Ryandor.com

I have taken down all of my UO-related utilities as well as the version of UOX that I worked on. While I do not believe I have broken any laws in creating or distributing them, I am no longer going to work on them or distribute them, and hereby withdraw the rights for anyone else to distribute my works as well.

Why? Well, they were already in the grey area thanks to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which might interpret them to be used for reverse-engineering copyright protection mechanisms. They do not, though, since they use only clearly and widely available public knowledge, and I reverse-engineered nothing.

A few days, ago, though, the supreme court ruled that any program written with the intent of helping others violate copyright laws is also illegal. My programs CLEARLY do not do that, and I certainly do not intend them to be used for such things.

So why take them down, then? Well, truthfully, I could not afford the court costs even if I won a lawsuit against EA. I do not think they would sue me anytime soon, but just in case, I do not want them to have a reason to bite me in the ass later.

I have broken no laws and have only had good intentions, but my programs are enough in the grey area to big corporate lawyers to justify destroying me financially, even if they do not have a legitimate claim.

I am probably just being paranoid, but everyone I know has been sued over something stupid one time or another in this stupid society we live in?

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Oh, and, in truth, nobody uses my stuff anyway.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Ah, the contrast... I don't know personally any single individual who has been sued.

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

You do not have the DMCA, software patents, or live in a society that raises their kids to say, ?So sue me,? instead of ?sorry? (I am only guessing on this last one?).

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

My read is tools that deal with the encryption need to worry the most. One is specifically allowed for interopability to revers engineer (Court cases have upheld that, in the lexmark printer cartridge cases, and garage door openers attempted to us DCMA).

Since most of the tools I know of deal with the data and its formats (not decyrypting), I don't see a lot of risk (but that doesn't mean any risk). But the risk is in "losing", not being sued. People are sued in the country all the time, with no chance of the other party prevailing. But the money drain is enough to make on lose. So at that point, risk is not longer the concern.

One can take the position to make nothing avialable to anyone, for in this country, you can get sued so easily. All understandable.

The problem is more or less how vague the DMCA is about copy protection mechanisms. A big corporate lawyer could easily argue that reverse engineering a closed file format for the purpose of gaining access to copy written material is a violation of this. Obviously, that big corporate lawyer would be wrong, for the very reason you said, but the amount of arguing that would go on before I could prove it would be enough to bankrupt me (anything more than a day could do that at this point). Until now, that was not enough to make me paranoid, though, due to the plethora of other utilities in the same category, none of which has been bothered.

The ruling a few days ago in the MGM vs. Grokster case worries me a bit more, though. While this ruling is obviously geared towards P2P programs that enable gross copyright infringement, it could also apply to the emulation scene in a somewhat similar way. Emulators and the tools that support them could be viewed to be created to intentionally violate copyright laws, which would make their authors liable for any infringement done by any user, even if those same tools could be used for legal purposes as well. While nobody who creates these tools (that I know of) intends them to be used for illegal purposes, it is so close to the borderline of being hard to disprove that I have decided to not risk it.

I have broken no law, but I would lose just the same, as you say, even if I fought and won. Best to just avoid the whole situation, I think, and try not to get in the way of the big corporations until I have more power to uphold my rights.

It is not now that I am worried about, but my future. I do not want something I do now to come back and bite me later.

All of it is depressing to me?

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

This would be the more valid reason

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This space for rent.

Actually a court already ruled that making game EMU's are "NOT" a copyright violation. This has already been addressed by Sony and Origin systems trying to sue EMU makers and it was thrown out.

Reverse engineering is illegal but creating software that mimics the original product is not nor any software that enhances that ability. So your 100% safe.

Your entitled to be paranoid though since there are all manner of new laws under the Patriot Act that would consider "hacking" in any way form or manner a terrorist act. This could be stretched to encompass games and emulators for them.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Beh, move up here and develop them. Canadian copywrite protects the individual before the corporations. Remember all those bogus copyrites on line? "I wrote this so it's mine". I don't know how the US handles that, but up here if you make it and you let the public see it, it's yours until you die. EMUs and the like aren't illegal and we don't worry about viewing anything like that as a terrorist activity.

As for sueing... I don't personally know a soul who has been involved in a lawsuit.

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Darien Dragon
"There is no good or evil, only fun and boring."

You know me.
I have never been sued.
Therefore you lied about me.

I'm going to sue you for liable.

Sorry I couldn't resist.

-Ryandor

I try to forget that I know you... sorry.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

I would not worry too much ... if EA thought that they were losing a significant portion of revenue from a nearly-10-year-old piece of software which already is a major source of their income without suing anyone, then they will do so. But as it stands, they've already made more money than anyone else in the MMORPG biz, and suing a few small fish over POL/Sphere/UOX/RunUO and related tools aren't going to make them a dime.

I have big ambitions about becoming a big developer/programmer of MMORPGs someday. While I will admit that it is unlikely, if ever I did make it, I would not want something I do now come back and bite me then. Even if I ever finish my free MMORPG ? free (graphical) MMORPGs usually become very popular, even if they are crappy ones. Giving some bored EA lawyer ammunition against me is not something I want to do.

Yeah, I agree, though, they have no reason to sue me or anyone else right now.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Actually I think EA likes the EMU community to a degree. If you havent paid to much attention you would have noticed that most of the expansions they have came up with and the little nifty updates were sometimes based off items found on player ran shards.

People have been ranting about Ninjas and Oriental style shards for a very long time. But the items first appeared on player shards and from people making house deco out of normal UO items to create Oriental style deco. Like clock cases to make the screens.

EA has already taken to court some of the original pioneers of EMU's and the case was not only lost but the judge said it was perfectly "legal" to make an EMU from a game since no reverse engineering is actually involved and no profit was made from doing so.

Sony lost their case over the EQ EMU's as well as the E-Gay seller lawsuit so I would say that you are more than safe and they have far better things to do than mess with "kids" helping give them ideas to improve their game.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

That is assuming I plan to spend the rest of my life in the EMU scene. I am more worried about them ?remembering? my grey-area software when it is more convenient to break me.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Interesting. I can't remember seeing anything like that, though I know Blizzard went after the guys who emulated their battle.net servers, I didn't know EA has done something similar.

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Well as Syd would point out it was actually OSI software but the case was dismissed.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"