Game maker declares war in federal court
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Philip James Holland of Mt. Lebanon is the subject of a lawsuit claiming he and another person corrupted an online computer game, Evony.
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In the cyber world called Evony, players move armies through a medieval landscape with only a vague sense of the locations of their allies and rivals -- unless they buy one of the digital maps made by Mt. Lebanon gamer and programmer Philip James Holland.
In the real world of federal court, the makers of Evony are marching on Mr. Holland, 23, saying in a civil complaint filed last week that he's violating their copyright and breaking their terms of service, advantaging some players over others, and thereby knocking their world off its axis and undermining their multimillion-dollar investments.
In response, Mr. Holland and his business partner, Drew Ewing, 21, of Phoenix, are trying to fortify their defenses. They are portraying the coming clash as a battle over whether the technology tools used by gigantic companies are off limits to the kinds of freewheeling independents who pioneered the Internet.
The clash between the game company and the gamers in some ways stretches the limits of esoterica: It is, after all, about a digital map of an imaginary world.
To intellectual property experts, though, it reveals the problems inherent in applying laws from the era of books and paper contracts to the Web.
"The idea that we can bring the guns of copyright law to bear on you for breaking terms of service, [and] bring federal law to bear to enforce your [online] community rules ... is not really appropriate," said Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director for Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that advocates for open use of digital knowledge. "What grounds do you have to sue somebody in a court of law because they're cheating in a game or breaking the rules of games?"
To Evony LLC and Regan Mercantile LLC, Mr. Holland has done more than cheat at a game. According to their lawsuit in U.S. District Court, which names Mr. Holland and his firm, Xandium Studios, they've broken the terms of service, sold information about the game, unleashed robot players called "bots" that have unfair advantages over human contestants, and offered an alternative to their faux world.
First Published January 23, 2011 12:00 am
