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quote:If you don't see the difference I don't know what to tell you. fishmech posted:There is absolutely no difference between them.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:07
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hot take: copyright protections should be seriously weakened
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Apr 8, 2019 19:00
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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While one would have a hard time finding anyone more anti-corporate and anti-capitalism than me, I'm going to try and be the voice of reason here. The proliferation of digital media, particularly games, is very new. In many ways, it is in the vanguard of the post-scarcity world that we all hope to see someday. Put another way, we have an existing, very sophisticated infrastructure that can infinitely replicate and send, at little to no incremental cost, the fruits of human labour over very long distances at incredible speeds. The problem is that human beings, due to living in societies obsessed with so-called "property rights", are not equipped mentally and socially for this phenomenon. We look at everything as being someone's possession which nobody else can use without the owner's consent, usually in the form of a purchase, but the problem with digital information is that it breaks the mould. If I am a farmer who grows and sells aubergines (aka eggplants - I just really like them -yum yum-), my labour and investment produces a finite number of purple vegetables. If I want to produce more to sell, I have to invest more money into equipment and seeds as well as more labour. This is equally true in terms of printing books, another thing that is now infinitely reproducible thanks to ebooks, producing cartridge or media-based games, which is becoming less and less relevant, and any other product where there is a direct cost + effort correlation between labour and output. As I said, though, digital media of all kinds breaks the mould: Now I, as a content creator, make a fixed investment for something that can be infinitely recreated at no cost. I hope one day that everything will be infinitely creatable with no cost, but that's as may be. Now we come to the proposed ethical dilemma. Putting aside the ethics or lack thereof in capitalism, "theft", however one defines it, is illegal and considered immoral not because of the acquiring of goods, but because of the taking. If acquiring were wrong, people would not be able to purchase, exchange or receive as a gift anything that they did not make with their own hands. Needless to say, that's not practical. However, we now have the ability to, again, replicate something over and over as much as we want without depriving anyone of that thing. Imagine that you had a magical gun that could duplicate down to the atomic level any small object, and you used it on a very interesting book that someone left sitting out while they went to the bathroom or something. You now have a copy of that book without depriving the owner in any way. The owner of original book could hardly claim to be a victim of theft, and any tentative to pursue justice wouldn't have much chance of succeeding. In brief, the book copier received without taking anything away from anyone. This is becoming more and more the case and we, as a society, aren't really prepared to deal with it. With digital media, we also run into the obvious fallacy promoted by big money interests that anyone who pirates something would have bought a copy had they been unable to pirate it. This is utter nonsense, but let's skip it for now. I realise fully that digital content producers, from giant companies full of assholes like EA down to small teams and individuals that create lower-budget games, have to make money, but again we have the "infinite reproducibility" issue... with the exception of games like WoW that require staff, servers and the like. That's the vast minority of games, however, so the question is: What do we do when a company "owns" something that is essentially an idea made of ones and zeroes and can be duplicated ad infinitum without taking anything from anyone? Well, one of the things that I fear most is that games and many other things are going to become more and more inaccessible because companies do not care about preserving the past. This can happen because it is either unprofitable to continue to offer those products and/or they are afraid that it will take away attention and sales from more recent products. This is especially worrisome with console games for obvious reasons, but computer games are not immune. Not that this will genuinely change anything, but I am of the belief that "abandonware" should be a legal classification which distinctly says that a digital product can be freely distributed, but not sold, by the public provided that the creators no longer care to make that intellectual property available on an active platform. As mentioned, GOG has brought back many games, usually at very low prices, that were once torrent bait and nothing else. As GOG generally makes old games work very easily on modern PCs and personal computers are widely available, this seems to me a reasonable compromise. However, if the owners of an IP such as No One Lives Forever do not care to figure out who owns what and sell it, then I see no reasonable argument that should make it illegal for people to freely replicate and distribute that software so long as these people are not making money off of it. As another example, Dolphin is a GC/Wii emulator and one of the most impressive feats of software that I have ever seen. At the same time, neither Gamecubes nor Wiis nor Wii Us are made anymore because it's not in Nintendo's financial interests to do so. They can be had on the secondhand market, which is totally legal as it bloody well should be, but this brings no revenue to Nintendo because they already sold the console in the first place - they made their profit from the non-infinite item that they made. That being the case, if someone wants to emulate an .iso of a Gamecube game that cannot be purchased from the creator and Nintendo does not care to make that game available, I am baffled why people object to the non-profit distribution and sharing of that game. If the owner of the infinitely copyable software doesn't care to sell it, I find it indefensible to demand that people not enjoy that product. I realise that this does raise some grey areas but, to me, that's what "abandonware" should be.
