Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by tripzilch » Fri, May 05, 2017, 3:44 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #190

braveo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so let me get this straight. Your reasoning for that is "it degrades property rights", but you're for publicly releasing Blizzards property for "the good of the many"? You want the source to be available and you're trying to back into it with some sort of moralistic argument instead of just admitting that you want the work to be available but have no real basis for it outside of personal preference. Because tha…

If you look at the other posts I made, it should be more clear. There are different kinds of property rights. The property rights for the money you have in your bank account are important. (But if we wanted to add a rule-based tax across everyone that would be okay.) The intellectual property rights for recently-made things are important. The intellectual property rights for 20 year old code are not at all important.…

"intellectual property rights" aren't even "property rights", they just confusingly use the same terms.

we had to invent copyright to mean anything at all, it didn't exist before. but even animals have some basic concepts about actual property rights (they can get righteously angry about it, for instance).

it's the word "property" in "intellectual property" that is misleading (deliberately, like the word "patriot" in "patriot act"). it's just a legal term, it didn't (quite) magically turn information into physical property when we came up with it (just one or two centuries ago).

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

#282

Post by tripzilch » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

braveo wrote: post #272

wtetzner wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. First, I never argued that it was or wasn't against the law. Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard. It's not like someone could start releasing competing StarCraft games. They still don't own the brand etc. > (and thank you for having the…

> Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard Even if you ignore the fact that Blizzard owns the rights to the code. Which you shouldn't, but some people here seem to think that's alright. EVEN IF you ignore that, SC is still televised in South Korea. Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC. But you won't accept that because this isn't rea…

> Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC.

well THAT is actually an interesting argument, unlike rehashing the old argument of whether it makes sense to ignore the enormous fundamental differences between IP and physical property, and getting all worked up when people don't want to play along and pretend to weaken the definition of theft.

how will it affect the integrity of the competitive scene? and will it do so in a bad way, or maybe just change things up a bit?

I actually think that's a way more compelling moral argument than worrying about Blizzard's IP rights.

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

#283

Post by tripzilch » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #235

jhasse wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I steal your house, that means that you lost it. The same isn't true for the code, as Blizzard would still also have it (along with the right to distribute binary copies of it, which is a million times more valuable).

What would be the damages for Blizzard if he had released the code?

are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human??

because I can make up constructs all day that suffered more damages either way.

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

#284

Post by jhasse » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #283

jhasse wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the damages for Blizzard if he had released the code?

are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human?? because I can make up constructs all day that suffered more damages either way.

> are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human??

No.

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

#285

Post by tripzilch » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #106

Svekax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You buy a box of old documents on Ebay. It contains an original manuscript of The Fellowship of the Ring with J. R. R. Tolkien's edits and notes in the margins. Tolkien's estate demands the copy back so they can burn it. You should mail it to them because they own it, right? It's just a book, right? No, you shouldn't. They owners shouldn't be able to destroy it for the same reason we have laws protecting monuments an…

>>They owners shouldn't be able to destroy it for the same reason we have laws protecting monuments and historical sites. Monuments and historical sites require Acts of Congress or Executive Orders to establish. If you care so much about this game's source code, maybe you should write to your congress critter.

please stop dragging US politics into much broader topics.

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

#286

Post by wtetzner » Fri, May 05, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

braveo wrote: post #272

wtetzner wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. First, I never argued that it was or wasn't against the law. Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard. It's not like someone could start releasing competing StarCraft games. They still don't own the brand etc. > (and thank you for having the…

> Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard Even if you ignore the fact that Blizzard owns the rights to the code. Which you shouldn't, but some people here seem to think that's alright. EVEN IF you ignore that, SC is still televised in South Korea. Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC. But you won't accept that because this isn't rea…

> But you won't accept that because this isn't really about what's fair, it's about what you want.

Actually, no, it's not. I'm not even arguing that the source code shouldn't have been returned to Blizzard. I'm only pointing out that most of the arguments (that I've seen here, anyway) against it haven't been good ones.

> EVEN IF you ignore that, SC is still televised in South Korea. Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC.

This actually strikes me as one of the more defensible arguments I've seen here.

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

#287

Post by tripzilch » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:01 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #3

In other news, Blizzard pays less than $1000 to make sure modders can't make starcraft better than they can.

To be fair, I'd estimate about $5k, considering the flight + hotel fees.

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

#288

Post by wtetzner » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:03 PM UTC

moftz wrote: post #239

wtetzner wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Returning it to Blizzard directly is good for Blizzard. I'm not even sure if that's true. It's not like Blizzard didn't already have the source code. If some distributed the source code, what would happen? It's not like people could start releasing new StarCraft games to compete with Blizzard. And it seems unlikely that the source code is going to give someone some kind of an advantage it creating other competing g…

Someone could just reskin assets, change dialog, etc and revamp Starcraft into any RTS game. The AI and game code is what is really important for Blizzard to retain. It isn't the idea that people will compile Starcraft (Blizzard has released the game for free), it's the possibility that someone may profit off of all of Blizzard's efforts in writing the backend code for the game. I think it seems very likely that ther…

> I think it seems very likely that there would be a sudden influx of Starcraft clones and other RTS games made from the engine flooding every app store.

I don't see why. Even if the code was leaked, it would still be illegal for people to use that code. Blizzard still owns the copyright, and I doubt it would be hard to show that a game was just StarCraft reskinned.

> Blizzard doesn't want people making money off their IP, plain and simple.

I'm sure they don't, but it's not clear that it would have any real effect on them. If they've released the game for free, would it harm them in any way?

I don't know if it's right or wrong to distribute the source or to return it to Blizzard. Obviously it's against the law to redistribute it, but I'm not sure that it would be immoral. Mostly, I see a lot of half-baked black-and-white arguments in the comments on this article, and I'm just trying to point that out.

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

#289

Post by sctb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

braveo wrote: post #254

right, so now you're back to the whole "we should respect property rights... except in this one case, but I'm totally not going to just tell you it's because I prefer it that way! nosirreeeeeeeee! It's because after lots of hand waving morals and 20 years and coOOoooooOOOoode.". The 20 years is irrelevant to this discussion. Blizzard owns the IP to the software and since ownership itself is a fairly central idea in o…

Personal attacks like this aren't OK here, no matter what you're replying to. We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14267899.

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

#290

Post by eridius » Fri, May 05, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #277

eridius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. A lot of people in this thread apparently never learned to tell right from wrong.

to be more exact, many people here seem to be incapable to tell right/wrong from legal/illegal or taking the easy/hard choice. these are all different from each other. and more importantly, orthogonal to each other. by orthogonal I mean that given a choice, deciding whether it is right , should be done independently of whether it's legal or easier/harder. think about it. even if you had the power to change law, makin…

Releasing the code isn't wrong because it's illegal. It's wrong because it's violating Blizzard's rights. They own that code, they created it and they have the right to control its distribution. Just because Starcraft is a culturally significant game doesn't mean it's ok to violate Blizzard's rights.

The argument in favor of releasing the source code just seems to me to be a dressed-up version of "but I really waaaaaant to!". Wanting something doesn't make it right.