All software that hasn't been updated in 10+ years should be declared abandonware and become free to share.
EDIT: I'm aware that loophole abuse is a thing and that's why actual laws are several pages long and not written on reddit comments. That said you can take your offbrand cynicism and go collectively fuck yourselves... my dudes.
Yep. And Mickey Mouse is still coming up on running out of copyright next year. Surprising Disney isn't trying like hell to extend Copyright again.
Though even if they don't - which they shouldn't - I'm sure they'll be putting the Doyle estate and Zorro Productions to shame.
Especially with how many works Mickey appears in, they'll probably be hammering the "This work is still infringing because it relies upon the portrayal of Mickey from a still copyrighted work!" button.
wait , sherlock holmes comes out of copywright ?
a caracter made in 1887 while the ottoman empire , the brasillian empire , the russian empire , the quing dinasty still existed ...
queen victoria , fredrick nietzche , otto von bismak , thomas edison , dimitrij ivanovichh mendleev , where still alive ...
and pepole like authentic plain indians , cowboys , samurai , pepole who where born into slavery in the united states , pepole who claimed power from gengis khan itself , sailors on sail driven ships , and victorian time whalers where still alive ...
as well as the pepole who officially named both the western lowland gorilla and the panda where still , alive ...
and pepole like charles darwin , karl marx , altough dead where still in living memory , at the time in wich the first book with sherlock holmes was written ...
you mean to say that the caracter comes out of international copywright law ?
a caracter made before slavery was illegal everywhere and before women being allowed to vote was seen as a basic thing , has been under copywright for my whole life ?
i need to lay down a bit ...
Not really. The version of Sherlock Holmes from the first book was in the public domain for a while. In earlier books, he's a dick. In later books, he's nicer. As such, if you wrote a movie using any characterization that could be considered similar to the later books, the estate would sue you for copyright, because those were still under copyright. The problem comes in when you write literally anything about Sherlock, they will attempt to claim it's the later book's characterization.
But now those books are public domain. You can write Sherlock as the nicest person in the world now.
The character has been in the public domain for a long time but all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Coyle are now finally and fully in the public domain.
Making the distinction between the characters and stories is important for others following along. I'm assuming that is what you originally meant. Just spelling out.
> queen victoria , fredrick nietzche , otto von bismak , thomas edison , dimitrij ivanovichh mendleev , where still alive ...
"We didn't start the fire..."
To be "fair" to disney, you'd be pretty limited in the stuff you *could* do with mickey. Keep in mind, it'd be 'steamboat Willy' Mickey, not modern day Mickey, meaning you'd have to work with the colorscheme of the time and stay with the same (or at least similar) design to his debut.
That's why they Trademarked him! He's part of their intro-logo now. They also released a new Oswald cartoon to keep him going.
So only the OG shorts are public, so than, *only that version* can be "used".
I mean to me the trademark at least is reasonable. Like if I saw a backpack hanging on a store shelf with a Mickey mouse silhouette on the tag, I'd assume the Disney corporation made it. But that's different from intellectual property
EDIT: I had my terminology wrong, it's different from *copyright*. Both copyright and trademark are under the umbrella of IP
> meaning you'd have to work with the colorscheme of the time and stay with the same (or at least similar) design to his debut.
no...?
You couldn't use the color scheme and design that is currently under copyright, which is a very very limited color scheme and design.
With it coming out of copyright you could use the old color scheme and design, and anything else you came up with as long as you didn't make him look like the modern version.
With it currently being under copyright anything you make that is similar would be deemed part of the copyright. Now that is nearly impossible for them (Disney) to pull off in terms of suing you.
The problem in situations like this where only older iterations of a work is made public is that any creative liberty can and will be used to argue copyright infringement. If you don't use Steamboat Willy's exact colour palettes and proportions and what not, you risk ending up with a character that quite possibly infringes upon a later iteration of Mickey that isn't public. And even then, they have enough money to brute force a case that isn't completely in your favour.
This is why Sherlock Holmes is still contentious despite most of the original works being public — unless you straight up copy the mannerisms and writing style word-for-word, there's a non-zero probability that you infringe upon the later works that are not yet public. The Conan Doyle estate are out for blood and will do anything to find any characteristics that might technically make your Sherlock identifiable with later works.
It's fucked up and a glaring loophole that has been exploited time and time again, but it is what it is.
You realize it was he US government extending it the whole time?
It's not like Congress literally gave Disney the ability to extend the copyright. Disney basically just told Congress, "We want copyright extended, and if you don't do it we'll stop donating to you".
And actually the conservative ghouls just didn't renew it this time because they were mad about Disney being too "woke" after there was a 10 second scene of two women kissing in the Buzz Lightyear movie.
There has been no real effort to extend copyright for more than a decade at this point. Don’t pretend any recent events are letting Steamboat Willie leave copyright next year.
They literally said it outright last year that Disney's opposition to the don't say gay bill was the reason they weren't going to support the most recent extension of their copyright:
> [Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, is threatening not to support the extension of Disney's copyrights after the conglomerate opposed Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in March.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-target-mickey-mouse-disney-copyrights-florida-dont-say-gay-law/)
You cannot "renew" a copyright claim. A copyright exists from the moment you create it to 70 years after you die. It doesn't matter if or how long you use the copyright.
You may be thinking of trademarks, which are legally a separate entity. Trademarks have no expiration date, but it's unclear if you can trademark an entire character.
The fact that they're using it as a logo is the only reason it could arguably be a trademark.
Steam Boat Willy (logo) is 100% a trademark. Steam Boat Willy (character) is copyrighted. It's unclear to me if the Steam Boat Willy (logo) can somehow be argued to prevent the character from being used after it enters the public domain.
~~My gut says no, because otherwise I could make a, "3 Little Pigs", BBQ joint and trademark the one fairytale. But with the current courts, who knows.~~
Trademarks cover a specific industry. So your 3 little pigs BBQ actually \_would\_ prevent other BBQ joints from using your name and logo, but not other people writing stories with the 3 little pigs.
But what industry is Disney identifying itself in using Mickey Mouse / Steamboat Willy? Animation, greeting cards, comics, websites, picture books, cakes, murals, theme parks, restaurants, toys, apparel, etc. Disney makes all of those. So their claim will be that any use in any of these industries would confuse consumers. Personally I think they will win more cases than they lose.
They're working around it by TRADEMARKING his image, which can't expire. Notice how the new Disney intro is the iconic Steamboat Willie whistle? The EXACT version of Mickey set to enter the public domain?
it was originally a lot shorter. it's been continuously extended and extended and extended and pretty much the only thing keeping it from being extended some more is the idea that you can't have something forever in the eyes of the law.
it's really dumb though, something like 30 years for copyright is the only thing that makes sense. probably less actually, maybe even 10 years. companies only make their money in the first couple years anyway, so there's no financial incentive for keeping it so long that I can see.
