Pirates moan about getting pirated

Copyright already has this notion built in.
Think of it like a single crop rather than the art of farming.

An overwhelming majority of manifested ideas also have a time limit (the best you could do is the bible and shakespeare, one which was given freely to the public domain as was their right). The underlying ideas do not and are free of copyright. Your analogy holds no water.

Obviously why gold and land have so little value.

yes which is covered by copyright law. Ideas are not copyrighted. Inspiration is not copyright. Manifestation IS copyright.

You are free to make a FPS involving colonial marines uncovering a hell spawn. Yes, you really are. You can do it right now. Right this instant. No one will bother you at all. Not one little bit. How is this possible? Why it's copyright law. You are free to use ideas as much you want. You just cannot copy the manifestation of an idea. Which means you can't call it DOOM, and you can't use the manifested ideas that constitute the design and implementation of the protagonists. That is someone else's work and you can't have it.

Yes and there is a body of work that provided the inspiration and ideas for ID when they developed DOOM. Nothing new under the sun and all that....Oh except their manifestation of it.

Yes it is, but everything worthwhile in life is. That's what gives it value and makes people want to exchange value for it.

And the ideas that are presented by it are freely malleable to those that follow. In musical terms it's what bands call their "influences", but no one is suggesting that I can take a beatles album, copy it and call it my own. Do they?

That was the proposition I put to you. Why?

You still haven't told me why the manifestation of an idea is different to a bookshelf. The idea is the design on an object that can hold books which is manifest in a bookshelf. The idea of it is not protected, just the manifestation. Explain to me why this is different. You keep using the example of abstract ideas. These are no protected by copyright.

Orphaned works I agree is an issue and potentially detrimental to society. That is why I suggest that there should be an exploitation clause. Use it or lose it.

I am also happy to drop the derivative work clause after a time. Not the actual manifested idea, but the right to make a derivative of it. I would expect that such a thing occur after a reasonable time for the original owner to exploit such derivatives (e.g lifetime of the author).

I suspect such a time in the modern gaming world is quite some time off and certainly longer than a lifetime.

The first reasonable argument. I would suggest however that the copyright concept of idea vs manifestation, still clarifies this. In the original context of this argument, how does this apply to copying a COD4 ISO?

Quite likely and probably sooner than the current expiration of copyright.

Fair call. This might be a very reasonable solution.

They'd have to take them seriously to begin with to stop doing so.

 

Piracy rate is not a meaningful statistic.

A restaurant lets people eat free for 1 day, and 12,000 people take up the offer...
- the restaurant has taken a loss equal to the cost of producing/serving those 12,000 meals.

However, in digital terms the statistic would instead be interpreted that the restaurant has lost "12,000 potential sales"... which is complete nonsense.

(the game itself is not bad - similar to "game dev story", although the UI "needs work")

 

I suggest you read the thread. In this instance it is entirely the restaurant's choice to give those meals away.
What if the 12000 people come and stole the meals from the restaurant? They could easily argue that if they couldn't steal the food they wouldn't of eaten there.

 

That rule, can be applied to everything.
And as a rule, we all occasionally break it.
In my case, I break it consciously. I am a "demo thief".
There is a huge gap between being a "demo thief" and being someone that believes that "everything must go exactly my way, right now, and nobody else matters".

In the days of Napster, I used to download music. I was twenty and without a job.
I know it was illegal, I’m in no way going to beat myself about it.
When I got a job, I simply never did it again.
I’m minimizing the risk I should take as a consumer. I won’t beat myself about it either.
In the strict sense of the rule, I’m as immoral as a person that said a white lie, or a person that killed the ice-cream vendor to get free ice-cream.

If I wanted to lie, I wouldn’t admit to downloading any game, at all.

 

Quite humorous joke aside (I laughed, but not out loud for the record ), There is a civilisation long list of anecdotes about the danger of a white lie, and how there is no such thing. In your case there may be no lasting damage in your actions, but there certainly is in your attitude. It propagates the idea that copyright law is something that is not a real law, or pirating is a victimless crime. Your attitude unfortunately feeds those that do not behave the way you do. It gives them comfort in what they do. It reinforces the concept that copyright law is flexible and not a real enforceable thing.

 

In a normal restaurant a meal costs $4 to make/serve and sells for $12.
In a digital restaurant the recipe cost $1000, the copies cost $0 and sell for $12.

