Jimquisition: Piracy Episode One - Copyright

[dbenoy]

I hate to have to make the obvious statement that piracy is not stealing yet again. But piracy is not stealing.

There's two definitions of stealing that tend to go around:
#1: Taking something that belongs to someone (depriving them of it) without permission.
#2: Benefiting financially or obtaining a possession by employing an illegal act.

The first definition is the classic, strict definition, and the second one is the vernacular. For example, some people will say you've stolen someone's money if you sell them a product, but never actually deliver it. In the vernacular, that's true. That's 'stealing', but in the strictest sense, that's actually not stealing. It's fraud; a distinct and separate concept.

Saying it's not stealing does not mean you're admitting it's A-O-K, however. So, copyright supporters really should relax about this. You can still condemn copying if you choose to do so, without trying to abuse the english language to suit your argument.



The only exception is if you're using the informal logical fallacy of 'equivocation', or the 'fallacy of the four terms' as a basis for your argument. Consider the syllogism:

"Copyright infringement is stealing. Stealing is wrong. Therefore, copyright infringement is wrong."

In that example, you could be using two completely separate definitions for the word 'stealing'. Everyone agrees that definition #1 of stealing is morally wrong, but that definition is not the same as definition #2, which is debatable and depends on exactly which kind of 'stealing', so this syllogism becomes a fallacy. Consider the similar syllogism:

"A feather is light. What is light cannot be dark. Therefore, a feather cannot be dark."

This kind of fallacious reasoning is actually very persuasive if you don't bother thinking about it, or you don't understand that one word can have multiple definitions, so it's in the interests of the intellectually dishonest to pursue this association. For example, when they claim the false dichotomy of "if you support copyright infringement, then to be consistent you must support walking into a McDonalds and stealing all their burgers."

 

[dbenoy]

Actually now that I think about it, there are even more definitions of 'stealing'. It can mean a sneaky act. For example 'Stealing away into the night.' or 'Stealing a kiss.'

By the logic of some copyright supporters, stealing a kiss is wrong because it's stealing, and if you support sneaking up on your beloved and giving her a peck on the lips, then you might as well support smashing into a McDonalds and taking all their burgers without paying.

 

[Zom-B]

If you're working for a company like EA or Activision as an employee and create something original, they own it. As their employee, they own whatever you create. Unless you happen to be in a position to sit down and sign a contract with them wherein you retain rights to the properties you create.

Yeah, it's a muddy issue. In most cases though, even if you're an employee you sign away your IP claim in writing as part of your employment contract.

It's very unusual for someone to believe that they have copyright on some particular work, only to find by surprise that they're not eligible to the rights to their own work. Almost always the actual creator will automatically be granted copyrights unless they're explicitly signed away.

This is especially interesting in the area of photography. Did you know that if you commission someone to take your picture, the photographer owns the copyrights? You legally can't reproduce the photographs of yourself that you paid someone to take of you, unless you buy the rights from them. This isn't theoretical, either; it's quite common for photographers to have a set price for buying the rights to the photographs you commission.

I didn't know exactly it was law, but it makes sense that the photographer has the rights to the photograph, even if it's of you. At the same time, I assume that unless otherwise agreed, said photographer also doesn't have the right to profit off of your image without consent? Then again, maybe they do. All those spy pics of celebrities would say otherwise.

Either way, as you say, the whole of IP laws is a muddy, muddy place.

 

[Duskflamer]

Fun fact. The artists and developers own 100% of their IP. They then decide to sell the rights away for money and more resources. Duh.

That's what happens when the rights-buyers have rigged the game in their favor before the artists create their art. Duh.

Creators have a choice to sign these contracts. Are we implying that these people who make games don't know how to read?

It is a Hobson's choice. Especially before digital distribution became much more widespread. Sure, they could "choose" not to go through a publisher, but in an industry run by the publishers, what choice is that?

The deck is stacked in the favor of publishers. For the longest time, they've owned the deck, dealt the cards, owned the cards, and bought anybody holding the cards. Some of us don't think that should continue.

Hobson's choice, eh? Damn right! It's their money! You want their money, you agree to what they offer. If Valve is such an evil entity (publisher) why do people bend over backwards to praise them?

The 'artists' need to wise up if this is as bad for them as people seem to be saying.

You're confusing what steam does. Microsoft owns the halo IP. EA owns the dead space IP. Tell me how Steam owns Space Pirates and Zombies, Solar 2, Dungeons of Dredmor, or any other indie Game. Jim's statements were never against valve.

