Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Stopping Credit Sellers
bluejanus wrote:
we already saw the Supreme Court dodge the P2P issue.
Hmm. I suppose it's reasonable to say they "dodged" it, from a particular point of view.
From another point of view, not basing their decision on techno-geek stuff was exactly the right thing to do.
It'sworth noting that the Court's decision (delivered by Justice Souter) was about inducement to infringe copyright, which at its heartisn't a technological issue. Theongoing "virtualization of reality" into ones and zeroes makes this kind of infringement easier, but the Court's focus was on the action and the intent of the action, not on the mechanism by which the actionoccurred. That strikes me as exactly the long-term, big-picture thinking these people ought to be doing.
The whole point of the Court's decision was thepreservation ofcopyright law. As Justice Breyer pointed out in his concurring opinion, there are plenty of noninfringing uses for P2P technology. What got Grokster into trouble wasn't merely that they used such technology; it was how they used it (according to theappellate court documentscited by the Supreme Court): to deliberately evade copyright protections on musical performances.
Technology changes, but property rights require continuous protection. I don't thinkthe Justiceswere dodging the question of whether technology hasmade copying music so easy that copyright is irrelevant -- I'd say their laserlikefocus solelyon copyright lawanswered that question very clearly.
(Incidentally,I had to laugh to see Justice Ginsberg talking about the band Wilco in her concurring opinion. Wow.
)
--Flatfingers
Giamai wrote:
i'm quite sure that someone could find a way to argue this...if they were properly motivated. thats my point. online game EULAs and TOS agreements have never been challenged. there is limited financial reasons to do so. and the definition of what constitutes virtual property is one way to do that.
i just can't think of a way myself right now.
but hey i only got 161 on my LSAT
If someone can find a good argument why we own stuff that SOE says we don't then that would be interesting to see.
I do agree with you though that it hasnt' been challenged.
The one case I've heard of was in Asia (Korea probably?) and was between 2 players I think. I think it was a civil case about the ownership of a sword in a game. That kind of case might happen here in the US eventually and could serve to set a legal precedent.
There's a significant amount of Chinese pharming going on that we discussed in this thread.
Some summary points:
1.If you're not prepared to abide by the letter and the spirit of the terms of a contract, then you have no business agreeing to the contract.It doesn't matter whether you want to do it or not, or think it's OK or not; knowingly breaking a term to which you've agreed is wrong.Since the SWG contract (the EULA) says that you may not pay outside the gameto trade itemsinside the game, no one has any business doing it.If you don't like that, thendon't play SWG.Play a different game with a different contract.
(Tiliana, please note that when I say "you" here I'm not speaking specificallyto you -- I'm making a general statement to anyone reading this opinion.)
2. In U.S. law (and, as far as I know, in European and international law), the question of whether an object that exists only as ones and zeroes in an online game's database is "property" that enjoys the same level of protection as real property has not yet been settled, either by statute law or case law. Most people are assuming that the same protections apply, but that theory hasn't yet been tested in a Western court.
3.Although most of thebig MMOGs don't permit external sale of internal objects,there are gamesin which this isthe only way thatplayers can acquire new items. So even if SWG doesn't allow it,it seems there's nothing inherently wrong with the practice, as long as that's how the game is designed to be played.
4.Butwhat thenof the games where that's clearly not how the game is intended to be played? What about games such as SWGwhereyou're obviously not supposed to acquire in-game objects through out-of-game means? SOE doesn't have this provision in its EULA for SWGbecause they're all Bad People who hate players -- it's there because allowing the eBayingof characters andgearunbalances the gameplay.
Suppose you spent months playing five hours every night tolevel up a Jedi Master. And then you start running into other Jedi Masters who keep asking you questions like, "What's a pearl?" and "Where can I buy a really good lightsaber?" How would that make you feel about the time you spent playing SWG?
What is the value of your time andeffort inside the gamewhen other people can instantlyhave exactlythe same items you haveby buying them off of eBay? Would that make you want to spend more money toplay SWG? Or less?
