[ADMIN] Copyright issues

From: J. David Ribak (ribak@Token.Net)
Date: 10/16/96


Greetings,
   It has recently come to my attention that a disgruntled
former Imp of Phoenix mud has released our full distribution
to the public.  I found this out in a rather rude fashion
when I came across one of my areas, which is copyrighted,
on another mud.
   I am writing to the list because I know that all of you
are decent folks.  If you see a copy of Phoenix mud, please
do not use the areas.  Phoenix's code was [is] public-domain,
but the rest of the mud is not.  There are many original
areas in there, some by myself, some by friends from other
muds who own copyrights on those areas.
   These areas are not meant for the public-domain.  In fact
some of the authors of these areas are not even aware that
their works are being malicously released to the public by
an unscrupulous individual.  Part of my anger is due to the
fact that these people gave me permission to use their areas
and now in a way I have broken their trust because they are
being released to the public.
   If you already have used some of these areas in your mud
I cannot ask that you remove them.  But please be sure to
credit the original authors. (This informatoin is in the areas
text file in the lib/text dir).  If you have these areas
but have not used them, please do not.
   There is not much I can do in this situation without having
to go to court over this, so I am appealing to all of the
imps and admins out there to respect other people's work
and the copyrights associated with them.
   I can truly say that I know exactly how Furry and the
others from CAW feel regarding their areas.  I now understand
why CAW is closing up shop and is not releasing further areas.
I can say that any thoughts I had of releasing some of my areas
to the public has been squashed.
   This letter was prompted by an Imp at AstroMUD, who very
rudely told me "Too bad, your areas are in the public domain"
when I asked him nicely to credit the original authors and
explained the situation to him.

   To prevent people from going out and actively searching
for a Phoenix distribution for one reason or another, I will
make the code available for download if there is enough
response.  The code is 2.2 based, very buggy, and poorly written,
but it has some great ideas that can be used.

Thanks for your time
Aleksandr
Phoenix MUD--mud.token.net 4000
http://www.token.net/~ribak
ribak@token.net

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: |
|   http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list_faq.html   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/18/00 PST