sliderider wrote:

Kerr Avon wrote:

That's because the laws are meant to support rich corporations (who pay the lawyers' *huge* wages), and not the people who have the ideas (well, not unless the person who has the idea is also wealthy enough to pay for a possibly very long drawn out legal battle).

Except that's not how it works. If you were to bash out a program and copyright it, you would receive the same protection for your work that the big corporation does for theirs. Stop spewing that Marxist crap.

It's not Marxism, it's a fact. Lawyers do employ the tactic of dragging the case on until the poorer of the parties is forced to backdown. Yes, if I wrote a program so different from anything else that it was actually totally original then I'd probably be OK, at least in countries who respect copyright laws. But what is totally original nowadays (if ever)? If what I make looks like it vaguely (and obviously non-deliberately) infringes a patent that some company took out but never developed anything for, then the lawyers will be straight in there. If billionaire company X patents something but it doesn't work (or rather has not been implemented, or even worked out theoretically), and I independently later work out all of the details, make it work, and basically do everything except patent a vague description of it before company X did, then who do you think will win the inevitable court case? Me, with no money except what I have saved up from my full time, badly paid job and my cheap (or legal aid) lawyer, or company x with it's reams of laywers and endless amounts of cash?

Kerr Avon wrote:

It's not Marxism, it's a fact. Lawyers do employ the tactic of dragging the case on until the poorer of the parties is forced to backdown. Yes, if I wrote a program so different from anything else that it was actually totally original then I'd probably be OK, at least in countries who respect copyright laws. But what is totally original nowadays (if ever)? If what I make looks like it vaguely (and obviously non-deliberately) infringes a patent that some company took out but never developed anything for, then the lawyers will be straight in there. If billionaire company X patents something but it doesn't work (or rather has not been implemented, or even worked out theoretically), and I independently later work out all of the details, make it work, and basically do everything except patent a vague description of it before company X did, then who do you think will win the inevitable court case? Me, with no money except what I have saved up from my full time, badly paid job and my cheap (or legal aid) lawyer, or company x with it's reams of laywers and endless amounts of cash?

Copyrights are not the same thing as patents.

If you make something which inadvertently infringes on a patent, you can just alter what you made to not infringe on that patent and there you go, or you could even attempt to settle with the patent owners based on what you expect to make in sales and how important their patented mechanics are to your software.

Also, "dragging" out a case can only happen when more and more evidence or claims are presented and thus lawyers get paid more and more money. It's financially irresponsible for anyone to drag out a case unless they can profit from it in some way after taking the legal fees for doing so into account. This typically means the party dragging it out KNOWS they're going to lose, but also knows they're up against a party with far less money and are gambling that the cost of dragging the case out will be less than what they would lose should they settle or let it go to court right away. The trouble with that approach is that if the case really is very clear cut, the lawyer for the party with less money may decide to ride the case out and simply collect their fees from what is ultimately decided upon by a judge.

Large corporations are constantly at war over this kind of stuff. The little guy only has to worry when they actually stand to make an impact in a large corporation's profits, by which point the little guy would already have the money to fight the case should they feel they really are in the right. :B

EDIT: I should also quickly point out: Copyright applies to "derivative works" as well. Patents are VERY specific, so you pretty much have to do something EXACTLY like something else in order to infringe on one.

Gemini000 wrote:

XagferI wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

As an example, The Tetris Company has had a LOT of success with defending their copyrights and blocking the sale of various Tetris clones because, quite frankly, it's difficult to make a Tetris clone which doesn't look and play an awful lot like one of the official releases. 😜

Is there anyone now who doesn't at least own one original copy of a Tetris game on a system that they play on? Is there any single game more pervasive on computers and consoles than Tetris?

Kerr Avon wrote:

I do agree though, that digital rights are really messed up, and copyright exists for far too long per item. I'd personally love it if copyright only persisted for ten years, or even just twenty-five (and not the seventy-five and counting years that Disney have pushed it up to now). I would prefer it if System Shock were copyright free now, but since it's not, I think it's great that we can at least buy it legally, and for the much lower than original comercial price it cost back when it was new.

^ This. 75 years of copyright makes absolutely zero sense in a digital world where things come and go out of date so quickly. 10 years wouldn't happen but I would love to see it reduced t o 20-25 years.