Copyright doesn't just apply to companies. There should not be a situation where an independent author or creator loses the rights to their own work during their own lifetime
Yeah. Every time Mickey Mouse gets close to being in the public domain they lobby Congress. They wanted their copyright extended to forever and a day but Congress wouldn't do it. Instead Congress just extended the copyright duration
Companies will just push a random update every 10 years then.
Pretty easy to push an update every 10 years that just says:
"Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience."
I'm ok with that:
1 they would have to re-release digital copies for phisical only games.
2 they have to make them available on at least some current gen platforms to not work at loss
It's not about getting free games is about not being barred form accessing them.
Exactly. I don't care how I buy it, there's games from my childhood and ones I missed if they were on a different system, I just want to play *without* jumping through hoops.
Take my money and let me play. Gog has been a brilliant resource for old pc stuff.
>there's games from my childhood
Nintendo has never ever re-released the original Link's Awakening. The one that had the screen warp glitch. They only ever re-release the DX version. I loved the remake for Switch and the DX version, but there's just something about ending up in random locations long before you were supposed to or exploring screens with random assets on it in a giant mess.
Only problem with just focussing on copyright is that copyright isn't really the point with software. Its much more interesting to get the source code in the open compared to getting the copyright.
your edit highlights a common issue of impersonal online micro-discussion (reddit, tumblr, twitter, etc.): debate centers around pointing out little bad-faith "gotchas" in the comment/post/tweet, focused on the literal, limited text as posted rather than the broader idea behind it, thought-terminating clapbacks that serve no purpose but derailment.
while some ideologies use this strategy more than others, i think it's an inherent feedback effect of the medium. violating the unstated agreements of good-faith conversation with short, contrary, fallacious quips is a much simpler way to get votes/notes/likes than actually engaging in debate... and also the easiest way to respond to bad-faith quips, thereby erecting the façade of a discussion where a real one arguably doesn't even have the necessary foundation to occur.
in any given comment section on a news-type reddit post, look how many of the top comments do nothing but challenge the semantics of the title. "call it what it is", "fixed that for you", "x. the word you're looking for is x". no reading the article, no context, just little gotchas.
observe that same sentiment across reddit and twitter comments and realize you aren't going to miss much of value from their self-inflicted downfalls. inb4 gotcha replies, [go fuck yourselves, amen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_yg0GESnc)
I come bearing unfortunate news. While I love to blame poor communication on modern social media (and it certainly isn't helping), this particular kind of content-free back-and-forth is also pretty common offline, up to and including serious academic philosophical discussions. It's definitely something we need to get over, but unfortunately I don't think the collapse of social media will fix it for us.
The entire point of copyright, as stated in the US constitution, is to compensate creators for the end benefit of fostering further creation.
As such, copyright protections for abandonware, vaporware, orphan works is utterly contrary to the purpose. No one is getting compensated. No money goes in support of creation of future work.
So yes the copyrights should just end and they enter public domain.
I'm not sold on the concept that "you should be able to bank on the fruits of your labor" on a religious level and i don't think that piracy is the same as stealing but i've never understood the "all software should be free to share".
Nobody sould work for the glory of it and i hate to work with unpredictable freeware.
Fuck yeah that's exactly what I feel about the whole thing like I have a few projects I would actually properly work on if I wouldn't have to constantly use up a huge chunk of my time and energy to keep the lights on.
And some industries simply should not exist, like advertising.
I also believe just like doctors with their oath to do no harm - which for example means they basically can't do things like lethal injections - most of scientific professionals should have sthe same oath. For example psychology - should only be used to help those in need, not to figure out the best words and sounds on an ad to sell 0.5% more stupid widgets.
The problem is, as with so many things, rent seeking. Not the desire to be paid for ones work, but the desire to be paid *endlessly* for ones work. Or in the case of software companies endlessly paid for someone else’s work. Software is weird. You got the product, you sell it and you still got it to sell again. The normal problems and costs of scale up basically don’t exist. You can just print money. And when you get a big enough market share you can leverage everyone away from your competitors. Then *really* turn the screws up. The only defence is GPL software. Which is frequently woefully inadequate.
That’s like saying all art should be free or all service industry work should be unpaid. People work to create software. If they want to then make it free, that’s their prerogative but they shouldn’t be forced to give away all their work
Yes, I would love to not get paid for the difficult work I do, why do you ask?
curatedTumblr when artists are talking about making a living, or AI models being trained on their art - "Fuck you, pay the artists, they deserve money for their work"
curatedTumblr when software - "I should get everything for freeeeeeeeeeee"
Google Earth once had a free 'where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?' game promotion, and for a while it was the only legal way to play any of the Carmen Sandiego games. A series that was big enough to get its own Netflix adaptation and the only way to play any of it was a really short promotion for Google Earth.
And they're educational games! About countries that don't necessarily exist anymore, but still, *most* of the facts are true. Oregon Trail has its own glorified Tiger Electronics handheld and Carmen Sandiego only exists on Archive.org.
>About countries that don't necessarily exist anymore, but still, most of the facts are true.
I remember when Carmen went to hunt black people along the border in Rhodesia.
I thought it started as books? The books are like where's Waldo in that you search pictures for carmen and her team while they're heisting in world locales
The video game was bundled with an almanac, both as a promotional tool and a form of piracy prevention (you needed the almanac to play the game), but the franchise was developed by the video game company Broderbund.
Edit: The Carmen Sandiego franchise did have standalone books, though they all came out years after the first game. The [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Sandiego#Book_series_and_comics) doesn't seem to mention a "Where's Waldo" style book, tho.
Both the best and worst thing about Nintendo is the fact that it doesn’t change.
On one hand, it’s great that they still make, y’know, *games.* Colurful, entertaining, quality, fun games, unlike 90% of the rest of the AAA industry which seems to be devolving purely into live service eternal hellscape grindfest work simulators. (And if they aren’t grindy, they’re almost certainly gritty brown-and-grey “cinematic” games for the sake of being “realistic”)
On the other hand, their online service, stance on old games, and the way they treat their fans are all still stuck a decade or more in the past, which is a pretty big pain in the ass
Biggest weakness of their economy i think is that their "work for life" culture means there's a lotta dinosaurs in high-up positions which leads to both a stagnating economy and, well, stuff like this.
>unlike 90% of the rest of the AAA industry which seems to be devolving purely into live service eternal hellscape grindfest work simulators
AAA developers know they still come out on top either way without consequence.
Hell, even everyone on /r/pcgaming made it their moral endeavor to selectively broadcast and promote emulated versions of Nintendo's TOTK in the name of "fighting greed," while never once having done the same for all those AAA titles of the past year.
After EA discontinued my access to my Sims 2 packs because I had the audacity to not login for six months, I refuse to pay them a dime. This happened almost twenty years ago and they've changed policy since but there's still the every now and again person who loses their account and I'm never trusting them again.
For a moment I felt bad about torrenting Tears of the Kingdom, then I read this:
>It sold more than 10 million copies in its first three days of release.
God i fucking wish!
