If Horizon Had A $1 Monthly Fee

I changed the wording of that post after I realized "safe" shouldn't be used there. Private servers are probably safe because of SE's policy, not because of the law.

I was only pointing out what is possibly illegal. Whether SE choose to take action or not is a different discussion.

Many companies never take any actions against fan art either. That does not mean those are legal. They are 2 different things.

Server admins can believe that they will be safe because SE's past policy on private servers. Claiming it is legal is totally different though.

It was pretty wild watching Courier Carries solo hold dragons, KB, and Aspid. I don't know what's been changed since a few months ago, but boy did Monty really pull a fast one on the devs when he convinced them BST needed all those changes and that jug pets need way more HP than they even have on retail at lv.99. In general, there were a lot of changes early on that were just really odd and seemingly came from someone with not a lot of experience (blood tanking lol).


This happens on every private server, not much you can do about it. If you speak up any time you see favoritism happening for a staff linkshell, you're just putting yourself on their shitlist. Some people will never do HNMs or the more serious endgame content so they will have less interactions with staff and not have any issues. I ran a non-staff HNM LS, and when I asked about Aerec giving a Charybdis to a linkshell during a zone crash but wouldn't give my linkshell a KV back from a zone crash, I got banned a week later with no prior warnings and told I was harassing them. I had Aerec hating me for criticizing some of the more poorly thought-out changes, Kipling hating me I assume for turning down his e-wiener, and the head GM hating me because I was in a rival HNM linkshell on two servers. (Not an exaggeration. The head GM's linkshell members sent me screenshots of her talking about hating every single person in my linkshell.)

If you decide to try out a private server, it can be really fun with friends. There are some devs doing some really great work in the ps community. But don't expect staff to be impartial. Certain members of Horizon's staff are just outright rude and condescending--something that's well known in the community. I'd recommend a different server or wait until whatever new one comes out in the future if you want a fresh server/economy experience with hopefully better staff.

Afania is confusing fair use copyright with derivative vs original works. There is no such thing as "fair use" on original works, they are considered wholly and completely separate entities.

If some company writes a word processor, named say WordPerfect, then another company writes another word processor, named Office, can the owners of WordPerfect sue over copyright? Absolutely not as nothing has been "copied". The first company would need to prove that the second company illegally copied and reused their copyrighted material (source code). If the second company wrote the competing software entirely from scratch, then it's an original work. The LSB is 100% free of Square Enix copyright and stands as an original work. Private Servers based off the LSB are also 100% free of SE copyright, provided they don't do something stupid like use SE artwork on their webpages.

Patents and Trade Marks are an entirely different, and often confused subject. Apple is one of the worst Patent trolls in the industry, applying for patents on the dumbest things with the hopes they can use those patents against competitors. It's a quagmire of stuff like "square icon with round edges", thankfully the LSB is based on opens standards.

At the end of the day, the only part of a private server infrastructure that has any relation to Square Enix is the client used by the player. As long as PS's are careful to not violate any licensing issues themselves, then they are fine. Or to put it another way, LSB / Private Servers / Horizon is not Final Fantasy XI. They offer an experience similar to Final Fantasy XI, but as this entire thread bears out, that experience is not Final Fantasy XI.

You are right, it's more about their policy than the law unless there's a private server for FFXIV but it's more likely up to the staff team from California whether they want to continue to work on both XI and XIV at the same time or want to work on XIV only (Japanese community doesn't matter because Camate is gone). FFXI's community was filled with drama due to massive botting issues and completely been divided (that was during Trump era). It was as if SE ever wanted to shutdown XI. On the official forum, we got a new employee from the XIV team who was afraid to try XI. I was too nervous to admit that I used third tools.

After years have passed, they decided to setup their own live stream again called "Primed for Adventure." I have played with them twice personally, one of them seemed a noob who didn't know how to play RDM properly and I was okay with that. After we done with killing a bunch of Goblin Bounty Hunters in Valkurm Dunes, I finally explained to them what those mobs are for and why SE implemented them. They laughed.

