Sony and their EULA

Siddin · Post by **Siddin** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:10 am

Part of an email from sony.

If you have any questions you can see the entire EULA at http://eqlive.station.sony.com/support/ ... s_EULA.jsp

EVERQUEST® USER AGREEMENT AND SOFTWARE LICENSE THIS AGREEMENT DESCRIBES THE TERMS ON WHICH SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT INC. ("SOE") OFFERS YOU ACCESS TO AN ACCOUNT (THE "ACCOUNT") TO PLAY THE EVERQUEST FANTASY ONLINE ROLE PLAYING COMPUTER GAME AND ANY EXPANSION PACKS (INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, THE "GAME"). BY PRESSING THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON, YOU ACCEPT THE AMENDMENT TO THE USER AGREEMENT AND SOFTWARE LICENSE BELOW. BY PRESSING THE "DECLINE" BUTTON, YOU DECLINE OUR OFFER, IN WHICH CASE YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR RETAILER REGARDING ITS RETURN POLICY FOR THE EVERQUEST CD-ROM. If you have any questions regarding these terms and conditions, please contact customer service at eqmail@soe.sony.com <mailto:eqmail@soe.sony.com>.

9. You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play. You may not create, facilitate, host, link to or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, such as through server emulators. You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. You may not buy, sell or auction (or host or facilitate the ability to allow others to buy, sell or auction) any Game characters, items, coin or copyrighted material.

Ok, Now that we have that, we're going to focus on that section. Macroquest is basically a dll program that inserts itself into Everquests Memory Space (guessing), not the actual software of the program and as such the Software is never altered from its original state. According to the EULA third party software that modifies the Software to change Game play is against the EULA. Since you are not changing the Software does that not invalidate that first line of section 9 for purposes of banning because of MQ2?

Terramantian · Post by **Terramantian** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:33 am

You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play.

Even if you could argue that (doubtful), mq2 definitely changes gameplay. And it may not modify the actual everquest executable (I think with memory...that's still a grey area), but I believe by software the mean the game in its entirity.

Sparr · Post by **Sparr** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 8:49 am

Just become a MQ developer. Then MQ is second party software for you, thus exempt from this clause of the EULA.

Programmer · Post by **Programmer** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:27 am

What it really boils down to is there is no contract between you and Sony. Sony provides a service, you subscribe to it. They may discontinue their willingness to provide their service to anyone at any time without any cause.

Being a for-profit business, they'd rather not do that of course. They're telling you in the EULA, examples of things which they are more likely to discontinue your service for. They're not legally bound to that though, just as the law doesn't bind you to adherence to the EULA.

If they were to discontinue your account over an MQ violation, I think the extent of legal recourse you could hope for was a return of whatever money is left paid on your account. They state that they won't return anything remaining on a banned account, but perhaps the law would see it differently. However, it would probably cost you more in attorneys fees to recover whatever is left than you would actually receive.

Lax · Post by **Lax** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:32 pm

You're absolutely ... an idiot!

MQ does alter the software. It can change game play through custom plugins (though we dont provide that information here, nor do we allow you to discuss it). MQ2 is absolutely against the SOE EULA.

bho · Post by **bho** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:22 pm

You mean I've been cheating this whole time?

FreQuency · Post by **FreQuency** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:17 pm

bho wrote:You mean I've been cheating this whole time?

Nope, enhancing

Stogar · Post by **Stogar** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:25 pm

You're just thinking about the EULA 6 years into it?

Sparr is exactly correct, if you become a developer OR develop software yourself, then you become the second party eliminating the middle man (third party).

They'll probably take the "third party" out of it now.....