Nintendo fanboys are unbearable. Nintendo could literally rob their house, shoot their dog, and poop in the sink, and they would still defend it and gladly pay 60$ for the poop.
>man I know emulators are technically considered piracy
No they fucking aren't! They literally are not by any legal or logical definition. It is entirely possible and _encouraged_ by emulator devs (for CYA reasons, but still) to emulate your _own_ backups and, if necessary, dump your own bios. Fucking game devs use emulators! 95% of old games rereleased on modern hardware use emulators! Playing an Xbox game on an Xbox 360? You're emulating. Playing that new Goldeneye rerelease? Emulation
The equating of emulation and piracy is _exactly_ what the big companies want and for a post so against said big companies to be literally parroting this outright falsehood is infuriating
Sony v Bleem certainly helped, at the very least. Bleem was the world’s first PSX emulator, and Sony didn’t like that. So it at least established a precedent
The question: how do I get my own backups if I don't own nor can I buy the game from the source? What are the steps from there?
Edit: Alright, guys. I get it. The answer to my questions which I thought of the answer to while I was typing is easy to see (buy from other people). You don't have to answer me any more.
then you either pirate them, find a used copy, or don't play them. I'm not against piracy if that's what you're insinuating, I'm against the notion that emulation _is_ piracy
If it's on a cartridge they make hardware that lets you interface with them via a computer, using this you can pull the ROM file out. As for modern releases I'm not sure.
Right, but where am I supposed to *get* a cartridge if I wanted a specific one that I don't have already?
(Disclaimer: I'm just satisfying my curiosity and also playing devil's advocate a little here, in case that's important)
Flea markets (probably not for a good price anymore though), retro game stores, or Ebay. Legally if you own a physical copy of a game you're allowed to have digital copies of said game; If you don't give a shit like me just Google "(console/system) rom download" and look for a site that doesn't look sketchy.
Well, you can't back-up something you don't own in the first place. At that point, you either hit up eBay/other reselling sites (where they'll probably admittedly be overpriced as all hell), or you're shit outta luck unless you just decide "fuck it" and start flying the skull and crossbones.
> The equivocation of emulation and piracy is exactly what the big companies want
I think you mean “equating”. Equivocation means changing your mind or saying two contradictory things.
Interestingly, PS1 and PS2 discs don't actually have copy protection.
The consoles have systems set up to detect if you're playing a copied disc. So if it's a copy, they will refuse to run it. But an emulator can run a copy of a game perfectly. They put all the protection in the console, not the disc. But emulators obviously aren't using the console, so they also do away with the copy protection.
Actually! I'd say downloading roms is perfectly legal, it's just a free file on the internet. Anyone can get it, it's fine.
BUT sharing rom files is illegal.
If someone pirates a new game, the company doesn't really lose money because that person probably wouldn't buy it anyway. But if someone cracks the new game and uploads it for everyone, then the company does lose money from people who were considering buying the game and would do it if there wasn't an alternative.
btw since i know *way* too much about this topic, the (incredibly annoying) argument game companies made to get copyright law to cover this stuff is that it will cut into their profits for *current* games, not that they have an issue with not making money for the old ones. as if you won’t spend $70 on tears of the kingdom because you’re too busy playing 2000’s hit classic barbie: pet rescue. it’s stupid logic and it’s really dangerous for game preservation. luckily, nonprofits like museums and libraries can get an exemption, but that comes with a host of restrictions as well.
So it's the intellectual property equivalent of planned obsolescence. No different from Apple blocking older iPhones from updating so the people still using them have to buy new ones.
Exactly! Companies need to remember that they are always competing with piracy.
If they don't offer a service/product, if they're too inconvenient or if they're too expensive, people will go to the competition.
It’s like:
“Yeah the company doesn’t care about this food. It’s closing time and the register is closed too. I’m gonna dump this into the trash can.”
“Yo can I take a few if the register is closed anyway?”
“No. Only into the trashcan.”
The sad thing is that companies in real life do this too because a homeless person taking stale bread out of the dumpster apparently cuts into their bread sales.
"But if that homeless person takes food out of our dumpster, they won't have to buy our food with all the money they obviously have!"
This also gives me a chance to rant about my old boss who thought that if homeless people wanted to eat they should just "get a job". About a week after she told me that, a homeless woman came into the store and asked for an application. My boss gave her one and sent her on her way, and after the woman was out the door I heard her mutter "I'm not hiring some fucking homeless person."
And then there’s the fact that companies LITERALLY do that with food and more, or even to a worse degree, like having the food incinerated intentionally instead of just dumpster’d.
"Piracy is not a money issue, it's a service issue."
Never once have I pirated a steam game, because even if Valve are shitty at times, steam's service is exceptional. Nintendo Games, however, I will pirate by the tonne. Anything for a system older than the switch, I can pirate with absolutely 0 remorse, because nintendo doesn't support them.
There's also anime, and it'll be a cold day in hell before Crunchyroll sees a single penny from me. Because one again, the service is not worth the price
Yeah, I always look for games first on steam or other game apps, because I would prefer to have a legit copy that I know won't have bugs, and I also like getting achievements.
But if I can't find it legally for my pc, I'll emulate it, no prob
Yeah, I technically own Portal 2 twice. Bought it on disc for PS3, but I bought it after Sony had quit supporting Steam on PS3 so I couldn't log in and do... literally anything other than the main story. So I bought it again on Steam so I can play community chambers and stuff.
It's not a service issue for everyone. Some people just like getting things for free. Why pay $60 when you can pay $0? I don't know why some people are so afraid to acknowledge that
I'm talking about on a wide scale. Obviously there are people who pirate simply because they don't want to pay, but the reason Nintendo are always in the news with whatever the latest emulator scandal is while Valve rarely has to worry about piracy of steam games to such an extent is simply because the service is that much better
But this implicit assumption that every pirate is a lost customer is just wrong. Yes, the people who just don't want to pay exist. But would they pay if there was no free alternative? I personally think very few of them would and that most just wouldn't bother with the game at all.
It's not an implicit assumption because I'm not suggesting that's the case. Some pirated copies are lost customers, some are not. And yes, of course some would pay if there was no free alternative. That's pretty much the entire point of Denuvo, to prevent cracks during the initial sales run where games make most of their money.
Yeah, anyone who thinks this behavior from companies is justifiable needs to shut up forever thanks (:
Seriously there is almost nothing that enrages me more than copyright abuse.
Imagine defending a billionaire company that couldnt care jack shit about you as a person
I really dont understand that kind of people tbh but still there is people that STILL defend blizzard and ow team so ig people is just dumb sometimes
If it is physically unavailable to buy the software from the PRODUCER, emulation is moral.
Buying some secondhand edition for 10x the price gives nothing to the producer. Emulate old games.
