Quote from: Pat on October 12, 2021, 10:45:56 PMNope, economics is lamblasted for assuming the perfectly rational Homo economicus.

Fair enough. AOC is a fucking buisness major 

Quote from: Pat on October 12, 2021, 10:45:56 PMConversely, if we assume people act irrationally, we can't draw any conclusions because it's all random.

Irrational doesn't mean random. If we are talking about reason as some absolute un-emotional state. Irrational is instinctual.

QuoteBut your extreme interpretation seems to deny the possibility of scientific development.

As in the idea of developing science, or the idea that science may later prove this untrue?

QuoteBut I'm going to drop the topic, because it doesn't seem to be relevant to intellectual not-property.

Well we are discussing our reasonings for ethics which are ultimately the only underpinning for the idea of rights, which are the underpinning of law and thus its relation to intelectual products.
Personally I hate peoples view of 'IP' altogether. Franchise thinking as I call it, but I like to have consistent ideological thinking on my part and I can only develop it by debating with people that have different opinions then me.

I think irregardless of an idea being un-scarce I think it can be stolen. Or if not literally stolen, then whatever is close enough that acts close enough in all factors to not need another word for distinction.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 12, 2021, 03:46:12 PMI've tried to explain my position clearly and without insulting anyone, and I've been repeatedly attacked in a very nasty way for it.

True, some people threw shit your way. But you kinda have to power through it when debating over an incredibly complex topic like the idea of rights (natural vs unnatural) and property (on a public forum).

If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM
When somebody questions how stealing their ideas or replicating them without permission and you answer with the idea of effort=/=value, thats kind of a non-answer unless you directly link the concept to the ethics. True not all effort=value, but the question was about the ethics, not about the idea of value creation. And its a complex position (not one I think that makes you a bad person), but needs elaboration without calling people entitled.

By and large, throughout the thread, even from some pro-IP guys, the answer hasn't been "effort <> value", it's been "information cannot be property" (elaborated upon thoroughly, in pages and pages of text). Unless you mean specific responses to GeekyBugle, who does still hold to the Labor Theory of Value, unlike any non-Marxist for the last 200 years.

It's not a complex position, though: You can labor for years on painting a picture that looks like a four-year-old made it. Is it valuable in proportion to the time and labor spent on it? Of course not. It's only as valuable as any given person thinks it is, and only to that person (probably at the level of trash). If you want to put a dollar value on it, it would be the highest amount it fetches in the open market, though that still wouldn't be exact, and could change at any time.

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:19:05 PM
If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

I would rather you be rude then dismissive because in order for conversation to happen both sides need to genuinly believe that their other person can be right. Otherwise its not a discourse and your not even here for debate or conversation. But your both rude AND dismissive which is why this is my last post with you.

I'm going to be brutally frank.

You can waffle on about IP theft this and Copyright infringement that. But if WotC wanted they could absolutely take OSR writers to court. Has it ever been put in legal writing that the OSR copying rules is okay? I mean official legal writing on par with the OGL. Which doesn't even cover all of 1e and B/X. Sure there's no precedent for retro clones. But with enough money I'm sure one could be established in WotC's favour.  You are not owed money. But WotC ABSOLUTELY is. So don't poke that bear.

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:19:05 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 12, 2021, 03:46:12 PMI've tried to explain my position clearly and without insulting anyone, and I've been repeatedly attacked in a very nasty way for it.

True, some people threw shit your way. But you kinda have to power through it when debating over an incredibly complex topic like the idea of rights (natural vs unnatural) and property (on a public forum).

If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM
When somebody questions how stealing their ideas or replicating them without permission and you answer with the idea of effort=/=value, thats kind of a non-answer unless you directly link the concept to the ethics. True not all effort=value, but the question was about the ethics, not about the idea of value creation. And its a complex position (not one I think that makes you a bad person), but needs elaboration without calling people entitled.

