Copywrite laws are they to vague?

[DavidG]

[quote]Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

quote:

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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.

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Well obviously if the lawyers spent 5 seconds and put in that clause they would lose all those big bucks they get from searching the net sending out those nasty letters to enforce their copyrights.

[DavidG]

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?

Well I think Jack Simth answered this question but I think they real question should have been does that fan art involved in mods and shipsets hurt the shows they are modeled after? ie do the Trek mods hurt the Star Trek franchise or the B5 mod... I think the obvious answer to this is no. If fact, as has been mentioned, they are likely to have the opposite effect. As an example I recently joined a game as the Cardassian empire. A Star Trek race called the Breen is also in the game. Now I've never been a big STNG fan but I am now much more likely to watch the show if I new the Cardassians or Breen were in it.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

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

They enforce known breaches.

yes, but with that clause, they wouldn't have to enforce all of them.

the letter might be a form letter that is distributed without any thought to destination. they might not have been thinking of fan art when they made it.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by PvK:
Sure there is. Corporations used to require a government charter for permission to even exist.

There weren't near so many little buisnesses under that system - the crown picked a small number that thrived (pretty much on the crown's whim), and the rest were relegated to small shops - pretty much permanently. Further, the crown-selected buisnesses were essentially monopolies; they never needed to improve their product, and the only people they needed to keep happy was the royal family et all.

Originally posted by PvK:

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.

They might if the same decision also made for corporations to be subject to the same penalties - imagine how well a corp would behave if a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years.

Originally posted by PvK:
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.

It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions.

Originally posted by PvK:

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?

Superman? Maybe not. However, I have read a fair number of rants from Online artists who were having that exact problem, and were very annoyed by it.

Originally posted by PvK:
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!

That only works out so cleanly if the comic is long-term gold, rather than the short-term fad variety that is surprisingly common. For a long-term gold comic, it helps if the image gets out there; for the short-term variety, money needs to be harvested quickly, as there won't be more coming in after a short time. Meanwhile, Bruce's work that increases SEIV's sales is taking money out of Alice's pockets. Shouldn't it be up to Alice to decide which she gambles on?

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

So how do you propose to change human nature away from the herd mentality?

Originally posted by PvK:
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.

At present, they aren't being forced, they are being coerced - charitable donations help to maximize their profits, so corps make them. There are many similar incentive programs, as well as many forbidden type things out there.

Besides, the United States of America is in the top five nations for per-capita creature comforts for the average person; part of that is due to the corporations' greed: they need to sell stuff better than their competiters, and to do that, they need to: Have a better product, make their advertising more entertaining, or make their product cheaper - any one of which can increase the creature comforts of the population (better product -> easier/faster/more effective -> more comfortable life; more entertaining advertising -> people are more entertained -> slightly better lives; cheaper product -> can spend more recources on other things -> slightly better lives).

Originally posted by PvK:
Yep. Sigh.

PvK

Yay - we actually have something we agree on.

[ June 20, 2003, 03:58: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i think that advertising should be informative, and only entertaining enough to not be irritating.

[PvK]

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.

I won't define it. However it obviously entertains many people, and games like SE4 get people to think, be creative, develop skills, and communicate with each other. It also supports and distributes the work of independent game developers. I'd say SE4 does some very unique and valuable things in the art of interactive entertainment.

PvK

[PvK]

Jack Simth, sorry for not quoting, but it's too tedious.

For corporate charters, I was thinking of more recent US situations rather than British crown charters. In the 19th century, for example, corporations were formed to establish large companies for things like interstate railroad construction. They had to be approved by government to ensure they were doing something for the common good, and not forming an evil for-greed only monster like we have dominating today's economies. No doubt there was still plenty of corruption, but at least the power was theoretically in the hands of the public to deny the existence of large powerful organizations whose purpose is solely to maximize its own profit margin and power.

You suggested "a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years." for corporations - sounds good to me.

"It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions."
- You mean, taking someone else's fictional character, and creating fiction about it where it does perverse things or gets killed or whatever? That's an interesting question for society to decide if it wants to legislate against. I'd say it's pretty mean and insensitive to do so, but I'm not sure I'd want a law prohibiting it.

I agree there is an issue with people pretending other people's work is theirs. I just think the patent and copyright laws are unsatisfactory, and are abused by many lawyers and corporations. It's a tough question with a lot of grey areas, it seems to me. In the absence of a fair system, I'd rather freedom prevailed rather than unjust enforcement.

Regarding Alice's comic example, you wrote:

That only works out so cleanly if the comic is long-term gold, rather than the short-term fad variety that is surprisingly common. For a long-term gold comic, it helps if the image gets out there; for the short-term variety, money needs to be harvested quickly, as there won't be more coming in after a short time. Meanwhile, Bruce's work that increases SEIV's sales is taking money out of Alice's pockets. Shouldn't it be up to Alice to decide which she gambles on?

