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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

#181

Post by LudwigNagasena »

bobsmooth wrote: post #152
lelanthran wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's the pinnacle of what anyone would want out of life? No one claimed that it was. Buying a mansion and shitposting on twitter isn't exactly the sign of being a failure, is it? By all measureable metrics, I'd assume that his life is better than 90% of people that started life in the same socioeconomic class that he did.

Money doesn't buy happiness. Having Tony Hawk and Skrillex at your housewarming party is cool but they're not the same as friends.

Sounds far better than being popular among Twitter journos, to be honest.

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

#182

Post by epse »

holoduke wrote: post #154

I play minecraft a lot with my sons. We actually never cared to finish it. I dont even know how to finish it. The game isnt made to be finished. Its a large maker playgarden. I think hardly anyone saw this ending.

You get it by killing the Ender Dragon, which pretty much everyone does at some point? If you want to go exploring End Cities and get Elytra, you need to kill it to get back home

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

#183

Post by cmeacham98 »

pgsandstrom wrote: post #149
rosywoozlechan wrote: post #41

That's a lot of anger, negativity and bitterness, and entitlement (one of the game's creators for writing the ending text?). Reminds me of the kid on the cover of the Nevermind album and other people that are kinda tangentially connected to something massively successful, but not connected enough to benefit materially, and they let that define who they are and ruin their lives. Could have been a neat personal story,…

Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. Yes, the author expresses many negative and self centered emotions. He is very clear about that. It is part of the story. It is a story about being a flawed person. I sympathize with him. I loved this piece. I hope he truly did let go of all the hangups he described. And it does seem that he actually did sell the the rights of use to microsoft, making…

My biggest problem with the post is the massive ego the author seems to have about the impact and importance of their writing.

To be frank, the author made little to no meaningful contributions to Minecraft's success.

The author is so self-centered they belittle the contributions of other Mojang employees and seem to genuinely believe their contribution is on the same level as people like Jeb and C418. They literally describe the End Poem as a quote "Priceless Gift".

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

#184

Post by operator-name »

colonwqbang wrote: post #173
operator-name wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the part I'm thinking of > Early next year, Markus earned a three-million-dollar dividend on his shares in Mojang. But, as the actual value of his company, which he mostly owned, had gone up by many tens of millions, he figured he didn’t really need another three million on top. So he divided it between the twenty-five staff at Mojang, as a late Christmas bonus. That’s $120,000 each. Five or six times what I…

Or he's upset that he didn't even hear from Notch at all at this point? That at the success of the game he felt forgotten for his contribution and was using this as an example of other contributors being kept in mind?

I'm speculating, but having known "artists", some of them think very differently to the average HN crowd.

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

#185

Post by LudwigNagasena »

meibo wrote: post #157
CodeArtisan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any wrongdoing from Notch in this.

That's not what he said, and no, Notch didn't do anything wrong here. He's referring to everything about current day Notch(sad, alone, transphobe in billion $ mansion that panders to the right on Twitter all day and hasn't had anything creatively interesting to say since 2015).

Where does that narrative that he is sad and alone come from?

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

#186

Post by spuz »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #40

I feel for the guy, making a living off of art is difficult. However, with an extensive email chain explaining the story was written as the ending of Minecraft, even going into detail about how it was to be displayed in game, an agreed upon offer (if a bit vague), and then an exchange of funds - with no immediate attempt to return said funds. I'm no lawyer, but that sounds a lot like a legally binding agreement. > So…

My interpretation of the legal status is that the author is entitled to accept the €20k as payment for his time but that amount doesn't constitute payment for the copyright of the work. Mojang subsequently wanted to purchase that copyright and hence why they sent the contract for £1 to be signed. Julian believed the copyright was worth more and so rejected the offer.

All that is to say that if my interpretation is correct then Julian is legally entitled to do what he wants with the work including selling it to someone else or in this case release it under a creative commons license.

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

#187

Post by [deleted] »

lelanthran wrote: post #130
gary_0 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's the pinnacle of what anyone would want out of life?

> And that's the pinnacle of what anyone would want out of life? No one claimed that it was. Buying a mansion and shitposting on twitter isn't exactly the sign of being a failure, is it? By all measureable metrics, I'd assume that his life is better than 90% of people that started life in the same socioeconomic class that he did.

[deleted]

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

#188

Post by true_religion »

operator-name wrote: post #136
colonwqbang wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To me, it seems clear that he was not a friend. The people, who slaved away for months or years as employees to build the game may have been friends. That would explain the outsized compensation they all got.

However, he was just a contractor found via twitter who wrote a few pages of text for the ending credits.

They really did not think of him as a friend, and when he was done with work they never contacted him again except for legal reasons.

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

#189

Post by robertlagrant »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #183
pgsandstrom wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. Yes, the author expresses many negative and self centered emotions. He is very clear about that. It is part of the story. It is a story about being a flawed person. I sympathize with him. I loved this piece. I hope he truly did let go of all the hangups he described. And it does seem that he actually did sell the the rights of use to microsoft, making…

My biggest problem with the post is the massive ego the author seems to have about the impact and importance of their writing. To be frank, the author made little to no meaningful contributions to Minecraft's success. The author is so self-centered they belittle the contributions of other Mojang employees and seem to genuinely believe their contribution is on the same level as people like Jeb and C418. They literally…

Indeed. The game would've made $0 less had the ending just said "The End".

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

#190

Post by warbler73 »

kergonath wrote: post #155
papa2034 wrote: post #128

I have a strong feeling MS will put out a statement that they own the end poem and it is not public domain. The author talks about how big the game was/became, but it’s actually irrelevant because no one bought the game because of the poem.

> I have a strong feeling MS will put out a statement that they own the end poem and it is not public domain. I don’t think they would do that. That would be unbelievably stupid from a legal department. The funny thing with this sort of IP in most of Europe (though this could be different in Sweden but I really doubt it) is that nobody except the author can own it. All they can have is an exclusive license. If they a…

In the US for copyright to transfer he'd need to be an employee and writing part of his work duties, in which case it is work for hire, or if he is a contractor they'd need a signed contract saying the contractor was performing this as work for hire, or a contract explicitly transferring ownership. They did pay him for it so Mojang had an implied license to use it but he retains ownership.

When Mojang sold Minecraft to Microsoft, they did not own the copyright and did not have a contract saying they have the right to transfer their implied license, therefore Microsoft actually is violating copyright here.

Source: I went through exactly this same legal scenario and won.

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