Quote from: DM_Curt on October 07, 2021, 08:05:05 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on October 07, 2021, 07:59:24 PM

Quote from: VengerSatanis on October 07, 2021, 02:52:35 PMAt the conclusion of such events, I will fling my dice into the crowd as dozens of women throw their soiled panties back at me. 

THIS must happen at every VengerCon!

Note to self: Bring spare pair of soiled gamer boxers to VengerCon.

Note to self: Start a mail order bussiness of soiled gamer underwear.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 07, 2021, 09:10:17 AMThat said, I like supporting Devs I likel so I'm happy to buy their stuff. Plus, it's the best way to get more material made, a financial incentive.

Agreed. Support authors who make product you enjoy.

That's why I like Kickstarter.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 03:06:54 PM
So I should be able to take your song, record it and not give you a dime? We're not talking about any random down the street singing it while he goes home, were talking of profiting from your creativity without your consent and without giving you money.

I am saying that equating the use of intellectual property to physical property is nonsense due to the factor I describe. As an original author of a song, I still have it my head, I can still sing it to others. Nothing has been stolen by another performing the same song after they heard.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 03:06:54 PM
Should forgeries of famous paintings also become not a crime? What's the difference? Lets say I'm Han van Meegeren and I decide to forge Johannes Vermeer paintings and sell them at 100 dollars each. Should this be allowed too? During the life of Johannes Vermeer?

Again if somebody painted a near perfect copy of Johannes Vermeer painting they have stolen nothing from Vermeer. Vermeer still has the painting he painted.

What this means intellectual ideas has to be approached differently than physical property.

Now millenia ago nobody gave two shits about people copying other people works. If there was a problem it was due to the work being considering violating one or more cultural more, or politically subversive. Creatives made a living by pleasing patrons who supported their works.

The political subversive part is why we have copyright in the first place as the crowned heads of Europe attempted to control the spread and use of printing technology by licensing the rights to make printed work.

But what started out as a tool of censorship ultimately was found useful as a way to encourage folks to create works and share them by giving creators the exclusive right to make copies of their creation.

But that usefulness was always at war with it's utility as a means of censorship. Since the adoption of the Berne conventions it now effectively a form of censorship not by political interests but economic interests.

My personal opinion that Patents are fine but more funding is needed to establish prior art and the process of presenting prior art by the public needs to be more open. Trademark could use some tweaking as the point of trademark is reduce market confusion and fraud by identify the source of the product. So public domain concepts like Conan or Hyboria should not be allowed trademarks. But Marvel's Conan is fine in my opinion

As for copyright my opinion that the old 28 years + 28 years upon renewal adequately compensate creative. That we need a copyright small claims system for amounts less than $3,000. That window for authors to recover their original copyright at 35 years be reduced to the 28 years mark when the original copyright is due to be renewed. That work for hire in copyright be better defined. That there be a formal way to dedicate one's work to the public domain. Also in addition that copyleft becomes an formal option under the law.

Quote from: estar on October 07, 2021, 11:39:17 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 03:06:54 PM
So I should be able to take your song, record it and not give you a dime? We're not talking about any random down the street singing it while he goes home, were talking of profiting from your creativity without your consent and without giving you money.

I am saying that equating the use of intellectual property to physical property is nonsense due to the factor I describe. As an original author of a song, I still have it my head, I can still sing it to others. Nothing has been stolen by another performing the same song after they heard.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 03:06:54 PM
Should forgeries of famous paintings also become not a crime? What's the difference? Lets say I'm Han van Meegeren and I decide to forge Johannes Vermeer paintings and sell them at 100 dollars each. Should this be allowed too? During the life of Johannes Vermeer?

Again if somebody painted a near perfect copy of Johannes Vermeer painting they have stolen nothing from Vermeer. Vermeer still has the painting he painted.

What this means intellectual ideas has to be approached differently than physical property.

Now millenia ago nobody gave two shits about people copying other people works. If there was a problem it was due to the work being considering violating one or more cultural more, or politically subversive. Creatives made a living by pleasing patrons who supported their works.

