Acceptable Use Policy

Acceptable Use Policy

  • Acceptable Use Policy Summary

1) Winter’s Oasis services are used only for lawful purposes. Any transmission or solicitation for reception of material which violates U.S. Federal laws, or laws where the MUCK operates, including state, and local law is prohibited.

2) Privacy: You have a reasonable right to privacy which will not be violated by wizstaff without proper cause.

3) Information about your life (called RL or Real-Life) should be considered privileged, and is encouraged to be given out on a ‘need to know’ basis. The staff will not request this information.

4) Intellectual Property rights: The Wizards and Helpstaff of Winter’s Oasis honors intellectual property rights as they pertain to the MUCK, and requires that residents do so as well. RolePlay events and logs become property of Winter’s Oasis, licensed to the public in a creative commons form so that no one can destroy the continuity, and everyone can benefit.

5) Be respectful and polite.

  • Acceptable Use Policy (Full Text)

The Wizards and Helpstaff of Winter’s Oasis respect your privacy and intellectual property rights, and requires that you extend the same respect to others. Please read this file completely, and when you are connected to the game, enter the command @AUP to acknowledge that you have read the file and agree to abide by its terms.

‘Residents’ refers to all players and Wizards and Helpstaff. Where the distinction between Wizards and Helpstaff and players is important, this will be explicitly noted.

1.0 Access and Legal Responsibility

Access to Winter’s Oasis, and the computing resources required to operate Winter’s Oasis, is granted on a revocable basis, and at no time is this access guaranteed.

Winter’s Oasis services may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission or solicitation for reception of material which violates US Federal or Texas State Law, any Policy of the site where the MUCK operates, or state or local law of the area in which you reside is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, material that is threatening, libelous, or violates trade-secret, patent, or copyright protections.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Winter’s Oasis, its Wizards and Helpstaff, the owners/operators of the computing resources, and all other parties connected with the administration of Winter’s Oasis from all claims which are a result of your usage, without limitation. You agree that any traffic which originates from your character or connection is your legal responsibility.

Notwithstanding the above, you agree that should Winter’s Oasis or its Wizards and Helpstaff be found liable in a court of law for any action or lack of action related to your use of Winter’s Oasis, our liability is limited to $0.00.

2.0 Privacy

As a resident of Winter’s Oasis, you have a right to reasonable privacy.

2.1 Residents may not use programs, zombie objects, or other methods to monitor your conversations or activities inappropriately.

2.1.1 Residents may use zombies, broadcasting exits, programs, etc., as detailed in the `Programming’ section under `Rules and policies’ on the web site.

2.1.2 Wizards and Helpstaff may monitor intrusively, by setting the Dark flag on themselves or referring to logs, if they have reason to believe that a player or group of players is actively conspiring to destroy or damage the MUCK’s database, or is engaged in illegal activities.

2.1.3 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) NOTICE: The Wizards and Helpstaff of Winter’s Oasis reserves the right to monitor any and all communications through or with Winter’s Oasis computing facilities. You agree that Winter’s Oasis facilities are NOT to be considered a secure communications medium for the purposes of the ECPA.

2.2 Residents may not use programs or other methods to retrieve information stored in properties on your character or belongings inappropriately.

2.2.1 Residents may create and use programs that retrieve information in ways that meet the the guidelines detailed in the `Programming’ section under `Rules and policies’ on the web site.

2.2.2 Wizards and Helpstaff may use the `examine’ command and other methods of retrieving information remotely as needed.

2.3 Residents may not harass you.

2.3.1 If you indicate that you are not receptive to intimate contact with another resident, that resident is obligated to respect your wishes. If someone persists in making unwanted advances, repeat your demand that he or she stop, and page a Wizards and Helpstaff member immediately. Residents guilty of sexual harassment are liable to disciplinary action up to and including @toading and site-banning.

2.3.2 Repeated attempts to talk to, page, or otherwise interact with a resident who has clearly requested to be left alone are a violation of Acceptable Use.

2.3.3 Racial, ethnic, lifestyle and religious slurs directed at a player are a violation of Acceptable Use.

2.3.4 The MUCK’s content rating is similar in style to that of the MPAA guideline “PG-13.” Graphic sexual scenes or overly graphic violence is forbidden to allow for a wider range of ages to play.

2.4 Information about your life outside Winter’s Oasis is privileged. Your real life (RL) name, gender, age, phone number, email address, and place of residence are privileged information. That is, unless you explicitly indicate that this information may be dispersed, residents are obligated to treat the information as confidential.

2.5 Privacy as regards alternate characters is left to residents’ discretion.

2.5.1 You may have alternate characters, and you are not obliged to inform others of the relationships between your characters.

2.5.2 If you do not wish others to know of the relationships between your characters, do not give out this information. If you do not mind other residents knowing about the relationships between your characters, it would be helpful if you indicated this, by conversation, pinfo, or other means.

