Daybreak Sues The Heroes Journey EQ EMU Server Devs

moonarchia

moonarchia

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mkopec said:
These Emus started way before daybreak took over. And of course they knew about them, but like I said if they didnt feel it in the bottom line, why spend the cash for lawyers for some piddly emus hosting 100 people? But once when that 4K server pops up and popularity soars at about the time you release a new product, its a problem.

Dont think of it as stealing a purse vs stealing a car. Thats a criminal matter, this is more of a civil suit. Think of your neighbor either having his dog shit on your lawn or one day he decides to paint swastikas on your garage door and you have it all on your ring cam. The poop you can let go, yorue definitely not hiring lwayers for that shit. But hes definitely getting sued for the defacing of your property and the damages.
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Correct. You are not required to go after every single infringement to retain your copyrights. The lawyers would love it if that were the case, but it's not. So companies generally leave the minnows alone because going after every one of them would bankrupt you quickly, even if you won every single case. You make an example out of anyone who hurts your brand in a way that costs you money, or someone who is *making* money off of your work. Those cases will result in damages that will be somewhat or entirely paid by the $$$ the infringer took in.
 
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Old Man Potter

Old Man Potter

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moonarchia said:
The entire work is copyrighted. The client. The art assets, the names, the story. All of it. You can't use any of that without permission from DPG, and you can expect to get sued if you are making money off of it.
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Sure, Daybreak owns the client, the code, and the art. But that’s just the legal side of it. EverQuest was built on the backs of community-driven MUDs like Diku and Sojourn which are games that shared ideas freely and let players shape the world. Without that open spirit, EQ wouldn’t even exist. Now Daybreak acts like they invented this stuff in a vacuum and no one else is allowed to touch it. That’s a complete betrayal of what made EQ special in the first place.


THJ wasn’t some big money-making scheme. It was a group of fans trying to keep the magic alive because Daybreak clearly doesn’t care anymore. The reason Daybreak went nuclear isn’t because they were losing money, it’s because they got embarrassed. A bunch of unpaid fans showed more love and vision for EQ than the official devs have in years, and JChan and her merry band of lesbians and neckbeards at Dreckpaw couldn’t stand that.


This isn’t really about copyright, it’s about control and ego. Fan projects like THJ are about preserving a world we all loved, not stealing it. Daybreak would rather sue and kill that spirit than admit they’ve let EQ rot. At the end of the day, they’re proving they don’t deserve the legacy they’re so desperate to lock down.
 
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jayrebb

jayrebb

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The amount of shit that EQ took from Sojourn they essentially had the core game already built. If you played any of those Diku/Sojourn games a lot of the way EQ worked mechanically is directly taken from them. Then they just looked at recent 3D sprite model RPGs like Ultima/Might and Magic and inspired the world design from there.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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Old Man Potter said:
Sure, Daybreak owns the client, the code, and the art. But that’s just the legal side of it. EverQuest was built on the backs of community-driven MUDs like Diku and Sojourn which are games that shared ideas freely and let players shape the world. Without that open spirit, EQ wouldn’t even exist. Now Daybreak acts like they invented this stuff in a vacuum and no one else is allowed to touch it. That’s a complete betrayal of what made EQ special in the first place.


THJ wasn’t some big money-making scheme. It was a group of fans trying to keep the magic alive because Daybreak clearly doesn’t care anymore. The reason Daybreak went nuclear isn’t because they were losing money, it’s because they got embarrassed. A bunch of unpaid fans showed more love and vision for EQ than the official devs have in years, and JChan and her merry band of lesbians and neckbeards at Dreckpaw couldn’t stand that.


This isn’t really about copyright, it’s about control and ego. Fan projects like THJ are about preserving a world we all loved, not stealing it. Daybreak would rather sue and kill that spirit than admit they’ve let EQ rot. At the end of the day, they’re proving they don’t deserve the legacy they’re so desperate to lock down.
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Dikumud sued EQ back in 2000 over copyright. That was settled then.

The rest of your post is nice feely stuff, but has no legal weight. DPG owns the copyright. Simple as that. If you make money off of that copyright without their permission, they are in the right to sue the fuck out of you. Call it preservation (it wasn't, but it is fun), but THJ made money off of EQ without having obtained a license from the copyright owner to do so. May have been a sizeable amount of money, too. Fleecing memberberry addicts is a lucrative business model.

Copyright is always about control. That is the entire legal reasoning it exists. It gives creators the absolute right to control how their works are used, and who can profit from them. I am not a fan of copyright, but have worked in several roles where I had to deal with them, so I had to learn all this shit.
 
jayrebb

jayrebb

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moonarchia said:
Dikumud sued EQ back in 2000 over copyright. That was settled then.
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What's funny was Brad admitted it was all "inspired" by Sojourn/Diku beforehand in interviews to promote EQ-- when in reality it was actually line for line.

A lot of these emu/AI projects use "inspired by" to try to protect themselves from a claim. If you google DND solo adventures et al, you'll see heavy use of inspired by. Which protects you from nothing if there is copyrighted material being used.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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jayrebb said:
What's funny was Brad admitted it was all "inspired" by Sojourn/Diku beforehand in interviews to promote EQ-- when in reality it was actually line for line.

A lot of these emu/AI projects use "inspired by" to try to protect themselves from a claim. If you google DND solo adventures et al, you'll see heavy use of inspired by. Which protects you from nothing if there is copyrighted material being used.
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Yup. If you blatantly rip things off you can expect the legal hammer in your sphincter the moment you start taking in money. Donations or anything else.
 
Punko

Punko

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after donations I was randomly invited to be the first person to test the revamped zeb script

am sure that was completely random or based on my great skills (i'm terrible at playing my petcuck)
 
M

Mrniceguy

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Control said:
So I guess THJ will be in the clear as soon as they break out that licensing agreement that they've been sitting on?
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What the fuck does this have to do with what i wrote? You can make money off Copyrighted Material, steamers do it by streaming gameplay(often Implied licensing) react content(fair use). Corporations like Netflix do it by buying Licenses and selling the content.

In regards to the topic. Almost ever fucking person that has played EQ in the past has had a licensing agreement, that's what End User Licensing Agreements are.

Owning a Copyright doesn't give the holder the ability to change licensing agreements post hoc, that can be breach of contract. The ways you can use the software are covered in the EULA and just because Daybreak changes the EULA doesn't mean the courts will enforce those changes.

There is also something know as an Implied License. Which is stuff that isn't explicitly stated but rather implied by the behavior of the the copyright holder. Based on Daybreaks behavior the past 10+ years with private servers, acknowledging them, in p99 case promoting them and not explicitly saying not to do it IMO can potential be viewed as an implied license to do so, but that's up to the courts not me.
 
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