Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on October 07, 2022, 07:17:05 PMWhen I tried making a retroclone of Star*Drive, I quickly became exhausted with having to create legal friendly substitutes of the aliens and stellar nations. I gave up. I didn't see the point in trying. The ideas were already perfectly serviceable and I couldn't produce anything that would be equal or better in quality. I'm just jumping through hoops to avoid being sued and have no desire to reinvent the wheel. In fact, this is how I feel about all TSR's scifi IPs because they're all painfully generic to begin with!

I'm not sure we actually disagree with each other. I will say that spending your time trying to promote other people's IP if probably not the most effective use of your time, unless you are simply looking for recognition.

It is also true that it is very difficult to create an alternative to a highly popular corporate IP. A new, more successful, version of D&D is probably not even possible at this point. I've said before that the game that replaces D&D won't be just a better version of D&D but an entirely new type of game as different from D&D as D&D was from the skirmish wargames that inspired it.

QuoteWe've reached a point where overly copyright terms are actively harming creative expression.

I'm not sure what you mean by "overly copyright terms" as individual terms can't be copyrighted. Are you referring to Trademarks which is a completely different story? The current Trademark system is why most public domain IP can't actually be freely used. Things like "Tarzan" and "John Carter" are vigorously protected by their owners. So adjusting the length of time copyright expires won't have the affect that many here are claiming.

There is some good news on this front wrt 3D printing. Recently GW sent a request to an STL hosting site (pretty sure it was Cults 3D), to remove over 200 of 3D print designs that were obviously meant to be replacement for 40K models. Cults 3D did remove 65 of those requested but only if they used terms that GW had trademarked, such as "Space Marine" or "Aeldari". Any model that used a generic name such as "Battle Brothers" was allowed to stay even though they were very similar in style and look to official models. The site claimed that they were "Fan Art" and, thus, not a violation.

My hope is that RPGers will cease relying on the OGL and the d20 SRD and just start publishing their retro clones as new games. Someone, however, will need to be willing to fight Hasbro on this which, given the tiny market for RPGs, looks unlikely.

If you've been following GW in the last few years, you'll see that they've been slowly renaming all their factions. Space Marines became Adeptus Astartes, Eldar became Aeldari, vehicles like the Rhino are now the Impulsor, etc. So even they are finding out the limits on using Trademark to protect IP.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:04:23 PM
It all comes down to whether or not you view intellectual property as property or if you look at it as some form of socialist community owned item.

Or if I view IP as a government imposed monopoly on ideas, which only benefits Disney and a few mega-corps at the expense of privacy, private property and freedom.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 07, 2022, 06:41:48 PM
I've gone back and forth about this and my current view is that Copyright should never expire. If I created a painting, why should the government be able to come into my house and say that I no longer own that painting anymore? I made it, it is my property. If I want to sell it, I should be able to sell it.

The expiration of copyright is government sponsored theft.

If you really want to live in a world with infinite copyright terms, you should probably start by ceasing to use any and all public domain works or derivatives unless you've made sure to compensate the person who should be the rightful rights-holder. It's not fair to the estates of H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, or the authors of the books of the Bible that they had the misfortune to be born before some arbitrary cutoff date.

I'm being sarcastic of course, but the idea of perpetual copyright sounds positively dystopian to me.

Typo. I meant "overly long copyright terms." Copyright is too long. Disney ruined it. It did bite them back with the Spiderman rights. So there's some schadenfreude at least.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 07, 2022, 03:55:01 PM
My opinion is unpopular but I'll share it anyway: I don't think "copyright" should be a thing at all (barring fraud).

It causes endless problems for creators, including those who want to use HPL, REH, CAS, stuff.

It makes people fearful of sharing a PDF they bought with their friends so they can create PCs.

It makes some OOP games hard to find.

It's main purpose is to transfer money to Disney etc.

I hope that one day this will look as ridiculous as suing Napster users is now. Now music access is basically free for everybody. Should be he same for books.

I have published a dozen books and my main hurdle is obscurity, not piracy.

If anyone wants to publish a supplement for Dark Fantasy Basic, be my guest, I'll be delighted.

If you don't have a couple of bucks to buy one one my PDFs, feel free to pirate it, at least until you get the money. (please put it in the right folder this time ).

Nowadays most stuff is funded by KS anyway (not mine, unfortunately, for geographical reasons).

But it doesn't really matter what I think, this will be decided by US, China, Disney, etc.

With that said, I think it is very fortunate that we have the SRD, a real blessing. It makes D&D MORE popular IMO, not less popular. I might write a SotDL supplement myself if it had a SRD.

