On the morality of copyright.

[Pecoros7]

If an inventor has no assurance that a business entity won't immediately mass produce the product being developed more cheaply than he can, he has no incentive to invent.

The biseness ough to pay him royalties then, but this thread is on copyright, not patenting.

I realize that copyright and patent are different issues. I wanted to draw a parallel between the two since, as I see it, they both seek to grant people the exclusive right to profit from an idea but do so in different ways. I mean to say that copyright is morally similar to patent and ought to be treated similarly by the law.

Unauthorized distribution does no direct harm any more than selling patented products, but does do indirect harm by subverting the creators ability to profit from their work and recover their investment.

I'm not sure, but you seem to contradict yourself there.

As for the comment about direct harm versus indirect harm was meant to address the arguments about whether or not file sharing is stealing. Traditional theft deprives a person or company of physical property; they have measurably less than they started with. File sharing does not harm in this way. It does, however, deprive the originator of the IP of potential profit if people who do it don't ultimately pay for it. This is an important distinction because the former can be measured while the latter cannot. I was also trying to reinforce the similarities between copyright and patent.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I can agree with piracy on certain occasions. If you plan on cracking a demo or pirating a game, you should consider whether or not the developer deserved the money.

For instance, if you pirated a game like Modern Warfare 2, I don't think the developers earned it and actually did $59.95 worth of work (I played the free weekend, felt more like the price should be $30). However, pirating a game like Minecraft is bad because it's really fun, it's only like 10 dollars, if nobody buys his game he doesn't get to eat. Another example is a game like Team Fortress 2. The developers did plenty more than $20 of work on the game, (are still doing work, even!) and I believe Valve earned the money.

Pirating is generally bad and illegal for reasons which I'm sure the other users will tell you, but in my mind the purchase or pirating of a game should come down to "Did the developers earn my hard-earned cash?"

(Keep in mind I've never pirated a game, though)

tl;dr Pirate games by big corporate studios that don't deserve the full $50 on one game but stealing indie games that are actually good and reasonably priced is for baby-eaters and kitten-stompers

The problem with that view is that you'd have no way of knowing whether a game was deserving of your money until you've experienced it. Just cause someone's hard work doesn't suit your tastes doesn't mean they don't need to make a living. Claiming it's "okay to rip off games by big studios because they have a lot of money" is a flawed argument that will only decrease the quality of games. Sure, some big brands just crank out lame retreads and sequels, but many big franchises you know and love wouldn't exist without some big studio or well financed wacko.

As someone who hopes to maybe one day publish a comic and D&D setting, copyright law allows me to know that I will make some money and be able to control my intellectual property.

 

[incal11]

You haven't made me reexamine anything.

I shot down all your arguments pretty thoroughly, you're being childishly stubborn.

You say people will picket, i say people will just go back to screaming at the wind.

Shows what poor opinion you have of your fellow gamers, you are being unjust even though there's good reasons to think that, but you forget the guys who paraded wearing V masks or disguised as zombies to protest. You also forget all the non gamers (a number being of your fathers generation) who casually download some stuff and would be pissed if the governments started to fall on them en masse.

My dad is a business owner, a general store, and after working with him and learning i understand a fair bit about it. A lot of the statements i hear made, by more then just you, really show the knowledge on these things is all second hand from people who likely have never owned a business.

What would it take to make you understand that pure ideas are not groceries ?
Things evolve, I don't say your dad is wrong in everything, but there's a point where it's out of his domain too.

I don't think the consumer has some sort of right to any media.

Now this is truly disgusting.
I am not just a consumer, I am a human being like you and your dad. if it's for the good of our specie it gives me all the rights I need. You may act high and mighty with the law behind you, but the law here is wrong and I have shown you why time and time again. Proves my point on your stubborness.

right up until they begin to get sympathy or praise from me for being a champion or a victim.

We are all champions and victims of various things in our life, so basically you think we should be all passive and unthinking when it arranges you. Again, disgusting, part of being a "consumer" I bet.

No one has the right to distribute my ideas in anyway i do not approve of. Just because it's not physical doesn't mean its not important or valuable to me.

You're like that musician I answered to earlier. You want to control you creation, understandable if you don't want it plagiarized or taken out of context.
If what you really want is absolute control on a creation, to make it into your family's exclusive luxury plaything, you go beyond greed, into the realm of celf-centered egoism. At this point I don't care what you think of my feeling of entitlement, for you think like a swine convinced that the world revolves around him.
Brutal words, I know. Don't answer me before you think this through for a few days (if ever).

 

[incal11]

Firstly, the rest of your post I find interesting and thought-provoking, thanks. Some kind of utopia where ideas *and* physical things are all freely accessed is an intriguing one,

Thanks but I primarily defend free access to pure ideas, when you start to factor in material things it becomes (even) more complicated.

Legally, the key point is that a copyright (or patent) means the corporation owns the IP. By buying an album, DVD, or game, you are buying *ACCESS* to said IP, not the tangible IP itself.

