Years after completely ditching the system, WotC makes their move!

[Dannyalcatraz]

But why did German publishers adopt that business model? Lack of copyright, I think is an entirely reasonable conclusion. When faced with an environment where they couldn't count on their IP being protected, they found a way to still make an effective business model around it.

That's not a reasonable inference.

German publishing went that route virtually right out of the gate, as it were. They were trying something new, and they got lucky and stumbled on the superior business model.

(Compare the dotcom boom/bust: dozens of business models were tried out in numerous fields...not all of them worked out.)

There is nothing inherent in the copyright regime that disfavors the dual printing method- if there were, mixed mass market/prestige printing would not have flourished in the modern era characterized by true copyright regimes.
<sorry, lost WiFi before completing edit>

In addition, the business model the others were following was the same one that had been going back to Gutenburg's Bible and beyond: books and other written materials were rare and expensive...all in a world without copyright protection. Even with Gutenburg's revolutionary printing process with moveable type, prices fell and numbers of books made rose...but "print runs" were still in sub-1000s. The publishers of France & England simply did a scaled-up version of the old (pre-copyright) way of doing business. The German revolution was in unleashing the full power of Gutenburg's innovation and printing in massive runs.

Could the Russians have made similar advances without copyright protection by adopting a similar business model? Was it really lack of IP that hampered Russian invention or lack of supporting business models and infrastructure?

Pre Peter's reforms, your remedies were self-help or having the protection of a guild or a personal stamp from the gov't. Innovation in Russia stagnated a hundred years behind the West. Within a couple of decades of Peter's reforms, not only did the locals flourish, but Western talent flooded into the country, allowing for even more cross-pollination of ideas.

 

[Dandu]

Bill, I believe you have been outclassed.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ok, as the thread creator, I'd like to know...

How in the blue hell did the thread title get one of those butt ugly mini banners attached to the start of it, and how do I rid the internets of its unsightliness?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

My guess is the icon is tied to the "d20 System" tag on the thread (You did tag the thread "d20 system", right?). I suspect you can't get rid of it, without undoing the tag.

Morrus just made a bunch of these things; there's a thread in Meta if you haven't seen it.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Frankly, I don't believe money is god at all.

Be that as it may, the IP in question is only "theirs" because of, that's right, money. That is their (i.e., Hasbro's) sole claim to it: possession via purchase.

Now you might be of the (admittedly, fashionable!) belief that that not only gives them the right to to whatever they wish with said "property", but also automatically makes anything so done... right.

I am not.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Be that as it may, the IP in question is only "theirs" because of, that's right, money. That is their (i.e., Hasbro's) sole claim to it: possession via purchase.

Which is the sole claim a person might have on a pen or a house that they themselves did not create.

...that not only gives them the right to to whatever they wish with said "property", but also automatically makes anything so done... right.

Well, so long as they operate within the confines of the law, they are prima facie right. This is a rebuttable presumption, the burden of proving otherwise lying upon the party wishing to assert that they have not acted in a just & right fashion.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

(You did tag the thread "d20 system", right?).

Nope, I never bother to tag threads, if one is there it's because the site auto-picks them for you. I will look into both removing the tag and yelling in Meta to get off my lawn.

EDIT: Upon checking the bottom of the page, I see that there are in fact no d20 system tags or any others, for that matter. Crap...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Which is the sole claim a person might have on a pen or a house that they themselves did not create.

Owning something that impacts thousands open thousands of people, and owning something that clearly, you know, doesn't? Very different set of responsibilities, etc.

IMO, and all that.

Well, so long as they operate within the confines of the law, they are prima facie right. This is a rebuttable presumption, the burden of proving otherwise lying upon the party wishing to assert that they have not acted in a just & right fashion.

This is truly relevant only if you happen to believe that the law as it currently stands is perfect (or even useful whatsoever), in all such cases. And will work perfectly, for the common good, without favouring the exceedingly rich, etc., etc.

I do not.


