This is like that "Congratulations, you've just killed Beethoven" BS that anti-abortion campaigners come out with.

What monastery was this?  Since when do monasteries rely on music for their income?  Besides which, if a monastery closes, the monks go to other monasteries, they don't like wind up in the street drinking meths and doing choral for crack.

Quote from: JimBobOzWhich is why guys like Dan Davenport get shitloads of review copies, and other would-be reviewers get none.

My reviews of games are often anything glowing, brutally honest, and tend to include criticism of even games I express undying love for (and, on the other hand, I always TRY my hardest to find some redeeming qualities of games that I totally disliked).

In spite of this, or perhaps in part because of it, I get tons of free stuff, both PDF and print, to review.
I think that besides the readership I have, this is no doubt due to the fact that I've religiously followed through with my promise to review every single game I get, and the review is always full-sized.

At the moment, I have enough reviews pending that I can post one every week for the next several weeks. And there's more on the way.

The lesson? Publishers will give you a shitload of free stuff if you demonstrate that you will follow through on what you promise to do with said free stuff.

RPGPundit

Quite likely at that monastery, they did, since all they could do to make money was sing, and not because they were especially good singers, either.

The closest thing I can find in a quick search was that Mozart, as a young man, memorized a piece he'd heard in the Sistine Chapel, and which was effectively under the protection of an ad hoc copyright issued by the Pope. But I can't find anything about the choir of the Sistine Chapel breaking up or anything like that as a consequence. In fact the Pope of the time gave Mozart a medal for being such a rockin' genius.

Quote from: SpikeAh... but now we're talking about piracy as tresspassing, not piracy as theft...

Bingo! I don't think of it as theft, I think of it as akin to tresspassing, or invading my privacy. It's wrong, it's personal, and it pisses me off! You kids get off the lawn! Go play somewhere else!



-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceBingo! I don't think of it as theft, I think of it as akin to tresspassing, or invading my privacy. It's wrong, it's personal, and it pisses me off! You kids get off the lawn! Go play somewhere else!



-clash

Much my views and stated with less words. Together we would be deadly.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltMuch my views and stated with less words. Together we would be deadly.

Bill

~I'm not sure if a 80's music listening over cafinated hippie can be to scary.

Quote from: Mcrow~I'm not sure if a 80's music listening over cafinated hippie can be to scary.

...Damn.

No, wait.  I'm only a hippie gamer, not an actual hippie.

Sweet.

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen...Damn.

No, wait.  I'm only a hippie gamer, not an actual hippie.

Sweet.

just so people don't think I'm being an ass:

I used to game with Bill before he moved to Chicago, so there is a little of an inside joke there.

Quote from: James J SkachHow nice of you to allow the authors of those works, whether it's music or an RPG, to have a say in how valuable their work is. I'm sure they are greatful you've even ackowledged their existence.

Your snark washes straight off my back. Yep, they should be grateful. I could have  gone and downloaded their stuff, after all, and given them nothing.

Quote from: James J SkachLet's say you made a cabinet.  You worked really hard on that cabinet -designed and built it with your own two hands. You spent 50 hours building that cabinet. You leave the cabinet in your garage while you go to get some finish for it.  Someone comes in and takes the cabinet and leaves you a $50. You're not going to be upset?  I mean, you may have built the cabinet to sell it, but you were going to charge $300 for it. Why didn't you get a say in it's value?

Lets say there are copies of your cabinet lying around everywhere for the taking. Instead, I buy a copy you made and give you the money. That's my choice.

Quote from: James J SkachYou'll note I've never said anything about the technology (other than to reference the "magical coke replicating machine").  For me, it's not about the technology, it's about the attitude that seems so pervasive. I disagree the that moral and ethics have to change.  You don't start stealing because people leave their doors open.  You don't violate copyright now just because it's easy. It might be a losing battle, but I won't give up - not yet.

Ideology always follows material reality.

Quote from: Mcrow~I'm not sure if a 80's music listening over cafinated hippie can be to scary.

I resent that...I am not over caffeinated...yet.

Bill

I'm the one being accused of not understanding the argument and yet I've quoted US criminal code to illustrate how copyright infringement is seen as stolen property. I'm told I'm not using logic, when the definitions of the words theft, steal, and intellectual property, amazingly enough, equate copyright infringement with theft - imagine that. Somehow these lead me to be the one labeled ideological.

