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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

#641

Post by spritefs »

burkaman wrote: post #515
wikfwikf wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Did the author really expect that he would be getting royalties to all the Minecraft end text teatowels and fridge magnets as part of the deal? Clearly, the success of these products is largely correlated with the success of the game rather than the importance of what he wrote. b) If I had wanted to make merch with this text on it last week but had been deterred by fear of M$ lawyers, I wouldn't really feel any di…

> Did the author really expect that he would be getting royalties to all the Minecraft end text teatowels and fridge magnets as part of the deal? No, and I feel like he made it extremely clear that this story is not really about money and his feelings are not driven by a lack of royalties.

> No, and I feel like he made it extremely clear that this story is not really about money and his feelings are not driven by a lack of royalties.

If it wasn't about money, than what was it about? "Fairness"? So money?

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

#642

Post by sbst32 »

wikfwikf wrote: post #636
sbst32 wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? He never agreed to transfer his rights.

How do you know this?

Because he explicitly says so and it never was his intention. If you're trying to say that he agreed to it never understanding what he's agreeing to - then that would probably be a non-binding agreement in any legal proceedings.

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

#643

Post by warinukraine »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #517

Although I don't really like the ending text for Minecraft at all (and think the author is really too pretentious and self-centered), I like how this blog post reveals himself as an artist with human flaws. He kinda (but not fully) admits that he had a parasocial relationship with Notch and really though he cared about him (although for Notch the author was probably just a random contactor who would fill the writing…

The text isn't even _good_. "and the universe said i love you because you are love". That's expert level cliche.

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

#644

Post by ectopod »

jaywalk wrote: post #563
kergonath wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Micr…

Well, Microsoft's legal team obviously came to the conclusion that the emails and payment were at least sufficient to grant Mojang a license to the artist's work. So there's that. They could have been wrong, sure. But absent further legal judgement, I'm willing to side with the decision reached by the team of lawyers over random Internet commenters.

Not necessarily. They might have concluded that the potential liability from non-ownership was insignificant compared to the upside. Even when courts find against corporations who have massively screwed artists the compensation tends to be modest, and this case isn't clear cut.

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

#645

Post by CollinEMac »

neilv wrote: post #480
iepathos wrote: post #192

The person who really got screwed in all this is poor Charlie, the agent. Here he is managing deals for Julian getting a percentage of those deals and Julian it sounds like is not making much, so Charlie probably isn't making much off Julian either. Julian goes and basically gives away his most successful work to ruthless Mojang and Charlie gets nothing for it at all because Julian keeps Charlie in the dark. Charlie…

Seems like both the agent and the artist got scrod. The epic-length post is like those movies that would've been 10 minutes if the people just talked with each other. In this case, if the artist had just told the agent what they wanted, agent would've gotten to do their job, and artist would've avoided years of turmoil.

>The epic-length post is like those movies that would've been 10 minutes if the people just talked with each other.

I was thinking this throughout a large portion of the article. Imagine how different things would have been if Julian and Carl stopped emailing each other "rapidly" and "frantically" and picked up the phone (or setup a Zoom meeting or whatever).

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

#646

Post by JulianPGough »

Hi all. I'm Julian, the guy who wrote the ending to Minecraft, and that Substack piece. I've read a fair few of your comments. (Not all; blimey, 600? You've crowdsourced a book!) Very interesting and enjoyable experience. Almost all the ones I've read are parsing the legalities; engaging with the law around copyright, rights agreements, etc. Arguing about legal specifics. Almost none of them engage with the artistic part of the story, or the emotional part. It's as though those things are simply not there, or were invisible. Fascinating! I particularly enjoyed the comments where blokes (so many blokes!) got angry at me for even HAVING emotions about this situation, when the law seemed, to them, to make such emotions invalid. Almost the opposite of the Reddit r/Minecraft comments, which are all about the emotions and the art. Anyway, thanks for this insight into a particular way of looking at the world. Very revealing, very interesting, very enjoyable. Have a great day!

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

#647

Post by bobsmooth »

JulianPGough wrote: post #646

Hi all. I'm Julian, the guy who wrote the ending to Minecraft, and that Substack piece. I've read a fair few of your comments. (Not all; blimey, 600? You've crowdsourced a book!) Very interesting and enjoyable experience. Almost all the ones I've read are parsing the legalities; engaging with the law around copyright, rights agreements, etc. Arguing about legal specifics. Almost none of them engage with the artistic…

HN is not the place to expect emotional intelligence. Reading your story was sad, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding that happened. I hope releasing your poem gives you the peace you need.

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

#648

Post by jonnycoder »

JulianPGough wrote: post #646

Hi all. I'm Julian, the guy who wrote the ending to Minecraft, and that Substack piece. I've read a fair few of your comments. (Not all; blimey, 600? You've crowdsourced a book!) Very interesting and enjoyable experience. Almost all the ones I've read are parsing the legalities; engaging with the law around copyright, rights agreements, etc. Arguing about legal specifics. Almost none of them engage with the artistic…

No post body was provided.

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

#649

Post by agentwiggles »

JulianPGough wrote: post #646

Hi all. I'm Julian, the guy who wrote the ending to Minecraft, and that Substack piece. I've read a fair few of your comments. (Not all; blimey, 600? You've crowdsourced a book!) Very interesting and enjoyable experience. Almost all the ones I've read are parsing the legalities; engaging with the law around copyright, rights agreements, etc. Arguing about legal specifics. Almost none of them engage with the artistic…

I appreciated your writeup. I have to admit I had never read the end text before today and I really like what you made. Hope your creativity continues to flourish.
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