I realise this is complicated, this is an interesting point that has been raised before. What I think is that the difference should be made between the property as in "what you bought" and the intellectual property, as in "what you created", which ough to unaneliable even without copyrights.
What you expose is just the same copyright logic that I attack, not an argument in itself here.

the current system in no way supports that part of your argument.
I would however, suggest that perhaps it should.

The current system developped with the agenda of killing fair use. Glad we agree.

I just hope Incal makes something worth giving away. If he ever tries to sell it, and it gets stolen, I would laugh.
For the record, I don't click on links to random sites, so please don't pull that card on me like you did for most of your responses.

If I make something worthy I'll put it on torrent myself, like what the creators of "The Void" did. If you mean plagiarism, yes I wouldn't approve, but this happens all the time.
If you are not allergic to google and the like, you can try to make a search with the words : zeitgeist germany expansion
I trust your fear of links is totally not caused by some stupid fear of being proven wrong ^^ .

The trend in the US has been a continuous increase since the country was founded, shown [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg"]here[/a].
I'm not really sure what I think the right amount of time is, but what do others think?

An interesting question. I said 10 years because most games are forgotten by their publishers by that time (they become harder to find and always second hand), and a decade is somewhat symbolic. I'd like to know what the best length of time would be, even though I tend to think it shouldn't matter since sharing is already proven to hardly hurt anyone, if at all.

I realize that copyright and patent are different issues. I wanted to draw a parallel between the two since, as I see it, they both seek to grant people the exclusive right to profit from an idea but do so in different ways. I mean to say that copyright is morally similar to patent and ought to be treated similarly by the law.

Very interesting, and that could be a good idea, but there's bad things with patenting too. As in how industries hide inventions and ideas that make their products a little too durable or effective, and how when a company is bough the new "owner" of the patent try to keep it's hold on it for even longer.

File sharing does not harm in this way. It does, however, deprive the originator of the IP of potential profit

That would be true if for every sharing a potential is lost. Fact is it's not the case, or with all the sharing big companies would have crashed already, and smaller ones could not have appeared to begin with.
Even if a buying potential is lost for a particular idea, it does not mean it will be lost for the whole market. As someone exposed to a large variety of ideas is more likely to pay for what he really likes.

many big franchises you know and love wouldn't exist without some big studio

Personally I don't attack publishers for just being "big and greedy", but for relying on harmful copyrights.

As someone who hopes to maybe one day publish a comic and D&D setting, copyright law allows me to know that I will make some money and be able to control my intellectual property.

Copyrights law regulate the way you can do it, and your publishers will artificially crank up the prices.
As for your right to control your intellectual property, depends on what you mean by that. You may share the view of those who think "if you don't pay for it you are not worthy", in some this is even a cause of rage. Maybe this is an instinct, the ancestral territorial one transposed to mere ideas...
That's not to say that reprinting your work without giving you royalties, or plagiarizing it would be alright, far from it. This is on copyright, not intellectual property. I know what you think, but these are really two different things.

 

[incal11]

we are talking about video games here.

I understand your point, but every little bit counts, even the ones you don't care about. Madden and MW games may vanish with time (or be replaced with new equally stale franchises) but the truly good and original games can disappear easily, and copyrights don't help to avoid this.

Also, there are TONS of indie games available for next to nothing.(...)they have to make a lot of money selling them, or they'll go broke and no big name games will be made.

Do you know how hard and how long programmers work on those big name games? They put in some crazy hours

Indie games also use copyrights, and it has been establish that the negative impact of file sharing is not significant.
Also, read the first link in my original post.

Sure, some of those big gaming companies act like jerks. But it's the ordinary people buying their games that gives them all their power. Gamers demand better and better graphics and scoff at games whose graphics are even slightly behind the times.

They create that demand by saying "see my game is shinier", and sadly the general populace is all "oooh, shiny !" about this. This is just because they choose to be as mainstream as they can, which isn't wrong in itself.

As far as being denied access to culture because of your fortune, 'culture' is not a right. Nowhere is it written or implied that everyone has a right to be provided with free entertainment of the finest quality possible with current technology.

Sure, but why do you think it absolutely has to be "written" somewhere ?
The law, despite what you've been probably raised to think, is but an imprecise tool made by faillible human beings.

game publishers profiting and trying to protect their creative property is pretty inoffensive. Games are luxury items, not essentials for life.

I don't see why getting the best in life before you die is wrong. People are generally not ungrateful, as we can see with how companies are still in biseness despite thepiratebay and Co.

increasingly companies are using Patents as a way to PREVENT the use and development of new inventions. They use Patents to deny others profit, rather than profiting from the idea themselves. Now THAT is a big social problem!

Indeed, but not bigger than the harm caused by copyrights.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I know scape goats are awesome and all, they don't fly with me though.

