>From Beppo:
> In terms of inherited classes this means that any direct copy of my codes
> that is then changed or an inherited class with changed behaviour is
> actually reusing my codes too. So this falls under the intellectual
> property copyright law.
Do you have a case citation to back that up? I'd be shocked if it's
possible to violate copyright without making a binary change to the original
code. I don't believe that's the case--see voogru's post.
When you attempt to prohibit inheritance of a class, I think you're seeking
protection of an idea or method of execution, which is closer to patent law
than copyright (not that I want to open that can of worms).
> But if a mod states in its licensee agreement that you are not allowed to
> change it in any way (agree to perform no after market modifications in
> termy to be allowed to use it) then the whole thing will be copyrighted.
> Either install it by agreeing or do not install it... your choice.
What you're describing is a business contract between the end user and the
software developer that gives additional protection outside of standard
copyright law. It may seem semantic, but a EULA doesn't expand the law any
more than a credit card transaction (another contract) does (see Deadman
Standing's post).
Blizzard's successful attempts to crush that battle.net imitator in court
illustrate that running a reverse engineered server can be a breach of
contract provided the EULA has a no reverse engineering clause; that wasn't
a copyright case, but Blizzard successfully sued because of the wording of
the original contract and a demonstrated economic impact for Blizzard.
Plugins don't fit the same category because they aren't reverse engineered
and don't modify the original code.
>From Lance:
> You do realize that by saying this you're just BEGGING people to make all
> kinds of crazy plugins to screw up the gameplay in your MOD, right? :)
I think it's unfortunate that people take this sort of thing as a challenge.
Is it really that important to **** someone off and prove them wrong if you
weren't otherwise interested in their work?
>From Lance again:
> Jason Schultz, an attorney with the non-profit Electronic Frontier
> Foundation, couldn't disagree more. "This complaint is absurd," said
> Schultz. "The law allows for fair use of other people's copyrighted works
> without any permission needed, and one of the key things that you're
> allowed to do is make copies in order to reverse engineer and understand
> how they work."
The EFF is a rights advocacy group ("we fight measures that threaten basic
human rights principles"), and can't be considered an objective source.
They've stated that the DMCA is probably unconstitutional and dismiss its
content out of hand. I'd take analysis of current copyright law and
expected legal decisions from them with a grain of salt, the same way I
treat statements from ACLU lawyers. Equating the trade of asset patches and
modification of the program for entertainment purposes with "understand[ing]
how [programs] work" is a stretch.
That said, I hope that the Tecmo case is dismissed because I believe that
people who have bought intellectual property should have the right to modify
it for their personal use (e.g. writing in the margin of a book).
--------------------
Off-topic: Lance (and any other interested parties), would you mind having
an offline conversation on how to detect modification of a HL1 server? NS
is committed to allowing plugins, but I'd like to know when the game is
running stock so that I can collect feedback for balancing the sides.
I can look at the module list in Win32, but I'm not sure if that catches all
cases and it's not cross-platform. It would be even better if I could
fingerprint the modifications to know how popular they are and to see how
common gameplay changes affect balance.
Karl
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