Radical idea

[Ironwolf]

I have a very Radical idea - one that may be insane enough to work.

What is we setup the EXACT game that we have now - we host it and provide all profits other than salaries and expenses BACK TO NCSOFT!

How on earth could they take you to court for IP violations when they are getting all of the profits? If only the actual developers, server techs and hosting was taken out of the profits and the rest was sent as a quarterly stipend to NCSoft as a check?

Is this not a solution just silly enough to work?

If we truly want to save the game and not personally profit - is this not a solution?

[Segev]

The employees we would have to pay would be "profiting" from such an effort, which would trigger all the C&D you might expect. Likewise, they'd have to stop us because failure to protect a Trademark causes you to lose the right to it.

[Ironwolf]

I disagree, the employees would be paid to develop a product THEY (NCSoft) are profiting from. You are basically saving NCSoft from themselves.

Can you imagine the judge ordering a Cease and Desist on a product they are making a profit from and that no one is "stealing" in any way. It is not going to a 3rd party - what exactly is ownership?

I do not think they would have a leg to stand on in court. The judge could not see in any way that altering a dead property would violate anything - especially if you sent all changes made to the game directly to NCSoft. The game is theirs, the profits are theirs and all we desire is a functioning game. If they began development of the game themselves - this could stop us - but it also would give us what we desire - the game once again open for business.
 
You pay exactly in accordance to NCSoft developers pay scale and expense openly EVERY penny spent to host the game.

[Turjan]

lol

This is an absolutely crazy idea...yet in a bizarre way, it's a perfectly just and laudable one

However, large corporations have no sense of humour, so I have no doubt they'd pout and send a team of viciously armed attack lawyers to shred any such scheme with a barrage of legally defensible precedents. Honestly, NCSoft are worse than Crey, I tell you!

If you could find some crazy, wild-eyed visonary lawyer who could back such an idea though, I'd certainly be curious to see what happened.

[Sleepy Wonder]

Okay, first of all.. good luck barging into the data center that hosts the servers, and good luck getting the game code and all associated property from NCSofts hands without their permission. They OWN the game and the property. If they want to sit on it, that's their call.

End of story.

Now I get what you are saying, which is basically:

"Why can't NCSoft simply send the studio on their way, give them the subscriber data for themselves to manage, and let them pay their own rent and have the subscribers pay their salary from the profits, and we [NCSoft] get free rent."

which is basically the idea that NCSoft retain the IP and rent it out for a fee, while not investing anything into it (period).

There are two problems:

1.) NCSoft currently isn't willing to budge on their grip with the IP as demonstrated by their recent announcement of having exhausted all efforts to please us (which we all know is bs)
2.) No one would feel safe knowing their land lord is NCSoft and could still for whatever reason pull the plug on development if for whatever reason they want to. (maybe in this scenario City of Heroes does so well, NCSoft gets the bright idea of creating a sequel by an Asian developer and kicking us all to the curb again).

[Ironwolf]

So if instead of developing the game you used a shard and did the exact same thing allowing the Community to pay for hosting seperate?

Now you run the game, all profits are ONLY to NCSoft.

You are not impinging on anything, the company says - this IP has zero value. We say we disagree and to prove it we will send you the profits - for free. Now they have a giant problem, do they now seek to sue someone for sending them free money and look like complete idiots globally and become a laughing stock.

Do they keep taking the free money? Do they sell the game? Do they send in lawyers for getting free money?

What do they do? In the meantime we can beat them to death with the bad publicity for stopping a community that so loves one of their products that they kept it going at their own expense. This would be  dropping them into a quagmire from hell.



Sherlock Holmes said:

"I think that there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge."

[Segev]

Unfortunately, it is very likely they would choose the "send in lawyers for giving them free money" option. Even if it seems like bad business.

If they were engaging in what any of us on the outside thought was obviously good business, they would be willing to spin Paragon Studios off and let it keep running the game, making some money rather than losing it in sunk costs.

[Ironwolf]

It is the entire point this would make.

