Quote from: Bren;815154And for authors who are actively continuing to write and publish derivatives may erode the brand causing a loss of income.

I am unsure that happens with derivatives. I believe the point of Kindle Worlds, and other open content concepts show that derivatives of decent quality can expand your brand.

But I would want that to be a living author's choice.

Quote from: Bren;815154The bigger problem may be how to fix the term for copyright controlled by corporations and collectives.

50 year fixed from publication / release seems more than fair. That allows the company to regurgitate the product for at least 2-3 generations.

AKA - Star Trek TV show -> Next Gen show -> New movies

1966 to 2016 without competition seems more than fair. Nothing would stop them from making Star Trek stuff post 2016.

Of course, things are getting weird with multi-national corporations which own copyrights in various nations with divergent copyright laws.

Let's say a Beijing film company decides Star Trek has no legal defense in China and decides to make Kirk Wuxia Space Adventure. Even if Paramount got the US government to demand the film not be shown in the USA, how much is that going to matter in the global internet age?

Quote from: snooggums;815158Second, they didn't come up with their creation in a fucking vacuum because all art/literature/etc. is an innovation built on the things that came before them.

I agree and I argued exactly that a few pages back (I think on this thread).

We move forward on the backs of those who went before us.

Quote from: snooggums;815162If you hadn't done it, someone else would have.

You cannot be sure of that.

Coming out now, the guy who got the request (which apparently was not a cease and desist, just a polite request) is refusing to let anyone else see the request, though he's been asked.  Which has led some to speculate there was some alternate course of action WOTC left open to him and he refused and doesn't want people to see that.

Or he accidentally deleted the page and decided to just blame WOTC. Unlikely. But it has happened.

GameZone when they botched their site update, again, instead blamed the nasty anti-Spain American Trolls and BGG hackers for it. Its been a special sort of circus on that one.

On the other hand Games Workshop likes to send C&Ds with absurdly short time limits on them which means you either delete now and hash it out later, or risk their threatened law suit.

I don't think the OGL covers electronic tools...

Ask first. Get permission. Get it in writing/email. Go hog wild.

Otherwise, invest your precious time into your own thing. It will be more fun and more rewarding.

Regarding comparisons to other fields. I would again note that most forms of mental effort are rewarded with zero protection. Game design, fashion design, master cooking, scientific analysis, and many other fields have essentially no legal protection. It is only reputation and social pressure that works to give people proper credit.

Quote from: Bren;815151So in your view authors like Sue Grafton (who has been regularly putting out Kinsey Millhone stories since 1982 and does not plan to finish until 2019) would have to spend half their creative time writing a series character while having to differentiate her stories from any number of ersatz derivatives? Do you think that will cause a loss of revenue due to brand erosion for Grafton? Most fiction writers don't make a lot of money. They take a lot of risks and costs early on to create while some how supporting themselves. I think they are entitled to benefit from that for more than 20 years. Don't you think they have earned that right?

I think that anyone who uses their brain and creativity - including authors - should be entitled to suitable credit and reward. I would consider steps to see that authors are paid reasonably within 20 years.

However, regardless of whether copyright lasts for 20 years or 200 years, there will always be authors who are struggling to make ends meet. I don't consider that continuing to add on extensions is a good way to improve the lives of authors or benefit society. In practice, countries that export media have pushed for longer terms as power move. In the 19th century, the U.S. fought against extended copyright, and then steadily moved to be a fervent supporter over the course of the 20th century.

I think that D&D and the OGL is actually an instructive example of what might happen if copyright expired in a reasonable time. Under the OGL, protection over much of the D&D3 content effectively ended instantly (instead of after 20 years). There was indeed an explosion of plenty of low-quality material, but despite this, 3rd edition was an outstanding success, and there was no particular difficulty in distinguishing the original authors from the imitators.

Quote from: Bren;815151You keep bringing up the poor inventors. What does the length of a patent have to do with the length of copyright? And if you want to make that comparison it is a bit disengenuous to ignore the way products use multiple patents, patents grouped into families, patent extensions, and other techniques to extend protection beyond 20 years.

And multiple copyrights, groups, and multimedia could extend protection in a similar way. It's not like I'm particularly attached to exactly 20 years. I would be fine with 30 or 40 years - it is at least vastly better than the current protections that can last well over 100 years.

Quote from: Bren;815151Yes, I think most derivative works are pale imitations of the original. Not all, most. Do you have some evidence that imitators create works of art that are on average equal to or better than the works of the original creators? I would be surprised by that as it would be contrary to my exprience of creative works which leads me to conclude that for every Shakespeare who takes from others to create a work of genius there are thousands of hacks churning out mediocre crap and bad fan fics. I don't mind making the hacks wait 40 years to make money off their derivations. Why should I care?

I don't think that imitators are better on average. They don't have to be. If there are a hundred crappy novels or a thousand, it will vastly change the average, but it makes no difference to me because I don't read any of them. If, however, there are a few excellent works, then I would benefit from those.