By and large, throughout the thread, even from some pro-IP guys, the answer hasn't been "effort <> value", it's been "information cannot be property" (elaborated upon thoroughly, in pages and pages of text). Unless you mean specific responses to GeekyBugle, who does still hold to the Labor Theory of Value, unlike any non-Marxist for the last 200 years.

It's not a complex position, though: You can labor for years on painting a picture that looks like a four-year-old made it. Is it valuable in proportion to the time and labor spent on it? Of course not. It's only as valuable as any given person thinks it is, and only to that person (probably at the level of trash). If you want to put a dollar value on it, it would be the highest amount it fetches in the open market, though that still wouldn't be exact, and could change at any time.

Lets see imbecile:

The Labor "Theory" of Value applis in Marxist thought to the worker in a company being the one that adds value and should therefore get mote if not all of the profits.

Have I ever argued such thing? No, but you're a scumbag lying ideologue and as such will lie about anyone not part of your cult.

Plenty of times have I said you don't have a right to profit from my investment, and in making games such investment does include my labor, just like a mason includes his labor when building a house to sell it.

And in neither case do you socialist scumbags have any right to profit from us without paying us what we invested and a profit we deem enough (if the market bears it).

But to you lying scumbag a finished game "is just an idea man!".

When it clearly it's not, the idea is to develop a game, the game once finished is the author's expression of that idea.

But you're a thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag and want to profit from my investment without the free exchange of money for goods/services. "For the greater good".

And since I opposse that you lie about me as the thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag that you are.

Fuck you and welcome to the ignore list.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 12, 2021, 04:06:40 PM
More like he'd rather dance his little sidestep than explain himself. Hell, estar did a perfectly good job of laying out a cogent argument. One that I can agree with.

If you think Pat hasn't explained his views at length, then either you never read anything he wrote, like GeekyBugle, or you're just treating "cogent" as synonymous with "something I can agree with" (also like GeekyBugle, I guess).

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 12, 2021, 04:06:40 PM
Eternal copyright is bullshit. But so is 'but information wants to be free, maaaaaan'.

If anybody has brought up Richard Stallman or his ilk favorably, it wasn't me or Pat (maybe estar? but you said he was "cogent", so I guess not).

Stallman, despite somehow also being a privacy wonk, thinks that you're morally obligated to publicly release any private modifications you've made to software bearing his cancerous GPL license. I haven't seen a single person in this thread advocate for anything similar.

Rather, the assertion has been that you can't force people to abstain from using their own property just because that particular usage would offend your sensibilities or hurt your feelings.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 12, 2021, 04:09:13 PM
Also, nothing's free, mate. Tanstaafl.

EDIT: Thank you for pointing this out though (same post):

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 12, 2021, 04:09:13 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:07:48 PM
Your answering a question about logic constructs with another logic construct. Adverse possession is a logic construct.
I understand about the nature of the development of ideas. Im not actually for eternal copyright.

I am just saying that its not that clear cut because everything 'started' free before somebody invented the idea of property and created privaleges for its enforcement.

Isn't society itself a logic construct for us to interact with each other, though? Why look down on it?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 05:26:54 PM

QuoteEdit: fixed a typo. Also, what I was trying to say is that, yes, services are intangible, but that doesn't contradict that only tangible things can be property in the sense that's at the center of this thread.

Il give you this: Using the idea of scarcity as a integral factor of property, sure, ideas are not an cannot be property. Im willing to 100% cecede that point, and move on from that use of verbiage at all in regards to intelectual products.

So we can be on the same page: if I ask for payment after a service (haircut), the recipient recieves the haiurcut, but then refuses to pay me afterwards. What is that action. It is not theft, but what is it so I can call that action the proper thing.

I know you've already declared me a Garbage Person, but I wanted to respond to this earlier. I was going to say that it's probably a category of theft, but not one that's relevant to IP, since we're talking about goods (whether informational or physical), and not services.