They so badly want to be the Deathstar of the MMO world they will kill a game giving them free money.

That is how we fight NCSoft - they are the MMO Deathstar.

[Teege]

So we need to fly into a very small hole and fire a precise shot?

[JaguarX]

This is akin to someone that asked you buy the car in your driveway and you say no even though it's under a car cover and havent been moved in a few months.

Then that same person comes along and takes the car anyways then send a check in the mail with the defense that you wasnt using it and they didnt steal it since they sent you a check in the mail.

In the end they still would get charged with theft and possibly tresspassing.

I know we wish NCSoft to sell the IP, even I do. But in the end it is their property and they have the legal ability to what they please with it just like junck in someone's basement. Even if they havent touched it in years doesnt mean someone who wanted to use the stuff can just break in and take it.

[downix]

This is akin to someone that asked you buy the car in your driveway and you say no even though it's under a car cover and havent been moved in a few months.

Then that same person comes along and takes the car anyways then send a check in the mail with the defense that you wasnt using it and they didnt steal it since they sent you a check in the mail.

In the end they still would get charged with theft and possibly tresspassing.

The analogy falls apart in that in this scenario, the car would stay in the driveway. To use a car analogy, someone came along, took photographs of the car, then built their own car to drive around in. The original car is still there, NCSoft would still have the original game. They could sue, of course, but the case is not a theft nor tresspassing, but of privacy. If CoH's logo and trademarks are used, of course, can sue over those, but beyond that, it's not so cut and dry and the analogy makes it seem.

[JaguarX]

oooohhh I see, it going to be more like recreation without "recreation". Ah yes, the anology is null.

But still I dont think I would mess with, on purpose, IP violations especially when just getting started. That could be bad buisness and can reflect bad on the effort and Titan. But I'm sure there are people out there that probably knows the ins and outs of these IPs laws and can find a few loopholes.

Wouldnt send money to them though as it's basically saying "Yea, we violated your rights but here's a few bucks."

[Zolgar]

The problem with this theory, is there is no contract.. no actual legal arrangement with NCSoft to use their IP.

A better analogue here would be:
You are an artist, you have a painting in your house. Someone wants to buy it, but you refuse.. so they re-create your painting and start charging people to come see the replication, and send you a check for "your cut".

It's not rendered legal just because they are paying you for it. It's still a copyright violation.. sure, some individuals would be fine with that, so long as the payment was decent.. but others would take issue at the replication of their work being used to produce income. Especially since, without a contract, how do they know that they are really getting everything but the expenses to keep it open?

Not only would NCSoft shut this down, but so too would almost any other game company in the world.
I mean even "Abandonware" (which is an artificial concept, but I won't get in to that) is only 'accepted' because no one is making money off of it.. for example, the old 1994 Aladdin game.. Disney doesn't go after places offering it as abandonware because it's more trouble than it's worth.. if, however it were offered for sale (say through GOG.com) without licensing being arranged, Disney would come down on them hard.

[Ironwolf]

To put it in perspective - someone came along took the cover off and took pictures of YOUR car.

Then they built their own car just like it but started paying your car payments.

What exactly do you complain about again? What exactly is IP and how do you violate it? If no harm is done, no changes are made and not only are you paid, you are paid without harm. You are openly acknowledged throughout the game as the owner of the game. You are even praised for having kept it running for several years.

This is the point some are missing - to us this is about the game and its family - to them it is a chess move. What if the game suddenly changed to become 3 dimensional Vulcan chess. Welcome to a world of confusion.

You do realize in Europe it is legal to reverse engineer software right?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/copyright-can-t-block-software-reverse-engineering-court.html

There is Project Z. Reverse engineer it and host it in Europe.

[Luna Eclypse]

This very much reminds me of the original 1992 Neverwinter Nights MMO where several players became part of the staff over time as GM's and such because America On-Line's funding wasn't enough to expand the real staff. Essentially, the community adopted the game themselves up until it was shut down even though they didn't own it or the server.

[JaguarX]

The problem with this theory, is there is no contract.. no actual legal arrangement with NCSoft to use their IP.

