Oh lordy look what cakeRO has done now...

Started by chibizorpixie, Nov 10, 2006, 01:46 PM

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chibizorpixie

One of my very close RO buddies paid 3 grand in donors...3 GRAND! He's been there since the beginning of cake and, until recently enjoyed it very much. He even used to help out quite a bit with coding. I agree if you're thinking "wow 3k is kind of excessive" but it's his money so i make no judgements XD He's got every single reciept from every single transaction and Marsh refuses to give him ANY of his donors back. (I am assuming because he told Marsh before the wipe that he wouldn't ever fix any bugs that they had ever again.)

My point being... with all of these people getting screwed, it would be very very VERY simple for there to be a class action lawsuit against cake and against Marsh. I'm not saying that anyone would do this at all... but the last time I checked, it was quite illegal for someone to let you pay for something via paypal and then say "oh we're out of that item but you can't have your money back."

(I could be totally wrong on this lawsuit thing... I haven't checked into it or anything as I have never donated any money...) There might be a loophole somewhere but I'm fairly confident that refusing to give someone what they paid for is illegal?

Pandora

So greedy.. that sucks.

If anyone is looking for a non-corrupt low rate, try heRO:
http://www.hero-server.net/

You cannot buy any custom with donations, all customs are acquired with quests or in an event called the "Trials of Heroes" (held monthly) ^_^
[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



[color=darkblue]Click here to find out more about heRO![/color]

Duncan

#17
That's the main reason why I don't have donation items or make people donate. And I can't imagine what these servers that have them use that money for. Plus I believe making money of any kind when hosting a RO server is illegal (not sure if that's really true). Private servers are supposed to be free. That's what eAthena, Aegis, and any other EMUs are there for. And when you look at it, it doesn't cost that much to run a server. Though some people do spend a lot of money on a server. I'll use myself as an example. It cost me over $5,000 to run and maintain my server. Three thousand of that was put to my computer that I bought 2 years ago and the rest for RAM chips, video card, sound, the whole works (mainly because I want to play such games as Star Wars Battlefront 2). Anyways hosters shouldn't pressure people to donate at all because it's like paying to play an iRO or kRO server. What if something bad happens and that server closes? All that money that people donate would go to waste. Am I right?

GoldDean

Something people don't understand is that servers cost money to run.

MesaRO costs, on average, $700 a month to run. Thats not including electric bills, website hosts and Ventrilo hosting.

Its true, though, alot of the servers that whore donation items are just being greedy. But some of them actually need that money to run.

Atemu

Quote from: Duncan on Nov 26, 2006, 08:27 PM
Plus I believe making money of any kind when hosting a RO server is illegal (not sure if that's really true). Private servers are supposed to be free. That's what eAthena, Aegis, and any other EMUs are there for.

Just to add a factual statement to this, it's true. "Donations" to private servers are a federal crime, even when it's in exchange for an item. I believe the law states something to the effect the no parties can obtain monetary gain for any work(s) not patented to them, and you can't obtain a patent for any ideas anyone has had before you. i.e. It's a violation of international copyright law to obtain money in any way for RO unless you are Gravity or have their express permission. RO's system is also protected by licensing laws, which also state that it's illegal to obtain monetary gain for it.
This is not to say donation servers themselves are illegal. Anybody can ask you for money because you aren't forced to give it. But for every donation they get in relation to the server, that's one more illegal act. In order to make the donations legal, the owners of the servers would have to obtain a legal patent for the server and/or item(s) in question prior to any donations relating to them. Something to think about and pass along to the owners of donation servers.

GoldDean

Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

Atemu

Quote from: GoldDean on Nov 27, 2006, 02:51 PM
Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

There would. RO private servers are not illegal. In fact their free market is protected by the law of usage. (Might be called something else officially. I'm too lazy to look it up.) Basically, this states that if there is a free source code on the internet - including full video games available for download - you have a right to use that source code for free, provided you AREN'T reselling it/making money off of it. (Patent and licensing laws.)
There's also the issue of copyright ducking. International copyright law of usage is 33%. This means that as long as a property is changed by at least 33% from the original, it becomes free market. Classes, NPCs, items, rates, maps and even the admin staff is all considered a certain percentage of the original property. When those are differed from the original enough, you can duck the copyright law completely. You still can't patent it, it's still protect by licensing, so you still cannot receive money because of it. But you can't offer it to others for free, either. eAthena run servers cover that one.
eAthena has a copyright duck under the original RO emulations used by Gravity. It's changed at least 33%. (See above discussion.) That means that if they offer their emulator for free and server hosters who use it then turn around and offer their server for free, it's actually fully legal.

Pandora

I think Private Ragnarok servers are still illegal (like the player using a modified client to connect are doing something illegal). Getting money for it is going deeper into the illegality.

This is the same as people who make fan-sub anime, and people who sell anime fan-subbed (usually people who sell them did not even do the work of subbing them).

Free fan-subbing is tolerated, but someone who sells that is wrong, just like making a profit from a private RO server is wrong.

Covering your expenses is a grey area.. but some people definatly abuse it -_-;
[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



[color=darkblue]Click here to find out more about heRO![/color]

GoldDean

Quote from: Atemu on Nov 27, 2006, 07:56 PM
Quote from: GoldDean on Nov 27, 2006, 02:51 PM
Illegal? If people gave a crap about legality, there wouldn't be any RO private servers, would there?

