Major Copyright Judgement

[BobTheDonkey]

And we've all agreed that piracy on the consoles is reasonably negligible, as the number of people willing to physically modify systems to use pirated games, which also ruins all online features and breaks the console occasionally, at best numbers in the thousands.

Those were console games.

Ok...how many people had personal computers in their homes in 1975?
How many people have personal computers in their homes now?

MW2 was released onto the PC at the same time it was released on the PS3 and Xbox. Even though it could have easily been pirated for the computer, people still went out and bought it for the PS3, Xbox, and PC - so much so that it set a record for first day sales.

 

[Gate2501]

And we've all agreed that piracy on the consoles is reasonably negligible, as the number of people willing to physically modify systems to use pirated games, which also ruins all online features and breaks the console occasionally, at best numbers in the thousands.

My bold.

You are not only wrong about this, you are so off the mark it is almost humorous, unless you meant to say "probably numbers in the thousands of thousands".

Do you realize that in oct/nov 2009 Microsoft banned an estimated ONE MILLION players from XBOX live for modifying their consoles to play pirated games? This alone proves definitively that "the number of people willing to physically modify systems to use pirated games" is much higher than you have estimated, this is only one of the consoles. I personally know more than 5 individuals with hacked/modded Wii consoles. Out of the 5 people I know who own a NDS unit, only one of them does not own a flash cart for it.

 

[Belz...]

I mean, if I create something, it's mine, period. By what logic should anyone else ever have free access to it without my permission or the permission of my descendants? If I build a house it doesn't suddenly become the local council's property after a certain time. It remains in my family forever, or until someone bequeaths it to someone outside the family.

Still, I'd find it unfortunate if some things (video games, for instance) remained unavailable forever just because the author died and didn't put it in the public domain.

 

[gumboot]

Still, I'd find it unfortunate if some things (video games, for instance) remained unavailable forever just because the author died and didn't put it in the public domain.

I agree, but it's an interesting thing isn't it? If someone creates something like a house we don't bat an eyelid at them keeping that within their family forever. But for some reason we think we have a right to claim collective ownership of an artist's hard work - for some after as little as fifteen years.

Why is that? What is so different about artistic work that we think we have this basic right to claim ownership of it?

It's an interesting question, isn't it?

Actually I have a better analogy than the house - a house is generally made for private use, and no one wants to share that house with the world. Part of the problem with intellectual property, in my opinion, is that the artists themselves want it widely distributed. That's why they made it in the first place. As such there's this constant tension between the artist wanting people to have it, and wanting them to pay for it.

It's more like a hotel. A hotel is built to get people to use it. The more people use it the better. Yet no one would ever suggest you should be allowed to use a hotel for free. No one would suggest that after fifteen years a hotel should enter the public domain, so that anyone can just go stay there whenever they please for free.

I'm writing a series of books at the moment that has so far taken me fourteen years, and may very well take me another ten years to complete. If I was only going to have ownership of that work for fifteen years, I'd never get it published. This is my life's work. I have poured my very soul into it. The idea that in my own lifetime anyone who wants could copy, sell, and commercially exploit my work for their own benefit, without having to gain so much as a nod of approval from me, frankly appalls me. You cannot imagine how horrendous a notion that is. I would literally rather die.

 

[gumboot]

I think the mere fact that the overwhelming majority of video games are aimed at the console platform, and the mere fact that single-player and LAN gaming features are now practically an after thought (or not included at all) in favour of online multi-player gaming, pretty much proves beyond a doubt that piracy has affected the industry.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

I think the mere fact that the overwhelming majority of video games are aimed at the console platform, and the mere fact that single-player and LAN gaming features are now practically an after thought (or not included at all) in favour of online multi-player gaming, pretty much proves beyond a doubt that piracy has affected the industry.

How does that figure?

WoW set a new standard for gaming, and this is what every game developer wants to emulate. There's an entire industry built around online gaming - and it makes much more money than people think. WoW has over 1 billion players - each paying, on average, $10-11/month. That earns the developer 10 billion dollars per month. Which is the bigger money maker - a game that is purchased one time for $60, or a game that people pay $10-15 for each and every month for years in perpetuity?