Tell you what, you bust your arse working 3 months on something only to have a publisher sucker punch you on the copyright ownership, refuse to pay you and then have the gall to launch legal proceedings against you for questioning their business practices. Go through that just once and we'll see if you're still so happy to fellate the publishing fraternity.


Oh yeah, and this;

4) You do realize the big name developers, the ones you think have had there creative works stolen since most indie games are created out of pocket, could finance there own games...

I'm not talking about 'big name developers', I'm talking about my own creative work being stolen. Did you miss that when I wrote it the first time? Yes? Or was it just an inconvenient fact that you chose to ignore so you could arrogantly pontificate?

 

[illas]

Legally, the key point is that a copyright (or patent) means the corporation owns the IP. By buying an album, DVD, or game, you are buying *ACCESS* to said IP, not the tangible IP itself.

I realise this is complicated, this is an interesting point that has been raised before. What I think is that the difference should be made between the property as in "what you bought" and the intellectual property, as in "what you created", which ough to unaneliable even without copyrights.
What you expose is just the same copyright logic that I attack, not an argument in itself here.

It's my understanding that the more widespread and powerful that distribution technology becomes, the more valuable the *ideas* become, rather than the material product. In a way, the existence of piracy supports this idea - given that people torrent a game to be able to play said game, rather than own it, the box, the manual, etc. It is the *idea* they find valuable, not the *ownership*. Ergo, the ideas require equal (if not more) protection than the tangible commodity.

With that said, the current systems springing up *do* seem largely heavy-handed. For example: several publishers are trying to make it near-impossible to re-sell a game. This I agree with your argument on, since one bought the disc under the assumption that said disc was now yours. Thus, if you wanted to sell said disc to someone else (and loose the ability to play that game) you should be able to do it.

Furthermore, someone else being able to experience said game (assuming it is good) will gain respect for the publisher/studio and be more likely to buy a new game from them in the future. This over-aggressive system restricts reasonable access, and seems to be based around the assumption that the games produced are *bad*, rather than good.

I'd be fascinated to hear your ideas about a sensible/potential middle-ground.

 

[Kagim]

I shot down all your arguments pretty thoroughly, you're being childishly stubborn.

1. You didn't shot down shit. You glazed over everything with what essentially was a "No it isn't!". Then repeated yourself.

2. Childish name calling. Does this mean i win all the Internets?

Shows what poor opinion you have of your fellow gamers, you are being unjust even though there's good reasons to think that,

1. Because of the millions of examples otherwise...

but you forget the guys who paraded wearing V masks or disguised as zombies to protest.

1. You mean the people who did something, once, about a organization that was actually hurting people, which resulted in no real effects, and most people forgot the following day. With no action being taken again?

You also forget all the non gamers (a number being of your fathers generation) who casually download some stuff and would be pissed if the governments started to fall on them en masse.

1. Yeahhh, to bad this has nothing to do with the government. As i am pretty sure they government would like wasting tax dollars on these stupid fucking lawsuits.

What would it take to make you understand that pure ideas are not groceries ?

1. I dunno, what will it take you to understand that if i mention one thing its not a direct example. That the point of the statement was that i have had at least a first hand look on how businesses look rather then simply regurgitating things people who have never run a business think is the best way to run one.

Things evolve, I don't say your dad is wrong in everything, but there's a point where it's out of his domain too.

1. What business do you run? Any kind of business will do? How much work have you published? Please, tell me your credentials. I'm not being sarcastic. How much experience do you have in the business market as well as the Creative development market.

Now this is truly disgusting.

1. Yeah, taking my quote out of context IS disgusting.

I am not just a consumer, I am a human being like you and your dad. if it's for the good of our specie it gives me all the rights I need.

1. You. Do. Not. Need. Video. Games. Movies. Or. Music. To. Live. People. All. Over. The. World. Live. Happily. Without. Such. Things. Hell. I. Bet. There. Are. People. In. Your. Own. Country. That. Get. By. And. Are. Still. Quite. Happy. Without. Them.

2. Your making it really hard not to insult you, you know that.

You may act high and mighty with the law behind you, but the law here is wrong and I have shown you why time and time again. Proves my point on your stubborness.

1. I am stubborn because i think your wrong?

2. You call me egotistical later and your trying to call my stubborn merely because i don't agree with you? Seriously? So unless i agree with you I am childish and stubborn. Hmmm....

We are all champions and victims of various things in our life, so basically you think we should be all passive and unthinking when it arranges you. Again, disgusting, part of being a "consumer" I bet.

1. Downloading a game doesn't make you a hero.

2. Not watching a movie doesn't make you a victim.

1. Doctors, Police men, Firemen, Ambulance drivers, loving parents, Caring teachers, and people from every corner of the service industry who work hard to make the place just a fraction better for people who are willing to spit in there faces for it are heros.

2. Starving, civilians in war torn countries, homeless, the sick, the dying, and people where a cup of god damn rice and clean water a day is a miracle. Those are victims.

