Just because there is no longer a copyright on something doesn't mean the original copyright holder can't still try to package and sell it. There is no law prohibiting the sale of public domain work; you just no longer have exclusive rights to it, so you have to provide some value-added service (Xbox Live, WiiWare, Steam, whatever) to make people purchase it from you instead of getting it from somewhere else. This isn't a bad thing. It encourages new material, and it encourages reuse of existing material in novel ways.

Also, id is one of only a handful of games companies to have existed long enough to release any of their original IP under an open license. Most companies have either dissolved, putting their IP into limbo, or have been absorbed by larger entities that don't actually know what IP they own. That's the biggest problem, and one of the reasons extended copyright terms are so damaging.

Also, for what it's worth, those companies that license third party engines like Unreal Engine have little ability to do what id has done, because they can't release any of the third-party code without having the third-party (who may or may not be defunct) also agree to it. I think you are going to see that this will become a bigger issue over time as companies license and modify third-party game engines instead of building their own from scratch in-house. Also, usually, licenses are platform-specific, so companies that license a third-party component need to go back and re-license if they want to publish to a different platform.

The latter issue entirely depends on the licensing agreements surrounding the engine of question. I don't think it has as much impact on the nature of resales as you allude to; these are things that companies/publishers already take into account when releasing a product onto the market. I certainly wouldn't refer to it as an issue, neither small nor large. Licensing technology incurs costs, that's a given. As of yet we haven't heard companies taking GoG.com to task and I'm quite sure that not all of their published games use entirely in house developed IP.

WRT 'lost IP', well the same can be said about music and literature too. It's also a fact of life in those industries. Recently an author sent out some Jayne Austen material to prospective publishers with names and places changed (but neither the prose nor flow - both of which easily identify her signature writing style) and the work was rejected out of hand by almost every publsihing house while only one recognised as her work, even by Penguin who still publish almost all of Austen's works to this day. When questioned, the publisher's comment were something along the lines that they hadn't even read the offending item.

I'm not making a case for equivalency here, but I am saying that there are similarities for the cases you've mentioned across almost every creative industry.

dh4rm4 wrote:

As of yet we haven't heard companies taking GoG.com to task and I'm quite sure that not all of their published games use entirely in house developed IP.

FYI, AFAIK, GOG (lots of acronyms there) does not develop anything. They repackage and publish original material with the consent of the copyright holders.

GOG is associated with CD Projekt. They do just what MiniMax said, repackage other's material with their consent. The one in house CD Projekt game that I am familiar with, The Witcher, used a license of the Aurora Engine from Neverwinter Nights 2.

I would guess that the license is for development. Once the product is finished, then it is free to ship the works created with that license. Otherwise every time a company bought another they would have to renegotiate. The still probably would if they wanted to continue development, but not for the finished product.

MiniMax wrote:

FYI, AFAIK, GOG (lots of acronyms there) does not develop anything. They repackage and publish original material with the consent of the copyright holders.

I know, I did refer to them as publishers, which in the case of GoG is exactly what they are doing. It works in the same way as books do when they published in another language for different markets.

Surprise! UK ignores logic, backs 20-year music copyright extension.

From TFA:

In both the UK and EU cases, the worry is that most of the money will actually go to labels and to the richest artists like Sir Cliff. The Open Rights Group, which is bitterly opposed to extension, claims that 80 percent of all artists would receive under €30/year from the EU plan, while music labels would share 90 percent of the cash coming in.

Is anyone really supprised? Extending the term mostly benefits those who are already very wealthy. Since they are very wealthy, they have the means to buy pretty much any law they want (and this is just as true in the US, so I'm not singling the UK out here.)

However, that being said, I have no problem with a copyright remaining in effect for at least as long as th creater is alive. I also feel that his (or her,) estate should benefit from that protection for a limited amount of time. Though, personally, I believe it should be a combined limit. For examplet: Copyright holds for 70 years or the life of the creater, whichever is longer.

If a work cannot make a good profit in 70 years, then in most cases it is extremely unlikely that it ever will. If a work is actually very good, then most of the money made from it are in the first 10 years anyways. Sure, there are residuals, but they are very rarely all that substantial. I don't think the founders of copyright laws ever intended for them to be eternal (which seems to what is happening.) The creater of a work gets exclusive rights to the profits for the original surge of sales. After the surge has died down and demand has dropped, it becomes publicly available, (which will usually result in a second surge.) This second surge, that is actually created because it went into public domain, will renew interest in the artist as well, usually leading to higher sales of his (or her,) newer works. From what I read, this was the original intention of copyright laws.

The problem I see is that the current laws only benefit a few. I suspect that most copyrighted works make very little money; only a small percentage such as Mickey Mouse are still commercially viable after a few decades. Yet it is these few profitable works that are the driving force behind extended copyright terms. Abandonware is what gets caught in the crossfire. The work has been essentially abandoned, it could be that the company dissolved, the author died without an estate, or many other reasons, yet because of the profitable few, the work is still locked up behind copyright laws.

