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Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

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Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#241

Post by eridius »

croon wrote: post #192
eridius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually probably completely wrong. Just because the guy got it off of eBay doesn't mean it's not actually property of Blizzard. That's like saying that just because you bought a stolen phone from some guy in an alley, the rightful owner can't demand it back.

That's a bad comparison. A stolen phone is 1) Likely reported stolen. 2) A finite resource. This is a printed CD-R that Blizzard likely didn't know existed.

Just because someone doesn't know it's missing doesn't mean they give up their claim on the property.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#242

Post by moftz »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #110
scrollaway wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I apply the golden rule: if someone found the code I wrote for a groundbreaking piece of software, and I didn't want to open source it, I'd really like for them to respect my wishes and return it. Is that really the golden rule? What about "the good of the many"? Returning it to Blizzard directly is good for Blizzard . Returning your code is good for you . Realistically, it has little monetary value (all the "value…

> Returning it to Blizzard directly is good for Blizzard. Returning your code is good for you. To expand on this, it's good in general to return leaked code of active-development projects because that helps the social contract of turning work into something that can be sold. So if I found jakebasile's 2015 code in an alley, it would be in some sense good for everyone for me to return it. But that doesn't apply to a 2…

If people want to promote the arts of game development, what does copying the code from a 20 year old game do to further today's useful arts? There are plenty of free game engines out there for someone to use and modify to build the next best game. Using buggy 20 year old code that can't run on modern computers doesn't really seem efficient.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#243

Post by eridius »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #131
eridius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's ok to take other people's property, as long as it's "culturally important"? TBH this makes me think of the old practice of smuggling jade artifacts out of China. Hey, it's culturally important, so clearly that means it's ok for other people to take it, right?

The "out of China" part is the problem there. That's a problem that's pretty much irrelevant to a question of whether or not to distribute copies of data files. And I didn't say that cultural importance is an automatic justification. The new star wars movie also has cultural importance, but there would be large downsides to free-for-all piracy of it during its release year. Downsides that don't exist with 20 year old…

You don't have the right to determine whether someone else's source code is old enough that it's "ok" to steal. Not the legal right, and not the moral right either.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#244

Post by Dylan16807 »

braveo wrote: post #234
wtetzner wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP is different that physical property. If someone takes something physical from anther person, the original owner loses that object. But if someone "takes" (copies) source code from someone, the original owner still has it . Now two people have it instead of one. By the way, I'm not making any arguments about morality. I'm just pointing out that IP is different from physical property in important ways.

It's an unimportant distinction for the purposes of this discussion. Under the law, damages have occurred, especially if someone then takes that source code and makes it public. So whether you have 2 copies or 1 copy or umpteen copies, if you've economically affected someone, you will lose that fight in court. But this is not relevant to this discussion and I think we should keep on topic. The point is this: Dylan168…

> So the splitting of the hairs you're attempting is to point out that IP typically expires at some point, and therefore we should all consider anything "old" as effectively having expired IP, regardless of whether that's true or not.

It's very simple. I'm saying we should look at the upsides and downsides of each type of IP. This (20+ year old source code) is a type of IP that has no upside. Therefore while it's against the law, there's no purpose in it being against the law, and it's not immoral. Easy peasy.

> What matters is that Blizzard paid for the creation of the code, and they're afforded protections under the law.

You don't think it's possible for the IP rights given by law to have a mismatch with the IP rights that are most moral? Because this conversation thread was about what is good or bad, aka what the law should be, not what the law currently is. Of course it's against the law as it is right now. That's not the only thing to discuss.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#245

Post by chickenfries »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #162
chickenfries wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I think there's a huge difference between Activision Blizzard games and either Valve or Bethesda games. Sure, Valve and Bethesda have probably contributed more gaming experiences to the world across their many games and their liberal policy towards modding. There are only a few Blizzard games, but they're better and they make much more money. It's a tightly controlled experience, but the quality control means Bl…

Methinks you're a Blizzard fanboy.Diablo 3 was a critical and personal dissapointment. Starcraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm aren't exactly in my list of top PC games either. And they make more money? I haven't seen exact figures, but you are severly underestimating how much cheddar people drop on stuff like Team Fortress 2 items. As for the diversity in types of games, you're suffering from recency bias. Until basical…

> Methinks you're a Blizzard fanboy.

I like their games. I like Valve and Bethesda games too.

> I haven't seen exact figures, but you are severly underestimating how much cheddar people drop on stuff like Team Fortress 2 items.

I don't have exact figures either, but whatever people spend on hats cannot possibly approach what people have spent on WoW subscriptions...

According to Wikipedia, Valve's total equity is $2.5 billion while Activision Blizzard's is $8.068 billion. Obviously, one produces many more games, but I still have a hard time picturing something like TF2 coming close to the amount of revenue that WoW or Hearthstone generates.

