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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.
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.
In gaming this works differently, now, I can understand that Blizzard has copyright on their implemetation of StarCraft. But if others make a different implementation that executes the same game mechanics, this is considered infringement too, (see FreeCraft). This is radically different from all other parts of programming and computer science. And we all know that digital technology is where copyright continues to find new loopholes and strange paradoxes and some argue that some changes have to occur.
Now, assuming that e-sports are sports, and the original inventor of it holds both the copyright on the definition as much as the (reference) implementation. This raises interesting implications. It'd be like you have to pay the inventor of football a licence to play a football match with your friends. Now, I can see you have to pay them for the use of their balls, their material, their jerseys and all that that makes it possible. But what this situation comes down is that it's forbidden to make your own football equipment from scratch and play it. You have to buy their football equipment, and by that they control how, where, and when you may play.
Concerning traditional sports, there are indeed federations which govern the rules, but these are some-what democratic in that their members can vote, and often when they displease so much, people can split and form a rival federation via the good old free-market principle, those that pleases the fans and the players the most will survive the battle. This has happened recently in darts and chess.
In e-sports, there is a schizm between the ones that control the rules of the game (Like Bizzard), and those that control the rules of the players. (Like KeSPA). If Blizzard makes some rules no one approves of, they can do so all they want. It is illegal for KeSPA or some top players to say 'fuck this, we're splitting off' and make their own implementation of StarCraft, using different graphics, coding it from start, but keeping the same overal mechanics with the changes needed. Indeed, software copyrights in various jurisdictions make it illegal to try to understand how it works.
Could e-sports ever truly flourish under such a system? Of course, from a progamer's perspective, no one cares for graphics, it's mechanics mechanics mechanics. Very simple graphics would suffice here. No one plays chess on those highly decorated chess sets, in fact, the FIDE rules demand all official tournaments have a plain simple staunton chess set. But that doesn't stop me to carve my own chess set out of wood, or invent a chess variation as I please. The rules in e-sports are harsher.
Apparently, depending on the jurisdiction, a screenshot of your StarCraft game actually belongs to Blizzard. Some jurisdictions don't enforce this, others do. Likewise, I would not be surprised if some jurisdictions do not enforce Blizzard's claim of no broadcasting. User-agreement licences are not omnipotent. And in fact a lot of things in there are just to scare you off and can actually never be enforced. A good example is that the Photoshop user agreement demands that you always call it Adobe® Photoshop® Software. But they would never win if they took you to court for not doing so. In this part, freedom of speech wins.
I would personally not call this a 'sport' as much as I call it a 'game' like monopoly or twister. Because of the copyright tied to it. A sport is every-one's and nobody's. A game is made by a manufacturer and owned by the respective manufacturer.
Discuss.
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I don't give two shakes about legality,... I stay out of those things because they never tend to end up making sense in an ethical or logical way so much as it does monetarily. :-P
My only input is, I would be pretty peeved if I created a game and watched someone else profit from it without giving me their kudos,... preferably in the form of royalties.
Say Blizzard isn't this huge, awesome, semi-evil/semi-sexy corporation and is instead just an independent game studio. Phinix [that's me!!] creates StarCrack(R), the most addictive SciFi nonsensical something-or-other EvaRrr!
It's hugely successful. I make enough to get by for the rest of my life. Yayyyy.
Then 'KillSpa' comes along and makes it MORE successful. They create a new forum for my product to be enjoyed and exhibited [as I am quite the exhibitionist] in, but completely cut me out of the money-sack distribution,...and they don't even pump any "Phinix is awesome" banners through their new media outlet!!
I'd be a sad panda. :-(
I back Blizzard here.
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Right, but look at it this way: You've spent a LOT of money over a long period of time to make something.
Someone, who put nothing directly to the production of the object, takes it and uses it to make money for themselves.
Not too fair is it? (Granted, the equation's more complicated than this, but it's how it appears to me)
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The reason no one has intellectual property on football, tennis and chess is because they are hundreds or thousands of years old. Even with the US Congress extending copyright here in the US a few times, it's still only roughly a hundred years (not sure if it's over or under a hundred years).
The better analogy is to a game like Monopoly that Hasbro still controls.
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On November 10 2010 03:18 andrewlt wrote:
The reason no one has intellectual property on football, tennis and chess is because they are hundreds or thousands of years old. Even with the US Congress extending copyright here in the US a few times, it's still only roughly a hundred years (not sure if it's over or under a hundred years).
The better analogy is to a game like Monopoly that Hasbro still controls.
Exactly - no one owns football or soccer. Because in those games in the end it's just rules and constructs - stuff which you cannot have copyright over.
Whereas in Starcraft or Monopoly, you need the game product before being about to play the game.
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"Intellectual property" is such an inherently nonsensical phrase and the kind of control that Blizzard is attempting to exert over all SC2 competition will definitely stunt its growth in a multitude of ways. I think all of this caterwauling over intellectual property and copyright infringement and whatnot is raising some seriously good questions about the nature of laws concerning digital technology and we're going to see a major fundamental shift in the next 50 years or so. ACTA was only the beginning. Personally I am against such designs and I think it is nothing but sheer corporate greed that organizations like Blizzard and Kespa attempt to exert such regulation when they can already profit so easily.
This is a good thread btw.
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I'm not clear on whether you're arguing law or railing against the injustice of it all. If it's the first, are you a lawyer? If not, to put it bluntly you aren't qualified to have a meaningful discussion about it because you have no idea what the law actually is.
