AD Gift for Adventurers

cesar

armadeonx said:

Actually yes it is - it is theft of intellectual property. If a player bought AD from a 3rd party site then attempted to sue PWE for removing it they would have to admit this in court, leaving them completely open for a counter-suit.

Microsoft doesn't have 'laws' it has terms & conditions & this would breach those too, meaning MS would side with PWE. The law relating to this subject is that of intellectual property & a person cannot claim proprietorship for items bought via illegal means as a person cannot 'own' something that is essentially stolen, regardless if they paid real money for it or not.

This is the legal position across the US and Europe & applies in some form or another across most of the world.

PWE T&C clearly states that a person cannot use AD bought from 3rd parties & AD belongs to PWE to dispose of as they wish. They were not a party to the (illegal) sale to the player & therefore have no responsibility for ensuring the player profits from it.

Edit: the position regarding Microsoft only applies if a player purchases AD from PWE directly. The law would also apply to back up the claimant as PWE would be a party to the sale & therefore have a responsibility to ensure the player benefited from the contract (i.e. sale).

This is not the case here.

What does intellectual property have to do with AD bought from a 3rd party?

armadeonx

Mate, if you don't know that then this debate is truly out of your depth. I'm not going to give you a lesson in law, I sat through enough of them over a period of years and have no desire to start a discussion with the basics.

cesar

armadeonx said:

Mate, if you don't know that then this debate is truly out of your depth. I'm not going to give you a lesson in law, I sat through enough of them over a period of years and have no desire to start a discussion with the basics.

I actually wanted to learn about it, but given your attitude it seems pointless.

Thanks anyway.

armadeonx

Fine. Intellectual property can be defined as anything that is non-physical or intangible and can be regarded as property. E.g. music, patents of inventions or in this case, software.

The software can be either sold or licensed for use. A license means the user is permitted to use the intellectual property for a period of time and/or for a specific purpose as spelled out according to the licensing agreement.

In the case of Neverwinter this means the terms & conditions applied to the game. Any use of said intellectual property that breaches these terms & conditions could be considered a breach of contract and anything that can be defined as theft of said property can be regarded as a criminal offence, no different from stealing a physical object such as a car or a phone.

Buying Astral Diamonds from a 3rd party website breaches these conditions and is subject to any action the company (PWE) deems appropriate as long as it is within the law of the country where the company is based or the software is used. This can be anything from a restriction of use, a cancellation of the license (ban from the game) or actual legal action (the abuser being sued).

All aspects of the intellectual property (including astral diamonds) remain the property of the owner (PWE) and at no time is its 'right' of use transferred to the person who purchases from a 3rd party site. Any player wishing to purchase the use of AD with real money must do so via the official game. Doing so would establish an 'agreement' between the end user and PWE which would place rights and obligations on both parties as according to the T&C and applicable contract & IP law.

Accordingly, PWE would retain the right to limit, alter or remove any items within a players inventory if they were obtained via means that breach the T&C. The company (PWE) would not be a party to any contract (purchase) of the Astral Diamonds from the 3rd party site & as such would not be under any obligation to honor the agreement with the purchaser (player).

If the AD were purchased via stolen credit cards & then sold to the player then PWE probably wouldn't get paid by the card issuer (bank) and as such you can regard the original purchase as theft. This actually creates a situation where theoretically the end user could be charged with a criminal offence for buying stolen property. Ignorance of the theft would not be an excuse as they would be aware they were buying the AD in breach of PWE's T&C from an 'illegal' vendor.

In short, PWE can do what they like with AD purchased via a 3rd party vendor and the player has no legal basis for a complaint.

Edit: spelling

cesar

Clear as mud, my friend. Thanks for the clarification.

I misunderstood your previous comment and got the idea that it was the end user the one who could counter-suit; hence, my question. But it is very clear now and I really appreciate you took the time for this (and I totally agree with you).

Thanks again!

armadeonx

np m8

randomdigits

While I cannot argue or agree with your overall position (I didn't spend enough time to fully follow this thread, sorry), just wanted to point out the couple of statements which I think are safe to consider out of context and which I disagree with.

armadeonx said:

Intellectual property can be defined as anything that is non-physical or intangible and can be regarded as property. E.g. music, patents of inventions or in this case, software.

While the examples are generally valid, the general definition is incorrect. Intellectual property is not anything intangible and can be regarded as property. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
Specifically, virtual currencies are not intellectual property. Here is some discussion to elaborate the point.

armadeonx said:

All aspects of the intellectual property (including astral diamonds) remain the property of the owner (PWE) and at no time is its 'right' of use transferred to the person who purchases from a 3rd party site. Any player wishing to purchase the use of AD with real money must do so via the official game. Doing so would establish an 'agreement' between the end user and PWE which would place rights and obligations on both parties as according to the T&C and applicable contract & IP law.

