is a client/server model, you still are purchasing a license to use that product and if the company removes the ability for that software to work, by removing the server, they have just disabled your rights to use the product. It also depends on how the product is delivered and sold, which is why software companies are going to streaming so that you really don’t own the product.

it is also why i now pretty much stick to games that are either single player or have the ability for me to run my own private server built-in.

But going back to the logic, why would you want to put constraints on a product that doesn’t exist on another product, or in this case remove constraints?

We can stick with the car/software analogy. You buy a car. I would think you would want to use that car as long as you can when you want to. Why would software be any different? We aren’t talking about IP or copyright infringement, we are talking about something you bought to use. A service is like you were served food, but the food isn’t service, just the service you got during the meal. Food is a good. Software is a good if you are sold it.

If you leased it, and signed a lease for that service, then that might be different I suppose, however usually a service is something someone did for you like mow your lawn or cut your hair.

Turbotax however would be a good, as you buy that and then use it to do your taxes, where as going to your local CPA to have your taxes done is a service provided by them, you don’t own the CPA or their business.

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If you steal my copy-protected IP, you deprive me the sole use of it in the way I see fit. Theft.

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I am enjoying the civility of this thread.
Congrats, and keep it up.

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If something is stolen, yes, that is theft. The point here is that you cannot steal IP. The traditional concept of theft is that I have deprived you of something. If I receive a copy of something, and you still have your copy, you still have access to it and you have lost nothing.

As for control of the use of that thing, no. You have no control over that thing. This is self evident. Please give me a definition of IP “theft” which also allows the following legal use cases.

I purchase a piece of entertainment from you. I enjoy said piece of entertainment. I give it to a friend of mine. They enjoy it. This is legal.

I purchase a piece of entertainment from you. I enjoy said piece of entertainment. I lend it to a friend of mine. They enjoy it. This is legal.

I purchase a piece of entertainment from you. I enjoy said piece of entertainment. I sell it to someone at a garage sale. They enjoy it. This is legal.

I purchase a piece of entertainment from you. I enjoy said piece of entertainment. I give it to a local establishment. They lend it out to anyone who enters their doors. Those people enjoy it. This is legal. We call it a library and actually force people to pay for it.

I purchase a piece of entertainment from you. I enjoy said piece of entertainment. I decide to tell my friend about it… via a public post that anyone can read. This is legal.

The reason I am using the phrase “a piece of entertainment” is because you can put “book”, or “record”, or “video”, or “painting” in any of those phrases and it works just the same. So to state that purchasing a game and lending, giving, selling it to a third party is illegal because you somehow control it after purchase you first must argue that all of the above use cases on equal forms of entertainment are also illegal.

This idea that you control the product after you have sold it is a recent idea, and one that runs counter to hundreds of years of commerce. It is one that has frightening implications. For example, look up the issues surrounding John Deere tractors. John Deere has sued tractor owners for modifying the software that is needed to run the engine. But without that software, the engine does not function. So they bought a functional tractor, then own it, but cannot operate it in a manner they choose because of “theft” that involves control that the seller should not have.

So, until there is a cogent and consistent argument which allows for all the legal use cases described above while simultaneously somehow granting control to the seller post-sale I do not see the “theft” argument as remotely valid.

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I don’t believe Daybreak Games has any say about this as there has been EQ Emulator servers running since at least 2001 (I think longer) and SOE wasn’t able to shut them down. Its been many years since I’ve read the forums about it, but basically the EQ Emu servers weren’t profiting from people playing on their servers, they were not altering the client software, only the server software that those running the EQ Emu servers made.

To my mind this is like a movie. You buy the DVD you can invite friends over to watch it, or take it to a friend’s place and watch it there and you’re not violating copyrights. You want to start charging $$ for people to watch the movie on your home theater system, or make copies of the movie and sell them then you are violating copyrights.

Another point with the EQ Emu servers is before the release of the bundle that included the Depths of Darkhollow expansion you needed the Kunark release (or maybe the original release) and a patch from when that first went live to have the correct version to work with their server. They did not have the patch on their forums. This may be where some of the WoW Emu’s run into problems, the patch was only ‘sold’ to those who were subscribers at the time that patch was released. So those running the Emu servers would be violating copyright if they gave away the patch as the patch was not theirs to give.

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Mags, as always, I enjoy hearing from you. Post more, please. :slight_smile:

Juulz: Practical, as always. Also correct.

Greyed…man, I love what you’re saying. But I’m not sure it matters, at least from OTG’s standpoint. Convince me otherwise and I’ll happily concede. But then you’ll have to convince Admins. :smiley:

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I think the main problem is that we probably all agree with what Greyed says, however that’s not how the law (in the US at least) works, so at that point it really doesn’t matter.

Unless the law changes (And good luck with that…) we’re just going to be screwed.

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I am not a lawyer. However, I don’t need to be one to understand that copyright infringement is against the law in the country I live in (United States). If I chose the wrong term with theft, fine. I don’t wish to argue about semantics. The fact is, when you purchase and use software since the days of MS-DOS applications, etc. it almost always (perhaps even always) includes a legal agreement that generally includes a statement that if you use this software you accept the terms of the legal agreement. If you do not accept the terms, at least years ago when I bothered to read some of these, you were then instructed to return the product. That’s interesting since returns of software are not easy so perhaps such statements have been modified over time. In any event, you use it on their terms. This even applies to open source with it’s very generous terms. You still are bound to those terms.

