Originally Posted by Losian
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Y'know, I'll bite.. only because I've said it elsewhere.
Anyone cheering this on is pretty silly - emulation is or is not legal. DBG is mad because someone else took something they could've done *anything* with for years and years and blew them out of the water.
If THJ was illegal then every single other emulation server always has been - monetization is irrelevant for a simple reason: emulation isn't illegal.
It's not hard to understand, nobody is "using their IP".
Emulation is taking chess pieces and a chess board, which you have a legal right to have, and making up your own rules. If DBG is stupid enough to give away all their pieces for free, and they do, then that's on them. That's it. If I choose to sell my rules, which are custom and entirely of my creation, and you buy my rules AND obtain a chess set, then you can combine the two. That's not illegal. If a company was dumb enough to give away free chess sets then that's on them to have such poor foresight.
There is no such thing as "the everquest experience" in terms of how the game has to be enjoyed or experienced - if there were then half the live players should be sued for powerleveling, leveling too fast, too slow, or whatever else. The concept if there being some specific, legally enforceable way to "experience" a game is asinine.
If you genuinely think emulation is wrong then fine, go ahead and lobby to change laws that have enabled it for years - we have a legal right to have and backup files on our computer that we have legal access to, and it's the only reason many games exist or have been able to be preserved. If you have a .png on your computer you're allowed to have then I can't be sued for pointing a program at where that .png would be if you have it, else file explorers and Blender and all that would be illegal just the same.
Was the monetization questionable and kinda sleazy? Absolutely, no question. But that in and of itself is a short-sighted reason to look at this as black and white. EQ as an IP has sat stagnant for how long? I think the real undertone here is embarrassment, a positively droll and overdone TLP being completely overshadowed by a tiny team and a neat idea. It shows what we could have all these years if DBG put any effort in whatsoever..
And, further, THJ did not even one single thing that other servers haven't done - modifying source, pointing to assets, allowing 'donations' for in-game stuff, etc. It's all been done without question.
The only difference is the measure of success.. So is it illegal to do well?
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