Lloyd Korn shuts down MapleStory hackers.

Ooh, we have some experts in straw mannery.

Large, senseless post +

I'll be using my right to speech to come and rob you blind at some point then, since it's clearly something you agree with. Ok that sarcasms a bit much but it's still a silly opinion to have.

First of all, you agree that by reading my post, I get to punch you in the face. That's not how it works. You can't have it both ways. The FCC has said "if your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, expect the FCC to come knocking."

Never once are you prompted to agree to anything before downloading the client. If they want to put additional terms on the download, they're free to do so, but they must give a contract first. The Terms of Service can be considered a contract in the case where the people actually agree to it before using the service.

This means that you can't put any clauses in your agreement and expect them to be followed when nobody agrees to the agreement specifically. MapleStory is constantly advertised as "free game, instant download here!" Never once do you explicitly agree to any terms. It's the job of the provider of the service to make their terms clear.

But wait, if they did that, then more people wouldn't download because it's annoying? Probably. And it should tell you that their biggest problem isn't private servers or hackers. If that was the case, they would have no qualms about putting up an agreement to agree to before downloading, because the losses would be offset by their action.

Furthermore, the Terms of Service are not law. They might be a tort at best legal case, but it's not a crime unless it happens to fall into the definition of a crime. You're right, I didn't sign a contract for 3rd party car parts - and neither did I sign one to download the client.

My position isn't silly at all. Way to not respond to my actual example, by the way, which had nothing to do with private servers. My example was about this very site and Fiel's work.

Oh yeah, and you can go ahead and ignore the historical reason for copyright, which is THE RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE COPIES OF YOUR OWN WORK. We, as a society, say, "Okay, you can have a monopoly on your creation, provided that it falls into the public domain after a period of time, and then society benefits from your creation." Before computers, the only people who had the resources to violate copyright were companies. Individuals did not have this power. Now individuals do. Now companies are scrambling to make sure the individuals don't have this power, but they do.

Hint at what happens: Companies lose to progress. Same as every time something big like computers hit in history. Right now, they're extended copyright so far that they virtually never fall into the public domain. Guess what? You know that Steamboat Willy stuff from the 30's? Still copyrighted. Aww yee. Culture has already lost the benefit of the work by the time 100 years are over. That means that copyright holders are not holding up their end of responsibility.

You can't tell me that's not an abuse of the legal system. Oh, FYI, forums are made for discussion. The important qualifier you seem to have looked over is doesn't have infringing files. If they don't have infringing files, it doesn't matter what the pineapple they're talking about, they're talking about it, it's speech. Plain, simple, end of story, even you can understand it.

The music industry is being hurt badly by the free distribution of music. Yes, the internet damages the profit of newspapers. But it's okay. They adapted to follow suit. Yes, the internet damages profits for record companies. What do you think Pirate Bay was down for?

Yeah, that's why the only newspapers that adapted to the Internet are the big ones and nearly all the smaller ones are gone now. Okay. Swell argument. By the way, the Pirate Bay is a service similar to Google. The owners might have ill intent, and they deserve to be canned for that, but there's nothing you can get them for -- except maybe refusing to honor takedown notices when copyright can be proven and a legitimate complaint is filed. This is NOT the same.

In fact the ISP wasn't even sued in this case, they were told that CEF was performing illegal acts and took down the site in order to prevent legal action that could affect them.

Oh, so you see my point. It stifles speech in that it's easier and cheaper to just pack up and move out instead of, you know, asserting your right to speech.

How are third party markets for car parts damaging the car manufacturers products? You already paid for the car model itself so therefore you're just modding it. You also don't affect anyone else by modding your car, unlike in Maple Story, so this doesn't even apply.

Incorrect. Straw man at its finest. I said car manufacturers' profits, by the way, not products. The 3rd party car part market does hit the OEM profits by providing competition and alternatives to officially manufactured parts. What I'm arguing is that simply "damaging profits" is not sufficient grounds for a legally actionable offense. It has nothing to do with the similarity to MapleStory.

If that were the case, guess what would happen to word of mouth? Freedom of speech? Hoo. I'm seeing double!

This isn't even the same thing. I don't agree with Nexon on this one because Fiel was not doing anything infringing on Nexon's copyright. However Nexon was acting on information from MapleSnow (or whatever the pineapple they were called) accusing him of it.

This is different. Nexon was out of bounds BECAUSE Fiel was not affecting their profits and partaking of their intellectual product.

This is different from hacking sites, you're right.

I didn't equate hacking sites to Fiel's incident. I'm saying that nobody that uses this forum sees that as a positive use of Nexon's power. Guess what? We didn't agree with it. You can't agree with it in one case when it's abusive and not agree with it in another (and it IS abusive to try to shut down sites that talk about hacks, as you might notice).

Your example of private servers is akin to this. A store opens up on a street right next to an established store. Now this established store is innovative, they design their own product. Now the new store breaks in, steals the designs and produces their own product at a fraction of the cost. They then sell it for a lower price, or give it for free, and charge for extras.

Is this not what Nexon is fighting against? Computers should be treated the same as any other product,

You can't steal things that don't exist in tangible form. The only thing you can do is duplicate them. I appreciate your sentiment, but it's misguided. I'm not saying that Nexon doesn't have a monopoly over their product, I'm saying that DISCUSSION about hacks and private servers has nothing to do with infringing their copyright.