Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 09, 2021, 04:51:01 PM
How is that even supposed to work? If you have a big, corporate RPG that has multiple rules authors, another author for flavor text, and half a dozen artists, how is the copywrite supposed to be split up after 25 years?

If you keep the present conception of copyright it isn't split, the revenue is split. Which won't be easy but it not novel either. An alternative is to do the revenue split on the original work (or works) and give everybody equal right to make their own derivatives on their own dime. What ever created only the person made gets the revenue from that.

Personally I think it just cleaner to limit copyright to a reasonable duration. Basically 28 years + 28 year on renewal. The renewal takes care of orphaned works and the 56 years is more than reasonable as compensation. You can't tell me that George Luca and Disney won't have made back every dime of their investment back and then some from Star Wars  by 2031. And that just the original copyright expiring. All the followups would have their own 56 years as well.

28 years + 28 renewal is fine. I'd also be okay with a flat 50 years. But either way, the current US copyright law is a fiasco. I'm assuming Disney is about to buy a new revision to the law to keep Mickey Mouse locked down for another century.

Quote from: RPGPundit on October 09, 2021, 06:15:41 AMSpeaking as an author, "life of the author" for copyright seems completely sensible to me. It's my work, I own it as long as I'm alive.

I've thought about "life of the author" vs. a flat 50 and the issue I see is copyright becomes variable based on lifespan. An author who dies young leaves nothing to his descendents which is odd. However, for the 50 year span to be an issue, the author would have had to been successful in his mid-20s to early 30s.

I'm unsure if seeing your work pass into the public domain when 75+ years old would be a bad thing.

IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

My life has centred on Copyright since I started my PhD on Copyright in 1994. I've come to pretty strongly dislike the French-based 'Life+' copyright durations, no registration etc. I think they had it right the first time in 1709: register your copyright, get 14 years, transferable for the duration. When that ends, you can re-register for another 14 years. Design Right & Patents still work pretty much like that. That Law (Statute of Anne 1709/10) was a reaction against the old Printer's Monopoly perpetual copyrights & pre-publication Royal Censorship. The Printers (Publishers) screamed bloody murder, they were the Disneys of their day. But it was one of those rare lightning-in-a-bottle moments, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution 1688/9, when Parliament IMO got it exactly right*.

Trade Marks are completely different. They need to be of indefinite duration; BUT they need to be a lot more restrictively interpreted. No stopping other people from publishing public domain Tarzan (or Cthulu) books with Tarzan or Cthulu on the cover.

*And @Pundit, I'm pretty sure your Freemasons had a strong hand in that. 

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 05:29:52 AM
IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

Monopoly capitalism is a contradiction in terms. A government-granted privilege that excludes competitors is an explicit rejection of the free market. A more accurate term would be cronyism, or mercantilism.

And you're correct, it's not socialism. But, as I stated, it is derived from the same type of thinking that leads to socialism. It's a form of redistributionism. Which is why it's ironic when someone defends it by calling everyone communists.

What do you think about patents?

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 09, 2021, 01:44:10 PM
Patronage worked in the olden days because all performances were local and every book and muscial arrangement was hand copied. If you didn't keep current on paying the talent, you couldn't keep listening to the music or hear the actors perform the play or a poet recite his works... and if you wanted to copy someone's writing you had to pay someone to copy it.

How does patronage work when, once you've painted the Last Supper for one patron or performed your latest hit song, another who likes your work just clicks "save as" on the screen instead of hiring you (or at least someone of comparable skill) to repeat the performance?

There's a reason patronage fell out of practice and why the modern systems like "Patreon" only resemble it if you squint.* The modern subscription and Patreon-like systems only work because of IP laws that keep you from just being to walk off with and redistribute the producer's entire library that you copied during your free trial.

Patronage without IP protection isn't the easy panacea for supporting creative content some think it is.

As Oddend points out, this is demonstrably false. Patronage works regardless of copying because the artist has already been paid a reasonable compensation for their effort before the work is even available. Patronage works because rich people give artists LOTS of money, so everyone, including the destitute rabble, can continue to consume their art. You can theorize about how this fails as much as you like, but real life empirical evidence would disagree with you.

Again, anyone telling you this doesn't work need only look at software as an example. Do you think Linus Torvalds is hurting for money? or Guido Van Rossum? I could list 100 such contributors who did nothing but give away their work for free to the entire world consistently, and who have been WELL compensated for their efforts via patronage. Google essentially pays GvR a freakin' huge salary to "yeah, keep on doing that," while to the rest of the world Python is simply the most popular, 100% free software language.

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 05:29:52 AM
IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

Monopoly capitalism is a contradiction in terms. A government-granted privilege that excludes competitors is an explicit rejection of the free market.

Capitalism and the Free Market are not the same things. That sounds like the kind of mistake Ayn Rand might make. 

Capitalism is about accumulating ...capital. Which you then invest at a profit. You can rig things so you face no competition, and still be a capitalist. In fact this is a great way to maximise ROI, which is why it's so popular.

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM
What do you think about patents?

I think they should be much harder to get, only for genuine inventions, and probably we should go back to 14 year terms. Maybe +5 years for drugs with onerous testing regimes (the EU & thus UK give these +5 years already).

Patent Law like Copyright Law I think started out well, but has been stretched over time (patents not so badly, but still) until it's not working well any more. Patent Law in the UK has in recent decades been much healthier than in the USA, though. Hence a lot of whining from the corporations that we under-protect patents here.