> WoW had the same feel as W3, just with a different camera position and WASD movement.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that WoW and WC3 are similar games. One is an RTS and the other is an MMORPG. When I called Valve/Bethesda games are similar, I was talking about how Valve games all feel like thin skins over the Source of Gamebryo engines. It feels like you could walk out of the facility in Portal into City 17.

> Look at a game like CounterStrike. I remember getting into that game 18 years ago!!! and it's still one of the most popular esports, twitch channels, is even on cable TV, and still makes boatloads of money.

Counter Strike is a great game. I've been playing it all my life, since 1.6. But you know how much money I've spent on Counter Strike over the years? Probably much less than I've spent on Overwatch loot boxes plus the game, and that game only came out last year.

> HotS (yawn, bad design philosophy to leveling up as a team

As someone who is a 1x MOBA player, I like HOTS. I find the way that experience is combined makes games a little bit more competitive but also less toxic (No all chat helps too :)).

> I really don't care much for PvP FPS experiences, which is why Overwatch, while a fantastic game that actually gets me to play PvP, is unsatisfying. I much prefer co-op games and I really liked the horde mode, but they make it seasonal...so I haven't touched it in months.

They have a story-mode coop now, Overwatch Origins. I'm not interested in it, so I haven't played, but it sounds like it might be up your alley.

> Did they resent the creation of DotA, say to themselves never again, and decide to completely abstain in creating modder tools?

Yes, I do think they regretted not capturing the value created by Dota.

I don't think Blizzard games are perfect, I just think their strategy is obvious. Blizzard is going to approach modding with the same care and caution that Nintendo approaches mobile games.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#246

Post by Dylan16807 »

eridius wrote: post #243
Dylan16807 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "out of China" part is the problem there. That's a problem that's pretty much irrelevant to a question of whether or not to distribute copies of data files. And I didn't say that cultural importance is an automatic justification. The new star wars movie also has cultural importance, but there would be large downsides to free-for-all piracy of it during its release year. Downsides that don't exist with 20 year old…

You don't have the right to determine whether someone else's source code is old enough that it's "ok" to steal. Not the legal right, and not the moral right either.

Obviously I don't have magic law-changing wishes from a lamp. Are you telling me I don't get to have an opinion wrt lawmaking? Because that would be kind of rude and antithetical to a democratic government.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#247

Post by acuozzo »

scrollaway wrote: post #66
jpgvm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing from circulation permanently is basically the same as destruction for the purposes of archival.

I highly doubt it's going to be removed from circulation forever. My guess is it'll be archived internally, the disc itself will end up in their campus museum, and at some point legal will sign off on releasing it to the public. SC1 is coming up on its 20th anniversary next year, who knows what they'll do for the occasion.

> I highly doubt it's going to be removed from circulation forever.

Agreed, but sometimes…

Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire

Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire

Preservation requires distribution.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#248

Post by acuozzo »

jakebasile wrote: post #105
Dylan16807 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead and disagree with that train of thought, but I don't see how it's 'twisted' to call him selfish. You can call the venom in those posts twisted, but that is a very different thing from saying the actual reasoning behind the posts is twisted.

Selfish for following the law and respecting the wishes of the authors of a work? Jesus, people are really performing some mental gymnastics to justify the hypothetical theft of property in this case in order to arrive at the conclusion that the finder is somehow being selfish.

> Selfish for following the law and respecting the wishes of the authors of a work?

Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire

Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire

If something is truly culturally significant then it should be preserved regardless of the wish(es) of its author(s) and these two hyperlinks rather easily make the case that preservation requires distribution.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#249

Post by acuozzo »

jvdl wrote: post #166

Wow, this thread. Plenty of people insisting on gaining access to source code they didn't write and had no part in developing. News flash: it's not your product, you don't own it, and you have no rights to insist on hijacking someone else's product for your own gain.

> News flash: it's not your product, you don't own it, and you have no rights to insist on hijacking someone else's product for your own gain.

Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire

Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire

If something is culturally significant then it should be preserved and these two hyperlinks should easily make the case that preservation requires distribution.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#250

Post by acuozzo »

jakebasile wrote: post #44

It looks like someone found a copy of Blizzard's copyrighted source code, returned it to Blizzard, and got a reward. Why are people upset about this? It seems like the right thing to do to my mind. If someone found a copy of my own source laying in the street I'd be very happy if they returned it instead of releasing it on the net.

> Why are people upset about this? It seems like the right thing to do to my mind.

Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire

Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire

If something is culturally significant then it should be preserved and these two hyperlinks should easily make the case that preservation requires distribution.

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