EVE General Discussion

Just be sure you cash out before the 7th.

Since you are demonstrating a complete lack of familiarity with the timeline of discussions on this issue it would probably be better if you stopped posting about who started what. TMC's contribution to this debate has been significant, in that it published the leaked mails concerning the Ishukone Watch scorpions but that is not the main point at issue. The main issues predated that leak by quite a long period and were concerned with CCP's own announcements about the extremely high value gifts they were giving Somer to give away and the bizarre spectacle of CCP developers claiming to have audited the previous financial transactions of an in-game business and pronouncing it fully trustworthy to date. The I-Watch scorps were just an additional cherry on the top of that steaming dump in the sandbox, increasing the value of CCP's total gifts to Somer but not actually introducing any new problems (well, except the inept responses from CCP claiming that despite having a market value of 20 billion, the scorps were only really worth 1 piece of trit each). The more recent stuff about RMT has also not been spurred by TMC, having developed fully on the forums and with the critical extra fuel provided by another blogger who contacted Shattered Crystal and found out the scale of Somer's RMT earnings, categorically refuting the claim that this was just money for hosting an ingame service. True, TMC did leach off that blogger and repost his work but they were hardly the instigators of the discussion.

In short, while I happilly grr goons myself from time to time, they didn't really have any role in starting the present discussion and they have not been the main contributors to keeping it going. Now, the question of whether TMC (and other news sites) should be able to pay isk for articles while generating a revenue beyond the hosting cost is a good on and that needs to be looked at too. The fact that this is also a controversial topic, however, does nothing to diminish the controversy over Somer's operations.

Lmao, as subtle as a brick to the face, I love it.

No as the entry is free.

This part may already be illlegal now (in terms of an EULA violation, not as in breaking government laws):

(italics added for emphasis)

I don't think there is any argument that the operation run by "Marcus Eikenberry aka Markee Dragon" is not a business; he is a direct GTC reseller, not an affiliate like SOMER Blink, and he operates a business across multiple online games.

In order to appear in game as promised means he has to be using an EVE account. So the question becomes whether this constitutes using an EVE game account to promote or facilitate a business?

That's a judgement I'm probably not qualified to make, but it is an interesting situation to consider.

I don't see where a payment of ISK is required in order to qualify as business activity. The question is whether the account is being "used for business purposes," if it is a "business entity," or is "acting on behalf of a business." If Coca-Cola created an EVE account and used it to promote their out-of-game products, that would violate this clause without a single ISK trading hands.

Personally, I think that mentioning an in-game appearance by a character in what amounts to a promotional advertisement for a business crosses the line of using the account only "for your personal entertainment, enjoyment and recreation." But again, that's not my call to make; I merely point it out as a potential issue to consider.