Daybreak is Being Acquired

[OuterChimp]

I have a Minecrfat realm. PST send tells please if you'd like an invite.

If i like you, I'll summon you a diamond sword.

[Baler]

P99 is not-for-profit which is very unique in the EMU scene.

I have faith in our overlords to keep the lights on.

[Baler]

Originally Posted by Lizard1 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

if you think p99 is not for profit you are delusional

It's contractual you nitwit.
https://www.everquest.com/news/project-1999-daybreak

Keep in mind there is a difference between not-for-profit and non-profit.

[firesyde424]

Originally Posted by Lizard1 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

More proof daybreak turned all soe games into cash machines by investing nothing now turning a massive profit and walking away, great company imo.

Also i would say kiss p99 goodbye as they will have to renegotiate with a bigger company that will say no 90%

I would expect to see this happen again in another 4-5 years. Like it or not, that's the typical investment cycle. I believe the SOE split that created Daybreak was in early 2015. Combined with time to find a buyer, negotiate, work out the financing, ect... you are at right about 5 years ROI for the original investors in Daybreak.

[Arvan]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They are operating in violation of the relevant IP law ... as P99 did for nearly ten years.

However, it's a very gray area. P99 (and other emulators) don't copy any of the server code: in other words Rogean and Nilbog aren't infringing on Daybreak's rights, because they wrote 100% of the server code themselves.

It's possible that Daybreak retains a copyright on the API (outline) of that code: there's currently a Supreme Court case deciding whether APIs can even be copyrighted. But even if the Supremes decide they are (and god I hope they don't), I imagine it'd still be a hard case to litigate.

The real IP violation is in the client: technically it's all of us players who are violating Daybreak's IP (when we download Titanium) ... and the same is true of players on every other emulated server. Pre-agreement everyone just relied on the fact that no company wants to waste lawyer money tracking down individual players (just look at the RIAA and Napster ...).

The agreement simply made everyone feel safer, because it promised that Daybreak wouldn't do the thing they (probably) weren't going to do anyway: go all RIAA on every emulated EQ player.

Im not an IP lawyer but i assume writing your own clone of copyrighted IP and using it to run a server is still a violation.

[apprentice04]

allowing p99 to exist would make it harder to defend in court though, not that p99 staff has the money to fight in court.

this kind of thing came up a lot when blizzard shutdown private servers. they had to force them down to keep the copyright on their IP

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Lizard1 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You are stupid, they started with titanium and modified it from there, a violation which required a written agreement once daybreak bought soe IP

Your "deeply biting criticism" [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] is missing the fact that P99 operated for nearly a decade prior to the agreement ... and also the fact it's you who modifies the Titanium client; R&N just provide a patch file. There's nothing illegal about them writing a (non-copyrighted) patch for some old software that happens to be copyrighted.

Really, the most potential legal risk for R&N isn't even law yet; it's the potential outcome of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google...e_America,_Inc. If Oracle wins, companies can claim a copyright on the way a server talks to the client (their "API"). If that happens, even implementing an old server that follows the API Verant developed 20 years ago could be considered a violation of Veran'ts "copyright on the API".

But even if the Supremes screw up and rule the wrong way (it looks like they might: in arguments they didn't even seem to understand what an API was [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]) ... there's still an incredibly important difference in that case: lawyer money. Oracle has a reason to spend millions going after Google for that case, because they want to "own" any implementation of Java (even if someone else wrote every line of code in it). There is not even close to a similar financial incentive here.

And it is that which truly protects this place. Again, the Daybreak agreement was just about making everyone feel good: P99 scratched Daybreak's back (by delaying a server release until after a new Daybreak server came out, and by generally maintaining positive vibes with them) ... and P99 got even more assurance that legal action (which already wasn't happening) really wouldn't happen. It was about feels, not meaningful legal protection.

[BiG SiP]

>arguing with tomato king in good faith

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[loramin]

Originally Posted by Arvan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Im not an IP lawyer but i assume writing your own clone of copyrighted IP and using it to run a server is still a violation.

Neither am I, but I've read a lot about IP law. Quick refresher: whenever you make a "creative work" (software code, book, Tik Tok video, whatever), you immediately own exclusive rights to copy it. If someone else copies it without your permission, you can go to court to take all the money they made.

Server: R&N copied nothing from the old Verant code. In fact, even the current Daybreak servers copy little-to-nothing from the old Verant code, because that original code from 1999-2001 has been lost forever. Since R&N hand-wrote every line of the server, they own it.

Client: That code is copyrighted ... but R&N don't ever use that client, nor do they share it with us, so we're the only ones violating that copyright (although as I said before, legal details would make filing claims against us even more difficult than the RIAA going after Napster users).

Client Patches: We patch the client with code R&N wrote ... but they own the copyright since they wrote it. The only legal concern comes from the "Terms of Service" that came with that client two decades ago, which prohibit unofficial patches ... but enforcing those terms would be even harder than enforcing the copyright. Remember EQW back in the day? It similarly was prohibited by the TOS, but Verant couldn't stop it because it wasn't illegal; all they could do was ban players caught using it.

So to recap, you can only violate copyright by copying what someone else wrote. There is zero copied code on the server, or anything else R&N touch. The only copyright violation comes from us players downloading the Titanium client, in violation of Daybreak's copyright ... but even so, the simple fact is that it would cost them far more money to pursue the issue than they could ever possibly hope to gain.

[Tunabros]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So to recap, you can only violate copyright by copying what someone else wrote. There is zero copied code on the server, or anything else R&N touch. The only copyright violation comes from us players downloading the Titanium client, in violation of Daybreak's copyright ... but even so, the simple fact is that it would cost them far more money to pursue the issue than they could ever possibly hope to gain.

Pretty true. But let's face it, the majority of us totally got titanium legitimately