- if you steal a normal meal, the restaurant directly loses the $4 cost of production, and the potential profit from the $12 sale to a non-thief.

- if you steal a digital copy, the restaurant directly loses $0 and since the copy is virtual, it does not lose the potential profit from selling that meal to another customer.

The only meaningful category is "people who would have purchased the meal, but didn't because they stole it". But that is not a statistic that is ever calculated/estimated...

(and even that figure does fall into the trap whereby: 'if customer A pays $40 for game #1, then they will not have $40 to spend on game #2')

 

Your example is so full of holes, it wouldn't hold a decent bowl of spaghetti.

1) A recipe is a process and so protected by patent law. completely different argument.

2) that's all, your argument is based on patent law. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

How exactly is that a trap?

 

But then if only one person buys a legal meal from the digital restaurant, they have made a loss of $988, leaving them without enough funds to design the next recipe. I'm not sure saying that software piracy is okay because you can't calculate how many people would have paid if the pirated version didn't exist is a particularly valid argument. The company made less money than they would have if piracy didn't exist, so it is probably a bad thing.

So If I can't afford to buy game #1 AND game #2, I shouldn't pay for either, assuming that game #3 will also exist at some point in the future

 

No, apparently. They would only check them out, playing them until they can know for sure that it's what they want. Of course it's only reasonable they should create a new license and seed the content for others so they too can determine if it is worthwhile. You know, exactly how you get to do the same with a new kitchen, swimming pool or car.

 

Your analogy is wrong. It's fine if a restaurant or software developer CHOOSES to give away something for free for a limited time in the hopes that it'll boost sales in the future. Whether that is future titles or future food items or whatever. Sales achieve a similar effect. It's a risk you take that could backfire if it doesn't generate enough effect for potential sales lost. But it's a risk you CHOOSE to take, versus some stranger FORCING you to do it. One is called freedom, the other could be considered slavery, extortion, thievery, whatever.

Now, what is the equivalent of piracy is if someone goes into a restaurant and consumes some quantity of food. Then they just walk out of the restaurant without paying. This happens. Back in the early 90's when I lived in Los Angeles, I knew quite a few people that would do this whenever they thought they wouldn't be caught.

If it doesn't happen a lot the restaurant can absorb the cost by increasing the cost of food items for all customers. So the people that legally pay for their meal end up paying for the people that are stealing/pirating their meals.

If it happens so much that the restaurant is either forced to increase prices beyond what the public will pay or reduce the quality of their food in order to keep prices acceptable, then they may end up going out of business.

It's quite similar to pirating, just on a much smaller scale as it's a bit harder to do repeatedly without eventually being caught.

Regards,
SB

 

They are among the best examples in terms of influence and how they were recorded.
Shakespeare's works both drew from existing works, such as the character he named Othello, and became public domain.
I could expound on why a few gospels or the Book of Mormon would have not have been served well if text analysis were a thing back in the day. The texts that weren't included in the finalized New Testament would have been an interesting conundrum. Purveyors of those products were prosecuted for different offenses at the time, for a different reason.
The likely developmental history of what we no know as the works of Homer was that it drew from longstanding oral traditions, and went through some period of reworking--if we gloss over the whole authorship/existence question for Homer. The versions we know might have been considered an abandoned work by the time what we conveniently call the official version was set down.

For better or worse, a huge chunk of Western literary history that is already replete with rip-offs of contemporary works would be seriously challenged if there were strictures that spanned centuries.

Gold and land don't need clerical work to maintain, but my point was that we wouldn't be debating copyright terms that go until forever if the subject had a built-in time limit.
Granted a possible exception on the sustaining of land is ocean-front property or a plot on a barrier island.

That brings back memories.
People hacked and modded the heck out that thing (pretty sure the ones I saw were the original or the second).
It was an interesting time.
In the space of 20 years, people could mess around with and share an FPS, and we could see if they wound up being the originator of a seminal game type, an employee of Id or Valve, or sitting in federal court.

Difficult to monetize in modern corporate lobbying parlance is something that should be made illegal.

I'm not sure about the lyrics, but if you want the melody and general composition, pay a fee and send a few notices to the appropraite owner and organizations, and it's possible.
A literal copy of the recording wouldn't fly, and I don't think there are software cover bands.