3. Try not to mix them up next time.

You're like that musician I answered to earlier. You want to control you creation, understandable if you don't want it plagiarized or taken out of context.

1. Your taking pretty much everything I am saying out of context, does this count?

If what you really want is absolute control on a creation,

1. By absolute control your talking "Right to distribute non essential luxuries like fictional books" right? Because I'm not saying i want to hold a loaf a bread out of a starving mans reach while kicking dirt on him and laughing.

to make it into your family's exclusive luxury plaything,

1. Yes, i am such an asshole if i want my son to be able to retain rights to a fictional book that no one would miss if it never got published.

you go beyond greed, into the realm of celf-centered egoism.

1. So.. If me and my son build a chair out of scrap wood we find one day were self centered and greedy if we don't give it up once i die and rather pass it down the family tree? Really? You want my crap that badly?

2. Seriously. I'm greedy for thinking i have the right to say who my writing gets distributed but your not greedy for demanding it for free? That's not egotistical to think YOU deserve MY work dispite doing jack shit to help create it? REALLY?

At this point I don't care what you think of my feeling of entitlement, for you think like a swine convinced that the world revolves around him.

1. Says the one who thinks the world owes him everything, and that all the creative minds must surrender all there work after a period of time YOU decide is fair.

2. Once again, its really easy to share shit you didn't lift a finger to create.

Brutal words, I know.

1. More like childish insults because i am not agreeing with you, and likely your hoping by insulting me I'll break down and agree with you.

Don't answer me before you think this through for a few days (if ever).

1. How about the day after once i got off work.

2. I like the if ever. it implies you think you just kicked my ass but you honestly just reminded me why i think the way i do. It was nice talking with you till you lost your shit at me.

-snip-

You are a legitimate misunderstanding. I didn't see the 'my'. I actually do apologize to you.

I really do mean sorry for the misunderstanding. You got fucked, you actually do have a right to be pissed.

There is no real excuse. I spoke out of line. I really am not being sarcastic. Sometimes i get heated from other people and sometimes lash out poorly. You actually have the right to talk shit about them.

So seriously. I'm sorry.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

-snip-

You are a legitimate misunderstanding. I didn't see the 'my'. I actually do apologize to you.

I really do mean sorry for the misunderstanding. You got fucked, you actually do have a right to be pissed.

There is no real excuse. I spoke out of line. I really am not being sarcastic. Sometimes i get heated from other people and sometimes lash out poorly. You actually have the right to talk shit about them.

So seriously. I'm sorry.

It's all cool. You missed a word that was important to the context of my point and 'fessed up. No harm, no foul.


As for getting fucked over, it's part of the fun of being a freelancer.

 

[incal11]

1. You didn't shot down shit. You glazed over everything with what essentially was a "No it isn't!". Then repeated yourself.

I told you why you're wrong then repeated the arguments you keep ignoring. If you weren't ignoring them I wouldn't be repeating myself. I realise you may (wrongly) feel the same about me. I just didn't find the words that would suit you, plus you made me loose my cool, which I agree is bad.

1. Because of the millions of examples otherwise...

Now that's "glazing over" an argument. You may never have the stomach to go on a picket line yourself, but other people will, no matter what you think of them. As for the effect of said picket lines, it can't be predicted, but I guess making more people aware of a problem, even briefly, is a good step.

1. Yeahhh, to bad this has nothing to do with the government. As i am pretty sure they government would like wasting tax dollars on these stupid fucking lawsuits.

It is you who brought up that subject, on the ground that some of my arguments wouldn't stand on the face of governments taking serious action against file sharing. Now you say yourself it won't happen ? Well, let's hope it won't.

what will it take you to understand that if i mention one thing its not a direct example. That the point of the statement was that i have had at least a first hand look on how businesses look

I understand your situation better than you would like, but your biseness is about material stuff, with unitary values. I'm talking about pure ideas that indeed you can package and sell in your store, but otherwise can and should be shared more freely when they are not in their packages.

1. What business do you run? Any kind of business will do? How much work have you published? Please, tell me your credentials. I'm not being sarcastic. How much experience do you have in the business market as well as the Creative development market.

I am not a bisnessman or an artist but I took the effort to learn a few basics for my subject. Before you take that as a reason to ignore everything I said realise that a young store clerk (even counting your dad) is hardly more knowledgable on the subject than me.
Anyway, if you have greater biseness truths that you haven't told me yet, go on.

1. Yeah, taking my quote out of context IS disgusting.

I don't see how I could have put it out of context, it was all pretty clear. Explain how then.

I am not just a consumer, I am a human being like you and your dad. if it's for the good of our specie it gives me all the rights I need.

1. You. Do. Not. Need. Video. Games. Movies. Or. Music. To. Live.

They. Make. Life. Better. Still.
You can't miss what you don't know, but you are made intellectually poorer and less developped by people who keep a stranglehold on ideas. Yes a lot of ideas are frivolous, but maybe you haven't been exposed to the ones who are meaningfull and fulfilling yourself, a pity.