I googled around and it seems the accepted term for what you've described is "theft of service", which sounds right to me. For example, it's not far off from getting a package sent to you via Ebay and then just neglecting to pay for it, which is obviously regular old theft.

Quote from: jhkim on October 12, 2021, 08:22:42 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 12, 2021, 07:56:30 PM
If copyright was 2 years (like someone here sugested) would anyone have bought the rights to make the harry potter movies? Or would the movie studio just wait for the copyright to expire?

If copyright was 2 years, movie studios wouldn't make blockbuster movies -- or at least would make far less of them, because many people would be content to wait 2 years to watch the movie. And possibly J.K. Rowling might just be a multi-millionaire like Linus Torvalds instead of a billionaire. To me, that doesn't seem like a bad outcome.

I like many blockbuster movies, but then, I would also like many of the works in a world with more limited copyright -- like all the *other* Harry Potter adaptations that other people would create, instead of just Warner Brothers.

I'm not necessarily pushing for 2 years. I'm not sure what length I would most prefer, but I think the effectively infinite copyright that Disney is promoting is a bad idea.

Thanks for the great posts, jhkim. This is exactly the sort of stuff I was hoping to share via the youtube links I posted earlier.

I do think the bolded part is a little off-base, though; the majority of Apple customers (the ones who are bankrolling Apple anyway) don't wait two years for a used iPhone at half-price. They buy it in advance, or on opening day. Granted, they're not the same kind of product, but I think there's arguably a much bigger incentive to put the iPhone off for two years, and yet people buy new every year (same with Call of Duty and sports games on Steam, which will be almost-free in as much time).

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 11:23:45 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:19:05 PM
If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

I would rather you be rude then dismissive because in order for conversation to happen both sides need to genuinly believe that their other person can be right. Otherwise its not a discourse and your not even here for debate or conversation. But your both rude AND dismissive which is why this is my last post with you.

lol

Quote from: King Tyranno on October 12, 2021, 11:34:07 PM
I'm going to be brutally frank.

You can waffle on about IP theft this and Copyright infringement that. But if WotC wanted they could absolutely take OSR writers to court. Has it ever been put in legal writing that the OSR copying rules is okay? I mean official legal writing on par with the OGL. Which doesn't even cover all of 1e and B/X. Sure there's no precedent for retro clones. But with enough money I'm sure one could be established in WotC's favour.  You are not owed money. But WotC ABSOLUTELY is. So don't poke that bear.

You're right about the ability of big corpo's to frivolously throw their lawyers around, but there's plenty of legal precedent for filing off creative serial numbers. Just look at the entire history of the comic book or video game industries. The OSR is safe. The phenomenal success of the internet and open-source software has sounded the the death knell for the IP myth.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 12, 2021, 11:34:54 PM
Lets see imbecile:

... you're a scumbag lying ideologue and ... will lie about anyone not part of your cult ... you socialist scumbags ... you lying scumbag ... you're a thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag ... you lie about me as the thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag that you are.

Fuck you and welcome to the ignore list.

lol

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 12, 2021, 10:10:43 PM
But the estate exists, megacorporations exist, now how can we solve the problem without giving all the advantages to megacorporations?

Your "solution" doesn't work because money is power, you can't make a blockbuster movie because you lack the money, you can't print at the same volumes Hasbro can, you can't develop all of the related stuff Hasbro can based on your game at the speed they can.

You can't out compete them, therefore the evul state created evul IP laws need to exist and they need to be such as to protect the little guy. I agree this isn't always the case currently. Star Trek Discovery STOLE from a guy most of the stuff they did different than the true Trek (the blue tardigrade? Most of their characters on the first season?). And he lost the law suit.

So I do agree the law needs changing, but you want to either abolish it or make it so the little guy gets fucked in the ass harder.

So what is your solution? You claim I'm an asshole thieving communist because my "solution" doesn't work. Other than parroting exactly what Disney wants (like perpetual copyright), what do you think will help?