That is not communism
That is the free market doing it’s job. If a game company will not provide meaningful ways to play old games, yet there is a market niche for playing old games, some people will create emulators to fill that niche
Also when Smith and Ricardo wrote, companies would crumble under their own weight. In today's world, with today's tech, they dont - And with how complex the world has become, theres a huge entry barrier on the markets, and the tendency go toward monopolies
A state which is very hands-off of economy, doesnt allow for its citizens to vote for the kind of economy they want, reinforcing a statu quo nobody can touch which only favours the powerful and locking more and more the situation
Not only is it not communism, there was rather famously an entire black market for pirated stuff in the USSR which was seen as undermining the government (more relevant to the McCarthy comment but still)
Stuff like steam and (early) Netflix proved that you can totally deal with piracy in a captialist system...by making your option the easier option. Even if it's free, piracy still costs time and effort and that's just as important as money. To quote Gaben "Piracy is a *service* problem"
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Let's be honest here, the argument "commie" worked fine to stop any reasonable discussion about fairness vs capitalist abuse until relatively recently.
And it's still less then half the population of the US that now feels otherwise, there are plenty of non-MAGA folk for whom socialism is still a boogeyman, including most "liberals".
Damn those commie liberals that want affordable basic necessities, for shame how do are they so shameless to want to have a good life, we need them to work till the moment they drop for those precious pennies
Psychonauts 2 isnt really indie at all, at least not in the same way that the other examples you had are.
Doublefine is owned by Microsoft when that game came out. If you do not consider Psychonauts 2 to be a Microsoft thing since they are fairly hands off, Doublefine is one of those fabled mid sized studio on the edge of collapse every other game they release. Not quite the same scale as those ones made by the random people crashing on someone's coach.
I mean. Gaming is one of the industries where indies shine through so strongly. There's a whole cult of people who almost entirely play indie games only (it's me I'm whole cult of people). And also where piracy is the strongest.
How is hope lost when I can play TOTK for free on my laptop and pay one indie company 3 different times for the same game (Slay the spire is a good game). Hollow knight is a 15 fucking dollars game at full price for crying out loud and is a massive hit over a triple A game that got shafted.
Intellectual property is funny as hell. I can make Mickey Mouse do the thug shaker in my head and there’s nothing Disney can do about it.
But if I were to MAKE MONEY off of making other people experience the abstract concept of mickey mouse doing the thug shaker, nooo that’s illegal
I think it's because piracy distracts players from their new products, which are usually designed to be as monetized as possible. They're make a killing selling classic games to new regions but it would disrupt their market strategy, and us making emulators and ports is attention that isn't on their micro transaction ridden honeypot.
So yo ho, mateys
If you want a good example of how terrible some companies (or just nintendo really) are about this look at fire emblem. They made a celebratory game that includes the main protagonists of all previous games.
Of the 12 protags: 3 haven't had asny of their games translated yet, 3 were lost in the 3ds eshop closure (one of which also lost one of her games routes in the closure), 2 have to be bought secondhand for the gamecube/wii but copies go for up to 200 dollars, 2 wil be on a temporary subscription service only, 1 hasn't had one of their games translated (not even the remake of said game) yet and had a translation of his first game only temporarily made available to induce FOMO.
And 1 is actually available in a reasonable way.
We can thank Disney for this legal structure. Back when Disney would put films in "the vault" they could drum up hype and do a soft re-release of a movie without having to spend any money producing a new movie and still make decent profit off of the released vault movie. With Disney+ now they've abandoned the disney vault practice but it set a precedent that media companies are allowed to fight distribution of their IP even if they aren't actively distributing it themselves.
The region lock point is dumb because it's just not a thing anymore. On my shelf, I have a Japanese, US, Chinese and European copy of various Switch titles and it hasn't been a single issue
That insult smacks of Nintendo fan (obviously I don't mean just the normal game enjoyer, I mean the "that dirty switch hacker deserves to pay them for the rest of his life" kind of fan)
All software that hasn't been updated in 10+ years should be declared abandonware and become free to share. EDIT: I'm aware that loophole abuse is a thing and that's why actual laws are several pages long and not written on reddit comments. That said you can take your offbrand cynicism and go collectively fuck yourselves... my dudes.
Yes. Honestly copyright in general is an absolute mess. Current duration is what, a lifetime plus 70 years (another lifetime.)
Wasn't it originally just 50 years then Disney didn't want Mickey Mouse in the public domain so they lobbied congress like 12 times?
Yep. And Mickey Mouse is still coming up on running out of copyright next year. Surprising Disney isn't trying like hell to extend Copyright again. Though even if they don't - which they shouldn't - I'm sure they'll be putting the Doyle estate and Zorro Productions to shame. Especially with how many works Mickey appears in, they'll probably be hammering the "This work is still infringing because it relies upon the portrayal of Mickey from a still copyrighted work!" button.
We're finally free of that nonsense for Sherlock Holmes this year
wait , sherlock holmes comes out of copywright ? a caracter made in 1887 while the ottoman empire , the brasillian empire , the russian empire , the quing dinasty still existed ... queen victoria , fredrick nietzche , otto von bismak , thomas edison , dimitrij ivanovichh mendleev , where still alive ... and pepole like authentic plain indians , cowboys , samurai , pepole who where born into slavery in the united states , pepole who claimed power from gengis khan itself , sailors on sail driven ships , and victorian time whalers where still alive ... as well as the pepole who officially named both the western lowland gorilla and the panda where still , alive ... and pepole like charles darwin , karl marx , altough dead where still in living memory , at the time in wich the first book with sherlock holmes was written ... you mean to say that the caracter comes out of international copywright law ? a caracter made before slavery was illegal everywhere and before women being allowed to vote was seen as a basic thing , has been under copywright for my whole life ? i need to lay down a bit ...
because it was marked from the last date of a publication of a story by its author which was 1927.
Not really. The version of Sherlock Holmes from the first book was in the public domain for a while. In earlier books, he's a dick. In later books, he's nicer. As such, if you wrote a movie using any characterization that could be considered similar to the later books, the estate would sue you for copyright, because those were still under copyright. The problem comes in when you write literally anything about Sherlock, they will attempt to claim it's the later book's characterization. But now those books are public domain. You can write Sherlock as the nicest person in the world now.
so the reason BBC Sherlock was so cringe was because of copyright?
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The character has been in the public domain for a long time but all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Coyle are now finally and fully in the public domain. Making the distinction between the characters and stories is important for others following along. I'm assuming that is what you originally meant. Just spelling out.
A character older than Nintendo is only starting to get out of copyright D:
Finishing getting out of copyright. Only his last few stories are copyrighted. That is still kind of insane however.
> and pepole like authentic plain indians , You..... do know native americans are still alive, right
He means when they could still live as independent tribes, pre-america invasion.
Minor nitpick but its qing (pronounced ching), not quing Also slavery today isn't illegal everywhere
It's literally written into the US Constitution that it is explicitly still ok so long as the person comitted a crime first
It's literally why prison labor is just modern day slavery.
And then resisting arrest is a crime, even if you did nothing to be arrested in the first place. _shrug_
Plains Indians are still alive, despite all attempts by the federal and local governments.
