GreaterMUD Content

[Gardner Denver]

Welcome back DC

[RPenton]

the real question is, why not dare em to sue you and ship with their content anyways. Seriously. It would be a fun thing to see.

Eventually their avoidance tactics will work against them in a legal sense and they can lose the right to stop you. Its happened before. and seriously, the data files are a shadowy legal thing anyways. It would be like the tolkien estate suing everyone that uses elves in their stories...

I think you're thinking of trademark. Trademarks are the only kind of intellectual property that the owners can lose if they don't actively defend it. So if Vitoc were to go around calling this MajorMUD and Metro does nothing to stop it for a few years, the courts will probably find that Metro has abandoned the trademark and everyone would be free to use it.

The data files however are governed under the rules of copyrights, which do not have an enforcement condition. Copyrights in the USA are automatic and last for 95 years after publication, so chances are none of us will be around when the copyrights on MajorMUD expire. Of course, none of that matters if you stay below the radar and Metro never cares enough to actually bring you to court. But given their policy of wanting to check on every MM BBS to see if it's pirated, I somehow think they'd jump on the chance to sue.

Anyway, I always found one bit of MM funny; they blatantly ripped off the name of one of the three splinter kingdoms of Arnor from LOTR: Rhudaur. Maybe Tolkien's estate should sue Metro? 

[DeathCow]

I remember looking, never found a copyright for anything related to majormud.

[RPenton]

I remember looking, never found a copyright for anything related to majormud.

Doesn't matter. Copyrights are implicit in the United States. You don't have to register them like you have to register Trademarks and Patents. If you can prove that you originally wrote it, you automatically have a copyright on it.

[Gardner Denver]

So since all Metro ever cranked out was shit, they now own shit?   Does that mean I have to pay a royalty to Metro everytime I take a Metro?

[Achilles]

Doesn't matter. Copyrights are implicit in the United States. You don't have to register them like you have to register Trademarks and Patents. If you can prove that you originally wrote it, you automatically have a copyright on it.

Metro never originated in the writing of anything regarding MMud.