Copywrite laws are they to vague?

[Rojero]

What is SBA?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Pax:
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That is not a matter of a power grab (the letter from Marvel, below) ... it's a matter of law: if marvel DOESN'T actively and aggressively protect it's trademarks and associated intellectual property, they lose them. Marvel exists to profit form selling stories and other products based on that intellectual property.

Take the recent X-Men films; if copies and derivations (etc) could be made and distributed for free and without penalty by persons OTHER than those who made the films and/or own rights to the intellectual properties with which the films were told, then, the films would never have been made.

MOST films owuldn't get made, nor would most books be published. It's a business, and it's about profit. Just like the inventor of a new machine should profit from his or her creation, the creator of a new piece of intellectual property should be able to do likewise.

Put it in perspective WRT SE4: if anyone were allowed to hand out copies of SE4, without Aaron seeing a penny, and with him unable to seek any sort of legal intervention ...

... then SE would probably never have happened, let alone be onthe FOURTH Version. The man has to put food on his table, after all.

No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?

Even amateur movies modelled after existing commercial films mainly tend to promote and prolong interest in the commercial product - they don't reduce the sales of the product or its sequels.

PvK

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by PvK:
No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?

SE4 was designed with mods and new shipsets in mind - it's part of the attraction, and probably part of the license, so no - besides, Mods + shipsets don't really qualify as fan art. Sure, it's art; sure, it's by fans; but making a shipset doesn't usually mean taking the stock ships and altering their pictures slightly, or redrawing the stock ships from different angles; it means making new ones, pretty much from scratch, or making significant alterations to the stock ships.

[PvK]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics??

No, I don't think anyone smart and honest does. It's pretty clear to me that it has a positive effect, in any.

Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.

Well there might be other bad reasons, but yes, this is one of them.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:

Mhmm. But in the case of fan art, the corporations waving legal threats are not little businesses, and the fan art is not competing with the corporations' business in any signifigant way. Fan art is in fact a promotion, celebration, and endorsement of the product.

Perhaps - but at present, there is no known way of making the one work (protection of the little business) without causing the other (protection of the big buisiness, often when it isn't really needed).

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Sure there is. Corporations used to require a government charter for permission to even exist. If it were explained to the people, I doubt that the people would vote for a decision that corporations should have the same rights as private citizens. Corporations should exist and operate based on benefiting mankind, and not on maximizing profit for shareholders, and therefore doing whatever profiteering they can get away with. Corporations should not be allowed to perpetuate copyrights, and persecute individuals based on their fan art. Fan art does not have to be treated as a threat to the (dubiously desirable) right of a corporation to monopolize commercial rights to an intellectual property.

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Moreover, private citizens should have the right to mention and produce non-commercial images or even duplicates of commercial media. If they can't, then you're very close to prohibiting things like parody or even discussion of corporate media.

Not really - is is surprisingly easy to discuss the issues without recreating copyrighted media. For example, has anyone felt the need to post a dipiction of Superman to get the conversation going?

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No, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman. Who thinks it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman, besides a lawyer or a corporate sponsor?

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quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:


That's a very different kind of thing from fan art.

For one thing, you're talking about a patent of an algorythm. In many cases, the patent office grants patents for ideas which are something anyone can thing of by considering the problem, so that whole institution is in need of complete reworking.

For another, you're talking about a megacorporation as the perp, not a private citizen.

Only in specifics, not in effect. You want a fan art Version? Fine. Suppose Alice makes a comic named Zoe, which becomes a commercial success. Then Bruce produces a mod for SEIV based on Zoe that everyone loves. Due to this mod, SEIV doubles its revenue (we can dream, can't we?). Unfortunately, the Zoe fans who would be buying Zoe merchandise are now spending considerable sums on SEIV, reducing the amount Alice recieves. Totally unknown to Bruce, he has reduced the rewards Alice gets for her hard work. Further, it is almost impossible to track how much effect this had. The only way to deal is to require permissions on such things.

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Do you really want to live in a society that is so concerned with ownership and greed that it would attempt to have its government determine and enforce exactly who owns the rights to every sale, even in such complicated situations?

Most importantly, the fan (Bruce) should be allowed to express himself and freely publish his work, without government interference or fear of megacorporate legal attacks.

Secondly, in your example, it seems pretty clear to me that Alice has done plenty well in your scenario, her future work will be more successful because of Bruce and Malfador/Shrapnel, and Malfador/Shrapnel deserves the extra profit for making SE4 a product which is capable of being used in this very enjoyable way!

Sure, copyrights and patents have problems, but so far it is just about the only model that seems to work out.

Mainly due to human inertial herd behavior, and powerful corporations dominating the economy and government to multiply their already-staggering control of wealth.

Besides, with a private citizen loophole, Megacorps would be able to hire private citizens to do the distribution to the same effect.

Mhmm, well there should be a million-dollar reward for ratting out megacorporations, the money for which comes from the guilty corporations. Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits.

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:

Megacorps will of course succeed in perpetuating their ownership of anything they can get their hands on, for as long as they can get away with it. I wonder how long it will take for another system to replace it. Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution.

PvK

The current system will Last until someone comes up with a demonstratably better system and can show that it is better, and either overthrow the megacorps or show them that the new system is in their best interests. However, this hasn't happened yet. The service based open-source model might be such a thing, but it has yet to pan out. We shall see.

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Yep. Sigh.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

"Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits."

Define how Shrapnel Games benifits mankind.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

[quote]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.
{/QUOTE]
Yes, but that is precisely becuase under normal circumstances failure to enforce copyright when a violation is known is a waiver; otherwise that phrase would be leagally implicit, and not need mentioning.

which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits."

Define how Shrapnel Games benifits mankind.

By bringing Se4 and Se5 to light, of course.

I'll leave now...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.

They enforce known breaches.

[DavidG]

Even if we are to accept the fact that Marvel may have been 'forced' by the letter of the law to take some action against that site there is no excuse for the tone of that letter. It was aggressive, offenisve and damn right rude. If Marvel treats all it's fans this way it may find them in short supply in the future. I know if I ever pick up a product with ideas to purchase it and see the name Marvel on it I will think of that letter and quite possibly put it back on the shelf.