Official reply from Aradune on this issue:
http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/021102.html
Galtin of E'ci
-----Original Message-----
From: A. S. [mailto:
solane@...]
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 1:48 PM
To:
eqbards@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [eqbards] OT: A Warning...
There may be a few problems with all of this logic. First off, there has
already been a court case in California (of course, the state with the
most lawyers per capita) that has deemed an everquest account not to be
property. Given the tendency of most courts not to overturn previous
rulings, accounts will most likely continue to be considered as such.
Therefore, banning (or taking away the account) cannot be treated in most
of the aforementioned ways.
The only one left is the contestation that Verant's "for any reason"
clause does not give them the legal right to terminate service. This
could be connected, in this case, to the free speech issue. The first
argument, however, that she has the write to express whatever she wishes
in a traditional public forum is moot--she can, and did. The question
remains as to whether Verant has the right to terminate service for such.
There is little or no analogy between the first amendment and the
fourteenth (or so-called equal protection clause) in constitutional law.
They are considered and reasoned differently, and have very different
methods of application. The first amendment can only very rarely be
applied to private entities, and only in very specific ways. Extending
the first amendment to a right of service is even more tenuous.
In fact, the rights of service connection may even be less grounded than
the extension of the EULA and Rules of Conduct. The supposed post, even
if not the correct post, would likely have violated the rules of conduct
in several ways, had it been expressed in any part on a Verant, Sony, or
989 affiliated mode of communication. Furthermore, there is no
limitation within the snowball.com terms of service that they cannot
provide content to affiliated entities (i.e. Verant). Once the material
has been given to Verant, Snowball's liability clause authorizes other
entities (Verant) to do commence actions which may prevent Snowball from
being prosecuted for said liabilty. Now, this is not exactly my interest
in law--really, I know next to nothing about liabilty law--but the
actions I see can all fit into this framework, with a little bit of legal
fanangling. I'm certainly not saying this is right (heck, if Verant saw
some of my private stories, they could possibly ban me, who knows?), but
it may be more legally sound than it looks.
One last tidbit for the faithful...it has been quoted to me that there is
a legal representative on the council that makes banning decisions.
You'd think even a Verant lawyer would know enough about covering one's
ass to not have made a huge mistake here.
-Karisma
(site address withheld for the safety of the innocent ;P)
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