As an indie developer myself, I can't say I'd be on board with this. Copyright offers one major protection and that's the right to have control over your IPs regardless of if content made with them is free or not.

Oh cry me a river.

If the limit was 10 years, then people would be free to make their own spinoffs of my PixelShips series which, depending on their skill, could eclipse my original design, which means they would be making money off of something *I* originally created which they clearly lacked the creativity to come up with on their own accord. It would be a massive insult to me because it would be like, "Hey, you made this fun little game for free? Well, how about I get my team of people to take your idea, make a few modifications, market it better, and make tons of money off of it with minimal effort?"

Shouldn't law be designed to support the good of everyone? This is seems awfully selfish. Shorter copyright would be a positive thing for just about everybody. It would force content creators to actually innovate instead of milking the same old cow for far too long. And if somebody wants to improve on something, they should be allowed to. Why should the general population get punished by having improvements withheld? Current copyright is doing nothing but impede progress.

So no, I can't say I would approve of shortening copyrights. What I *DO* approve of is finding a way to amend the laws so that products under copyright which are not actively capitalized for x amount of time enter a point where copies of the original can be produced by third parties for free, without monetary gain, until such time that the copyright holder begins capitalizing on it again, or the copyright expires, at which point the laws regarding public domain would apply. I would completely support that kind of addition to copyright laws. 😀

I could get behind this too. 75 years on digital data still needs to go.

Massacre all Disney's lawers? 😀

Dissolve Disney? Getting rid of corporate personhood would really be a good start actually.

That's because the laws are meant to support rich corporations (who pay the lawyers' *huge* wages), and not the people who have the ideas (well, not unless the person who has the idea is also wealthy enough to pay for a possibly very long drawn out legal battle).

That's absolutely true.

Except that's not how it works. If you were to bash out a program and copyright it, you would receive the same protection for your work that the big corporation does for theirs. Stop spewing that Marxist crap.

It IS how it works. Whoever has the most money for lawyers and lobbying wins. While I don't support outright Marxism, Capitalism has failed.

You'll be suing file sharers right along with the RIAA and MPAA.

No. There is no point -- and it can get you a bad rep.
Those that want to buy something that will. Those that pirate also will. Very few pirates would buy things anyway.

Gemini000 wrote:

Also, Dr. Mario's a bad example because the ONLY similarity it has to Tetris is that pieces fall and can be rotated. 😜

That's enough for some people to call it a Tetris clone 😁. Also yes, as Kerr has pointed out, Tetris clones are pretty much everywhere.

Gemini000 wrote:

Patents are VERY specific, so you pretty much have to do something EXACTLY like something else in order to infringe on one.

Then why do I hear of patent trolls making bogus cases over some similarities? Even if their cases don't hold weight in court, they can still scare off small scale organizations making inventions.

XagferI wrote:

Then why do I hear of patent trolls making bogus cases over some similarities? Even if their cases don't hold weight in court, they can still scare off small scale organizations making inventions.

Patent trolls are a strange breed. By threatening legal action they try to milk companies and individuals for money, but in the process they end up wasting time and money scaring people away instead, and those they don't scare away will typically fight it out in court instead of paying up or settling, since fighting may be cheaper, and if a patent troll hasn't actually DONE anything with the patent they claim is theirs, then it's difficult to prove that the violation was intentional, and as far as I'm aware, that's VERY important when it comes to successfully suing someone over patent infringement. :P

smeezekitty wrote:

Shouldn't law be designed to support the good of everyone? This is seems awfully selfish. Shorter copyright would be a positive thing for just about everybody. It would force content creators to actually innovate instead of milking the same old cow for far too long. And if somebody wants to improve on something, they should be allowed to. Why should the general population get punished by having improvements withheld? Current copyright is doing nothing but impede progress.

Eh? New patents are taken out on incremental improvements all the time.

Kerr Avon wrote:

Is there anyone now who doesn't at least own one original copy of a Tetris game on a system that they play on? Is there any single game more pervasive on computers and consoles than Tetris?

The Tetris Company only surfaced in the mid-90s, as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tetris_Company . I have the impression that they recognized the need for greater control over the brand after the release of Tetris Attack, a game which cannot conceivably be regarded as having anything in common with Tetris and was subsequently called Puzzle League. But up until then there were amateur Tetris clones everywhere.

