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Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

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Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#81

Post by avereveard »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #46
nostromo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Heck even something absurdly low like 1$ per year would already be enough to salvage all those works from bankrupted companies that will lapse on payment. There are so many IP in limbo because their ownership is fragmented, unclear, or forgotten and having a payer renewal fees would clear up a lot of that real fast.

That said I like the exponential scheme.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#82

Post by ChicagoDave »

kromem wrote: post #73
ChicagoDave wrote: post #13

We all know Microsoft bought Activision _for_ the Infocom IP. It’s clearly the most valuable asset.

You jest, but don't forget that to Microsoft leadership their battle in LLMs is likely seen as even more important than all of team Xbox. Getting nerds who grew up on Zork to effectively give free problem solving training data and pay a subscription price for the privilege by grounding RLHF data collection into a beloved franchise might not be that low on priorities over at Microsoft.

So the future sentient AI will have a strange love of trophy cases, brass lanterns, and jewel-encrusted eggs?

I’m down for that.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#83

Post by m463 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #25

Activision is also actively selling the Zork collection on Steam. I'd expect that to show up on Gamepass. It includes: Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, and Planetfall https://store.steampowered.com/app/570580/Zork_Anthology/

also on GOG, DRM-free:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_zork_anthology

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#84

Post by qup »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #82
kromem wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but don't forget that to Microsoft leadership their battle in LLMs is likely seen as even more important than all of team Xbox. Getting nerds who grew up on Zork to effectively give free problem solving training data and pay a subscription price for the privilege by grounding RLHF data collection into a beloved franchise might not be that low on priorities over at Microsoft.

So the future sentient AI will have a strange love of trophy cases, brass lanterns, and jewel-encrusted eggs? I’m down for that.

> down

You descend down a rickety staircase, into darkness. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#85

Post by Sakos »

mlyle wrote: post #41
nostromo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Copyright was never meant to give perpetual rights, which is what your scheme would do (as it does now). So might as well not change the current system, because the conclusion is the same.

The final arbiter was never "does it have commercial value still?" until today. That's a purely modern perspective pushed by companies like Disney, because of course it is. That's all they care about. We don't have to care about that. In fact, I'd suggest it's completely immoral to accept that framing when we look at how important public domain has historically been to our culture.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#86

Post by Sakos »

elondaits wrote: post #40
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.

The conversation is hard because we’re thinking about being able to copy and distribute an old game… and some authors will be thinking about not losing rights to their original characters, music, story, etc. … so maybe it would be useful to have a law that protects the preservation of old media, allowing the public to legally break DRM, copy distribute and shift it to new platforms after a number of years… without ne…

> some authors will be thinking about not losing rights to their original characters, music, story, etc.

But this didn't used to be an issue. It was accepted that things would fall into the public domain and you couldn't benefit from something for eternity. It's unacceptable that we've finally reached a point where only the creator or owner can ever do something with a creation, regardless of how long ago it was created. Just because you created a thing doesn't give you an inalienable right to own it forever. We're just making it so because "commercial value" and other bullshit.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#87

Post by safety1st »

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…

I'm sure many people (myself included!) would be very happy if Microsoft released all the Zork IP under a Creative Commons license.

If we think about this from a Microsoft perspective though: releasing games is a lot easier these days. They sell access to hundreds of games via Game Pass which is something they're marketing pretty hard and trying to make successful. Why not add all of the Infocom games to it? This would sell a couple Game Pass licenses (mainly for the somewhat neglected PC version of Game Pass, so that's nice), preserve the titles and expose them to a much broader audience.

I mean the hobbyist and game historian in me loves it all going CC but the realist and the guy who thinks about scale and impact says if MS would just get these old titles on Game Pass that'd be a pretty nice nod to the past and a win for them as well.

The fact that Zork doesn't enter the public domain until 2047 is a bigger issue where somehow, incomprehensibly, we've allowed Hollywood and Mickey Mouse to rob us of our cultural heritage from the 20th century at gunpoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#88

Post by dagw »

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.

authors whose work still has some commercial value decades after its creation.

Sure, but who should capture that value for those works. Is it more fair that all the value goes to the publishers and TV/movie studios making adaptations, rather than some of it being shared with the author.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#89

Post by dagw »

bruce511 wrote: post #61
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.

I doubt any would describe my voice as "loud", but I suspect I fall into the 0.01% you mention. I sell code (programming libraries, and commercial business systems) which have been under continual development sint 1996. So 27 years. Copyright in this context would be complicated in a "20 year" model. Last month saw a significant upgrade to a product first released in 2000. Should the 2K version be public domain now?…

under continual development

Copyright timer would be reset for every new release. So the version of the library you released in 2000 would be out of copyright, but the version you released last month wouldn't be. I guess there is a risk that someone will take your version from 2000, reverse engineer it, and release a competing product, but it seems like a minor risk.

Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea

#90

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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