EULA, what a sad thing...

[smuggler]

I was searching through all the TXT docs in my Emu directory, and when I opened Sony's EULA file, I spotted this out of the corner of my eye and couldn't help but laugh...

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.

According to the agreement, this constitutes being banned from 989's servers...

I'm sure you guys have all wondered about what Sony thinks of the Emu project, but I laugh at Sony in general, because there's nothing they can do about it (technically and effectively). Just thought I would post that, and thanks I guess. For making this possible...

lol @ Verant

[Wiz]

Yes, yes there is. They can start a legal process with their army of lawyers, eventually causing EQemu to be shut down because of the staggering legal costs.

Welcome to the american justice system. Where money is king.

[MrJag]

people said ther wasnt anything they could do about napster a couple years ago either :?

[NarutoLegacy]

Lol, sony is just waiting to nail us when we do something really illegal, but so far we haven't done anything bad enough to shut us down.

[Shawn319]

Awwww booo hooo i'm gonna get banned from thier $12.95/month servers i'm soo scared.

[Cripp]

they should just get over it, they make so much god damn money as it is, thousands and thousands play eq, each paying 12 dollars a month, that is a lot. but i guess people are just whack now and always want more money.

[driaknon]

i belive its about 150 thousand that play so like if you do the math 150000x$13.00=$1950000.00 a month so yeah they are just money grubbing bastages that dont want the all of 150 people who play the emu because they are losing a mighty $1950.00 a month compared to their nearly 2 million dollars they get every frickin month wich about may 50 thousand goes to their OC3 and i dunno another 100 thousand to server maitnence/employee wages aside from that they are greedy

[Shawn319]

no its closer to 400,000.

[driaknon]

hmm last public announcment said about 150 htousand so let me redo math hmm ok new total is 400,000x13=5200000 so yeah now they grub money even more cause seriously whats their loss of 2 grand to the 150 of us 1/2 of wich still play normal EQ so about a loss of 1000 oh no so they cant go buy that new delux all in one wonderbot that scrubs toilets and cleans the office... booh frickin whoo

[animepimp]

The only way Sony could really go after us is to prove we are causing them a significant loss of income by stealing what is theirs. We haven't stolen any server code from them and only write our own so thats pretty much impossible. So like everyone has said, about the only thing they can do with a EULA is ban people from playing on their servers if they play on the Emu. But thats pretty moronic for them to do because they are cutting themselves off from income just because a person wants to spend time on two different people's servers. I mean why would you stop someone from paying you because they choose to use up half the bandwidth and proccessing power while paying you the full amount? About the worst thing they could possibly do to us would be to force a person to log in to their account before they patch because that would force those of us who only play here to either pay them or not be able to patch so that our servers would be stuck at a certain version and the people who do patch on live can't get on or the people who don't can't get on.

[Windcatcher]

(sigh) I can see you're going to make me do this all over again...okay, for THE PEOPLE IN THE CHEAP SEATS, listen up: I am about to quote UNITED STATES FEDERAL LAW:

Title 15, Chapter 1, Section 14. - Sale, etc., on agreement not to use goods of competitor

It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to lease or make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities, whether patented or unpatented, for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, or fix a price charged therefor, or discount from, or rebate upon, such price, on the condition, agreement, or understanding that the lessee or purchaser thereof shall not use or deal in the goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities of a competitor or competitors of the lessor or seller, where the effect of such lease, sale, or contract for sale or such condition, agreement, or understanding may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce

First off, I am not a lawyer, but the above IS THE LAW. The following is my interpretation of the law as I see it. EQEmu is a COMPETITOR to EQ and as such Sony MAY NOT use any legal language barring you from using their product with those of a competitor. In my opinion, the very language in their EULA is unlawful according to the statute I state above. Title 15 covers antitrust law and language barring a customer from using the goods of a competitor is considered restraint of trade and is illegal.

The above law is part of the Clayton Act of 1914, if anyone wants to look it up (and I'd appreciate any references to any case law if some legal hounds can scrounge it up). I have no doubt that a good lawyer could get that EULA clause struck by a court if it ever went that far. As far as I can tell, EQEmu BREAKS NO LAW WHATSOEVER--just because SOE doesn't like the use of their products with those of a competitor doesn't give them the slightest legal right to bar you from doing such a thing--if anything, the law is entirely on the side of EQEmu. The day that EQEmu runs afoul of the law is the day I walk away from the project (though, due to severe EQ/EQEmu burnout I'm considering walking away anyway).

Got it? EULA's are NOT law -- LAWS are, and the above Act of Congress IS THE LAW. PERIOD.

