Pirating RPGs. (And were not talking "arggg" pirate stuff here.)

[AntiStateQuixote]

What if someone asked you to work for a day, a week, or a month before they hired you? After all, maybe they want to try you out before they pay you. Would you agree to such an arrangement?

I'm a software developer by trade. When starting on largish contracts I have done EXACTLY that.

 

[just__al]

What if someone asked you to work for a day, a week, or a month before they hired you? After all, maybe they want to try you out before they pay you. Would you agree to such an arrangement?

A day, absolutely, if it was a job I was willing to take were it offered.

A week or a month, no. That's too long. But a day, absolutely. I, infact, actually did that once and netted my self a job.

I've also taken a job where I started for a month at a reduced pay and if I was working out after the month, I would get a resonable pay and benefits. I would have been offered the full-time position when the month was over (or at least that's what they told me) but I decided I didn't want to work there for any amount of money (well to be fair if they offered me 5 times as much I would have been tempted) because I was also "trying them out before I buyed" and the company wasn't what I expected from a corporate culture standpoint.

 

[philreed]

I'm a software developer by trade. When starting on largish contracts I have done EXACTLY that.

So you've worked for a month, not been paid, and had thousands of people benefit from that month of work?

 

[philreed]

A day, absolutely, if it was a job I was willing to take were it offered.

A week or a month, no. That's too long. But a day, absolutely. I, infact, actually did that once and netted my self a job.

Keep in mind that several of my own PDFs represent a day to a week of work. And the bigger projects -- like Frostburn -- represent many months of work. What you're saying is that it's okay for a dozen people to work for you for a month at no pay and you'll decide at the end of that time if they're worth paying or not.

 

[Storm Raven]

Ah, but the point of copyright is not to enrich the creator, but to enrich the public. As it is set up now, the creator gets 99.99% of the benefit. I don't think that's equitable.

The point of copyright is to entice authors to create works and make them available to the public. The author gets a financial benefit, the public gets the benefit of having the work at all. The balance is not "99.9% to the creator" as you state, it is much more balanced than that. In point of fact, the benefit to the public is huge, because without copyright there would be no incentive to make works of authorship available to the public at all.

I may agree with you that Britney Spears' stuff will be worthless in 15 years. If so, why are we giving record labels the ability to sit on it for another 80 years after that?

To give the artist something more valuable to sell at the point of creation.

I'm not saying I have all the answers. I am saying the pendulum is currently way way way way WAAAAAAAYYY to far in favor of copyright holders, and continuing to swing even farther in their favor, and that's not socially equitable.

Social equitability, in a democracy, is determined by the legislature acting at the behest of their constituents.

Not at all. You retain the ability to license a single company to reproduce the work (as with patents; IIRC, patents cannot be held by corporations, but rather only by natural persons, who are allowed to designate/assign one company as the one that can use the parent - see Richard Garfield holding the "Magic: The Gathering" cardplay patent and assigning its use to WotC). It works just fine for patents. Why not for copyright?

The ability to make licensing deals is far less valuable to an individual than the ability to sell it. Especially in an arena like copyright. If I license something, I have to spend my time monitoring compliance, ensuring that might exclusive rights are protected, and so on. If I sell it, I don't have to worry about that any more.

(Besides, keeping copyright out of the hands of corporate interests has the desirable side effect, IMO, of keeping an artist from "losing control of his work" - to use the example at hand, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson have for all intents and purposes lost control of their creative work in D&D - in both cases against their will. Is that "fair" to them?)

Not against their will. Gygax voluntarily sold his interest in the game to TSR. He lost control of the company, but there was nothing involuntary about losing the copyright. He was also quite well compensated for his creation. I think that is more than fair. The only way an artist can "lose control of his work" is by selling it, voluntarily, which is his choice. I don't have any sympathy for them, at that point.

I have a hard time buying this one. All I have to do, in theory, when I write my magnum opus, is slap it in an email and shoot it to the US Gov't. It's nearly impossible for a corporation to get their hands on it fast enough to stop that. Unless and until "big corporations" are spying on every writer, musician, and artist everywhere they go, the copyright creator has the natural advantage of speed and secrecy on his side.