The last citation there is kind of interesting.

A US District Court judge ruled in June 2012 that the Tetris clone Mino from Xio Interactive infringed on the Tetris Company's copyrights by replicating elements such as the playfield dimensions and the shapes of the blocks.

Kerr Avon wrote:

To be honest, I don't see a problem. Anyone who wants to buy the game will now be able to (assuming it is true that Night Dive* now own the rights and are going to make the game available for purchase), and anyone who doesn't want or like the game, doesn't have to. And the situation won't change for pirates, who still will or won't pirate it.

Exactly. There are only upsides to this, no downsides.

Kerr Avon wrote:

It is disappointing, I imagine, for some people that there will not (I'd guess) be a box+manual+disc non-digital option, but it's probably not realistic to expect that, given that the game is so old, and so will have relatively very few potential purchasers.

Indeed. It would make it too expensive for most people to justify this kind of expense on such an old game. Heck, even most modern games have a pretty pathetic "non-digital" package, with nothing like the fancy boxes + manuals that classic games used to come with.

Gemini000 wrote:

As an indie developer myself, I can't say I'd be on board with this. Copyright offers one major protection and that's the right to have control over your IPs regardless of if content made with them is free or not.

That is, if you own the copyright to your works, and not like often is the case in the world of books, music, and even software, where the rights are owned by the publisher/studio (because the creator of the work had to, due to various circumstances, transfer them over, in order to be published).

Gemini000 wrote:

If the limit was 10 years, then people would be free to make their own spinoffs of my PixelShips series which, depending on their skill, could eclipse my original design, which means they would be making money off of something *I* originally created which they clearly lacked the creativity to come up with on their own accord.

Would this be some ideology talking (As is, software should be free) or pure jealousy (As is, I didn't have the business talent to make money off my idea, so no one should be allowed to make any money out of any derivative, ever)?

Or is this simply the fear that someone can take your idea and improve it, in a way which eclipses your original, and then they will be praised instead of you, and you couldn't bear that? In other words, you would use the rights granted do you by copyright to hinder possible technological progress?

In some ways, that would be a far bigger abuse of copyright than Disney et al's desires to milk their monopolies forever for the sake of monetary gain. This is definitely not why copyright exists in the first place.

Gemini000 wrote:

It would be a massive insult to me because it would be like, "Hey, you made this fun little game for free? Well, how about I get my team of people to take your idea, make a few modifications, market it better, and make tons of money off of it with minimal effort?"

If it takes "a team of people" - it's not "minimal effort". Setting up a business model to develop and market something, in a way that will actually bring profit, is not minimal effort. And if it sufficient to make "a few modifications" to your work to many "tons of money", why aren't you doing this already?

Your view seems to suggest that only the idea has merit, not whatever work is done to make it into a marketable and profitable product. As romantic as this view may be, it's not the way the world works.

There is a reason that the GNU GPL, the most free license there is, specifically differentiates between the rights to the work and the right to make money off it. You can make any minor derivative from any GPL work, and charge as much as you want for distributing it, provided that it's also available for free. Heck, you can take someone else's GPL work and sell it. You may be considered an immoral douche by doing so, but no more than any other middleman/broker that takes a fee for simply arranging a meeting between the buyer and the seller.

Gemini000 wrote:

So no, I can't say I would approve of shortening copyrights. What I *DO* approve of is finding a way to amend the laws so that products under copyright which are not actively capitalized for x amount of time enter a point where copies of the original can be produced by third parties for free, without monetary gain, until such time that the copyright holder begins capitalizing on it again, or the copyright expires, at which point the laws regarding public domain would apply. I would completely support that kind of addition to copyright laws.

Such an amendment would have its benefits, although I imagine the number of practical cases where it can be useful would be quite low. How do you define "capitalizing"? Is it sufficient to have a website where you allow people to buy it for a fee? If so, nothing would ever stop being "actively capitalized", except stuff for which the copyright holder no longer exists as an entity and/or no one knows where the rights actually reside.

Since such works (informally known as "abandonware") are routinely distributed for free over the internet, and no one actually cares, the only thing this amendment would achieve is to make such distribution legal, so as to stop folks with "holier than thou" attitude from going "tsk, tsk, piracy is bad". Which in itself is a good thing, thus I would support such an amendment. I just don't think it would have a massive impact.

