Homecoming Server Update (May 29th): User Agreement & Policy Updates

[justicebeliever]

I've reread the agreement a few times, and I don't really see anything here to software licensing.  There is no attempt in this user agreement to claim or even not claim ownership of the code. 

 

Homecoming LLC does own the servers, and they are the ones hosting the game - the user agreement has 7 easy to read parts

1.) Definitions - seems straightforward

2.) Duration - all agreements have a duration

3.) Accept a privacy policy - Good!  I'd like Homecoming to respect my IP and Email info - thank you!

4.) Accept a code of conduct - seems fair.  They are in fact moderating the game, which I do like

5.) What does Agreement mean?  This could have been the most damning part, but it's really very innocuous -

  a.)  "are at least 18 years of age and otherwise legally competent to read, understand and accept the provisions of this agreement on behalf of yourself;"  Seems fair

  b.) Are 18 old and have a minor age 13-17 playing.  In that case, you the adult take ownership of the minor's behavior....Seems reasonable

6.) Indemnity - this one is slightly tricky,  Basically you are saying that Homecoming LLC, it's partners, and agents, are not responsible for any damages in playing the game.  Basically it is saying - play at your own risk.  So apart from the Privacy Policy and enforcing the Code of Conduct - they are not legally beholden to you for playing the game

7.) Some legalese saying that any legal action is subject to the state laws of Delaware and/or Federal Courts.

 

That's it.  Nothing, and I mean nothing about the software licensing.  Basically - agree that if you play on our servers you will play nice and not sue us. 

 

I'm accepting.

 

P.S.  This is not to say that I don't think this isn't a horrible gray area legally.  It is horribly gray with Homecoming on the losing side of it, should any legal action by IP owners happen.  But this agreement isn't shifty, and isn't legally murky

 

[btb7039]

Maybe I am an idiot, but I can't seem to find a way to accept the agreement, or log into the game right now. Any help?

 

Thanks

[Zengar]

Sorry to be the badger in the bedroom guys, but you should know how copyright laws work.

I am only posting so you don't further dig a deeper hole for yourself.

 

You cannot "legally" ask others to be legally bound to property that you do not own.

NCSoft is still, (as of this post) the soul legal owner of the City of Heroes franchise.

There is no such thing as grey ownership. In any court, you must prove you own it or that you do not.

If you do not own the property, then you have no legal claim to bind others to an indemnity clause.

It would be the same as hijacking a neighbors car and asking everyone in the car to sign a save harmless clause in case you get caught by authorities.

 

There absolutely is grey ownership. While it is NOT applicable in this situation, and is frequently misused, "squatter's rights" is an example. In jurisdictions that have some variant of that, Individuals residing in abandoned properties can become the owners thereof if the "real owners" cannot be located. In the city where I live, the city council has been similarly taking ownership of properties where there has been no responses to attempts at communication (including a lack of property taxes paid) for more than 5 years. Between when you think that a property has been abandoned and when you legally confirm that to be the case its ownership is "grey". If you are wrong and the property has not been abandoned, you are in legal trouble. If you are right, you are free and clear.

 

Here we are dealing with intellectual property rather than physical property, and more importantly the owner hasn't gone away. However, they also haven't done ANYTHING with it for the better part of a decade and the intricacies of copywrite and/or trademark law leave a lot of grey areas and the end result is similar: If you want to stay "safe" don't touch "abandoned" stuff. If you are willing to take the risk then you are going to have the possibility of a cease-and-desist order hanging over your head. If it actually is abandoned then you will never actually receive that cease-and-desist order and you're fine. Otherwise, you better stop infringing as soon as you receive it.

 

Based on the fact that there have been several mentiones of people having reached out to NCSoft, my guess would be that NCSoft doesn't want to give an official okay because then they would be accepting a degree of liability and would have a harder time going after anyone who tried to make money off of this. On the other hand, the addition of this User agreement suggests that they have given an unofficial "as long as you do this, this, and this and don't do this we won't hit you about the head and shoulders with the DMCA."

