I used to use the trove as a backup for pdfs of books that I own... And only recently realized this when I went to look up a specific word in my 3.5 Forgotten realms collection.

I'm iffy - I've bought stuff that I've pirated and I've pirated stuff I've bought physically.

What is most upsetting is the old stuff that's out of print and hundreds of $$ to buy, but apparently "really good setting material for X type of game..." Blargh.

No easy solutions - I do believe artists should get paid for their work and efforts too. But also don't have enough money to buy everything I consume.

Quote from: Jam The MF on October 05, 2021, 11:27:52 PM
Creators do not owe the world free access to their creations.  If they want to give it away, that's fine; but they don't owe it to the world.

That's true. If they don't want it out in the world, they can choose to simply not publish anything.

Quote from: Pat on October 05, 2021, 04:55:53 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 05, 2021, 04:21:57 PM

Quote

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 05, 2021, 03:36:13 PM

Quote

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 05, 2021, 11:25:54 AM
Pretty much. If you don't defend IPs ferociously, they slide right into the public domain. The ridiculous extensions Disney has gotten on their properties (via bribing congresscritters) just make it worse.

Not true, you don't have to defend copyright. Since 1989, you don't even have to claim it; it's automatic.

Disney is evil, tho.

Yes and no. https://www.rothmanlawyer.com/defending-a-copyright-infringement-case/ (look, actual lawyers!)

A copyright must be registered before you file any claims or legal action against someone infringing. Think of it as staking and registering a land claim (actually, that comparison seems pretty apt).

So? You claimed it would fall into the public domain, which doesn't happen. The registration of a copyright is purely a legal formality needed to file suit, because it doesn't matter if the violations happened before or the copyright was registered.

Except that, yes, it can happen. Usually it's the result of generic use of a trademark ('Xerox' for example). But there are other instances, some as simple as forgetting to add the circle-c.

(Reference: https://www.knowmad.law/single-post/publicdomain )

You made a general statement that IPs need to be defended, or they fall into the public domain. That's false, because copyright doesn't work that way. Trademarks do have to be defended, but that's irrelevant, because when you make a general statement about a group of different things (all fruit is red!) and it's only true for a subset of those things, you're still wrong.

I also mentioned 1989 for a reason, because that's when the law was changed so you no longer need to formally claim copyright by appending a notice to your work.

You made the same mistake a lot of people do, on the internet. You referred to IP law as if it were this monolithic thing, and that's simply not the case. The rules for copyright, patents, and trademarks are all very different, and it's almost impossible to make a general statement that applies to them all. What's true for trademarks is not true for copyrights, and patents are another beast entirely. And that's ignoring all the fringes, like trade dress or iconic architecture. That's why it's usually a good idea to refer to the specific branch of IP law, rather than talk about it in general.

I am an IP Law Lecturer and I approve this message.

OTOH... I do see actual US IP Lawyers acting as if copyrights needed to be defended. The Statutes (in US it's in the Federal Code) don't say that at all, but maybe ignorant judges think that? Which can create precedents... and US Law is infamous for ignoring legislation in favour of case precedents.

Quote from: Jaeger on October 05, 2021, 05:35:20 PM
Discounting the PDF to less than 40% of print, and now they are making even less than the margin they get from a Print copy.

If PDFs cost 40% of print I don't think anyone reasonable would complain. There is a tendency to put pdf price at 80% or so of print, which doesn't feel right to me.

Publishing is weird. How can a fantastic 400 page full colour beautiful art hardback like Odyssey of the Dragonlords be RRP £40, and a crappy Paizo AP issue (96 pages) be RRP £20?

Quote from: S'mon on October 06, 2021, 02:11:32 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on October 05, 2021, 05:35:20 PM
Discounting the PDF to less than 40% of print, and now they are making even less than the margin they get from a Print copy.

If PDFs cost 40% of print I don't think anyone reasonable would complain. There is a tendency to put pdf price at 80% or so of print, which doesn't feel right to me.

Publishing is weird. How can a fantastic 400 page full colour beautiful art hardback like Odyssey of the Dragonlords be RRP £40, and a crappy Paizo AP issue (96 pages) be RRP £20?

The main difference could just come down to cost associated with overseas trade. Modiphius (OotDL) is London-based and so is local for you, while Paizo is Seattle-based (and almost certainly has its physical APs printed somewhere in Asia).

This is probably the case because when I did a search for the same things OotDL is $56 direct from Modiphius (this is right around the Pound to Dollar exchange rate) and a physical Paizo Adventure Path is $13.99 (about £10) or a quarter of the price of OotDL in the US vs. double the price in the UK.

