Caltrops - Biohazard: Code Veronica





	[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]I think his complaint and the law he wants implemented center around the fact that there is no recourse for someone who has been scammed in an attempt to purchase a virtual item with real money. As someone who spent five months playing the WOW beta at minimum 16 hours every day last summer, I'm tempted to shrug and say, "get a life." Despite clearly not having one myself, it's pretty clear to me at least that the current situation is ideal. People who aren't willing to put in the effort to get those amazing items can't get them without running a huge risk. Ultimately, it's a game - no matter how thrilling and addictive - and if you're going to cheat to get ahead, then you deserve to run the risk of being cheated yourself. Furthermore, IANAL, but my understanding is that downloading music is illegal because of Sections 106 and 116 of Title 17 of the United States Code, not because of the DMCA. What the DMCA does is increase the penalties for online copyright violation, prevents circumvention of copyright protection, and provides a safe harbor for online service providers (ISPs, webhosts, etc.) by allowing them to avoid liability provided they take down infringing content placed on their servers in a timely manner. Note that when filing suit for copyright infringement, one must be able to prove finacianal damages. The reason, Trik, that MMOG companies (with one exception, more on this later) don't do anything about this situation is because of legal liability, plain and simple. As soon as they formally acknowledge that items within their games have monetary value, they open themselves up to lawsuits under any circumstances in which those items are lost. MMOGs belong to a genre stressing networking technology to, and sometimes beyond, the breaking point. Few companies are going to place themselves in a position where their bottom line is beholden to something as flaky as the uptime of your average MMOG. Singular exception to this rule: Sony for Everquest 2. Apparently somebody at Sony has decided that the profit to be made from skimming off the top of every item/cash transfer is worth the liability, and they're certainly one of the companies in the market big enough to be unconcerned about the liability. It will be interesting to see what happens with this experiment - because from here it looks like they've set themselves up to inhereit all the problems of PaPal. In any case - most companies cannot afford the liability of their items have express real world value, and that is why most MMOG companies prohibit said trading, even if they only provide token enforcement on this point. Ultimately, they answer to their shareholders, not to individual customers with a grudge born of losing any sense of perspective. You can cover your ears and sing "la la la I can't heeeeeaaaaarrr you" all you like, but the simple fact is that music, movies, and computer games constitute intellectual property under the laws of our nation. Intellectual property laws exist to foster the creation of music, art, and new technology. They exist to protect new ideas. I may disagree with the entire concept of intellectual property to begin with, but that does not change what these laws are, and I don't even need to be a lawyer to tell you that much. In game items do not represent new cultural achievements - they are simply state flags tagged to an account file, they are not digital representations of an original thought. Intellectual property law does not and was never intended to cover such things. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've been scammed yourself - you certainly seem quite passionate on the topic. If this is the case, then I'd usually attempt to console you by pointing out that life isn't fair - but not in this case, because you got burned trying to cheat. posted by Ryvar at 3:38 PM PST on June 8 [/quote]