Valve is a publisher too. I realize they don't publish every game on STEAM. Jim makes it sound as if EVERY publisher is evil, and devs have no choice in the matter. Devs need to wise up. Look at Notch and Minecraft. It isn't easy to get your name out their, nor should it be. You pay these big named companies for work they do. No money? Sell the rights, or do the work yourself (if every publisher is soooo evil).

I'm sure someone's brought this up by now, but in case they haven't, according to the Steam store, the only games published by Valve were developed by Valve (look up a Valve title, click where it says publisher: Valve, and it lists all the games published by Valve. Find me one game on that list that wasn't also developed by them), and Jim specifically stated that he has no issue with copyright holders who actually made the content.

-'Portal is Valve's spiritual successor to the freeware game Narbacular Drop, the 2005 independent game released by students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology; the original Narbacular Drop team is now employed at Valve. Valve had become interested in Narbacular Drop after seeing the game at DigiPen's annual career fair; Robin Walker, one of Valve's developers, saw the game at the fair, and later contacted the team, providing them with advice and offering them to show their game at Valve's offices. After their presentation, Valve's president Gabe Newell quickly offered the entire team jobs at Valve to develop the game further.[39] Newell later commented that he was impressed with the Digipen team as "they had actually carried the concept through", already having included the interaction between portals and physics, completing most of the work that Valve would have had to commit on their own.'-

First off, if you're copying something directly off of Wikipedia, you could at least take the effort to edit out the formatting.

Secondly, pay attention to what happened to the developers, they got offered jobs at Valve, and while working at Valve they finished the game. In the end, that means that Valve employees are the people who came up with the idea and made it an actuality. When EA decides to publish someone's game, most of the time they don't offer the developers positions at EA, they just throw them some money in exchange for every single right to the game, and once the game's done EA doesn't have to care at all about the original developers, and EA can't claim that it was EA employees who came up with the idea, or made it a reality.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

All I can say is copy right gives the owner an absolute over monetary gain but not over copying, control the money flow you limit the copies by default focus on the copies as a absolutive and you limit free thought and the eb and flow of information.

 

[Duskflamer]

To be honest i think the Metal Arms thing is more a case a Abandonware; software that has long since stopped being available to buy... anywhere and whos rights can be seen to have lapsed due to the copywrite holder not using the IP.

A big reason why copyright laws don't really reflect the digital age is that they don't account for this. A given game usually becomes old news nobody cares about within a year. A popular game maybe 5 (till the end of its console), a popular series can stretch longer and certain classics may last for far longer periods of time. But copyright laws are such that even the very first video games ever made are still technically protected under copyright and will be long after people who enjoyed the games as kids have all died.

There is a different form of legal protection (Trademark IIRC) where the rights to it do lapse if the owner doesn't take steps to protect it (meaning if they no longer care about it, people are essentially free to use it), perhaps those laws could be examined for potential use as the basis of new IP protection laws.

 

[Duskflamer]

Speaking of indie titles. Fortune Summoners by publisher Carpe Fulgur should be coming out 5 days from now. That would definitely be a good indie game to support! Believe me, they're not a publisher that is hogging a lot of money.

Wait really? that soon? On one hand, thanks for letting me know to keep an eye out. On the other hand, you've ruined the ability for Steam to be the ones to surprise me with that fact, like they surprised me when Chantelise came out XD

Carpe Fulgur does throw a wrench into what we consider indie though huh? If you go under the thoughts that you're only indie if you self publish, and you're not if you have a publisher...then the 5 people at EGS being published by the 2 guys at CF don't count as indie XD

 

[Caverat]

I disagree with the sentiment that Jim was more than hinting at. Software piracy is not a moral act, a person who engages it isn't some kind of rebel standing up to the evil regime of some hodgepodge Orwellian rip off facsimile.

Also, anyone who is okay with copyright infringement against big time publishers, but in anyway changes their tone when discussing indie developers is a ****. Period. (See what I did there?)

Just because one entity is rich and the other isn't doesn't change the nature of the action, it's the same fucking thing.

I'm not rich, neither were my parents, I just hate the idea that someone can just feel entitled to a product and violate another entities' rights just because they feel that entity has more shit than them.

And no, copyright holders aren't violating the rights of the IP creators, as the creators willingly sold said rights away.

 

[Exile714]

Fun fact. The artists and developers own 100% of their IP. They then decide to sell the rights away for money and more resources. Duh.

Without reading 8 pages of content, I don't know if anyone's refuted this, but it's not true.

If you're working for a company like EA or Activision as an employee and create something original, they own it. As their employee, they own whatever you create. Unless you happen to be in a position to sit down and sign a contract with them wherein you retain rights to the properties you create.