From my side, I've never claimed anything as a "solution", and no, I don't think that decreasing copyright term will instantly "solve" megacorporations. It's just one piece of a bigger issue about how the legal system gives massive advantage to whoever has the most lawyers.  ​In general, I think a lot of the current U.S. regulatory laws - including IP - are designed in detail to favor big corporations by excessive complexity, loopholes, and other nuances. These favor only big corporations with powerful legal departments.

Reducing the power of corporations won't have a single do-all solution. I'm doubtful that it will happen at all, but if it does, it would be because we get enough anti-corporate sentiment such that some people who are anti-corporate get elected. Then they overhaul the laws to be simpler and fairer.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 10:58:36 PM

QuoteBut your extreme interpretation seems to deny the possibility of scientific development.

As in the idea of developing science, or the idea that science may later prove this untrue?

First.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 11:23:45 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:19:05 PM
If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

I would rather you be rude then dismissive because in order for conversation to happen both sides need to genuinly believe that their other person can be right. Otherwise its not a discourse and your not even here for debate or conversation. But your both rude AND dismissive which is why this is my last post with you.

More bad behavior on your part, Shrieking Banshee.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 12, 2021, 11:34:54 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:19:05 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM

Quote from: Pat on October 12, 2021, 03:46:12 PMI've tried to explain my position clearly and without insulting anyone, and I've been repeatedly attacked in a very nasty way for it.

True, some people threw shit your way. But you kinda have to power through it when debating over an incredibly complex topic like the idea of rights (natural vs unnatural) and property (on a public forum).

If Pat and I, who are people, kinda have to power through an onslaught of vile insults, then I think you can likewise kinda power through people (even me or Pat) treating some of your posts dismissively.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 12, 2021, 04:03:53 PM
When somebody questions how stealing their ideas or replicating them without permission and you answer with the idea of effort=/=value, thats kind of a non-answer unless you directly link the concept to the ethics. True not all effort=value, but the question was about the ethics, not about the idea of value creation. And its a complex position (not one I think that makes you a bad person), but needs elaboration without calling people entitled.

By and large, throughout the thread, even from some pro-IP guys, the answer hasn't been "effort <> value", it's been "information cannot be property" (elaborated upon thoroughly, in pages and pages of text). Unless you mean specific responses to GeekyBugle, who does still hold to the Labor Theory of Value, unlike any non-Marxist for the last 200 years.

It's not a complex position, though: You can labor for years on painting a picture that looks like a four-year-old made it. Is it valuable in proportion to the time and labor spent on it? Of course not. It's only as valuable as any given person thinks it is, and only to that person (probably at the level of trash). If you want to put a dollar value on it, it would be the highest amount it fetches in the open market, though that still wouldn't be exact, and could change at any time.

Lets see imbecile:

The Labor "Theory" of Value applis in Marxist thought to the worker in a company being the one that adds value and should therefore get mote if not all of the profits.

Have I ever argued such thing? No, but you're a scumbag lying ideologue and as such will lie about anyone not part of your cult.

Plenty of times have I said you don't have a right to profit from my investment, and in making games such investment does include my labor, just like a mason includes his labor when building a house to sell it.

And in neither case do you socialist scumbags have any right to profit from us without paying us what we invested and a profit we deem enough (if the market bears it).

But to you lying scumbag a finished game "is just an idea man!".

When it clearly it's not, the idea is to develop a game, the game once finished is the author's expression of that idea.

But you're a thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag and want to profit from my investment without the free exchange of money for goods/services. "For the greater good".

And since I opposse that you lie about me as the thieving, lying, socialist, scumbag that you are.

Fuck you and welcome to the ignore list.

That's not the labor theory of value. The labor theory of value is the idea that the price of things is based on the labor put into it. All the classical economists believed it, including Adam Smith. Marx also believed it, which is why Marx is considered a classical economist. The last major one, because no economist except the Marxists has believed that since William Jevons, Léon Walras, and Carl Menger each independently developed the subjective/marginal theory of value, which basically says value is based on supply and demand.

