Guild of Writers

...and he didn't. Or didn't soon enough for me, which obviously means he isn't going to. So, this is on his head.

Dear particular members of the GoW (you know who you are),

First of all, let's establish a principle here:

Taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.

Okay? With me so far? Doesn't matter if you do something really clever with it, or if lots of people tell you how great you are and how glad they are you took it. Doesn't matter if you only did it because you wanted to help the community. Doesn't matter if the thing you take is something the owner wasn't using, or wasn't getting any benefit from, or if it was just sitting there. Doesn't matter what you think you may have been promised. Doesn't matter if everybody does it, or if such and such a person (who isn't a property lawyer) says it's okay, or if you have a note from God.

Taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.

Specifically, taking the right to reverse engineer Cyan's proprietary software is stealing.

So grow up and stop flattering yourselves. What you have done, what you are doing, and what you plan to do is just plain wrong, and what's more, you know it. That's why you get so self-righteous and defensive when someone calls you on it. That's why you're all so prickly with each other, why the drama always blows up. You are exactly in the position of a young man who steals his hospitalised mother's savings because she has been inconsiderate enough not to die and leave them to him yet. That selfish. That greedy. That guilty. That wrong.

It is stated clearly whenever you start up MOULa, it was set out clearly in the EULA when you bought Uru:CC, that Cyan, or Ubi, or whoever, did not sell you or give you in any way the right to reverse engineer their proprietary software. They've said they will release some parts of it as "open source" software in some form, but they haven't done it yet, so that right is not yours. And you have clearly taken it. (Unless you can prove otherwise, and I don't believe you can.)

Taking something that does not belong to you is...what? Anyone?

And then to abuse Cyan for not letting you brag in their own forum about what you have stolen from them, and what you plan to steal in the future...to play the victim and pull out the onion about how cwuel Cyan is being to poor wittle you...well, that's just breathtakingly wrong-headed. You know perfectly well that Cyan will not take any punitive action against you, partly perhaps because they're in no position to afford it at the moment, but mainly because they are determined to see the good in everyone who supports them, even you, and you have the gall to abuse them for that.

There are some creative talents who are being mistreated here. They work for Cyan. They are taking any paid work they can get, recycling older and older games for newer and newer platforms, just to keep afloat so that they can continue to work towards making open source Uru available to us, and you're picking their pocket while spitting in their face. Classy, my friends, classy.

I don't expect any of this to penetrate your impregnable armour of self-righteousness. You will doubtless continue doing what you're doing, making your undoubted talents the excuse for your wrongdoing, clinging hard to your belief that you are the true guardians of the Uru flame, and that anyone who objects hates Uru while worshipping Cyan, or something. I don't even understand that particular twist in your thinking. I just want you to remember this, in the future. Remember what I've said.

No love,
Me

Now please ban me already, if that's what it takes.

We did not "take" something that wasn't ours to take. We took it because they gave/sold it to us. It's cost isn't really that important. Now, if we were to hack into their servers or break into their office and steal code or documents, that would be stealing. However, we did not do this. There, now that we got that out of the way let's move on to what I think you're really trying to say.

I believe your real argument is against Reverse Engineering, which has been upheld time and time again by the courts. And when it comes down to it, it is the law that matters, not what such and such a company says. Sure, they haven't made it illegal for companies to print Terms of Service with these conditions in them. However, they are just words, and words without the law behind them are well, meaningless.

Zander wrote:...and he didn't. Or didn't soon enough for me, which obviously means he isn't going to. So, this is on his head.

That's lazy. You /ragelinked asked him to block your account, fine. But it was your choice to return here and post not his, you could have quite easily blocked the forums depending on what browser you use. So blaming him for your choice to return is cheap.

Dear particular members of the GoW (you know who you are),

First of all, let's establish a principle here:

Taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.

Okay? With me so far? Doesn't matter if you do something really clever with it, or if lots of people tell you how great you are and how glad they are you took it. Doesn't matter if you only did it because you wanted to help the community. Doesn't matter if the thing you take is something the owner wasn't using, or wasn't getting any benefit from, or if it was just sitting there. Doesn't matter what you think you may have been promised. Doesn't matter if everybody does it, or if such and such a person (who isn't a property lawyer) says it's okay, or if you have a note from God.

Yes it is stealing, but what did we steal exactly? I'm working with the game I have, that I have paid for, that I have paid for about 4 times (as I brought Uru, Tpots, CC, and CC again for my wife).