A better analogue here would be:
You are an artist, you have a painting in your house. Someone wants to buy it, but you refuse.. so they re-create your painting and start charging people to come see the replication, and send you a check for "your cut".

It's not rendered legal just because they are paying you for it. It's still a copyright violation.. sure, some individuals would be fine with that, so long as the payment was decent.. but others would take issue at the replication of their work being used to produce income. Especially since, without a contract, how do they know that they are really getting everything but the expenses to keep it open?

Not only would NCSoft shut this down, but so too would almost any other game company in the world.
I mean even "Abandonware" (which is an artificial concept, but I won't get in to that) is only 'accepted' because no one is making money off of it.. for example, the old 1994 Aladdin game.. Disney doesn't go after places offering it as abandonware because it's more trouble than it's worth.. if, however it were offered for sale (say through GOG.com) without licensing being arranged, Disney would come down on them hard.

eww Nooobody wants Disney lawyers on their backs. They are known to have some of the top lawyers in the world. They are not cartoon lawyers that's for sure.

[Ironwolf]

Here is the money shot:

http://www.jenkins.eu/articles-general/reverse-engineering.asp

       
    Analysis of the product
    Generation of an intermediate level product description
    Human analysis of the product description to produce a specification
    Generation of a new product using the specification.

There is thus a chain of events between the underlying design specification and any intermediate level design documents lying behind the product, through the product itself, through the reverse engineered product description, through the reverse engineered specification, and into the new product itself. This raises at least the risk of infringement of copyright or similar design or chip protection rights.

If the same person both reverse engineers the old product and designs the new product, and there are similarities, it is hard to avoid an assumption that some copying has taken place, and so reverse engineering "best practice" involves breaking the chain, so far as possible, at the specification stage. The specification is made as abstract and functional as possible by the reverse engineers, and is then handed over to a "clean room" design team who have no other contact with the old product, or the team who analysed it, and who will then design the new product using as little low-level information as possible from the old product.


So Matt miller could help rewrite the game up until the finish point where it has to be handed to another team to polish it all and thus making it - "different" in accordance with European law.

Bloody hell - I think this might work! Let us spend 100 quid to ask an IP lawyer if this is feasible!

[JaguarX]

maybe this is better anology. Never been too god at them but Ironwolf is talking about taking a Porsche and turning it into a RUF. Similar but different enough to say it's new product.

[Ironwolf]

Hmm read further and perhaps not in Europe

In the case of computer programs, the EU directive states (11) that the ideas and principles underlying a program are not protected by copyright, and that (12) logic, algorithms and programming languages may to some extent comprise ideas and principles.

Analysis of the function of a program (but not decompilation (13))is permitted under Article 5.3, if it is carried out by a licensed user in the normal use of the program.

Reverse engineering is allowed under Article 6, but only for the single purpose of producing an interoperable program (rather than a competing program).

For this purpose, in addition to reverse engineering itself (i.e. producing a high level version of the code) subsequent forward engineering to produce the interoperable program is permitted.

However, the reverse engineer has to cross a host of formidable barriers before he can make use of this right;

    It must be indispensable to reverse engineer to obtain the necessary information.
    The reverse engineering has to be by a licensee or authorised user.
    The necessary information must not already have been readily available to those people.
    Only the parts of the program necessary for interoperability (i.e. the interfaces) can be reproduced.
    The information generated by the reverse engineering cannot be used for anything other than achieving interoperability of an independently created program.
    The information cannot be passed on to others except where necessary for this purpose.
    The information obtained cannot be used to make a competing program (rather than just an interoperable one).
    The "legitimate interests" of the copyright owner or "normal exploitation" of the program must not be prejudice.

Thus, far from creating a general right to reverse engineer, these provisions create only the smallest of openings for the reverse engineer; they are intended for use only to defeat locked, confidential, proprietary interfaces.

[JaguarX]

What constitutes as an "licensee or authorised user" in this case? Sounds like just any ol body cant just wake up one day and decide they are going to reverse engineer something.