Another thing I just thought about (which may need some more thought to shape into something concrete) is an approach clearly differentiating between individuals / small businesses and corporations, combined with a dramatic shortening of copyrights in general. The goal would be to make it possible for individuals to distribute the original works and/or create derivatives as early as 10 (5? 15? 20?) years after the original was created, but impossible for powerful corporations to amass works that fell into the public domain, apply some trivial modifications, and monopolize them for their own gain (in other words, the very thing you mentioned you feared in your post).

sliderider wrote:

Except that's not how it works. If you were to bash out a program and copyright it, you would receive the same protection for your work that the big corporation does for theirs.

Except that this theoretical protection he gets is not effective in practice, because he does not have the resources to locate and fight infringers, he does not have the resources to lobby for favorable amendments or favorable interpretation of existing laws, he does not have the resources to bully individuals and threaten them into submission, or to harass the courts and fight for preferential treatment, against the public.

sliderider wrote:

When you own something that is under copyright protection that you depend on for your income, you'll be singing a different tune when your work starts appearing all over the internet for free without your consent. You'll be suing file sharers right along with the RIAA and MPAA.

No he wouldn't. Because - see above. He does not have the resources. The most he could do would be to cry in the corner and go out of business.

Find me a single example where random file-sharers were sued by individuals or by small businesses, and not by the mega corporations.

Perhaps it's a good idea to split out the general copyright discussion out of this thread. Mods/admins, for your consideration. 😀

dr_st: The main problem I have with your argument stems right from this line you said:

dr_st wrote:

In other words, you would use the rights granted do you by copyright to hinder possible technological progress?

...which suggests you really don't understand copyright. >_<;

Basically, copyright protects CREATIVE expression, things which required artistic merit. Your belief that enforcing copyright can hinder technological progress is incredibly inaccurate and I can give you a practical example of this.

People have asked me on more than one occasion if they could make a sequel to PixelShips. The answer is the same every time, "I'm not OK with you making a sequel to my game, but there's nothing stopping you from making a game LIKE PixelShips with your own ship designs and everything. Plus, by doing this, you will end up with your own property which you can do whatever you want with. It's the smarter long-term decision."

Copyright protects artistry. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of advancement, be it technical, mechanical, biological or anything. For that kind of stuff, we have patents, which don't last nearly as long as copyrights for many of the reasons you went into.

The very basic gist of it all: Copyrights are for artistic expressions. Trademarks are for logos, phrases and symbols which uniquely identify something. Patents are for inventions (physical or digital) which have a function of some kind, regardless of how basic that function is.

Gemini000 wrote:

dr_st: The main problem I have with your argument stems right from this line you said:

dr_st wrote:

In other words, you would use the rights granted do you by copyright to hinder possible technological progress?

...which suggests you really don't understand copyright. >_<;

In hindsight, I agree that I should not have used the word "technological" here. It was the wrong word to use, and it's unfortunate that your assessment of the level of my understanding apparently hinged on that one word. I can assure you that the distinction between copyright, patent, and trademark is one that I understand sufficiently well.

dr_st wrote:

People have asked me on more than one occasion if they could make a sequel to PixelShips. The answer is the same every time, "I'm not OK with you making a sequel to my game, but there's nothing stopping you from making a game LIKE PixelShips with your own ship designs and everything. Plus, by doing this, you will end up with your own property which you can do whatever you want with. It's the smarter long-term decision."

So really what you're protecting here is just your trademark, isn't it? And perhaps a few specific images? Because anyone can make a game based on the same idea, make the ships look a little different, and voila - a different game, and your copyright cannot stop them.

The way it seems to me - the scenario you described in your original post - with someone making some modifications to your game, and making money off it, without sharing any of it with you, is perfectly possible within the current legislation.

dr_st wrote:

So really what you're protecting here is just your trademark, isn't it? And perhaps a few specific images? Because anyone can make a game based on the same idea, make the ships look a little different, and voila - a different game, and your copyright cannot stop them.

A little of both really. "PixelShips" isn't a registered trademark, but it would be foolish for someone to try to use it because I could easily sue them for causing market confusion based on my pre-existing product. Trademark registration is expensive and not really worth the effort unless you need a faster, more direct way of protecting such things. This is why you almost never see the TM or R in a circle symbols on indie games but see them all the time on products created by large businesses.

