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Why the draconian copyright restrictions?


Orions_Stardom

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Imagine if we could sell our stuff, and someone thought they were getting BioWare-level quality, but wound up with TDD.

 

That is exactly what happens in Russia - TDD is sold with the game (pirated, no doubt), and there is no way to tell that it is not an official material :)

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I'm not sure if I've read enough but I think that Creative Commons has a great attitude towards the problem.

 

There are three author rights - to demand attribution or not (and we all want this), documented in the early internet classic Homesteading the No-Osphere. Most of us will demand this.

 

Share Alike vs No Derivatives - this is the code line maintenace/hosting issue most eloquently documented by Camdawg but also repeated by Jason and Domi. Very explicit for software products and very visible in games as evinced by Jason's suggestion that someone might seek to retitle Kelsey as Jimbo.

 

No Commerce - obvious really, why should someone else make money out of what a hobbyist has donated for free.

 

Copyright applies to codelines only - the character of "whoever" remains the intellectual property of the author and may not be protected by anything.

 

Let's not get into how we aquired the IP to make a mod :)

 

I hope to work on (for a Mod) Attr-NoDerivs-NoCommerce

 

Derivations I will negociate, but wish to control (See the CamDawg argument)EDIT Not sure about control - even with software as opposed to images, which I will distribute on a share alike basis - I may move to a share alike basis - I propose to develop incrementally so if someone over takes me, good for them.

 

This is the position of the copyrightists - I'm pleased I got myself there :party:

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Share Alike vs No Derivatives - this is the code line maintenace/hosting issue most eloquently documented by Camdawg but also repeated by Jason and Domi. Very explicit for software products and very visible in games as evinced by Jason's suggestion that someone might seek to retitle Kelsey as Jimbo.

And if it realy sucks that much (which is, ofcourse, likely), then surely we can rely on the marketplace to reject it?

 

No Commerce - obvious really, why should someone else make money out of what a hobbyist has donated for free.

Becuase the money would, ideally (and the marketplace will generally reflect this in prices), be for the servic redistributing it, rather than for the product.It's called "value adding" :)

 

Copyright applies to codelines only - the character of "whoever" remains the intellectual property of the author and may not be protected by anything.

Intellectual property? http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml

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He told me details of his plot and stuff, which I read and thought "Wait, one of the other awesome-level campaigns available for download has the same exact plot."  Then he showed me some maps as examples of what kind of work he could do.  They were my maps, with the terrain-set changed (which could be done by flicking a switch), and the starting units in different spots/quantities.

 

I told him to fuck himself.

And as well you should have - but not because he was proposing to breach copyright, but because he was showing himself to be uncreative: and so he would have been likely to either: a) lessen your reputation, or b) make you do all the work, but try to claim the credit for it. I wouldn't want to work with him, either.

 

Oh, oh, and once upon a time, I also bought a CD full of like 200 or so Warcraft 2 maps, thinking they were officially endorsed by Blizzard, but it turns out it was just a collection of incredibly lame maps created by some random schmoe.  An example from the IE would be if someone created hundreds of overpowered insta-kill items or permanent improved alacrity, and made them available on CD.  And you had to CLUA them into your game.

That's what trademarks are for - so that the consumer knows what they're buying.

 

Imagine if we could sell our stuff, and someone thought they were getting BioWare-level quality, but wound up with TDD.  Or imagine if someone was making a CD of mods for sale (assuming BioWare let them do so), and they used our mods without permission.  That little copyright bit is the "go fuck yourself" thing you want.

If they managed to ship NPC Tweak under Bioware's trademarks, and Bioware *doesn't* sue them for trademark infringement, I would be happy - because it would be the best guarantee I could have that Bioware thought my work met their standards.

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