[amidthechaotic]

I am simply here to point out an obvious flaw to the Accept gump...  Your "read here address" is a 404 page. Uhm..  thats just ridiculous. How can anyone have actually read it, to accept its terms?

 

Yes, some people actually look at and read these binding acceptance agreements, other than the mindless masses... 

 

I hope that gets rectified soon?

[justicebeliever]

I am simply here to point out an obvious flaw to the Accept gump...  Your "read here address" is a 404 page. Uhm..  thats just ridiculous. How can anyone have actually read it, to accept its terms?

 

Yes, some people actually look at and read these binding acceptance agreements, other than the mindless masses... 

 

I hope that gets rectified soon?

 

What part is giving a 404 page?  I went thru the whole thing including the links and didn't hit any errors?  I'm not a mindless mass and your experience is different than mine...

[Ironblade]

You don't need all this extra enforced garbage, or even to try and apply shitty age restrictions on video games THAT NEVER WORK. How disconnected from the internet are you people?

Duh!  And you're calling them disconnected from the internet?

They have stated an age restriction and you have to click to agree.  If someone underage gets on, that means they lied to do so and that's beyond their control.  I mean, oh my god, there are literally thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of games and apps out there with this kind of stuff.  Have you been under a rock the past 20 years?

[Dr. Gemini]

You don't need all this extra enforced garbage, or even to try and apply shitty age restrictions on video games THAT NEVER WORK. How disconnected from the internet are you people?

Duh!  And you're calling them disconnected from the internet?

They have stated an age restriction and you have to click to agree.  If someone underage gets on, that means they lied to do so and that's beyond their control.  I mean, oh my god, there are literally thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of games and apps out there with this kind of stuff.  Have you been under a rock the past 20 years?

 

Hey now, maybe he's just old and doesn't understand this newfangled interwhatsis thingy. In his day they didn't need to restrict nothing. In fact, you were too busy working 36 hours a day down at the mine, after hiking naked in 6 feet of snow uphill both ways, to play some videe-o game. (as opposed to me who's old and remembers the pre-interwhatsis thingy, and trying to untangle your phone cord enough to stick it in the phone-shaped modem holder and THEN go work in the mine since it would finally be connected by the time you got home, if you were lucky...)

[nDervish]

My stern opinion, (not legal advice) as my practical and physical knowledge of dealing/filing/countering copyrights claims of music, screen plays, books, etc.. and ownership of digital and analog media with copyrights and rights reserved, would be for you to seek out a law firm that handles actual copyright law. You could be entering into a worse situation by claiming rights to property that isn't yours. If this is the case, then NCSoft would have a rock solid case against you with ample evidence that you have provided them.

 

Sage advice.  No matter how well you know the general concepts involved, do not play at being a lawyer in an area, or a jurisdiction, in which you are not fully-qualified (licensing, bar exams, etc.) to practice, lest your attempts come back to bite you in the hindquarters.

 

So...  I get the need for some kind of ToS, but is there a reason we need to accept them on every single login?

 

I'd like to see an answer to this as well.  I've seen other MMOs which required you to re-accept the EULA whenever they pushed a client update or when the text of the EULA changed, but never one which required you to re-accept it every single time you start the client, even if nothing has changed since the last time you accepted it.

[Abraxus]

You don't need all this extra enforced garbage, or even to try and apply shitty age restrictions on video games THAT NEVER WORK. How disconnected from the internet are you people?

Duh!  And you're calling them disconnected from the internet?

They have stated an age restriction and you have to click to agree.  If someone underage gets on, that means they lied to do so and that's beyond their control.  I mean, oh my god, there are literally thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of games and apps out there with this kind of stuff.  Have you been under a rock the past 20 years?

