the morals

PORTLAND -- Local music fans and gamers alike were stunned early Tuesday morning by damning evidence of plagiarism posted on the blogosphere. According to preliminary reports, avid role-players and feared rock and roll band The Mortals stole the title of their newly released album (entitled The Warming Light of Dawn) from an online interactive role-playing game set in the Lord of the Rings universe.

Here is the passage from the game which sparked the controversy:

The young knight glances around him, as the rising sun begins to thaw the shadows of night. "Mournful, like the White City itself."

Now Thorondur nods in agreement, allowing the warming light of dawn to cast his face and form in its scarlet-limned brilliance. "Yet for the White City there yet remains hope," he says firmly. "So long as Faramir lives, at least. Boromir, too, is a mighty man, but 'tis Denethor's second son I love better."

The Mortals now find themselves in a firestorm of controversy.

"It's just not right," said Chad "Elfstalker" Bunson (Level 16 Orcish Rogue) spokesperson for the League Of Secondary Education Roleplayers, a college gaming group, "there are conventions regarding intellectual property rights in gaming circles, and this goes against all of them. It really exposes these guys for the frauds they are, trying to piggy-back on the success of gaming by pretending to be something they're not."

But many gamers weren't as quick to persecute The Mortals for what some view as a breach of gaming ethics.

"It doesn't really matter, you know?" opined Marty "Thornock" Blaustein (Level 13 Dwarf Priest, pictured above), "The important thing is that their music rocks and that they play by the second edition ruleset."