Today, they still enjoy a "classic experience" more than what is today (endgame) which is why I think they don't care about private servers. Who knows what the future of XI is going to be.

i would kill to pay 40 dolalrs for a ff11 classic server by Square, that way no *** like Aerec or Kipling will control the servers no sexual harassments like Blizzard AKA Kipling with his Oversexualized female profiles, most gm people Cheats on Private servers with mob id and the common player cant, what else is there again hmmm atleast in FF11 classic from square would have a middle ground for cheaters :) so that everyoen can use mob id. oh yea took em 7 months to bann pasi and zepthor i think lol Allseeingeye and all cheats lol, very very very good server guys
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxidrama/comments/1510lnb/list_of_horizon_server_problems_put_together_in/

.....if you want to reply to a point that someone made, at least unblock that person and read the whole thing first....

You made the same mistake as Wiccaan by seeing FFXI as a "software" with a function, not an artistic IP with story, characters, world designs etc. So the word processor comparsion is entirely wrong, because word processor is not an IP, it is a function.

The correct comparsion would be another entertainment product, like movies or books.

It does not matter if no code is copied. Even if you rewrite all the code by yourself and remade all the 3d models by hand. As long as it has "FFXI" design in it it is more likely to be copyright infringement.

Unless you made a FFXI-like game that plays like FFXI but features different world and characters. Which isn't the case here.



I don't think so....

If I draw a Naruto fan art featuring Naruto and Sasuke kissing is this copyright infringement? This story doesn't exist in real Naruto story. The art style is mine, the story is created by me. This experience is not real Naruto experience.

But according to the post fan art IS copyright infringement, only because the character Naruto and Sasuke is created by another guy.

So it does not matter if Horizon changed the FFXI experience. It is still based on FFXI world building and concept, which makes it "fan art" of FFXI. So copyright law that applies to fan art probably applies to Horizon too.

Edit: Also....to whoever thinking that if they didn't copy the source code then they are safe from copyright infringement, here is one example of Nintendo shutting down princess peach adult game.

https://nintendosmash.com/nintendo-issues-copyright-claim-against-peach-adult-game/

The game code is created by a different person, so does art assets, but it is still copyright infringement because it has "princess peach" character in it. What makes you think Horizon isn't any different from this case?

I don’t care for it even at Horizon Zero Dawnlar

Bad example, Naruto and Sasuke DO kiss in the original work...

That's accident! ;) real kiss plz.

(been waiting for this comment, lol)

guys ffxiv is boring and easy, and limit cut's is an annoying mechanic, so lets make a 75 ERA Server and play ffxi for free while we do our unreal weeklys for ffxiv.

It's true, Kipling couldn't clear DSR so he made Horizon instead

Should be able to with having that tripple zoom plugin lol

It's impossible to be a legitimate player unless you stop using Windower. That's a life of FFXI. :)

I am starting to believe that those who disagree with your comments believe that the lawful protections on creation and content start with the code, when in reality they start long before that with the concept art and then cover anything in that sphere....so if the code isn't letter-for-letter exact with the original, the fan-creation "must" be original.

I honestly and very shocked so many consider that the point of creation that deserves protection, not the ideas behind all that code. We don't copyright the ink used in a book, the manuscript for a symphony, or the film for a movie...its always been about the idea, not the method to present that idea to others.

What in the world is this?

entire software industry is people copying others. when's your lawsuit against facebook for them creating threads based on twitter?

are you planning on taking legal action against youtube for youtube shorts copying tiktok? how about tiktok copying vine?

these are the biggest most used products out there and they literally planned from day 1 to copy their predecessors and make minor changes to fit their platform. it happens with smaller company's every single day.

you really don't know what you're talking about at all. thinking afania is posting good stuff is a sign you need to reassess your argument

I am not gonna explain further. Wiccaan posted something similar on the bg forum a long time ago.

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/134560-Bot-RMT-Cheating-Megathread?p=7657730&viewfull=1#post7657730

again, you're missing the point. Its in the art, not the code. All your examples are of a delivery mechanism for actual content, not the content itself.

Once again shocked how little respect is given for the creation of an idea, and how much is shown to codemonkey pirates.

