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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

#671

Post by vkazanov »

wartijn_ wrote: post #659
vkazanov wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they payed for this text to be included in the game (for further distribution, obviously). That's a bad legal definition. It needs a clarification which usually comes in a form of a contract. Mojang clearly acted un-professionally: there's money on the table without a clear job definition. What happens with the copyright? Authorship? Should the author be mentioned in the game? etc. Same goes to the writer, obvi…

> Well, they payed for this text to be included in the game (for further distribution, obviously). They paid for the deal they agreed on as described in that first email. We don’t know the contents of that email, so it’s impossible for us to know if it they agreed on just including the poem in the game, transfer of copyright or anything else.

True. We don't.

But there no "just including" in legal speak. "Including" means some sort of copyright transfer or a license.

Either way, the text was created specifically for inclusion in the game and was payed for by Mojang.

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

#672

Post by EamonnMR »

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…

Thanks for writing that post. If nothing else it's a riveting story.

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

#673

Post by pie_flavor »

63 wrote: post #76
bdn_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making a server is surprisingly terrible for such a ‘mature’ game. The official Minecraft server software is exceptionally unoptimized, but a number of independent open source forks exist, some of which can substantially improve performance. Unless you're talking about maintaining the community aspect, which is definitely not so easy... :) For anyone getting into Minecraft for the first time, be sure to check out t…

I don't see why it can't be as easy as Multiplayer -> Host -> Select World. The average player shouldn't need to download a server jar, accept a eula, edit the config, run the jar with command line arguments for ram allocation, and set up port forwarding just to play block game with their friends.

It is as easy as selecting the realm from the Minecraft Realms menu.

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

#674

Post by jrochkind1 »

beAbU wrote: post #661
jrochkind1 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "gaslighting" there? I understand "gaslighting" as "manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality." Is that what you mean, or something else?

I might be using the term incorrectly, I realize that. The author's behaviour is that of the spouse that's "totally not mad, honey" but you still feel uneasy afterwards. I'm not sure what term to use to describe this behaviour. English is not my native language.

I bring it up because people using "gaslighting" in a very non-specific uncareful way is a concern of mine generally. I think people (native speakers included for sure) often don't really understand what they mean, sometimes really just mean people disagreeing, but still wanting the original meaning of "gaslighting" to suggest to the listener a form of abuse. But of course disagreeing alone is not a form of abuse.

But ok, ignoring the actual word... I'm still not sure I understand what you mean.

You think the author wants you to feel guilty because he did not manage to cash out, yes? (I'm not sure what this has to do with a spouse saying "totally not mad honey", but let's leave that aside too).

I'm not sure I agree that's what the author is trying to do,and am curious what parts of the text made you think the author was trying to make you (readers in general?) feel guilty. But okay , to move on, let's say he might have been. And you do not think you should feel guilty? OK, fair enough.

And you think... by trying to make you feel guilty, or by the manner he used to try to make you feel guilty, he is in some way tricking or manipulating you, the readers, in an unethical way? Am I on the right track?

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

#675

Post by DrammBA »

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 left this as general comment and I feel it's relevant here:

> Reading the post and then HN comments makes me realize the average HN user lacks a lot of emotional intelligence.

> People are criticizing the post based on the cold hard mistakes the author made while completely glossing over the emotional introspection the author went through to acknowledge all their mistakes and finally close this chapter of their lives.

> Stop treating this post like you are code reviewing a PR.

I suppose it is to be somewhat expected from the target audience of HN to fixate on the logical parts and completely ignore the artistic and emotional parts, but in this case that means they are ignoring the whole point of your post.

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

#676

Post by nearbuy »

pflenker wrote: post #601
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…

While I do agree with you overall, I think the author was right to assume that the non-skip feature was meant to appreciate his result. And calling it poorly-written is uncalled for, I think.

For what it's worth, I'll second that I thought the end poem wasn't very good.

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

#677

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#678

Post by dang »

dysarray wrote: post #653
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…

Hi Julian, Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to read our comments. We appreciate your perspective and the insight you have provided on the situation. However, I must say that your message feels very confrontational and pointy, and dismissive of the legal aspects of the situation. While we understand that the emotional and artistic aspects are important, the legalities of the situation must also be cons…

Please stop.

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

#679

Post by plopperdoo »

DrammBA wrote: post #675
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 left this as general comment and I feel it's relevant here: > Reading the post and then HN comments makes me realize the average HN user lacks a lot of emotional intelligence. > People are criticizing the post based on the cold hard mistakes the author made while completely glossing over the emotional introspection the author went through to acknowledge all their mistakes and finally close this chapter of their liv…

Yes and no. It’s important to reserve a tiny handhold on emotional takes because sometimes it’s raw and emotional for underhanded reasons. I think the comment you’re replying to, wherein active spin was attempted to refocus on the emotional part over the legal part, suggests it’s a nonzero possibility. Some parts of the essay raised the idea for me and I had to work hard to dismiss them, to pay him the ultimate respect of reading it all (every word).

It comes across like the author is aware the feelings argument is stronger than the legal one. He likes Reddit’s take because the feelings were engaged. He quite clearly hates this forum’s because it asks questions of the situation he’d prefer to leave alone. Again, that’s how it comes across.

If you don’t keep such a handhold you’re more easily manipulated, and in this cold light of day and particularly that comment, I can’t argue against that idea as much as I would have last night. I do agree with you that we could all do with a bit more empathy, but keep your wits, all I’m saying.

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

#680

Post by jameshart »

zztop44 wrote: post #446
jameshart wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but… I don’t believe that’s true. As I understand it ‘work for hire’ is the basis by which work done by an employee creates intellectual property belonging to an employer. When you contract a non employee to produce intellectual property for you it is common to write an explicit ‘work for hire’ agreement that ensures that the work you are paying for is handled on the same basis as work by an employee.

I’m a freelance developer. My clients pay for a perpetual non-exclusive non-transferable license to the software I write for them. I explain this very clearly to every client, and tell them explicitly that I hope and intend to sell the same software (probably with modifications) to another client down the track. I’ve never had a single client push back on this ever. I could definitely imagine for some companies this…

Right, so that is not a ‘work for hire’ agreement. It is an agreement that explicitly ensures they are aware they are not getting your code on a work for hire basis.
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