Your latter question assumes that 100% of derivations are hacks, and thus you shouldn't care. However, I find that there are plenty of authors like T.H. White, Gregory Maguire, John M. Ford, Naomi Novik, Neil Gaiman, and others who create excellent works that draw from other sources.

Quote from: Bren;815151I don't hink there were many WWI newspaper and magazine writers who were still alive in 1985. But yeah you might find the odd 90 year old, I suppose. And then yeah, you'd actually have to do some extra work. Like find a source article that is already in the public domain, or from a source that allows use with accredidation, or by an author who died before 1985, or maybe even write up your own version of the newspaper article. Are you seriously arguing that having to do one of those things is such a high bar to your creativity that you wouldn't produce the game? Really?

I'm would say that the work of writing up my own version of a newspaper article from a hundred years ago shouldn't be necessary, and would ease not just my work, but the work of a lot of people. In order to determine if a page of the newspaper is in the public domain, I would have to track down the identity of each author and artist (who might be uncredited), and probably have to dig into county death records if I manage to find them to get their death date, simply to include a page from a hundred year old newspaper in my fucking game.

It's a pain in the ass, and it actively suppresses old works from being circulated. Meanwhile, the number of people who materially benefit from hundred-year-old copyrighted works is very close to zero.

Quote from: jeff37923;815174You cannot be sure of that.

He is.

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the butterfly effect. If I had to live my life over again, I'm not sure I would come up with the same inventions and original ideas because even the smallest change in the environment around me could drastically effect the sequence and combination of my thoughts.

That's also one of the reasons I like roleplaying. Take any given situation with known attributes. Add in a dash of randomness with some randomizers (dice), and then see how the outcome varies depending on whom is playing.

Some of the players will seek to eliminate the randomizers so that they have a fixed, repeatable experience that produces the same, or similar results to their first positive experience. This does not create a better world, it merely favors keeping a positive place in the existing world order.

Some of the players will embrace the randomness and take advantage of the opportunities the random variations produce to create new and different outcomes. These are the creators among the roleplayers and they drive the emergent gameplay.

Some of the players will embrace adding variables to the attributes (i.e. equipment, skills, and special character abilities) and will use this to eliminate the effects of randomness in the game in favor of applying a strategy. This also drives creativity and emergent game play, but in a slightly different manner by forcing the other players, and the game referee to adjust.

JHKim: Well, to be fair, authors struggling to make ends meet is particularly vicious now.

In the past, writing has been a lot more lucrative, and going further back, there were things like patronage.

Just a reminder:
In 2014, RPG writing and most fiction types pay 2-5 cents a word.

In 1920, most fiction types paid ... 2-5 cents a word. Not adjusted for inflation.


That is, being an author has involved a 92% pay cut over the last century.

So, yeah, no wonder you can't be a prolific writer paying your way in some small apartment somewhere.

Quote from: Spinachcat;815171I am unsure that happens with derivatives. I believe the point of Kindle Worlds, and other open content concepts show that derivatives of decent quality can expand your brand.

But I would want that to be a living author's choice.

Quality would be important.

Quote50 year fixed from publication / release seems more than fair. That allows the company to regurgitate the product for at least 2-3 generations.

It may be worth considering a shorter period with an ability to renew so that copyrights that are not being used for producing new content or for publishing existing content aren't blocking access if they are unused. Companies, even more than authors, have incentives to maintain shelved IP to block others. Generally, that's not in the public interest.

Quote from: jhkim;815201I don't think that imitators are better on average. They don't have to be. If there are a hundred crappy novels or a thousand, it will vastly change the average, but it makes no difference to me because I don't read any of them. If, however, there are a few excellent works, then I would benefit from those.

The hundreds of crappy novels probably make a difference to the author. They also vastly descrease the signal to noise ratio which matters to me even if it doesn't matter to you. I don't enjoy wading through tons of crap to find the one or two possible gems.

QuoteYour latter question assumes that 100% of derivations are hacks...

It really doesn't anymore than your example of the WWI articles requires that we have to assume that every author lives to be 100 years old or wrote newpaper article when they were 5 years old for it to have any validity.

QuoteHowever, I find that there are plenty of authors like T.H. White, Gregory Maguire, John M. Ford, Naomi Novik, Neil Gaiman, and others who create excellent works that draw from other sources.

Which copyrights did they violate? I'm unaware of any, which makes this seem like a strawman where you assume that Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur will maintain copyright for 500 years to prevent White from writing The Once and Future King. And 500 year long copyrights is not what I am arguing for.

QuoteI'm would say that the work of writing up my own version of a newspaper article from a hundred years ago shouldn't be necessary, and would ease not just my work, but the work of a lot of people. In order to determine if a page of the newspaper is in the public domain, I would have to track down the identity of each author and artist (who might be uncredited), and probably have to dig into county death records if I manage to find them to get their death date, simply to include a page from a hundred year old newspaper in my fucking game.