I think you're more correct than incorrect, and based what I'm reading in this thread, I think you have a better grasp of the big picture than most. Others are probably better at boring me with details nobody really cares about. But I think you mostly get the overall concept.

Thing is, I'm on the fence about copyright, and IP in general. And a lot of it comes down to the enforcement mechanism. We can see there are clear cases of abuse. We can see it largely comes down to the bigger guy with more money walking all over the little guy.

I've read books on the topic written by actual IP attorneys who have done the deep dives. When they reach the conclusion that after looking at the facts, they have questions about IP legitimacy, which is a conclusion against their own interests, I take note. And I'm inclined to think that people who are not IP lawyers who think it's clearly legitimate maybe don't really know what their talking about near as well as they think they do.

I know from reading those works that the record is pretty clear, that the existence or absence of IP laws has no effect on the number of inventions or creative works. Or the ability to make a living off such things. But it DOES seem to have an affect on the sorts of things that are produced and how they're monetized. Something like research and development of pharmaceuticals is actually a lot less costly when there's no patent since you can just piggyback off of someone else's work. And so grants of monopoly allowing for price-gouging levels of profits ends up not being necessary to incentivize new drug development.

So here's where I'm on the fence.

As I understand it, the foundation of there being any property rights at all is not merely a cultural or a philosophical construct. It turns out that people are willing to fight more viciously, and even fight rather than flee when the odds are against them*, if someone is invading what they consider to be their home. Or in general when it comes to people, places, and things nearer and dearer to them. People really do have an instinctive sense of ownership. And it's not that hard to imagine how that emerges out of evolution. People who more carefully guard those things that enable their survival, to the extent that they are successful at doing so, tend to survive longer. And, face it, also make more attractive mates.

It's also evolutionarily advantageous to respect the property rights of others. Because if they're willing to fight that hard for what they strongly believe is theirs, it's disproportionately dangerous. If you have to, you have to. But otherwise, it's wiser to seek the lower-hanging fruit.

And so I think it's cultures that stumble upon these ideas do outlive those that don't. Hence we recognize rights to property as a thing. And it's a thing that pre-exists any form of law or government. Regardless of what the law says. And it feels like on balance, understanding that opinions vary, that we, the culture, seems to believe intellectual property is property.

Again, I always come back to the question of enforcement. And I do see government enforcement as problematic. As discussed in this thread, copyright is not always so cut and dry. It's broader than just copying word-for-word. There are grey areas. There are disputes. But government enforcement necessarily sides with the complainant. It doesn't seem fair or ethical that if both parties support this system that the system should be taking sides.

There are certainly private means of exclusion. And even if you believe in zero IP rights, what do you do in the face of private exclusion? Surely you would not suggest government intervention there, would you? And so insofar as some things can surely be defended, there will be some de facto IP ownership rights. On the flip side, maybe there are also things we currently recognize as IP that cannot be defended privately. And maybe we're going to ultimately have to realize that those fringe things shouldn't be thought of as property.

As I say, I'm on the fence, open minded, but the pro IP people are way too dismissive of the anti IP people. The anti IP people have a lot more facts and research on their side if you bother to consult true experts on the matter. And reading what the true experts have to say at the very least, even if you don't entirely agree, it does carry a lot more nuance than a lot of people are willing to admit.



* On a different topic, this is why I roll my eyes every time some know-nothing know-it-all drones on, thinking they're being insightful, talking about "asymmetric battles" when the topics adjacent to "balanced encounters" come up.  It's like, yeah, all things being equal, of course creatures are going to seek an advantage. But there are exceptions, and those exceptions are arguably the most important battles of all.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 07, 2022, 06:41:48 PM
Yes, the current copyright system discourages people from supporting abandoned IP. But why support those IP in the first place?

IMO, it is much better to encourage people to create new games and new IP than it is to facilitate people use the same old IP from decades ago.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:09:39 PM
My hope is that RPGers will cease relying on the OGL and the d20 SRD and just start publishing their retro clones as new games. Someone, however, will need to be willing to fight Hasbro on this which, given the tiny market for RPGs, looks unlikely.

hedgehobbit, I'm a bit unsure of your later point. What would someone need to fight Hasbro about? It seems like you're saying that people should be able to publish clones as new games because they aren't a copyright violation, but Hasbro would claim they are. However, I think that an RPG clone really is a copyright violation. Most of RPGs isn't just functional rules, but rather creative vision.