 

Hey now, maybe he's just old and doesn't understand this newfangled interwhatsis thingy. In his day they didn't need to restrict nothing. In fact, you were too busy working 36 hours a day down at the mine, after hiking naked in 6 feet of snow uphill both ways, to play some videe-o game. (as opposed to me who's old and remembers the pre-interwhatsis thingy, and trying to untangle your phone cord enough to stick it in the phone-shaped modem holder and THEN go work in the mine since it would finally be connected by the time you got home, if you were lucky...)

 

Tru dat!  This from a fellow ancient gamer who also knows what a dangerous place the web (and associated games) can be for a kid.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive, or not very realistic.  As for how the devs here handle it, how about letting the people (the aforementioned devs) whose asses are the ones actually on the line if it all goes south, decide what legal maneuvers they have to jump through in order to keep doing the volunteer work that, in turn, keeps us playing this FREE game?

[Dr. Gemini]

Tru dat!  This from a fellow ancient gamer who also knows what a dangerous place the web (and associated games) can be for a kid.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive, or not very realistic.  As for how the devs here handle it, how about letting the people (the aforementioned devs) whose asses are the ones actually on the line if it all goes south, decide what legal maneuvers they have to jump through in order to keep doing the volunteer work that, in turn, keeps us playing this FREE game?

 

See, now you're just really showing your age. Don't you know these days everything is "its all about me!"

[justicebeliever]

You don't need all this extra enforced garbage, or even to try and apply shitty age restrictions on video games THAT NEVER WORK. How disconnected from the internet are you people?

Duh!  And you're calling them disconnected from the internet?

They have stated an age restriction and you have to click to agree.  If someone underage gets on, that means they lied to do so and that's beyond their control.  I mean, oh my god, there are literally thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of games and apps out there with this kind of stuff.  Have you been under a rock the past 20 years?

 

Hey now, maybe he's just old and doesn't understand this newfangled interwhatsis thingy. In his day they didn't need to restrict nothing. In fact, you were too busy working 36 hours a day down at the mine, after hiking naked in 6 feet of snow uphill both ways, to play some videe-o game. (as opposed to me who's old and remembers the pre-interwhatsis thingy, and trying to untangle your phone cord enough to stick it in the phone-shaped modem holder and THEN go work in the mine since it would finally be connected by the time you got home, if you were lucky...)

 

Tru dat!  This from a fellow ancient gamer who also knows what a dangerous place the web (and associated games) can be for a kid.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive, or not very realistic.  As for how the devs here handle it, how about letting the people (the aforementioned devs) whose asses are the ones actually on the line if it all goes south, decide what legal maneuvers they have to jump through in order to keep doing the volunteer work that, in turn, keeps us playing this FREE game?

 

QFT, and +1 inf

[MunkiLord]

'Basic indemnity'

 

What the fuck? You're not responsible for anything you idiots, you host a game server from a dead company. Enforcing COPPA? LOL

 

Who are you people anyway? You seem like disconnected SJW's who somehow got their hands on something nice.

 

Ok folks, if the rest of the post didn't give it away, his use of SJW should have. This is an opinion, and person, that can simply be dismissed. Anybody using SJW as an insult is the type of person that brings no value to a discussion.

[SypherVendetta]

is this legally binding for us players?

[justicebeliever]

is this legally binding for us players?

 

In what sense?  It's a User Agreement, so yes it is, but you aren't agreeing to very much here - Privacy Policy, Code of Conduct, No Minors under 13, Parents responsible for minors 13-17, You are responsible for your actions, not Homecoming, and that any lawsuits are subject to Delaware and US juridiction...

 

Nothing about the legality of the software in there at all, but since you are on their servers and they are collecting information from you (email/IP address) they want to be responsible...

 

Well, as responsible as you can be when you are doing legally dubious thing in the first place...

[Teikiatsu]

You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13.

 

So does this mean I'm supposed to lock my 8-year old in his room every time I want to play?

[Kistulot]

You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13.

 

So does this mean I'm supposed to lock my 8-year old in his room every time I want to play?

