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On November 10 2010 08:16 xinxy wrote:
Here's how you should think of it imo... I'll use your example of real life sports compared to e-sports.
IRL: The sport is football. The league is the NFL. Every time a TV station wants to air parts of an NFL game they're basically paying royalties to the NFL. The NFL basically owns all the players and teams within its organization and if someone wants to broadcast those games they make a deal with the NFL and pay.
E-sport: The sport is called RTS gaming. This is the public domain you're talking about. Nobody is copyrighting the idea of an RTS game. Any company can make an RTS game. It doesn't constitute infringement. The league is Starcraft 2. Blizzard makes Starcraft 2 and they own all the visuals and sounds and gameplay elements in that game. It's their implementation of RTS so whenever a TV station wants to broadcast a SC2 match they will need to pay royalties to Blizzard. It's only fair for Blizzard to ask for this since SC2 is indeed their Intellectual Property.
If none of this sounds fair to you then maybe you should start complaining about the NFL and FIFA and the NBA and whatever else have you just as much as you want to complain about Blizzard trying to protect their IP rights.
This is not at all the way to think of it. Think about how the NFL came to be. Did the inventor of american football come and say, "here is this game, you have to play it under our rules and in our league. If you play in another league we are going to file a lawsuit" The reason organisations like the NFL and KeSPA come about is in the interest of the players, not the founder of the game.
Anyone can make their own basketball league or football league and broadcast it. Local highschool basketball games are broadcast on public television all the time, they don't have to pay anything to the NBA, even if the teams have small sponsorships which they sometimes do. They are not under that organization.
This is the fundamental difference between organizations like KeSPA when compared to Blizzard. Blizzard is already making loads of money from free promotion. I wish i made a game and people played it on television. Especially a videogame.... is the free advertisement not enough? It takes a lot of nerve to do what blizzard is doing, regardless of the legality. I just think that it is a real dick move.
In regards to the NFL, let me know if this reminds you of Blizzard.
By forming a national league, teams reasoned that it would eliminate the practices of looting other teams' rosters and concentrating top talent in only a few teams, thus distributing talent more evenly and efficiently thereby reducing costs for each individual team while still keeping a top-level product on the field.
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I am a musician. I write songs and perform them for an audience, i have had friends ask to cover my songs with their band..... on occasions I have said no because the song is a particularly important song to me.
My friends respected the fact i said no, because the song belongs to me. I wrote it, therefore I own it. Until I get signed by a record label and they get ownership of my music, I reserve the right to deny anyone to copy or perform it, if i get signed the record label would hold that right on my behalf.
When someone covers a song, whether it be me doing it in a pub or Aerosmith doing it a wembley, we have to pay royalties. We have IP rights over our songs, and its been that way for a very long time. No one would argue that artists don't have the right to stop people using their material to make money, or even just to perform in a school concert.... everyone has to pay royalties. If you are a member of the musician's union, they often pay the royalties for you, some venues will do it for you too.... but someone is paying, and if you aren't you can be taken to court and sued by the owner of the song.
This concept of IP isn't new. Its just been taken up by a new industry. Musicians have royalty laws, most other industries have patent laws, gaming has IP laws. They are here to stay, and benefit everyone because if they didn't exist then gaming companies would lose money. Look what internet piracy did to the music industry..... songs don't sell anywhere near as many copies as they did in the 70's..... not because less people listen to them, but simply because less people buy them and instead download them for free.
Thats why the music industry started doing legit downloads, at cheaper prices than buying a CD... it was the only way to combat piracy. Blizzards only way to combat other organisations using their product is to constrain who can broadcast it.
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On November 10 2010 08:21 xinxy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 08:06 ToxNub wrote:
Ugh. Intellectual property. I regret not being able to articulate this better, and I hope someone else can do this topic more justice...