Thanks for the link, this was an interesting read. I take some umbrage with many of the ideas presented in this post though. Namely:
The idea that using ffxiah or bgwiki is wrong because they are third-party tools that collect data from ffxi
The idea that all cheating/ToS breaking is equivalent, or that it's a binary

For the first point maybe the authors of the site are doing something against ToS, I'm not sure how the backend works, but I don't think that a user going to a website and reading it is doing anything wrong, and I very much doubt SE would agree that viewing a price history on an external website is breaking ToS.

For the second: it is my opinion that cheating or breaking ToS are both spectrums and everyone lands at a different place on the spectrum. There's an ocean-sized difference between using Windower to launch the game with absolutely no addons, plugins, scripts, changed dat files, or any modification to the game's code, and running 80 different plugins, changing dat files, automating gear swaps, automating player actions, removing knockback, adding minimaps, viewing mob IDs, unmasking mob HP, etc. etc.

Obviously everyone chooses where they're comfortable on that spectrum and that's fine, but I think it is extremely disingenuous and frankly extremely cope-y to me to say "well, I'm already using Dressup so I might as well use Anchor, Tako and Cureplease, because it's all the same!"

This, and Saevel's example of vim/emacs/etc earlier, are a different situation.

If I see Twitter and go make Twatter which allows you 141 characters and doesn't use the same logos, that's an entirely new work. If I see a text editor and like some of the stuff in the editor, then adopt similar ideas into my own, that's also different. These are entirely new creations and no code is shared between them except that which is commonly available (e.g. libraries), it's just the idea.

In the case of LSB and all the servers running it, the project is written using reverse engineered assets developed by SE for client<->server communications. The protocol the client uses was reverse engineered from SEs code by disassembling the client binaries (in part), then the same protocol/data structures implemented so the server could function. You can't separate these protocols and structures from the server software and they were developed/defined by SE when FFXI was developed.

atom0s posted this, below, which clarifies why they don't see this as an issue:


They also don't have access to the original server binaries, so it can't be claimed it was copied or that any code from the server was used to create LSB. I used an example earlier about Michael Lynn and Cisco, where Cisco made a bunch of claims about his disclosure/use of disassembled code in IOS and he ultimately got the hammer thrown at him. I don't think that situation even applies here because there was no access to the original binaries that parse the data from the client. The only thing they share is the protocol, some of which is based on open protocols and some of which is proprietary, but according to my understanding from atom0s above, the protocols aren't currently legally protected on their own.

My understanding prior to this was a little different and based on personal observations/experiences/goings on, but largely hinged on the idea that SEs protocols had some copyright protection, which apparently isn't the case. So the end result is the same, but it's different than "I see a UI and recreate the UI".

you all are so focused on the code. The minute you post a pic of a Mithra and make money doing it the hammer is gonna drop and you are going to lose, whether its a private server, an OnlyFans, or knockoff merch.

...if SE decides dropping that hammer is worth it to them financially. That is the only thing protecting private servers that do run- SE doesn't consider your efforts worth the cost of their legal department. Start making money doing it, and then we'll see if they hold on to that opinion.

People are confusing art creation, where clean room design would apply, and trademark/copyright infringement as it applies to intellectual property.

You can write a story about a mouse that walks on two legs wears a diaper and talks as long as you don't call him Mickey Mouse. See Futurama. It is obviously inspired by something else but as long as you don't pretend it is that thing it does not matter.

Clean room design refers to art, which code falls under. For code specifically it means something was written that does something similar to something else without access to source code of that something else, which is intellectual property and falls under copyright. Eg Google writing a JVM that is compatible with Oracle's JVM and Java applications without having access to Oracle's source code. The lawsuit Oracle made was predicated on Google having access to their proprietary source code, via an engineer that used to work for Oracle and moved to Google.

Also private servers writing code that works with XI's retail clients without access to SE's server code. Both of these are legally allowed.

What it will take a court to decide is whether writing server software to interface with XI's retail client, which uses SE's IP without SE services, is legal or not.

As this was done by reverse engineering and there is no competing product here, XI server and client are one service and private servers are not in an open and competitive market, interoperability with software or a service is not applicable.

There are no services available for XI that do not come from SE or are under license from SE since SE owns the trademarks for use of the Final Fantasy name and all assets that SE created for XI.

