dont revive old posts...

hm

In theory, but other people have said, it is just a game & each country has different laws.

Mr_Tryma

Mr_Tryma

+Sheena+It is not illegal to grief. It might cause frustration however it is fun watching a masterpiece getting burned to blocks.

...

That's kinda messed up. You're saying you'd like to watch an art gallery burn.

Minecraft is being considered art in some museums. Did you even watch the video?

XD btw It is still a game, a very fun game

^^^^

like people have said, there is a difference between griefing a dirt house and griefing a cathedral. The latter is often created as works of art are created, carefully designed and planned, or created from a fit of inspiration. generally, a lot of time has been invested in them.

we are also talking about a matter of copyright. someone said that Minecraft builds couldn't be copyrighted because they had been generated by the game. this is not the case, however, as only strongholds, mountain formations and villages etc. are actually generated. The player has to create the rest. And in that sense, Minecraft has become a medium of art, just like Adobe Photoshop or Blender. Copyright applies to things created in those programs. Minecraft creative, in its essence, is also a form of 3D digital art, and therefore copyright and all such things should be applied to it, as should other laws.

But actually making minecraft griefing illegal, as in punishable by law, is a little much to hope for. you should understand, 15 years ago there was no internet, not in the way that we know it. since then, it has expanded so rapidly, and given governments so many new situations, it is impossible to agree on laws applying to every aspect. especially since the Internet is not located within the territory of any one country.

For example, the SOPA-act. I'm sure many of you remember it. It was an attempt by the US (as far as I know) to stop piracy. However, as most internet-users made clear, it had the nasty side-effect of severly limiting the internet use of just about everyone, because websites could be taken out of the air without warning, on the mere suspicion of having anything to do with piracy. If they even had a link posted on them by one of their users, which led to another website that had something to do with piracy, the website could be taken down. This, had it gone through, would have crippled, if not killed, the internet, and we would all be back to reading books and watching television. not that that's a bad thing, it's just not the same.

My point here is that whatever law you try to create for the internet, there will always be a side effect affecting innocent people. meanwhile, there will always be some who find a way around it, thereby shifting the effectiveness of the law to the innocent people, while the 'offenders' continue their 'crimes', albeit in a roundabout way.

the easiest solution lies in Minecraft itself. Since the Pretty Scary Update, command block have been added to the game. These can be used to put players in adventure mode if they enter a certain area (a town, for instance). Then they cannot break blocks, thus preventing griefing. if a player wishes to build something, they can go outside the protected area, and they will be able to place and destroy blocks. If they are griefed, they can ask for a command block to be placed to prevent all players but the builder(s) from editing blocks.

another solution, which is already being used, is a white-listed server. the disadvantage of this is that it limits the players greatly. so this is best for all-creative servers that have really epic builds on them.

for an example of some epic builds, and proof of Minecraft being a form of art, check this link

Maybe it would help the discussion to acknowledge that there is a difference to something being considered vandalism and something being treated as vandalism?

Most of people i discover griefing are inmature bored kids. Maybe not all... a few days ago a player came to my little classical city ( you know, with greek temples, a forum, and that kind of stuff ) and started griefing, removing blocks, breaking things.
Then he saw that i put a lot of time on it, lots of buildings everywhere, 100% survival, and he came to me and gave me all the blocks so i could repare the city.

I can understand those griefers who destroy ugly cubic-houses, but when you want to use the game to do something good... you don't want a stupid kid to come and destroy it just because he is not mature enough to understand the time and hard work someone has to put to do it.
At the end it is all a matter of personality and mature thinking.

Minecraft in its purest form is art, sure. You have the potential to make truly fantastic pieces of work. But that doesn't mean its all art, what about dirt houses? And I can say with 100% certainty that griefing will never be made illegal.

think of it this way

you wouldnt go up to a peice of art, lets say the mona lisa,

And start hacking your hand at it untill it broke? In which case all the art people would scream at you for destroying betiful art and you would be sued and go to jail for a long time

In minecraft, you can go up to something even bigger and better and more betiful then the mona lisa, that probly took 5 mounths to make, and then destroy it all, and the only that you would get, is a simple ban from the server

after which the people on the server would cry and curse at griefers, but that griefer would still be roaming, destorying other placers creations

you can ban the murderer from the us, but hes just gonna kill in canada

have you heard of keeping world backups?? works a treat

Mr_TrymaToday my server was griefed (Sign that the world is ending? ). It wasn't big or anything, just a couple of blocks, but it got me thinking, could griefing be considered a form of vandalism? I saw a video a while back called 'Minecraft is Art?!'.

[yt]7l3ujkt_Hps[/yt]

I hope that video worked. If not here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l3ujkt_Hps

If Minecraft is art, then destroying it would be illegal, no?

if it was illegal, it would discourage a lot of the 'For the lols' griefers.