I am constantly agitated by "intellectual property" laws. Imagine Protestants not being allowed to worship jesus because catholicism had the copyright. Imagine women not being allowed to wear pants because it was a "man idea". Intellectual property is a fundamentally barbaric, discriminatory system with no place in modern society. Can you even imagine someone gaining a patent on the circle? Mathematics? Can you imagine someone owning a thought that exists in someone else's head? A genetic code? A fucking patent on sexual reproduction?
Unlike "real", concrete property laws, the domain claimed is not something that can be fenced off, used, or held in limited supply. Rather they lay claim to own information. Owning information is owning thoughts, behaviours, life that is not your own, things that you did not create, don't control, and don't interact with. You own nature, the universe, the outcome of random chance, independent discovery, accident, intention, understanding, and little bits of behaviour of anyone capable of manifesting your information in any imaginable way. You own existence.
The sheer ego required to think that you are entitled to that blows my mind....
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Have you ever done any sort of creative work? Painted something? Written a literary piece? Composed a piece of music? These are thoughts and ideas but if you bring them to life they're just as real as a TV or a car. Just because you cannot "touch" something and can only hear it, doesn't make it any less real. Having someone copy your creative work and profit from it without you ever knowing would drive any normal person to rage. It's simply unfair and it certainly should be illegal. Protection of Intellectual Property is very important as long as it's reasonable. You did cite some unreasonable examples in your post which was a clear attempt at swaying the opinion of the reader but there's a reason those examples aren't actually happening in reality. Yes there are people who would try to profit from outrageous copyright claims and that's why we have courts that settle such issues. It doesn't mean we need to abolish any sort of Intellectual Property protection laws altogether.
And I have to disagree with you, too. If you're a painter, do you own that which you paint? If you're a songwriter, do you own what you sing about? You borrow information from the outside whenever you perform a creative act. Nobody charges you a fee for it, regardless of how much effort they spent creating it. And then you get it in your head that you're going to dress it up and pretend like you are the sole creator and make everyone else pay to use what was theirs all along. Do you have to give mother nature a cut for gifting you? Maybe the geneticist that patents the music-gift gene? Perhaps the person who invented music, or the person who invented the instrument?
Intangibility is not about what is real, but about what can feasibly claimed to be property. You don't own sound, or light, they exist whether you are 6 feet under or not. They can be arranged and manipulated by any one, they owe you no allegiance and operate by rules you did not create. You are a user, not a creator. I don't say that user's don't deserve their own compensation, but ownership is absolutely the wrong way to think about it.
The reasonableness of practical applications of intellectual property is a poor basis for justification. Making ridiculous laws with overreaching powers and then saying "well, don't worry, we wouldn't ever use it to do that" is not the sort of system that can be trusted to be fair.
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Wait, so you say Blizzard owns the term "Esports"?
That's just a free world like the word sports, that belongs to all and nobody. Esports could be anything from a simple program you coded yourself and play with some friends to bigass blizzard games. All they're entitled to is their own set of programmed codes and mechanics and such, with all right, they worked hard on it.
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Oh boy, piracy debate? Here we go again.
On November 10 2010 07:19 Redmark wrote:
I'm not an economist, but how is control of your own product a monopoly? Yes, they could price Heart of the Swarm at $200; Toyota could also sell all its cars at $200000. That's their decision. Isn't a monopoly when one company or group has control of an entire industry?
Please explain. I guess you could say that e-sports is its own industry, but tbh that's kind of sketchy.
Because, as he explained, video games are more inelastic than other industries. If you can't afford a Toyota car and you want a car there's plenty to choose from. If you can't afford Starcraft 2 and you want a Starcraft 2-like RTS game with esports coverage and that huge amount of players and all the tournament features and whatnot, where are you going to turn to?