Read a text on intellectual property some time. Races to the courthouse were common. They still are in the field of patent. Right now, an author is protected even if he doesn't go through the formalities, but gains additional protection if he does. That is equitable, and practical, because otherwise the LoC would be flooded, and authors would have to get their material in the mailbox quicker. Think of it in the context of the music business - companies could spy on one another to surreptitiously record the songs the other is producing, and then race to the courthouse and get the rights to that recording first. Software would be subject to the same sort of spying and stealing.

Of course, I've also got Tom Lehrer's "Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky" in my head now thanks to you, so maybe not. But I would suggest that if I show you my six months' worth of drafts, and "big guy" can only show the finished product that "miraculously" arrived at the courthouse five minutes before mine did, it's pretty clear who did the work.

But "who did the work" is not relevant in a race to the courthouse. If copyright doesn't attach until the formalities have been completed, you don't have any rights to your creation until you get to the courthouse. It doesn't matter who made it, just who filed first.

I'm not so sure about that one. Since everyone seems to be headed down the "DRM built into your hardware" path, why can't we just build "compulsory licensing" in on top of this? Is not one essentially as easy to execute (in theory) as the other?

Because monitoring private use is extraordinarily difficult. And, since private individuals have to own the copyrights under your system, they would have to do the monitoring themselves, making this an even bigger mess.

 

[Spell]

How does this, in any possible way, relate to what I said?

simple: for example, you can't chose to buy a EA nba game with crappy graphic at a reduced price. so the fact that the game sells a lot is not a direct indication that the public would rather spend more and buy the product with flashier graphic no matter what. it's simply and indication that, between the various basket games on the market, said game fare well (or not, i don't actually know). then you can say it fare well because of the price, the playability, the graphic, and whatever, but it's quite open to argument, UNLESS you can produce me an example of the same game offered with two different graphic interface, at different prices that proves your point. have you got said example? probably not

you see, i have no problem to say that some people goes to the cinema to see beautiful special effects, or that they buy graphic heavy games because that's what they like. i have a problem when you say that without those elements the vast majority of the public would be greatly disappointed with any product, given away at any price. have you got figures to prove that? if not, you are talking on your experience, and your experience is as good as mine.

So basically, you're arguing that quality games are only games you like?

no, basically i'm arguing that when i buy an entertainment product i don't look for classy graphic, but for content. if the graphic is there, and i can afford it, great. if i can't afford it, and i still can choose to have the content, i go with the content.
if there is no content, i don't buy. no matter how many millions you spent on breathtaking special effects or posh graphic and interior art.

I don't like those stupid stick figure games, and not that many people do.

i assume, of course, that you have the result of some heavy market research to back that?

No, my point was that the quality of the products for sale would be vastly reduced, something that have you continually supported. Your economic model would destroy the quality of intellectual property.

really? let's see.
in your words:

And if you couldn't make money off of them, there would be no more published thoughts, ideas or series of msuical notes arranged in a certain way.

now, unless with "in a certain way" you meant "of the best possible quality, given an infinite amount of time or resources" (which would be possible, but very ill worded), you are either saying that:
1. there would be no product whatsoever
2. there would be some kind of product, but it would be different, somehow, from what is available today.

if you meant 1: you are wrong. i pointed you at some free stuff, during by one person as a labour of love. the fact that you, or a million people, like these things or not, frankly, doesn't make your point right, because your are not talking about quality, you are talking about existance.

if you meant 2: it seemed to me that i did say early on that the average quality would be more amateurish (lower, if you want to equate the two things), and the output would be inferior, and the distribution would be different. so, how exactly is my position wrong and (i was almost forgetting) "irrelevant"?

if you meant something else, you need to phrase your thoughts better, i think.

You don't have an argument, because the claim you made was that no quality films have been made with high budgets.

oh, really? where? maybe i fell asleep while typing and somebody else put that in. since i made the claim, can you point me at my words, because i can't find such claim and i can't remember making it...

You don't have any modern, quality games with your economic model, that was my point, and the technology to make games stops advancing, thus destroying the claims that modern copyright laws limit the production of IP.

too bad i wasn't the one to claim that copyright reduces the production and the advancement of technology and art... do you actually check how you are responding to, or you assume that the same person writes all the posts that are not under your name?