International trade is yet another beast that plays a role in how things end up being priced in different countries.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 05:32:07 AM

Quote from: S'mon on October 06, 2021, 02:11:32 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on October 05, 2021, 05:35:20 PM
Discounting the PDF to less than 40% of print, and now they are making even less than the margin they get from a Print copy.

If PDFs cost 40% of print I don't think anyone reasonable would complain. There is a tendency to put pdf price at 80% or so of print, which doesn't feel right to me.

Publishing is weird. How can a fantastic 400 page full colour beautiful art hardback like Odyssey of the Dragonlords be RRP £40, and a crappy Paizo AP issue (96 pages) be RRP £20?

The main difference could just come down to cost associated with overseas trade. Modiphius (OotDL) is London-based and so is local for you, while Paizo is Seattle-based (and almost certainly has its physical APs printed somewhere in Asia).

This is probably the case because when I did a search for the same things OotDL is $56 direct from Modiphius (this is right around the Pound to Dollar exchange rate) and a physical Paizo Adventure Path is $13.99 (about £10) or a quarter of the price of OotDL in the US vs. double the price in the UK.

International trade is yet another beast that plays a role in how things end up being priced in different countries.

Makes sense - thanks! 

I guess the weird thing there for me is that the price seems entirely determined by print & distribution costs, not the actual creative inputs that went into it, which people here are saying is the important thing. Paizo run a generally low quality sausage factory with moderately palatable fare stuffed full of filler - rusk if you're lucky, sawdust if you're not. OOTDL is notably low priced at £40 even just for the production quality, £50 is more typical these days (eg the Kobold Press hardbacks), but again that's ignoring art & writing quality; OOTDL is vastly superior in both to either Paizo or the WoTC hardbacks. Kobold Press are more comparable but most of the OOTDL art & writing quality is still notably higher even than KP.

Paizo and WoTC produce a lot of crap, high priced crap, and presumably justify this as 'what the market will bear'. Some 3rd party producers are making much better stuff, much higher production values AND writing quality, at much lower prices - yet are presumably still making a profit. How so? 

(Edit: I would say, Modiphius product always looks gorgeous, but often the actual content is very unsatisfying, so this isn't a blanket endorsement of Modiphius. I think OOTDL is a bit of a lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon. Kobold Press is a better example of a 3PP doing pretty consistently good steak-and-potatoes work. Apart from Prepared! I've always been at least reasonably happy with every KP purchase. The KP monster books are great.)

Quote from: Jam The MF on October 05, 2021, 11:27:52 PM
Creators do not owe the world free access to their creations.  If they want to give it away, that's fine; but they don't owe it to the world.

On the other hand, their customers don't owe them a debt of eternal servitude in regards to their creation. The "problem" with ideas is that once they're communicated, they have been given away, irrevocably. There is (thank God) no contract or state edict that can change the nature of information.

Quote from: Pat on October 06, 2021, 12:09:11 AM
If they don't want it out in the world, they can choose to simply not publish anything.

Precisely.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 05, 2021, 05:12:02 PM
[...] one good general statement that can be made about "Intellectual Property" is that it's all made-up Clown World nonsense (unlike property).

Not so IMHO, the author should have the right to profit from his work and not be at the whim of any big corporation/rich fuck that decides to profit from it and runs him from the market.

Now that I'm off the clock, I can expand on my shitpost.

From one anti-communist to another: "the right to profit" is Labor Theory of Value commie BS. But even if we re-frame it as "the right to the opportunity to profit" (timed monopoly privilege), this is still obviously not a right. If a man sets up a hardware store in town, how long should everyone other than him be prevented from setting up a similar store? And how far does the criminalization extend geographically? And what are the boundaries of the word "similar"? Such obviously-ridiculous protectionism is only barely different from the way real-world established restaurants band together to impoverish food trucks and other small-business competitors: https://ij.org/issues/economic-liberty/vending/

"Intellectual Property" law is the same thing, but for industries that deal in information. This includes health care, where it ensures that people suffer or die rather than let some poor Little Guy pharmaceutical megacorp "lose" some hypothetical profit: https://mises.org/wire/patents-kill-compulsory-licenses-and-genzymes-life-saving-drug

Any normal person wants to see their favorite artists make a living from their work. The biggest obstacle to this, ironically, is IP law: most artists (the ones you've never heard of, who make no money; the actual Little Guys) are terrified to sell the very thing that is the most likely to make them money (fan art of things that other people already like), for fear of legalized harassment and extortion from the "property owners" (a misnomer since no property is involved). Instead, they're expected to cook up "new" ideas that are OK for them to sell (you know, the kind nobody is interested in buying).