On November 10 2010 08:21 xinxy wrote:
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Have you ever done any sort of creative work? Painted something? Written a literary piece? Composed a piece of music? These are thoughts and ideas but if you bring them to life they're just as real as a TV or a car. Just because you cannot "touch" something and can only hear it, doesn't make it any less real. Having someone copy your creative work and profit from it without you ever knowing would drive any normal person to rage. It's simply unfair and it certainly should be illegal. Protection of Intellectual Property is very important as long as it's reasonable. You did cite some unreasonable examples in your post which was a clear attempt at swaying the opinion of the reader but there's a reason those examples aren't actually happening in reality. Yes there are people who would try to profit from outrageous copyright claims and that's why we have courts that settle such issues. It doesn't mean we need to abolish any sort of Intellectual Property protection laws altogether.
People steal and copy creative works and ideas and profit from it all the time, even in the video game industry itself. You're naive and misinformed if the video game industry is your first exposure to this reality and you're outraged over it. There are entire industries built up on the backs of people stealing each others ideas and profiting from it - everything from fashion design, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, even furniture. And yet these industries exist and haven't collapsed in spite of it, in fact they've succeeded because of it. In fact in every single one of your examples this has gone on for centuries. People copy each other's literary techniques, musical techniques, artistic techniques, etc., all the time. Imagine how stunted these fields of art would be if people had copyrights hundreds of years ago. If some early musician had copyrighted certain scales or if some early writer had copyrighted certain literary devices. How retarded would that be and how many great works of art would we have missed out on? This idea that you can own creativity is short-sighted and selfish.
On November 11 2010 02:35 emythrel wrote:
This concept of IP isn't new. Its just been taken up by a new industry. Musicians have royalty laws, most other industries have patent laws, gaming has IP laws. They are here to stay, and benefit everyone because if they didn't exist then gaming companies would lose money. Look what internet piracy did to the music industry..... songs don't sell anywhere near as many copies as they did in the 70's..... not because less people listen to them, but simply because less people buy them and instead download them for free.
Thats why the music industry started doing legit downloads, at cheaper prices than buying a CD... it was the only way to combat piracy. Blizzards only way to combat other organisations using their product is to constrain who can broadcast it.
Not only is this a dangerous and stupid argument, it's also demonstrably false. Music sales have only gone up. When companies started doing legitimate download-based transactions, sales skyrocketed. That's why everyone's doing it now. People have been crying foul over IP for centuries and it has never, ever, destroyed any industry, in fact in every one of these scares the industry adapted and succeeded.
People thought phonographs and cassettes would kill music. People thought VCRs would kill television. People thought the printing press would kill literature. Is music, television, or literature dead? Hell no. The industries adapted and became even more successful as archaic ideas and business practices were wiped out through technology.
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Again, we have to go back to the original purpose of copyright versus its current interpretation. Demonstrably, copyright has evolved, over the last two centuries, from the compromise that enabled economic development to the guarantee of perpetual ownership and what is fast becoming the exclusive right to profit. Even in its current state, however, smaller players that depend on the income from the maintenance of copyrights have reduced incentive to create and share what they create without the system in place.
Also, I think to argue that "if we copyrighted certain things, no one could enjoy them" is disingenuous, because copyright and monetization is precisely what motivates the production and distribution of said things.
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@Tuneful
I agree we ought to think back at what the purpose of the copyright should be.
But should it really be to prevent to school children from sharing a mobil phone signal?
Or should it be to prevent one company selling books without permission of the author//copyright holder that he has recently written?
Personally I can agree with the second part only. I would also argue that most people share this vision: It should be 100% legal to for two school children to share a mobil phone signal. But it should be illegal to print and sell books without permission of the copyright holder.
If you still think the purpose of copyright is to prevent friends from sharing information, then please consider that preventing that would require a draconian police state that would rival 1984.
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On November 10 2010 08:21 xinxy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 08:06 ToxNub wrote:
Ugh. Intellectual property. I regret not being able to articulate this better, and I hope someone else can do this topic more justice...
I am constantly agitated by "intellectual property" laws. Imagine Protestants not being allowed to worship jesus because catholicism had the copyright. Imagine women not being allowed to wear pants because it was a "man idea". Intellectual property is a fundamentally barbaric, discriminatory system with no place in modern society. Can you even imagine someone gaining a patent on the circle? Mathematics? Can you imagine someone owning a thought that exists in someone else's head? A genetic code? A fucking patent on sexual reproduction?