I'd think of it this way, to reverse who you're picturing doing it. Someone publishes an innovative new RPG. Hasbro creates a clone of it and publishes the same game with great marketing and art. I think under current law, they should be in the wrong, just as McDonald's was successfully sued over McDonaldland stealing from H.R. Pufnstuff.

------

More broadly, I feel that supposed originality is largely illusory and overrated. When I see an RPG advertised as "all new" and "unique" - that doesn't raise my interest. If I hear that it's based in solid years of playtesting - with good execution and editing - that gets my interest more. I'm running a D&D game currently, and will be running an Amber Diceless game soon. I think there's plenty of great play potential in those games despite them being decades old.

I'd compiled lists of RPGs for decades. People generate new games and new IP all the time. But the vast majority of it is ignored, and that's to be expected. What makes a difference isn't coming up with something that's new and unique just to be new and unique. It's executing effectively.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:04:23 PM
If someone steals my car, the government will help me try and get it back and punish those that stole it. I don't see why a book I wrote shouldn't get the same treatment. And, just like the US government is incapable of retrieving a stolen car from China, copyright is no different.

It all comes down to whether or not you view intellectual property as property or if you look at it as some form of socialist community owned item.

I don't think of public domain as socialism. I think it's the norm that people shouldn't be able to own abstract concepts that restrict what other people can do. To draw an analogy, an up-and-coming sports players spends time watching the best players to learn how to best play the game. However, when he tries a move he learned from watching Star Player X, he gets sued - because he's stealing that player's move.

On the one hand, maybe Star Player X spent a long time perfecting that move, and it really is innovative. He should get recognition for that. But should it then be considered his "property" that no one else can do? That's the big question.

Quote from: Lunamancer on October 08, 2022, 11:57:37 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 07, 2022, 03:55:01 PM
My opinion is unpopular but I'll share it anyway: I don't think "copyright" should be a thing at all (barring fraud).

It causes endless problems for creators, including those who want to use HPL, REH, CAS, stuff.

It makes people fearful of sharing a PDF they bought with their friends so they can create PCs.

It makes some OOP games hard to find.

It's main purpose is to transfer money to Disney etc.

I hope that one day this will look as ridiculous as suing Napster users is now. Now music access is basically free for everybody. Should be he same for books.

I have published a dozen books and my main hurdle is obscurity, not piracy.

If anyone wants to publish a supplement for Dark Fantasy Basic, be my guest, I'll be delighted.

If you don't have a couple of bucks to buy one one my PDFs, feel free to pirate it, at least until you get the money. (please put it in the right folder this time ).

Nowadays most stuff is funded by KS anyway (not mine, unfortunately, for geographical reasons).

But it doesn't really matter what I think, this will be decided by US, China, Disney, etc.

With that said, I think it is very fortunate that we have the SRD, a real blessing. It makes D&D MORE popular IMO, not less popular. I might write a SotDL supplement myself if it had a SRD.

I think you're more correct than incorrect, and based what I'm reading in this thread, I think you have a better grasp of the big picture than most. Others are probably better at boring me with details nobody really cares about. But I think you mostly get the overall concept.

Thing is, I'm on the fence about copyright, and IP in general. And a lot of it comes down to the enforcement mechanism. We can see there are clear cases of abuse. We can see it largely comes down to the bigger guy with more money walking all over the little guy.

I've read books on the topic written by actual IP attorneys who have done the deep dives. When they reach the conclusion that after looking at the facts, they have questions about IP legitimacy, which is a conclusion against their own interests, I take note. And I'm inclined to think that people who are not IP lawyers who think it's clearly legitimate maybe don't really know what their talking about near as well as they think they do.

I know from reading those works that the record is pretty clear, that the existence or absence of IP laws has no effect on the number of inventions or creative works. Or the ability to make a living off such things. But it DOES seem to have an affect on the sorts of things that are produced and how they're monetized. Something like research and development of pharmaceuticals is actually a lot less costly when there's no patent since you can just piggyback off of someone else's work. And so grants of monopoly allowing for price-gouging levels of profits ends up not being necessary to incentivize new drug development.

So here's where I'm on the fence.

As I understand it, the foundation of there being any property rights at all is not merely a cultural or a philosophical construct. It turns out that people are willing to fight more viciously, and even fight rather than flee when the odds are against them*, if someone is invading what they consider to be their home. Or in general when it comes to people, places, and things nearer and dearer to them. People really do have an instinctive sense of ownership. And it's not that hard to imagine how that emerges out of evolution. People who more carefully guard those things that enable their survival, to the extent that they are successful at doing so, tend to survive longer. And, face it, also make more attractive mates.