(grumble)

WC

[Ademonde]

*clap*

[Damaja]

I am SURE they have folks that have accounts on the emu and do ya think they got folks that monitor this forum? hehe I am SURE they do.

[Windcatcher]

Good for them. If I worked for SOE, I certainly would. If EQEmu is breaking the law, I just wish someone would clearly point it out -- title, section, and chapter. I'll gladly wash my hands of the project if it is. To the best of my knowledge, the contract clause in the EULA that we're talking about is unlawful. If there is something else, then for any SOE lurkers, please do us all a favor and SPIT IT OUT already. I'm sick of the innuendo and the unsubstantiated allegations. So SUBSTANTIATE IT ALREADY. I'm an honest guy at heart, and if you have a valid case, just make it and be done with it. If you can cite and quote any laws that EQEmu is violating, do it. I'll be the first to admonish the dev team and walk in that case. I certainly won't have anything to do with this project if it indeed is breaking the law.

WC

[Shadow-Wolf]

nice job wind, are you done with your little break yet? =P. AAAAANNNNNDDD for you people calling SOE money grubbers because they charge 12.95 a month of fees for a user per month when people need to realize that this money goes twards server costs, staff costs, and other things, for a long time the monthly fee gets the company nowhere, infact it only HELPS the cost of servers and other things so the company still pays money so you can slay gnolls with your leet rusty dagger. It may take a while but sooner or later the company will make a profit from the game but it does take a while.

[smuggler]

ah, well i knew that EQEmu was legal, but i was just kind of laughing at verant because they think it isn't...

their ignorance will be the death of no man.

[smuggler]

Windcatcher, as one of the premier coders in the community, it was already common knowledge that you are, indeed, a professional gentleman of leisure.

having read your above post, i must kneel before you and proclaim that you, before all else, are truely deserving of the hot nasty secks that all those ladies give to you (and eachother, in your immediate field of view) every night.

i applaud your greatness, for it is infinitely great.

[Windcatcher]

SW, truth be told, I am so unbelievably burned out on anything and everything relating to EQ/EQEmu that the only thing keeping me here is the desire to see an EQEmu-ZP server working (one that uses OpenZone zones). Otherwise, (and I assure you that this isn't a dig at anyone) I really feel like it's getting about time to move on. I'm seriously considering just uploading my latest ZP-compatible server code, saying, "here it is, have at it," and taking my exit bow. Playing with this project has been a lot of fun, but life is calling me and I'm thinking that it might be time to start listening (no, no one at SOE has contacted me, either).

WC

[p00p00h34d]

well this is MY 2 cents. Well we are using their: code, their models, their items, their zone, their hard work, and god knows what else without even asking them if we could, so i dunno that could be considered stealing. I mean i guess because we arent making a progfit out of it it could be just considered borrowing like a video tape or something, but i dunno i dont really consider eqemu legal although i dont really care. But yeah thats my 2 copper pennies.



"What did the dumb idiot say to the handsome genius?"
"I dunno u tell me"

[Windcatcher]

From a strictly legal standpoint, I think it's legal to use their client with third-party servers, but I think you're making a moral point. However, I think it's a valid one, and I think it deserves proper consideration.

There is a saying about standing on the shoulders of giants. In my book, the designers, artists, and coders at SOE are giants in every sense of the word. You are absolutely right: in using their client, EQEmu, while not making any monetary profit, is still benefiting from their hard work, and that work should be given proper credit, if nothing else. One of the reasons I went to all the trouble of creating OpenZone is because I would really like to see EQEmu stand on its own and not "leech" so much from their effort. Like I said, using their client is in my opinion legal, but that is nothing compared to the work that went into the original game. At one time I had a dream of seeing EQEmu branch into something completely unique, with its own zones, models, artwork, and even client -- essentially, a total divorce from EQ. I don't think that's ever going to happen, and I find myself not getting any younger -- and seeing a need to do something else. The more I think about it, the more I feel that I'll be leaving this project in the very near future -- life is calling, and I need to start listening.

I've said from the start that I'm not a server dev, so I'm not privy to anything that's gone on in the past between the dev team and SOE (or even among the dev team members). I don't know what's been said between the team and SOE, or the level of animosity (if any) between the two. Would the people at SOE have given their blessing to EQEmu? I have no idea, and I have to honestly say I would be shocked if they had, but at the same time I have to say that I would have been impressed beyond words in that case. I think a program for users to create custom content for the game (zones, quests, artwork, whatever) would have been a very cool thing, and I think that trying to recreate the feel of "live" servers is futile at best and ridiculous at worst. Regardless of the feelings of the people at SOE, I can honestly say that, having created custom zones from scratch, I now have the utmost respect for the work that went into the original game. It must have been a staggering effort.