As for people making variant games, I have nothing against anyone wanting to make similar games. What I AM against is people directly using the things I've created for their own profit in the same medium. IE: Someone takes all the ship designs and uses them in their own marketed creation, or uses all the level graphics, or uses the font, or uses the music I've made. Those are all creative works I made which should not directly contribute to someone else's financial gain without my express permission.

dr_st wrote:

The way it seems to me - the scenario you described in your original post - with someone making some modifications to your game, and making money off it, without sharing any of it with you, is perfectly possible within the current legislation.

Almost. Current legislation allows copyright to cover "derivative works". So someone is allowed to make games similar to mine for sure, but if they use my creative content, modified to be different, they've created a "derivative work", which still applies to my copyright. The trick of course is being able to prove that, since if the modifications are substantially different, to the point where nothing of the original remains, then it's almost like, "Why did you even bother to modify my own stuff instead of just make your own?" :P

However, the notion of derivative works is also what protects things like the videos I make, as a derivative work can be deemed fair use (fair dealing in Canada) under certain circumstances, which in my case, is because my videos are informational and meant to educate about the content in question. Typically, all reviews fall into this category, but all content used to create such a review MUST be for informational purposes. The thing I do with having raw gameplay for a moment right at the start of each video dances pretty precariously on the fair use/dealing line, but I figure most content owners aren't going to be THAT stingy over it. (In fact, I've yet to have someone who's worked on any of the games I've covered get mad at me over doing so. Even Allen Pilgrim, the guy who made Xargon and Kiloblaster, gets where I was coming from with my mostly negative coverage of Kiloblaster.)

Fair Dealing here in Canada is also why I have credits at the end of my videos, as fair dealing can only apply when the sources of material are credited, unlike in the USA where I don't believe you have to do this, though I could be wrong about that.

Gemini000 wrote:

People have asked me on more than one occasion if they could make a sequel to PixelShips. The answer is the same every time, "I'm not OK with you making a sequel to my game, but there's nothing stopping you from making a game LIKE PixelShips with your own ship designs and everything. Plus, by doing this, you will end up with your own property which you can do whatever you want with. It's the smarter long-term decision."

Copyright protects artistry. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of advancement, be it technical, mechanical, biological or anything. For that kind of stuff, we have patents, which don't last nearly as long as copyrights for many of the reasons you went into.

The very basic gist of it all: Copyrights are for artistic expressions. Trademarks are for logos, phrases and symbols which uniquely identify something. Patents are for inventions (physical or digital) which have a function of some kind, regardless of how basic that function is.

It is exceedingly obvious that he is very right here:

Would this be some ideology talking (As is, software should be free) or pure jealousy (As is, I didn't have the business talent to make money off my idea, so no one should be allowed to make any money out of any derivative, ever)?

Or is this simply the fear that someone can take your idea and improve it, in a way which eclipses your original, and then they will be praised instead of you, and you couldn't bear that? In other words, you would use the rights granted do you by copyright to hinder possible technological progress?

In some ways, that would be a far bigger abuse of copyright than Disney et al's desires to milk their monopolies forever for the sake of monetary gain. This is definitely not why copyright exists in the first place.

smeezekitty wrote:

It is exceedingly obvious that he is very right here:

Wait... you formed that response oddly... are you saying my comment was very right compared to dr_st's or his compared to mine?

Dr_st's comment is built upon a misunderstanding of my understanding of copyrights and patents and he already noted the poor choice of words, clarified his points, and I followed up with additional information as most of what he's said hasn't been that wrong, just his understanding of what I said. (I'm bad at explaining things so that happens sometimes; Can take a few responses to recover and tempers can run a little higher than normal during this, but it helps me learn to explain myself better. :)

...I think you'd better read the rest of what we've both said since those responses you quoted. :P

The whole copyright argument spawned out of different ideas as to what we'd like to see different with copyright which is semi-moot since none of us are in important enough positions to have a direct impact on this. (And if one of us is they've been hiding it!)

dr_st wrote:

Perhaps it's a good idea to split out the general copyright discussion out of this thread. Mods/admins, for your consideration. 😀

Did the best I could, apologies if I've been a bit heavy-handed 😀