It's also evolutionarily advantageous to respect the property rights of others. Because if they're willing to fight that hard for what they strongly believe is theirs, it's disproportionately dangerous. If you have to, you have to. But otherwise, it's wiser to seek the lower-hanging fruit.

And so I think it's cultures that stumble upon these ideas do outlive those that don't. Hence we recognize rights to property as a thing. And it's a thing that pre-exists any form of law or government. Regardless of what the law says. And it feels like on balance, understanding that opinions vary, that we, the culture, seems to believe intellectual property is property.

Again, I always come back to the question of enforcement. And I do see government enforcement as problematic. As discussed in this thread, copyright is not always so cut and dry. It's broader than just copying word-for-word. There are grey areas. There are disputes. But government enforcement necessarily sides with the complainant. It doesn't seem fair or ethical that if both parties support this system that the system should be taking sides.

There are certainly private means of exclusion. And even if you believe in zero IP rights, what do you do in the face of private exclusion? Surely you would not suggest government intervention there, would you? And so insofar as some things can surely be defended, there will be some de facto IP ownership rights. On the flip side, maybe there are also things we currently recognize as IP that cannot be defended privately. And maybe we're going to ultimately have to realize that those fringe things shouldn't be thought of as property.

As I say, I'm on the fence, open minded, but the pro IP people are way too dismissive of the anti IP people. The anti IP people have a lot more facts and research on their side if you bother to consult true experts on the matter. And reading what the true experts have to say at the very least, even if you don't entirely agree, it does carry a lot more nuance than a lot of people are willing to admit.



* On a different topic, this is why I roll my eyes every time some know-nothing know-it-all drones on, thinking they're being insightful, talking about "asymmetric battles" when the topics adjacent to "balanced encounters" come up.  It's like, yeah, all things being equal, of course creatures are going to seek an advantage. But there are exceptions, and those exceptions are arguably the most important battles of all.

Well said. Yes, you're right about invention, compensation, etc. I didn't understand your question about exclusion - could you give me an example?

I am against coercive government on principle, but I have nothing against voluntary contracts. E.g.; "you cannot put songs that aren't your son YT", for example, is up to YT. But even if we accept coercive government as neccesary, I think government enforced IP is going too far, stepping over property, freedom of expression, etc.

You touched on a important point: many people believe IP is "property". And it is not. Like when people call piracy "theft"; it may be crime (this is defined by law), but not theft (because this isn't the definition of theft).

Likewise, the legal definition of property means something you use in exclusion of others, or "erga omnes". If someone in  China pirates my books with HIS laptop, this is not an infringement against my property. My property is untouched. If someone steals my wallet, I lose money. If someone pirates my book, the one store in my HD is unchanged, and all I can lose is a potential, abstract sale that probably wouldn't even happen if the "pirate" had to pay.

Leaving all that aside, as a publisher, I want every book I sell to be worth of the few dollars I charge. And if someone wants to read my books without supporting me, I'd rather have readers than be ignored. I can say from experience that the books I give away for free do NOT represent lost sales. This should be obvious to anyone who tried.

If we were to get rid of IP laws, I think we could easily rely on Patreon, KS, donations, maybe subscription models (e.g. spotify) and people buying stuff they could get for free just to support the author (or for convenience, like I do with dostoevsky books).

I look at it from a consequentialist perspective. The many extensions to copyright lobbied by Disney are now harming creative expression and preventing the preservation of abandoned/orphaned IPs. This is especially obvious in the internet age. Therefore, it is of public benefit to remove the extensions. How that should be implemented is up to the legal system, but it needs to be implemented within a timely frame. If companies want to protect their continued profits, then trademark law already covers that: as shown with the examples of the trademarks on characters like Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 08, 2022, 06:44:28 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:04:23 PM
It all comes down to whether or not you view intellectual property as property or if you look at it as some form of socialist community owned item.

Or if I view IP as a government imposed monopoly on ideas, which only benefits Disney and a few mega-corps at the expense of privacy, private property and freedom.

Maybe, but if you read a brand new novel and love it, can you write your own sequel and sell it?

That's one reason copyrights exist. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 09, 2022, 04:29:28 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 08, 2022, 06:44:28 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:04:23 PM
It all comes down to whether or not you view intellectual property as property or if you look at it as some form of socialist community owned item.

Or if I view IP as a government imposed monopoly on ideas, which only benefits Disney and a few mega-corps at the expense of privacy, private property and freedom.

Maybe, but if you read a brand new novel and love it, can you write your own sequel and sell it?