And that's before we discuss web-hosting for clan/guilds, teamspeak/ventrilo servers, etc.

This is why there was a shift toward MMORPGs - because the return on investment is just phenomenal.

As for other online only games - which is a tougher opponent? Another player or the computer? Sure, the game could be designed so the computer has the upper hand, but really - it's much more engaging when the opponents are other humans because it's realistic. Rather than a mob or enemy reacting in the same way to the same situation (or being in the same place each and every time you play through), human opponents will act in different ways every time, increasing immersion. This is why they're popular.

The game industry didn't shift to MMORPGs or Multi-Player Only 1st Person Shooters simply to defeat piracy - the game developers shifted because that's what the buying public wanted and thus where the money is.

 

[Matthew Best]

But for some reason we think we have a right to claim collective ownership of an artist's hard work - for some after as little as fifteen years.

Copyright in an original song lasts for the life of the composer plus 70 years. It is just the sound recording that enters the public domain, so any release of a song after its copyright has expired would still result in payment to the songwriter up until the point 70 years after his death. At which point he is literally dead.

 

[GreyICE]

My bold.

You are not only wrong about this, you are so off the mark it is almost humorous, unless you meant to say "probably numbers in the thousands of thousands".

Do you realize that in oct/nov 2009 Microsoft banned an estimated ONE MILLION players from XBOX live for modifying their consoles to play pirated games? This alone proves definitively that "the number of people willing to physically modify systems to use pirated games" is much higher than you have estimated, this is only one of the consoles. I personally know more than 5 individuals with hacked/modded Wii consoles. Out of the 5 people I know who own a NDS unit, only one of them does not own a flash cart for it.

Haha, I hadn't heard about that. That makes my day. Pirates got bricked. Damn I wish they could do that to computers.n

ETA: I'm completely okay with the concept of content becoming public domain 20 years after the author's death, or 50 years after the initial publication in the case of things like movies, games, TV shows, etc. that don't have a singular 'author.' I don't actually believe anything should ever be lost forever - or legally unavailable forever. Art should never, ever be lost - but those who made it have a right to profit. Honestly, no one would give a rats ass if in 50 years you could get Modern Warfare 2 for free legally.

70 years feels excessive to me, but that's not the issue (nothing on a computer is 70 years old - very few things are even 20).

 

[Piggy]

I don't agree.

If piracy had such a profound impact, then why are downloaders not being prosecuted for downloading in general? They can't even close down infamous sites like the PirateBay. Napster is still in business. If it was such a profoundly bad thing then wouldn't the end users be getting sued in every available courtroom?


In the music industry the biggest impact Piracy has had was the creation of iTunes and suchlike. The culture of file sharing and music downloads for reasonable prices exists because of Napster.

Piracy has a negative effect in that some people who would have paid for the media just download it instead.

It also has a positive effect in that some people are exposed to music they might not have heard of before because they downloaded it, or someone they know recommended it after they had downloaded it.

Unfortunately, the numbers don't support that.

 

[Piggy]

There's a reason restaurants no longer sing "Happy Birthday" to you, Piggy.

It's copyright infringement. Did you pay for access to the author's intellectual property or do you have written consent from the author? You dirty pirate, you!

There's a difference b/t a restaurant having its staff (paid employees) use the song "Happy Birthday" as part of their business model -- in other words, using the song as part of their routine procedure to serve their customers -- and someone who's in a restaurant singing the song out loud just because he wants to.

You can sing the song all you want. You can sing it at your nephew's birthday party. You can serenade your lover with it from under the balcony. Knock yourself out. You don't owe anyone a dime.

But if you pay your staff to perform the song to paying customers, that's a whole nother ball of wax.

 

[gumboot]

How does that figure?