2. You call me egotistical later and your trying to call my stubborn merely because i don't agree with you? Seriously? So unless i agree with you I am childish and stubborn. Hmmm....

Getting angry was my mistake. Using this as an excuse to refuse my arguments just proves my point.

Downloading a game doesn't make you a hero.

Probably not, but I never considered myself to be one, for this anyway.

Not watching a movie doesn't make you a victim.

Yes it does, if it's many movies that you can't watch.
Heroes and victims are not always about the most extreme things, it only suits you to limit the meanings of the words to just what you are able to understand.

Yes, i am such an asshole if i want my son to be able to retain rights to a fictional book that no one would miss if it never got published.

If you can't picture you writing a book that would be in any way an addition to culture, neitheir do I.

So.. If me and my son build a chair out of scrap wood we find one day were self centered and greedy if we don't give it up once i die and rather pass it down the family tree? Really? You want my crap that badly?

There, you mix it up with material stuff again.

2. Seriously. I'm greedy for thinking i have the right to say who my writing gets distributed but your not greedy for demanding it for free?

I said in my OP that I do not download recent works, which means I pay for what I want now. Still, after a reasonable period of time, arguably more reasonable than your death + 50 years it would be a genuinely good thing for you to add your humble stone to the pile of human culture (this is an image).
Sharing the ideas in non material forms on the internet (without the packaging you see in your store) is what you seem unable to approve. I have developped the subject with others, it seems the problems come from you thinking a potential is lost every time a download is made. This is wrong on the ground that even if a potential is lost for a particular product (and this is not even always the case) the potential for the whole market is not lost. On the contrary it increases :
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars

childish insults because i am not agreeing with you, and likely your hoping by insulting me I'll break down and agree with you.

From the way you answered apparently I did insult you, and now we made some progress in our argument, it's freakishly hard with you, but it's a progress.

 

[Helmutye]

Sure, some of those big gaming companies act like jerks. But it's the ordinary people buying their games that gives them all their power. Gamers demand better and better graphics and scoff at games whose graphics are even slightly behind the times.

They create that demand by saying "see my game is shinier", and sadly the general populace is all "oooh, shiny !" about this. This is just because they choose to be as mainstream as they can, which isn't wrong in itself.

There are some cases where producers artificially boost demand, like when pharmaceutical companies develop drugs and then invent artificial illnesses for them to treat (Restless Leg Syndrome, for instance). But in the case of most media and entertainment, they are simply reflecting the opinions and interests of their audiences. Game designers do not and cannot create demand. They do not force people to desire "shininess." But over time they have discovered that an awful lot of people are willing to pay for shiny distractions. Perhaps they exploit that willingness a little bit more than should. But I also think a lot of people could stand to be a lot less careless with their hard-earned cash.

As far as being denied access to culture because of your fortune, 'culture' is not a right. Nowhere is it written or implied that everyone has a right to be provided with free entertainment of the finest quality possible with current technology.

Sure, but why do you think it absolutely has to be "written" somewhere ?
The law, despite what you've been probably raised to think, is but an imprecise tool made by faillible human beings.

Despite what I've been raised to think? I rage against the Man just as much as anyone! Seriously, though, I understand all too well how the law can be used to promote injustice rather than justice, especially when it is written by the lobbyists of mega-rich corporations. Zeitgeist is full of a million good examples of this. People are very, very, VERY fallible. But who else is there in this world aside from people? Who is going to write our laws who is less fallible than us? If we are to live together peacefully, we need to agree on a set of rules to abide by. Like I said, I think our laws could use some improvement. Copyright laws could definitely stand some high-tech revisions. But people cannot do the work that is required to make a modern big title game unless they get something in return for it, and it is probably a good idea to have some rules protecting their ability do so.

Put yourself in a game designer's shoes. Maybe not the shoes of a big evil corporation, but say you are a small company with four or five other people. You spent a lot of time learning how to program, got a business loan, and worked 8 or more hours a day for two years producing a piece of gaming artwork. You put it up for sale on the internet in order to pay off your loan and pay the bills that have been gathering for the last two years you've spent investing in this product. People love the game, and tons of them play and enjoy it, but instead of paying the price you've set they steal it and claim that they have a 'right' to it, even though they didn't help you develop it in any way and have left you high and dry as far as your loan payments and bills go. Your loan payments bankrupt your small company and you and your five friends have to go back to working in customer service and eating cup-a-soup three meals a day. Do you think you would ever spend so much time, money, and effort creating a game ever again?

Illegal file downloads today do not seriously impact profit (at least not to the degree big game publishers claim). That's because most people who illegally download a game would never buy it if they had to pay for it. But if people who would have paid for the game don't, where is the profit supposed to come from? I think pay-what-you-want is a really cool method of marketing and selling a game, but it is far from a tried and true earner. And would you be willing to stake your livelihood on the generosity of others?

game publishers profiting and trying to protect their creative property is pretty inoffensive. Games are luxury items, not essentials for life.