I don't have one decided viewpoint when it comes down to things like IP law and pirating.

On one hand I don't subscribe to "stealing isn't stealing because up until I stole it it wasn't worth money", on the other hand I also dislike something becoming this conga line of ownership where the person that created something and their family are far disconnected from what they made and its just rotting under the thumb of some megacorp.

And just because giving stuff away for promotion works for SOME people, doesn't mean it will work for ALL people. And I do find it an immensly entitled dismissive notion to demand that everything be made for free.

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 05:29:52 AM
IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

Monopoly capitalism is a contradiction in terms. A government-granted privilege that excludes competitors is an explicit rejection of the free market. A more accurate term would be cronyism, or mercantilism.

And you're correct, it's not socialism. But, as I stated, it is derived from the same type of thinking that leads to socialism. It's a form of redistributionism. Which is why it's ironic when someone defends it by calling everyone communists.

What do you think about patents?

Yeah, but taking away what other produced "For the greater good" it's totally not socialism nor does it lead to socialism...

I want to pay for games because I want the people making them to get paid and make more games.

Having said that, I have hoisted the jolly roger on occasion. I do try to buy it legitmately when I can.

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 02:33:20 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 05:29:52 AM
IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

Monopoly capitalism is a contradiction in terms. A government-granted privilege that excludes competitors is an explicit rejection of the free market.

Capitalism and the Free Market are not the same things. That sounds like the kind of mistake Ayn Rand might make. 

Capitalism is about accumulating ...capital. Which you then invest at a profit. You can rig things so you face no competition, and still be a capitalist. In fact this is a great way to maximise ROI, which is why it's so popular.

I've never read any Ayn Rand, so I can't speak to her beliefs. But it's worth remembering that "capitalism" was a term coined by Engles and Marx, so it was intended to be an insult, and using their definition is adopting a biased stereotype. Capitalism, when used correctly and positively, is synonymous with free market. It's the system that originated from the Puritan work ethic, emerged from individual rights and became one of the foundational legs of (classical) liberalism, and was developed by thinkers like Cantillon, Bastiat, Say, Smith, and Ricardo.

What you're describing is cronyism.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on October 10, 2021, 03:43:07 PM
I want to pay for games because I want the people making them to get paid and make more games.

If you're into 3D printing, you see a similar thing happening there. Guys produce 3D sculpts and use Patreon to fund them. Each month they'll generally come out with a dozen or so models which are free to their Patreon backers but often sold to others as well. And this is something that's trivially easy to pirate. I was amazed at both the quantity and quality of what is produced in this manner. There is a Youtuber named Tabletop Karnage that does a brief rundown of all the new sculpts and just showing all the models takes 30 minutes each week.

But the other thing is that many of these sculpts are obviously for Warhammer 40K being as close as possible to that game's models while still being "legally distinct". One company, called One Page Rules, even makes a sort of 40K Retro Clone in order to make 40K models and claim it's for their own game.

I don't know of any, but are their RPG writers that work through Patreon (or something similar)?

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 02:37:13 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM
What do you think about patents?

I think they should be much harder to get, only for genuine inventions, and probably we should go back to 14 year terms. Maybe +5 years for drugs with onerous testing regimes (the EU & thus UK give these +5 years already).

Patent Law like Copyright Law I think started out well, but has been stretched over time (patents not so badly, but still) until it's not working well any more. Patent Law in the UK has in recent decades been much healthier than in the USA, though. Hence a lot of whining from the corporations that we under-protect patents here.

I disagree on some specifics, but I agree with the general sentiment. I think the original concepts behind the first iterations of the various branches of IP law were pretty solid, but it's a classic example of regulatory capture. The companies with a vested interest have dominated all the lawmaking since, and ensured it's been expanded in their favor, to the detriment of everyone else. But it certainly doesn't help that much of the public has come to view it as a new, positive right and type of property, which has created a sense of entitlement that has greatly facilitated the quest of the big companies to lock up everything forever.

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 06:02:02 PM

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 02:33:20 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 10, 2021, 10:42:20 AM

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2021, 05:29:52 AM
IP Law is Monopoly Capitalism. It's not Socialism just because it's rent-seeking, calling it Socialism just muddies the issue. Not everything bad is Socialism.

Monopoly capitalism is a contradiction in terms. A government-granted privilege that excludes competitors is an explicit rejection of the free market.

Capitalism and the Free Market are not the same things. That sounds like the kind of mistake Ayn Rand might make. 

Capitalism is about accumulating ...capital. Which you then invest at a profit. You can rig things so you face no competition, and still be a capitalist. In fact this is a great way to maximise ROI, which is why it's so popular.

I've never read any Ayn Rand, so I can't speak to her beliefs. But it's worth remembering that "capitalism" was a term coined by Engles and Marx, so it was intended to be an insult, and using their definition is adopting a biased stereotype. Capitalism, when used correctly and positively, is synonymous with free market. It's the system that originated from the Puritan work ethic, emerged from individual rights and became one of the foundational legs of (classical) liberalism, and was developed by thinkers like Cantillon, Bastiat, Say, Smith, and Ricardo.

What you're describing is cronyism.

Nothing says free markets and individual rights than the following line of thinking: "We as a society grant you a temporal monopoly on stuff you did with your own money. For the greater good"