Sure, if Mr. Smith creates a game and along comes the devil with a million bucks and he signs on the line, no one should have a problem with whatever the devil does with that IP.

There's also a lot of grey areas in between all the way from being able to own elements of an IP right up to creators literally being swindled out of their intellectual property.

You're statement is disingenuous at best.

You're not looking at this from a property law standpoint. Every person owns the IP they create, but they sell it to their employer. The fact that they are working under an employment agreement simply changes the timeline of this exchange, not the fact that IP is changing hands. An employee agrees to give their IP to their employer in exchange for a paycheck, but the IP still begins its existence (if only for the briefest of moments) as the property of its creator.

What Jimquisition has wrong is that copyright LAW is not the problem. The problem is that major companies with capital (see, financial resources) are the ones who are funding developers. Major companies are poorly managed on the micro level and often let good IPs go to waste because they don't see the value in micro-profits.

What we need is for corporations to become more willing to relinquish their IP rights when they are no longer utilizing them. The reason they don't is because they count their IP as collateral in order to secure investment. IP is treated like a tangible asset which can be sold to pay off stock holders. Stocks are how corporations acquire the capital needed to do what they do: suck up IP's to make profits off of a few of them.

What we really need to do is not change copyright law, but change corporate governance. We need to change the way companies value unused IPs. If Jimquisition's idea about temporary copyright were adopted, it would have this effect but there are other ways to do this too. But politicians don't care about small, unused IPs because nobody is donating money to their campaigns for that cause.

 

[Zom-B]

Fun fact. The artists and developers own 100% of their IP. They then decide to sell the rights away for money and more resources. Duh.

Without reading 8 pages of content, I don't know if anyone's refuted this, but it's not true.

If you're working for a company like EA or Activision as an employee and create something original, they own it. As their employee, they own whatever you create. Unless you happen to be in a position to sit down and sign a contract with them wherein you retain rights to the properties you create.

Sure, if Mr. Smith creates a game and along comes the devil with a million bucks and he signs on the line, no one should have a problem with whatever the devil does with that IP.

There's also a lot of grey areas in between all the way from being able to own elements of an IP right up to creators literally being swindled out of their intellectual property.

You're statement is disingenuous at best.

You're not looking at this from a property law standpoint. Every person owns the IP they create, but they sell it to their employer. The fact that they are working under an employment agreement simply changes the timeline of this exchange, not the fact that IP is changing hands. An employee agrees to give their IP to their employer in exchange for a paycheck, but the IP still begins its existence (if only for the briefest of moments) as the property of its creator.

What Jimquisition has wrong is that copyright LAW is not the problem. The problem is that major companies with capital (see, financial resources) are the ones who are funding developers. Major companies are poorly managed on the micro level and often let good IPs go to waste because they don't see the value in micro-profits.

What we need is for corporations to become more willing to relinquish their IP rights when they are no longer utilizing them. The reason they don't is because they count their IP as collateral in order to secure investment. IP is treated like a tangible asset which can be sold to pay off stock holders. Stocks are how corporations acquire the capital needed to do what they do: suck up IP's to make profits off of a few of them.

What we really need to do is not change copyright law, but change corporate governance. We need to change the way companies value unused IPs. If Jimquisition's idea about temporary copyright were adopted, it would have this effect but there are other ways to do this too. But politicians don't care about small, unused IPs because nobody is donating money to their campaigns for that cause.

Be all that as it may, the simple fact is that this:

"The fact that they are working under an employment agreement simply changes the timeline of this exchange, not the fact that IP is changing hands. An employee agrees to give their IP to their employer in exchange for a paycheck, but the IP still begins its existence (if only for the briefest of moments) as the property of its creator."

is essentially meaningless for all intents and purposes. Whether or not the IP rights belong to the creator for half a second, half an hour or half a week, the fact of that matter is that anyone toiling as an artist/creator/designer for a company is creating these IPs on behalf of that company, whether they want to or not.

It's academic, for our purposes. All I was saying is that creators do not automatically retain rights to any IP they create. If they did, and I wish they did, these huge corporations wouldn't own them and either continue to make money off of them or leave them to rot. I understand that you can draw the technical distinction that the IP changes hands and that's something I never disputed. Perhaps the way I worded it didn't take that into account, but it's a moot point anyway. Regardless of how it's sold- whether it's via sale for money or because of a pre-existing contract that gives a company ownership in return for providing that person with funding, equipment, space, time and a salary, it's a bought and sold commodity.