The political subversive part is why we have copyright in the first place as the crowned heads of Europe attempted to control the spread and use of printing technology by licensing the rights to make printed work.

But what started out as a tool of censorship ultimately was found useful as a way to encourage folks to create works and share them by giving creators the exclusive right to make copies of their creation.

But that usefulness was always at war with it's utility as a means of censorship. Since the adoption of the Berne conventions it now effectively a form of censorship not by political interests but economic interests.

My personal opinion that Patents are fine but more funding is needed to establish prior art and the process of presenting prior art by the public needs to be more open. Trademark could use some tweaking as the point of trademark is reduce market confusion and fraud by identify the source of the product. So public domain concepts like Conan or Hyboria should not be allowed trademarks. But Marvel's Conan is fine in my opinion

As for copyright my opinion that the old 28 years + 28 years upon renewal adequately compensate creative. That we need a copyright small claims system for amounts less than $3,000. That window for authors to recover their original copyright at 35 years be reduced to the 28 years mark when the original copyright is due to be renewed. That work for hire in copyright be better defined. That there be a formal way to dedicate one's work to the public domain. Also in addition that copyleft becomes an formal option under the law.

So, if you agree that the law is needed but needs an overhaul why the fuck are you arguing that IP piracy isn't theft?

Again, you publish a game, I take it, print it and sell it, I have effectivelly cut you off of a part of the market, IF I have volume economy I can undermine you further by selling cheaper than you, especially since I didn't incur in the expenses you did.

You lost sales, sales ARE money so I took money out of your pocket.

But whatever, YES IP law needs an overhaul, just like trademark law, especially to protect the creator and to stop the megacorporations from doing what they have been doing.

As to why IP law should be different from normal property law?

How many people want to go see gone with the wind the original movie? Not many, Go farther back and the interest gets even smaller. So the property's value decreases over time to a point where it's zero.

Making IP eternal only stops creativity, making it not existent stops creativity, there should be a happy middle.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 04:01:12 PM
Why one is illegal but the other shouldn't?

The problem of intellectual ideas is that they don't exist in the background. To take the idea to the extreme all authors of romance novels would be paying royalties to the person who first thought of telling a story about two people meeting and falling in love.


To take a famous example, Star War, IP Law taken to an extreme would have George Lucas paying royalties to everybody on this list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues

Folks like Joseph Campbell, Frank Herbert (Dune), E.E. Doc Smith (Lensmen series), Akira Kurosawa (The Hidden Fortress), Associated British Pictures (the Dambusters), and so on.

So far society has adopted an arbitrary point that the it is the expression of an idea not the idea itself that is copyrighted. For patent, the thing patented must be an invention that is novel. Invention in patent law has a precise meaning. Novelty is a big more vague but an important concept used in judging whether something is patentable.

The natural state of ideas is to spread, and be adapted. But that too isn't without consequences as the early history of printing has shown. In the decades after the Gutenberg Press has spread, some successful printers became predatory and often crowded out competitors by printing their own copies of a popular work faster and cheaper the original printer that took a gamble on the author in the first place.

There are creative works where a well heeled corporation can dominate an IP if not otherwise restrained by copyright for example movies. However technology has advanced to the point where certain works like books and images the reproduction cost is effectively near near zero. Sure there is a cost if you want it in a physical form. But even there technology has advanced that cheap copies that are good enough are well within reach of the average person.

In this situation the problem isn't the capital a person or company can bring to bear, but rather how much an audience they have. If come out with a book that can be perfectly duplicated by any home printer, I could still lose out to Disney because more people pay attention to them than me if copyright didn't exist.

You been making the point that author should be compensated for their creative efforts. I agree not because it is a moral right, but rather it serve a useful purpose for society as outlined by the US Constitution.

QuoteTo promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

That goal in my view is still relevant to present day society despite the technology's ability to allow copies trival for certain types of works.