The only thing that ever bothered me about this years ago was that back then I thought what is up with this? I mean, if I buy a book, a record album or some other item and I want to let a friend use it. I can. Why not this? A lot of people made similar arguments in the 80s. Maybe they still do? Anyway, as we all know things have gotten considerably more complicated over time but ultimately, our individual ability to exert control over things we don’t like at least here in the US resides with voting with our wallets and sometimes voting for those who’s ideas on such matters are in step with our own. I guess I could camp outside EA or something and protest too. That’s legal I think. Would it help? I doubt it. Do I care enough to bother? Nope.

I haven’t read software terms of service for years. I don’t need to. We all know the drill at this point. I accept that. I login to WoW and have fun and I am fine with whoever owns WoW. Well, sort of. I wish Blizzard never jumped into bed with the likes of Activision but that’s another topic for another time that I think I don’t have time for. I’d rather be playing the game. When that changes, I will stop and find some fun on my Xbox or old PS2 or whatever. I don’t have time to let the little stuff get me going anymore. Life is too short. At least, in moments of clarity I feel this way. I am like all humanity subject to my moments of emotion, lapses of reason and more of course but I try to keep my eye on the ball and not let what I regard as trivia distract me from more important things.

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Regarding Daybreak, EverQuest and the EQEmu team, here is a post from Daybreak on the EQ forum regarding their stance. They are fine with it is the short version.

In response to the above comments regarding IP, a read of the information linked here might be helpful as it defines basics of the law, what it applies to and how along with the why of it in some cases.

https://www.hg.org/intell.html

IP certainly can be and has been stolen. It is a bone of contention in trade negotiations presently between the United States and China for example. Some IP is worth huge money and yes, sometimes it gets stolen. I am not sure how that could be subject to debate really. Anyway, again I am not a lawyer nor expert in this area so for anybody who’d like to really delve into it, your favorite search engine can provide you with more than most of us ever want to know! :smiley:

I do hear you though Greyed on some of this stuff. I don’t like all of it either but I am reminded of the old Ten Years After song, “I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do.”

Essentially, not all use cases are created the same apparently. At least, nobody has ever made and won a successful legal case yet for that which changed things as they stand now. This is why, selling my Steam library is not legal. Selling my iTunes movies, music and other media is not legal. I’m sure there are many more examples of not legal use cases regarding media. Do I like it? No. I believe that I read some time ago that someone famous in Hollywood brought litigation against Apple because they owned a huge collection of iTunes music and wanted to be able to leave it to their children in their will. As things stand today, that is not possible. I have no idea if that case is still ongoing but it hasn’t gotten anywhere I think as it would be big news if it did.

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I feel like I need to clarify something. The title of is an ethical discussion on private servers.

What is ethical may not be legal, and what is legal is often not ethical.

I am discussing purely on the ethics of it, legality be damned.

With that said I am 100% in favor of OTG, as an organization, being mum on private servers because of the legal ramifications. I do not agree with the legal argument. I do not agree with the direction that the legal arena has gone in my lifetime (witness the absolute travesty of the EU). So I’ll argue against it, but not necessarily advocate people ignore the legal consequences. :wink:

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Here is an except on the FBI’s definition of Theft of IP:
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/piracy-ip-theft

Intellectual property theft involves robbing people or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions—known as “intellectual property”—which can include everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies, music, and software.

It is a growing threat—especially with the rise of digital technologies and Internet file sharing networks. And much of the theft takes place overseas, where laws are often lax and enforcement is more difficult. All told, intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars a year and robs the nation of jobs and tax revenues.

Preventing intellectual property theft is a priority of the FBI’s criminal investigative program. It specifically focuses on the theft of trade secrets and infringements on products that can impact consumers’ health and safety, such as counterfeit aircraft, car, and electronic parts. Key to the program’s success is linking the considerable resources and efforts of the private sector with law enforcement partners on local, state, federal, and international levels.

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Here are a few examples for you… torrented movies, copied mp3’s, copied ebooks, bootleg software… if you have a copy of my IP that you didn’t get through a channel that I, as copyright holder, deemed acceptable, you have stolen my IP.

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I have addressed that. As I said, unless you can present a cogent argument as to why any of the use cases I presented aren’t theft, but these are, there is no basis for calling these theft.

Here is the underlying behavior.

Person A receives entertainment product. Person A consumes it. Person A transfers it to Person B. Person B consumes it.

The theft argument rests on the notion that when the above happens, the rights holder has lost value on their product (which isn’t proven, but we’ll allow it for now).

However when the method of transfer is one of the following, it is legal:

  • Lending it.
  • Giving it.
  • Selling it.
  • Contributing it to a library who then in turn lends it to others (and this is see as laudable, which is why I separate it from lending it above).
  • Inviting them over to view/listen/play/read at your home.