Earlier in this thread I proposed that a small yearly fee should be imposed to maintain the copyright, and if it is not paid then the work enters the public domain. I still think that is the best solution. If a work is truly abandoned then the one-size-fits-all copyright law would not prevent the work from entering the public domain if the owners don't care enough to maintain that copyright.

FeedingDragon wrote:

If a work cannot make a good profit in 70 years, then in most cases it is extremely unlikely that it ever will.

How can that be true? Art, especially that of the painted or sculpted form, prove your logic to be very flawed. Most artists' works increase in value many years after the artists are dead. Why shouldn't their works produce income for their families, even posthumously?

Maybe because they already made enough income on the original piece and now they need to get off their lazy arses and make some more, which, once again, is the bloody purpose of copyright, not to let people coast through life doing no work. Many great sculptures and paintings were commissioned, which means that if they were made today, the artist wouldn't even hold the copyright. Get it? I'm extremely tired of this argument that descendants should be entitled to royalties from the works of their ancestors until the end of time. By arguing that, you are arguing against the common good. Do you know how fucked artistic expression would be if copyrights were held in perpetuity? Please, read some of the studies that have been commissioned by the various copyright offices sometime, especially the ones about orphan works. I think those people actually completing these studies have far more expertise and knowledge than you or I.

Curiously, have you listened to any of Lawrence Lessig's speeches yet?

Colin, calm down and think about what my response was pertaining EXACTLY to. FeedingDragon's comment ignores art history in toto. That was my point. I'm not supportive of INCREASES to copyright longevity, but I also don't agree with the opinion that it should be shortened either. Why do continue to treat this discussion as a war and put me on the other side? Where in my simple reply to FD did I say "I support the X or Y"? You're colouring my opinion with aspects that I haven't even agreed with, let alone support. You've get hung up on 50 vs 70 years and somehow that is meant to put me in my place as a fool or something. Is this how you have a discussion with someone, by attacking them on the small details and painting them with broad generalisations?

Moreover, why only mention commissioned works - they contribute an extremely small percentage of total output. What about the many more undiscovered works that appear after an artist dies? Why should they not be protected? Collectors are willing to pay for them and auction houses earn money from selling them, yet the people who supported the artist and whom he/she held dearly should be denied any of that money?

Just because Disney (and other large corporations) make a farce of the creative protection laws everyone else has to suffer under even less fair rules? Cutting off your nose to spite your face, that's what that is.

And where is this coasting through life business coming from anyway? Assets have value and this is about law - your snide remarks with regards to the UNQUANTIFIABLE social qualities of theoretical family members of X example artist just don't figure here. Who are you to say that they will or will not work and earn their own incomes even with law protecting the value of their heirloom assets? Why do you assume laziness on the part of the family members?

I've looked at the material. Stop talking to me - specifically - as if I'm an idiot and please refrain from putting words into my mouth.

EDIT : Nice ninja edit you made there too. 😉

dh4rm4 wrote:

How can that be true? Art, especially that of the painted or sculpted form, prove your logic to be very flawed. Most artists' works increase in value many years after the artists are dead.

No, it does not.

Original work might increase in value, but that is mostly because crazy collectors sees it as an investment, not that it suddenly becomes of great interest to the public. And the artist, or their heirs, do no benefit in any way from this. The money is only circulating among collectors and the auction houses.

Even if one could make a 100% perfect copy of a Picasso or Leonardo painting, a perfect copy of a Michelangelo statue, it would never be valued in the same way as the original by collectors, proving that the value is not about the work, but about its heritage. And heritage can not be copied.

I'm not trying to paint you as a fool, and I don't think you are one. However, you keep bringing up the same argument over and over again, even after I have explained that long-term compensation is not the purpose of copyright(*) and should not be viewed as such. You might put your statement in a different context, but it can always be distilled down to the same idea: Copyright should exist principally to enrich the finances of the original artist, plus for some additional period after they die, because they and their families are the only people that deserve to make money off a work. It's an idea that disenfranchises the vast majority of the population (the public domain), an idea that does not promote the creation of new works, and an idea that means that those few works that actually get to enter the public domain end up all but irrelevant to the vast majority of modern society. (Have you been to http://archive.org lately and looked at what's been released there under public domain? How much of it is actually interesting or useful except to historians and a handful of enthusiasts? How much more isn't there because it was lost sometime in the last 70+ years?) It's a bad idea.

(*) There exists also the idea of moral rights, but that's about attribution and preventing "damage" to the integrity of the original work, not about exclusivity.

(Also, I'm a constant editor; I didn't expect you'd see the original message so quickly. Sorry if that was a problem 😀)

dh4rm4: The art & sculpture example doesn't apply. An artist (or sculptor,) doesn't create a piece, then mass produce copies to sell. They produce one piece, then sell that one piece (over and over if they keep busy.) Because of this production limitation, each individual piece can go up in value (via collectors and their collections.) However, this usually happens only after the artist is dead (as there will be no more work from them.) Also, the artist's descendants will never see a penny of that, as the money trades hands from collector to collector.

