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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

#741

Post by kergonath »

europeanguy wrote: post #443
kergonath wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't say he was greedy Yes, sorry, that was in other posts and it got blurred. I did not want to put words into your mouth. > He doesn't want to do the legwork of determining the terms, instead he expects that someone else does He explains why he did not involve his agent, and also that he does not expect anyone to do it. Otherwise he’d have plenty of opportunities to do it. He sounds entitled in that he has we…

> he just sounds like someone hurt that the world does not work as they thought Exactly, that's another facet of his entitlement that I have deep content for. Many good people work hard to figure out how the world works. Other people have in mind how it should work and get upset when it doesn't.

I think he was just very, very misguided, and he still is. And possibly on drugs. I cannot imagine myself following the reasoning he did. But at the same time I can see he was not trying to take advantage of it.

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

#742

Post by microsoftdoes »

jcfhchcjxhx wrote: post #709
microsoftdoes wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“and so I said, OK, I’ll take whatever the first thing you offered was.” Edit: I’m rate limited, but Microsoft doesn’t need a transfer. They bought the entire company. Just like you buying some shares on the stock exchange, except they bought all of the shares in a private transaction. Had they done an asset purchase instead, your point might be valid.

nice try mr Microsoft lawyer. he smartly follows the line you quoted out of context with "and even that they didn't deliver" or something. so, no contract, an email agreement which was never fullfilled. man, be happy this guys is a spineless hippie or you would be working overtime and still paying a deal.

What? They paid him exactly what he agreed to. Nothing in the story suggests otherwise.

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

#743

Post by feiri »

feet wrote: post #589
lantry wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? There's a picture of someone with one of the lines tattooed on their arm. Obviously people aren't putting whole poem on things

One line is not "having a poem tattooed"

I think the original point is to say that people felt moved enough by the poem to "permanently" integrate some feature of it into their lives. Critiquing the "whole poem" thing feels incredibly pedantic.

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

#744

Post by DangitBobby »

xmprt wrote: post #75
DangitBobby wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made it pretty clear that he didn't have any money (and thus no legal access).

He also made it clear that he had an agent. And he had worked with large corporations in the past given his background so I'm surprised he tripped up here. It's not like this was some first time author learning about how cruel the real world can be.

That's all pretty tangential to the claim that he should "just" get a lawyer. He even describes how his life was kind of falling apart and his first marriage ended partially due to stress and partially due to his financial situation. It's wonderful to say you can "just" do this and "just" do that but it seems like things weren't "just" that simple for this person.

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

#745

Post by jack_pp »

microsoftdoes wrote: post #742
jcfhchcjxhx wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice try mr Microsoft lawyer. he smartly follows the line you quoted out of context with "and even that they didn't deliver" or something. so, no contract, an email agreement which was never fullfilled. man, be happy this guys is a spineless hippie or you would be working overtime and still paying a deal.

What? They paid him exactly what he agreed to. Nothing in the story suggests otherwise.

He didn't agree to hand over all rights to the work

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

#746

Post by trhr »

squirtlebonflow wrote: post #603
trhr wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man sails his smoking yacht into a repair shop. The head mechanic goes over with a hammer and slams it against the side of the engine. The engine roars back to life, and the smoke subsides. He submits a bill for $200,000. It is itemized as such: - $1 - Fifteen seconds of labor; striking with hammer - $199,999 - Knowing where to strike

Your hyperbole undermines your point.

I'm not sure I had a point. I kind of picked a number I thought Julian would have been happy with, since E$20,000 wasn't it.

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

#747

Post by ngc248 »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #505
pgsandstrom wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. Yes, the author expresses many negative and self centered emotions. He is very clear about that. It is part of the story. It is a story about being a flawed person. I sympathize with him. I loved this piece. I hope he truly did let go of all the hangups he described. And it does seem that he actually did sell the the rights of use to microsoft, making…

> Im honestly chocked that people react so negatively to this piece. I say this with all the love in the world: it's hard for engineers to think like artists and vice-versa.

Things are not so black and white. It's not that engineers can't appreciate art. The people commenting are saying that the payment was according to what was agreed and the artist's seller remorse is unwarranted. Thats all they are saying. It has nothing to do with art appreciation etc.

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

#748

Post by xmprt »

krisoft wrote: post #199
xmprt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a long conversation over email and an exchange of payment for the right to at least use the poem. Whether you like it or not, that can count as a contract. It might be different in different jurisdictions but here's the US definition of a contract ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contract ): > The basic elements required for the agreement to be a legally enforceable contract are: mutual assent, expressed by…

> They had a long conversation over email and an exchange of payment for the right to at least use the poem. I agree with that. This would be a real encumberance if the author were to decide he wants to sue someone. But that is not what we are discussing here. We are discussing if Microsoft will sue the author. We are not discussing if Microsoft can sue him. The way this works anyone can sue anyone for pretty much an…

That's a fair point. I think I was looking at it from the other perspective where the author was claiming that he had never approved a contract with Mojang and therefore deserved additional compensation which is pretty far from true. But I agree that Microsoft probably doesn't have a strong case here either and wouldn't gain anything from suing anyway.

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

#749

Post by neycoda »

This is phenomenal. A famous poem to the best-selling game I've never played and never will, is now owned and reproduced in any forrn by everyone in the universe, against all contracts. Maybe it will be the End Poem of the universe, the last decipherable thing before it all flickers out.

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

#750

Post by neycoda »

Scaevolus wrote: post #205

Contracts, eh? Three people got a cut of the $2B buyout, some random contractor doing a bit of writing for the game isn't going to get anything. I made the game _playable_ for a huge number of people by optimizing the save format (MCRegion) and doing the first implementation of Unicode text, probably affecting the exponential growth rate a bit, but I understand that my contribution amounted to a few weeks of work, ex…

You don't understand art, you probably didn't finish reading what Julian wrote, you'll likely never understand what he did, and that poem probably has less meaning for you than most who would read it having never played the game.
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