Finally there there is another existing system of managing intellectual that also proven successful. Namely the system of publishing and peer review. There the general expectation that results are made public in full to allow for replication and verification by other scientists in the field. That what been published is meant to be reused and built on to continue to advancement of the field.

Sure there been disturbing recent trends toward commercialization of the process. The journals in which papers are published have been acting predatory in the past few decades. There been a trend to a patent more and more results locking up important concepts for two decades. But this system, not copyright, patents or trademarks, is foundational for modern society. The extra wealth generated because of this system is what allows us the luxury to think debating copyrights, patents, and trademarks is important.

Do you think the people of hte Kalahari, Amazon, or Papua New Guinea really care about one creative person copying or adapting the work of another creative person?

Quote from: estar on October 08, 2021, 12:12:45 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 04:01:12 PM
Why one is illegal but the other shouldn't?

The problem of intellectual ideas is that they don't exist in the background. To take the idea to the extreme all authors of romance novels would be paying royalties to the person who first thought of telling a story about two people meeting and falling in love.


To take a famous example, Star War, IP Law taken to an extreme would have George Lucas paying royalties to everybody on this list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues

Folks like Joseph Campbell, Frank Herbert (Dune), E.E. Doc Smith (Lensmen series), Akira Kurosawa (The Hidden Fortress), Associated British Pictures (the Dambusters), and so on.

So far society has adopted an arbitrary point that the it is the expression of an idea not the idea itself that is copyrighted. For patent, the thing patented must be an invention that is novel. Invention in patent law has a precise meaning. Novelty is a big more vague but an important concept used in judging whether something is patentable.

The natural state of ideas is to spread, and be adapted. But that too isn't without consequences as the early history of printing has shown. In the decades after the Gutenberg Press has spread, some successful printers became predatory and often crowded out competitors by printing their own copies of a popular work faster and cheaper the original printer that took a gamble on the author in the first place.

There are creative works where a well heeled corporation can dominate an IP if not otherwise restrained by copyright for example movies. However technology has advanced to the point where certain works like books and images the reproduction cost is effectively near near zero. Sure there is a cost if you want it in a physical form. But even there technology has advanced that cheap copies that are good enough are well within reach of the average person.

In this situation the problem isn't the capital a person or company can bring to bear, but rather how much an audience they have. If come out with a book that can be perfectly duplicated by any home printer, I could still lose out to Disney because more people pay attention to them than me if copyright didn't exist.

You been making the point that author should be compensated for their creative efforts. I agree not because it is a moral right, but rather it serve a useful purpose for society as outlined by the US Constitution.

QuoteTo promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

That goal in my view is still relevant to present day society despite the technology's ability to allow copies trival for certain types of works.

Finally there there is another existing system of managing intellectual that also proven successful. Namely the system of publishing and peer review. There the general expectation that results are made public in full to allow for replication and verification by other scientists in the field. That what been published is meant to be reused and built on to continue to advancement of the field.

Sure there been disturbing recent trends toward commercialization of the process. The journals in which papers are published have been acting predatory in the past few decades. There been a trend to a patent more and more results locking up important concepts for two decades. But this system, not copyright, patents or trademarks, is foundational for modern society. The extra wealth generated because of this system is what allows us the luxury to think debating copyrights, patents, and trademarks is important.

Do you think the people of hte Kalahari, Amazon, or Papua New Guinea really care about one creative person copying or adapting the work of another creative person?

So, building a house is an idea, the house isn't.

In the same vein writing a novel about X is an idea, the actual novel(s) isn't.

And the end, so you want us to revert to being mlike people living in the stone age?

Are you a ludite?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
So, if you agree that the law is needed but needs an overhaul why the fuck are you arguing that IP piracy isn't theft?

Because theft has a specific meaning that not applicable.

