Quote from: PseudoephedrineYour example has almost nothing to do with how interactions for money actually occur. It's a toy example.

Really?  I just had two garage sales over the last month.  It worked almost exactly like that. The rest of commerce, particularly at the consumer end, is based on the implied functioning of that transaction.

And I'd love to hear how people in the developing world don't follow this model.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineActually, that is better phrased, though it's still got some glaring holes in it. For example, why is sharing someone else's work bad? Remember, I don't think intellectual property is a legitimate idea, so you're not going to get very far making a case that relies on it.

I do not have the time to go into my moral set and what I determine is right and wrong so this is the quick version. I believe evil is fundamentally enforcing your will over that of another. A creation, like a book, is an expression of Will. You create because you wish to. What happens to it should be yours to control. If that means I give it to everyone in the world, no problem. If you give it to everyone in the world against my will, morally reprehensible.

That is about as clear as it gets. I made a thing. I put my time, creativitiy, money and will into it. How it is distributed should be up to me as well.

Note: If I put it up on a FSN then fine. No foul.

Bill

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI have in fact posted chunks of it for free on the internet even as we speak, and hope to eventually do so with the rest. So yeah, anyone who wanted to could read it for free.

Sorry Jim, but you're just not going to somehow find me a hypocrite on this one.

Posting "chunks" on the Internet and telling everyone before they buy it they can have it for free because you don't beleive in IP are two very different things.

Like I said - when you finish, post it all for free on the Internet and don't take a penny.  If anyone offers, politely thank them but insist they make sure they understand they are not paying for the material as they can have that for free. You will, at least, be consistent with your own beliefs.

And the best part is it doesn't change the underpinnings of my transactional argument one bit.  In fact the strength of it is that it lets the owner, the person who created something, take part in the determination of what it's worth.

Quote from: J ArcaneWhich just shows how little you know then, because the philosophical underpinnings of open source software and the creative commons have their direct origins in the hacker ethic.

I think you're still missing what I'm saying, or the issue is getting so muddy that I don't even know what I'm answering anymore.  I'm talking about the creative commons and OGL as it applies to RPGs not software.  I understand that.  Again, it's the piracy _advocates_ I'm singling out--they seem to produce little, but think it's OK to take what others have produced.  That's not a stereotype, that's what I see.   How many publishers or authors on this thread are selling their work AND advocating piracy?  How many people on this thread have contributed something to the creative commons license?  Are they the same people advocating piracy?   IIRC Wushu has a creative commons license attached to it, but the designer still sells an expanded version of that game.  You don't see him advocating piracy, and if he was advocating piracy just by contributing to creative commons, why would he bother to sell his game?  

I think you might be taking offense thinking that I'm holding myself above those who have not been published.  I'm not, not at all.  I'm just saying it's tough to create something publishable, then tough to get published, and even tougher to sell your work and get a good return on it.  The whole process tends to color your views towards those who just take it selfishly, with no real thought to the time, effort, and money you put into it.  I just don't see how you can go through that whole process and still advocate piracy (unless you're doing it to prove a point).  

Pete

I'm not taking offense.  I'm just saying you don't know what you're talking about.

Quote from: J ArcaneI'm not taking offense.  I'm just saying you don't know what you're talking about.

OK, that's fair enough.

Pete

A lot of the debate that has been going on in these last few pages is really the height of irrelevance; its an intellectual argument about whether or not its right that its raining outside.

The fact of the matter is, its gonna rain. There's nothing to be done about that, and wasting time bitching about it seems unproductive.

Whether its "moral" or not, whether its "Legal" or not, filesharing is a reality. And its not going to go away.  

So the far more interesting question is what can small publishers do to deal with filesharing, and maybe even use it to their advantage?

RPGPundit

Hmm, some publishers could probably benefit from the ShareWare principle. There are some people who publish non-crippled versions of their own software, most of them even without nagging reminders. And they still get paid. I'd say that this could also work with gamers.
Most likely, it already works this way for some customers, as they buy the product they've obtained illegaly before...

Print publishers obviously couldn't offer that

Quote from: RPGPunditA lot of the debate that has been going on in these last few pages is really the height of irrelevance; its an intellectual argument about whether or not its right that its raining outside.