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Apr 9, 2019 00:49
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suck my woke dick posted:hot take: copyright protections should be seriously weakened
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Apr 9, 2019 04:51
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suck my woke dick posted:hot take: copyright protections should be seriously weakened Not my idea, but I've read proposals where you allow a period of 7, 10, 14, or whatever years, and then every X years you have to pay $Y to maintain the copyright, or the work enters the public domain. Where $Y increases by some percentage every time it comes back up for renewal, so it's more and more expensive the longer you maintain the copyright. This way if Disney wants to pay some ridiculous sum to retain ownership of original Star Wars for the next 50 years, they can go nuts, but at least we're collecting millions in revenue from them that can be used to fund the welfare state. The Public gets something either way in exchange for granting the copyright.
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Apr 9, 2019 04:59
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I don't see any particular reason we need to shorten protection of the commercial rights. Things just need to be refocused to be about blocking profitmaking using other people's IP, which was the original purpose. It would be kinda cool if more fields of endeavor had managed to have rules put in place like how it's very easy and cheap to do musical covers, and we could do with easing of rights for things like sampling. But like keep in mind you can drop the copyright for Star Wars tomorrow morning and it won't mean everyone can go and use all the star wars stuff however they want. You would still run up against a ton of trademark violations Disney could rightfully get you on.
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Apr 9, 2019 05:08
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Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:Not my idea, but I've read proposals where you allow a period of 7, 10, 14, or whatever years, and then every X years you have to pay $Y to maintain the copyright, or the work enters the public domain. Where $Y increases by some percentage every time it comes back up for renewal, so it's more and more expensive the longer you maintain the copyright. what if I'm not disney? got any bright ideas for maintaining a copyright without a billion dollars at my disposal? im honestly offended at how terrible that idea is
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Apr 9, 2019 05:25
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Pakistani Brad Pitt posted:Not my idea, but I've read proposals where you allow a period of 7, 10, 14, or whatever years, and then every X years you have to pay $Y to maintain the copyright, or the work enters the public domain. Where $Y increases by some percentage every time it comes back up for renewal, so it's more and more expensive the longer you maintain the copyright. So we codify billionaire corporations buying their way out of the public domain? Sounds like a great way to give entrenched media companies yet another advantage over smaller competitors. Copyright either is or is not a good idea. I'm not sure how "extended copyright for the 1% but nobody else" is in the public's interest.
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Apr 9, 2019 05:35
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Clearly you’d need some way to appraise the value of the intellectual property, and to scale the renewal fee accordingly. Think like property tax on a mansion versus a bungalow. Some indie developer’s hobby project would be orders of magnitude cheaper to renew than Grand Theft Auto
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Apr 9, 2019 07:18
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I would be in favor of that if the numbers were something like “enters the public donain unless you have $5 after 15 years, enters the public domain unless you have $20bn after 20 years, $50tn for 25 years.” A fiver is proof that you’re paying attention and an extra 5 years is fine.
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Apr 9, 2019 12:48
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The original copyright was for 15 years, I think. We could set it to 20 years, with the option of two active renewals for 60 years total coverage and then it is forced into the public domain. Failure to renew one of those two times forces it into the public domain as well.
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Apr 9, 2019 12:51
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20 years works fine for patents so I don't really see why it wouldn't for copyright. Does anyone think authors writing books or devs making games are really counting on revenue from a work 25 or 30 years down the line?
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Apr 9, 2019 13:02
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Unoriginal Name posted:what if I'm not disney? got any bright ideas for maintaining a copyright without a billion dollars at my disposal? If your property is still generating income, you can use that income to pay to renew the copyright and then continue making money off it. Honestly, a sliding-scale is probably ideal, as long as it's logarithmic so eventually I can write my Gone with the Wind/Star Wars crossover. It's also worth noting, we had a whole thread about this: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3876355 ryonguy posted:And an automatic pubic domain release on death of the author. Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 13:04
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And an automatic pubic domain release on death of the author. Yes, there will be unfortunate edge cases where they die young and it would have provided for their family, but it is far, far more likely to simply enrich persons with no connection to the work.