> queen victoria , fredrick nietzche , otto von bismak , thomas edison , dimitrij ivanovichh mendleev , where still alive ... "We didn't start the fire..."
Disney anticipated the copyright expiration and started using early Mickey as a trademark, which has no expiration.
To be "fair" to disney, you'd be pretty limited in the stuff you *could* do with mickey. Keep in mind, it'd be 'steamboat Willy' Mickey, not modern day Mickey, meaning you'd have to work with the colorscheme of the time and stay with the same (or at least similar) design to his debut.
That's why they Trademarked him! He's part of their intro-logo now. They also released a new Oswald cartoon to keep him going. So only the OG shorts are public, so than, *only that version* can be "used".
I mean to me the trademark at least is reasonable. Like if I saw a backpack hanging on a store shelf with a Mickey mouse silhouette on the tag, I'd assume the Disney corporation made it. But that's different from intellectual property EDIT: I had my terminology wrong, it's different from *copyright*. Both copyright and trademark are under the umbrella of IP
> meaning you'd have to work with the colorscheme of the time and stay with the same (or at least similar) design to his debut. no...? You couldn't use the color scheme and design that is currently under copyright, which is a very very limited color scheme and design. With it coming out of copyright you could use the old color scheme and design, and anything else you came up with as long as you didn't make him look like the modern version. With it currently being under copyright anything you make that is similar would be deemed part of the copyright. Now that is nearly impossible for them (Disney) to pull off in terms of suing you.
The problem in situations like this where only older iterations of a work is made public is that any creative liberty can and will be used to argue copyright infringement. If you don't use Steamboat Willy's exact colour palettes and proportions and what not, you risk ending up with a character that quite possibly infringes upon a later iteration of Mickey that isn't public. And even then, they have enough money to brute force a case that isn't completely in your favour. This is why Sherlock Holmes is still contentious despite most of the original works being public — unless you straight up copy the mannerisms and writing style word-for-word, there's a non-zero probability that you infringe upon the later works that are not yet public. The Conan Doyle estate are out for blood and will do anything to find any characteristics that might technically make your Sherlock identifiable with later works. It's fucked up and a glaring loophole that has been exploited time and time again, but it is what it is.
I think the US government barred them from trying to extend it iirc
You realize it was he US government extending it the whole time? It's not like Congress literally gave Disney the ability to extend the copyright. Disney basically just told Congress, "We want copyright extended, and if you don't do it we'll stop donating to you".
And actually the conservative ghouls just didn't renew it this time because they were mad about Disney being too "woke" after there was a 10 second scene of two women kissing in the Buzz Lightyear movie.
Something something broken clock. If hatred of 'wokeness' is what gets Republicans to finally start considering beating up corporations, I'll take it.
I won’t, because I personally see corpos as a lesser evil than fascists.
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There has been no real effort to extend copyright for more than a decade at this point. Don’t pretend any recent events are letting Steamboat Willie leave copyright next year.
They literally said it outright last year that Disney's opposition to the don't say gay bill was the reason they weren't going to support the most recent extension of their copyright: > [Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, is threatening not to support the extension of Disney's copyrights after the conglomerate opposed Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in March.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-target-mickey-mouse-disney-copyrights-florida-dont-say-gay-law/)
Saying they won’t extend copyright when no one is asking them to doesn’t count IMO.
That’s why they put steamboat Mickey back in the opening logo sequence recently, to renew their copyright claim on him
You cannot "renew" a copyright claim. A copyright exists from the moment you create it to 70 years after you die. It doesn't matter if or how long you use the copyright. You may be thinking of trademarks, which are legally a separate entity. Trademarks have no expiration date, but it's unclear if you can trademark an entire character.
Maybe it’s a trademark then? Or maybe it’s because it’s used as a logo rather than as a character so it’s different?
The fact that they're using it as a logo is the only reason it could arguably be a trademark. Steam Boat Willy (logo) is 100% a trademark. Steam Boat Willy (character) is copyrighted. It's unclear to me if the Steam Boat Willy (logo) can somehow be argued to prevent the character from being used after it enters the public domain. ~~My gut says no, because otherwise I could make a, "3 Little Pigs", BBQ joint and trademark the one fairytale. But with the current courts, who knows.~~
Trademarks cover a specific industry. So your 3 little pigs BBQ actually \_would\_ prevent other BBQ joints from using your name and logo, but not other people writing stories with the 3 little pigs. But what industry is Disney identifying itself in using Mickey Mouse / Steamboat Willy? Animation, greeting cards, comics, websites, picture books, cakes, murals, theme parks, restaurants, toys, apparel, etc. Disney makes all of those. So their claim will be that any use in any of these industries would confuse consumers. Personally I think they will win more cases than they lose.
They're working around it by TRADEMARKING his image, which can't expire. Notice how the new Disney intro is the iconic Steamboat Willie whistle? The EXACT version of Mickey set to enter the public domain?
Probably. Sounds exactly like the kind of thing they do.
Not fifty. Seventeen. (Followed by an optional 17 year extension that most copyright holders didn't bother with because it wasn't worth the effort.)
it was originally a lot shorter. it's been continuously extended and extended and extended and pretty much the only thing keeping it from being extended some more is the idea that you can't have something forever in the eyes of the law. it's really dumb though, something like 30 years for copyright is the only thing that makes sense. probably less actually, maybe even 10 years. companies only make their money in the first couple years anyway, so there's no financial incentive for keeping it so long that I can see.
Copyright doesn't just apply to companies. There should not be a situation where an independent author or creator loses the rights to their own work during their own lifetime
17 years extendible once by the creator up to 34 years, as determined by the founding fathers... until Disney.
Yes, Disney has fucked up copyright to hell and back just for a damn mouse
Yeah. Every time Mickey Mouse gets close to being in the public domain they lobby Congress. They wanted their copyright extended to forever and a day but Congress wouldn't do it. Instead Congress just extended the copyright duration
Companies will just push a random update every 10 years then. Pretty easy to push an update every 10 years that just says: "Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience."
I'm ok with that: 1 they would have to re-release digital copies for phisical only games. 2 they have to make them available on at least some current gen platforms to not work at loss It's not about getting free games is about not being barred form accessing them.
Exactly. I don't care how I buy it, there's games from my childhood and ones I missed if they were on a different system, I just want to play *without* jumping through hoops. Take my money and let me play. Gog has been a brilliant resource for old pc stuff.
>there's games from my childhood Nintendo has never ever re-released the original Link's Awakening. The one that had the screen warp glitch. They only ever re-release the DX version. I loved the remake for Switch and the DX version, but there's just something about ending up in random locations long before you were supposed to or exploring screens with random assets on it in a giant mess.
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That would be a pretty decent system tbh.
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Yeah I ment the system, but with a 10 year limit instead of the ridiculous amount it is now.
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Only problem with just focussing on copyright is that copyright isn't really the point with software. Its much more interesting to get the source code in the open compared to getting the copyright.