While I respect - and will defend! - the rights of the creators of various material, goods, IP, whatever... those who simply use their tremendous purchasing power to snap it up, with *nothing* in mind above or beyond squeezing as much money as they possibly can from it, everything and everyone else be damned? Those people, I have very little time for. If there was some way I could strip them of their "rights", in many cases, I would, without any hesitation. Because (again, in many cases) they have grossly misused what is in their "custody". I see it time and time again, and to be honest, while this is not a relatively major case, every instance does irk me, to some degree.

Just to make it clear, I don't believe that what is legal, purely by virtue of large sums of money being exchanged, and of the way laws have been constructed, necessarily has all that much to do with what is right. Legailty does not imply sound ethics, nor morality... nor even concern for any living thing, necessarily.

Given WotC's track record, particularly in recent years, of arrogance, deceit and manipulation, well, another drop is all, I suppose.

Still, while there is perhaps some grim satisfaction in noting their desperation, the way they continue to treat their "property", and the many people connected to it in various ways, does bother me.

Ah, well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Owning something that impacts thousands open thousands of people, and owning something that clearly, you know, doesn't? Very different set of responsibilities, etc.

No. Same rights, same responsibilities.

Again, we're not discussing the actions of a company that provides food or shelter, we're discussing the actions of a company that provides an entertainment product: a pure luxury. Their removal of their own IP from bookshelves has no more moral/ethical weight than the hypothetical removal of marshmallows from the shelves of US grocery stores. No person can claim a superior right to their IP.

This is truly relevant only if you happen to believe that the law as it currently stands is perfect (or even useful whatsoever), in all such cases. And will work perfectly, for the common good, without favouring the exceedingly rich, etc., etc.

The current system does not favor the exceedingly rich: rich or poor, IP holders have the exact same bundle of rights. What the poor cannot do as easily as the rich can is defend their rights from people who seem to think their desire to own or use IP is more important than the IP owner's right to contol it.

A band I represented a little more than a decade ago had the same problem as Metallica: a Russian piracy site selling their stuff. Metallica had no more rights than my clients, they just had the money to hire a Russian IP attorney to take care of things. My guys were just blue collar joes who couldn't hire a Russian IP attorney nor send me to Russia to do it myself...and I certainly couldn't afford to do the job pro bono. My guys never recouped their initial expenditure to record that album; Metallica won in their case. Not because of having more rights, but by being rich enough to be able to defend themselves.

While I respect - and will defend! - the rights of the creators of various material, goods, IP, whatever... those who simply use their tremendous purchasing power to snap it up, with *nothing* in mind above or beyond squeezing as much money as they possibly can from it, everything and everyone else be damned? Those people, I have very little time for. If there was some way I could strip them of their "rights", in many cases, I would, without any hesitation. Because (again, in many cases) they have grossly misused what is in their "custody".

One of the surest ways to make a profit from IP- especially if you are poor- is to sell or license it to a person, company or government that has the bankroll to 1) fully realize it's potential and 2) defend the IP to the fullest extent of the law.

Strip away the rights of subsequent purchasers and you devalue the IP itself to virtually nothing. Nobody will want to buy or license IP that has NO rights attached.

IOW, the end consequence of your position is that the only creators who could make money from IP are the ones who have some kind of money already. The poor schmoe who, say, has crappy credit and a job at 7-11 but who nonetheless comes up with a viable process to refine gold from dumps at 3¢/ton (while simultaneously sequestering CO2) is NOT going to be able to get a loan to make his $100K prototype to prove his process works. And with no ability to sell or license his idea, not only is he doomed to become a 7-11 manager after only 25 more years, the world is denied an invention that would definitely make the world a better place.

It's much like the sale of land: real estate is not just land, it's a bundle of rights, and they can be sold off or retained piecemeal. If you lived in Texas, as I do, you would probably be living on a plot of land called a "surface estate"- a pics of land that has no rights to the minerals below. As such, the land would not be worth as much as an "entire" or "mineral" estate...because if oil or another resource is found below a "surface estate", that surface owner not only doesn't get any money from the mining company, they also have no right to exclude the mining company from reasonable measures to retrieve that resource if the persons owning the mineral rights gives the go-ahead.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I certainly wish that ethics were as clear-cut, black & white, right & wrong, as some in this thread seem to believe. Having studied the philosophy of ethics, though, I am forced to conclude differently.