There would. RO private servers are not illegal. In fact their free market is protected by the law of usage. (Might be called something else officially. I'm too lazy to look it up.) Basically, this states that if there is a free source code on the internet - including full video games available for download - you have a right to use that source code for free, provided you AREN'T reselling it/making money off of it. (Patent and licensing laws.)

You do know that no one has the source code for RO except Gravity, don't you? Server emulators only emulate, they are not RO itself. The hard-coded data, aka the client, can't be fully modified without becoming illegal. The last time someone tried to steal RO's source code, they were shot out on the way out. You can do that in Korea. :D

Duncan


Atemu

Actually, he's mostly correct. Modifying the Ragnarok Online client file for private server usage IS illegal. It's not illegal to write an identical program from scratch, though, so if you know something about programming, you can write a modified RO client yourself from the ground up and you'd be okay in the eyes of the law. Unless you try to sell it, and then it's copyright infringement.
It's the same grey area as fanart and fanfic. You can draw fanart all you want and give it to your friends, even post it on your personal web page. But the moment you try to make any money off it (Which is the real core of this debate), you're infringing on the property owner's copyright and breaking the law. This is why companies don't generally go after fan artists. (There is a law to protect copyright owners from freely offered fanart, which states they can sue for "abuse" of their characters if they decide the material demeans their property. Most companies won't do this, though, since it would make them look bad and alienate their fanbase. See: Japanese fanbook artists. Abuse is not the correct term, but I'm tired and I can't remember the right one.)
I know what an emulator does, I've written a few for companies for testing purposes, which is how I know they're not illegal to have or offer for free without the consent of the original company provided they're fully rewritten. (See: First paragraph.) The source code, you're right. I asked a few friends and I was, in fact, incorrect, it would not fall under the free usage protections. Which actually makes RO emulators more legal, as they would have been required to figure out and write the code themselves, as opposed to copying an already existing and legally protected code from the source. It's a legal loophole, but it works out well for us, don't you think?

As for what Pandora said about covering expenses being a grey area... Legally, it isn't. The law clearly states (Note: Not a direct quote. My legal books are downstairs in the unheated library and it's about 10 degrees down there.) that you cannot gain any money you would not have had prior to the transaction. This means anything from drug money to server rental money to internet bills to buying new RAM to making a car payment. If you are helped out financially in any way from a server donation, you're breaking the law. There's no loophole in that one, no fuzzy wording. It's just flat out illegal. Granted, you actually have to get caught doing it, but why risk it?

To the original poster: Sorry for s*** up your thread like this. We turned a complaint about an item wipe and GM corruption into a legal debate. <.<;

GoldDean

Well, I think its a great conversation, even though it went from

"OMFG SERVER DIED"
to
"OMFG THEM GMS WUZ CURRPT!"
to
"OMFG THEYS SELLED ITAMZ"
to
"OMFG SERVERZ NEEDZ MONIES TO RUNS!"
to
"OMFG THAZ ILLEGALZ"
to
"OMFG RO SERVERS IS ILLEGALZ"
to
"Well, not quite..."

Yes, and stuff. Well, let's not hinder it anymore.

Quote from: Duncan on Nov 29, 2006, 01:20 AM
Then where did eAthena get theirs?

That's not RO's source code in eAthena. Its just a tool that manipulates the client to run and alter things.

Pandora

Even if eAthena coded stuff themselves, we're still using Gravity's graphics and ideas, we're patching with sak and rag to have the latest update. We are already in the illegality.

What I mentionned was also about what's wrong and what's right, not only in a pure legal point of view, as in, it's also moraly wrong to force your players to pay you to play on your private server.

And also, the degree in illegality and all.. I guess we could say that..

Running a RO server.. is a little illegal =P

Running a RO server and accepting donation to cover expenses.. is faily illegal =(

Running a RO server to make a profit.. is very illegal >_<
[color=darkblue]heRO is a great friendly, pre-renweal, unique and fun server with a great community, give it a try![/color]



[color=darkblue]Click here to find out more about heRO![/color]

Corwin

To make a profit yes.. But as the donation is not manditory, and some servers need the money, i don't see what the law can do about it unless the money is being misused.

Then again, there are not many servers i've played on which use their money completely for the server. AnimaRO, which is one of the bigger low rate servers out there, uses is huge donation income to fund the server owners post-secondary education.. Which explains the server slowly becoming more and more laggy... THAT seems illegal, but if some people decide to help support the server and the money is being used for such, then i don't see the problem, nor the solution.

Honorbydeath

to tell you the truth you all deserve it for continue to support the dumbass so if you let it happen to you dont b**** about it suck it up and learn from your mistake
Posted on: December 06, 2006, 01:14:43 AM
QuoteSomething people don't understand is that servers cost money to run.

MesaRO costs, on average, $700 a month to run. Thats not including electric bills, website hosts and Ventrilo hosting.

Its true, though, alot of the servers that whore donation items are just being greedy. But some of them actually need that money to run.
you can host for free >_> i did and it had 50x on at a time



"OMFG SERVER DIED"( find a stable server not a s*** one)
"OMFG THEM GMS WUZ CURRPT!"(suck on it for leting them treat you like that or donating non stop
"OMFG THEYS SELLED ITAMZ"(duh)
"OMFG SERVERZ NEEDZ MONIES TO RUNS!"(not always)
"OMFG THAZ ILLEGALZ"( not in all country)
"OMFG RO SERVERS IS ILLEGALZ" (not in all country)