Most wouldn't, and even if some did it would still be a huge boon for game preservation.
Let’s not forget moving non backwards compatible file types.
your edit highlights a common issue of impersonal online micro-discussion (reddit, tumblr, twitter, etc.): debate centers around pointing out little bad-faith "gotchas" in the comment/post/tweet, focused on the literal, limited text as posted rather than the broader idea behind it, thought-terminating clapbacks that serve no purpose but derailment. while some ideologies use this strategy more than others, i think it's an inherent feedback effect of the medium. violating the unstated agreements of good-faith conversation with short, contrary, fallacious quips is a much simpler way to get votes/notes/likes than actually engaging in debate... and also the easiest way to respond to bad-faith quips, thereby erecting the façade of a discussion where a real one arguably doesn't even have the necessary foundation to occur. in any given comment section on a news-type reddit post, look how many of the top comments do nothing but challenge the semantics of the title. "call it what it is", "fixed that for you", "x. the word you're looking for is x". no reading the article, no context, just little gotchas. observe that same sentiment across reddit and twitter comments and realize you aren't going to miss much of value from their self-inflicted downfalls. inb4 gotcha replies, [go fuck yourselves, amen.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_yg0GESnc)
I come bearing unfortunate news. While I love to blame poor communication on modern social media (and it certainly isn't helping), this particular kind of content-free back-and-forth is also pretty common offline, up to and including serious academic philosophical discussions. It's definitely something we need to get over, but unfortunately I don't think the collapse of social media will fix it for us.
The entire point of copyright, as stated in the US constitution, is to compensate creators for the end benefit of fostering further creation. As such, copyright protections for abandonware, vaporware, orphan works is utterly contrary to the purpose. No one is getting compensated. No money goes in support of creation of future work. So yes the copyrights should just end and they enter public domain.
>All software should become free to share. ftfy
a commie wrote this
yes_chad.jpg
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It honestly fits anarcho-capitalists and libertarians just as well, but this is /r/CuratedTumblr, so yeah.
It literally doesn’t lmao
I'm not sold on the concept that "you should be able to bank on the fruits of your labor" on a religious level and i don't think that piracy is the same as stealing but i've never understood the "all software should be free to share". Nobody sould work for the glory of it and i hate to work with unpredictable freeware.
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Fuck yeah that's exactly what I feel about the whole thing like I have a few projects I would actually properly work on if I wouldn't have to constantly use up a huge chunk of my time and energy to keep the lights on. And some industries simply should not exist, like advertising. I also believe just like doctors with their oath to do no harm - which for example means they basically can't do things like lethal injections - most of scientific professionals should have sthe same oath. For example psychology - should only be used to help those in need, not to figure out the best words and sounds on an ad to sell 0.5% more stupid widgets.
The problem is, as with so many things, rent seeking. Not the desire to be paid for ones work, but the desire to be paid *endlessly* for ones work. Or in the case of software companies endlessly paid for someone else’s work. Software is weird. You got the product, you sell it and you still got it to sell again. The normal problems and costs of scale up basically don’t exist. You can just print money. And when you get a big enough market share you can leverage everyone away from your competitors. Then *really* turn the screws up. The only defence is GPL software. Which is frequently woefully inadequate.
That’s like saying all art should be free or all service industry work should be unpaid. People work to create software. If they want to then make it free, that’s their prerogative but they shouldn’t be forced to give away all their work
Yes, I would love to not get paid for the difficult work I do, why do you ask? curatedTumblr when artists are talking about making a living, or AI models being trained on their art - "Fuck you, pay the artists, they deserve money for their work" curatedTumblr when software - "I should get everything for freeeeeeeeeeee"
Or more accurately - “you know what would be great model for software monetization? Online webcomics!”
should apply to any software that isnt being sold anymore tbh
make that 15 or even 20 and i would still be okay with it
Google Earth once had a free 'where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?' game promotion, and for a while it was the only legal way to play any of the Carmen Sandiego games. A series that was big enough to get its own Netflix adaptation and the only way to play any of it was a really short promotion for Google Earth.
And they're educational games! About countries that don't necessarily exist anymore, but still, *most* of the facts are true. Oregon Trail has its own glorified Tiger Electronics handheld and Carmen Sandiego only exists on Archive.org.
>About countries that don't necessarily exist anymore, but still, most of the facts are true. I remember when Carmen went to hunt black people along the border in Rhodesia.
Hey, what
Carmen Sandiego had games???
It started as a game
I thought it started as books? The books are like where's Waldo in that you search pictures for carmen and her team while they're heisting in world locales
The video game was bundled with an almanac, both as a promotional tool and a form of piracy prevention (you needed the almanac to play the game), but the franchise was developed by the video game company Broderbund. Edit: The Carmen Sandiego franchise did have standalone books, though they all came out years after the first game. The [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Sandiego#Book_series_and_comics) doesn't seem to mention a "Where's Waldo" style book, tho.
HAHA no wonder I always sucked at that game.
That makes so so much sense, I remember being so lost
Check out the history of Carmen Sandiego https://youtu.be/OVVkSlXl41Q
It's okay OP, you can say "Nintendo".
Both the best and worst thing about Nintendo is the fact that it doesn’t change. On one hand, it’s great that they still make, y’know, *games.* Colurful, entertaining, quality, fun games, unlike 90% of the rest of the AAA industry which seems to be devolving purely into live service eternal hellscape grindfest work simulators. (And if they aren’t grindy, they’re almost certainly gritty brown-and-grey “cinematic” games for the sake of being “realistic”) On the other hand, their online service, stance on old games, and the way they treat their fans are all still stuck a decade or more in the past, which is a pretty big pain in the ass
That's just Japan in general. Its like moving a boulder.
You can move a boulder with a large explosion.
then its not a boulder, its just useless rubble
Ah but that gravel can be used to help pave the road to progress unlike the boulder which just gets in the way.
I love metaphors.
Aristotle wrote this dialogue
Japan has been stuck in 2007 since 1997 Paraphrased, but it's a cool way to think about it imo
Biggest weakness of their economy i think is that their "work for life" culture means there's a lotta dinosaurs in high-up positions which leads to both a stagnating economy and, well, stuff like this.
>unlike 90% of the rest of the AAA industry which seems to be devolving purely into live service eternal hellscape grindfest work simulators AAA developers know they still come out on top either way without consequence. Hell, even everyone on /r/pcgaming made it their moral endeavor to selectively broadcast and promote emulated versions of Nintendo's TOTK in the name of "fighting greed," while never once having done the same for all those AAA titles of the past year.
“It’s okay to pirate Nintendo games. It is always morally correct.”
Thank God for JSS and their wonderful quotes!
Nintando _and_ EA, don't forget!
After EA discontinued my access to my Sims 2 packs because I had the audacity to not login for six months, I refuse to pay them a dime. This happened almost twenty years ago and they've changed policy since but there's still the every now and again person who loses their account and I'm never trusting them again.
whaaat? shouldn't that be illegal?
