Just curious as to legality....

Sourcekode · #1 09-05-2003, 07:18 AM

I had been reading your front page where you state that you will not allow the posting or hints to links of files. Recently I had come across some controversy over a similar topic (of legality) so I read a few copies of sony's EULA and came across a sentance I found intresting:

9. You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play. You may not create, facilitate, host, link to or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, such as through server emulators. You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. You may not buy, sell or auction (or host or facilitate the ability to allow others to buy, sell or auction) any Game characters, items, coin or copyrighted material.

I would like to put an emphasis on sentance #2 where it says;
"You may not create, facilitate, host, link to or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, such as through server emulators."

Now dosent this sentance state that the emulator, in itself, is illegal.

Just curious.

~

Neville1355 · #2 09-05-2003, 07:24 AM

That sentence was added in FAR after eqemu was created, therefore it can only legally stop FUTURE emu's from being made.

yoru · #3 09-05-2003, 07:26 AM

they may not like it but theres nothing they can do about it right now. if there was dont u think they would have done it by now :P

Merth · #4 09-05-2003, 07:31 AM

I don't know about the legality - it's probably best to consult a lawyer on the issue if you are concerned.

However, this does highlight another legal issue I have been wanting to cover: I have declared this to be a nose-picking free web site. It is therefore "illegal" for you to be picking your nose while reading this web site.

Watch those fingers, people!

#5 09-05-2003, 07:37 AM

I'm no lawyer, but my guess is that Sony currently don't see EQEmu as a threat to their revenue and it is not in their interest (financially) to test the legality of it in a court of law. If they saw their player base declining and thousands of people playing on public EQEmu servers, they may think differently. Also, if anyone was benefitting financially from the Emu, that may attract the attention of the lawyers as well.

EDIT: Search google with the keywords 'emulator law precedent'

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...+law+precedent

I only scanned the first few hits, but it seems a pretty grey area

EDIT2: You may have seen it already, but there is a post in the FAQ forum by Hogie titled 'What do Sony think about this project'

http://www.eqemulator.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9018

Sourcekode · #6 09-05-2003, 07:48 AM

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you for the intelligent replies by the way. Its nice to see that. Aside from the nose picking conundrum (merth).

If anyone has an idea of what changed so that I may attempt to fix my own EQemu DR2 to work after the Aug 26 patch, please let me know. Kinda going through withdraws. Back to hurry up and wait on DR3.

~

killspree · #7 09-05-2003, 09:57 AM

It's simply in there so if someone ever comes forward saying "OMG I JUST GOT HACKED BECAUSE I PLAYED ON EQEMU" they can say, sorry can't help you there, and oh grats ban.

**Rogean** · #8 09-05-2003, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MerthEQ

I don't know about the legality - it's probably best to consult a lawyer on the issue if you are concerned.

However, this does highlight another legal issue I have been wanting to cover: I have declared this to be a nose-picking free web site. It is therefore "illegal" for you to be picking your nose while reading this web site.

Watch those fingers, people!

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Farrenz · #9 09-05-2003, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Now dosent this sentance state that the emulator, in itself, is illegal.

Violation of Sony's EULA is not Violation of federal law, thus EQemu is not illegal.

Windcatcher · #10 09-10-2003, 08:09 AM

The worst they can do is call it breach of contract and terminate your account. For those people who don't have/don't want an EQLive account, boo hoo.

WC

Hardy · #11 09-15-2003, 03:31 AM

Sony can't find out that you play on an emulator unless you go on EQLive and start shouting the URL of this site, or anything else. Then you can kiss your ass goodbye. I play EQLive, they have no idea what server or my characters name or my account name

This is not illegal, plain and simple.

afrospy · #12 09-15-2003, 03:36 AM

DeletedUser · #13 09-17-2003, 04:59 AM

It's illegal to use the emulator in terms of the Eula. Breaking the eula they are allowed to use punishment on you to a certain extent.

Such as the worst they can do is ban your account and track your IP so they'll know what accounts you have, go through what other accounts are using your credit card.

This usually works well for them too, cause they'll catch others. If you're using a friends account when you're talking about the emulator online and how you played it, then you just got all your friends accounts banned. (possibly, they are allowed to, but I really doubt they'll go through them all).

They have no way of finding out you've been on the emulator through online unless they start to use illegal things, which in that case, you can sue them.

To the bottom line, don't mention anything about it online, and don't worry about any legal issues.

Windcatcher · #14 09-17-2003, 08:24 AM

"It's illegal to use the emulator in terms of the Eula"

Not illegal, but violation of contract. You're not breaking any law, just the terms of the contract. As such they are free to terminate service. They can't sue you nor can they have you arrested. Of course, they can terminate you service for any other reason they like as well.

Kaelon · #15 09-18-2003, 07:49 AM

I'm an intellectual property lawyer, and from having examined the EULA, I can say very confidently that you risk breach of contract, which is subject to civil fines, and statutory infringement of copyrighted material, which is subject to criminal prosecution. However, in the latter case, often the copyright holder has to bring charges against the individuals responsible.

Because EQemu is more of a hobby and not intended to compete with or even remotely replace EverQuest (because an average EverQuest server consists of numerous different machines hosting various zones to support thousands of players), it is unlikely that SOE would pursue litigation. However, if they begin to suspect willful (i.e., intentional) statutory fraud on the part of the EQemu developers, they could very well make valiant moves to shut them down.