I agree that corporations need to be more willing to relinquish IP rights, but let's be honest, they won't be, not now and not in the near future. I do disagree that copyright law isn't the problem, because much of it is. I'm not going to go hunting down all the details as to why, but some googling by anyone will probably point to many people that agree with me and many reasons as to why. What can be done and should be done more immediately is that independent creators should hang on to their IPs and not sell out for bucks right away. I know that's easy to say, but not so easily done with a mortgage payment or a student loan payment or any other debt hanging over a person's head, but until creators look at the long term gains rather than short term reward, we'll remain mired in the morass of copyright law and mismanaged and criminally shackled IPs.

 

[ACman]

Cut

I still insist that the internet has demolished the power of the big music companies and is about to do the same for book publishers.

That not to say that they can't still provide a service but now anyone with marketing abilities and/or producing/editing abilities can get in on the game. Music and book publishers used to own the means of supply. Now they don't; the replacement of physical media with digital means that anyone anywhere can get their music to anyone anywhere.

If I make music I don't have to go to EMI or Universal an that is a big thing. These companies used to have an artificial monopoly through the cost of producing/distributing records/CDs and owning/bribing record stations to play them. Now the only important job is marketing.

The same is likely to happen with books now that you can get any book in digital form. Unfortunately this also leads to book piracy. (Check out the torrents for books, a 30Mb torrent can net you an authors entire bibliography.)

The removal of the barriers to entry allows anyone to participate and the advantage of the monopoly of distribution that publishers had before is gone.

 

[VictorKane115]

So, when it comes to piracy, everyone is wrong. The corporations are wrong in some ways due to how they treat copyright properties and their consumers. The pirates are wrong because they're still stealing. And SOPA/PIPA is wrong because censoring the internet to counteract piracy is obviously not the way to go about it. And my entire generation is wrong because we think that robbing someone is somehow OK if he's rich, and rich people somehow owe us stuff anyways. And this comment is wrong because that's the running theme it has going.

 

[JMeganSnow]

There is a HUGE difference between saying "don't steal" and "keep buying every shitty product they produce". If you dislike what a publisher is doing, DON'T PLAY THEIR GAMES. Don't pirate them, don't buy them, DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THEM IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

If you want to support proper relationships, buy proper products. Don't steal improper ones, eschew them altogether.

I hate to have to make the obvious statement that piracy is not stealing yet again. But piracy is not stealing.

Furthermore, you're just status-quo mongering and ordering people around. Do you really think that just telling people to stay away from things they're not interested has lots of weight to it? For everyone person ordering people to stay far away from the things they're not interested in, is someone calling someone a closed minded, idiot, retarded fanboy/girl bigot and ordering them to play "good" games they like and stop playing "bad games" they don't like.

Ordering people around isn't an argument. And your argument doesn't hold any more weight than the thousands of gamers ordering people to stop playing jRPGs, stop justifying playing jRPGs, and to play Mass Effect right now or nobody will respond to your posts here without you being insulted. And we will turn the entire community against you.

And you know what? I bet that sounds petty. It's just a forum. It's just someone ordering someone around. They can just ignore them and like what they like, it doesn't hold any weight. But that's exactly what you're doing, about piracy. You're ordering people around and telling them what they can and cannot do as your argument. I'm sorry, but that doesn't hold anymore weight than some jerk out there ordering people to stop playing jRPGs.

If your claim had any weight, people wouldn't even be playing games because they enjoyed them, they'd be playing games because other people ordered them to.

To use your analogy, what you are saying is that, if McDonalds keeps screwing up your order, you should steal their stuff. No. You should stop eating at McDonalds altogether. Which is what I do. I pay for what I want. I don't do ANYTHING about what I don't want.

McDonald's is not digital and cannot be copied. So no, it is not comparable.

It would be comparable if we had a perfect item duplicator. Someone went to McDonald's, bought a cheeseburger. Then went outside, copied it thousands of times, and started passing it out, for free. And piracy is comparable to taking one of those free cheeseburgers offered to you.

I probably shouldn't even reply to the imbecile lack of reading comprehension illustrated in this post, but here goes:

I'm not ordering anyone to do anything. I am stating a moral position, namely, that if you object to someone's behavior, you should not act in a manner that condones it. If you steal a product (and piracy IS stealing, perhaps not in the sense that you're removing someone's possession from them, but that you're making use of it in a manner they did not choose to allow), you are condoning it. You have declared that it is a value to you--perhaps not enough of a value that you're willing to pay for it, but you have now invested time and probably effort in this product.

It doesn't matter whether it affects the publisher directly or not. What matters is that you are being a hypocrite. You are being a dishonest person--primarily dishonest with yourself. It is a moral failing. So you wind up with publishers who view customers as thieves and developers as cash cows to be milked dry. The primary dishonesty of the pirate taints and distorts all the relationships involved.