It seems to me you are trying to enforce a certain unnatural market situation. It's up to Alice and her publisher to exploit her own commercial success. If Bruce's SE4 mod makes a lot of money for SE4, that's an unrelated market, and a natural success due to SE4's wonderful mod-ability, which it fully deserves, and is a natural product of the gaming market. It would be a real shame to say that generic modable game engines need to be outlawed, in order to protect an unnatural monopoly on the right of private citizens to generate free fan shipsets or mods for a generic game engine!

It's very similar to what Intel, Microsoft, and media megacorps are trying to foist onto the computer and media recorder industries! Humans have developed technology which could allow everyone to quickly and freely share all digital media, but these corporations are trying to criminalize, monitor, and prevent the simple act of copying digital information. Microprocessors that are hard-wired to check every data copy for "digital rights", etc. It's an amazing power grab, but I don't think it can Last forever.

You asked:
"So how do you propose to change human nature away from the herd mentality?"

Through good education that teaches people to think for themselves and question trends rather than follow them.

Individually, by pointing stupid herd behavior out to the more intelligent and receptive members of the species, and resisting stupid herd behavior wherever possible.

You wrote:

Besides, the United States of America is in the top five nations for per-capita creature comforts for the average person; part of that is due to the corporations' greed: they need to sell stuff better than their competiters, and to do that, they need to: Have a better product, make their advertising more entertaining, or make their product cheaper - any one of which can increase the creature comforts of the population (better product -> easier/faster/more effective -> more comfortable life; more entertaining advertising -> people are more entertained -> slightly better lives; cheaper product -> can spend more recources on other things -> slightly better lives).

How often are you entertained by American advertizing? How often is it mind-wrenching, moronic, inane, insulting, illiterate, vice-promoting, annoying-as-hell garbage? Hmm, how about software corps like Microslop and Harborg securing monopolies on their markets by tactics such as buying up creative smaller companies and then laying off their staff and making crap Versions of their products? How about McDonald's? How about corporate media? All vile crimes against goodness, if you ask me.

PvK

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by PvK:
Jack Simth, sorry for not quoting, but it's too tedious.

It's okay - I usually remove quotes of me anyway when I am replying.

Originally posted by PvK:

For corporate charters, I was thinking of more recent US situations rather than British crown charters. In the 19th century, for example, corporations were formed to establish large companies for things like interstate railroad construction. They had to be approved by government to ensure they were doing something for the common good, and not forming an evil for-greed only monster like we have dominating today's economies. No doubt there was still plenty of corruption, but at least the power was theoretically in the hands of the public to deny the existence of large powerful organizations whose purpose is solely to maximize its own profit margin and power.

That's just government contracting, which the railroads needed to get the land to build the tracks on. If they'd had the money for it (and the land was for sale) they could have bought all the land they were building the tracks on and done it without a charter of any kind, which is why I figured that you meant the old European system. And actually, many types of buisness do require charters - in the form of licenses.

Originally posted by PvK:
You suggested "a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years." for corporations - sounds good to me.

Which was exactly my point - if you make corporations count as people, then you need to adjust things slightly so that they are treated like people; a total cease and desist is very similar to a prison sentence; freezing their assests just prevents it from being a death sentence; apparently you just hadn't thought the implications of corps counting the same as private citizens through.

Originally posted by PvK:

"It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions."
- You mean, taking someone else's fictional character, and creating fiction about it where it does perverse things or gets killed or whatever? That's an interesting question for society to decide if it wants to legislate against. I'd say it's pretty mean and insensitive to do so, but I'm not sure I'd want a law prohibiting it.

I agree there is an issue with people pretending other people's work is theirs. I just think the patent and copyright laws are unsatisfactory, and are abused by many lawyers and corporations. It's a tough question with a lot of grey areas, it seems to me. In the absence of a fair system, I'd rather freedom prevailed rather than unjust enforcement.

The modern copyright and patent system wouldn't be nearly as bad if there was a decent time cap on them. Of course, the only problem with "fair" or "decent" is that everyone has different definitions of them when it comes down to specific implementation.

Originally posted by PvK:

Regarding Alice's comic example,
...
It seems to me you are trying to enforce a certain unnatural market situation. It's up to Alice and her publisher to exploit her own commercial success. If Bruce's SE4 mod makes a lot of money for SE4, that's an unrelated market, and a natural success due to SE4's wonderful mod-ability, which it fully deserves, and is a natural product of the gaming market. It would be a real shame to say that generic modable game engines need to be outlawed, in order to protect an unnatural monopoly on the right of private citizens to generate free fan shipsets or mods for a generic game engine!

