Poll of the Day > Do you agree with Ridley? (please answer before mods delete this topic)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://i.imgur.com/xTMCn8M.jpg
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"I want something, therefore the universe is obligated to give it to me, and if it doesn't, I'm perfectly entitled to take it anyway."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8xrgLqQZ8

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Not always
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A little Joycon drift and people honestly wanna try justifying piracy.

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If there's no way to obtain them, then sure.


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you know, you can do something bad without having to tell everyone its good actually. you can just be bad sometimes

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PunishedOni posted...

you know, you can do something bad without having to tell everyone its good actually. you can just be bad sometimes

or not feel bad

or not even consider the thing bad

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"Morally correct" is a weird way to put it, but I would agree that pirating something that isn't available for official sale in any capacity isn't morally reprehensible. Heck, I'm in favour of the copyright on a given work expiring outright if the IP holder goes more than 10 years (give or take) without actively offering it (or a remake) for sale, especially now that the wonderful world of digital distribution means it's really easy to do that. If they aren't selling it, they can't claim any damages from piracy, which means there's no reason to be opposed to it.

If they are selling the product, though, not so much. That's just you deciding you're entitled to it without paying the asking price, which isn't defensible at all. Their product, their price.

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Carter-A259 posted...

If there's no way to obtain them, then sure.

*If there's no way to obtain them and benefit the original creator/producer.

There are ways to buy Mother 3 legally but none of what you are spending to play it is going to go to Nintendo.

Wow this is quite the daring take here. I wish I had put gloves on before clicking on this fiery topic

If Nintendo could charge you for remembering Mario exists they would

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It has to exist for it to count as piracy... I mean, you can't steal non-existence

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adjl posted...

Heck, I'm in favour of the copyright on a given work expiring outright if the IP holder goes more than 10 years (give or take) without actively offering it (or a remake) for sale, especially now that the wonderful world of digital distribution means it's really easy to do that.

Waiting for Zeus to say that this is the worst idea in the history of existence

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Zareth posted...

Waiting for Zeus to say that this is the worst idea in the history of existence

There's plenty of room for argument, but I'd be much more in favour of that than the flat "it becomes public domain after 75 years" thing that happens now (though it's gradually being made more lenient largely because of pressure from Disney, thanks to many of their IP's having broken the 75-year mark). Companies that are still actively using an intellectual property should not lose the rights to it, no matter how old it is. IP's that are not being actively used, on the other hand, should become public domain. It should be very easy to qualify for "actively using" a property, and some nuance would be needed to account for minor characters within a franchise that don't see much use (though such characters aren't likely to be that profitable to snipe, and because they're public domain, the original creator could still use them at will), but the bottom line is that I'd like to see everything ever created either remain available for purchase from the creator or be formally characterized as abandonware and made available for free.

Ultimately, the goal is to maximize the potential for preserving art. IP holders hoarding their works and not letting anyone have them ever is flagrantly against that.

On a similar note, schematics for car parts and other similar items should also become public domain once the manufacturer stops producing them. There's no excuse for obsolescence in a world where 3D printing exists; that concept exists purely to satisfy the greed of corporations and I therefore see no reason to humour it.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

"I want something, therefore the universe is obligated to give it to me, and if it doesn't, I'm perfectly entitled to take it anyway."

That is a perfect summation of human history.

adjl posted...

(though it's gradually being made more lenient largely because of pressure from Disney, thanks to many of their IP's having broken the 75-year mark).

I'm having trouble parsing that sentence, are you saying that Disney is leading the charge against draconian copyright laws? Because it was Disney that had the law changed from 56 years (already draconian) to 75 and then again to 95 with the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, and has been quietly lobbying congress to extend it to 125 years or beyond; the only reason an extension has not been granted or otherwise slipped into a bill is because of the work of the EFF.

Here in Canada, it's life of the artist plus twenty years, which is entirely reasonable.

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https://i.imgur.com/47lqcoI.gifv

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if they aren't selling them in any form, then the company isn't going to make money from them anyway.

why do you think wow started making classic servers?
several private servers for multiple expansions have thousands of people, and lots of those people even pay money for things there
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KodyKeir posted...

I'm having trouble parsing that sentence, are you saying that Disney is leading the charge against draconian copyright laws? Because it was Disney that had the law changed from 56 years (already draconian) to 75 and then again to 95 with the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, and has been quietly lobbying congress to extend it to 125 years or beyond; the only reason an extension has not been granted or otherwise slipped into a bill is because of the work of the EFF.

Yeah, I'm saying that they're one of the major driving forces behind extending the 75 year thing, not that they're relaxing copyright laws. I do think it's quite reasonable for Disney to retain the rights to all of the characters and IP's they're still actively using, despite their age.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

if they aren't selling them in any form, then the company isn't going to make money from them anyway.

That's about my attitude. There should be some degree of grace period to let them organize a re-release, rather than immediately having them become public domain as soon as official sale stops, but if they aren't trying to make money off the property, piracy is genuinely harmless.

Again, though, I feel that the best case scenario is that companies just sell their stuff forever, not that a significant portion of their libraries end up public domain. Ideally, IP holders should be compensated appropriately for their stuff. If they don't care about that, though, having it archived somewhere else and available for public use is highly preferable to having it hoarded away where nobody can enjoy it.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

lots of those people even pay money for things there

That's one aspect of the "public domain" idea that does get a little iffy. While distributing material that the IP holder doesn't want to sell is fine, profiting from distributing it is another matter entirely. Many emulator sites do make a quasi-decent amount of money (mostly from ad revenue, though some have premium subscription models), and I don't think that's altogether ethical.

That said, running these sites does require time, effort, and money, so some degree of compensation for that isn't unreasonable (much like people get paid to work in a library, even though they didn't write any of the books they're loaning out). I don't think we can expect the government to start handing out grants for people running video game emulation libraries (while that's no less legitimate than offering grants to book libraries, the notion that video games are an art form that warrants preservation isn't tremendously popular yet), so until we can, allowing these sites to support themselves is really the only way for that to work. I'd guess the best option would be to require a certain percentage of any profits to be paid to the IP holders (presumably based on their share of the downloads). How that would work with defunct companies, I'm not sure, but I'm sure something could be worked out.

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adjl posted...

Yeah, I'm saying that they're one of the major driving forces behind extending the 75 year thing, not that they're relaxing copyright laws.

kk, it's too hot where I am at, so critical thinking takes a nose dive.

adjl posted...

the notion that video games are an art form that warrants preservation isn't tremendously popular yet

Germany doesn't even consider it art.


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KodyKeir posted...

kk, it's too hot where I am at, so critical thinking takes a nose dive.

In retrospect, I worded it kind of awkwardly.

KodyKeir posted...

Germany doesn't even consider it art.

A lot of people don't. I have no idea where most governments stand on the matter, but the attitude that video games are just toys for kids is still very common, especially among older people.

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KodyKeir posted...

Germany doesn't even consider it art.

Their loss. Meanwhile, a game company in Spain made a gorgeous work of art called Gris. There are other examples of games achieving various levels of art, too, but that's a list of titles or explanations I am not prepared to make at this time.

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