So every time you talked about how you deserved to be paid because of the effort you put into something, including just now, you were using the labor theory of value. That's why, when you were frothing about everyone else being communists, I pointed out how ironic it was that you were arguing from the same place as Karl Marx.

Incidentally, you've made dozens upon dozens of posts blatantly insulting everyone who disagrees with you, and in general have been throwing shit like a fan in a fertilizer factory, and when someone points out an obvious implication of one of your arguments, you block them?

That's precious.

Quote from: King Tyranno on October 12, 2021, 11:34:07 PM
I'm going to be brutally frank.

You can waffle on about IP theft this and Copyright infringement that. But if WotC wanted they could absolutely take OSR writers to court. Has it ever been put in legal writing that the OSR copying rules is okay? I mean official legal writing on par with the OGL. Which doesn't even cover all of 1e and B/X. Sure there's no precedent for retro clones. But with enough money I'm sure one could be established in WotC's favour.  You are not owed money. But WotC ABSOLUTELY is. So don't poke that bear.

There are a couple earlier examples, like Mayfair Games in the 1980s. But I think they were all settled out of court.

And while it's true that Hasbro hasn't waived their rights by inactivity and could sue any of the retro-clone authors any time they feel like it, why haven't they? Probably because there's a chance they'd lose, and they absolutely do not want that to happen because that precedent would end up costing them a lot more money than a few retro-clones.

Quote from: Oddend on October 12, 2021, 11:49:08 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 12, 2021, 04:06:40 PM
Eternal copyright is bullshit. But so is 'but information wants to be free, maaaaaan'.

If anybody has brought up Richard Stallman or his ilk favorably, it wasn't me or Pat (maybe estar? but you said he was "cogent", so I guess not).

I've said there's value in having our intellectual heritage as possible be free. It wasn't a reference to Stallman or GNU, though.

Quote from: Oddend on October 13, 2021, 12:31:37 AM
I do think the bolded part is a little off-base, though; the majority of Apple customers (the ones who are bankrolling Apple anyway) don't wait two years for a used iPhone at half-price. They buy it in advance, or on opening day. Granted, they're not the same kind of product, but I think there's arguably a much bigger incentive to put the iPhone off for two years, and yet people buy new every year (same with Call of Duty and sports games on Steam, which will be almost-free in as much time).

If we were going to have a real discussion about the different ways people can make money off their ideas, this would be one of my major points. A lot of people want the new and shiny NOW. Not next year, not the year after. Not even tomorrow. And they'll wait in line and pay a serious premium to do so. Not all people, true. But many. Enough to make some serious ka-ching.

That's a strong argument for a short term for intellectual protections. The goal of granting temporary monopoly isn't to allow the person who came up with the idea to get every last cent the idea might generate over an infinite horizon, otherwise the monopoly wouldn't be temporary. Rather, it's to allow them to make (or at least have the opportunity to make) enough money to encourage future creations.

The balancing act is deciding how much is enough, and where to draw the line. That's why I talked about development time, upthread. If something takes 10 years to bring to market, that's very different from a YouTube video you can make in an hour, publish, and get 1 million hits tomorrow. The term for the latter can be a lot shorter, and still accomplish the same purpose.

Another related point comes from the repeated arguments in this thread that if there were no intellectual property laws, then Disney or Hasbro would come in and take everyone's ideas, and no author would ever make any money.

That's patently false, as Patreon, Kickstarter, and the whole crowd-funding movement has proved. People don't just want the new and shiny, they also want the AUTHENTIC. Look at all the artists and comic book writers who had a falling out with their company, and how much of their audience followed them when they went off on their own. The big companies may be able to funnel off some of the money, but a lot of people will choose to support the original author or artist or whatever, even if they're getting nothing from it (see all the crowd-funding projects that are released to the general public not just the backers).