 

Why do people even say this kind of reply?

 

It clearly means "This game is for teens and up. If lower see, or interface with the game, it is at your risk, and it is not our responsibility. Don't let them play. If they see it, it's on you to decide what to do about it, not on us."

 

But having it say that covers them pretty soundly.

 

I still care a lot more about content restrictions, especially as "adult or sensitive topics" can also be used to quiet things such as queer characters in story arcs if they are viewed as "inherently sexual" or controversial.

 

It's not the worst, but I'd like some frank "non legalese" of how the GMs want to handle things.

[justicebeliever]

You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13.

 

So does this mean I'm supposed to lock my 8-year old in his room every time I want to play?

 

I realize tone is lost in forum posts, so I'll add italics for emphasis.

 

Technically, according to Homecoming, no one under 13 is allowed to play.  This is because of COPPA, a federal law designed to protect children under 13 on the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

 

I don't think there is going to be any policing on this unless someone jumps up and down in front of a GM saying "I'm 8", or starts spamming the channels about what they are going to do on their 9th birthday. 

 

I have a 9 year old, and hypothetically , he might have been near a computer today, that had city of heroes on it, on an account separate from mine.

 

In this hypothetical, he would have been in the same room as me, and the account he might have been near would have had all the chat channels except team, NPC Dialogue, System, Rewards, Cutscenes removed.

 

 

[Teikiatsu]

You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13.

 

So does this mean I'm supposed to lock my 8-year old in his room every time I want to play?

 

I realize tone is lost in forum posts, so I'll add italics for emphasis.

 

Technically, according to Homecoming, no one under 13 is allowed to play.  This is because of COPPA, a federal law designed to protect children under 13 on the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

 

I don't think there is going to be any policing on this unless someone jumps up and down in front of a GM saying "I'm 8", or starts spamming the channels about what they are going to do on their 9th birthday. 

 

I have a 9 year old, and hypothetically , he might have been near a computer today, that had city of heroes on it, on an account separate from mine.

 

In this hypothetical, he would have been in the same room as me, and the account he might have been near would have had all the chat channels except team, NPC Dialogue, System, Rewards, Cutscenes removed.

 

Hypothetically I'm asking an absurd question about an absurd regulation, which seems to assume that I as a parent can't hypothetically keep tabs on what my hypothetical child is doing.

[justicebeliever]

 

Hypothetically I'm asking an absurd question about an absurd regulation, which seems to assume that I as a parent can't hypothetically keep tabs on what my hypothetical child is doing.

 

Not sure where complying with Federal Law is somehow Homecoming's attempt to parent your child?  Am I missing something?

[Whythalie]

None of which has been done based on what I have seen.

 

Bluntly, a lot of the calls for "transparency" are to stir drama up and cry how things "aren't being done" just because they are not happening fast enough. No, they're not going to give you daily updates on how every single aspect of the LLC is run. They got better things to do with their time, like actually run the servers.

 

A lot of posters who complain about "transparency" are just trying to hold Homecoming to impossible standards to seed FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) on players.

 

If you don't like that Homecoming LLC is running the servers as a professional operation which requires them to comply with applicable laws, there are other servers out there that don't care and will happily violate COPPA in order to avoid having an EULA.

 

Disclaimer: again, I am not part of Homecoming LLC. This is just common sense.

 

I am not asking for each and every transaction that goes on every day.  What I am asking is that they keep their promise to update us as they originally promised.  Each thing that has been done lessens my trust in the team running this server.  You are trying to make something legal while doing something illegal. I don’t want this to be run by NCSoft again and it appears that is exactly where it is headed. I have said my piece. No point arguing with those who can’t see the whole picture.

 

It’s disingenuous for you to claim others aren’t seeing the whole picture if you yourself aren’t willing to see the whole picture either. Things take time regardless of whether you want them to or not. The fact that it has come this far already with a group of volunteers is outstanding. They will update when appropriate.

