Quote:
Originally Posted by AgentEpilot
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This all sounds like a bunch of bullshit. Especially " I then got him to search the FBI database for the kid and Verant"
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The blue pages in old phonebooks had the number to your local FBI office, and the policeman who took the police report told me how to find it. When I got the guy to realize that I could put up a website to try to find another 8k in losses and that I was serious, he told me to file the reports with the SEC, FTC and Attorney General. I then told him I thought the kid or Verant might have already had cases opened against them, so I had him run the database checks. As he reluctantly did them, he said "do you have any idea how much this is costing" but honestly I didn't care.
Tom Terrazas was the person I got transferred to when I called Verant. I bet he actually remembers the story because I had to use a number of legal arguments to convince him that I could cause them serious headaches. I also had a friend who freelanced for the LA Times and was interested in doing a story about online property and was dying to use my example. I told him (Tom) I could make his company the poster child for online property sales, and that's when they did a few things to mature about IP in their game.
Besides cloning my character he also agreed that they would pull all EQ items off of Ebay through a Cease and Desist, which they did. They also fixed their EULA to make it so hitting escape would no longer move you to the login screen. So 3 things (including the character clone) they did to remediate the situation.
When this happened I was young and dumb and knew no better about online property sales. I really DID always hit escape on the EULA and had no idea I couldn't buy someone elses toon that they built and save my own hours. Ebay had ~3,000 items matching "everquest" when I searched it back then- I honestly thought there was a recognized online economy for the game. Ive since learned how stupid I was- hence this being my example. =P