Unlike "real", concrete property laws, the domain claimed is not something that can be fenced off, used, or held in limited supply. Rather they lay claim to own information. Owning information is owning thoughts, behaviours, life that is not your own, things that you did not create, don't control, and don't interact with. You own nature, the universe, the outcome of random chance, independent discovery, accident, intention, understanding, and little bits of behaviour of anyone capable of manifesting your information in any imaginable way. You own existence.
The sheer ego required to think that you are entitled to that blows my mind....
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Have you ever done any sort of creative work? Painted something? Written a literary piece? Composed a piece of music? These are thoughts and ideas but if you bring them to life they're just as real as a TV or a car. Just because you cannot "touch" something and can only hear it, doesn't make it any less real. Having someone copy your creative work and profit from it without you ever knowing would drive any normal person to rage. It's simply unfair and it certainly should be illegal. Protection of Intellectual Property is very important as long as it's reasonable. You did cite some unreasonable examples in your post which was a clear attempt at swaying the opinion of the reader but there's a reason those examples aren't actually happening in reality. Yes there are people who would try to profit from outrageous copyright claims and that's why we have courts that settle such issues. It doesn't mean we need to abolish any sort of Intellectual Property protection laws altogether.
your close but im afraid your interpretation is on the wrong side of the scale.
if i make a painting, and someone copies it and sells it, it might drive me to rage. But not because he's stealing my money but because he's limiting my creativity to people by making them sacrafice value to him. That would make me rage
If i created property and i wished to make money from it, i open up the idea that i consider my creativity open to greed and invite others to try the same (this is a fair manerism. If you want to consider that all life and law should be equal) if someone then takes my creativity and proceeds to give it to people for free thats my fault for being greedy with creativity, and anyone else is justified for doing so)
if i created property and i decide everyone should have access to it without having to sacrafice labour to me so be it.
The major problem here isnt that intellectual property should be non existent and information should be free, the problem is it quickly becomes a PISSING contest to satisfy the sphere of commercial competitvism/ enforcing the illusion of slave labour (if you want to term it in the extremist fashion)
if NO ONE made money from the idea, everyone wouldbe happy, but as soon as SOMEONE start making money, everyone is up in flames about missing a piece of the pie
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On November 06 2010 10:01 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I was just reading on the Blizzard vs. KeSPA thing about Blizzard not allowing broadcasting and blablabla and it made apparent that e-sports are still fundamentally different from all other sports in the simple respect that no one has intellectual property on let's say Football or Tennis or Chess, it's all in the public domain.
Discuss.
Have you ever noticed the scrambling speach about rebroadcasting at the end of an NFL game? Thats the NFL basically acting like blizzard saying you can't rebroadcast our property. This is the same for virtually every major sport in the US. Yes, i agree this is a video game and subject to other laws and such, but, just realize Blizzard is similar to the MLB, NFL, and NBA, except they don't make the leagues and such. I'm not saying its right or wrong I'm just pointing this out. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
the consequences (good or bad) of all this will extend much further than what we see in our personal esports bubble of bw and sc2. this is the first time a dispute of this nature has been so publicized and scrutinized, and it is important that Blizzard set the precedent for the future, here and now. not just for themselves, but for every game developer and every league that will arrive over the next few decades.
while we may all have different opinions on the methods used by either party, or on the outcome itself, i hope at least we can all realize that this is an important aspect of esports, and it is the best course of action for Blizzard to take a strong stand on this issue. There's more at stake here than ProLeague; demonizing Blizzard is entirely inappropriate and completely unnecessary.
Blizzard has been very clear that they aim to take esports (with their specific titles) to new heights. In order for that to happen, there must be clear rules and procedures in place. It's not greed, it's good business sense, and I'm damn sure glad it's Blizzard at the helm rather than some other studio.
