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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

#81

Post by xmprt »

krisoft wrote: post #44
jesterman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There definitely was, as they mentioned in the article. They choose not to though, opting instead to just sit on it for a long time I guess? Hopefully they talked to a lawyer before releasing this though, and hopefully Microsoft doesn’t go after this guy.

> hopefully Microsoft doesn’t go after this guy Let’s not spread FUD, what would they go after for this guy and why?

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 a valid offer and acceptance; adequate consideration; capacity; and legality.

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

#83

Post by marak830 »

fbdab103 wrote: post #14
pie_flavor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it's time to play it!

If only Microsoft would still let me play the copy I purchased years ago.

I am still quite upset about this. I was looking to install it for my son to play, nope.

Bastards.

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

#85

Post by naet »

I kinda feel like this guy is overstating his contribution to Minecraft. It's nice to have an end screen message, but that isn't what drove the value of the game and could have easily been replaced by something else.

Rule #1 of getting paid for your work is don't do a bunch of work without signing a contract first. Even if you're an artist. I highly doubt he could have released that poem on his own and turned it into millions of dollars or whatever he thinks a "fair" contribution is.

Contributing an asset doesn't give you any entitlement to share in the company. If you want some equity in the company you better ask for it up front, because they probably won't give it to you and would just hire someone else and you can save your hard work. 20k seems fair and helped the author out a lot at the time. Posting a long rant about it probably hurts his future work opportunities.

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

#86

Post by widforss »

dcow wrote: post #65
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).

If you have a case, especially one presumably of this profile, then many firms would take it for no up front cost with an expectation of some cut of the damages.

But he doesn't have a case, does he? He wrote the piece _for_ Minecraft and accepted the payment as such.

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

#87

Post by afterburner »

antiterra wrote: post #29
hoten wrote: post #15

Certainly there's a world where the author just knew, at some point in this process, "let me just give this giant stressor of a problem to a lawyer"—without losing whatever it means to "be an artist" or opportunities at growth he attributes to only occurring because he was awful at business.

He had an agent he could have just called up— but you see this all the time. People think that sorting out business with contracts ruins friendships, but it’s very often the lack of contract and the resulting fight that irreparably severs relationships. It’s not just some capitalism v art thing either. It’s communicating and promising and accountability. To anyone reading, if you’ve got a business partner and you thi…

What struck me is it doesn't seem these people really were his friends. He didn't know them before writing the poem, it seems he only communicated with them via email, and then only regarding the poem, and he certainly wasn't friends with them afterwards.

I mean I'm probably missing a lot of details that weren't necessary to the telling of this story, but perhaps the lesson here is don't assume people are your friends when all you have is a brief business relationship.

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

#88

Post by rippercushions »

larsbrinkhoff wrote: post #74
rippercushions wrote: post #36

Anybody have a pointer to the "iHole" story mentioned in the article? It seems to have been purged not just from the author's website, but archive.* as well. https://www.juliangough.com/the-ihole-in-original-apple-fl/

Is this it, further down the page? https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2684207-an-open-...

That's it, thank you! Really worth a read, both thought-provoking and funny.

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

#90

Post by subradios »

Good and bad post.

Getting mad at "the corporations" for being dirty middlemen is common, but Ticketmaster hires staffers, organizes purchases, handles refunds alllllllll the way down the line. The infrastructure to do that takes real work by real people who also need to be paid, and yes - there is a structural inequality between the company that does all the organizing and the individual person doing the work. This is both problematic and excellent.

The best part though, really - is that because of the way modern corporations work, anyone can be at the very very top of the corporate structure, above even the CEO. Regular, average humans can be shareholders, the most preferred class of all modern capitalist corporations.

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