Theft is the unlawful taking of tangible property. Taking a book from you without permission is theft whether you wrote or not. Copying a book is not theft. It is however a violation of your rights. Generally dealt in civil court but if over a certain amount can be prosecuted as a felony. Copying a book doesn't carry the same moral weight as stealing somebody tangible property does.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
Again, you publish a game, I take it, print it and sell it, I have effectivelly cut you off of a part of the market, IF I have volume economy I can undermine you further by selling cheaper than you, especially since I didn't incur in the expenses you did.

I do agree that without copyright the above situation would exist. I would also agree that for the most part that if there was no copyright creative would tend to hoard their works, share it only in limited ways, and that society would be the poorer for it. But I don't equate the act of copying a book to the moral equivalent of theft.

And I submit that because too many people, like yourself consider copying the moral equivalent of theft that it led to the copyright regime today. That as it turned out folks and corporations are hoarding works, share them only in limited ways, and that society has become the poorer for it. Worse, many works are now forever lost like the earliest jazz recordings. Pieces of our cultural heritage is forever gone because too many, like yourself say that copying is immoral unless somebody with the right to do so give permission.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
You lost sales, sales ARE money so I took money out of your pocket.

Would you have the same moral outrage if I walked into the market house where you sold corn for decades, and set up a stall to sell my corn for half the price?  You were at the market house first. You sold corn there for decades. Who am I to walk in there to take away your business and sell corn in that market house? What moral rights are at play here?

Side note the basic situation I outline here is a thing in Europe.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
Making IP eternal only stops creativity, making it not existent stops creativity, there should be a happy middle.

Sure but that middle won't happen if people still consider copying the moral equivalent of theft of physical property. The alternate is view it as what benefits a free society the most? For the United States that idea is enshrined in the constitution although it been damaged when we signed on to the Berne Convention and it's idea of copyright. Treaties can be problematic in that regard.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:41:50 AM
So, building a house is an idea, the house isn't.

In the same vein writing a novel about X is an idea, the actual novel(s) isn't.

And the end, so you want us to revert to being mlike people living in the stone age?

Are you a ludite?

I think you are so biased and so fixed in the idea that intellectual property is the same as physical property that you can't imagine that an alternative view can exist.
As for being a luddite, I outlined some pretty traditional ideas of copyright, patents, and trademarks in my fixes.

Finally my personal view is that everything I do rest on a foundation built by others. That morally I am obligated to contribute back just as much back to the common pool for others to do the same. Hence while I author and sell my work, I also make much of what I do freely available for other use for whatever purpose they see fit provided that they do the same. Hence my use of the Open Game License for my work. The exception being is work that I license from others like Judges Guild. In which case I abide by the terms of the license agreement.

In practice what I found that most folks are interested in doing their own thing. Occasionally I will get a group or individual who does something major with one of my work. So far that has meant Blackmarsh. For example Heroes and Other Worlds sells a version of Blackmarsh for their system. So does a group of folks in Spain. I been contacted by others and encouraged them to do the same.

However when it comes to sales what people want is authenticity. Sure they want my best works but they want it to be Rob Conley's work. So when I release a new product or do a kickstarter that is what most of them are paying for. To support me in producing more of the material they like. Plus it helps that while I am a slow writer, that I deliver what I promise on the date I promised.

Allowing Heroes and Other Worlds and other folks to have copies of Blackmarsh isn't going to hinder sales of my upcoming Majestic Fantasy Realm project. If anything it will boost it because of the goodwill generated by makin gmy personal works open content. Which by the way goodwill is a tangible business concept.

Now I can do this because of impact technology has had on written works. So I would stuck with traditional copyright as the only practical method if I authored a play or tried to put together a film. I wouldn't like it but it would be the only way to get the project going in the face of well-heeled competitors with predatory behaviors. Even then it would be an uphill battle as only my specific expression of the  idea would be protected.

Quote from: estar on October 08, 2021, 12:52:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
So, if you agree that the law is needed but needs an overhaul why the fuck are you arguing that IP piracy isn't theft?

Because theft has a specific meaning that not applicable.