Or you could contact the magazine and get permission.

Quote from: Will;815221That is, being an author has involved a 92% pay cut over the last century.

So, yeah, no wonder you can't be a prolific writer paying your way in some small apartment somewhere.

This is in a way why some want to be able to just instantly take someone elses creation and slap their name on it and run. Or at least slap the IP title on their sub-par work and wring a few more bucks from the unsuspecting rubes.

Over on BGG every few months the argument breaks out again about how unfair and wrong it is that someone cant just take (insert popular game) and sell it themselves. Or just take a game, retheme it and sell it. (which at least takes a little creativity.)

Quote from: jhkim;815201I'm would say that the work of writing up my own version of a newspaper article from a hundred years ago shouldn't be necessary, and would ease not just my work, but the work of a lot of people. In order to determine if a page of the newspaper is in the public domain, I would have to track down the identity of each author and artist (who might be uncredited), and probably have to dig into county death records if I manage to find them to get their death date, simply to include a page from a hundred year old newspaper in my fucking game.

There's been some debate and consideration in several countries (UK and US) over the treatment of "orphaned works". That brings with it a host of problems but that might be a possible solution.

Quote from: Omega;815238Over on BGG every few months the argument breaks out again about how unfair and wrong it is that someone cant just take (insert popular game) and sell it themselves. Or just take a game, retheme it and sell it. (which at least takes a little creativity.)

The argument seems to involve differing definitions.

OGL'ed games are under a specific agreement which expands on rights / requirements to reuse more than just bare mechanics. Other games that copy mechanics aren't copying text word for word.

For example, two things I really liked about Lamentations of the Flame Princess are the simple d6 based skill system, and its inventory management system. If someone were simply to extract the bare nuts of those rules, by themselves, I don't think they would get any buyers. If all LotFP was, was a bullet list of rules, I know I wouldn't pay money for it - or if they were embedded in a pile of poorly written text.

But I did buy the Grindhouse and later the KS'd book because the presentation of those rules had their own value, along with the "free" bits of the mechanics.

If I decided I liked those rule mechanics enough to incorporate them into a work that has 100% different text, would it devalue LotFP?

Quote from: Will;815221In the past, writing has been a lot more lucrative, and going further back, there were things like patronage.

Just a reminder:
In 2014, RPG writing and most fiction types pay 2-5 cents a word.

In 1920, most fiction types paid ... 2-5 cents a word. Not adjusted for inflation.

And in 1920 in the U.S., copyright protection was a fixed 28 year period - and it had not yet been broadened by court precedent to include things like strong character copyright (from the McDonaldland case). I don't see any clear evidence that the extension of copyright to 100+ years has benefited writers. Rather, the extensions are being pushed through by long-standing corporations like Disney, record companies, and movie studios.

Quote from: Bren;815226The hundreds of crappy novels probably make a difference to the author. They also vastly descrease the signal to noise ratio which matters to me even if it doesn't matter to you. I don't enjoy wading through tons of crap to find the one or two possible gems.

I don't see why you think it would be necessary. Now that Sherlock Holmes is mostly out of copyright, do you actually find you have to wade through tons of crap in order to find good material including Holmes, such as the original A.C. Doyle stories? I don't.

Likewise with Lovecraft. It's easy for me to find the original Lovecraft stories, and I can enjoy various interesting adaptations like RPGs, boardgames, and more based on their reputation.

I don't see how this has to do with time, either. Under D&D3, I had no trouble at all finding and distinguishing the official WotC books. I also enjoyed a number of high quality third-party products.

Quote from: Bren;815226(Re: authors like T.H. White, Gregory Maguire, John M. Ford, Naomi Novik, Neil Gaiman)
Which copyrights did they violate? I'm unaware of any, which makes this seem like a strawman where you assume that Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur will maintain copyright for 500 years to prevent White from writing The Once and Future King. And 500 year long copyrights is not what I am arguing for.

The issue is that you have repeatedly suggested that an adaptation of a copyrighted work as an uncreative, talentless hack. You are conflating *legality* (especially given that laws change) with *creative worth*.

I claim that good writers can do amazing things adapting other work, regardless of the timing and the legalities. If the laws were changed to bring back more sane term limits, then good authors would again start writing good adaptations of the material put in the public domain.

Quote from: jhkim;815201In practice, countries that export media have pushed for longer terms as power move. In the 19th century, the U.S. fought against extended copyright, and then steadily moved to be a fervent supporter over the course of the 20th century.

Because they had / have very little IP worth protecting and a lot of labor.

Big markets now like China and Russia are much like Japan was in the 60s; lots of cheap labor to make products for export and a (slowly) growing consumer class.

IP is the future of property, and copyright is just a part of it. Unlike patents, copyright doesn't typically block innovation that could save lives or improve society in general. Trademarks don't either.