[Windcatcher]

You know, I'm getting tired of this nebulous "intellectual property rights" mantra as if it means anything the vendor wants it do mean. It does not. There are certain rights they have, such as copyright, which means that no one can distribute anything they create without their permission. They also have the right to ensure that people can't duplicate work that is uniquely their creation--this means that a rival could create an MMORPG featuring elves, dwarves, humans, etc., since SOE didn't create those, but creating a new game featuring Erudeans, for instance, would probably be prohibited (just as no one can distribute anything featuring a Disney character--they are creations solely attributable to Disney). Software vendors also have the right that their products not be altered, but they do not have the right that their products not be replaced.

There is no right granted to a vendor that says they can prohibit anyone from creating an add-on to their product, and no law exists that requires obtaining permission from such a vendor. If Edelbrock wants to create aftermarket parts, they do *not* have to obtain permission from Ford, GM, et. al., and any "intellectual property rights" claim from said vendors would be laughed out of court. To the best of my knowledge there is no special provision for software vendors. The reason for this is antitrust law: vendors in the past used anticompetitive techniques to lock in customers and lock out competitors (including potential competitors in the aftermarket area), and antitrust laws were created to bring competition back to the market (any captalist worth his salt knows that capitalism *requires* competition to work properly). So when people start throwing the "intellectual property rights" charge around, beware: there are rights they may wish to have and rights they actually have. The right to deny third-party add-ons isn't one of them.

In the case of EQEmu, the situation is even more clear: it is neither an add-on to their client nor does it alter it in any way. It is a drop-in-replacement for one of SOE's products, one they have never released to the public (strictly speaking, it constitutes competition against SOE and that is definitely protected under antitrust law). At the most SOE might be able to allege a trademark violation (in the sense that MS made Lindows change their name), and if I were running the emu I would have removed the letters "e" and "q" from the emu's name ages ago. This was how Blizzard shut down Freecraft, by the way--purely via a trademark suit against the name, since that was all they could charge (and that, friends, is exactly why I will never buy a Blizzard product again--anyone who would do something that lame and/or despicable deserves not my money).

All this said, if it were Blizzard instead of SOE, I'm sure the emu would have been shut down years ago--not because they might actually win a suit, but simply because Blizzard seems in my opinion to be more apt to play the legal extortion game--"expend your life savings defending yourself from us, or give us what we want." Anti-SLAPP lawsuits only come into play after you've suffered damages in legal fees, and of course there is no guarantee that you'll win (and not all states have anti-SLAPP statutes, though mine sure as hell does).

In the end if SOE wants to shut the emu down I suppose they could play the Blizard game and just issue a C&D nastygram, regardless of its merits. Why they haven't is a mystery to me. I want to think there's someone there who is actually interested in obeying the law rather than using extortion, but with Blizzard's antics nothing anymore surprises me so I can't make that assumption.