 

I found the site they formed their LLC on. They COULD have set up the non profit first then wait on tax exemption, but that wasn’t done. They went strait for profit, which seems to me they are trying to profit off a game that was hidden from us for over 7 years.  They could act like a non profit and post their receipts and balances, but they don’t.  I have done research into the server site the posted and the math doesn’t match. I am sure most of you try to make well informed decisions in life, but so many seem blinded by the fact that the game is back. 

 

The most untrustworthy thing, that i cannot understand, besides covering up expenditures, is the fact they have allowed the same person who lied to us for 7 years be allowed to be part of the team running the server in any capacity.  I was waiting to play after the whole BREE nonsense, but the fact he’s here means I won’t play here.

[Teikiatsu]

 

Hypothetically I'm asking an absurd question about an absurd regulation, which seems to assume that I as a parent can't hypothetically keep tabs on what my hypothetical child is doing.

 

Not sure where complying with Federal Law is somehow Homecoming's attempt to parent your child?  Am I missing something?

 

To start with, please bear in mind I'm being sarcastic and facetious.  I'm trying to point out the absurd with absurdity.

 

From what I can tell the whole point of COPPA appears to be preventing kids from sharing their information online and keeping them away from cyber-predators.  What I am trying to point out in my question, and seems to have been lost in the weeds, is that the User Agreement is telling me that by pressing 'Accept' I am supposed to keep any child under my roof who is less than 13 years old from looking at my monitor while I play a video game.

 

I'm trying to point out that there seems to be a disconnect between the lawyer who wrote the UA and the people who play the game who have kids.  It also appears to be an over-reach from what the COPPA is intended for.  My son, playing LEGOs on the floor behind me, is not going to be sharing his personal information through the monitor with people in CoH.

[jubakumbi]

The most untrustworthy thing, that i cannot understand, besides covering up expenditures, is the fact they have allowed the same person who lied to us for 7 years be allowed to be part of the team running the server in any capacity.  I was waiting to play after the whole BREE nonsense, but the fact he’s here means I won’t play here.

 

So, whoopie for you?

How about stopping the trolling as well as the playing then? :)

 

Continuing this charade of 'holier than thou' morals while we are all playing in a grey area is just hilarious.

[jubakumbi]

As I understand it, there is no legal precedent for a company going after players on a "grey area" server.

 

And this is the part that is relevent.

The only one for the end user, really.

 

The end users worried about getting in 'hot water' by 'the man' over playing this game are simply wasting thier own energy.

Stress kills.

[Teikiatsu]

As I understand it, there is no legal precedent for a company going after players on a "grey area" server.

 

And this is the part that is relevent.

The only one for the end user, really.

 

The end users worried about getting in 'hot water' by 'the man' over playing this game are simply wasting thier own energy.

Stress kills.

 

After 7 years of no game, maybe you could try to understand how some people are anxious that the game could disappear again or they could be banned for some legal loophole?

[Abraxus]

The most untrustworthy thing, that i cannot understand, besides covering up expenditures, is the fact they have allowed the same person who lied to us for 7 years be allowed to be part of the team running the server in any capacity.  I was waiting to play after the whole BREE nonsense, but the fact he’s here means I won’t play here.

 

So, whoopie for you?

How about stopping the trolling as well as the playing then? :)

 

Continuing this charade of 'holier than thou' morals while we are all playing in a grey area is just hilarious.

 

So, the Leo thing still bothers some folks, huh?  I'd have thought we were past that, but obviously not all of us.  Personally, what happened over the 7 years when SCORE ran their own server is what allowed this to happen now.  Would it have been nice to have it happen sooner?  Sure.  But, I don't see that recriminations for something most of us would have done in his position are necessary at this point.  Also, bear in mind that he was also the one who had the experience to make all of this happen as soon as it did.  Without his expertise, it would have been months before anyone was familiar enough with all of it to get things going in such a sustained way.  So, bottom line is...no story really, and moving along.