I'm building what I build and putting it up for free, the content is my own, the models are my own, the story is my own, the textures are my own, the textures that aren't I've asked permission to use. The content then uses the game that people have themselves on their computer to run. No stealing there.

Those who are working with the code, how are they stealing, they're working with the core, and building new things from it, new things written by them that then relies on the code in the game people have on their computers to run, again how is that stealing? Especially when Cyan themselves, have given us keys to the code in the past (I remember certain Cyan employee's posting on COBB's back in the day).

So I ask specifically, what are we, in your mind, stealing?

Taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.

Specifically, taking the right to reverse engineer Cyan's proprietary software is stealing.

So grow up and stop flattering yourselves. What you have done, what you are doing, and what you plan to do is just plain wrong, and what's more, you know it. That's why you get so self-righteous and defensive when someone calls you on it. That's why you're all so prickly with each other, why the drama always blows up. You are exactly in the position of a young man who steals his hospitalised mother's savings because she has been inconsiderate enough not to die and leave them to him yet. That selfish. That greedy. That guilty. That wrong.

It is stated clearly whenever you start up MOULa, it was set out clearly in the EULA when you bought Uru:CC, that Cyan, or Ubi, or whoever, did not sell you or give you in any way the right to reverse engineer their proprietary software. They've said they will release some parts of it as "open source" software in some form, but they haven't done it yet, so that right is not yours. And you have clearly taken it. (Unless you can prove otherwise, and I don't believe you can.)

This is actually a grey area. EULA is not a legally binding contract, it's not legally enforceable, it's more of a series of guidelines for use of the item. I have again paid for 4 copies of Uru, are you saying I have no ownership over my game at all? That's the logic that moved the stupid amount of DRM into our games/music/movies these days. I've purchased the game, is it not up to me what I do with it (within reason)? That's like buying a house and not being allowed to paint the bedroom. I'm not stripping out Cyan's content, and story and selling it on, or something else like that, as that would be stealing. But I'm building content created by myself, that runs on a game you have to own to run, again not stealing.

We're self righteous, says the chap coming in here and posting this and blaming others for his return? Really Zander?
We're prickly towards each other because half of us are so burned out it's unfunny. Most of the drama, takes place on the MOUL forums, I agree some of the GoW members that post there don't help matters which how they say what they are saying, but what they say is more often than not agreeable by others here.

I'm not selfish, I spend my time building content for free to give people for free, to play so they can visit new areas in a stagnant game. After your issue with ICing learning the Art in the cavern, I set about building an Age that would rectify that. I'm not greedy, I just want to build my content, without issue and get the odd thanks in return (saying thankyou after all is good manners and a common courtesy when given something, not that kids these days remember that).
And I have no guilt, I spent a decade giving and giving to the community, and getting a great deal of it thrown back in my face. I challenge anyone to take it that long and still be happy happy at the end of it.
Not going to happen, patience has run out...but heaven forbid someone speaks out against the "utopian community".

Yes we don't want to wait on Cyan. We've been waiting on Cyan for ages, with no answer, with movements that block what we do. The company can barely help themselves, how exactly will they help us? What do we do here, continue on with out them, join the other masses and wait, and wait, and wait, until we get bored and move on and the community looses a lot of it's development community?
Hell I sent an FCAL for an Age over a year ago and still haven't heard back, do I wait and wait and wait some more, or go ahead release the Age I want to release to the community? I know what I'm going to do there.

Hell I'm still waiting and waiting and waiting for Uru, which never returned after Prologue closed, instead we've had these shells of its former self that never lived up to the awesomeness that DIRT/MUDPIE/Uru was going to bring, incidentally, I've been waiting 10 years for that Uru game Cyan told us about back in 2000.

Why is it so difficult to comprehend to people that some of us are just tired, tired of waiting, tired of empty promises, tired of seeing Cyan dragging itself?

If you were in a marriage and your other half was cheating on you, you find out, then they promise not to do it again, but they do, again and again and again over years...really how long would you stay married to that person?

Taking something that does not belong to you is...what? Anyone?

And then to abuse Cyan for not letting you brag in their own forum about what you have stolen from them, and what you plan to steal in the future...to play the victim and pull out the onion about how cwuel Cyan is being to poor wittle you...well, that's just breathtakingly wrong-headed. You know perfectly well that Cyan will not take any punitive action against you, partly perhaps because they're in no position to afford it at the moment, but mainly because they are determined to see the good in everyone who supports them, even you, and you have the gall to abuse them for that.

