I agree that the databases definately constitute an 'intellectual property' violation. Personally, I don't see why everyone is so eager to reproduce the eq environment, personally I thought one of the neatest things about the project was creating completely new worlds. Im sure because of the massive scope of the eq gameworld its not a real option in alot of cases. If there were better tools to support the creation of EQEMU databases, we would probably see alot more unique content in the servers. Leaving the database out of the eqemu project does exactly that, keeps anything that can be construed as being owned by Verant seperate.
As far as patching for one and not the other, I disagree here. If that were the case, valid login authentication would be done PRIOR to the patching process to ensure you are a valid game user, as it stands now, when you purchase the game, you have in essense purchased the right to bugfixes they distribute, whether you are a current eq subscriber or not. I realize this can be construed as 'The door wasn't locked, so I figured it wasnt breaking and entering going into the house' logic , but I don't consider it to be the same. I don't think the use of the eq client , which is owned by you, not by Verant, can be construed as warez. Warez would be making it possible for someone who plays the game to play in the EQ world with an illegal copy.
In these cases, a person that warez EQ to play on the emulator is not a EQ client, and had no intentions of being one, so once again, there is no loss of revenue for Verant. Once again, the possibilty is strong that someone formerly uninterested in EQ might be persuaded to play in the Verant game world because of this interaction, where otherwise they would have been playing GTA3, and at that point they would be required to have a valid key (which they are giving away now, so it can be argued that the original EQ trilogy has now been unofficially put in the public domain since it is free to download online complete with CD-KEY). Its all conjecture once again, but I don't see how anything in the project is causing a loss of revenue for big business.
I agree though, most of it is a great big grey area, but I also disagree with the EULA and licensing agreements. Although the EULA has been successfully upheld in court on a few isolated occasions, it has failed to be upheld many more times.
I would think to truly get to the bottom of the matter, you would have to have a lawyer really go over the specifics (is there a lawyer in the house?) , and still, the intrepretation of the law varies from state to state. Personally, I want to see Verant and EQ prosper, I think they innovated alot of what the MMORPG industry is today.
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