WC

[RangerDown]

Smuggler you still got a little bit of brown on your nose... yeah... right there. :P

From what I can tell it looks like maybe waay back in the days of alpha they might've been thinking about making this game compatible with user-operated servers, kind of like NWN. I mean, the whole structure of how the login/world/zone servers interconnect, and the fact that you only have to change a single easily-edited text file on your machine and voila, you're connecting to a whole different set of servers. Even the list of servers is sent dynamically to the client in the login response packet -- they could've just hard-coded the names of their servers in and put a new EXE on the patcher whenever they decided to open a new server.

I'm sure the EQ developers at Sony (the ones actually sitting down and designing the artwork and programming the server code and so on) are marveling at how much has been accomplished here. Especially given these guys aren't getting paid to do it!

I'm sure the EQ execs at Sony (the ones who probably have never even seen a line of code, never responded to a single petition, and MAYBE have interacted with the EQ servers to the extent necessary to extract a billing revenue report) believe these guys should be in "federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison."

[windsofwar]

to the best of my knowledge when we buy the cds we are buying a sngle user license. now, when we do this and we click i agree we are agreeing to the eula. now the only reason we are forced to click i agree every time is because verant/soe feels it neccesary to make there licensing agreement dynamic.

this works in their favor as it allows them to say almost anything they want to. since your clicking the i agree button your stating you agree with what there saying and placing yourself into the equivalent of a verbal contract stating you wont break the rules.

99% of us use something similar at least to eqw or some other way to start eq. but most of us still click i agree so in that respect we are breaking are contract with soe. however that contract is not to the best of my knowledge legally binding as the burden of proof is on the side of soe to prove that you clicked i agree.

keep in mind its entirely possible to edit the eula.txt to say whatever you want so long as you dont patch i.e "i agree to eat twinkies and have sex with gnome chicks"

so legally with keeping in mind we only have a single user license agreement and remembering that we CANNOT distribute there software we are or should remain perfectly ok. the only thing that soe can really do is try to lock up the emu project in a biased court litigation process to drain the coffers of the emu. kinda like what ended up happening to napster and a few of the other ptp share progs.



anyhow thats my two cents please feel free to correct me. id love to be wholly right but if im wrong....well shite happens :) gnite

[smuggler]

yes, exactly, we bought the software, what we do with it is none of their concern unless we're making money off of it

case closed.

and.. as far as this brown on my nose... well, i don't know how it could have gotten there...

actually, i just felt like making an absurd comment... im good at that.

[RangerDown]

"i agree to eat twinkies and have sex with gnome chicks"


Thank you! The EULA screen of my client has now been amended to read that.

Problem is, I haven't eaten a twinkie in years...

[smuggler]

i edited my eqstr_us.txt file so that whenever my target is out of my attack range, it says

"Your foe is too far away, get closer idiot."

and when you try to bind in the wrong zone it says

"This kind of shit is usually seen in the city..."

[Wiz]

Windcatcher:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, something doesn't have to break the law to be grounds for filing (not winning, filing) a lawsuit.

The point is simple. EQemu does not break the law, but Sony could file a lawsuit anyways, and more than likely get it pushed to court. While they most certainly would not win, who would stand for the legal costs of defending EQemu?

[DeletedUser]

I think that there also needs to be understanding that MMORPG's in a way have a monopoly. They have the ability to set whatever price on the MMORPG they want, because there is no competition on who is hosting the server.

[smuggler]

maybe MMORPG's should license their software to induvidual servers for a flat rate, and then the servers could charge monthly fees...

the only problem is that the gaming population might become so thinly spread that it takes away from the MMORPG's halflife and also, when induvidual servers start charging monthly fees, it makes for many security concerns when dealing with credit information.

we live in a beautiful world

[Windcatcher]

It's true that SOE could *file* a lawsuit, but it's also true that a lot of states (like mine) have what are called "anti-SLAPP" laws. "SLAPP" stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation", and anti-SLAPP laws are specifically designed to protect against what you describe. For instance, I believe that in my state I could countersue for treble damages for having to defend myself against such a baseless suit (the damages being what I had to spend in my defense). I would still have to defend myself, however, but an anti-SLAPP law might make it easier to get free legal help since a lawyer might see that the plaintiff *will* lose and hence see an opportunity to make some money.

