Star Wars: the Old Republic: "Terms of Disservice"
Posted: Monday May 18th, 2009
by
Bioware recently updated the Terms of Service on the Star Wars: the Old Republic website. In Section 7. Intellectual Property Rights: Your Responsibility, a clarification paragraph was added that reads as follows...
Now, I'm all for protecting ones intellectual property. But there's a point where you've not only drawn a line with your community, you've crossed it by force. Sure any content based one Bioware's/Lucas Arts' IP is considered, by law, to be derivative and thus a violation of their copy rights. But laying claim to that content is ridiculous. Now, I'm sure other asshat companies have sneaked in this same legalized theft into their legal statements. But I've never seen it so bluntly stated.
As much as I was looking forward to this MMO, I have zero intention of doing another comic about it unless there is a change in their policies. Sure GU's content is protected as satire/parody under the Fair Use exceptions to copyright law, but I'm never going to agree that they own my work. And, I have no interest in supporting a game with such anti-community strings attached. So this is me officially telling Bioware/Lucas Arts to bite my crank.
Thanks CJ and your husband for the tip.
[ discuss ]
For clarification, if you create any Content which is derived from any intellectual property or proprietary rights of LucasArts and/or BioWare (regardless of whether such Content is submitted to LucasArts and/or BioWare) such Content is owned by LucasArts and/or BioWare. You hereby assign all right, title and interest (if any) to such Content and waive any claims that you may have relating to such Content, including, but not limited to, claims for compensation, attribution or any moral rights with respect to such Content.
Source: Star Wars the Old Republic: Terms of Service [ more info ]
Now, I'm all for protecting ones intellectual property. But there's a point where you've not only drawn a line with your community, you've crossed it by force. Sure any content based one Bioware's/Lucas Arts' IP is considered, by law, to be derivative and thus a violation of their copy rights. But laying claim to that content is ridiculous. Now, I'm sure other asshat companies have sneaked in this same legalized theft into their legal statements. But I've never seen it so bluntly stated.
As much as I was looking forward to this MMO, I have zero intention of doing another comic about it unless there is a change in their policies. Sure GU's content is protected as satire/parody under the Fair Use exceptions to copyright law, but I'm never going to agree that they own my work. And, I have no interest in supporting a game with such anti-community strings attached. So this is me officially telling Bioware/Lucas Arts to bite my crank.
Thanks CJ and your husband for the tip.
[ discuss ]
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