Now look at it from the other side:Why should you go through the grind when you can just buy a Jedi? In fact, why even have a grind at all? Why have a Village? Why have quests? Why should the developers bother spending any time at alldeveloping early- and mid-level content? Why not just wave the magic wand and POOF! -- everybody's an insta-Jedi?
The point is that growth through XP and eBaying are incompatible. If you're a game designer, either your game expects players to earn their skills and gear by actually playing the game and progressing through the content you've created for them, or you don't expect any effort on the part of playersand youshould just give them maxed-out characters and gear to start with (or let them buy those things with real money).
Either approach can be fun. It's having both in the same gamethat's not-fun.
So: How would you solve this problem if you were the designer? Give everybody a Jedi Master? Or find a way to prevent theeBaying of Jedi and gear and credits?
--Flatfingers
smokesomemushrooms wrote:
I believe that, since they own all "true" property in game, (exluding, of course, time spent playing) They pretty much have free reign with the game, although I don't have any legal backround... So, if they wanted to do it, they could, if they wanted to stop it, they could, considering that they hold the power over accounts and what is in those accounts... really though, why buy credits in the first place? just put your heart and soul into crafting. (no idea, really... this could all be bull %%%, take it with a grain of salt)
And, Tiliana, i believe it is commendable you want to do something about it, i hope you don't get banned or anything.
because we live in a "I want it now world". This game has been overrun by kids (adults too) - who want the 'console games effect' of well I don't wanna work or play the game to get what I want.
They should create a new "IRS" profession in game - and they can tax the hell outta them 
but I'm sure they would find a way around that too!
"At the recent SWG Fan Fest, Haden Blackman (LucasArts Producer of SWG) discussed SOE / LucasArts’ anti-eBay’ing strategy - but he wasn’t giving much away.
According to Blackman, speaking at the first 'Developer Round Table' conference session at the Fan Fest, SOE / LucasArts are highly active in pursuing out of game sales. He stated that the priority is the sale of player-characters i.e. accounts, rather than objects or credits. He also confirmed that they track in game financial transactions and look for unusually large ones, and noted that they regularly issue ‘take down notices’. Moreover a number of accounts, including Jedi ones, have been terminated.
Blackman also stated that SOE / LucasArts are working with ‘an outside agency’ in the pursuit of eBayers. The ‘agency’ was referred to on a number of occasions during the Fan Fest, but never named – sounded a bit sinister at the time.
Well, we’ve wondered here what MMO developer / publishers are actually doing to crack down on eBayers – and now we know.
I wonder if the type of detailed transaction pattern tracking that credit card companies use will start to be applied to in-game transactions. Back to the panopticon model, would the knowledge of observation, however successful or not it is, reduce the amount of eBaying?"
Message Edited by Wolfe26 on 08-09-2005 10:46 AM
Vastar wrote:
Pawlin wrote:
mxxpower wrote:
It is not against the rules, they can say it is.. but legal battles have already been won.You are not buying credits, you are buying the other persons "time" that it took him to make the credits, level a character, find the good loots.. ectMessage Edited by mxxpower on 08-02-2005 02:40 PM
What legal battle? What country?As far as I've heard there was one case in Korea I think and Korean law doesn't apply outside Korea. If theres legal precedent in USA then I have not heard about it.Everyone says the "your buying my time" thing in the eBay auctions. But that doesn't make it legal. THe EULA for SWG explicitly forbids sale of credits.
I think I might open a bar in RL. I don't want to fuss with a liqueur licence so I think I'll just sell the time I took to pickup and stock the booze.
I also may decide to start selling pot. If I get busted, I'll only get possession rather than distribution since I've got the old "selling my time to grow it" defense up my sleeve.
I'm not saying I know how such a case would end up in court. I just know that if the "time" argument held up, it'd be pathetic.
Except you're talking about violations of the law. Credit selling MIGHT be a violation of the EULA, which might not hold up in court.
Banzai51 wrote:
...
Except you're talking about violations of the law. Credit selling MIGHT be a violation of the EULA, which might not hold up in court.
