doctorwhofan said:
You are addressing the wrong company. Like anything Dungeon and Dragons is addressed to Hasbro, Anything Tolkien is owned by SZ. THe man bought the rights for ALL MEDIA outside books (I beleive) from tolkien directly. He made a promise to respect the spirit of the books and that's all. It cannot be public domain because someone still owns the intellictual rights, either Christopher who is "continuing" the series and the SZ who allowed WB to use the IP. THey also let Turbine use the IP, but could not really do anything before the Fellowship of the Ring. That's why in the MMO, Things from the "Hobbit" are really not mentioned, neither is the SIllimarillion (sp.)and so on.
WB has use of the property, and in order to keep that property excusive they have to defend it.
THe problem is, while the modders won't make any cash, Bethesda will. For there are people who didn't jump on the Elder scrolls bandwagon (cough cough ME!) that would purchase it for a LotR mod. And WB and SZ will not see ANY of that cash.
Which is all ironic since the Mojang and Bethesda "scroll" nonsense. Not that had anything to do with the Modders.
BUT BUT IT ISN'T FAIR!
Maybe not, however, there is alot of people who's intellectual property has stomped upon when they are still alive let alone dead, because they gave it up or lost it (fairly or unfairly).Do you have the right to defend what you own or created? I think so. If I rewrote LotR using modern language and posted, free, on the internet would I be infriging the IP? Maybe. It's a dangerous game to play IP chicken with a big company. Chances are that they have a leg to stand on and the lawyers to back it up.
IF I wrote something original, took the time to copyright it and had it printed as a book, only to find someone using it in a game as a free mod because he loved it...I'd be flattered, however, if people bought the game just to play the mod, I'd be slightly upset. My property is being used and all I have to show for it is my revenues from my books. I will never see any money from the game because I don't have a contract with that game. Worse, what if they changed how the characters act? Is that fair? I wrote the character to be moody and violent, there was a reason. Why is a bunch of modders rewriting my book?
At the end, WB is protecting its IP rights. It paid for these rights and has to pay the "Rental fees" on it and has to obey the rules that were set down by the owners of the IP. Modders don't have that, they can do anything they want. And with a game as popular as Skyrim, that's a lot of cash that the IP owners will not see. Plus, interfering with current and upcoming games that they produced because the mod is better and you already bought skyrim. Is that fair?
Whether or not you agree with them, do understand why they are doing it. They are protecting an investment, a legacy of a man, and keeping a promise. THey are not being mean to the poor, poor Modders.
I agree with your post, mostly.
Once you put a creative work out into the world, it will NEVER be entirely within your control ever again. It's not possible for you to preserve the creative vision you had in ANYTHING besides the original work you made and published. IP law should be about protecting the value of your creation, but the law can't protect it from being misinterpreted, reinterpreted, or spun off. People are going to do that, regardless of what the law says (e.g. the bazillions of fanfics that get posted to the internet on a daily basis).
Now, if they decide to PUBLISH those works, that's where things get hairy, as you pointed out.
The monetary agrument is an important one, but there's one caveat I think you're glossing over in your discussion. Nobody makes any money from the publication of the mod, in and of itself. The modders don't get paid, the site that eventually hosts it is not paid (directly, anyway) and the makers of Skyrim do not get paid. Would people buy more copies of Skyrim if this mod sees the light of day? Probably, but then why isn't Bethesda being sued over this, if they're the ones who stand to profit from it? And why isn't it enough to just say, "okay, you can make your silly little mod, but if you ever decide to commercialize it, then you have to pay us."
Personally, I feel that non-commercial use should be completely outside the purvue of IP law. Not only should the non-commercial use of ANY IP be protected, but compaines should not be able to challenge each other over the commercial rights to an IP on the basis that non-commercial use was allowed in the past. On top of that, I think the idea that non-commercial use can lead to the challenge of commercial rights is hyperbolic. People have been churining out fan creations, both serious and not, of the Star Wars franchise for years, and nobody is challenging Lucasfilm's rights to the franchise. Nobody is disputing ownership of the Star Trek franchise because some jerk wrote a fanfic where Captain Picard gets married to Councilor Troy, only to turn around and kill her when he gets assimilated by the Borg collective. Nobody is challenging J.K. Rowling's ownership of Harry Potter because some emo kid put Draco Malfoy in leather pants.
You could argue that if non-commercial creations become good enough, then they could unfairly compete with commercial works. I say, if that actually happens, then the commercial user should be reevaluating who they hired to produce their product. Just think about it! "Oh! I spent $10 million dollars making a piece-of-shit shovelware game that is completely awful on its own merits, while a bunch of meddling kids made something that people actually want to play and are giving it away for free! Clearly it's all their fault my game was a huge failure! Send those people who actually care about the franchise and making a quality product to prison for the rest of their lives! MNEH MNEH MNEEEEEEH!"
I want to be able to tell those suits to go cry me a fucking river. And I should be able to. The thing I disagree with most about your argument is that it's completely airtight in the current legislative climate, and IT SHOULDN'T BE. If IP law is around to protect creative freedom, it should protect creative freedom for non-commercial use.