I think in this case virtual currency is regulated by the contract law only, not IP laws. But the specific contract terms are not necessarily going to be in written in the PWE EULA, they are also implied from the general use of the specific currency and the established real world expectation with regard to them. It would be very much up to the judge to determine if certain expectations are reasonable with regard to the operation of the particular virtual currency based various evidence provided by the claimant and defender.

cesar

randomdigits#2166 said:

While I cannot argue or agree with your overall position (I didn't spend enough time to fully follow this thread, sorry), just wanted to point out the couple of statements which I think are safe to consider out of context and which I disagree with.

armadeonx said:

Intellectual property can be defined as anything that is non-physical or intangible and can be regarded as property. E.g. music, patents of inventions or in this case, software.

While the examples are generally valid, the general definition is incorrect. Intellectual property is not anything intangible and can be regarded as property. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
Specifically, virtual currencies are not intellectual property. Here is some discussion to elaborate the point.

armadeonx said:

All aspects of the intellectual property (including astral diamonds) remain the property of the owner (PWE) and at no time is its 'right' of use transferred to the person who purchases from a 3rd party site. Any player wishing to purchase the use of AD with real money must do so via the official game. Doing so would establish an 'agreement' between the end user and PWE which would place rights and obligations on both parties as according to the T&C and applicable contract & IP law.

I think in this case virtual currency is regulated by the contract law only, not IP laws. But the specific contract terms are not necessarily going to be in written in the PWE EULA, they are also implied from the general use of the specific currency and the established real world expectation with regard to them. It would be very much up to the judge to determine if certain expectations are reasonable with regard to the operation of the particular virtual currency based various evidence provided by the claimant and defender.

The intellectual property in this case is not the virtual currency but the whole software (the game).

armadeonx

Correct, you cannot regard Astral Diamonds as a virtual currency per se as it only exists within the confines of Neverwinter, it is not something that can be traded externally. It remains the sole property of PWE and could be regarded more appropriately as a token or service that you purchase with actual currency.

As such it is indeed intellectual property. You are correct that in contract law the severity of a breach and the action that PWE would be permitted to take could be decided or regulated by a court if someone decided to take it that way but that only covers the use of the software in a method that PWE were party to. In other words if PWE decided to adjust something in someone's inventory that they had bought legally they would have a case.

Theoretically they could legally challenge PWE if they removed something purchased from a 3rd party but as PWE were not party to the contract (sale) they would be under no obligation to honor the purchase & the purchase itself would be in breach of T&C. In effect, the plaintiff would lose.

Here is a link for a better definition of IP: https://law.cornell.edu/wex/intellectual_property

I didn't take my original definition from the web however, I did it from memory from law school.

randomdigits

Any virtual currency exists within the confines of it's issuer and AD is not different in that respect. Please, kindly see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_currency. I don't think one can speak about the ownership of digital currencies in a strict legal sense. The "ownership" rights in this case are established by the agreement between parties and is regulated by the contract law.

armadeonx

I don't agree with that position and imo you are stretching the definition. A key point within the wiki you linked:
"accepted by natural or legal persons as a means of payment and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically"

AD can only be used for trading within Neverwinter and cannot be transferred, stored or traded in the manner they are stating. E.g. Bitcoins - these can be moved etc in the manner stated by the ECB but AD cannot. By this I'm saying that is does not meet the definition given by the ECB. The US Treasury take a broader stance but by their definition you could use milk cartons too.

Contract law basically ensures fairness but also works on the preposition that parties have a legal right to hold that which they are exchanging. If one party has no legal right to something they are exchanging then no contract can exist as they have no right to bargain with it.

randomdigits

Please, notice store coupons listed as an example of virtual currency. They are unregulated, centralized, digital. Contracts, as you of course know, could be created where no tangible or intangible goods are present. In this case AD is a record in database. User does not have any specific rights with regard to the database or the record, apart from the permission to use it as part of the gameplay. Yet, taken into account the flexible nature of contract law (maybe consumer or related laws too), there might be certain expectation with regard to how these records are created and updated in exchange for the RL money. How much would these expectation be upheld in the court depends on the specific circumstances.

armadeonx

That's true and in the case of legal purchases would certainly be true. If for example PWE changed the T&C without notice and it had a detrimental effect on a player who had made a legal purchase they could pursue it.

My point is specifically regarding purchases made via 3rd parties. The player would have no right of claim against action taken even if it didn't breach PWE T&C's simply because no agreement was made between the player and PWE with regard to this purchase. The correct course would be to pursue the 3rd party site, but I think we can guess how that would go

I'm enjoying the debate but I'm going to be offline for a couple of days as of now. Meh. Ttyl.

thunderstorrm0

My husband plays on Xbox one and has 4 char. We've checked each one and none seem to have a quest related to AD. Also we tried talking to Rhix on each char and it did nothing... How is this supposed to work exactly? I get that it's only on one char. Can I get the name of the quest or what does it have you do? or something?

Unknown

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lordconjux

um I haven't gotten my diamonds yet. Trying to figure out why. I first played the game on 8/15/2015 (according to "Adventure of a Lifetime" achievement, and I stoped playing until 11/24/2015 (again according to achievement list "Let's Ride!") when my friends downloaded the game. Could it be because I deleted my toon on the 24th when I picked the game back up? I mean the rough astral diamonds aren't the world but I WOULD like to have them.

armadeonx

I guess it could be. I'd work on the assumption that if you don't get the notification then you somehow don't qualify - if you deleted your toon then that is probably the case.