Dear TMW Community.

[Platyna]

Current situation: Not only have I not heard anyone in the current TMW Committee claim personal ownership of the game data, I have universally heard distaste for the very idea.
We are being extremely careful to prevent anyone from being able to hold the game hostage in the future.

I agree with you.

It is distasteful to claim personal ownership of the game data. But it is equally distasteful to throw the most senior, highest ranking (of active) team members off the team, without rules (constitution), precedent, or warning, just because you decided you cannot get along with her, even though it is clear that plenty of successful development occurred under her tenure, from 2006 to March 9th, 2013, and that there would be no game over which to fight, had she not administered and hosted for all those years. If it turns out that legally she owns the datafiles that represent the virtual world from which you stripped her of all the stripes she earned, then I guess it's Karma. Maybe it's also some necessary leverage that will allow both sides to come to a compromise, mend fences, reunite the community, and put this whole ugly mess behind us. Here's hoping.

The game is being held hostage now. I feel like more of a hostage now than ever under Platyna, with the community split, and MadCamel hosting the TMWC's copy of it. There is still no transparency, no constitution, and you tried to keep MadCamel's hosting a secret, even though he is a very controversial player, who even now says very vulgar things and gets away with it: http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 5&start=18

actually there is more transparency now than ever. We've clearly shown who is a member of The Mana World Committee, clearly stated from what pools these members are pulled, and clearly stated that everyone in the group has an equal say in decisions. There have been no rule or policy changes that affect the player base, and any decision that the committee has come to has been shared publicly.

We as a group and individuals have generally decided to try to remain out of the flame wars as they are generally counterproductive and have degraded to name calling and general ill will toward the other party.

Regarding MadCamel.

Let me start by relaying a bit of history. For all of the issues that Platyna has stated against him, Platyna voted to unban him and reinstate him as part of the project, which included the same level of access to the server data he has now. So to me its strange that all of a sudden he's a threat.

MadCamel and I have a tumultuous history. Point of fact, he was the strongest voice against me becoming a GM. Because of this history, I had a hard time accepting him as the new host. After researching some forum posts regarding him, which interestingly enough, revealed that Bjorn was initially going to accept him as the host of TMW years ago when Platyna decided to stop hosting for a brief time. She eventually changed her mind and Bjorn decided to keep the game with her. After researching a bit, I expressed my concerns regarding MadCamel in the private IRC channel. Both Bjorn and Freeyorp were present for the conversation. After their responses I was left with the impression that he, as a host, would be perfectly acceptable. He IS NOT a member of The Mana World Committee, he is an Advisor. He has explicitly expressed no desire to influence decisions regarding the server content, moderation, governing. Taking all this into consideration, I fully, 100%, accept him as Host and Advisor. Understand one thing, though. He speaks in no official capacity, as claimed by his signature.

All of this talk of 'being held hostage' is silly. The game goes on. We are putting out content, moderating, and continuing as usual. This feeling of being held hostage is just that, a feeling.

I personally have nothing against Platyna and understand that her name calling is out of frustration and anger. I would be willing to accept her as an equal, but never again as a superior.

BC

I am being called names. And you were spamming my threads. Transparency? You didn't even wanted to tell the community who is the host.

And I agreed to unban MadCamel, as I agree to give any player a second chance, I never agreed to give him the access to server files.

Developers are not suppose to involve in server administration, and it comes to ANY server exept the one they own. This server is owned by me and I want the files back.

That you ignore what do players and other respected members of the community (eg. blackrazor) are telling you only shows how much you care about community. And the part of the community who is aware of what is happening doesn't want your committee or your abusers as admins - they expressed it in multiple posts.

If you want a committee and a server make your own, with unique content, do not steal other people's work. No matter how you are trying to whiten, it is still disgusting.

Regards.

[Big Crunch]

both hosts after you wished to remain anonymous, and both specifically requested to not have any influence on game decisions.


no developer has any more access or authority regarding admin activities than they did under you. Frost is the only server admin.

regarding ownership , you have accepted money from the community for equipment upgrades. myself also donating. to me, that shows that the community owns the server and data. that is a personal opinion, however

BC

[Platyna]

both hosts after you wished to remain anonymous, and both specifically requested to not have any influence on game decisions.


no developer has any more access or authority regarding admin activities than they did under you. Frost is the only server admin.

regarding ownership , you have accepted money from the community for equipment upgrades. myself also donating. to me, that shows that the community owns the server and data. that is a personal opinion, however

BC

You were donating not buying and the community didn't want that take over.

[Big Crunch]

Platyna, I accept that we will never see eye to eye on these things. I wish you well in your studies and any future endeavors.

