Diaco wrote:One of the main components of a copyright lawsuit requires the demonstration of a "market replacement", which means that the potentially infringing product is taking a piece of the market that would normally go to the "original" product. In this case this would obviously not be the case, since you necessarily have to buy D2 in order to play Median. This COULD become a concern in the future if Median becomes a standalone product which doesn't require D2 to play, but in its current state I'd say there's no danger.
There you go again, "talking common sense" (you really should learn to avoid doing this, when talking about "copyright"). Even though all the points you made are 100% true and valid, all that Blizzard's corporate lawyers have to do, is to convince a jury of rural residents in the East District of Texas Federal Courts that "them weirdo, long-haired 'Median' hackers is 'stealin'' Blizzard's hard-earned money by 'piratin'' its games" and it's "game over, man".
Remember that we are talking about people who never got past Grade 3 in elementary school; they still can't figure out how to get the "12:00" indicator from flashing back and forth on their VCRs and DVD players. If they have a computer the only thing they know how to use on it, is the "on" button on the front of the PC. They are also the ones who always click the "YOU HAVE WON A PRIZE!" pop-up on their Windows XP computers (in 2024) and then dutifully enter their bank account numbers at the second prompt. Trust me -- I have literally decades of experience with trying to fix computers for this kind of "citizen".
THESE are the people who will decide if Median is allowed to survive. Think of what's about to happen to TikTok, and then ask yourself what the chances are for some "mod" of a game owned by a large, predatory corporation. I hope I'm wrong, but history says I'm right.