The first component is that perpetuity is a long time.
In the US, the default is that anything copyrightable has a default state of being copyrighted, hence the burgeoning orphan works problem and an unbounded scope to the space that such litigation can entail.
The next is that copyright protections are so fluidly assigned and so pervasive, that it is uncertain at any time what act constitutes infringing. Copying? Buffering in RAM? Linking? Future-holo-tech-thingabobing?
Copyright suits for works whose authors still live are multibillion dollar struggles, either over copyright or being fought as a part of overall corporate strategy to debilitate competitors, such as the near-miss where Oracle tried to make the act of using an API call infringing to the tune of billions of dollars.
Due to the DMCA's safe harbor provision not applying to works before 1972, user-generated content sites in compliance with the DMCA are again in the crosshairs, about 8 years since youtube started.
Google's book archival effort has resulted in over $100 million in fines, a rights database requirement, and still there are parties disputing this.
This is for authors who are still alive and work made in the last 50 years.
TV shows are already paranoid about what their staff are exposed to or admit to seeing, for fear of someone coming out the woodwork and claiming they ripped off their work--for people still living, not their great-grandparents.

The actual works themselves are abstract objects, which is why I label them ideas. The arrangment of magnetic domains on a disc isn't the instantiation being debated.
A physical object, aside from being subject to wear and tear, doesn't need further effort to maintain the legal status of being someone's bookshelf. By saying there should be an exploitation requirement, we are admitting that the copyrighted work can do something a bookshelf doesn't do.

Mere copying isn't my primary focus, although I do see the utility of some kind of sunset provision even here for the sake of archival and historical purposes. The media can degrade like a bookshelf, but we can also lose access to digital goods once the DRM-formatted formats, ISAs, and equipment fall into disuse.
It's a problem even without DRM, but various choices in relation to it can accellerate the loss.

The move to ephemeral creative industry has lead to a backsliding in our ability to archive it, especially since things like DRM are designed to make it inaccessible faster.

 

The whole line of the discussion between you and MrFloopy has been interesting, but I just wanted to jump back and address this specific case.

There have been many derivative works based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Including being a trilogy. One particular trilogy that I can't remember the name of (read it over 2 decades ago in the 80's) even featured "small" people like Hobbits but not called Hobbits. A Wizard that wasn't called Gandalf. A King who wasn't King not called Aragorn. An elf and a dwarf. A perilous journey through an underground labyrinth (can't remember if it was an abandoned dwarven stronghold or not) with a large perilous enemy towards the end that they had to run away from. Etc.

There were some differences, like the "small" people originally left the shire that wasn't a shire due to large dire wolves (wargs that weren't wargs) intruding into their idyllic homes due to a winter that appeared like it wasn't going to end.

But just like the Hobbits were instrumental/destined to save all of Middle Earth, so too were these small people (really wish I could remember what they were called) instrumental/destined to saved the world this trilogy was set in.

Basically the minimum was changed (names and some minor plot details) in order to meet the minimum changes required to avoid a charge of plagiarism.

So, there's nothing that actually prevents anyone from using Tolkien's works as a base or even a framework for their idea of a story. Change some names. Alter a plot device here or there. And voila you can basically recreate the Lord of the Rings without fear of lawsuits.

I heard somewhere that something just has to be changed 20% or something along those lines to avoid something like that. And really if you are going to copy more than that, aren't you just plagiarizing rather than taking ideas and using those as a jumping point for your own story?

Regards,
SB

 

My contention is that there are influential chunks of Western literary history (I'm not so familiar with other traditions) that didn't jump through those hoops. I believe it's much bigger because it doesn't actively combat networking effects.
Some of the big copyright extenders wouldn't be mulitbillion dollar enterprises if they didn't have a public domain to appropriate and then copyright the result for 100+infinity years.

The informal generation process and the cultural impact is stronger if every other line doesn't have the footnote "it's something totally different, except that it isn't".
Folk tales, tall tales, cultural icons with national traditions in storytelling can form aggregations when all the countless authors pick the same constructs down the ages.

I'm of the opinion that the benefit of adding to and creating things for posterity is of great importance, whilst a specific author's claim to a given work dwindles. It becomes particularly knotty if a work becomes culturally and historically significant, and the very context around it incorporates it as human nature is wont to do.
I find the idea of telling a culture "what you've collectively dreamed and all you've become over the centuries can contact the historical copyright office pursuant to the copyright claims of author's sixth-generation descendant" silly.