Of course, almost nobody on the planet has a "new idea" that will compete with existing pop art "properties" within their lifetime. Most artists will do best by producing recognizable derivative works (drawings, adaptations, sequels, remakes, whatever), and they should be permitted to do so, since it harms no one (in fact, fans of popular franchises would probably even be treated to a good reboot or adaptation once in a while).

The few people that do have such "new" ideas, and are actually talented enough to monetize them (the ones who stand a chance to make a buck in the first place; the ones we're suppose to "protect" from "lost profits") have no need of nanny-state protectionism from the people making fan-art.

Of course, IP law does not (and isn't intended to) protect such people in the first place. Imagine a typical IP nightmare scenario: a Little Guy publishes a distinct, high-quality webcomic that gets ten views per month, but also gets ripped off by Disney, and they make millions with a movie adaptation. What's he going to do about it with his fast food wagie bank account and nil reputation? That's right: nothing. IP law only "protects" (as if harm were involved) those who can afford to pursue expensive legalized harassment of would-be competitors.

You know what he probably could do, though? Write a tell-all on his blog, get interviewed by some big YouTubers, broadcast the fact that he's the uncredited author behind a multi-million dollar Disney movie, start a Patreon (or crowdfund a new project, or whatever), and profit from the fact that Disney "stole" "his idea". Doesn't sound so bad, really. Or should we pretend that he would have been better off with the "uninfringed" state of no audience and no money?

I can think of a much worse case, from real life. In recent years, Steve Ditko has probably been the most popular example of Little Guy Victimized By Evil Businessman, and you know what would have really helped him out? If people didn't believe that ideas can be owned like cars and houses, he could have found someone else to publish Spider-Man with "Still Drawn by Series Creator Steve Ditko" plastered on the cover. What could Marvel have done? Were they gonna pay some punk kid to impersonate Steve Ditko, with the real deal sitting next to their knockoff on the news stands? Who knows if it would have sold well enough, but at least he could have had the option. Instead, since we protect Little Guys with IP law, he would have been sued for every penny and then some.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM
The problem is with the period granted thanks to the Rat. Because they didn't want the mouse and other IP's to fall into public domain.

The thing is, rights don't expire. If IP protectionism is a right, why should it expire? If IP protectionism should expire, then how can it be a right? What other rights expire?

If too much IP protectionism is obviously bad, what amount is axiomatically, self-evidently just right? Why shouldn't it be reduced all the way to zero?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM
And we might even discuss trademark law regarding intellectual works (movies, novels, comics, RPGs). Maybe it should also be restricted to the life of the Author?

All of it should be abolished.

My comments above are oriented around the usual market competition scenarios, but there's an irrefutable basis on which all people should oppose all IP law, right down to legalizing the piracy of RPG books from Little Guys ("piracy" is of course a misnomer since theft isn't involved).

Why doesn't "intellectual property" exist? Because information can't be property. It's a contradiction in terms: https://mises.org/library/fallacy-intellectual-property

Property is something that can be taken from you. For example: the hard drive an RPG trove is stored on? That's property. The PDFs on the drive? Those are information. They're infinitely duplicable; they're not scarce.

Even water is scarce. Water can be property. At any given time, there is a limited physical amount of it to go around (especially if we consider only potable water).

However, no matter how many times a book is downloaded from Megaupload (RIP), nobody on the planet is deprived of their existing copy. Stealing involves taking something from somebody. Copying is not taking. If we could will copies of expensive cars into existence just by knowing information about them, it would not be considered theft to do so. Contrary to the famous ad, yes, we all would "download a car", and we would laugh at anybody who prudishly refused to do so.

The reason we feel differently about art is because we all believe in the oppressed Artist whose only available occupation in life is to profit from his noble passion (he'll starve, otherwise; he can't get a job, apparently), and we all worry about what if some evil Businessman overheard the synopsis to his yet-to-be-published Great American Novel while they both were down at the speakeasy, and... Cuban cigar in mouth... profited.

Luckliy, that's all myth and propaganda.

In reality, the "If it was legal to copy information, how would artists make money?" dilemma is a practical one, not a moral one. (See the Q&A for this talk by Stephan Kinsella for a good discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfU34KkNV1s&t=1557s ; the whole talk is great, but the Q&A starts off with a steaming mad Artiste riding in on a high horse to deboonk Kinsella on this very topic.)