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Apr 9, 2019 13:05
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ryonguy posted:And an automatic pubic domain release on death of the author. Yes, there will be unfortunate edge cases where they die young and it would have provided for their family, but it is far, far more likely to simply enrich persons with no connection to the work. What about posthumous publication?
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Apr 9, 2019 13:06
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Cicero posted:20 years works fine for patents so I don't really see why it wouldn't for copyright. Does anyone think authors writing books or devs making games are really counting on revenue from a work 25 or 30 years down the line? It does seem like you might consider a different kind of logic for things that are essentially created alone, like most books, vs things that are created (and funded) in groups, like video games. Not sure exactly where to draw the line. On the other hand, I'm guessing the vast majority of books have a single printing only and the copyright length is totally irrelevant. So basically the only authors you'd really be hurting by restricting the copyright on their works are the already well off ones. On the other-other hand, many of the barriers to small print runs and digital copies have been eradicated, so now when copyright reverts to authors they could significantly cut prices in order to earn something from their work. If authors don't retain copyright for a long time then most likely you'll see some company that basically mass reproduces old books and sells them for a minimal fee, cutting the original artist out entirely. In conclusion, the internet is a land of contrasts.
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Apr 9, 2019 13:07
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20 years after death seems reasonable. But even 60 years after death would be an enormous improvement compared to now, where it's essentially unlimited because copyright gets extended every few years.
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Apr 9, 2019 13:33
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Nationalize Star Wars, imo
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Apr 9, 2019 13:44
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Ghost Leviathan posted:What about posthumous publication? The author is dead, what do they care?
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Apr 9, 2019 13:44
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Death of Author is one of those things that makes sense, but is so variable that it is inherently unfair. I think that 30 years after initial publication or so would be much preferable. That way you don't have to worry about your family getting screwed out of what they deserve if you die suddenly, but also there is a known end that you can financially plan for no matter what happens. 30 years is a good chunk of the average persons working life time at a job, so that seems like a reasonable benchmark.
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Apr 9, 2019 13:57
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20 years, and then you can actively renew it, but any income is taxes at 100%. That means your Mary Sue-Wifu can provide for you for 20 years and then things go full deviant art Original Character (DO NOT STEAL) until your death.
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Apr 9, 2019 14:09
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duz posted:The author is dead, what do they care? What would you say about Christopher Tolkien? Presumably he spent a great deal of time going through notes, editing and filling in gaps before publishing several books.
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Apr 9, 2019 14:29
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Solkanar512 posted:What would you say about Christopher Tolkien? Presumably he spent a great deal of time going through notes, editing and filling in gaps before publishing several books. Derivative work has its own protection. Presumably, he didn't release the original unedited work.
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Apr 9, 2019 14:40
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Lambert posted:20 years after death seems reasonable. But even 60 years after death would be an enormous improvement compared to now, where it's essentially unlimited because copyright gets extended every few years. 20 years after publication or 60 years after publication. 60 years after death isn't far off from what we actually have now. Death of creator shouldn't matter. Except if they are dead they can't file for renewal. And I was being generous above with two renewals. I'd rather it be a single 20 year copyright that you can extend once and then forced into public domain. So 40 years maximum coverage.
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Apr 9, 2019 14:43
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The problem with all these plans is like, who even is the author of most stuff anymore? Who is the author of avengers endgame? or assassin's creed 4? If someone killed Chris Metzen does every blizzard game become public domain because he is the author? Did todd howard personally author skyrim? Does "it's raining men" become public domain when paul schafer dies? Single author books are the only thing currently that is normal to have a single sole author that is connected in a simple way to the work. But like, fiction novel copyright is very rarely what people are talking about. most all media now is massive webs of group effort. Even book series with multiple authors, would it go to public domain if one author dies or would just book 12? What if all the books are ghost written?
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Apr 9, 2019 14:47
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I know it's ooc and all, but the library of congress' copyright search works fine. Marvel Films, Ubisoft Entertainment, Blizzard Entertainment, Bethesda Softworks.
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Apr 9, 2019 14:57
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Do we not already allow a business to own stuff?