I didn't say anything about outlawing SEIV; present law and rulings dictate that an object is leagal, not if it has no illeagal purpose, but if it has some leagal purpose, except for those things which are expressly outlawed (like crack). This is a small portion of the reason it is leagal to have butcher-knives in your kitchen. I was just trying to point out how Bruce could unintentionally hurt Alice by using her characters without her permission, which you had seemed to be denying was possible.

Originally posted by PvK:

It's very similar to what Intel, Microsoft, and media megacorps are trying to foist onto the computer and media recorder industries! Humans have developed technology which could allow everyone to quickly and freely share all digital media, but these corporations are trying to criminalize, monitor, and prevent the simple act of copying digital information. Microprocessors that are hard-wired to check every data copy for "digital rights", etc. It's an amazing power grab, but I don't think it can Last forever.

No, that's someting different - they are trying very hard to reverse the above law+rulings on what makes an object leagal, changing it to "It must have no illegal purpose." Very different, and yes, an amazing power grab. It is actually quite leagle to make a backup copy of stuff you have a license to - you just aren't allowed to distribute them, modified or not, free or not, without totally transferring the license and all copies to a single recipient (many licenses prohibit trasfer).

Originally posted by PvK:
Through good education that teaches people to think for themselves and question trends rather than follow them.

Individually, by pointing stupid herd behavior out to the more intelligent and receptive members of the species, and resisting stupid herd behavior wherever possible.

There have been a lot of people trying to design an education system that will do that for a long time; so far, they have had only very limited success with individuals that would likely have no problems with that in the first place. The other problem is that such attempts usually require a surprisingly small class size, which isn't going to happen until the school system gets considerably more funding.

Originally posted by PvK:

How often are you entertained by American advertizing? How often is it mind-wrenching, moronic, inane, insulting, illiterate, vice-promoting, annoying-as-hell garbage?

I find it depends on which shows I'm watching, which channel I am watching them on, and what time of day it is. Try it during a good documentary (and note: I said good documentary).

Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm, how about software corps like Microslop and Harborg securing monopolies on their markets by tactics such as buying up creative smaller companies and then laying off their staff and making crap Versions of their products?

That's what anti-trust laws are for; unfortunately, they aren't always enforced as diligently as they need to be.

Originally posted by PvK:
How about McDonald's? How about corporate media? All vile crimes against goodness, if you ask me.

The problem with corporate media is more a problem of a glut of channels; when there were only two or three channels available for any given area, there were only a few good show ideas a year, and so the bad ones tended to get thrown out. Now, you can pipe a few hundred channels into a household, but there are still only a few good show ideas a year. Unfortunately, it is surprisingly difficult to sort a good idea out from a bad idea beforehand, so the good ideas don't get the relative budget they desreve, and seldom get prime time. As for McDonalds, if people stop buying their food, they will eventually go away.

Originally posted by PvK:

PvK

Am I correct in assuming that we both agree that cutting down on the amount of time patents and copyrights Last would help (though still not be perfect)?

[Pax]

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?

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

The thing is, fan art or no, SE4 or Star Wars ... it's all one thing: IP.

You cannot remove protections of intellectual property for "the Big Guys", wihtout similarly stripping those protectiosn form the LITTLE guys.

If you removed the concept of copyright, then what would stop someone else from changing one bloody color in the SE4 UI, then handing out copies for free ... taking away from Aaron's ability to make a living producing the game ... ?

And, knowing that could be done, why in the nine hells would anyone MAKE such a game, and devote so much of their lives to improving it ... ?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Pax:

quote:

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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?

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

The thing is, fan art or no, SE4 or Star Wars ... it's all one thing: IP.

You cannot remove protections of intellectual property for "the Big Guys", wihtout similarly stripping those protectiosn form the LITTLE guys.

If you removed the concept of copyright, then what would stop someone else from changing one bloody color in the SE4 UI, then handing out copies for free ... taking away from Aaron's ability to make a living producing the game ... ?

And, knowing that could be done, why in the nine hells would anyone MAKE such a game, and devote so much of their lives to improving it ... ?

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I never suggested removing the concept of copyright and not having anything to serve its good purposes.

What I do suggest though are that:

* Fan art shouldn't be a copyright violation nor any concern of any lawyers, to include Marvel characters in Dungeon Odyssey mods, or Star Trek ships in SE4 mods.

* The existing patent and copyright systems are flawed.

* Ideally and eventually, the existing systems will be replaced by something very different, because it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use computers and networks to do what they do with great and natural ease - duplicate and distribute data which, once we get over our ancient and corrupt economic and legal institutions, will allow us to use it to share all data with everyone freely. All that's required is a replacement for the corporate-dominated system of employment and intellectual property ownership, so that creative people can earn a reasonable wage by virtue of how much people appreciate their work, without a corporate monster devouring most of the profit and dictating what everyone creates.

PvK