3.0 Intellectual Property Rights

The Wizards and Helpstaff of Winter’s Oasis honors intellectual property rights as they pertain to the MUCK, and requires that residents do so as well. The Wizards and Helpstaff claims no particular expertise in the complex and evolving field of international copyright law and the Internet. This does not, however, invalidate or limit the AUP as it pertains to intellectual property rights: Winter’s Oasis policies on intellectual property rights stand as detailed below.

3.1 Residents may not create programs, rooms, or other objects incorporating copyrighted material without verifiable permission from the copyright holder.

3.2 The Wizards and Helpstaff of Winter’s Oasis become joint holders of intellectual property rights for public rooms or other creations which become an integral part of Winter’s Oasis and are used by a substantial portion of the residents. The owners of such creations may improve and add to them as they see fit, but may not @recycle the object or remove the properties or code that make it integral to the MUCK without permission from the Wizards and Helpstaff.

In the event that a player inappropriately destroys or changes public creations, the Wizards and Helpstaff reserves the right to restore such creations from back ups. Should such occasions arise, intellectual property rights for that creation as the pertain to the MUCK will from that point lie solely with Winter’s Oasis. That is, the creating player forfeits rights to determine if and how the creation is used on the MUCK.

3.3 Programs which include notices that permission to port is requested or required may not be ported to or from Winter’s Oasis without such permission. If you wish to port such a program and are unable to contact the author, notify a Wizards and Helpstaff member. The Wizards and Helpstaff will attempt to contact the author, and if unable to do so, will determine on a case-by-case basis whether the port meets AUP requirements.

3.4 The Wizards and Helpstaff will not modify or remove any of your programs without your permission, with the following exceptions: in the case of programs which pose a threat to the integrity of the database or violate privacy as detailed in the ‘Programming’ section under ‘Rules and policies’ on the web site and the AUP, the Wizards and Helpstaff will either request that you modify or remove the program, or will do so themselves.

3.5 Winter’s Oasis is a collaborative story-telling experience which involves many different contributors and ideas. In order to protect the rights of contributing artists, yet allow for derivative work that is not legally jeopardized and can even be used for profit, be it for Winter’s Oasis, or an individual or group entity making use of the work, the following subsections are given. The essence of these is giving any person with the desire to create a derivative work access to the universe and the ability to change it, but to restrict the ability to change the historical events involving specific characters without approval in their derivative works (if they wish to use these), so that no player’s character is used without their authorization but the ability to reference their actions in known historical events is left intact.

a. For the purposes of this agreement, the following additional definitions will be used:

I. ‘Event’ shall mean any contiguous section of role play activity on Winter’s Oasis.

II. ‘Extended Material’ shall be interpreted to mean the continuing history created by events in Winter’s Oasis, excepting events and details that become integral or create integral changes to the nature and operation of the game’s societal structure, religions, economies, cities, people groups, cultures and societies with their backgrounds.

IV. ‘Core Material’ shall be interpreted to mean the game’s collective societal structure, religions, economies, cities, people groups, cultures and societies with their backgrounds excepting that which is covered in Extended Material, and that which involves player characters but is not integral to the stated domains. Any characters that are listed as ‘open for interpretation’ on the files of Winter’s Oasis at the time of any derivative work’s inception are also included in the definition.

III. ‘Player Character Exclusivity’ shall be interpreted to mean the right of a player to the exclusive use, intellectual ownership and copyright of their character unless waived by inclusion in the list of characters ‘open for interpretation’ or otherwise explicitly licensed for this purpose. This definition includes the exclusive right to approve or deny inclusion of their character in any derivative or adapted work excepting any events or details covered under the definition of Extended Material or Core Material.

b. The submitting user grants Winter’s Oasis the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

c. Any derivative work that is agreed upon to be so by both Winter’s Oasis and the copyright and/or intellectual property holder can become either Winter’s Oasis Core Material or Winter’s Oasis Extended Material.

d. In order to foster a safe environment to collaborate and encourage creative growth, Core Material is licensed to you under a CC-BY 3.0 United States license, whose full text can be found at ‘help CC-BY’.

e. In order to allow for a sensible history in any derivative work while protecting the rights of individual character owners, Extended Material is licensed under a CC-BY-ND United States license, the full text of which can be found at ‘help CC-BY-ND’ with the following written agreement changes per section 8.d:

f. Because Extended Material is a series of events and facts, is meant to be included as part of larger works, and is not easily bound to a set of precise algorithmic reproduction, adaptations involving translation, reformatting, use as reference for a derivative work’s background or history, as well as interpretations and works based off those events which do not modify the factual content of them are permitted.

g. The licensee is not required to license their specific implementation of Winter’s Oasis historical canon under the same terms as original work, so long as they do not claim exclusive right to the source material.

4.0 Violations of Acceptable Use.

Residents who violate the Acceptable Use Policy, or who commit acts not explicitly covered by this policy but deemed a violation of the policy’s spirit by the Wizards and Helpstaff, are liable to consequences including:

– Suspension of access to the Muck and its computing resources for a time to be determined by the administrators.
– Removal of your character and termination of access to the Muck and its computing resources without prior notice.
– Notification of your site and/or system administrators
– Notification of civil and/or law enforcement authorities.