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Apr 9, 2019 15:25
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:The problem with all these plans is like, who even is the author of most stuff anymore? Who is the author of avengers endgame? or assassin's creed 4? If someone killed Chris Metzen does every blizzard game become public domain because he is the author? Did todd howard personally author skyrim? Maybe actual authors i.e. real people, should be extended different (better) courtesies than corporate authors i.e. money.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:47
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pseudanonymous posted:Maybe actual authors i.e. real people, should be extended different (better) courtesies than corporate authors i.e. money. Ah, so you would give greater rights to an established independent author like Stephen King and lesser rights to most authors who are stuck on contract work for publishing houses and similar entities.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:50
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fishmech posted:Ah, so you would give greater rights to an established independent author like Stephen King and lesser rights to most authors who are stuck on contract work for publishing houses and similar entities. Thanks, I needed a Tucker Carlson style clown show, wasn't have a great morning and you made me laugh.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:58
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duz posted:I know it's ooc and all, but the library of congress' copyright search works fine. Marvel Films, Ubisoft Entertainment, Blizzard Entertainment, Bethesda Softworks. I... I wasn't claiming that who owns the copyright is some unknowable mystery. I was saying that the vigorous debate people were having saying it should be 60 years or 50 years or 20+30 years or 20+60 years past the death of the author are all pretty silly since most media isn't copyrighted to an "author" that is a human person, and stuff like wow is copyrightted to "Davidson & Associates, Inc., employer for hire." not any person or entity you'd think of as an author, while tying it to the 'author" of Chris Metzen (the proclaimed "writer") is equally silly.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:18
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I... I wasn't claiming that who owns the copyright is some unknowable mystery. I was saying that the vigorous debate people were having saying it should be 60 years or 50 years or 20+30 years or 20+60 years past the death of the author are all pretty silly since most media isn't copyrighted to an "author" that is a human person, and stuff like wow is copyrightted to "Davidson & Associates, Inc., employer for hire." not any person or entity you'd think of as an author, while tying it to the 'author" of Chris Metzen (the proclaimed "writer") is equally silly. Yeah, honestly that's why it should just be twenty years, no exceptions or extensions. Wanna keep making money off your IP? Make new poo poo. But the spirit of public domain is completely broken when you're talking about stuff going 60 years and beyond.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:22
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I... I wasn't claiming that who owns the copyright is some unknowable mystery. I was saying that the vigorous debate people were having saying it should be 60 years or 50 years or 20+30 years or 20+60 years past the death of the author are all pretty silly since most media isn't copyrighted to an "author" that is a human person, and stuff like wow is copyrightted to "Davidson & Associates, Inc., employer for hire." not any person or entity you'd think of as an author, while tying it to the 'author" of Chris Metzen (the proclaimed "writer") is equally silly. This depends on the country. In most (all?) of Europe, corporations can't hold copyright - just usage rights. It's why a set time after publication for copyright to expire probably makes the most sense.
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Apr 9, 2019 16:49
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Corporate works already have a set term.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:07
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fishmech posted:Corporate works already have a set term. I realize that. But this would simplify the process, especially for international works where a database may not be easily accessible.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:17
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Lambert posted:I realize that. But this would simplify the process, especially for international works where a database may not be easily accessible. What are you trying to get at with international works? Each country already maintains different enforcement. And if the country you're in doesn't have any accurate data for a work's ownership, that owner would need to establish it on their own to make use of copyright law.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:42
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fishmech posted:What are you trying to get at with international works? Each country already maintains different enforcement. And if the country you're in doesn't have any accurate data for a work's ownership, that owner would need to establish it on their own to make use of copyright law. What I'm getting at is that a blanket rule of "x years after publication", for example, would greatly simplify the process of ascertaining whether a specific copyrighted work is in the public domain or not. Especially for works not produced in the US. I realize it's never going to happen because copyright law seems to know only one direction, but a person can dream.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:16
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Lambert posted:What I'm getting at is that a blanket rule of "x years after publication", for example, would greatly simplify the process of ascertaining whether a specific copyrighted work is in the public domain or not. Especially for works not produced in the US. We already have a clear place to find if something is copyrighted in the US: ask the United States Copyright Office. They've got all the records for registered works. They'll also tell you if things are in the public domain.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:23
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fishmech posted:We already have a clear place to find if something is copyrighted in the US: ask the United States Copyright Office. They've got all the records for registered works. They'll also tell you if things are in the public domain. Goddamn we're pointing out the copyright process/system is overly protective of corporate interests you dense gently caress.
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Apr 9, 2019 18:57
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ryonguy posted:Goddamn we're pointing out the copyright process/system is overly protective of corporate interests you dense gently caress. You're not though. It's equally as protective of whatever you publish. Also "making it easier to look up if something is public domain" has absolutely nothing to do with "corporate interests" either?
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Apr 9, 2019 19:58
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