Stealing our Property... you swine. =)

[Ben]

This world Cory, myself, and the other gods of Valorn have created, is made entirely of text. When you copy that text from our website and paste it onto your guild site or guild forums, you are STEALING pieces of Valorn from us. This ticks us right the heck off.

I destroyed the Ministry of Balance guild hall today in response to their having done this. We will do this to ANY guild we find to be stealing our property. If the information is then not removed, we will DISBAND the guild, and permanently BAN the leader and all officers.

Stealing our stuff is not cool. Everything from area descriptions to Annia Socrata Journals to item descriptions, like the description of the Ultimate Weapon or the Great Forge, to Balthazar or Cordelia's character profile is OUR STUFF. If you take that stuff, I will kick you all over the place so hard you won't know what happened to you.

[Ben]

EXAMPLES

JOURNAL 13 – The Far-Reaches of Valorn

Fartown is nothing more than a remote outpost with perhaps fifty citizens. Nevertheless, it represents civilization over here in the eastern expanses of Valorn. We were extremely happy to make our way into the safety of the town before nightfall. Despite the spartan nature of the village, the accommodations are cozy and quite welcome after several days of travel in the wilds. The people here are friendly and fairly simple, even the more "eccentric" characters such as two brothers who seem to argue ceaselessly in the small market area.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE for you to put on your website. This is the first paragraph of an Annia Socrata journal, copied directly from our website. This is stealing and we will destroy you.

Annia Socrata Journal 13: This journal is all about Fartown and what the party did while there. Looks like more Ethucan snobbery about Valornians being simple and some more info about the party's travel itinerary.

This is ACCEPTABLE. Here the author is writing in his OWN WORDS, explaining the contents of the Journal. Think about being at school... if you are given a Shakespeare play and told to report on it, if you photocopy several pages, or even copy using your pen word for word, the text of the play, that is stealing and your teacher will be ticked off. If, however, you write a book report and explain what happened in your own words, that is acceptable.

Elijah is the current High Cleric, ruler of Branishor, and spiritual leader of all of Valorn. He makes his home in the large temple located in the city of Branishor. He is a very kind man, but is kept busy by the mysterious disappearances that his order of clerics has been suffering of late. He has tried to step up recruitment of clerics, and may be seen around town healing and helping adventurers in need, or searching for the latest missing cleric.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This is a direct copy and paste of Elijah's biography from his profile (or from the story page.) This is stealing. This example goes for anything in the game... like area descriptions, or non-controlled NPC descriptions (eg clerics and bankers), etc.

Elijah is the current High Cleric, ruler of Branishor, and spiritual leader of all of Valorn. He makes his home in the large temple located in the city of Branishor.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This is a direct copy and paste of a portion of Elijah's biography from his profile. Still stealing.

ELIJAH THE HOLY:

Elijah is the leader of the clerics. He is also the leader of Branishor. He is a fairly nice person, and was very involved in the recent "coming out" of High Queen Cordelia.

This is ACCEPTABLE. Here the author has described Elijah in his own words without copying and pasting.

Elijah is the current High Cleric, he is in charge of Branishor, and he is the "high priest" of Valorn. He lives in the large temple located in the big city of Branishor. He is a very nice man, but is very busy with the mysterious disappearances of clerics happening lately. He has been trying to recruit more clerics, and is often around healing or helping newbies or looking for lost clerics.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Here the person has basically copied over the original bio of Elijah and changed a word or two and changed a few sentences around to make it "appear" to be an original work... but it is not. It is our property with just a few modifications. Not acceptable.

Staff of Lightning I
This staff comes with 15 charges of the spell Lightning, which does 10% damage to all enemies in the area.

AC: 1 Attack: 5 Level required: 15 Weight: 10 Charges: 15 Professions: ( E )

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Here the person has copied and pasted the item description and stats directly. This is stealing.

TYPE: Weapon
PROFESSION: enchanters only
NAME: Staff of Lightning I
STATS: AC+1, Attack+5
LEVEL: 15
EFFECT: shoots lightning out that damages enemies in the area. has 15 charges to start with.

This is ACCEPTABLE. This is similar to the databases that many guilds keep of items and creatures. You are not stealing our information if you merely report on the stats of an item without directly copying the contents.


I hope these examples have helped.[/quote]

[Ben]

MORE EXAMPLES/QUESTIONS:

What about area descriptions from our guild hall? We wrote those ourselves!

Those are an EXCEPTION. We understand you need to plan out your hall descriptions before you put them into the game. Be aware that, as stated in our user agreement that you agree to when signing up for premium, once you put the description into DG, it belongs to us, so we can change it, delete it, etc, all on our whims, EVEN THOUGH you are allowed to have a copy on your own website. This exception exists to make designing guild halls easier, and NOT because the description was personally written by you.

You gave me the Sword of Eternal Awesomeness for saving the Dundee Mayor's cat from a tree. Can I copy and paste the description of this unique and personal item? I also have a special sword that a weaponsmith NPC made for me... I paid 200,000 platinum for it to have raised stats and a custom description... how about that one?

NO. Copying the descriptions from those two items would be NOT ACCEPTABLE. They are still in-game items, despite being custom made and unique.

What about my own character's profile? I wrote that myself.

NO, this is NOT ACCEPTABLE. There is no good reason why somebody would need to copy and paste their character description elsewhere. As the user agreement says, all things in the game belong to admin, even if paid for with plat or even if written or created by players. The exception for guild hall descriptions is because it would be hard to plan out descriptions without writing them elsewhere, not because people wrote the descriptions themselves.