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On November 06 2010 10:01 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
In computer science, there is often a difference between the definition of a concept and an implementation thereof. An implementation often can carry copyright, while most countries do not allow copyrights on purely scientific things like mathematical / computer science definitions. I can have copyright on my own code which executes some sorting algorithm, but the algorithm itself, even if I invented it, is free for all to use.
Just as an aside, you can patent an implementation. Back in 2002 (I think) there was a new shadowing technique (depth-fail method) that got patented, which meant that in order to use the "best" shadows for your game you had to pay to use this technique (or run with lower-performance shadowing).
Doom 3 had some issues with it (source) but it turned out ok.
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On November 11 2010 05:33 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
Blizzard has been very clear that they aim to take esports (with their specific titles) to new heights. In order for that to happen, there must be clear rules and procedures in place. It's not greed, it's good business sense, and I'm damn sure glad it's Blizzard at the helm rather than some other studio.
Really? You would rather it be Blizzard, which has a well-documented history of nickel-and-diming business practices and is helmed now partly by Bobby Kotick, whose antics are well-known, rather than some other company that has a history of say, further involvement with its community and customers, like say, Valve?
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It is Blizzards product, their choice. But we are their customer, we can say no to what they are trying to do with this IP non sense they have stretched far too hard on us. Before you know it, microtransaction here, micro there. I think Blizzard have the wrong attitude in this case. We are allready buying their game, 3 times in a sense with splitting the game in 3 (brood war was much more history then this first set f.ex).
You are right FakeSteve, other companies might catch up on what they do, that is the scary part.
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On November 11 2010 06:10 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 05:33 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
Blizzard has been very clear that they aim to take esports (with their specific titles) to new heights. In order for that to happen, there must be clear rules and procedures in place. It's not greed, it's good business sense, and I'm damn sure glad it's Blizzard at the helm rather than some other studio. Really? You would rather it be Blizzard, which has a well-documented history of nickel-and-diming business practices and is helmed now partly by Bobby Kotick, whose antics are well-known, rather than some other company that has a history of say, further involvement with its community and customers, like say, Valve?
This is the same Valve that has trademarked DOTA and released L4D2 barely a year after L4D, just so we're on the same page. Every company has its own wierd quirky decisions that have marred them in the public spotlight, and no studio is totally clean. I find it hard to look to any brand name and hold them up as shining scions of game development to which all others may never equal.
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On November 11 2010 06:53 FrontalMonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 06:10 Krigwin wrote:On November 11 2010 05:33 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
Blizzard has been very clear that they aim to take esports (with their specific titles) to new heights. In order for that to happen, there must be clear rules and procedures in place. It's not greed, it's good business sense, and I'm damn sure glad it's Blizzard at the helm rather than some other studio. Really? You would rather it be Blizzard, which has a well-documented history of nickel-and-diming business practices and is helmed now partly by Bobby Kotick, whose antics are well-known, rather than some other company that has a history of say, further involvement with its community and customers, like say, Valve? This is the same Valve that has trademarked DOTA and released L4D2 barely a year after L4D, just so we're on the same page. Every company has its own wierd quirky decisions that have marred them in the public spotlight, and no studio is totally clean. I find it hard to look to any brand name and hold them up as shining scions of game development to which all others may never equal.
I disagree with a lot of Valve's decisions but in the overall picture the good far outweighs the bad. If you want to make the point that Valve is not totally clean then okay, have fun making points no one will ever disagree with you on, but my point was that Blizzard is far from the best studio to be put into such a position given light of previous circumstances.
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If there were no copyrights, there is no incentive to make new products. Sure, its not a nice move to screw over kespa for copyright issues in Starcraft or Starcraft 2 because Kespa is a nonprofit that is only looking to improve those two games.
However, Blizzard is entirely entitled to this action because without it, Kespa would not exist and starcraft wouldnt be an issue.