I'm not saying: OMg notCh/jeB make dis now LOLZ.

I just want to know what you guys think.

Thanks.

~Mr_Tryma

But how would you define what in Minecraft is art? I mean if you just say that the entire world is art then destroying anything would be illegal

ZaphodX

metal2012Greifing an art. Greifing takes skill. (Well the good greifs anyways) it can't even be compared to vandalism.

+1

Lord Coward
Also, art is a thing of creation, not destruction.

Art is subjective.

So is crime.
We'll keep things "nice" by comparing how a child in England today is punished for theft and how a child in Dickensian times was punished.
You'll still find people in every society who prefer the old way.

Subjectivity is not an excuse.

I am a Griefer. I am the 'good griefer of the north' i gess you could say. I take ALL my inspiration from AVO, meaning I only grief servers where the Admins are dicks, the Moderators don't do their jobs, and NOBODY enjoys them-selfs because of it.
If a server has an abusive staff and a lazy owner, im trashing it. If I hear stories about an owner who changes his map constantly and wipes all his player's work of the world, Im kicking that server's azz. i support griefing-if its the good kind.

GOOD GRIEFING:
bad servers with horrible staff, and they dont respect their player,
or your griefing ONE OR TWO people because they break the
rules and get away with it, and they are jerks to all.


BAD GRIEFING:
your mad because your friend got caught x-raying and you go to
fruck up their stuff. You dont like and admin's skin, so you bomb
spawn....


There is good griefing

and there is bad griefing

Yes it is. Just its not illegal due to it being a game. Minecraft buildings can be considered as art just you wont get any form of protection on them from goverments etc. People will contenue to greif because they're rude and don't care about others.

Greifing an art. Greifing takes skill. (Well the good greifs anyways) it can't even be compared to vandalism.

" Could griefing be considered a form of vandalism? "

Yes. Simply because if you trash things that aren't yours in real life it's considered vandalism.

Interesting thought. I like how you didn't go crazy saying you hate griefing and stuff.

I personally don't like griefing for the lol's ... that is hacking / griefing stuff that isn't supposed to get grief. I do support griefing in survival / vanilla Minecraft, though. I feel it is more of a challenge when players have to go out into a world trying not to get killed or griefed. It is fun!

I don't think it is. Sure, in some certain ways this could be considered as vandalism, but vandalism goes much further than that.

What would you find worse: Wake up and see that your house on a server has been burned down a couple of blocks, or wake up and find your IRL house painted down?

They are both vandalism but it is just your view or perspective on vandalism

Maybe I wasn't really clear, I just had to say, and since my message is not off-topic, I approve.

0voidwalker xD

I did not watch your video because I don't have time, but I have beautiful Art all over my server, including but not limited to My Little Ponies, Notch, Awesome Cathedrals, the Big Big....Here is the solution in a nutshell and I promise you it works. I have been a server owner since last April, the very month I bought the game. Number 1, it is all in your plugins, No 2, relax. If you are wondering what I mean, well Mcbans, auto rolls people back when they get banned, you get manually roll someone back with log block, core protect, hawk eye, grief prevention, and these types, get world guard and protect your property, don't leave it wide open for the hungry griefers eyes, you also have to have world edit, becuase you just need it, and essentials for you financial stuff like your markets and for creepers not making big holes in the ground and for taking fall damage off.

AS far as I feel, griefing is vandalism, absolutely, I despise it with every fiber in my being, and I ban on 1 block so there you have it, it's illegal on my server and that is all that matters, they can't come back...not ever, ever, ever, no exceptions. I have unbanned a few, but as time has gone by, I have come learn the server only lives to see them do it again and again an again. Why waste anyones time? I mean really. I ready somewhere on the internet and don't quote me on this, that most griefers are 10 yr old boys with anger issues.

Nuff Said. Zero Tolerance. No maybe rules. Have absolute rules, and stick to them!

Well, my opinion. . .
1. Minecraft is a game.
2. Playing games is not illegal, no matter how you play them. (ex. choosing to greif something)

Griefing is not illegal, seeing as how you do not own those blocks. They are virtual. You own a server, not those blocks.

Greifing is not vandalism, minecaft is just a game

Depends. If the person asks them to 'fix it up' then it doesn't; but then its called 'improving', just like graffi, when it is called 'street art' (looks real nice )

It also depends on whenever the person likes it that way as well.

However, it is vandalism (no questions asked) when the people do it for 'fun', against the owners rules. We all know the basic one: someone walks by and, after checks that no-ones around, blows up stuff and steals some blocks (most common in survival and pvp servers; it happened so badly to me that now I only play on servers with the factions plugin so I can protect my land ).

