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Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

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Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#41

Post by mlyle »

nostromo wrote: post #34
nordsieck wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All copyright is way too long but authors go completely off-piste at anyone who suggests that it should be something more reasonable (I kinda like 21 years myself). > Part of the issue is that the loudest voices are that 0.01% of authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation. My favorite scheme is that all copyright last for 10 years by default. You can register it for $100 for anoth…

This scheme seems to protect the largest companies with the largest bank accounts the most. Why would we want a system like that? I actually have the opposite view: I'm more worried about a small-time author that say, makes living on a low-volume text or training book, than I am protecting Mickey Mouse.

It's nice to make works that no longer have commercial value enter the public domain by default.

Another justification: if the harms increase for giving an author exclusivity for a longer time, society should demand a larger payback. This may only be justified for the most prominent works

It feels a little out of calibration. How about free for 20 years; $500 for 10 more, and then 100x for every 10 additional years. Everyone gets 30 years to exploit a work for a reasonable price, and then the price ramps steeply so that very few works are registered beyond 40 years.

A tiny proportion of works will be worth the $50k step, let alone the $5M one. Even Disney will not pay $5M for most things.

And, of course, things that are forgotten or devoid of commercial value will lapse at 20.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#42

Post by markx2 »

Have been gaming since the mid 80's and text adventures were a main feature. Years later and I owned Lost Treasures 1 and 2 then the Masterpieces CD. I topped that with IUB.zip - pretty much everything Infocom.

Jason Scott then produced Get Lamp - I have a coin - which brought so much of that era together.

I view text adventures, be they Infocom, Level 9 or others, as an inspiration to others. A re-release could only be a good thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lamp

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#44

Post by TulliusCicero »

rgmerk wrote: post #17
PostOnce wrote: post #5

Games made before I was born whose copyright won't expire until long after I'm dead. They ought to be public domain by now. In fact, games should have a shorter copyright term since they're harder to preserve and less valuable over time. I still have a box legally-purchased of Zork games (CDROM editions) and manuals and a copy of Planetfall here, but should I feel any shame about pirating them? I don't think I should…

All copyright is way too long but authors go completely off-piste at anyone who suggests that it should be something more reasonable (I kinda like 21 years myself). Part of the issue is that the loudest voices are that 0.01% of authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation.

20 years, same as patents.

People aren't writing books because of the profits they might make 25 years from now.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#45

Post by rgmerk »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #44
rgmerk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All copyright is way too long but authors go completely off-piste at anyone who suggests that it should be something more reasonable (I kinda like 21 years myself). Part of the issue is that the loudest voices are that 0.01% of authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation.

20 years, same as patents. People aren't writing books because of the profits they might make 25 years from now.

Yes, but people who wrote commercially successful books 25 years ago will scream blue murder if you take what they see as their retirement nest egg away from them.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#46

Post by johnnyanmac »

nostromo wrote: post #34
nordsieck wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All copyright is way too long but authors go completely off-piste at anyone who suggests that it should be something more reasonable (I kinda like 21 years myself). > Part of the issue is that the loudest voices are that 0.01% of authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation. My favorite scheme is that all copyright last for 10 years by default. You can register it for $100 for anoth…

This scheme seems to protect the largest companies with the largest bank accounts the most. Why would we want a system like that? I actually have the opposite view: I'm more worried about a small-time author that say, makes living on a low-volume text or training book, than I am protecting Mickey Mouse.

Numbers can be tweaked but it adds up quickly.

Protect for 40 years for a million? Sure. Probably worth it for mega IPs

50 years for $100m? Still doable but it really starts to hurt.

60 for $10B? Maybe Pokemon and Mikey mouse can justify it, but very very few.

By 70 years it's simply not worth it.

>This scheme seems to protect the largest companies with the largest bank accounts the most. Why would we want a system like that?

Because the small time authors really won't care in 20 years anyway. Even if the cost to renew is a pittance. Are there authors trying to sell the copyright to a failed IP in 30 years?

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#47

Post by jccooper »

rgmerk wrote: post #17
PostOnce wrote: post #5

Games made before I was born whose copyright won't expire until long after I'm dead. They ought to be public domain by now. In fact, games should have a shorter copyright term since they're harder to preserve and less valuable over time. I still have a box legally-purchased of Zork games (CDROM editions) and manuals and a copy of Planetfall here, but should I feel any shame about pirating them? I don't think I should…

All copyright is way too long but authors go completely off-piste at anyone who suggests that it should be something more reasonable (I kinda like 21 years myself). Part of the issue is that the loudest voices are that 0.01% of authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation.

An explicit renewal regime with some reasonable fee would allow most works to pass into the public domain, and avoid objections from owners of still-valuable properties. (I like the concept of renewal fees escalating each period, a kind of dutch auction against the public domain, but I'd accept even a fairly trivial flat fee as the price of avoiding ever-longer universal copyright.)

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#49

Post by johnnyanmac »

RomanAlexander wrote: post #23
PostOnce wrote: post #5

Games made before I was born whose copyright won't expire until long after I'm dead. They ought to be public domain by now. In fact, games should have a shorter copyright term since they're harder to preserve and less valuable over time. I still have a box legally-purchased of Zork games (CDROM editions) and manuals and a copy of Planetfall here, but should I feel any shame about pirating them? I don't think I should…

if I hire you to write a HN News app, do you feel like you're entitled to royalties?

I mean, your app is making use of either scraping or using an API that's not yours. You may own the app but there's not much of value you can copyright. I wouldn't feel entitled to royalties becsuse you're not getting royalties to begin with.

But for BOTD: tech workers tend to get paid well to deliver one specific project so the industry doesn't have as strong demand for royalties as art. Especially since tech isn't necessarily creating art itself but implementing other's creations. It's a bit different compared to an artist who makes a popular character and that character is being used decades later to sell plushies. Or a writer who's book is turned into a billion dollar franchise. The worst thing you can sell as an artist is your entire creative IP but that's unfortunately common in industries like animation or publishing.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#50

Post by cryptoz »

acheron wrote: post #10
LeoPanthera wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you could use some kind of generative AI to automatically render images of each scene from a text adventure.

I'm sure ChatGPT+DALLE would do a decent job of it, as long as one of the scenes doesn't accidentally trip its badness filter.

I'm working on this right now actually!

here's a screenshot https://imgur.com/a/a1S2Mb0.png

it will be part of https://cosmictrip.space when it is done, hopefully soon!

GPT-4 generates the games themselves, the turns as well as optional action butons, and also generates DALL-E image prompts for each turn. DALL-E generates just based on the current turn right now but I'm working on adding context.

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