WoW set a new standard for gaming, and this is what every game developer wants to emulate. There's an entire industry built around online gaming - and it makes much more money than people think. WoW has over 1 billion players - each paying, on average, $10-11/month. That earns the developer 10 billion dollars per month. Which is the bigger money maker - a game that is purchased one time for $60, or a game that people pay $10-15 for each and every month for years in perpetuity?

You need to check your facts. World of Warcraft has about 11 million monthly subscriptions, and they hold almost 60% of the MMORPG subscription market. WOW brought in about $1 billion for Blizzard Activision in 2009, but with an operating budget of about $200 million per year, that means Blizzard is only bringing in the company around $800 million a year in profit, dwarfed by Activision's contribution via their console games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 alone brought in as much revenue in its first two months as WOW brings in for an entire year.

 

[gumboot]

Art should never, ever be lost - but those who made it have a right to profit. Honestly, no one would give a rats ass if in 50 years you could get Modern Warfare 2 for free legally.

I actually find it weird that computer games are thought of in the same vein as things like books. They're not. They're an entertainment product created purely to make money, by a company. And because they have such a short shelf life, the companies that produce them release them for free long before any sort of copyright would expire, making the issue a moot point when it comes to games.

Films, books, and music are totally different.

 

[Piggy]

Depending on jurisdiction, yes.

I thought the 1984 Betamax decision put paid to that. Didn't that decision establish the precedent that I'm free to do what I want with what I own -- that is, to make copies of recordings from one format to another for my own use -- as long as I'm not giving the copies away, or selling them, or renting them, or publicly airing them, etc.?

 

[gumboot]

Copyright in an original song lasts for the life of the composer plus 70 years. It is just the sound recording that enters the public domain, so any release of a song after its copyright has expired would still result in payment to the songwriter up until the point 70 years after his death. At which point he is literally dead.

Yes, currently copyright for music extends to 50 or 70 years after the death of the last artist to contribute to the work.

But I am addressing the suggestion that this should be reduced to 15 years after the creation of the work.

 

[gumboot]

I thought the 1984 Betamax decision put paid to that. Didn't that decision establish the precedent that I'm free to do what I want with what I own -- that is, to make copies of recordings from one format to another for my own use -- as long as I'm not giving the copies away, or selling them, or renting them, or publicly airing them, etc.?

Not quite.

There were two parts to the Betamax decision. The initial decision concluded that you could record broadcast TV on tape and watch it at a later date. The court ruled that this fitted under fair use.

The second part related to the rental of video cassettes. The court ruled that a video rental store, as the initial consumer of a purchased video cassette, had the right to do what it wished with that video as long as it did not violate copyright. That meant they could then rent out that video to others for a fee, without reimbursing the studios (they had previously tried to recover a fee every single time their product was seen).

What it meant was a video store owner could buy a video cassette once, then rent it as many times as they wished at whatever fee they wanted. The copyright holder would only ever receive money for that first payment.

The result of this decision was that distributors initially released VHS (now DVD) copies of their films at very high rates to video stores, then dropped the price for later private consumer sale. This is why, for example, a DVD will cost a video store as much as $50 or $60 but you and I can buy it a few months later for $20.

 

[Piggy]

Sorry, I don't really support downloading but I'd like to see some evidence before I accept that claim - especially as it doesn't match the (admittedly limited) experience I have of downloaders.

You know what... so far I've based my conclusions on what I've heard/seen in radio/TV news. Reputable news outlets, yes, interviews with reputable people, but still, second-hand stuff.

After just now doing some digging into what little analysis is available, I'm obliged to (pardon the pun) change my tune.

None of the methodologies appear very robust, and everyone admits there's a lot of inference going on, but overall it seems that the impact, industry wide, is either neutral or positive.

I saw one analysis which found that top bands are being hurt, but that lesser known bands are benefiting.

Thanks for making me show the money. You corrected an error on my part.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

I don't actually believe anything should ever be lost forever - or legally unavailable forever. Art should never, ever be lost - but those who made it have a right to profit.

Following copyright law does mean the law-abider misses out on many songs/movies/whatever "forever" (in his lame-ass mortal reference frame anyway). Tying modern art rigidly to dollars and cents would undeniably result in less overall exposure to said art.