Like I said above, though, I'm probably going to leave the project soon anyway. It's been a long ride, and I think it's high time I got off. :P

WC

[RangerDown]

Just to keep you updated. Keeping true to the EULA I agreed on, I'm eating a package of twinkies as I type this.

Now, any of you rolled a gnome chick, and if so, what server?

[NarutoLegacy]

o_O

What the hell are you talkin about?

[animepimp]

This is what he's talking about:

keep in mind its entirely possible to edit the eula.txt to say whatever you want so long as you dont patch i.e "i agree to eat twinkies and have sex with gnome chicks"


This was just the example used to say why its impossible for sony to even prove that you actually agreed to their EULA ever. If you really don't like what it says you can change it every time you patch and agree to whatever you feel like.

[Windcatcher]

SCREEEEEAAAAAMMMMM

Don't you get it? According to 15 U.S.C. 14, the language in the EULA that we're talking about is "unlawful" (as stated IN THE LAW). It means that, even if you have "agreed" to it, you actually haven't and can't, whether intentionally or due to ignorance of the law protecting you. It is unlawful to include that language in the agreement and as such the language is null and void and carries no legal weight whatsoever. We're arguing a moot point.

What really gets my goat is the thought that that text was placed in there by a lawyer. I would understand if it was put there by a dev or something, because I wouldn't expect a dev to necessarily know that the language was unlawful, but a lawyer should know better. If a lawyer put that text there it smacks of intentional deception to me and I can't abide that. If you're going to include a legal contract with your software, for God's sake be honorable about it and at least make sure the contract is lawful.

WC

[Shadow-Wolf]

SW, truth be told, I am so unbelievably burned out on anything and everything relating to EQ/EQEmu that the only thing keeping me here is the desire to see an EQEmu-ZP server working (one that uses OpenZone zones). Otherwise, (and I assure you that this isn't a dig at anyone) I really feel like it's getting about time to move on. I'm seriously considering just uploading my latest ZP-compatible server code, saying, "here it is, have at it," and taking my exit bow. Playing with this project has been a lot of fun, but life is calling me and I'm thinking that it might be time to start listening (no, no one at SOE has contacted me, either).


poopy, if I had good servers(mines currently running on a home pc although i dont really run it anymore) i would definatley make a server using OpenZone and ZoneProxy, But I knew it would eventually lead to this as it seems everyone here is ignorant and cant see how many possiblitys openzone created for eqemu. Lol I still have the video i made of veldona and the other zones on my comp.

[RangerDown]

/tell Naruto I put on my robe and wizard hat. :P

[killspree]

I'm not sure EQEMU can officially be declared as a competitor since it uses the same client software as EverQuest. With that said, I also doubt SOE will do anything until it becomes a major threat to their company.

The minor amount of EQEMU users is nothing compared to the 400-450k users SOE has.

[DancingEskimo]

Couldnt it be considered a monopoly in some way? Also notice that a good portion of the people on the project do not currently play EQ live nor did they during the time they found out about it or even planned on going back to EQ.

[ronaldcgr]

To the person that was calculating how much sony gets out of this per month, there are actually around 430,000 accounts on EQ. But sony has a total of over 700,000 accounts with all their games combined. So yeah...they make a huge chunk of change.

[Fireb0rn]

lol. Sony being greedy? That's like saying anyone who goes to work is being greedy. Anyone who gets a raise is greedy. Anyone who is angry for not getting their paycheck is greedy. The list goes on..

[Mango]

If you're going to include a legal contract with your software, for God's sake be honorable about it and at least make sure the contract is lawful.

I've been reading this discussion with some interest, but i just wanted to clarify one point.

There is no such thing as a clickable "legal contract." This is something in which ive actually been in court over, and it simply does not apply. It really don't matter what Sony or it's lawyers say. Legally speaking: A EULA or Online 'Disclaimer' are worthless in the real world.

Sony can use them as justification for deleting or banning your accounts however, which is why i suspect it's there. Keeping in mind that nowadays, an MMORPG account can be quantified as "Property" with a verifiable monetary value - The EULA establishes up front what is "legal" according to their rules and what's not. Outside of the Sony/Everquest world however - It means nothing.

So until Sony starts sending written contracts out via mail, and forces you to sign them in front of notary - Your in the clear. :D

As for a Monopoly - Everquest isn't even close... heh

With Lucid Visions PvP server going up shortly(next week it looks like) - I've made sure that all my legal bases are covered. I could write about 10 pages on exactly "why" and "how" an emulator server is legal under U.S Law, but i'll spare everyone the details. Sony most likely looks at the emulator servers at this point as nothing more then free advertising for EQ2. Get hooked on Everquest "again", and buy the sequel in 5 months.