That's one reason copyrights exist.

I thought trademark would protect the characters and even elements of the original story, such as places, names, etc. Copyright prevents you from reprinting the original. Right?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 09, 2022, 04:29:28 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 08, 2022, 06:44:28 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 08, 2022, 05:04:23 PM
It all comes down to whether or not you view intellectual property as property or if you look at it as some form of socialist community owned item.

Or if I view IP as a government imposed monopoly on ideas, which only benefits Disney and a few mega-corps at the expense of privacy, private property and freedom.

Maybe, but if you read a brand new novel and love it, can you write your own sequel and sell it?

That's one reason copyrights exist.

Yes, I should be able to do that. That is called fanfic and most authors are okay with that. Nobody would read my novel, however, except a few friends and readers.

But yes, if I wanted to write a Harry Potter sequel I should 100% be able to do that (as hundreds of people have done before). Yes, I should be able to publish. No, it wouldn't make JK any poorer, her fans would prefer buying her stuff for obvious reasons.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 08, 2022, 08:55:46 AM
I think the term "D&D Heartbreaker" was created to describe people's pet game they made, then nobody played. 

It's not the same as copyright being so long.  That may exist mostly because of the Disney Corporation.  I think they keep lobbying for the copyright duration to get longer and longer so they can hold onto their own properties that were made in the 1930's. 

Right now the only way to get a lot of that stuff is to go to foreign sites like Project Guttenburg in Australia.  You can download old books for free because Australian law says a copyright is 50 years.  Anything from 1972 (as of this year, 2022) is in public domain.  Aka you can just download Edgar Rice Burroughs novels like Tarzan or A Princess of Mars, or Bram Stoker's Dracula, or Heinein's Starship Troopers.  Yet people still buy E-reader files from Amazon because they don't know.

D&D is going to start falling under that law pretty soon.  In 2027 both Holmes B/X and AD&D will be considered public domain in Australia.  In the USA, not so much.

Copyright in Australia is Life +70 https://www.library.qut.edu.au/copyrightguide/generalinfor/howlongdoesc.jsp#:~:text=In%20Australia%2C%20copyright%20in%20published,PDF%20below%20for%20more%20information) - same as in USA for author owned works. It's possible some older US works are out of copyright there though due to old US copyright law requirements, but this person says Starship Troopers is in copyright https://qr.ae/pvcC0U

Quote from: FingerRod on October 09, 2022, 04:52:12 PM
I thought trademark would protect the characters and even elements of the original story, such as places, names, etc. Copyright prevents you from reprinting the original. Right?

A sequel to the original story is generally considered a "derivative work" under copyright law, and the rights are claimed by the original copyright holder. Here are some explanations:

https://milleripl.com/blogs/copyrights/can-i-do-a-sequel-to-someone-elses-book-or-movie

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-are-derivative-works-under-copyright-law

https://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-limitation.html

Derivative works also include translations, adapatations to stage or film, and so forth. This was tested recently with the character of Sherlock Holmes, since the original Sherlock stories have passed into the public domain. The courts have ruled that anyone can publish Sherlock Holmes stories:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinger_v._Conan_Doyle_Estate,_Ltd.

---

Trademark in principle only includes marketing of a work - i.e. what is on the cover and in advertising for the work. It shouldn't include material that is inside the work. It is intended to prevent deceptive marketing where someone thinks they are buying from someone - but actually are buying from someone else. It shouldn't cover the content of what is being bought.

The Doyle estate is still claiming "Sherlock Holmes" as a trademark, but it seems like this isn't enforceable, since they tried to block the publication of an anthology called "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes" and failed.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 07, 2022, 06:41:48 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 07, 2022, 03:55:01 PM
My opinion is unpopular but I'll share it anyway: I don't think "copyright" should be a thing at all (barring fraud).

I've gone back and forth about this and my current view is that Copyright should never expire. If I created a painting, why should the government be able to come into my house and say that I no longer own that painting anymore? I made it, it is my property. If I want to sell it, I should be able to sell it.

The expiration of copyright is government sponsored theft.

Protection of ideas aka IP only exists because the government carved out laws to make it a thing.  There is no natural right here, since all ideas are permutations on existing ones.

The term should never have been modified from the original 14 + 14 as intended by the Founders.

Quote from: Palleon on October 11, 2022, 08:06:21 PM
The term should never have been modified from the original 14 + 14 as intended by the Founders.

Which term came from England's 1709/10 Statute of Anne, the first modern copyright law.
I teach copyright - did my PhD on it - and I have come to think they got it right the first time.