When copyrights expire 90-year-olds aren't going to remember the name of the Lady Gaga album they never got around to picking up. It's too damn late, that piece of art is gone to them thanks to the practicalities of economics.


And Donkey, I might be a commie, but I might also be a capitalist who just thinks it stops counting as capitalism when you stop enforcing fraud law.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You need to check your facts. World of Warcraft has about 11 million monthly subscriptions, and they hold almost 60% of the MMORPG subscription market. WOW brought in about $1 billion for Blizzard Activision in 2009, but with an operating budget of about $200 million per year, that means Blizzard is only bringing in the company around $800 million a year in profit, dwarfed by Activision's contribution via their console games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 alone brought in as much revenue in its first two months as WOW brings in for an entire year.

I apologize. I pulled those numbers (nearly) out of my derriere. I was under the impression that WoW had 1 billion users worldwide. Thanks for the correction.

The fact still remains that while Activision might have made more upfront than Blizz, Blizz rakes in $800mil a year - and that profit is still growing. The key is that it's an ongoing income, and even MW2 was geared toward online play so some part of the online Xbox and PS3 subscription services can be attributed to the multiplayer income.

The point is that subscriptions bring in more money over their lifetime than a single-player game. Game developers know this, so they build their games as such. That has very little to do with piracy and much more to do with a new, more successful business model.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

And Donkey, I might be a commie, but I might also be a capitalist who just thinks it stops counting as capitalism when you stop enforcing fraud law.

Because all the great capitalists of the world never committed fraud...

Remember, in capitalism it's only wrong if you get caught and there's a law against it at the time.

 

[GreyICE]

I actually find it weird that computer games are thought of in the same vein as things like books. They're not. They're an entertainment product created purely to make money, by a company. And because they have such a short shelf life, the companies that produce them release them for free long before any sort of copyright would expire, making the issue a moot point when it comes to games.

Films, books, and music are totally different.

Uh, what? Are you insane? I assure you, Danielle Steele, Piers Anthony, and Martha Grimes do not write novels because they make no money at this. They absolutely make money. And people absolutely write books for money. Read old science fiction anthologies - see how often authors discuss turning out a particular short story for rent money, or something similar.


Video games are absolutely as much of an art form as film, books, or music. Yes, Call of Duty 2 and Spider Man were probably made because they figured that they could make lots of money making it. I doubt any film director really thinks that he's contributing something deep to the art world when he makes a film about cars that turn into robots, a kid who can swing through a city, or a British super-spy. Similarly, companies don't turn out games like Modern Warfare or God of War III because they think they'll tell a deep story. Does the existence of 'Spy Kids' call into question the quality of 'Citizen Kane?'

What defines art? Is it ability to inspire emotion? I assure you, people have felt as deeply about the death of Aerith, the effects of war and what you have done to help/hinder it, or the anger you feel as an injustice is perpetrated.

Is it ability to ponder philosophical questions? You make the choices in many video games. You can choose to release a potentially life-ending intelligence back into the 'wild,' or commit genocide. You watch the results of your actions play out before you.

Is it that you passively view the work of an artist, take it in, rather than interact with it and change the experience through the interaction? Many artists would prefer their pieces to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artist, a shared and personal experience.

I actually think that it is the last. The idea of 'active art' rather than 'passive art' has always been controversial.

P.S. The nature of the medium is that as technology improves, the ability to realize creative visions improve. I'm certain that you agree that the advance from black and white to color film advanced the ability of artists to recognize their vision in film. Similarly for CGI, scene changes, 'chase cams' (high quality portable video cameras), stunt technology (pyrotechnics, rigged collapses, etc.). Actually I can point to an easy one - the CGI resampling of flame complexity enabled directors to burn models while maintaining realism - which allows burning buildings to effectively function without the eye-rolling induced from the obvious model burning. Something effectively impossible before (it ALWAYS looked like a model, due to the lack of flame complexity at that size).