Artists and other creators of information should be asking the question, "Given that copying information is already not a crime (it's just illegal), how can I monetize my creative output while also releasing it into the public domain (i.e. publishing it)?"

There is no single answer to this question. There are unlimited answers.

• Many free-and-open-source software projects are funded by providing enterprise customer support.


• Open source web apps are often funded by offering a professionally managed instance of the software as a paid service (think Wordpress).


• David Revoy licenses his Pepper & Carrot webcomic (and its production source files) as CC-BY, and makes over $3000 per episode (on Patreon alone). You've probably seen his work recently on DTRPG thanks to this silver best-seller made by one of his fans. That fan has made several books, and probably a decent amount of money, using Revoy's artwork.


• Gabor Lux withholds the digital release of his RPG books until the print versions have been on sale for several months (incidentally, while his books are not dedicated to the public domain, he also has said he doesn't mind his books being shared online).


• Omer Golan-Joel's Cepheus Engine derivatives are almost entirely "Open Content". For example, his Cepheus Deluxe, which has been a top seller for the past few weeks, is entirely open content except for the introduction to the book.

The thing is, everything already is in the public domain. Everyone intuitively realizes this when it comes to "old" stuff; the problem is that generations of conditioning has taught people that Superman and Harry Potter or Disney's Cinderella exist in a separate plane of reality from things like Charles Dickens or H.G. Wells or "regular Cinderella". Once the culture comes around to see this distinction as the farcical legislative invention that it is, both creative people and their audiences will be better off.

The culture is moving in that direction pretty rapidly, though. The OSR and the increasing number of "fine I'll do it myself" unofficial Nintendo game sequels on Steam are a testament to that.

I'm surprised it wasn't shut down years ago tbh. But The Trove will never die. I'm sure they will eventually get it put up on some Russian server or something. Then we can all laugh at Daniel Fox's tears again.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 06, 2021, 06:05:21 AM
I'm surprised it wasn't shut down years ago tbh. But The Trove will never die. I'm sure they will eventually get it put up on some Russian server or something. Then we can all laugh at Daniel Fox's tears again.

I think we can all agree on that last.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 06, 2021, 06:05:21 AM
I'm surprised it wasn't shut down years ago tbh. But The Trove will never die. I'm sure they will eventually get it put up on some Russian server or something. Then we can all laugh at Daniel Fox's tears again.

I'm just surprised more people don't know about the Share Thread on /tg/. ::shrug:: The funniest part of this to me isn't how whiny and entitled the people on that Reddit post are, it's how stupid they are about their whiny entitlement. It would take them literally less than 5 minutes to not only find a replacement for The Trove, but a better replacement.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 06, 2021, 07:59:57 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 06, 2021, 06:05:21 AM
I'm surprised it wasn't shut down years ago tbh. But The Trove will never die. I'm sure they will eventually get it put up on some Russian server or something. Then we can all laugh at Daniel Fox's tears again.

I think we can all agree on that last.

See, and that's where Ocule's list has been invaluable for me. I was actually looking at picking up a copy of Zweihander. But the list helped me research more, watched some youtube vids etc. I was even thinking of picking up a book called Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting until I found out who did the rules part of the writing.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on October 06, 2021, 08:54:42 AM
See, and that's where Ocule's list has been invaluable for me. I was actually looking at picking up a copy of Zweihander.

Indeed!! And why go for Zweihander when you can still get your mitts on the fine original 1e, or the 2e version? 

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 06, 2021, 07:59:57 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 06, 2021, 06:05:21 AM
I'm surprised it wasn't shut down years ago tbh. But The Trove will never die. I'm sure they will eventually get it put up on some Russian server or something. Then we can all laugh at Daniel Fox's tears again.

I think we can all agree on that last.

It will certainly bring me tears of joy. 

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 05:58:22 AM

Quote from: Jam The MF on October 05, 2021, 11:27:52 PM
Creators do not owe the world free access to their creations.  If they want to give it away, that's fine; but they don't owe it to the world.

On the other hand, their customers don't owe them a debt of eternal servitude in regards to their creation. The "problem" with ideas is that once they're communicated, they have been given away, irrevocably. There is (thank God) no contract or state edict that can change the nature of information.

Quote from: Pat on October 06, 2021, 12:09:11 AM
If they don't want it out in the world, they can choose to simply not publish anything.