BC out.

[Platyna]

actually there is more transparency now than ever. We've clearly shown who is a member of The Mana World Committee, clearly stated from what pools these members are pulled, and clearly stated that everyone in the group has an equal say in decisions.

Maybe for those with access to private forums and private irc channels the transparency has increased. For others there is not much transparency.

On Platinum it was clear that Platyna was the boss, which made it transparent who had the final decision.

The member list of the TMWC was published in a sticky post, but that list had not been updated since and is outdated now. It is not transparent how the members were chosen. When the list was published many senior players were surprised about some of the names on that list. I found also some of the advisors surprising, who know nothing about the game as it is today and now are suddenly made advisor. Furthermore it is not transparent at all what the TMWC is discussing. Some of the results will be published, but that is not transparency, since every dictatorship has to do that too.

It is not transparent who has access to the server data.

Without Platyna the power cake has become bigger. I know many people who refuse to take part in the fight over that cake, but none of them is member of the TMWC.

When I ruled TMW I was authoritative - but this is what an admin supposed to be, I took the responsibility for actions of every person in GHP, and I was making clear and fair decisions.

Indeed, now the power cake is bigger, and those people have more power than I ever had - because they can hide behind a committee.

Before 09.03.13 a human being regulated TMW, now you got some faceless committee. It is all to what one wants without having their name on it.

We may talk like that till the end of the world - Bjorn and Elven - the only persons who could make things back to normal doesn't care about your opinion, so it is clearly visible whate are these "new forces" in TMW.

Anyway, original server is up, you are welcome to join.

Regards.

[Rill]

TMWserver generates a datafile, including player saves, which represents the actual instance of the world you are playing in. It is output, but since there is no (separate initial) input file (as with Rosegarden), it has nothing from which to inherit its copyright, therefore the copyright ownership defaults to the person or organization running the server software.

This is an amazingly declarative statement regarding a complex legal matter. Yet you supply no authoritative legal source in support. No codified law, no caselaw, no law review or journal article, no treatise, no reference material whatsoever. Your statement is totally unsubstantiated. As such, it is entirely unpersuasive. Unless you can provide some substantive legal source to support your position, please do not post a response to this comment. Thank you.

P.S. The GPL faq webpage does not qualify as a substantive legal source.

[blackrazor]

TMWserver generates a datafile, including player saves, which represents the actual instance of the world you are playing in. It is output, but since there is no (separate initial) input file (as with Rosegarden), it has nothing from which to inherit its copyright, therefore the copyright ownership defaults to the person or organization running the server software.

This is an amazingly declarative statement regarding a complex legal matter. Yet you supply no authoritative legal source in support. No codified law, no caselaw, no law review or journal article, no treatise, no reference material whatsoever. Your statement is totally unsubstantiated. As such, it is entirely unpersuasive. Unless you can provide some substantive legal source to support your position, please do not post a response to this comment. Thank you.

P.S. The GPL faq webpage does not qualify as a substantive legal source.

"When does a program copyright its output"
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1961

It's a nice discussion, including many references to case law in both the USA and Europe, on the copyright of databases and ordered lists, output by software of various types.

The short answer is yes, a database output can be copyrighted. Even a flat ascii text file containing all the player's information is a database. In the case of a GPL licenced software, the copyright of the output is not by the GPL licence. It's their licence (GPL), so their rules. So Rill, which copyright would you assume to apply to the output, and in whose name would that copyright be? You're saying it doesn't make sense to you that the person actually running the software, and thereby creating the database, is its owner? Especially in the absence of valid competing claims, since the GPL licence on the server software prohibits the software authors from asserting a claim on the output themselves.

[Rill]

TMWserver generates a datafile, including player saves, which represents the actual instance of the world you are playing in. It is output, but since there is no (separate initial) input file (as with Rosegarden), it has nothing from which to inherit its copyright, therefore the copyright ownership defaults to the person or organization running the server software.

This is an amazingly declarative statement regarding a complex legal matter. Yet you supply no authoritative legal source in support. No codified law, no caselaw, no law review or journal article, no treatise, no reference material whatsoever. Your statement is totally unsubstantiated. As such, it is entirely unpersuasive. Unless you can provide some substantive legal source to support your position, please do not post a response to this comment. Thank you.

P.S. The GPL faq webpage does not qualify as a substantive legal source.

"When does a program copyright its output"
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1961

It's a nice discussion, including many references to case law in both the USA and Europe, on the copyright of databases and ordered lists, output by software of various types.

