The latest "Biting The Hand" editorial by Jessica Mulligan deals with the question: "Who owns your Avatar"?. Interesting one, as this snippet shows you:
Now, let us look at a section from Mythic’s EULA for Camelot:
You acknowledge and agree that all characters created, and items acquired and developed as a result of game play are part of the Software and Game and are the sole property of Mythic. You acknowledge that: (i) the Software and the Service permit access to Content that is protected by copyrights, trademarks, and other proprietary rights owned by Mythic as covered in Section 3 below.
From 2. Other Rights and Limitations, Dark Age of Camelot End User License Agreement.
In this specific case, it seems cut and dried. To play the game, you have to agree to the EULA. If you agree to the EULA to get access to the game, Mythic owns the characters and items, you get to use them for a while, end of story. If you don’t agree to the EULA, you don’t get to play. It seems pretty self-serving to come back later, when you’ve been violating that same EULA and making money off of what could rightly be termed a derivative work and say, "Just kidding!" I really don’t see how a court could rule against Mythic, but I’m not a lawyer and, of course, strange things can happen in the US court system. Like $4 million jury awards for being scalded with no permanent injury by a cup of hot coffee at McDonald’s. Personally, I didn’t like the way the cheese was staring at me the last time I was at Burger King, it made me all paranoid n’ stuff and I almost dropped my tinfoil hat; time to call a lawyer.
Head over and read the whole thingie, it's entertaining and thought-provoking... |
Jessica Mulligan Biting The Hand of DAoC