If you want to be a dishonest creep, go right ahead. I don't give a damn. What disgusts me is people who get all self-righteous and defensive when they're called a dishonest creep, which is what they are.

Of course, dishonest people are just that, dishonest, so it's rather absurd to expect them not to lie to themselves about the true nature of what they're doing.

As for ordering people around: reality is what it is. You can choose either your actions, OR their results, NOT BOTH. If you want the relationships within the gaming industry to improve, you have to start with yourself. I'm not ordering people to fix it, I'm pointing out that if they want to fix it, this is what they have to do. They have to adopt a policy of strict honesty, reality-orientation, and justice, both to others and to themselves.

Are publishers often stupid and malign? Sure. But so are customers and developers. What goes around comes around.

 

[LilithSlave]

imbecile lack of reading comprehension
hypocrite.
You are being a dishonest person
If you want to be a dishonest creep
What disgusts me is people who get all self-righteous and defensive when they're called a dishonest creep, which is what they are.

Now you're just being insulting and giving ad hominem attacks instead of arguing.

 

[spectrenihlus]

Just figured a great way to fix this. Simply have the government implement a $1million dollar tax a year to the ownership of IP's older than 15 years. Publishers would have to pay a $1million tax every year for each IP they own older than 15 years. It would be impossible for every publisher to hold on to every IP they may own and so after a while games like Advent Rising (which was developed by what is now CHair (the guys behind shadow complex and infinity blade) can have a proper ending, and the government gets some more tax revenue.

 

[Cureacao]

-Snip-

Hmm. Now that I've had a good nice opportunity to reflect and think over what you're saying, I see where you're coming from a lot better now. The internet has certainly taken away much of the hold that publishers used to completely dominate. With a lot of hard work, some luck and a lot of smarts anyone can now get ahead to the same place that publishers can get to.

I guess my point is, however, that many people don't have the right amount of marketing smarts and well as distribution smarts. Talking to a few of my friends who are in a band, they hadn't heard of Sound Cloud, Band Camp or Last FM; they only used MySpace for people to listen to their music and currently won't allow downloading of anything (they have some decent demos, not the best but worth giving away for free). They're not a bad band by any stretch as well, I've certainly heard better but compared to the same people in their scene they're pretty decent. These guys need a publisher, they're musicians not marketers; they have no idea how to promote themselves apart from facebook and putting music on MySpace.

I'd say that the above is also correct for a lot of bands still trying to make a name for themselves, although to degrees not nearly as bad as that. Even still most bands don't know how to get gigs from anywhere but their local area or maybe a couple of towns away. Publishers know how to get them gigs from all over the place. Anywhere there's a market for their genre, they can get them there.

As for books, yeah fair point. With kindles and Ipads (or even just Itouches) hard copies are becoming a luxury, which lets every author have their own shot at the industry. I'd say getting published would still help but if you can crack out a killer book, that can spread like wildfire.

 

[Jonluw]

Fuck yes, Glitch in the system.

I loved the demo to that game as a child, but never bought it for some reason. I need to play that game now.

 

[CaptainOctopus]

I agree of what you said Jim and I never pirate games anymore, nor have I done that for the last several years now. I find it that the best way to improve the market is to simply ignore the games & companies that are shit and promote the ones that are great. Granted there are always some games on the market published by assholes like EA & Activision that I find interest in but in those cases I often just wait until they are available for a much cheaper price. For example I will probably not buy Mass effect 3 until its around 10-15$ and does not require Origin for it to run.

By the way I loved how you ended the video . Fuck them indeed, I wouldn't shred a single tear if parasite companies like EA, Nintendo & Activision suddenly went bankrupt or if Sony & Microsoft left the gaming business. Fuck 'em! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk7f_nYKXZE

 

[Klepa]

Escapist forums have always held a disproportionately hostile attitude towards piracy, so I'm glad one of the content creators is finally shedding some light into this.

+1 for Sterling.

 

[mellemhund]

There is a HUGE difference between saying "don't steal" and "keep buying every shitty product they produce". If you dislike what a publisher is doing, DON'T PLAY THEIR GAMES. Don't pirate them, don't buy them, DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THEM IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

If you want to support proper relationships, buy proper products. Don't steal improper ones, eschew them altogether.

To use your analogy, what you are saying is that, if McDonalds keeps screwing up your order, you should steal their stuff. No. You should stop eating at McDonalds altogether. Which is what I do. I pay for what I want. I don't do ANYTHING about what I don't want.

Well if McD serves bad food, you can get a refund. If a game is crap, it's just too bad. So it is only natural to test if the product is actually what is promised. How else would one know what publishers to avoid?