The short answer is yes, a database output can be copyrighted. Even a flat ascii text file containing all the player's information is a database. In the case of a GPL licenced software, the copyright of the output is not by the GPL licence. It's their licence (GPL), so their rules. So Rill, which copyright would you assume to apply to the output, and in whose name would that copyright be? You're saying it doesn't make sense to you that the person actually running the software, and thereby creating the database, is its owner? Especially in the absence of valid competing claims, since the GPL licence on the server software prohibits the software authors from asserting a claim on the output themselves.

With due respect, you have still to provide a specific, on point reference to a substantive legal source to support the claim you have made, i.e., that “copyright ownership defaults to the person or organization running the server software”. Your citing a discussion forum with anonymous posts and a few references to cases that are not on point is hardly dispositive. If you want to be convincing, then every single legal claim that you make should be referenced with specific authoritative legal citations in support of it.

[templarwarrior]

Most likely ownership of files would default to the owner of the dns and the founder of the server itself rather than the owner of the host machine. it makes much more sense and is usually the way open source projects are set up as they never know when theyll need to move. all the evidence weve seen from old players shows that she was chosen as host and as an admin but theres been no evidence presented that tmw ever became her actual property. she volunteered a service just like everyone else. a court of law would likely rule this way.

most of these open source projects arent hosted by the actual server owner as many dont have the machines for it. another example is land of fire which i believe is now hosted under platinum. they went to her because she had faster machines. do you think that means platyna is the owner of LOF now?

[blackrazor]

Most likely ownership of files would default to the owner of the dns and the founder of the server itself rather than the owner of the host machine. it makes much more sense and is usually the way open source projects are set up as they never know when theyll need to move

Not with a GPL license from the Free Software Foundation. Hey, they could have chosen any license, or no license, but they chose that particular one, and it comes with certain terms of use. One of the terms of use of a GPL licensed software, is the software maker has no claim over the output from anyone who uses his software. Inheritance applies, so if the software is, for example, a music editor, then if the source (input) file is copyrighted, then the destination (output) file will have the same copyright. Note also, that some software licenses do claim a copyright on their output; for example, if you use the Google search engine application, they claim copyright over the search results. But then again, the Google search engine isn't licensed under the GPL.

I will maintain, that in the absence of valid competing claims, I own all the program output (original work) on my computer. Examples of valid claims that would make it not mine, are the Google search results and modified copyrighted music in the two examples I gave above. I don't own any of the applications or the operating system (unless I wrote them, but that's not the case), but if I use an application to create an original work, then that original work is mine. That work could be a drawing, or a typed thesis, or an online virtual world.

Keep in mind that TMW is GPL-licensed open source software. Anyone is free to make a world. You, me, the developer, Platyna .. anyone. And each person who makes a world, owns that world as an original work. DNS doesn't matter in determining ownership; just because you point a DNS to a computer, doesn't mean you own whatever original work is on it, especially if it's not your computer.

Now, if the various administrations had actually written a constitution, outlining the ownership and rules of succession, for this particular instance of the output file, that probably would have held legal water. But they didn't.

I've linked to various pages and quotes, some of which, in turn, link to actual relevant court and regulatory rulings, in both USA and Europe, in my previous posts. But I'm not about to write a law thesis, complete with exhaustive research, just to explain my point of view on the forum for a nice casual game. If anyone else is genuinely interested in such scholarly research, they are more than welcome to undertake it upon themselves. I feel I have met "the burden of proof" to a level that would be relevant to the medium at hand, which is an anonymous forum where we are casually sharing ideas, and not necessarily writing our masters thesis or preparing a legal brief to go to court.

EDIT (because I saw you added a good point to your last post):

... another example is land of fire which i believe is now hosted under platinum. they went to her because she had faster machines. do you think that means platyna is the owner of LOF now?

I would hope that the LOF owner made a contract with Platyna, clearly defining the ownership of the data. You know, when you host with a professional company, such things are defined too, and usually the host requires that you claim all ownership and responsibility for whatever you are hosting on their machines. Although, the situation is different for pay-to-play games, and then, often the hosting company will want a cut of the profits, a license, and maybe even some crafty legal tango that amounts to them getting some stake in the ownership of the IP (Intellectual Property), too.

Platyna's relationship with TMW-platinum was very different. She was not just a host. She was administrator, final arbiter, she built the structure for many of the rules that are still in force today, she hosted events, she did some development, she breathed life into the forums and the game, where it would have died off otherwise, and she did this for years, since 2006.

I honestly don't know what a court would rule, I only gave my personal opinion, based on knowledge I obtained to the best of my ability. I do know that she was a lot more than "just a host". I also know that even if people had legitimate reasons why they had trouble getting along with her, that she certainly did not deserve what she got on March 9th, 2013.