Precisely.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 05, 2021, 05:12:02 PM
[...] one good general statement that can be made about "Intellectual Property" is that it's all made-up Clown World nonsense (unlike property).

Not so IMHO, the author should have the right to profit from his work and not be at the whim of any big corporation/rich fuck that decides to profit from it and runs him from the market.

Now that I'm off the clock, I can expand on my shitpost.

From one anti-communist to another: "the right to profit" is Labor Theory of Value commie BS. But even if we re-frame it as "the right to the opportunity to profit" (timed monopoly privilege), this is still obviously not a right. If a man sets up a hardware store in town, how long should everyone other than him be prevented from setting up a similar store? And how far does the criminalization extend geographically? And what are the boundaries of the word "similar"? Such obviously-ridiculous protectionism is only barely different from the way real-world established restaurants band together to impoverish food trucks and other small-business competitors: https://ij.org/issues/economic-liberty/vending/

"Intellectual Property" law is the same thing, but for industries that deal in information. This includes health care, where it ensures that people suffer or die rather than let some poor Little Guy pharmaceutical megacorp "lose" some hypothetical profit: https://mises.org/wire/patents-kill-compulsory-licenses-and-genzymes-life-saving-drug

Any normal person wants to see their favorite artists make a living from their work. The biggest obstacle to this, ironically, is IP law: most artists (the ones you've never heard of, who make no money; the actual Little Guys) are terrified to sell the very thing that is the most likely to make them money (fan art of things that other people already like), for fear of legalized harassment and extortion from the "property owners" (a misnomer since no property is involved). Instead, they're expected to cook up "new" ideas that are OK for them to sell (you know, the kind nobody is interested in buying).

Of course, almost nobody on the planet has a "new idea" that will compete with existing pop art "properties" within their lifetime. Most artists will do best by producing recognizable derivative works (drawings, adaptations, sequels, remakes, whatever), and they should be permitted to do so, since it harms no one (in fact, fans of popular franchises would probably even be treated to a good reboot or adaptation once in a while).

The few people that do have such "new" ideas, and are actually talented enough to monetize them (the ones who stand a chance to make a buck in the first place; the ones we're suppose to "protect" from "lost profits") have no need of nanny-state protectionism from the people making fan-art.

Of course, IP law does not (and isn't intended to) protect such people in the first place. Imagine a typical IP nightmare scenario: a Little Guy publishes a distinct, high-quality webcomic that gets ten views per month, but also gets ripped off by Disney, and they make millions with a movie adaptation. What's he going to do about it with his fast food wagie bank account and nil reputation? That's right: nothing. IP law only "protects" (as if harm were involved) those who can afford to pursue expensive legalized harassment of would-be competitors.

You know what he probably could do, though? Write a tell-all on his blog, get interviewed by some big YouTubers, broadcast the fact that he's the uncredited author behind a multi-million dollar Disney movie, start a Patreon (or crowdfund a new project, or whatever), and profit from the fact that Disney "stole" "his idea". Doesn't sound so bad, really. Or should we pretend that he would have been better off with the "uninfringed" state of no audience and no money?

I can think of a much worse case, from real life. In recent years, Steve Ditko has probably been the most popular example of Little Guy Victimized By Evil Businessman, and you know what would have really helped him out? If people didn't believe that ideas can be owned like cars and houses, he could have found someone else to publish Spider-Man with "Still Drawn by Series Creator Steve Ditko" plastered on the cover. What could Marvel have done? Were they gonna pay some punk kid to impersonate Steve Ditko, with the real deal sitting next to their knockoff on the news stands? Who knows if it would have sold well enough, but at least he could have had the option. Instead, since we protect Little Guys with IP law, he would have been sued for every penny and then some.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM
The problem is with the period granted thanks to the Rat. Because they didn't want the mouse and other IP's to fall into public domain.

The thing is, rights don't expire. If IP protectionism is a right, why should it expire? If IP protectionism should expire, then how can it be a right? What other rights expire?

If too much IP protectionism is obviously bad, what amount is axiomatically, self-evidently just right? Why shouldn't it be reduced all the way to zero?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 05, 2021, 05:20:33 PM
And we might even discuss trademark law regarding intellectual works (movies, novels, comics, RPGs). Maybe it should also be restricted to the life of the Author?

All of it should be abolished.

My comments above are oriented around the usual market competition scenarios, but there's an irrefutable basis on which all people should oppose all IP law, right down to legalizing the piracy of RPG books from Little Guys ("piracy" is of course a misnomer since theft isn't involved).