Where my example holds mostly true is in works that *are* mass produced. Usually literature and, primarily for this discussion, software. In those cases, the creator (or creators,) make one item (story, game, application, whatever,) and then sell off hundreds (hopefully thousands or millions,) of copies. Sure, a signed first release can (and probably will in the long run,) go up in value, the actual *new* releases will only go down in value. And they will also go down in sales. Again, those collectors items (signed first releases or whatever,) that actually go up in value, are *NOT* contributing to the income of the creator. Again, the money only goes from collector to collector.

So, the original producer of mass produced items such as books, music, software, and I'm sure other categories, will usually only see a profit for the first few years. Even as the law stands now, almost all of the producers of software that people are copying as abandonware aren't losing any money. Mainly because they are not producing, and in some cases are incapable of ever producing, the game in question. The only people that are really effected by this practice (which is illegal, no argument there,) are the price gouging eBayers out there. And they aren't that effected, as the people willing to pay their ridiculous prices are usually looking for collecting and not just playing anyways
.

How copyright laws nearly erases our history (Orwell would have been proud):

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/13/bbc-epis … de-rescued.html

That's not copyright, but rather broadcasting rights law. There are differences. What the story is REALLY about is that the BBC had a policy in the 70s of deleting (taping over shows) that were broadcast in Black and White as a means of furthering new colour content. They weren't really thinking about DRM and copyright issues wrt that issue. Lots of shows get lost by networks the world over, including many that had bigger stars and a much larger audience than "Dad's Army". It's just that the BBC's current policy of DRM for iPlayer makes this certain lost episode newsworthy, sort of. However, media sites are making a big deal of nothing really as most broadcasters tend to make recording their content illegal but don't really care if people do it anyway. Further to this, the complaints from the Beeb online users regarding iPlayer are mostly irrelevant as BBC cocked up their own EULA wherein it states that their users can infact record their broadcasts for personal use, which is exactly what people are doing for the most part - especially those residing in the UK. What the BBC are trying to do with their iPlayer service EULA is restrict the content from leaving their shores in unlicesensed forms - such as when people package it for consumption on torrent sites. It doesn't work and people are getting through the iPlayer barriers with Proxy services and anti DRM tools. More importantly, they're still seeding and downloading all of the BBC produced content, old and new, that they can get their hands on.

Orwell wouldn't be proud, he'd be laughing at the new levels of incompetence on display by the BBC.

dh4rm4 wrote:

That's not copyright, but rather broadcasting rights law. There are differences.

There are differences - okay. But the reality is that because people are not free to redistribute old works, there is a greater risk of stuff disappearing. If that radio presenter had know that it would be okay to convert his old tapes to MP3 files and put them up on some website, there would be a chance that the content would be replicated a bit more, reducing the risk that it would disappear forever.

Have a look at http://relicradio.com/shows/ and notice the disclaimer at the bottom of the page:

All of the vintage audio and video used in these podcasts are believed to be in the public domain. If you have knowledge or information that shows otherwise, please contact me via the Contact Form and put the word "Report" in the subject field.

Is that site in breach of copyright/broadcasting-right laws? Maybe, maybe not. Reality again is that people will be wary of sharing these old gems, and without sharing, this stuff risk disappearing.

And it is the same with old software, with anything on fragile and quickly changing media. I am not against copyright laws, I am not against people making money out of their creative talents. But maybe, just maybe, people that wants to uphold their copyrights, maybe they should also be required to ensure that a copy is kept in some kind of secure storage, maybe by their national library? Would that be too much to ask?

dh4rm4 wrote:

That's not copyright, but rather broadcasting rights law.

Uh, no, it's most definitely part of UK copyright law. In the 1960s/1970s in the UK it wasn't yet legal to record things, not even for time-shifting purposes. That provision wasn't added until 1988. So, up until it was added as an exemption, those recordings were illegal. If everyone followed the copyright law of the time, these recordings wouldn't exist.

dh4rm4 wrote:

most broadcasters tend to make recording their content illegal but don't really care if people do it anyway.

Broadcasters don't make laws, congress/parliament make laws. And, broadcasters cannot make it illegal (in the UK, nor the US) to allow people to record broadcasts for personal use, because it's explicitly allowed in fair use/fair dealings portion of copyright law. What they can do, and what they have been trying to do, is to create technological measures (encryption, etc.) whose violation will run afoul of the DMCA/EUCD or other similar legislation.

But, I also think that the reference to Orwell is inappropriate. 😀

Re: Orwell - in his novel, 1984, the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth was busy rewriting history, and burning the originals (pictures, newspapers, books). Rewriting history becomes much easier if you control all copying. Hence the reference.

Oh, right! I forgot about that momentarily. We were always at war with... anyway. For some reason I was only thinking about the surveillance. Point well taken.