The fact that current law and my ethics about the situation happen to align is not coincidence.  There's a reason for copyright.  Believe it or not it's not just to let the monastery make money.  It was to promote the spread of ideas by codifying a way for the creator to be compensated. It was to promote the monastery performing the song more than once a year and not having to keep the song under lock and key and not having to worry about a genius reverse engineering their song. By protecting the copyright holder, it would allow the information to be distributed more effectively and more efficiently.

This is where I depart from Levi.  It's better to rely on the natural tendency of the creator to want to be compensated, then the charity and good feelings of the consumer. That's the point of copyright.

Because otherwise you end with the attitude that droog has - that it is his right to determine, alone, the value of the creation.  The creator has no right to be a part of that negotiation. Take that to its logical conclusion - and tell me who is being ideological.

It's funny.  I once asked, in another thread here, if designers here would be upset if I downloaded a "pirate" copy and then sent them the money.  You should have seen the intensity of those responses. Mostly, if I understood them, they were telling me that if they gave an inch in enforcing their copy rights, they'd be releasing their products into public domain.

I'll apologize now for being so upset.  But I hate being told I don't understand simply because I choose not to draw a distinction between stealing real property and intellectual property. If that's the point of contention, let's agree to disagree and you tell the game developers here that their products are not their property.

Yes, but US law is stupid, Skach. Your legislators call creationism "science", and claim to have brought "freedom" to Iraq, so that they call copyright infringement "theft" is not surprising. They're morons. They think of things in terms of unsuitable words.

In any case, I am indifferent to the law. When I spoke of whether copyright violation was theft or not, I didn't mention the law. I'm talking about logic and morality, which have nothing to do with the law. Many things are legal which are immoral (eg, screwing around on your missus, lying to your friends) and many other things are illegal which are moral or harmless (eg putting money in someone else's parking meter, running a soup kitchen in a public place in Las Vegas, smoking wacky tabacky). In any case, the daily number of copyright violations will be in the tens of millions, the daily number of charges brought, very few. So as a law, it's rarely enforced, and thus can safely be ignored for all practical and discussion purposes.

In morality and logic, copyright infringement is not theft, nor is it like theft; it is more like a violation of privacy, or of trespass.

It's lame to do, and lamer to worry about. Certainly it's an immoral thing to do, but we have far more immoral things to worry about. Like, for example, the more serious crimes with which people have compared copyright infringement - theft, child molesting, etc.

Quote from: James J SkachBecause otherwise you end with the attitude that droog has - that it is his right to determine, alone, the value of the creation.  The creator has no right to be a part of that negotiation. Take that to its logical conclusion - and tell me who is being ideological.

I said nothing about right. That's not my language.

Quote from: JimBobOzYes, but US law is stupid, Skach. Your legislators call creationism "science", and claim to have brought "freedom" to Iraq, so that they call copyright infringement "theft" is not surprising. They're morons. They think of things in terms of unsuitable words.

Sad, but true.

Britain is currently expected to start allowing the earliest Beatles and Rolling Stones tunes into the public domain in the next decade, despite the furious complaints and lobbying of the record industry.

Do you think the U.S. would ever allow a certain cartoon mouse to enter public domain, no matter how long its creator has been rotting in the soil under Orange County?

And Britain isn't even close to the most laissez faire nation on earth when it comes to copyrights. They're just remotely sane about them, unlike the U.S.

Quote from: YamoDo you think the U.S. would ever allow a certain cartoon mouse to enter public domain, no matter how long its creator has been rotting in the soil under Orange County?

I think they could do a lot of the protection which would be required for the financial aspects, simply by use of the trademark laws. They'd lose the original movies as the coyright expires, but the character himself would be trademarked, and protected - just as for example Coca-Cola's red and white can design is trademarked.

If, after 75 years, you haven't come up with enough new ideas to keep making money, then you're a pretty sad company. If, with billions of dollars at your disposal, you are unable to come up with new ideas to make more money, then you're even more sad.

That's one of the reasons patents expire after 15 years or whatever (varies a lot) - "you've had your chance, time for something new." Progress does not come about by sticking to the old stuff forever.

Which is not to say that copyright, trademark and patent protections ought not to exist. Just that their time limits ought to be somewhat shorter. Lifetime of authour + 75 years is somewhat excessive. 21 years from original publication should be more than sufficient. In most cases nowadays, the original authour no longer profits from them after that time, as either it's flopped off into obscurity, or was successful and bought by some company.