 

I've no idea how you got that out of the argument. Consider that the 'recipe is public domain, the money was spent training the staff/making it taste nicer'.

My question is simply whether piracy statistics are a load of dressed up "bull manure"... and they are.

The analogy was only supposed to show that 'x people pirating my game means y'. It doesn't, regardless of what conclusion people want to draw.

In specific terms:
a) a game developer does not lose money to piracy due to loss of materials.
b) a game developer does not lose potential sales to piracy due to lack of stock hindering future sales.

-> the only loss for a developer/publisher from piracy is if the pirate was a genuine potential customer. (if the pirate would never have bought the game, then there is no potential 'loss').

Hence, piracy rates are nonsense. Whether piracy is good/bad/immoral is not something I am qualified to argue, my own view is that games should move towards a 'rental/buy' model (rent for N hours and the game is yours - with a subscription to allow players to play the first 0.5-1 hour of 'every game')... but I certainly spend more than enough on games.

For what it's worth I actually bought this game before learning about any of this (it was on a youtube channel and the game looked interesting). IMHO "the game needs work" (UI is poor, and the game lacks the 'cuteness' of game dev story)... it will also need a better method of advertising as I'd never heard of it before that video.

 

Frankly I don't see much point in all the argument about whether or not software piracy is right or wrong, or comparable or not to whatever forms of property theft. You're not going to convince a lot of people that they're wrong, much less will you convince them to change, and that's all that really matters...

There's been a lot of talk about how games have to move to heavy DRM, subscription fees, pay to play, etc. Not enough mention of the other obvious alternative, which is to crowdfund the games upfront. If you want a game to happen you pay for it before it does. If you really want the game you pay for it proportionately more. This is at least working in a few instances and I hope to see it catch on more. This allows much better balancing between what the developers should invest in vs what the fanbase is willing to pay, and much lower risk.

Another big benefit is that it gives more chances to franchises that have smaller but more devoted fanbases. All I, as an individual, can realistically do to support a game is buy one copy. With crowdsourcing I can pay much more, something I would definitely do for the right games.

The problem I can see game developers having with this is that some will want any game to be a potential opportunity to hit it big, where there could be an unbounded return on investment for their work by selling the thing indefinitely. Society has cultured this idea of a continual stream of income via royalties.. if there's something I think society needs to grow up on it's the attachment to this ideal. And this goes for a lot more than just software and media, pharmaceuticals are another big obvious one..

 

I think every issue you've raised can be addressed and still provide perpetual copyright for a manifested work either through existing provisions or the addition of the two following clauses.

1) A sunset on the restriction of derived works. - After X years, works may be derived from the original without fear or infringement. Solves the issues of fear that in 500 years time an author might create another Ned Stark.

2) Exploitation Clause. The protected work must be exploited for the perpetual claim to be valid. That may involve making it available for free while maintaining the right to charge again in the future. It just has to be available so it can't be horded.

 

Those sound reasonable to me.

 

No, but giving up really isn't an option either.

DRM and other prevention measures would not be necessary if we can change the culture of piracy. I doubt hardcore pirates will ever change but casual downloaders could be shown sense.

Lol, that's certainly a glass half full attitude!

Strictly speaking I can't see how development capital is raised affects piracy. There is perhaps the possibility that it may be an educational endeavor. People having a stake in the product may make them more aware of the issue. Since most crowd sourcing projects do not provide a return for the investment I'm not sure how effective this lesson is. Crowd sourcing is really just an advanced sale on the promise of a finished product.

 

Is it? You didn't mention that. So why doesn't the $1000 count in the real restaurant as well as the digital one? I could keep picking holes in this analogy all night. I think it's just obscuring any point you may have had.

Which statistics are you talking about and what does it have to do with whether you have right to copy a protected work and assign your own license to it?

I don't think you needed to use a metaphor, probably would have been better to just state your position as you did here.

Again not sure what "piracy rates" have to with anything. Any pirated copy is a pirated copy and wrong.

That's a business model argument and there are plenty of interesting ideas that could help to satisfy everyone more or less, but that is still the copyright holders right to choose which one they want to use, not the customers.