EOL
First Post
There are a few issues going on here:
1- The fact that Disney (and others) have gotten the government to extend copyright protection is just plain wrong. The whole idea behind Intellectual property laws is that the government gives you protection and in exchange eventually everyone gets to use and benefit from that IP. Even with the current way in which the copyright law is written it takes forever for that to happen.
2- You cannot copyright a game system. You do have a copyright on the language you used to describe that system, which in practice makes it very difficult to use someone else's gaming system, but a case like this has never been decided in court so there's no precedent, it's always been settled. While the OGL is a tremendous idea it also allows WoTC to not have to deal with this issues.
3- Software is a whole seperate issue and EULA a pile of legalese on top of that, but I think as the article Krug mentioned (which is great BTW) we're seeing capitalism in action, which is going to be awfully hard to stop entirely without fundamentally changing the nature of the game.
4- Is paying real money for virtual items right or wrong? I think it's idiotic and I would never do it, but Verant has created a system where a 60th level character has an enormous amount of value. I have a co-worker with a lvl 60 character and I believe he's close to enough time to have worked 40 hrs/week for a year.
1- The fact that Disney (and others) have gotten the government to extend copyright protection is just plain wrong. The whole idea behind Intellectual property laws is that the government gives you protection and in exchange eventually everyone gets to use and benefit from that IP. Even with the current way in which the copyright law is written it takes forever for that to happen.
2- You cannot copyright a game system. You do have a copyright on the language you used to describe that system, which in practice makes it very difficult to use someone else's gaming system, but a case like this has never been decided in court so there's no precedent, it's always been settled. While the OGL is a tremendous idea it also allows WoTC to not have to deal with this issues.
3- Software is a whole seperate issue and EULA a pile of legalese on top of that, but I think as the article Krug mentioned (which is great BTW) we're seeing capitalism in action, which is going to be awfully hard to stop entirely without fundamentally changing the nature of the game.
4- Is paying real money for virtual items right or wrong? I think it's idiotic and I would never do it, but Verant has created a system where a 60th level character has an enormous amount of value. I have a co-worker with a lvl 60 character and I believe he's close to enough time to have worked 40 hrs/week for a year.