The fact of the matter is, its gonna rain. There's nothing to be done about that, and wasting time bitching about it seems unproductive.

Whether its "moral" or not, whether its "Legal" or not, filesharing is a reality. And its not going to go away.  

So the far more interesting question is what can small publishers do to deal with filesharing, and maybe even use it to their advantage?

RPGPundit

The smart publisher "plans for the worst and hopes for the best". If you do not have a plan in place to deal with file sharing and piracy, well, you are not in step with the current market. I often see publishers turn a blind eye to this and not use it to their advantage. Sad things indeed.

Bill

Quote from: SosthenesHmm, some publishers could probably benefit from the ShareWare principle. There are some people who publish non-crippled versions of their own software, most of them even without nagging reminders. And they still get paid. I'd say that this could also work with gamers.
Most likely, it already works this way for some customers, as they buy the product they've obtained illegaly before...

Print publishers obviously couldn't offer that

I think that would not work on the surface of it without some planning. That is the key. Not to just put your work up on FSN but to use it.

Bill

Quote from: RPGPunditSo the far more interesting question is what can small publishers do to deal with filesharing, and maybe even use it to their advantage?

Agreed with everything you said, but especially the above.  I'd really like to know what motivates someone to pirate and what motivates them to buy.  I'm talking to the people who do both, not just people who would pirate everything if it was available.  

I had asked for comments on the last 5 RPGs someone purchased and the last 5 RPG someone pirated--what made them go one way or the other.  No one's responded, yet, though.  I wish there was some way to comment anonymously, because I think more people would speak up and the answers would be really interesting.  

Pete

Quote from: SosthenesPrint publishers obviously couldn't offer that

I've been working on a major revision to my Dreamwalker d20 setting.  I'm thinking of including added content in the print version as an incentive to buy it.  We'll see.

Pete

Quote from: pspahnI've been working on a major revision to my Dreamwalker d20 setting.  I'm thinking of including added content in the print version as an incentive to buy it.  We'll see.

Sounds like what S. John Ross is doing with Encounter Critical (and Risus, to a lesser degree).

Quote from: HinterWeltPlease, not the semantic argument.[...]

Any of those are better arguments than "you are using the wrong word".

I will try it another way with out using that word.

I'm not sure why you have to use the word "stealing", since we have a perfectly good bunch of words which describe the actual thing: copyright, violation, and so on.

Suitable words
Intellectual property rights - whether copyright or patent (I set aside trademarks as they're different in nature) - are quite simply the right to make use of your own original creations, and to have them made use of as you see fit. Calling it "stealing" confuses with physical property, which it's not. It's like confusing, say, the right to free worship with the right to free speech. These things have some overlap (worship is a kind of speech, intellectual property will sometimes help you acquire physical property with the profits), but are actually different and distinct.

It's true that intellectual property rights are not as widely-understood as physical property rights, or as widely-respected. So it's tempting to just call it "property" and "stealing" to bring it to a level which we know people can easily understand. But then we confuse the issue, just as we would if we (say) tried to describe freedom of worship in freedom of speech terms.

Intellectual property is not physical property. Whatever your silly American law says, intellectual property cannot be stolen, only used improperly and without permission. A precision in language helps us understand things; mixing up different concepts helps us be confused, and throw around emotive and misleading language.


Why do we have intellectual property laws?
The purpose of intellectual property laws is to encourage people to produce things which benefit humanity (patents for inventions, copyright for writing and images which entertain and inform). We do that by a combination of protecting the use and distribution of those creations, and by not protecting them.

We have with intellectual property two basic issues. The first issue is that it's only fair that if you create something, you should have some control over how it's used; this includes only incidentally the right to make a profit from it - it's only incidental because the vast majority of intellectual property never makes any profit at all. The second issue is that we want all humanity to be able to benefit from people's ideas.

The first issue gives us intellectual property laws, protecting a creator's rights. The second issue puts a limit to those laws, so that patents expire after 15 years, copyright 75 years from the death of the authour, or whatever. So the creator gets to control what happens to their creation for a bit, a reasonable period of time which allows them (and perhaps their heirs) to have control over and profit from it.