I don't see why getting the best in life before you die is wrong. People are generally not ungrateful, as we can see with how companies are still in biseness despite thepiratebay and Co.

There is nothing wrong with getting the best in life before you die. But you are not simply entitled to it. If you make a cheese sandwich, am I entitled to pick it up off your plate and eat half of it? What if I do that every single time you make yourself food? Do I have a 'right' to have food prepared for me by you?

In Zeitgeist, there is a long section about how our society and everything in it is shaped by profit. It makes some absolutely fascinating points about how the eternal pursuit of profit actually slows down advancement (contrary to the popular belief that profit and capitalism invariably stimulate advancement). In particular it talks about how even art is done for profit today. But unlike resources like food that must be consumed, art only has value when it is shared--if you painted a picture and nobody every saw it, what good would it be? Art is, above all else, Communication. It is the transmission of thoughts and feelings to others, regardless of the medium. It's more fun to play music for an audience, a painting is better if someone looks at it and talks about it and tells you what they think, etc. And most people, if they cannot convince someone to give them money for a piece of art, will give it away for free rather than let it waste away without anyone else ever seeing.

But the critical difference between the idea in Zeitgeist and what you advocate is that the artist has a right to decide for themselves how their art is to be shared. They may decide who to give it to, who to share it with. They do not lose all right of ownership the second they create something. It would still be wrong if somebody came into their house, saw a painting on their wall, and took it. What you seem to be saying is that, if you are going to create a piece of art, you have to create a copy for every single person in the world and give it to them on request because you owe it to them.

Digital media are unique in that there is no cost for creating virtually infinite numbers of copies. It would actually be feasible to make a copy of digital art for everyone in the entire world (assuming it was transmitted via internet). But does that indicate an OBLIGATION to do so? And just because it is easy to illegally download games and hard to prevent it does not mean there is nothing wrong with doing so. It is easy to kill people and get away with it in Columbia, but it's still wrong.

In another post in this thread you mention that you are not a game designer or artist. At the very least, I would say that, before you make the claim that you are entitled free of charge to everything game designers and artists make, you should make something yourself. You should quit your job and work 8 or more hours a day unpaid for a year or more to produce something, and then give it away for free to everyone who asks, even if they tell you it sucks and make witty internet videos mocking it. Are you willing to do that? If not, you should not be asking others to do it for you.

increasingly companies are using Patents as a way to PREVENT the use and development of new inventions. They use Patents to deny others profit, rather than profiting from the idea themselves. Now THAT is a big social problem!

Indeed, but not bigger than the harm caused by copyrights.

I think you overestimate the importance of big title games in society. Patent laws prevent the development of commercially feasible electric cars, turning us into savage barbarians as we scour the Earth for oil to keep our energy supplies stable. They allow pharmaceutical companies to charge enormous prices for their drugs, making it impossible for millions of people to get life-saving treatments and KILLING them. You think our ability to get fun video games for free is on the same level as these issues?

 

[WolfEdge]

Okay...

Enjoy Mickey Mouse pissing on the truck logo then.

 

[Gigano]

The real purpose of copyright laws is not to deny consumers access to products, it's to ensure that the producers and artists behind them get paid. This would also be the core of the ethical question as far as I'm concerned, giving due reward for good work.

Whenever a possibility exist/arise for paying for something in a form where it is useful to you, piracy is/becomes unethical. If however you live in China and pirate an independent underground French movie which is not and never will be sold in Asia (unless the pirated copies becomes popular enough that a profitable demand arise...), then I find it hard to get worked up over that ethically, even if it was illegal under Chinese copyright law (which are - at least in enforcement - exceedingly lax, creating a separate "unfair competition" problem).

As for the legal issue, then laws are there to be kept, although be balance of consumer rights and practical everyday internet use vs. industry rights is usually skewered heavily in favour of latter, giving the law a decided sheen of unfairness, and making it hard for it to gain acceptance among the wider population. Doesn't change the fact that it must be followed when legitimately passed though.

...

You claim you can't buy old games?

Name the game, I will give you a link since you are lazy.

Fate/stay Night [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_stay_night].

Since it's apparently so easy for you to acquire any old game, I'd be most thankful for a link to a legal copy of the original PC game. In English and shipping to the EU, mind you.

Good luck!

 

[incal11]

the existence of piracy supports this idea - given that people torrent a game to be able to play said game, rather than own it, the box, the manual, etc. It is the *idea* they find valuable, not the *ownership*. Ergo, the ideas require equal (if not more) protection than the tangible commodity.

I understand the logic, but because an idea is valuable does not mean it's access needs to be restricted. By "protecting" it, from what is wrongly perceived as an absolute loss of potential, you hinder it's spreading, and by consequence it's increase in value.