Theft is the unlawful taking of tangible property. Taking a book from you without permission is theft whether you wrote or not. Copying a book is not theft. It is however a violation of your rights. Generally dealt in civil court but if over a certain amount can be prosecuted as a felony. Copying a book doesn't carry the same moral weight as stealing somebody tangible property does.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
Again, you publish a game, I take it, print it and sell it, I have effectivelly cut you off of a part of the market, IF I have volume economy I can undermine you further by selling cheaper than you, especially since I didn't incur in the expenses you did.

I do agree that without copyright the above situation would exist. I would also agree that for the most part that if there was no copyright creative would tend to hoard their works, share it only in limited ways, and that society would be the poorer for it. But I don't equate the act of copying a book to the moral equivalent of theft.

And I submit that because too many people, like yourself consider copying the moral equivalent of theft that it led to the copyright regime today. That as it turned out folks and corporations are hoarding works, share them only in limited ways, and that society has become the poorer for it. Worse, many works are now forever lost like the earliest jazz recordings. Pieces of our cultural heritage is forever gone because too many, like yourself say that copying is immoral unless somebody with the right to do so give permission.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
You lost sales, sales ARE money so I took money out of your pocket.

Would you have the same moral outrage if I walked into the market house where you sold corn for decades, and set up a stall to sell my corn for half the price?  You were at the market house first. You sold corn there for decades. Who am I to walk in there to take away your business and sell corn in that market house? What moral rights are at play here?

Side note the basic situation I outline here is a thing in Europe.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:06:31 AM
Making IP eternal only stops creativity, making it not existent stops creativity, there should be a happy middle.

Sure but that middle won't happen if people still consider copying the moral equivalent of theft of physical property. The alternate is view it as what benefits a free society the most? For the United States that idea is enshrined in the constitution although it been damaged when we signed on to the Berne Convention and it's idea of copyright. Treaties can be problematic in that regard.

Did you took the corn from my field/truck? No? Then no.

But the idea is to sell corn, the corn isn't an idea but a tangible good that costs money to produce.

Likewise, the idea to write a game is the idea, the actual game is a tangible good that cost money to produce.

Let me put it this way: I've the idea of developing a Pulp RPG. Would you give $60 US for that? How about $5 US? No? Why?

A couple of years later, after spending my time and investing in it I have a finished game, the hardback goes for $60, the paperback goes for $40 and the PDF for $20 Would you buy any of those? Why?

So, if I tell you I have the idea of writing a pulp game and you beat me to the punch you stole my idea, but ideas aren't property.

If you take my finished product, print it and sell it you didn't stole an idea, you stole MY product. Even if it was only in digital format it is a product.

Quote from: estar on October 08, 2021, 01:07:31 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 12:41:50 AM
So, building a house is an idea, the house isn't.

In the same vein writing a novel about X is an idea, the actual novel(s) isn't.

And the end, so you want us to revert to being mlike people living in the stone age?

Are you a ludite?

I think you are so biased and so fixed in the idea that intellectual property is the same as physical property that you can't imagine that an alternative view can exist.
As for being a luddite, I outlined some pretty traditional ideas of copyright, patents, and trademarks in my fixes.

Finally my personal view is that everything I do rest on a foundation built by others. That morally I am obligated to contribute back just as much back to the common pool for others to do the same. Hence while I author and sell my work, I also make much of what I do freely available for other use for whatever purpose they see fit provided that they do the same. Hence my use of the Open Game License for my work. The exception being is work that I license from others like Judges Guild. In which case I abide by the terms of the license agreement.

In practice what I found that most folks are interested in doing their own thing. Occasionally I will get a group or individual who does something major with one of my work. So far that has meant Blackmarsh. For example Heroes and Other Worlds sells a version of Blackmarsh for their system. So does a group of folks in Spain. I been contacted by others and encouraged them to do the same.

However when it comes to sales what people want is authenticity. Sure they want my best works but they want it to be Rob Conley's work. So when I release a new product or do a kickstarter that is what most of them are paying for. To support me in producing more of the material they like. Plus it helps that while I am a slow writer, that I deliver what I promise on the date I promised.

