Gamecollector wrote:

Night Dive Studios wants to sell 21-years old game? And not the physical copies, just cd-image/installer/something?
Current digital "rights" are *censored* and must die.

Hey, if someone owns the rights to something they're allowed to do what they will with it for financial gain. Doesn't matter that it's 21 years old. :P

Gamecollector wrote:

Night Dive Studios wants to sell 21-years old game? And not the physical copies, just cd-image/installer/something?
Current digital "rights" are *censored* and must die.

A game that's finally getting its longstanding publisher rights hell problem resolved, and this is what Mr. "3dfx game collection" thinks? Did you seriously expect a rerelease to Gamestops everywhere? Do you not have a conscience?

Gamecollector wrote:

Night Dive Studios want to sell 21-years old game? And not the physical copies, just cd-image/installer/something?
Current digital "rights" are *censored* and must die.

To be honest, I don't see a problem. Anyone who wants to buy the game will now be able to (assuming it is true that Night Dive* now own the rights and are going to make the game available for purchase), and anyone who doesn't want or like the game, doesn't have to. And the situation won't change for pirates, who still will or won't pirate it.

It is disappointing, I imagine, for some people that there will not (I'd guess) be a box+manual+disc non-digital option, but it's probably not realistic to expect that, given that the game is so old, and so will have relatively very few potential purchasers. Plus people who really want that can search ebay/Amazon/used game stores/etc, just the same as they could if the game was not re-released as a digital download. I really don't see a downside to this game being made purchasable again, albeit digital download only.

I do agree though, that digital rights are really messed up, and copyright exists for far too long per item. I'd personally love it if copyright only persisted for ten years, or even just twenty-five (and not the seventy-five and counting years that Disney have pushed it up to now). I would prefer it if System Shock were copyright free now, but since it's not, I think it's great that we can at least buy it legally, and for the much lower than original comercial price it cost back when it was new.

Kerr Avon wrote:

I do agree though, that digital rights are really messed up, and copyright exists for far too long per item. I'd personally love it if copyright only persisted for ten years, or even just twenty-five (and not the seventy-five and counting years that Disney have pushed it up to now).

As an indie developer myself, I can't say I'd be on board with this. Copyright offers one major protection and that's the right to have control over your IPs regardless of if content made with them is free or not.

If the limit was 10 years, then people would be free to make their own spinoffs of my PixelShips series which, depending on their skill, could eclipse my original design, which means they would be making money off of something *I* originally created which they clearly lacked the creativity to come up with on their own accord. It would be a massive insult to me because it would be like, "Hey, you made this fun little game for free? Well, how about I get my team of people to take your idea, make a few modifications, market it better, and make tons of money off of it with minimal effort?"

So no, I can't say I would approve of shortening copyrights. What I *DO* approve of is finding a way to amend the laws so that products under copyright which are not actively capitalized for x amount of time enter a point where copies of the original can be produced by third parties for free, without monetary gain, until such time that the copyright holder begins capitalizing on it again, or the copyright expires, at which point the laws regarding public domain would apply. I would completely support that kind of addition to copyright laws. :)

(EDIT: Though I understand why THAT doesn't happen either, as copies would devalue the original. Goes to show there's no perfect solution to all of this.)

Yeah, copyright law sucks but there is no easy solution and certainly not by laymen. Extending it was the lazy (and most profitable it seems) solution...

Dominus wrote:

easy solution

Massacre all Disney's lawers? 😀

😉
See? That's not a solution anymore at this point

How about massacring all of Disney's lobbyists around the time the current copyright extension is set to begin to expire in 2019? 😀

Gemini000 wrote:

"Hey, you made this fun little game for free? Well, how about I get my team of people to take your idea, make a few modifications, market it better, and make tons of money off of it with minimal effort?"

The current laws actually support people having this line of thought. No intellectual property laws protect ideas, they only protect expressions of ideas that are unique enough according to courts, inventions(though most patented inventions these days barely make small changes to existing technology) and names used for marketing. In short, people can do this right now. Just pointing that out. 😉

That's because the laws are meant to support rich corporations (who pay the lawyers' *huge* wages), and not the people who have the ideas (well, not unless the person who has the idea is also wealthy enough to pay for a possibly very long drawn out legal battle).

On the bright side, law prevented 2k and EA from shitting on System Shock wiht possible poor sequels.

XagferI wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

"Hey, you made this fun little game for free? Well, how about I get my team of people to take your idea, make a few modifications, market it better, and make tons of money off of it with minimal effort?"