...someone else being able to experience said game (assuming it is good) will gain respect for the publisher/studio and be more likely to buy a new game from them in the future. This over-aggressive system restricts reasonable access, and seems to be based around the assumption that the games produced are *bad*, rather than good.

Exactly, and that assumption is made by the heads of industry who have no understanding or respect for what their own biseness is about.
An amusing idea would be to have some of them take a year off just to play games, in hope it would make them into hardcore gamers.

I'd be fascinated to hear your ideas about a sensible/potential middle-ground.

First I'd like copy protection, DRMs and EULAs (save for "you can't reuse any part of this without crediting the original authors") to be taken away completely. Though this is hardly what you'd call a middle ground, and institutions are now so dependant on copyrights I don't see how this could happen either.
Second, reducing the length of copyright, at least let's not extend it beyond the death of the author or a few years.

"Piracy" is very widespread,and I think this should be taken advantage of, not fought. Many who put online a torrent go on to say "go pay for the game/movie/etc , it's worth it", this should not be ignored. Even if people don't donate much and often, there are so many who download that it is bound to add up. I don't see how it could not anyway.
Well, about this I had an idea going around in my head, for what it's worth...
There should be site (or several, but one could work better, we could call it "ThePiratePay") whose goal is to allow everyone to donate easily to their favorite artists, devs, and even publishers whatever amount of money they think their work is worth.
Granted many already have their own paypal accounts, but not all of them do, and tracking down the ones you think deserve a reward for their talent can be complicated especially for older games, books, and more obscure pieces. Putting them together should be a common effort. Roughly, every person or entity would have a page listing what they created or helped to create, with a convenient way to donate to them. Pages would be linked, artists pages to publisher pages, and so on.
It could work in partnership with torrent sites, which could put a link to the relevant pages of the donation site on the same pages that let you download the torrent clients.
The point is, it could work in parallel to the current system. Potential consumers would still be encouraged to use the "conventional" channels, but at least they'd have more liberty when it come to culture and ideas, which can only be a good thing for everyone in the long term.

In short: a compromise could be a sort of common paypal/wiki linked with torrent sites.

 

[incal11]

As for the legal issue, then laws are there to be kept, although be balance of consumer rights and practical everyday internet use vs. industry rights is usually skewered heavily in favour of latter, giving the law a decided sheen of unfairness, and making it hard for it to gain acceptance among the wider population. Doesn't change the fact that it must be followed when legitimately passed though.

Agenda motivated lobbying is not what you could call "legitimate".

in the case of most media and entertainment, they are simply reflecting the opinions and interests of their audiences. Game designers do not and cannot create demand. They do not force people to desire "shininess." But over time they have discovered that an awful lot of people are willing to pay for shiny distractions. Perhaps they exploit that willingness a little bit more than should. But I also think a lot of people could stand to be a lot less careless with their hard-earned cash.

Indeed, but even though a public more knowledgable about quality would be a good thing it wouldn't help shorten copyrights.

Despite what I've been raised to think? I rage against the Man just as much as anyone!

Sorry, I said "probably", it was only about the impression you gave me, not you personally.

who else is there in this world aside from people? Who is going to write our laws who is less fallible than us? If we are to live together peacefully, we need to agree on a set of rules to abide by.

Something to take in consideration. Still, if there are cases against the law in place it should be everyone's right to rage about it, and the governments duty to listen and think about the arguments before taking action.

people cannot do the work that is required to make a modern big title game unless they get something in return for it, and it is probably a good idea to have some rules protecting their ability do so.

I never questioned that, I only question the methods and nature of these rules, as we have established in this thread that they do more harm than good.

...People love the game, and tons of them play and enjoy it, but instead of paying the price you've set they steal it and claim that they have a 'right' to it, even though they didn't help you develop it

Here you go again. I have developped this issue with others, the loss of a potential sell for a particular work is not absolute, and if it's good then it spread wide, which means more people will be willing to reward you for your talent.

Illegal file downloads today do not seriously impact profit (at least not to the degree big game publishers claim). That's because most people who illegally download a game would never buy it if they had to pay for it. But if people who would have paid for the game don't, where is the profit supposed to come from? I think pay-what-you-want is a really cool method of marketing and selling a game, but it is far from a tried and true earner. And would you be willing to stake your livelihood on the generosity of others?

Since the dawn of times entertainers depended exclusively on the generosity of others, and they still do today, for better or for worse thanks to the torrents. This method has already been tried and proven true, it's intimidating because it's different from the modern way, but this is sort of a return to how it used to go in the past.

If you make a cheese sandwich, am I entitled to pick it up off your plate and eat half of it? What if I do that every single time you make yourself food? Do I have a 'right' to have food prepared for me by you?

Examples involving anything material have been proven irrelevant time and time again. since works of art can be numerised they are basically reduced to mere ideas, a new concept that you'll have to wrap your head around. The material form of the works should always be paid for one way or the other, I never questioned that either.