So adding your argument into the mix what we have is that Person A can obtain entertainment, consume it, pass it on to person B who then consumes it and it is valid for them to do so in 5 cases, but not 1.

Providing examples does not present an argument on why 1 obtain, multiple consume is or is not valid. You have to argue that all of the above use cases above are also theft. The only alternative is to concede it is not theft.

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@Greyed, My examples are arguments that person A purchases or otherwise obtains the entertainment, copies it, keeps a copy and passes it along to person B &/or C &/or D &/or E, etc…without compensating the author(s). This is IP theft.

There is also the case where someone hacks into a business’ server and steals digital work product such as software in development or decompiles software and uses pieces and parts of it in their own product. This is IP theft.

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I understand that, which is why I broke it down to the very generic form. The copying is a method of transport, nothing more. It does not change what has happened which is 1 person obtained, multiple people consumed. I know that you think copying is different, but it isn’t.

The first idea on that is you still have your copy. OK, but that is covered by inviting people to your home and having them consume the media there. You still own your copy, they have consumed it.

The second idea is that they have a copy and you don’t. OK, so if I put a copy on a USB stick, give it to a friend and delete mine, does that somehow make it legal? As the legal framework is set up now, it doesn’t.

So the law is even inconsistent on that part. Which is why you have to look at it in the abstract and understand that the method of transport does not change the actual act. And that boils down to one person obtained it but multiple people consumed it.

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Just a guess on one specific - Blizzard and Classic (Vanilla) WoW. I honestly believe they allowed the biggest servers to operate and were in a ‘watch’ mode to see how popular they were as fans have been asking for Vanilla to be released for years.

Those servers were wildly popular with pretty good populations, I read that upwards of 5,000 people were on different servers at peak times. I honestly believe that Blizzard monitored this to see how they fared, especially with the recent expansions often losing subs. It was an easy test without committing the resources to rebuild Vanilla, which is being released (for those non-WoWhead types!) as Classic World of Warcraft this summer. Will it draw all those players to Blizzard and a sub, maybe. The emulators, (I’m not that’s proper term?) ranged from strict adherence to the original, to gross deviations on instant characters at max level, various ways to ‘pay’ to have all kinds of gear, etc. I’m sure there’s a percentage of people that played only because it was free, but many that really love Classic (I didn’t BC/Wrath are better IMHO) will likely resub to play.

There were more than 50,000 people (from what I’d read a few years ago) on one of the sites, so for arguments sake IF Bizz could pick up 50K subs @ $14.99 a month = $749,500 x 12 = $8,994,000. They don’t hate money, and stand to make much more than that. So, it was one good thing to come from an illegal activity.

I’ve seen Warhammer Online has an emulator and I really liked that game - well parts of it at least - and would love to see a version, a ‘legal’ one out there. Same for Star Wars Galaxies. I never played it, but everyone talks like it was the holy grail of gaming, so it would be interesting to see that live on, much like COH (not a big fan of that game but I know people loved it!).

I’ve never understood when it’s determined to shutdown a game, that is still popular with fans, why the development companies, don’t ‘sell/lease’ their games that are technically dead now to indy devs or another company that wants to use it and run it on private servers. Dead game, they get zero if someone steals it, versus receiving some compensation if it’s out there for people to play.

As for the copying/sharing games. I hated that back in the day when it was easier to copy games (software), as I did feel like it was stealing (why I have a shelf with three copies of many games - three people played here!). Then again we share DvDs, CDs, books - so? Think about books – we have “legal” ways to share them – libraries. Authors don’t get a penny for the hundreds and thousands of people that didn’t buy their book! And people have no problem with that and we routinely lend books to friends. Ebooks and audios have changed that – they cost less to make/distribute than physical books, charge quite a bit and we cant’ share. The big winner isn’t the author it’s the publishers. Authors that re-release their books as ebooks are the only way they make more $$ (I have an author friend).

So why do we view software differently? Just the cost to make a game? I don’t agree with stealing from someone hard work – heck I won’t pick a tomato out of a field as that’s that farmers, anymore than I would steal something of my neighbors porch – you don’t steal!

I’ve liked the fact companies like NetFlix allows me to share my account with my roommate and my daughter (does not live with me) - granted I pay so three of us could be on at the same time - we never are - but I don’t feel like I’m cheating them by just sharing the login, which I know many people do.

Same like Amazon you can share your Amazon Prime membership with someone. Amazon’s not a stupid company so gave people the ability to share without cheating.

  • Just read Greyed’s comment above this - agree. It’s what we all consider ‘acceptable’. We’ve been trained into sharing via those five examples.
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because most of the EULAs say so. Physical games used to be transferable. It’s not secret the gaming industry has been trying to stop the GameStop used game model for ages. They did it with PCs by giving us everything digitally … and by not letting us actually own anything. If Steam shuts down, you’re beat. If you die, you’re beat. You can’t legally transfer a Steam account, or many other gaming service accounts. Period. Not on death, not anything. You don’t own your music if you download DRM songs from Apple. If you pay extra or go with Google, then you own your music. We embraced digital media without realizing that we gave up ownership of said media. It’s just a lease now.

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