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This as been argued to death already so i wont write more essays about it, but lets just bring up a few simple points.
The reason why monopoly is discouraged (illegal even, to some systems) is because its REALLY abusable, and one will be strongly tempted to display abusive behaviour once they are a monopoly. Since when you are the sole distributor, the demand for your product tends to be rather inelastic (meaning despite the change in price, quantity demanded doesnt change by a significant amount making raising price that much more beneficial. The only exception to this is when a particular industry benefits off Economies of Scale. However the object of discussion currently (E-Sport) is not one such industry.
Giving ALL rights to control/abuse a game to the original creator is dangerous, since when the game goes popular, they will just raise the price sky-high, and people can either take it or fuck off. Contrary to popular believe, the demand for popular games is very inelastic. There just arent that many games around that have huge fanbase like the Starcraft franchise.. So if you want to play with many people, watch big-ass tourneys, you really dont have much to choose from. You may say IP is important, but wouldnt royalties be sufficient then? Total control which likely will hamper the growth of the game will only harm e-Sport.
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The point of kespa is exactly that esports is sports they cant tax football basket etc ...
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On November 10 2010 05:29 ffreakk wrote:
This as been argued to death already so i wont write more essays about it, but lets just bring up a few simple points.
The reason why monopoly is discouraged (illegal even, to some systems) is because its REALLY abusable, and one will be strongly tempted to display abusive behaviour once they are a monopoly. Since when you are the sole distributor, the demand for your product tends to be rather inelastic (meaning despite the change in price, quantity demanded doesnt change by a significant amount making raising price that much more beneficial. The only exception to this is when a particular industry benefits off Economies of Scale. However the object of discussion currently (E-Sport) is not one such industry.
Giving ALL rights to control/abuse a game to the original creator is dangerous, since when the game goes popular, they will just raise the price sky-high, and people can either take it or fuck off. Contrary to popular believe, the demand for popular games is very inelastic. There just arent that many games around that have huge fanbase like the Starcraft franchise.. So if you want to play with many people, watch big-ass tourneys, you really dont have much to choose from. You may say IP is important, but wouldnt royalties be sufficient then? Total control which likely will hamper the growth of the game will only harm e-Sport.
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.
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As long as e-sports relies on proprietary software as the basis for competition this will always be the case.
Perhaps in the future all competitions will use free-as-in-freedom software; for now, it is necessary to rely on proprietary solutions as they will garner the largest playerbase. A small playerbase results in a weak e-sport scene so e-sports is unique in that is almost completely reliant on the marketing and success of commercial products.
Unless there is a fundamental shift in gaming culture that results in large amounts of people having access to popular, open source games then e-sports as an industry and all the organisations therein will by utterly at the whims of the creators of their competitive game of choice.
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E-sports isn't it's own industry, e-sports is just a concept right now. Where the hell do you guys get the concept that e-sports is an industry? Please explain this.
Then explain how Blizzard has a monopoly over a product/franchise it developed?
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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....
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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.
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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.
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On November 10 2010 03:07 Phinix wrote:
I don't give two shakes about legality,... I stay out of those things because they never tend to end up making sense in an ethical or logical way so much as it does monetarily. :-P
My only input is, I would be pretty peeved if I created a game and watched someone else profit from it without giving me their kudos,... preferably in the form of royalties.
Say Blizzard isn't this huge, awesome, semi-evil/semi-sexy corporation and is instead just an independent game studio. Phinix [that's me!!] creates StarCrack(R), the most addictive SciFi nonsensical something-or-other EvaRrr!
It's hugely successful. I make enough to get by for the rest of my life. Yayyyy.
Then 'KillSpa' comes along and makes it MORE successful. They create a new forum for my product to be enjoyed and exhibited [as I am quite the exhibitionist] in, but completely cut me out of the money-sack distribution,...and they don't even pump any "Phinix is awesome" banners through their new media outlet!!
I'd be a sad panda. :-(
I back Blizzard here.
Just about part about being peeved for not giving kudos about game, CS originated from Cliffe and Gooseman who at time weren't Valve employees and in my eyes got very little credit for making of CS most ppl just accredit it to Valve.
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Fundamental question: what is the purpose of copyright, after all?
The founders of the United States put copyright into our constitution because they recognized it was fundamental to promoting economic development. Ultimately, copyright is supposed to be a compromise where creators can earn profit from their work and the wider community can benefit from that work. However, copyright does not exist to protect, in perpetuity, the exclusive profits of the entity that holds the copyright.
Starcraft is quite young, not even old enough to have reached full-term under original constitutional rules (14 years, renewable once). I think the creators are well within their rights to seek compensation.
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On November 10 2010 08:55 Tuneful wrote:
Fundamental question: what is the purpose of copyright, after all?
The founders of the United States put copyright into our constitution because they recognized it was fundamental to promoting economic development. Ultimately, copyright is supposed to be a compromise where creators can earn profit from their work and the wider community can benefit from that work. However, copyright does not exist to protect, in perpetuity, the exclusive profits of the entity that holds the copyright.
Starcraft is quite young, not even old enough to have reached full-term under original constitutional rules (14 years, renewable once). I think the creators are well within their rights to seek compensation.
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
I did a quick search I couldn't find anything about copyright in there. Could you elaborate?
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Article I, Section 8:
"Congress shall have Power.."
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
EDIT: The 14 + 14 renewal comes from the Copyright Act of 1790, not the constitution, but it was the original precedent.
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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.
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EPT
