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| Should you be allowed to sell Runescape Items for real cash? |
| Yes |
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33% |
[ 1 ] |
| No |
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66% |
[ 2 ] |
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| Total Votes : 3 |
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Bank your items! Bank, Bank, Bank! |
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 Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:18 am |
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Can you sell your runescape items for real cash?
"You must not exchange RuneScape items, gold or in-game services for real-life money"
says Runescapes terms and conditions.
I have just been reading "Game exchange dispute goes to court" on cnet and I quote from their article:
"Copyright laws don't apply, the lawyer said, because no actual goods change hands. And any license terms restricting such behavior would violate basic rights to free speech."
Read full article here http://news.com.com/Game+exchange+dispute+goes+to+court/2100-1040_3-832347.html
Anyone have any thoughts on this? What do you think, should it be allowed?
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:22 am |
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Yes, I do have some thoughts on this matter...
First of all, 'freedom of speech' is a right that was meant to protect citizens from unjust treatment by the state. The state is strong, has lots of power, and a civilian is basically powerless against the state (think 18th century here...). So the freedom of speech act made it possible for citizens to openly disagree with the state without repercussions. That was a nice change from the situation under monarchs like Louis 14 and suchlike...
In short: it's to do with the relationship between state and citizen.
But the notion of 'freedom of speech' has been much abused. It's being used to spread racist ideologies, to insult people or groups of people, to justify the existence of extremely violent porn on the internet, to invade in famous people's private lives and expose whatever is found there, et cetera. These are acts that do not involve the state; these are acts that involve citizens on both sides. Invoking 'freedom of speech' here is inappropriate - but somehow they always seem to be able to pull it off.
Whenever I see someone claiming a right to do whatever he likes on account of his freedom of speech, I get itchy all over...
There, that was the philosophical bit.
As for the right to trade RuneScape stuff in real life... I take a very simple view on this matter. When I decided to start playing RuneScape I signed on, knowing the terms and conditions. If I didn't agree with them, I shouldn't have signed on. I consider my membership of the RuneScape community as a kind of binding contract.
I can leave whenever I want, but if I decide to stay, I have to play by the rules I agreed to in the first place. If I don't, I think that Jagex have every right to terminate my membership - and kick me out of the game.
The point is not whether Jagex had a right 'under copyright law' to set up their terms and conditions the way they did. There probably is a law out there for everything, and so any restriction that you can think of will probably violate at least one of those laws. Can a girls' school be forced to take in boys? Can a mans' choir be forced to take in women? Can a local chamber of commerce be forced to take in companies from another town? Can the council of a mosque be forced to entertain non-muslims? Can a national sports team be forced to take in foreigners? I don't think so, even if there's restrictions in all these organisations that violate some rule or other (like non-discrimiation along lines of gender, race, religion, nationality...).
But that's irrelevant. The point is that we all agreed to those terms and conditions. And so we shouldn't whine about them afterwards.
Hm... did that make sense? Any sense at all? Or was it just my usual incoherent ramblings? 
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BlackSnow versus Mythic Entertainment |
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