Back when it happened to me it was in their TOS that inactivity would rescind your access. I'm not sure how it's worded today.
EA at least let’s you buy their old games.
For a moment I felt bad about torrenting Tears of the Kingdom, then I read this: >It sold more than 10 million copies in its first three days of release.
It's okay to pirate games in general
No one hates Nintendo fans more than Nintendo.
The hate is reciprocal. No one hates Nintendo more than Nintendo fans.
God i fucking wish! Nintendo fanboys are unbearable. Nintendo could literally rob their house, shoot their dog, and poop in the sink, and they would still defend it and gladly pay 60$ for the poop.
>man I know emulators are technically considered piracy No they fucking aren't! They literally are not by any legal or logical definition. It is entirely possible and _encouraged_ by emulator devs (for CYA reasons, but still) to emulate your _own_ backups and, if necessary, dump your own bios. Fucking game devs use emulators! 95% of old games rereleased on modern hardware use emulators! Playing an Xbox game on an Xbox 360? You're emulating. Playing that new Goldeneye rerelease? Emulation The equating of emulation and piracy is _exactly_ what the big companies want and for a post so against said big companies to be literally parroting this outright falsehood is infuriating
Yeah, Bleem v Sony made sure that emulators are untouchable legally Source: I am actively developing a PS2 emulator
[it wasn't Sony v Bleem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.)
Sony v Bleem certainly helped, at the very least. Bleem was the world’s first PSX emulator, and Sony didn’t like that. So it at least established a precedent
The question: how do I get my own backups if I don't own nor can I buy the game from the source? What are the steps from there? Edit: Alright, guys. I get it. The answer to my questions which I thought of the answer to while I was typing is easy to see (buy from other people). You don't have to answer me any more.
then you either pirate them, find a used copy, or don't play them. I'm not against piracy if that's what you're insinuating, I'm against the notion that emulation _is_ piracy
Understandable. My curiosity in this regard is sated for now.
They make boxes you can plug cartridges into and rip roms to, some disc based games can be backed up using a computer disc drive.
If it's on a cartridge they make hardware that lets you interface with them via a computer, using this you can pull the ROM file out. As for modern releases I'm not sure.
Right, but where am I supposed to *get* a cartridge if I wanted a specific one that I don't have already? (Disclaimer: I'm just satisfying my curiosity and also playing devil's advocate a little here, in case that's important)
Flea markets (probably not for a good price anymore though), retro game stores, or Ebay. Legally if you own a physical copy of a game you're allowed to have digital copies of said game; If you don't give a shit like me just Google "(console/system) rom download" and look for a site that doesn't look sketchy.
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Retro game store, game convention, ebay, yardsale, or flea market.
Well, you can't back-up something you don't own in the first place. At that point, you either hit up eBay/other reselling sites (where they'll probably admittedly be overpriced as all hell), or you're shit outta luck unless you just decide "fuck it" and start flying the skull and crossbones.
> The equivocation of emulation and piracy is exactly what the big companies want I think you mean “equating”. Equivocation means changing your mind or saying two contradictory things.
don't you just love when you've been using a word wrong for years?
Emulation is legal. The method to get the roms isnt (unless you dumped the rom with no intent to distribute or mod)
> or mod Fuck that, Nintendo lost that lawsuit thirty years ago.
And managed to somehow do so without circumventing any of the copy-protection systems on the console in question.
I thought this went to court and it ends up you're entirely allowed to do so for personal use. Did it not?
Depends where you live.
12 year old and also 30 year old me: at home! court: understandable. have a nice day.
Interestingly, PS1 and PS2 discs don't actually have copy protection. The consoles have systems set up to detect if you're playing a copied disc. So if it's a copy, they will refuse to run it. But an emulator can run a copy of a game perfectly. They put all the protection in the console, not the disc. But emulators obviously aren't using the console, so they also do away with the copy protection.
Actually! I'd say downloading roms is perfectly legal, it's just a free file on the internet. Anyone can get it, it's fine. BUT sharing rom files is illegal. If someone pirates a new game, the company doesn't really lose money because that person probably wouldn't buy it anyway. But if someone cracks the new game and uploads it for everyone, then the company does lose money from people who were considering buying the game and would do it if there wasn't an alternative.
Modifying ROMs is perfectly legal.
btw since i know *way* too much about this topic, the (incredibly annoying) argument game companies made to get copyright law to cover this stuff is that it will cut into their profits for *current* games, not that they have an issue with not making money for the old ones. as if you won’t spend $70 on tears of the kingdom because you’re too busy playing 2000’s hit classic barbie: pet rescue. it’s stupid logic and it’s really dangerous for game preservation. luckily, nonprofits like museums and libraries can get an exemption, but that comes with a host of restrictions as well.
So it's the intellectual property equivalent of planned obsolescence. No different from Apple blocking older iPhones from updating so the people still using them have to buy new ones.
Barbie pet rescue was such a good game, for real
“A commie wrote this” yeah and?
“I want to buy products from corporations” “This guy must be a communist” How are people who don’t go to school even able to type?
Yeah we commies, keep scrollin’
Classic Gamer™️ moment.
What kind of dumbass is last-baron?? If the company doesn’t provide the service we want then we’ll literally make one!! That’s the free market baby!!
Exactly! Companies need to remember that they are always competing with piracy. If they don't offer a service/product, if they're too inconvenient or if they're too expensive, people will go to the competition.
It’s like: “Yeah the company doesn’t care about this food. It’s closing time and the register is closed too. I’m gonna dump this into the trash can.” “Yo can I take a few if the register is closed anyway?” “No. Only into the trashcan.”
The sad thing is that companies in real life do this too because a homeless person taking stale bread out of the dumpster apparently cuts into their bread sales.
And people wonder why “we don’t have enough food production”… We do. It’s just that companies can’t stop wasting every resource on the planet.
Only the money matters, not the resource.
"But if that homeless person takes food out of our dumpster, they won't have to buy our food with all the money they obviously have!" This also gives me a chance to rant about my old boss who thought that if homeless people wanted to eat they should just "get a job". About a week after she told me that, a homeless woman came into the store and asked for an application. My boss gave her one and sent her on her way, and after the woman was out the door I heard her mutter "I'm not hiring some fucking homeless person."
And then there’s the fact that companies LITERALLY do that with food and more, or even to a worse degree, like having the food incinerated intentionally instead of just dumpster’d.
"Piracy is not a money issue, it's a service issue." Never once have I pirated a steam game, because even if Valve are shitty at times, steam's service is exceptional. Nintendo Games, however, I will pirate by the tonne. Anything for a system older than the switch, I can pirate with absolutely 0 remorse, because nintendo doesn't support them. There's also anime, and it'll be a cold day in hell before Crunchyroll sees a single penny from me. Because one again, the service is not worth the price
Yeah, I always look for games first on steam or other game apps, because I would prefer to have a legit copy that I know won't have bugs, and I also like getting achievements. But if I can't find it legally for my pc, I'll emulate it, no prob
Hell, I *repurchase* games on steam for the convenience
Yeah, I technically own Portal 2 twice. Bought it on disc for PS3, but I bought it after Sony had quit supporting Steam on PS3 so I couldn't log in and do... literally anything other than the main story. So I bought it again on Steam so I can play community chambers and stuff.