Then comes the second issue. After a time the creation goes into the public domain, and anyone can use it, as the good of the many has won out over the good of the few. We don't want these creations to be locked up somewhere forever. As well, having creations go into the public domain after a while encourages people to make new creations. If someone is so brilliant as to produce one wonderful thing, we want them to produce more wonderful things.

Those are the purposes of intellectual property law. I think these are good aims. The only real argument can be about exactly how it's best to encourage people to produce things and thus benefit humanity.


What should the law be?
Some argue that with no intellectual property laws, the distribution of so many ideas would benefit us all, but then others reply that if you don't have control of your stuff, why would you create it in the first place? You have to benefit the individual and the many, or the individual will never want to benefit the many. We call these "IP anarchists." For them, something should enter the public domain the instant it's published.

Others argue that intellectual property laws must protect property exactly as physical property is protected - it's yours forever unless you sell it, and can be passed on through your family forever. For them, something should never enter the public domain. We call these "IP corporations."

Historically the time until public domain was 7-28 years. This is a significant amount of time for a human being. Most will have produced more things by the time the protection runs out on the first. But then more and more people made their living by producing these things. In the Renaissance and earlier, only a very few made any money from their creations, they had wealthy patrons. Come the Enlightenment (18th century) and later, the printing press, mass literacy and a rise in wealth from the exploitation of the colonial world meant that lots more people could make money from their original creations. By the 19th century, patents were extended, and copyright was going "life of authour, plus 21 years to keep all his heirs going in cash". With the 20th century we got immortal corporations, and of course the "authour" was then immortal, so it became "life of authour plus 75 years, or 75 years for corporate authours" and will probably rise again as time goes on.

So over time we've had our laws swing from what was effectively an IP anarchist position, to an IP corporatist position. As with most things, the sensible position is somewhere in the middle.

Original creations do need some protection. Creators would like the chance, however small, of making some money from their original works, but even if they don't they'd like to be able to control what happens to it. I don't really want to see d4-d4 Kill Niggaz Race War. I wrote it, I'd like to control what happens to it. Public domain? Never!

But intellectual property must have limits, so that humanity overall may benefit from the original works, and people will be encouraged to keep creating things, rather than creating one thing and then nothing else. ublic domain? Today!

Somewhere between "never" and "today" is when works should become public domain.


What will happen
This of course has been about what should happen. Existing technology and culture tell us what will happen. And what will happen is simply that IP rights will in general be ignored by the general public, but that people will still pay money for original works, because most people are basically honest, and because the pirated and the free products are often not the same; a scanned pdf of D&D is not the same as the books in my hand, an mpeg of Rome is not the same as the boxed set of DVDs.

So creators will lose out on the "have control of your works" aspect, but still do okay on the "make money" aspect - or as well as they've ever done.

Many creators like to emphasise the "make money from it" part. But intellectual property law is not simply about making money. It's about the right to have control over what's done with your original works. And that's only fair. However, that aspect of it is definitely eroded by modern technology. Authours have to adjust to this.

Storytellers once only spoke their stories. To hear it, you had to see them personally. No doubt they were very upset when people began writing their stories down, so that anyone could read them. They were probably upset when that writing became mass printing, so that thousands could read them. Then they became upset when libraries came along, and photocopying, then scanning and filesharing networks. But really change like this is inevitable, and must be adjusted to.

With any new technology, there's both good and bad aspects to it - when we went from oral culture to writing, it's true that we lost the personal performances, but we also gained in that more people could be reached by the story, we also gained that once only people who could perform the stories could tell them, but with writing storytellers only had to be skilled in writing the story, not writing it and performing it - we got more stories overall.

I see going from finite physical printing to infinitely reproducible onine texts as a similar thing. We lose something, but gain other things. Exactly what we'll lose and what we'll gain is hard to tell at this stage. But it's not "Doom!" just yet. Stories did not stop being told because they were written down instead of spoken and performed, and stories will not stop being written because they're distributed on file-sharing networks instead of printed, bound, and bought.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI'm not sure why you have to use the word "stealing", since we have a perfectly good bunch of words which describe the actual thing: copyright, violation, and so on.

Because it is a word that most people understand that fits the act being committed that does not need a dissertation to understand.

Again, I am not going to have the semantics argument. It is old an tired. It should go to a nursing home in Florida. If you would like to substitute one of your words that means "You took something that did not belong to you", feel free.

Bill