It seems obvious to me you don't actually understand the plight going on here if you're determined to be so childish about it.
Rand says "We want open source we want fan ages and content yeeeah!" (possibly paraphrased). They then put up rules on their forums that heavily stamp out this fantastic fan content they say they want. Oh but we're not allowed to be unhappy with that, with the seemingly hypocritical attitude? See now that, sounds like cyan can do no wrong talk.

Again, nothing has been stolen. We purchased our games, I can't speak for those who pirated them, now that is stealing, but we purchased them, we work with the content given to use. MOUL content? Well that was given out for people to play for free, they had an option to donate, so payment can also be made there (I for one donated to Cyan before the Veralun incident).

There are some creative talents who are being mistreated here. They work for Cyan. They are taking any paid work they can get, recycling older and older games for newer and newer platforms, just to keep afloat so that they can continue to work towards making open source Uru available to us, and you're picking their pocket while spitting in their face. Classy, my friends, classy.

Oh please, once again, I have to comment about the fact we paid for our games, and that the content built needs to have Uru to run on which you should have paid for too.. There is no pocket picking, there is no face spitting. I'm sorry that not everyone loves Cyan as much as everyone else, take of the rose tinted glasses and deal with it, life isn't all sunshine and unicorns.

I was a big fan of Cyan, now I'm not, instead of complaining at some of us for not liking Cyan, perhaps a better use of time would to be to understand /why/.

I don't expect any of this to penetrate your impregnable armour of self-righteousness. You will doubtless continue doing what you're doing, making your undoubted talents the excuse for your wrongdoing, clinging hard to your belief that you are the true guardians of the Uru flame, and that anyone who objects hates Uru while worshipping Cyan, or something. I don't even understand that particular twist in your thinking. I just want you to remember this, in the future. Remember what I've said.

Kettle, pot, black.
I don't consider myself the guardian of Uru, I'm here to finish my storyline then move on, Uru isn't at a state that I particularly care about, large portions of the community I could do without. 12 years later, it's time I moved on.

There are people who like Cyan, and then there are people who worship Cyan, I'm hoping you can tell the difference between the two. Just cause people disagree with our views doesn't make them one of the "Believers of Blue", its the blind," omg Cyan are awesome they can do no wrong you guys are monsters for doing this" mentality that is more Believers of Blue, and to be honest, the tone of your post, is pretty BoB in nature, now I didn't say you were BoB, I am saying your post strays into Crisger territory, and that's a dangerous and counterproductive place to be.

Yeah Cyan were awesome, now they're not, yeah it sucks they have to sink as they did just to stay around. But not everyone is a Cyan fan, some in the community need to accept this and deal.

Zander wrote:Taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.

This is not a principle. It is a law or rule. You confuse principles with morality. This does not in anyway change the validity of your post.

Zander wrote:Specifically, taking the right to reverse engineer Cyan's proprietary software is stealing.

Reverse Engineering for the purpose of interoperability is considered fair use, though a violation of Cyan's license agreement. That sort of clause is generally considered unenforcable, though - and there are dozens of projects that have reverse-engineered data formats that are still around as testimony to that (many of those formats developed by companies that are known to be hostile to open source).

Arguably connecting any third-party tool to Cyan's server without their permission is illegal under computer access laws. But in the event of a custom client connecting to a custom server, so long as no Cyan datafiles are shared, I'm confident the code that's being written is free from copyright issues due to the afforementioned "interoperability" bit. Indeed, Cyan has encouraged these tools (such as prpl-uruki which has explicit Cyan approval) and given information to developers to help in writing them.

Zander,

You have now proven yourself an immature troll. If you say that you're done with the GoW and MOUL, then don't come back. It is not my responsibility to delete, remove, or otherwise deactivate your account. Any further posts you make will continue to prove me correct and you an idiot. Therefore, I recommend you quit while you're behind.

EDIT: And no, I will no ban you either.

It takes a special kind of blindness to not see that Uru would be long dead were it not for the hackers and writers in this community.

as a side note - Copyright Violation is not Theft. The laws are totally different. =)

EDIT: note, however, that copyright violation is not occurring in this instance. >.>

kaelisebonrai wrote:as a side note - Copyright Violation is not Theft. The laws are totally different. =)

I suggest anyone who disagrees with this take some time reading up at the Electronic Frontier Foundation website.

I can't believe to read this *again* here Looks like media propaganda against our freedoms is working way too well

But, anyways - what kaelis said.