What is likely is that as soon as private servers start making money and are not just hobby projects they will be forced to stop using SE IP, the XI retail client, Final Fantasy logos, lore, story and IP and create their own client, art assets, story and everything else in the retail client. That is prohibitively expensive for a hobby project.

You can very much create an entirely new game called Not A Final Fantasy using the exact same combat mechanics as XI as long as you create all your own art, assets, story, lore, quests and all assets used in XI from scratch. You can even sell this. You cannot sell or distribute a combined private server and retail XI client as you do not own the retail client assets or distribution rights for XI.

It is very much a grey area and SE is not likely to go after customers that download the retail client but use private servers, not because they can't but because it is bad PR to sue your own fan base.

100% though as soon as private servers take money or market share from SE, SE will go after them.

To my knowledge "publish videos/text/picture on a website" function can't be protected by copyright law. Therefore Tiktok/Threads are fine. Because what they copied are website functions, not art/story/characters.

If you release a game service with a character called Gulool Ja Ja that looks like Gulool Ja Ja in FFXI, that is a different issue.

Even if you hire a different artist and create the model file entirely from scratch, as long as it looks like Gulool Ja Ja and named the same, it is still copyright infringement. Because "Gulool Ja Ja" is protected by copyright law, this character belongs to SE.

A story/world/character/art etc is different from "publish videos/text/picture on a website" function.


I am not sure why is the poster's name even relevant in a copyright discussion. Whether this post is written by me or anyone else, I fail to see how it can change copyright law. Gulool Ja Ja(and every other character) still belongs to SE no matter who wrote the post.

The discussion revolved around Private Servers, which use the LSB and not any of SE's art assets. Early on in the discussion I mentioned that the client and everything attached to it are definitely property of SE and using them without a license could be considered IP theft. The users are using the client no the PS, but if the PS is encouraging or assisting users in the theft of this IP they could be sued for it. Mostly cause some folks think that the LSB itself is somehow IP theft, to the point they kept trying to argue it wasn't an emulator.

It is correct that LSB and private servers are not an emulator in the same way as Wine Is Not an Emulator.

It is a re-implementation of a specification and a set of protocols, not emulation of exactly what SE's servers do, which they have no knowledge of in the first place.

are you saying that because private servers don't directly use the .dats we have client side they aren't using the art assets? I'm truly trying to understand this aspect of the argument vs how one interprets such intellectual property directly in art, and if this is the basis of the argument, I'm very confused.

As soon as some concept artist at SE drew a picture of a Colibri as an employee of SE, all for-profit usage of a Colibri was protected- the protection isn't for the file version we get, its for the idea and the moment of creation by the person/company that person works for.

The storylines being followed if you do a quest or mission on a private server was written by a person or a team long before it was converted into code to simply display that already protected story.

Hell, the minute I publish a book that tells an untold story from FFXI using specific character names or places that exist in XI, I'm ***.

So I'm truly asking- when y'all say "art assets", what exactly are you referring to? The files that display that art, or the minds behind its existence in any form?

LSB is absolutely an emulator, the rest was just them parsing words because they had an invalid idea of what an emulator constitutes.

https://github.com/LandSandBoat/server


Anyone arguing otherwise is just arguing to try to argue.
And yes Wine is also an emulator, it's emulating the Win32/Win64 application environment such that binary code compiled for that environment will function believing it's operating inside a Win32/Win64 environment.

You can even write a quick DotNet or C# program that has has a single function, it retrieves that OS version and prints it to console. Compile that program and when you run it inside Wine, it'll report your running on Windows.

Lol, again this is semantics but none of that is true. Calling it an emulator does not make it one.

Wine is not an emulator, it is even in the name of the damn thing to stop people saying it is an emulator when it is not. No amount of arguing will change that.

The art asset(file) does not matter........it's been said a hundred times.

Nintendo once shut down a free to play princess peach fan adult game with 100% self-made art assets. Only becauss it has princess peach character in it and it is presented in a way that Nintendo disapprove.

No Nintendo art asset was stolen in that case, but Nintendo still claimed that simply using princess peach in a free R18+ fan game hurts them.

SE can totally come up with 100 excuses to shut down a private server if they really want to. They choose not to because it is not worth the negative PR and money if Horizon is free. Not because they can't.

Yup, I just had to quote the words from that site I thought is the best one...