The current laws actually support people having this line of thought. No intellectual property laws protect ideas, they only protect expressions of ideas that are unique enough according to courts, inventions(though most patented inventions these days barely make small changes to existing technology) and names used for marketing. In short, people can do this right now. Just pointing that out. ;)

Isn't supported to the extent you may think it does.

I probably should've clarified this better too: An "idea" is one thing but actual "content" is another. You can't copyright an idea, because copyright has to apply to something you've actually made, thus copyright applies to content. If someone were to make a product which directly uses artistic components of my copyrighted work, such as the sound effects, the graphics, etc., or direct variants of those artistic components, that is a violation of copyright.

There's nothing stopping a company from making a similar game with 100% of their own original content. You can't copyright the method of gameplay itself, but sometimes it's very difficult to make a clone without infringing on the copyrights of the original design.

As an example, The Tetris Company has had a LOT of success with defending their copyrights and blocking the sale of various Tetris clones because, quite frankly, it's difficult to make a Tetris clone which doesn't look and play an awful lot like one of the official releases. :P

Open source code will make fans day, someone's rights for online resale aren't good news

Kerr Avon wrote:

That's because the laws are meant to support rich corporations (who pay the lawyers' *huge* wages), and not the people who have the ideas (well, not unless the person who has the idea is also wealthy enough to pay for a possibly very long drawn out legal battle).

Except that's not how it works. If you were to bash out a program and copyright it, you would receive the same protection for your work that the big corporation does for theirs. Stop spewing that Marxist crap.

Dominus wrote:

Yeah, copyright law sucks but there is no easy solution and certainly not by laymen. Extending it was the lazy (and most profitable it seems) solution...

When you own something that is under copyright protection that you depend on for your income, you'll be singing a different tune when your work starts appearing all over the internet for free without your consent. You'll be suing file sharers right along with the RIAA and MPAA.

sliderider wrote:

Kerr Avon wrote:

That's because the laws are meant to support rich corporations (who pay the lawyers' *huge* wages), and not the people who have the ideas (well, not unless the person who has the idea is also wealthy enough to pay for a possibly very long drawn out legal battle).

Except that's not how it works. If you were to bash out a program and copyright it, you would receive the same protection for your work that the big corporation does for theirs. Stop spewing that Marxist crap.

I read some software companies (MS and Apple in particular) are in the business of Tactical Software Patent Hoarding. Not quite the same as whole program+content copyright, but relevant for law.
Edit: here is an article about it: http://arstechnica.com/business/2007/03/analy … tent-flip-flop/

Gemini000 wrote:

As an example, The Tetris Company has had a LOT of success with defending their copyrights and blocking the sale of various Tetris clones because, quite frankly, it's difficult to make a Tetris clone which doesn't look and play an awful lot like one of the official releases. 😜

Heh, Dr. Mario says otherwise. I know that The Tetris Company has actively been trying to takedown Tetris clones on the Internet and elsewhere, but it is possible for people to make Tetris clones still without any legal issues. So yes, ideas can be taken and used to make different products.

gerwin wrote:

I read some software companies (MS and Apple in particular) are in the business of Tactical Software Patent Hoarding. Not quite the same as whole program+content copyright, but relevant for law.

Yeah patent law is terrible, because patents are often issued nowadays for useless technology or technology that makes small changes to existing mechanisms, and even slight similarities is enough for companies to make bogus cases and threaten small start ups.

Also enforcing your rights does cost time and money, so you can't just say the law grants effective protection to work regardless of the finances of who made and owns the work.

XagferI wrote:

Heh, Dr. Mario says otherwise. I know that The Tetris Company has actively been trying to takedown Tetris clones on the Internet and elsewhere, but it is possible for people to make Tetris clones still without any legal issues. So yes, ideas can be taken and used to make different products.

It really depends on how closely a clone looks and plays to an existing Tetris game. If there's too many similarities, that's when The Tetris Company will come swooping in.

Also, Dr. Mario's a bad example because the ONLY similarity it has to Tetris is that pieces fall and can be rotated. :P

sliderider wrote:

Dominus wrote:

Yeah, copyright law sucks but there is no easy solution and certainly not by laymen. Extending it was the lazy (and most profitable it seems) solution...

When you own something that is under copyright protection that you depend on for your income, you'll be singing a different tune when your work starts appearing all over the internet for free without your consent. You'll be suing file sharers right along with the RIAA and MPAA.

But it's not right that copyright keeps getting extended.