As you can see, it can be varied depending on the situation.

Of cause, the closest you can get to punishing the griefer is to tell the admins. And if its one of the admins, then there's near-nothing you can do about it. However, please always remember that your 'work of art' belongs to the owner of the server, and if you really want to keep it, you'll need to do it the old fashioned way: build it block-by-block on on of your survival maps

-.- When I said terrorism I meant to reference the destruction of buildings/structures/etc.

Thanks for that. You might as well lock this thread now. You have all been really helpful.

Zaleph, Paril, I don't think it could have been said any better.

ZalephCan the artist take legal action against them? I say "No," and I say it very strongly, because the true owner of the blocks and pixels and data of that server is the server owner.

I agree with pretty much everything except for this. This would imply that anything we do on computers is not our property, but is in fact the property of those who provide us the framework to produce our content (our motherboard manufacturers, our video cards, etc etc) or interfaces (OpenGL, DirectX, etc etc). I do believe that the creator of a work has every right to it. Whether legal action COULD be taken is probably a no, because no court will take you seriously.

Consider this scenario:
You're contracted by a game company to do some concept work for them. You reach their office, and they ask you to do some sketches of x for them while you're there so they can see what you can do. They never gave you anything to sign, they just want to see what you can produce and how you work. Once finished, you hand the work to them, they tell you they will be in contact after they look it over. You never receive anything back from them, and next thing you know they've released the sketches you made as official artwork on their website and are now profiting off of it.

In this case, you could indeed build a legal case against them and have your work removed/returned to you. Replace all of this with a Minecraft build on a Minecraft server, and suddenly, you can't build a legal case against them because it's Minecraft. No court or lawyer is going to accept this kind of case because it's ridiculous.

-P

I think the word "vandalism" is a bit extreme when someone refers to griefing on a server. The main reason I say that is because the essence of your creation lies not in blocks or bits and bytes that make up the game itself, but the IDEA that resides in your mind. You cannot "vandalize" and idea, and you most certainly cannot erase or "grief" something artistic from any individuals minds, per say.
It's absurd to ask law enforcement to protect our "ideas," when it's not something they can protect anyway.
Griefing on a server is unfortunate, but by using that particular server, you are already putting your creations in the hands of the server owner, and anything that happens to the server computer can ultimately determine whether your creation lives or dies, virtually speaking. What if the owner intentionally shuts down a server, and someone loses something that they consider "art" on said server? Can the artist take legal action against them? I say "No," and I say it very strongly, because the true owner of the blocks and pixels and data of that server is the server owner. The creation itself and the IDEAS that it may inspire may have originated from the artist/builder, but the fact of the matter is that it's arrogant to say you have the right to take legal action again against a "griefer" when you don't even own the workspace to begin with. Vandalism is a matter of damaged property, not ideas. So the closest thing to "legal protection" that you're going to get is copyrighting your work.

Terrorism is vandalism... obviously it wouldn't be called "vandalism", they probably wouldn't get that noted in the court case because terrorism would be like multiple life sentences already, but you're vandalizing a piece of property that you don't own.

This thread in its entirety is pretty silly. Here's what it boils down to: Minecraft isn't real life. Consider it its own planet. Every server is its own country. The person who set up the server has every right to set in motion whatever laws, governments and ways of living that they want. If murdering is illegal, turn PvP off. If griefing is illegal, get an anti-griefing plugin or just ban those who grief. Kicking & banning (or jailing) are these countries' ways of sentencing people.

That's all it is. The question of "should it be considered vandalism" is up to the owner to decide. If you are asking this literally - as in, if there should be an amendment in the United States constitution that reads "You can't grief Minecraft servers", no, that's silly and it should not happen because it implies the government would actually have power to control private setups like this.

-P

If you say griefing is a form of vandalism...then you would have to call things like terrorism (IRL) vandalism, as well.

Which...is just a little weird.

i cant even get the cops to do anything about DDOS attack and you think there gonna care about griefers? just use towny or factions to let players self moderate griefing protection

Not vandalism but I think all mc players should have a system like mc bans ran by mojang and 3 or so strikes and mojang bans the account

I feel like this thread needs to be revived.

CLEAR

*Bump*

*cough* I have a law degree

Vandalism, yes. Illegal? No. Doesn't matter if it's art, or not. It's still just a game.

SuperSwagg_It's a good point. It should be illegall and vandilism. But people see it as a game. To understand you have to play minecraft and I doubt any person with a law degree will play minecraft...

Actually, WTFBlake has a law degree. But, still - It's a game, and (most) laws don't apply to games.

All countries! I demand you start making video game laws! NOW!

It is not illegal to grief. It might cause frustration however it is fun watching a masterpiece getting burned to blocks.