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Viata

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Copyright to secure the right of the creator to his work is ok. Having the copyright for years after the creator has died is fucking bullshit. It should just be a limited time, simple as that. It should be used to promote creativity, but when a person can still get money for a work of another or even for something he did 50 years ago it does the opposite.
 
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spectre

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If we're still in the context of video games, would it really do anyone much good to hold the rights to, say, the original Doom?
The medium has progressed so much in barely a few decades, its value is mostly cultural and historical anyways.
If one were to hold exclusive rights to the gameplay, that would open a totally different can of worms and wouldn't be practical anyway.

What about ownership of a franchise? Its copyrighted name and distinctive features. This has already resulted in some fucked up situations
like where Bethesda would sue guys for using "scrolls" in the name of their games.

Or what these cunts did to Fallout.

Yeah, I agree that there needs to be some kind of a limit on copyright ownership.
I mean, if you own something, you should probably be able to sell it, because otherwise what's the point.
On the other hand, people get inspired by each other's ideas all the time,
and whenever something is a big hit, you always see those cunts coming out of the woodwork claiming
they were the original inventors of the plot behind Hairy Twatter and the Prisoner of Ass Cabin,
so there's no point in being too strict about it. Too much legal bullshit ultimately benefits the lawyers and big corporations.

To protect authors and publishers from having their original works stolen by bigger businesses, copyright was introduced.
Yeah, I think this is a very important point to remember.

Remember back in the say when pirated windows would say something along the line: you might have fallen victim to software piracy?
That was the correct default attitude and it was surprising for Macroshaft to get it right. On the other hand, their product was one of the most pirated
and after all these years they still seem to be doing rather well for themselves.
Sure, it's a bit naive these days as people tend to know exactly what they're getting, but nonetheless it rings back to the essence of the problem
and why the copyright laws were wrtitten in the first place.

In countries with sane legislation, downloading games/films/music for your own use is not THE crime.
It's also not a crime when you put it on a pendrive and share it with your friends.
The crime is when you assume the role of the publisher/owner and disseminate while denying them their rightful share. This is your lost sale and lost money.
Torrenting blurs the line, because if you download, you must also distribute.

On the other hand, the stuff is usually distributed for free these days, so nobody really cuts into anyone's profit, unless you're dumb enough to pay for torrents,
and in this case I'd argue that you've already been punished sufficiently.

It's one of those cases where law isn't all caught up with reality. It all sorta made sense when you wold get your plundered booty at a bazaar from
a shady guy with a blyat accent, though this might be more of an Eastern European experience.
 

Viata

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The fact Microsoft is still big despite Windows being the most pirated software tells you everything about pirating software. In fact, I'd even argue that Windows being pirated helped them more than people just not using it.
 
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Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I can't name one game that was unplayable until gog "released" it. When there is a will, there is a way.

Warhammer Chaos Gate. Had to play it on a windows 95 emulator. GoG team fixed this issue, at least.
 
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The fact Microsoft is still big despite Windows being the most pirated software tells you everything about how pirating software. In fact, I'd even argue that Windows being pirated helped them more than people just not using it.
MS and windows aren't a typical company/product, but they seem to agree on that last part since they're basically asking people to freely upgrade nowadays. I guess the logic is that for them the brand's image is more important than squeezing every last sale.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The fact Microsoft is still big despite Windows being the most pirated software tells you everything about how pirating software. In fact, I'd even argue that Windows being pirated helped them more than people just not using it.
MS and windows aren't a typical company/product, but they seem to agree on that last part since they're basically asking people to freely upgrade nowadays. I guess the logic is that for them the brand's image is more important than squeezing every last sale.

Adobe also doesn't do much about piracy of Photoshop. Why? Because more people using their product means it stays the industry standard. Even hobbyists prefer using pirated Photoshop over alternative programs, which is ultimately better for Adobe than if they persecuted piracy unto the point that hobbyists switch to free programs.

Same with Windows. It's an operating system, the most basic program on every computer. If people use Windows instead of Linux, that's already a point in favor of Microsoft no matter if the OS was purchased legally or not. In the end, it means that Windows is the standard OS used by everyone and developers of third party software - games, office applications, etc - will aim at making their software compatible with Windows, rather than MacOS or Linux, which have a much smaller user base.

Having market share superiority is a good thing for various reasons, even if part of that market share pirates your program.

WinRAR is a great example for a program that keeps bothering you about the trial version being expired, yet it never stops working. You can use it for years past the expiration date without ever registering it.
How is that good for the company? It means that the majority of people will use WinRAR privately, and offices will go to WinRAR as the default packing program... and offices always get a license. By having the trail period be essentially unlimited, WinRAR ensures that people don't have to seek an alternative. That means it stays the most popular program of its type and has the highest market share, which ultimately means that the people who have to buy a legit paid version of a packaging program will pick WinRAR as their first choice.
 

Viata

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Same with Windows. It's an operating system, the most basic program on every computer. If people use Windows instead of Linux, that's already a point in favor of Microsoft no matter if the OS was purchased legally or not. In the end, it means that Windows is the standard OS used by everyone and developers of third party software - games, office applications, etc - will aim at making their software compatible with Windows, rather than MacOS or Linux, which have a much smaller user base.
Yes, the user gets used to use software that only runs on Windows, so it makes it even harder for them to jump into another OS.
 

Mortmal

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I can't name one game that was unplayable until gog "released" it. When there is a will, there is a way.