You guys whine about copyright laws, then go and play starcraft 2 or enjoy its related media. This is ludicrously hypocritical because without copyright laws Blizzard didnt need to create Starcraft 2. In fact, without copyright laws which you guys are complaining about; Blizzard wouldnt have created Starcraft 2. Blizzard didnt actually make a huge profit off of gamesales from Starcraft 2, you underestimate the amount of money that was invested (and continues to be invested) into this game.
The big profit for blizzard is in Esports, and Blizzard is completely entitled to invest and gain profit from this endeavor. You might argue that Kespa invested a ton of money to the Esports scene, and created a proleague and a community for Esports to foster in. however, Blizzard invested a much larger amount in creating the fucking game. The fact that the game is fun enough to be played on a sports level is all due to the hard work from Blizzard Employees, and they are entitled to the benefits of this work.
Im not saying that Blizzard should exercise their IP rights, I am just arguing in favor of IP rights and Blizzard's right to use them because they promote growth and creativity through a monetary incentive.
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I am a third year law student and was at an IP conference where I actually talked for awhile to the general counsel of Activision-Blizzard about this situation two weeks ago. Without getting into too much detail, the EULA, which is supported in copyright law (well-settled law, for that matter in the United States), gives Blizzard all the rights to tournaments, replays, and even maps. These are the public display rights. You were made aware of these rights and you don't have to purchase the game and you can return the game if you didn't know this but learned while reading the terms and agreements and didn't want to check the box. In fact, if you open the map editor this agreement is there and Blizzard will give a full refund if you just stop at that point. The general counsel of EA and Take-two were also at this conference, and basically all of these chief legal officers agreed that it makes no sense for the companies to sue people that advance the prospects of the game; that is very very a stupid business move.
As for the copyright issue in S. Korea, it is whole different issue. S. Korea is a member of TRIPS and WIPO and should enforce the same substanative rights as the United States, so a lot of options are open to Blizzard if they lose their suit. Likewise, I believe they could bring a limited lawsuit in the U.S. (read my an old blog post for a somewhat detailed analysis of this). Anyways, the argument against Blizzard by KESPA is novel but completely unsupported by caselaw or the principles of copyright law;legally speaking they should lose (if you want to get into a moral debate about who contributed more to the creation of SC or whatever that's different, this is just well-settled law).
If from a legal perspective you really wanted to challenge Blizzard's copyright in SC2, I suggest reading Mdy Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., Slip Copy, 2009 WL 2132689 which is on appeal to the Ninth Circuit. The case revolves around this guy who sold a bunch of bots in WoW (he actually made several million dollars doing this). It's a contributory infringement case, but for contributory infringement you need a direct infringement. MDY and amici argue that there is no direct infringement in a rather complicated legal argument based on RAM and other circuit analysis. For an interesting law review article on the topic in support of MDY, I would suggest reading LICENSE TO KILL MDY v. Blizzard and the Battle over Copyright in World of Warcraft 75 Brook. L. Rev. 1015 by Ross Shikowitz. Anyways, I expect the Ninth Circuit to affirm the district court and MDY should lose. Just a note, damages can be quite large in copyright infringement cases: there are enforceable statutory damages along with direct damages. For example, you could be liable for up to $250,000 (per infringement) for uploading a series of copyrighted soup recipes on the internet without permission from the copyright holder.
Anyways taking that case as an example and the fact that Blizzard also brought suit against several producers of maphacks for SC2, the legal department is going after people who ruin the game for others, which cuts into profits. However, Blizzard and their chief legal counsel, along with what I regard as well settled copyright law, it does not prevent Blizzard from suing other infringers. Does that mean if you run a tournament in your back yard, you are going to get sued, most likely not. But, it does not mean that Blizzard doesn't have the legal right to do so. Now the more interesting question, is what if you broadcast or say --------> link to a non-approved tournament stream. This isn't direct infringment and guess what, you are protected by the DMCA (17 USC § 512) and its safe harbor provision. This forces Blizzard to provide a take-down notice (and there is a lot of caselaw concerning what is effective notice, so you can stall for awhile here...), to which the primary user can rebut using a fair use argument. As the hoster of the link you actually don't have to be responsible (unless there is effective notice and the direct 'infringer' does not rebut the copyright holder's claim) and otherwise you can let the two parties fight it out.