Why doesn't "intellectual property" exist? Because information can't be property. It's a contradiction in terms: https://mises.org/library/fallacy-intellectual-property

Property is something that can be taken from you. For example: the hard drive an RPG trove is stored on? That's property. The PDFs on the drive? Those are information. They're infinitely duplicable; they're not scarce.

Even water is scarce. Water can be property. At any given time, there is a limited physical amount of it to go around (especially if we consider only potable water).

However, no matter how many times a book is downloaded from Megaupload (RIP), nobody on the planet is deprived of their existing copy. Stealing involves taking something from somebody. Copying is not taking. If we could will copies of expensive cars into existence just by knowing information about them, it would not be considered theft to do so. Contrary to the famous ad, yes, we all would "download a car", and we would laugh at anybody who prudishly refused to do so.

The reason we feel differently about art is because we all believe in the oppressed Artist whose only available occupation in life is to profit from his noble passion (he'll starve, otherwise; he can't get a job, apparently), and we all worry about what if some evil Businessman overheard the synopsis to his yet-to-be-published Great American Novel while they both were down at the speakeasy, and... Cuban cigar in mouth... profited.

Luckliy, that's all myth and propaganda.

In reality, the "If it was legal to copy information, how would artists make money?" dilemma is a practical one, not a moral one. (See the Q&A for this talk by Stephan Kinsella for a good discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfU34KkNV1s&t=1557s ; the whole talk is great, but the Q&A starts off with a steaming mad Artiste riding in on a high horse to deboonk Kinsella on this very topic.)

Artists and other creators of information should be asking the question, "Given that copying information is already not a crime (it's just illegal), how can I monetize my creative output while also releasing it into the public domain (i.e. publishing it)?"

There is no single answer to this question. There are unlimited answers.

• Many free-and-open-source software projects are funded by providing enterprise customer support.


• Open source web apps are often funded by offering a professionally managed instance of the software as a paid service (think Wordpress).


• David Revoy licenses his Pepper & Carrot webcomic (and its production source files) as CC-BY, and makes over $3000 per episode (on Patreon alone). You've probably seen his work recently on DTRPG thanks to this silver best-seller made by one of his fans. That fan has made several books, and probably a decent amount of money, using Revoy's artwork.


• Gabor Lux withholds the digital release of his RPG books until the print versions have been on sale for several months (incidentally, while his books are not dedicated to the public domain, he also has said he doesn't mind his books being shared online).


• Omer Golan-Joel's Cepheus Engine derivatives are almost entirely "Open Content". For example, his Cepheus Deluxe, which has been a top seller for the past few weeks, is entirely open content except for the introduction to the book.

The thing is, everything already is in the public domain. Everyone intuitively realizes this when it comes to "old" stuff; the problem is that generations of conditioning has taught people that Superman and Harry Potter or Disney's Cinderella exist in a separate plane of reality from things like Charles Dickens or H.G. Wells or "regular Cinderella". Once the culture comes around to see this distinction as the farcical legislative invention that it is, both creative people and their audiences will be better off.

The culture is moving in that direction pretty rapidly, though. The OSR and the increasing number of "fine I'll do it myself" unofficial Nintendo game sequels on Steam are a testament to that.

That's all fine and dandy but notice I said Author, not corporation owner.

As in limit the IP to the actual person that created something in regards to art (patents are a different beast and should be treated differently and apart).

So ERB wrote a number of popular novels, during his life if you want to print or make a movie or anything based of his works you have to pay him. After he dies it ALL reverts to public domain.

Imagine you wrote something really good and that becomes popular but there's no IP law. Here comes Disney and takes ALL of your IP to make movies without giving you a red cent and maybe not even mentioning you.

Then, because there's no IP law they print what you already published and sell it, with better art, then they hire some wageslave to write in your style new novels.

Sure, you could take theirs and print it too, but you can't produce new stuff with their levels of production (I mean the art, proofreading, etc.) or create movies, tv shows, etc to compete with them on those markets.

The net result would be no one would publish shit unless they were being paid for handsomely by some megacorp.

So, you get hired by the Rat and create something under an exclusivity contract, well their exclusivity ends when you die, period.

Don't get me started with medical drugs because it's offtopic and a worst can of worms.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 10:58:59 AM
So ERB wrote a number of popular novels, during his life if you want to print or make a movie or anything based of his works you have to pay him. After he dies it ALL reverts to public domain.

So you're saying if I want to publish my thousand page long fanfiction, the author has to have a convenient accident? Hmm....