But the critical difference between the idea in Zeitgeist and what you advocate is that the artist has a right to decide for themselves how their art is to be shared.

Irrelevant material argument nonwithstanding you raise the points of the artist's right to control what they make. Or rather, to control where their ideas go.
I have to admit I am split on this issue, I don't understand why an artists would want to slow the spreading of his own fame, but I admit it's only fair to pay for a recent creation.

Digital media are unique in that there is no cost for creating virtually infinite numbers of copies. It would actually be feasible to make a copy of digital art for everyone in the entire world (assuming it was transmitted via internet). But does that indicate an OBLIGATION to do so? And just because it is easy to illegally download games and hard to prevent it does not mean there is nothing wrong with doing so. It is easy to kill people and get away with it in Columbia, but it's still wrong.

Again, irrelevant material arguments nonwithstanding, they are not "obliged" to share, I wouldn't "force" them to. It remains that they have no choice, when something is basically reduced to an idea it will fly away literally on it's own, wanting to control that absolutely is absurd.

You should quit your job and work 8 or more hours a day unpaid for a year or more to produce something, and then give it away for free to everyone who asks

They don't "ask" they just take, and what you say only apply to indie devs whom I respect very much. My point there is that most devs and artists are already paid by their publishers, who then proceed to keep an iron grip on the idea for literally more than a century, which we agree is absurd.

I think you overestimate the importance of big title games in society.

I don't care much about crappy AAA titles but even they have their importance, what you do underestimate is the value of genuinely original and creative works, this is where copyrights are the most harmfull.
Humanity's intellectual development is not to be underestimated, and it rests on many things, including those you don't care or value much yourself. It's more ethereal than other more direct and pressing issues, but it's no less important.

 

[Gigano]

As for the legal issue, then laws are there to be kept, although be balance of consumer rights and practical everyday internet use vs. industry rights is usually skewered heavily in favour of latter, giving the law a decided sheen of unfairness, and making it hard for it to gain acceptance among the wider population. Doesn't change the fact that it must be followed when legitimately passed though.

Agenda motivated lobbying is not what you could call "legitimate".
...

No, but democratically elected politicians choosing to follow them is. A people has the politicians it deserve, and if they're mindless drones to lobbying then vote for someone else or found a party or NGO to present your side of things (Sweden's got a "Pirate Party"). If you think they're violating some human right bring it to the courts. Otherwise the societal contract is that within the limits of constitution and international law the majorities among democratically elected politicians get to pass the laws they feel for. As Churchill said, it's the worst system in the world except for all the others.

 

[incal11]

Okay...

Enjoy Mickey Mouse pissing on the truck logo then.

Mickey is in the public domain now, didn't you know that ?

A people has the politicians it deserve, and if they're mindless drones to lobbying then vote for someone else or found a party or NGO to present your side of things (Sweden's got a "Pirate Party"). If you think they're violating some human right bring it to the courts. Otherwise the societal contract is that within the limits of constitution and international law the majorities among democratically elected politicians get to pass the laws they feel for. As Churchill said, it's the worst system in the world except for all the others.

That's a part of the "social contract" that ough to change. As in if a politician is being a dumb shit and reveal his real agenda only just after being elected what he decide is worthless if it does not reflect his electors' opinions.
Also, if the majority isn't aware that restrictive copyright is detrimental for them, pirate parties are there to make them realise. In effect that's what I'm doing here.

 

[QuantumT]

Okay...

Enjoy Mickey Mouse pissing on the truck logo then.

Mickey is in the public domain now, didn't you know that ?

According to the provisions of the [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act"]Copyright Term Extension Act[/a], Mickey Mouse won't enter the public domain until at least 2023. Be sure to check your facts next time.

That's a part of the "social contract" that [ought] to change. As in if a politician is being a dumb shit and reveal his real agenda only just after being elected what he decide is worthless if it does not reflect his electors' opinions.
Also, if the majority isn't aware that restrictive copyright is detrimental for them, pirate parties are there to make them realise. In effect that's what I'm doing here.

I agree that there is generally a lack of accountability for politicians, however this is as much the populace's fault as anyone else's. Until you decrease voter's general apathy, you probably won't have a decrease in this behavior.

Additionally, plenty of congressman are elected to multiple terms (in fact I think most of them are), so while they could be surprising you with their agenda the first term, you should know what their agenda is come reelection time, and if you vote for them again, you're (generally, sometimes you don't really have a choice) showing your acceptance of that agenda implicitly.

Edit: I checked, and at least in the House of Representatives, 373 of 435 congressman have been reelected to that spot. So the overwhelming majority have been there before and so shouldn't really be able to 'surprise' you that much.

 

[likalaruku]

I think patents are facist.

 

[HT_Black]

Hi! Welcome to capitalism! If you want it, whatever it is, you pay for it, and nobody cares what you have to say about it! If you don't like that, start a revolution! If you can't do that, just move to China! Intellectual property laws don't exist there!

Ba-bye now!