The argument that you spent time on it therefore it represents value to you is untenable therefor. Its as if I pay my Cable company to watch a pay-for-view movie, and then claim that because I watched that movie I have some rights to make a copy of it and resell it to someone else - after all I put in the time to watch it right? and my time - even my normally unpaid entertainment time - has a value right? Wrong. You paid for the right to watch a movie and thats the end of it. You gained no additional rights because of the time you invested in that activity - *because its not a job*.
When I subscribe to an MMORPG, I am not doing so with the understanding that my time is valued at $x per hour of gameplay and I am entitled to remuneration for that time. I am doing so with the understanding that I am paying SOE for the right to log into their server for a set period of time. When I do so I agree to a set of rules (The EULA) that preclude certain activities, including the ability to find a virtual item in game and sell it in the real world.
Now its feasible that someone might design a game where your time is considered to be worth $X per hour of gameplay and you are expressly given the right to sell the results of your "labours" - Second Life may qualify in this regard because it provides a medium for ingame cash and real world cash exchange. But in games where this is expressly prohibited, the only thing making it possible is the difficulty of tracking down the offending parties - mostly due to a lack of CSR manpower I suspect.
SOE has full access to the database, I am sure it would be very easy to determine who was giving large amounts of cash from one account to another in exchange for nothing on a regular basis (ie A gives 10m credits to B every 2 weeks. B regularly gives 10m credits to relative strangers on an irregular basis with no apparent pattern. Nothing is exchanged for these transfers one assumes, and therefore it ought to be easy to track down these exchanges with some SQL queries to the database and or search of their server logfiles. It could easily be coded into the game to record these transactions into a special serverside log file in fact and the task of finding the offending parties would be very simple.
I suspect whoever said its simply not cost effective for SOE to shut down the offending accounts is the closest to the mark. If SOE started brokering RL cash exchanges as they have on the selected EQ2 servers, then it would be in their interest to punish/ban the offending parties who continued to work outside the system but for now its not damaging enough to make it seem worthwhile to them I suppose.
Pawlin wrote:
Banzai51 wrote:
...
Except you're talking about violations of the law. Credit selling MIGHT be a violation of the EULA, which might not hold up in court.
Right well I doubt SOE is going to sue anyone about it. They'll just ban the account. And then if a player wants to challenge that then they don't have a leg to stand on cause they are bound by the EULA.
Which is why all serious credit sellers have an alt account that they use simply for that. If this account is banned there are no reprocutions ... no lots lost (and even if they are, building don't delete unless a character is deleted, not simply cancelled / banned) , no professions need to be leveled again, minimal credits are lost, and virtually no property lost.
Banning accounts only effects the small time credit sellers and in the long run, getting rid of them will accomplish nothing.
In addition, I know of lots of big time merchants on my server many of who I would place in the small time credit seller category ... I'd hate to see what would happen to certain markets if those people were no longer supplying the market with armor, weapons, etc....
Nema0879 wrote:
Pawlin wrote:
Banzai51 wrote:
...
Except you're talking about violations of the law. Credit selling MIGHT be a violation of the EULA, which might not hold up in court.
Right well I doubt SOE is going to sue anyone about it. They'll just ban the account. And then if a player wants to challenge that then they don't have a leg to stand on cause they are bound by the EULA.
Which is why all serious credit sellers have an alt account that they use simply for that. If this account is banned there are no reprocutions ... no lots lost (and even if they are, building don't delete unless a character is deleted, not simply cancelled / banned) , no professions need to be leveled again, minimal credits are lost, and virtually no property lost.
Banning accounts only effects the small time credit sellers and in the long run, getting rid of them will accomplish nothing.
In addition, I know of lots of big time merchants on my server many of who I would place in the small time credit seller category ... I'd hate to see what would happen to certain markets if those people were no longer supplying the market with armor, weapons, etc....
I just wish this subject would stop being brought up .... You'll see a SWG station exchange before you see soe going after people who sell credits ....