FF related legal question

O

Osse

A man of wealth and taste
Adventurer
Joined
Oct 24, 2004
Messages
643
Location
VA
My knowledge of the Law is limited, to say the least, so I'm curious if someone with actual legal knowledge can chime in. My usual in-game legal council is suddenly absent recently--and is from Brazil anyway, so I'm not sure how applicable his info would be.

Anyway, I was musing about IGE and the other sites that sell characters and gil online. S-E has always said in their official statements that they can't take action against these sites because IGE et al. are not violating any laws. Selling gil isn't illegal in the real world.

However, to the best of my knowledge, the terms "Final Fantasy", "Vana'diel", and "gil" (maybe) are trademarked words. S-E gives a limited license to non-profit fan sites to use the terms and images of the game. But IGE is a *for-profit* site and doesn't fall under this limited license.

Premise: Can S-E get an injunction against IGE et al. that requires them to stop using trademarked words and game images? Can you imagine IGE trying to sell: One million *blank* for *blank* game for $25 ? Business would taper off dramatically since the buyers wouldn't know what they were getting or for which game. I suppose they could develop their own lingo, but only the determined gil-buyer would persist long enough to figure it out.

Again, please don't make a guess at the legal aspect unless you have some actual knowledge. But anyone can feel free to comment on whether or not it would accomplish anything if the injunction could be obtained.
 
Last edited:
If it were that easy, SE would have done it already.
In addition, I think you mean IGE, not IGN.

Most any web sites who mention trademarks of others use language such as "all registered trademarks are property of their respective owners", which basically means that they are off the hook.
 
IGE, IGN? Never been to either site, lol. But thanks for the correction, I'll change my post to be accurate. As for it being assumed that S-E would have considered it already because it's a simple idea...I wouldn't assume anything. Consider gravity, not until Isaac Newton was it rationally described and quantified. Hell, they even leave it on on the weekends, you'd think someone would have noticed it earlier.

Again, I'm wondering if it's possible to prevent someone from profiting off of *your* registered trademarks. I don't honestly know if what you are saying is correct, Sculli. I can't sell cabbage-patch dolls for Christmas and get away with it just by noting that it's already someone else's registered trademark. Using the trademark for general description is one thing, but IGE (thanks again) is selling "FF name-brand virtual property" without a license....or so I think.
 
No idea what exactly IGE is selling, usually any kind of virtual property sellers have some sort of clause that recognizes that the ownership of the virtual item is with the publisher, and that the seller merely acts as a 3rd party getting compensated for their time or some such.

I still stick to my story that if any of the MMO running companies would seriously want to do something about virtual property sellers, they would certainly have all the legal and technical means to do so.

The fact that sellers are allowed to operate is in my opinion proof that the publishers are not serious about getting rid of them, and why should they? Sellers pay for accounts, buyers pay for accounts, some buyers would probably have canceled long ago if it weren't for sellers, and you, random player, pay for your account. Life is good for SE and others like it.
 
Agreed, if you check out any of my other posts on similar topics you'll see I have a similar sentiment. But I can still wish it were otherwise.
 
I don't think so. I mean, ebay doesn't have to get permission to let people sell stuff with the name Sony on it, yet ebay makes money from this.
 
SE already tried the legal approach to it, but they lost because of a number of loopholes.

What they should do, is pick someone known to be a Gilseller by the community, and track the money they send.

Say take Avgirl, someone who no one would dispute as harvisting gil for sale. Watch where she sends her money eventualy, it'll just end up at some storage mule, belonging to IGE. They'll know this, because it'll be sent from those characters to seemingly random characters, with whom the mule, or the mules account owner has no direct/indirect contact.

another way would just be to buy the smallest amout of gil possible from IGE, then shut down the account they recieve it from, thus destroying all the gil that IGE bought from sellers. Do this enough, and IGE starts loosing money prety fast, and they'll have to shut down. At least thier FFXI operation
 
Marajade said:
SE already tried the legal approach to it, but they lost because of a number of loopholes.

What they should do, is pick someone known to be a Gilseller by the community, and track the money they send.

Say take Avgirl, someone who no one would dispute as harvisting gil for sale. Watch where she sends her money eventualy, it'll just end up at some storage mule, belonging to IGE. They'll know this, because it'll be sent from those characters to seemingly random characters, with whom the mule, or the mules account owner has no direct/indirect contact.

another way would just be to buy the smallest amout of gil possible from IGE, then shut down the account they recieve it from, thus destroying all the gil that IGE bought from sellers. Do this enough, and IGE starts loosing money prety fast, and they'll have to shut down. At least thier FFXI operation
Click to expand...

If they deleted Avgirl, I would crap myself with joy. I remeber a about a month ago none of the sellers were in Zital, and everyone was having a field day
 
I think the underlying issue is that it is simply not in SE's interest to shut gil sellers down. You all don't like them, yet you keep giving SE your money. Only once enough people quit the game because of gil sellers things will change, and since this will not happen, everything relating to gil sellers is pretty much a mute point.
 
Marajade said:
What they should do, is pick someone known to be a Gilseller by the community, and track the money they send.
Click to expand...

Yep, I suggested this a few weeks ago in a similar thread (the one about sending all the gilsellers worthless items to clog their in-boxes). I even pointed out how it could be an automated system, since S-E keeps track of all transactions it seems. I still think it's a good idea.

However, I also think Sculli is correct, S-E has no real interest in shutting down the gilsellers--at least not if it actually takes any effort. I'm mainly just musing about it because it's an interesting problem to solve. An in-game friend told me it couldn't be stopped, so I'm naturally looking into how it could be done^^.
 
Osse said:
Yep, I suggested this a few weeks ago in a similar thread (the one about sending all the gilsellers worthless items to clog their in-boxes). I even pointed out how it could be an automated system, since S-E keeps track of all transactions it seems. I still think it's a good idea.

However, I also think Sculli is correct, S-E has no real interest in shutting down the gilsellers--at least not if it actually takes any effort. I'm mainly just musing about it because it's an interesting problem to solve. An in-game friend told me it couldn't be stopped, so I'm naturally looking into how it could be done^^.
Click to expand...

this kind of relates to a quote from van wilder "worrying is like a rocking chair, gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere"

in other words, you must just be really board cause your never gonna solve the issue because they dont care.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top