Allowing Heroes and Other Worlds and other folks to have copies of Blackmarsh isn't going to hinder sales of my upcoming Majestic Fantasy Realm project. If anything it will boost it because of the goodwill generated by makin gmy personal works open content. Which by the way goodwill is a tangible business concept.

Now I can do this because of impact technology has had on written works. So I would stuck with traditional copyright as the only practical method if I authored a play or tried to put together a film. I wouldn't like it but it would be the only way to get the project going in the face of well-heeled competitors with predatory behaviors. Even then it would be an uphill battle as only my specific expression of the  idea would be protected.

SURE, but YOU choose to give Blackmarsh away for free, it's not the same thing, it's your product and you have the right to do with it as you please.

You don't have the right to take MY product and sell it without giving me any monetary compensation for my time, work and money spent developing it.

You guys talk as if Games grew on trees you don't need to care for.

To write a game involves, time, software, a computer, electricity, internet to do research, art, formating, all of that costs money. And you think I don't have the right to have that product protected from thiefs!?

I've and idea, since I'm a generous kinda folk I'm putting it in the public domain:

We should develop a vaccine that grants true and permanent immunity to ALL coronaviruses.

Now, if you share my idea world wide we could save millions of lives.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 01:21:53 AM
To write a game involves, time, software, a computer, electricity, internet to do research, art, formating, all of that costs money. And you think I don't have the right to have that product protected from thiefs!?

No I don't think you have the right to have your protect from what you call thieves. I do however think it that it is a good thing to give you exclusive right to copy and profit from the things you create for a limited time as a societal benefit.

That the difference between our view. You view what you create as a form of personal property and like all property it needs to be protected by the legal system. I view copyright as a incentive for creators to take those extra steps towards making their effort a finished work and sharing the result by granting creators a limited monopoly to profit from their work. But my primary criteria in weighing changes to copyright is what benefits society more not the protection of personal property. Which also incidentally is the view of the United States Constitution and the founding father who wrote that clause.

And up until 1976 the United States was historically skeptical of strong copyrights. Everything we are wrestling with has come about in the past five decades.

Wow, that's a lot of pages of GeekBugle being an idiot.

People pay for ideas.  People have literally paid millions of dollars for the film rights for a book that hasn't even been written yet.  The right to use an idea is itself valuable.  Even before products that derive from the work exist, owning an idea can be very profitable. 

Quote from: deadDMwalking on October 08, 2021, 10:12:04 AM
Wow, that's a lot of pages of GeekBugle being an idiot.

Just another typical day then.

Quote from: Slambo on October 07, 2021, 01:09:15 PM
So i guess my next question is how is  it really better not to have copyright law for someone who doesnt want to create derivative works.

While there are answers to this question, it's important to remember that answering it is not necessary to justify abolishing IP law: it's analogous to asking how abolishing slavery would help slaves who don't want to be free, or asking how ending the "war on drugs" would help people who don't want to use them.

For example, abolishing slavery did not make slavery a crime; slavery was always a crime, but the governments that protected the slave industry eventually just acknowledged this by abolishing the state protection of a certain criminal class.

Likewise, legalizing drug use doesn't make drug use a peaceful behavior (i.e. a "victimless crime"); it always was a peaceful behavior, but the governments who have victimized those people are slowly starting to acknowledge it.

Once you recognize IP protectionism as the fiat criminalization of peaceful behavior (even if it's a behavior that frightens the cowardly and offends the faint of heart), it becomes self-evident that abolishing it would be a good thing.

As for actually speculating on the most likely effects of IP abolition, I would point you to Stephan Kinsella, who does a much better job than I can. Any one of his talks is great, but these are a few of my favorites that I've listened to. The first two are the same ones I recommended to GeekyBugle earlier in the thread.

• Intellectual Property - The Root of All Evil
• On Life without Patents and Copyright: Or, But Who Would Pick the Cotton?
• How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism
• Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP (Part 1)
• Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP (Part 2)