Ruthless and bending laws don't go hand in hand. And there's a slight difference between bending laws and outright breaking them.

in fact there is. you should remind that to people like sony (illegally changing the cd technology, open sourced by philips only if nobody would have changed it), or to 90% of the music labels (who are offering any kind of bribe to radio stations to have their records on), or microsoft (that is planning me to put out a version of windows that, from what i heard, will allow me to upgrade only if i register, that is, only if i give my privacy rights away).
i think there is enough proof in everyday's news that your idea of "ruthless, but 100% law abiding" corporations or firms (no matter how small), is simply not true.

Simple, it'll go out of business. You can't compete by being 'nice'.

oh, no! linux disappeared from the market, and nobody was told! steve jackson games went out of business and we didn't realise! monte cook was killed by the corporate ninja! green ronin was wiped away from the face of earth and an empty clone was put in their place...

there ARE business who care about their customers (and they REALLY do), and not only survive, but prosper. and there's a lot more than the four i named here!
but, again, if you prefer to believe that, say, gary gygax doesn't give a damn about his buying public, and goes out of his way to shut down other RPG publishers because he doesn't want competition, you are very entitled to do so...

And Microsoft, IBM, EA and Ubisoft back my beliefs up.

sure they do. it doesn't mean that those are the only realities on the market...

 

[Spell]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. I have pretty loudly and clearly said that breaking the law was acceptable AND desirable with regard to copyright and intellectual property laws.

well, i stand corrected. i did miss that.
you were wrong.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Okay, just to try and nail this particular pernicious line of argument...

As you've said, Britney Spears' music isn't going to be worth anything 15 years from now. Therefore, it must be fashionable garbage. Why do people listen to it? I'll wager it's not because they actually care about how the music sounds.

I claim that people do not listen to Britney Spears because they think she makes good music. Rather, they listen to her because a careful plan has been executed to make her become a part of the social world of the people who listen to her. They come to associate this music with their lifestyles, and feel the need to continue to listen or else feel disconnected from their lives. This is a planned effect.

i can't believe that anybody in his right mind would need britney spears's music. after i saw her success, i changed my mind on marketing, and now i do believe that if you have a nice face and a lot of support, you could fart in your mike and everybody would buy your record.

Okay, I admit it. I liked Britney Spears' single "Everytime" enough that I went out and bought the CD. I like it. It was a nice tune. It gave me pleasure to listen to it.

Alright! There you go! Are you happy now? Does it give you satisfaction that a succession of total arguments has forced a liked and respected 36 year-old man to totally humiliate himself in this way before the entire bloody world? Is this what you wanted? If I run naked down Oxford Street with a rose sticking out of my arse will you stop saying arguing about the precise legal definition of the word "theft"?

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Alright! There you go! Are you happy now? Does it give you satisfaction that a succession of total arguments has forced a liked and respected 36 year-old man to totally humiliate himself in this way before the entire bloody world? Is this what you wanted? If I run naked down Oxford Street with a rose sticking out of my arse will you stop saying arguing about the precise legal definition of the word "theft"?

As an aside, has anyone noticed that the forum software's "smileyfication" subroutine doesn't recognise British swearing? (Or is it just that British swearing doesn't offend Eric's grandma?)

 

[Spell]

What? The only reason an artist can get royalties is because of the existence of copyright.

indeed. but the copyright laws is applied every time every version of the song is played live, by a radio, from a cd in a public event or venue, and so on.

the payment coming from the sales of the media in with you have recorded the music (cd, mc, vynil, mp3 file, what has you) has nothing to do with the copyright.
for example, i can put out a cd of songs written by other people. if you buy the cd, i see something coming in my pocket (gross semplification, but still). if hear a song from that cd on the radio i don't see a dime, but whoever wrote the song receives a payment from ASCAP or BMI due to the copyright law.

my post explained how the money that an act gets from just the selling of their albums is not regulated by copyright law, but by their contract with the label.

But when you make a grossly inaccurate statement like this one, it just demonstrates to me that you have no idea what you are talking about.

well, i guess i had to be clearer, then. believe me, though, i do know what i'm talking about.