As for whether these laws are right or wrong, that's a very complex issue.
*Edited for grammar
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On November 10 2010 10:17 Talin wrote:
There's a whole bunch of illogical analogies in this thread.
I'm going to put this in very simple terms, because simplicity is the best thing in the universe: My product, my rules.
I may be lenient on the rules, and I may allow other people to develop or expand or build something around my product as long as I want to. But at any point, I see no real reason why I shouldn't have the right to say: "Stop doing that now" or "I want a piece of that cake".
It's normal that most people around here will take the "what's best for e-sports" point of view, but that's really quite irrelevant. Fundamentally, it's about what rights you have over something you create and whether it is right for somebody to take what you made and exploit it whichever way they want to. This, this, a thousand times this.
There is an understandable bias in favor of "growing e-sports" on these forums, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand. Blizzard made the game, other companies using that game as a medium for their own business should be subject to paying Blizzard royalties.
As to those who complain about Blizzard being money-grubbing, I wholeheartedly disagree. I've played these games since I was younger and still do over a decade later, so I have a certain amount of bias, but Blizzard is not a big evil company out to eat your wallets. They maintain their stance as a business that is for profit purposes, but I don't feel they are or ever have been unreasonable in their practices. Kotick has little to do with the inner-workings of Blizzard (This is very controversial, but try not to derail the topic), and Blizzard has responded to the community positively since the merger.
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On November 11 2010 03:06 ToxNub wrote:
And I have to disagree with you, too. If you're a painter, do you own that which you paint? If you're a songwriter, do you own what you sing about? You borrow information from the outside whenever you perform a creative act. Nobody charges you a fee for it, regardless of how much effort they spent creating it. And then you get it in your head that you're going to dress it up and pretend like you are the sole creator and make everyone else pay to use what was theirs all along. Do you have to give mother nature a cut for gifting you? Maybe the geneticist that patents the music-gift gene? Perhaps the person who invented music, or the person who invented the instrument?
Intangibility is not about what is real, but about what can feasibly claimed to be property. You don't own sound, or light, they exist whether you are 6 feet under or not. They can be arranged and manipulated by any one, they owe you no allegiance and operate by rules you did not create. You are a user, not a creator. I don't say that user's don't deserve their own compensation, but ownership is absolutely the wrong way to think about it.
The reasonableness of practical applications of intellectual property is a poor basis for justification. Making ridiculous laws with overreaching powers and then saying "well, don't worry, we wouldn't ever use it to do that" is not the sort of system that can be trusted to be fair.
Yes I own that which I paint. I own the idea behind it. I own the melody of a song I compose. I don't own the notes or words individually and I never claimed I did. Are you being dense on purpose? Sounds and words don't make themselves into music. Someone has to put work into that. That's the work that needs to be protected. I'd give mother nature a cut for gifting me but she never asks. Do you know how I can contact her? lol
As for genes being patented, there is a whole lot of controversy behind this because a geneticist never created a genetic code. They just discovered it. It's more akin to claiming a piece of land you found first. Can you do that? Nobody is sure that's why there's a whole lot of controversy behind this.
Again, I don't own sound or light and I never claimed I did. They can be arranged and manipulated by anyone indeed but my arrangement is my idea and therefore I own that particular pattern of sounds and light because I came up with it. It's only fair that I can ask for compensation and credit for my work if other people want to benefit from it.
Are you saying Beethoven and Mozart and Picasso and Wright have not created anything? Are you saying that anyone can manipulate sounds and sights they way they did? Then why don't you show us something you have done that's of similar quality? If authors fear that their works aren't protected by the law then we'd probably enter some really dark times. If anyone can take credit for anyone else's work or profit from it, everyone will be afraid of creating any original work because it will all be in vain.
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