Wording is important here, My assessment is PP's own the intelectual property that is there planet and items of course, They however do not own the individual items themselves though just as you or i don't techincally own the rights to any item in our inventories meaning the owner of those particular deeds is Mindark.
Well, regarding the items in our inventory, the EULA says one thing, but MindArk's actions when pressed with a lawsuit say something else.... Examples would be the last couple liquidation auctions along with statements made by MindArk that went with them.
My (limited) understanding of the contract the PPs have with MA, a Planet Partner does own their planet and properties on it... As long as the PP stays compliant with that contract. Now, as far as a gun or something created by them but introduced into the economy through the loot system, no, those items I would say that they don't own. How could they? Guns, armor, weapons, blueprints, mining tools, etc are all simply mechanisms to create TT turnover and decay.
Seeing as how the deeds in question were Land Areas, I think it's safe to assume that they were in fact owned by Next Island. However, just because they "owned" those land areas, does not mean they were free to introduce them into the game's economy by transferring them to an individual player whether it be by sale, auction, payment, gift, or whatever.
There isn't a scenario where these Land Areas could have been created without MindArk's knowledge. From what I can tell, MindArk knew of them to simply be for PP held special events....similar to how MindArk owns a non-taxed land area and puts Eomon on it.
I hate to build on assumptions, but we can only assume that the policies in place now were also in place back then, and as a result, the unauthorized transfer of those deeds, was simply an unauthorized transfer... Possibly a breach of contract. The Next Island staff should have knew better, but it's plausible there was a breakdown in communication.
Regardless if there was or not, when NI gave those deeds to Marius, MindArk should have intervened then and sent Marius back to David Post and Meg for acceptable payment for services rendered.
But for whatever reason, MindArk did not do that. Instead they entertained Marius' support cases as he tried to persuade MindArk to activate the Land Areas. Then, Marius sold the deeds to Narfi, and then Narfi sold to Fatal.
So because MindArk failed to act upon the initial transfer to Marius, they are at least partially responsible for the subsequent resales to Narfi and then Fatal.
Because of that and because EU as whole is MindArk's responsibility, it thereby is MindArk's responsibility to resolve this in a satisfactory way.... Especially since the people who originally created this problem (Next Island owners) are no longer involved in EU or their planet. At this point, this late in the game, I believe it's wrong for MindArk support to try and pawn this off on David Post... Especially because the man can not be reached and isn't involved anymore and they know that.
This issue will give only bad reputation to the game ....
If MA
took over NI why they say to Narfi to speak with David Post(?!)....
It is obviously that NI has no dev team at all since 2012 (!?)
So how we get in contact with someone who does not want to be anymore a PP(?!)
Exactly right.