[templarwarrior]

and your cases have no bearing here. a server owner isnt the same as a programmer. platyna was chosen as host not as owner. she volunteered her serice and offered the use of a machine. that does not make her owner than anymore you offering to let someone store items in your house makes you owner of those items. guaranteed elven had no intention of his game living and dying at platynas whim. he needed a host machine and she provided one. thats all. platyna is not server founder or owner. just a host. having someone host a game for you does not give them ownership of the save files. if elven had transfered full ownership of the server this would be another story. see platyna isnt the first host. shes the third. ownership logically defaults to server founder (not necesarily programmer) and not the host. a host is a host they have noo legal importance. your cases are about programmers suing founders. not at all comparable

[GARRETTtheGREAT]

Bear in mind that if this becomes a legal complaint, it's going to be filed in Poland, not the USA.

I'm not a lawyer, but since there are no lawyers here, I suppose my opinion is just as valid.

The save data is not covered by the GPL. The GPL version 2.0 is used throughout the source code (version 3.0 can be used if and only if the copyright notice states that future versions can be used, which it does not), and it states (Article 0, Paragraph 2):

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

Therefore, the copyright would be held by the authors of the save file. Polish law gives equal rights to all co-authors of a work (Chapter 2, Article 9, Paragraph 1):

1. The coauthors shall enjoy copyright jointly. It shall be presumed that the amounts of shares are equal. Each of the coauthors may claim the amounts of shares to be determined by the court on the basis of his contribution of creative work.

Furthermore (Chapter 2, Article 9, Paragraph 3):

3. The consent of all coauthors shall be required in order to exercise copyright with respect to the whole work. In the event of absence of such consent, each of the coauthors may request a court decision which shall take into account the interests of all the coauthors in its decision.

And (Chapter 1, Article 6, Paragraph 3):

3) the disseminated work shall mean a work which, with a permission of its author, has been made available to the public by any means whatsoever,

Platyna is a co-author of the save data and therefore, is a co-owner of the save data with equal rights as all other co-owners. The law does not state what specifically would constitute authorship, but to saying that she has had no effect on the contents of the files through contributing content, or even just playing, simply isn't true.

References:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/pl:Prawo_ ... e_(ustawa)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Co ... ruary_1994

[templarwarrior]

Bear in mind that if this becomes a legal complaint, it's going to be filed in Poland, not the USA.

I'm not a lawyer, but since there are no lawyers here, I suppose my opinion is just as valid.

The save data is not covered by the GPL. The GPL version 2.0 is used throughout the source code (version 3.0 can be used if and only if the copyright notice states that future versions can be used, which it does not), and it states (Article 0, Paragraph 2):

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

Therefore, the copyright would be held by the authors of the save file. Polish law gives equal rights to all co-authors of a work (Chapter 2, Article 9, Paragraph 1):

1. The coauthors shall enjoy copyright jointly. It shall be presumed that the amounts of shares are equal. Each of the coauthors may claim the amounts of shares to be determined by the court on the basis of his contribution of creative work.

Furthermore (Chapter 2, Article 9, Paragraph 3):

3. The consent of all coauthors shall be required in order to exercise copyright with respect to the whole work. In the event of absence of such consent, each of the coauthors may request a court decision which shall take into account the interests of all the coauthors in its decision.

And (Chapter 1, Article 6, Paragraph 3):

3) the disseminated work shall mean a work which, with a permission of its author, has been made available to the public by any means whatsoever,

Platyna is a co-author of the save data and therefore, is a co-owner of the save data with equal rights as all other co-owners.

References:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/pl:Prawo_ ... e_(ustawa)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Co ... ruary_1994

not sure you can call platyna a co author. only thing she did is provide a machine. she never wrote anything for tmw.

[templarwarrior]

if tmw goews back to platyna it dies. only devs we have are those on tmwc. i wonder if razor has a competing game and is trying to bring this death on. seriously look at all the quests. theyre all written by tmwc

[GARRETTtheGREAT]

not sure you can call platyna a co author. only thing she did is provide a machine. she never wrote anything for tmw.

That would be for the courts to decide. My point is, is it willing to risk the future of the game over what a court system defines an "author?"

If no one is going to put forth any serious effort in rectifying this issue and continue to point fingers and hurl insults, I would guarantee this will go to court.

That means the current server will be seized. That means the current server is not going to be running for a very long time.

if tmw goews back to platyna it dies. only devs we have are those on tmwc. i wonder if razor has a competing game and is trying to bring this death on. seriously look at all the quests. theyre all written by tmwc

The game could die if the save data ends up in legal limbo for years on end. Which matter of death is better?