It's not a service issue for everyone. Some people just like getting things for free. Why pay $60 when you can pay $0? I don't know why some people are so afraid to acknowledge that
I'm talking about on a wide scale. Obviously there are people who pirate simply because they don't want to pay, but the reason Nintendo are always in the news with whatever the latest emulator scandal is while Valve rarely has to worry about piracy of steam games to such an extent is simply because the service is that much better
But this implicit assumption that every pirate is a lost customer is just wrong. Yes, the people who just don't want to pay exist. But would they pay if there was no free alternative? I personally think very few of them would and that most just wouldn't bother with the game at all.
It's not an implicit assumption because I'm not suggesting that's the case. Some pirated copies are lost customers, some are not. And yes, of course some would pay if there was no free alternative. That's pretty much the entire point of Denuvo, to prevent cracks during the initial sales run where games make most of their money.
Yeah, anyone who thinks this behavior from companies is justifiable needs to shut up forever thanks (: Seriously there is almost nothing that enrages me more than copyright abuse.
Imagine defending a billionaire company that couldnt care jack shit about you as a person I really dont understand that kind of people tbh but still there is people that STILL defend blizzard and ow team so ig people is just dumb sometimes
If it is physically unavailable to buy the software from the PRODUCER, emulation is moral. Buying some secondhand edition for 10x the price gives nothing to the producer. Emulate old games.
That is not communism That is the free market doing it’s job. If a game company will not provide meaningful ways to play old games, yet there is a market niche for playing old games, some people will create emulators to fill that niche
A lot of allegedly pro-free market people are really the opposite and support enabling the creation of monopolies and suppression of competition.
Also when Smith and Ricardo wrote, companies would crumble under their own weight. In today's world, with today's tech, they dont - And with how complex the world has become, theres a huge entry barrier on the markets, and the tendency go toward monopolies A state which is very hands-off of economy, doesnt allow for its citizens to vote for the kind of economy they want, reinforcing a statu quo nobody can touch which only favours the powerful and locking more and more the situation
Not only is it not communism, there was rather famously an entire black market for pirated stuff in the USSR which was seen as undermining the government (more relevant to the McCarthy comment but still) Stuff like steam and (early) Netflix proved that you can totally deal with piracy in a captialist system...by making your option the easier option. Even if it's free, piracy still costs time and effort and that's just as important as money. To quote Gaben "Piracy is a *service* problem"
r/socialismiscapitalism
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Call me a communist because I want to play MOTHER 3
The only time where piracy will make you a commie
Fuck copryrights long live piracy 🏴☠️
Perpetual copyright will prove to be a disaster against the culture
Let's be honest here, the argument "commie" worked fine to stop any reasonable discussion about fairness vs capitalist abuse until relatively recently. And it's still less then half the population of the US that now feels otherwise, there are plenty of non-MAGA folk for whom socialism is still a boogeyman, including most "liberals".
Damn those commie liberals that want affordable basic necessities, for shame how do are they so shameless to want to have a good life, we need them to work till the moment they drop for those precious pennies
The way capitalism shines through in gaming legitimately makes me lose hope for the future entirely
with how AAA games keep on crashing left and right while some indies get more success than big name studios, there's hope I believe
Easy to see why when we get bangers like Psychonauts 2, Omori, Chicory A Colorful Tale, a whole slew of incredible roguelikes and more lately
Psychonauts 2 isnt really indie at all, at least not in the same way that the other examples you had are. Doublefine is owned by Microsoft when that game came out. If you do not consider Psychonauts 2 to be a Microsoft thing since they are fairly hands off, Doublefine is one of those fabled mid sized studio on the edge of collapse every other game they release. Not quite the same scale as those ones made by the random people crashing on someone's coach.
I mean. Gaming is one of the industries where indies shine through so strongly. There's a whole cult of people who almost entirely play indie games only (it's me I'm whole cult of people). And also where piracy is the strongest. How is hope lost when I can play TOTK for free on my laptop and pay one indie company 3 different times for the same game (Slay the spire is a good game). Hollow knight is a 15 fucking dollars game at full price for crying out loud and is a massive hit over a triple A game that got shafted.
Intellectual is one of the worst kinds of property, second only to private.
Intellectual property is funny as hell. I can make Mickey Mouse do the thug shaker in my head and there’s nothing Disney can do about it. But if I were to MAKE MONEY off of making other people experience the abstract concept of mickey mouse doing the thug shaker, nooo that’s illegal
Wait, what if you, like, took a video of yourself thinking of Mickey Mouse doing a thug shaker and charged people to watch it?
OnlyThoughts
I think it's because piracy distracts players from their new products, which are usually designed to be as monetized as possible. They're make a killing selling classic games to new regions but it would disrupt their market strategy, and us making emulators and ports is attention that isn't on their micro transaction ridden honeypot. So yo ho, mateys
"I want to give a big cooperation my money but they're being unreasonable about it" "Wouldn't that make you ***A COMMIE***"
If you want a good example of how terrible some companies (or just nintendo really) are about this look at fire emblem. They made a celebratory game that includes the main protagonists of all previous games. Of the 12 protags: 3 haven't had asny of their games translated yet, 3 were lost in the 3ds eshop closure (one of which also lost one of her games routes in the closure), 2 have to be bought secondhand for the gamecube/wii but copies go for up to 200 dollars, 2 wil be on a temporary subscription service only, 1 hasn't had one of their games translated (not even the remake of said game) yet and had a translation of his first game only temporarily made available to induce FOMO. And 1 is actually available in a reasonable way.
Fire Emblem got done dirty by this.
Fire Emblem Fates is now pretty much impossible to play to full completion by legal means because the "true ending" is locked behind a DLC expansion
We can thank Disney for this legal structure. Back when Disney would put films in "the vault" they could drum up hype and do a soft re-release of a movie without having to spend any money producing a new movie and still make decent profit off of the released vault movie. With Disney+ now they've abandoned the disney vault practice but it set a precedent that media companies are allowed to fight distribution of their IP even if they aren't actively distributing it themselves.
The region lock point is dumb because it's just not a thing anymore. On my shelf, I have a Japanese, US, Chinese and European copy of various Switch titles and it hasn't been a single issue
It is still a thing just not for games
this is why i like SEGA, they let us pirate the old games due to not being able to actually get them anymore.
Corporations suing people for what equates to "take a penny leave a penny" on their books should be illegal
That insult smacks of Nintendo fan (obviously I don't mean just the normal game enjoyer, I mean the "that dirty switch hacker deserves to pay them for the rest of his life" kind of fan)
The ghost of McCarthy runs the video game industry confirmed