Warhammer Chaos Gate. Had to play it on a windows 95 emulator. GoG team fixed this issue, at least.
So it was playable.
Course it is, but people are lazy and dumb, that's part of why we cant have good things. When the gaming market was niche and for nerds you had to pay lot for hardware, sometimes read notices to setup ems memory, even keyboard and mouse. You had do your own research without internet to build the pc yourself and get good parts. Then the game made were complex and for nerds. We even had to learn new languages to play games, as no english no gaming. Many codexers pretend to be into pc gaming, but in fact they are no better than an xbox user and the games are at their level.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
furthest I ever went was to install a Macintosh emulator for Mac only games

made me feel dirty even though I didn't have to touch an Apple product IRL for this
 

NaturallyCarnivorousSheep

Albanian Deliberator Kang
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Copyright is a good idea when it comes to securing the right of the creator to his work, ensuring others can't copy it and profit off the sales. Originally copyright was intended to protect authors and publishers from others just copying their work and literally stealing their profits. If you had a small press in the 16th century and some local village poet came to you with a really riveting story, and you decided to publish him and your small edition sold like hotcakes in your village... a much bigger publisher in the city with two dozen printing presses could just copy the book when they got wind of it, and didn't share any of the revenue with either the author or the original publisher. So the village poet and the local small printing press are shit outta luck. They have no means to compete with a big printing house that can easily put out ten times as many copies and distribute them across the country.

To protect authors and publishers from having their original works stolen by bigger businesses, copyright was introduced.

Nowadays, the concept has been perverted and twisted away from its original purpose. More often than not, big publishers use terrible contracts that take copyright away from the creators and transfer it to them, and the creators usually have no other choice but to sign those contracts unless they wanna starve. Then, the copyright of a game (or a movie, or a comic) is traded like a commodity. Just look at a franchise like Tomb Raider: originally a revolutionary 3D platformer that became a smash hit, the publisher made Core Design develop a sequel each year just to milk the money cow, leading them to burn out around Tomb Raider: Chronicles. The publisher's treatment also led them to fuck up Angel of Darkness, which released as a buggy unfinished mess that disappointed everyone. Then Eidos, the publisher, decided to take away Tomb Raider from the people who invented it and gave it to a different studio, Crystal Dynamics, who rebooted it and changed the tone of the story and characters. Then Eidos also went under, and the IP was purchased by Square Enix, who made Crystal Dynamics reboot the series again.

Now Square Enix sold all their western IPs and Tomb Raider belongs to THQ Nordic now. At least they're a publisher who lets studios do what they want rather than being an oppressive overlord, but still... what's even the meaning of copyright here?

The game's IP changed hands three times, the original developer studio hasn't been involved for almost 20 years now, and the new games barely have anything to do with the original Tomb Raider.
And if you buy the original Tomb Raider on Steam or GoG or wherever else it's being sold these days, neither the original developer nor the original publisher sees a single cent of your money. It all goes to the people who bought the IP from the people who bought the IP from the people who made the IP. Removed from the source by three degrees.

At this point you may as well declare Lara Croft a public domain character so every studio can try their own approach at making a Tomb Raider game.

The original purpose of copyright has nothing to do anymore with this kind of bullshit. Author creates work. Publisher prints work. The rights of author and publisher are protected.
Once the rights pass from the hands of either author or original publisher, they should enter the public domain.
Original publisher got bankrupt? Rights automatically go to the creators. Creator was not an individual but a company that also no longer exists? Rights go public domain. Author is an individual who died? Also public domain. Simple as.

You're mistaking copyright with other forms of IP. Copyright is literally about copying someone's work, as you've said in 16th century you get this printer situation. However what happened with Tomb Raider is different, the OG games are still there, it's the sequels that are different. Legally what happens here is that trademarks involved in Tomb Raider franchise allow the holder to create or delegate creation of new media containing said trademarks.

This is something that often happens whenever patent discussion comes up, people rave about "patents" but when you look at what they are really upset about it's usually something else than patent.
 

BLOBERT

FUCKING SLAYINGN IT BROS
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It's finally as in "finally I can just click install and play" and not "finally I can play this previously unavailable game". People pay for convenience.

(the deal begins to make less sense when the port quality is shit and you still have to jump through hoops, sure)
Pretty much this, I don't give a fuck about the law, when I grab retro games on GOG I do it for my own convenience. I'm old, I don't have enough spare time, if it isn't a system's fullset of roms I don't wanna torrent it, let alone find cracks, deal with potential malware, etc. Fuck that, I'm not 16 anymore, give me the game for 4.99 on a sale, vast majority also already comes with dosbox/scummvm properly set out of the box. That money is not for the original devs, it's for my precious time. Gabe's famous quote is absolutely correct, piracy is a service problem (and a jobless teenager thing).

BRO MY OPINION AS WELL

IVE STILL GOT LIKE THREE BACKUPS OF A HARDRIVE WITH ANCIENT GAMES AND SHIT AND IF THE GAME COMES ON GOG FOR LIKE A DOLLAR I MIGHT BUY IT

NO ONE HAS REASONABLY PRICED MAME OR RETRO GAMES THATS PART OF WHY EMULATION IS HUGE

IF SEGA OR NINTENDO SOLD GAMES AT 50 CENTS APEACE OR LIKE THE ENTIRE NES CATALOG FOR FIVE TO TEN DOLLARS I WOULD BUY IT
 

Bigg Boss

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I can see this being a a valid reaction for some games. Sometimes, especially with the early floppy based games all or almost all the rips can be faulty. Pirate websites tend to copy each other's files, so that faulty rip could be all that's easily available. Although that said, that becomes less and less valid considering some abandonware sites working on creating floppy images for all relevant games and Windows games becoming more focused on when it comes to abandonware, games which are almost always released on CDs or scene releases when pirates actually cared about their crap working.

I can't name one game that was unplayable until gog "released" it. When there is a will, there is a way.
Dark Earth needs one I think.
 

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