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I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

theeggandtherock.substack.com

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Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#131

Post by Moru »

colonwqbang wrote: post #93
whatshisface wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call asking for nothing entitlement?

Isn't the whole point that the author thinks he deserves more compensation than he got? He's quoting the compensation for various Mojang employees and comparing it to what he got. He seems quite jelaous and/or entitled. 20000€ would in most European countries be a pretty good compensation for about 3 months of work, after taxes. It doesn't seem unreasonable on the face of it.

It wasn't just 20k, it was also some publicity for his other works which never happened.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#132

Post by Scarblac »

hoten wrote: post #15

Certainly there's a world where the author just knew, at some point in this process, "let me just give this giant stressor of a problem to a lawyer"—without losing whatever it means to "be an artist" or opportunities at growth he attributes to only occurring because he was awful at business.

He even had an agent. He realizes he should have just let the agent handle it. And then when they come back for the contract in 2014, he just does it again!

Still, thought this was very well written, and he's not assigning them the blame.

I don't think Notch ever was his friend though.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#133

Post by yownie »

rippercushions wrote: post #58
krisoft wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hopefully Microsoft doesn’t go after this guy Let’s not spread FUD, what would they go after for this guy and why?

It would not be too hard for Microsoft to argue that they did come to an agreement with the artist to transfer the rights in exchange for 20,000 euros, so they do now own the copyright to the End Poem and will sue for damages if the artist reneges on the deal and starts claiming it's public domain. I hope they don't, but they definitely could. It would be a PR nightmare though, and there's not all much to be gained e…

without a contract how do you propose they could do that?

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#134

Post by yownie »

xmprt wrote: post #81
krisoft wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hopefully Microsoft doesn’t go after this guy Let’s not spread FUD, what would they go after for this guy and why?

They had a long conversation over email and an exchange of payment for the right to at least use the poem. Whether you like it or not, that can count as a contract. It might be different in different jurisdictions but here's the US definition of a contract ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contract ): > The basic elements required for the agreement to be a legally enforceable contract are: mutual assent, expressed by…

that still doesnt get them perpetual rights nor ownership

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#135

Post by vintermann »

63 wrote: post #117
asddubs wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, I was passively wondering about that. So I suppose we won't get any more C418 songs in Minecraft, that's kind of a shame.

It is a bit of a shame but it seems like it's been used as an opportunity to bring in new people and ideas to the game and I appreciate that. Pigstep is a banger.

Agreed on Pigstep, but I bet Raine would have liked to have kept the extended rights Rosenfeld got, only she can't afford to refuse, probably.

I also got to say, although Pigstep as a record is great, and Raine's music for Celeste is terrific, the new in-game ambient music doesn't hold up to Rosenfeld's.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#136

Post by operator-name »

colonwqbang wrote: post #93
whatshisface wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call asking for nothing entitlement?

Isn't the whole point that the author thinks he deserves more compensation than he got? He's quoting the compensation for various Mojang employees and comparing it to what he got. He seems quite jelaous and/or entitled. 20000€ would in most European countries be a pretty good compensation for about 3 months of work, after taxes. It doesn't seem unreasonable on the face of it.

I'm not sure that is the point, as if you believe the author's summary:

> I wrote a story for a friend, but in the end, he didn't treat me like a friend, and I'm hurt.

In this framing, these are examples of being treated as an outsider.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#137

Post by kergonath »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #102

I'm no literary critic and I don't know how many people finish Minecraft and how many get to read the poem but $20K for that seems a pretty good deal (and the exchange of emails and payment sound like some kind of contract). I'm sure others working on other parts of the game, graphics and gameplay (which have become very well known outside the game) put in far more work for less. If Microsoft replace the poem, I'm no…

> the exchange of emails and payment sound like some kind of contract

Beware that this is very dependent on jurisdiction. There are places where such informal agreements are completely non binding. IP laws vary quite a lot as well. So your intuition might be completely wrong. Just sorting this out would be a nightmare (the author was working in Germany for a Swedish company; which law should apply? Then there is Microsoft).

> If Microsoft replace the poem, I'm not sure anyone would notice except the author wouldn't have a fun fact for his bio.

He would still have it: this happened and whatever happens next won’t make it un-happen retroactively.

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#138

Post by matkoniecz »

wesapien wrote: post #78
automatoney wrote: post #32

I love the idea of the public domain so much - the idea that these bits of culture may have been created by a single person, but that they ultimately belong to everyone as members of the culture. I've always wanted to host a New Years Public Domain Day party to celebrate everything already in and entering the public domain, but I'm not sure my friends are quite as excited by the idea as I am...

The public domain has no culture. It's everyone in the planet. The planet has no specific culture.

Human culture in general exists and is also something (hard to compare with other ones right now, but I bet that aliens - if existing - would have a different ones)

Re: I liberate the ending to Minecraft from Microsoft and give it to you

#139

Post by europeanguy »

kergonath wrote: post #129
europeanguy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not just entitlement, it's enjoyment coming from the worst place. This guy by his own admission never made the effort to fight for money, instead prioritizing love, whatever that means, but when it comes to getting paid he feels entitled to money. He just wants "fair" without having to make the effort to think about what that means.

Did we read the same thing? He says he felt at the time that he should have got something . Much of the post is about him avoiding trying to get any money. He had some issues, sure. Still has, by the look of it. But it’s not accurate to say he’s greedy and entitled. He failed to understand the situation he was in, got something that seemed good but was actually not that good (which does happen all the time), went thr…

> But it’s not accurate to say he’s greedy and entitled

I didn't say he was greedy; by the sounds of it he's happy with very little. It is 100% correct to say he's entitled. He doesn't want to do the legwork of determining the terms, instead he expects that someone else does, and in a way that protects his interests. He feels entitled to that.

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