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You're not going to convince me that someone narrating over themselves play Half-Life has the same creativity as Shakespeare, because "everything is a copy". To

You're not going to convince me that someone narrating over themselves play Half-Life has the same creativity as Shakespeare, because "everything is a copy". To say that no one actually owns the rights to Pokemon, that someone copying Pokemon frame-by-frame is of equal creative value as someone drawing their own monsters, well I just am deeply saddened by that.

cyphar 8y ago
(I'll be honest that I didn't originally didn't read that the topic under discussion was modding of games. Passing off a game as your own is obviously not right, but that isn't the only topic under discussion here.) Of course modding is not the same as Shakespeare. My point was that stories like those of Shakespeare would not have been possible with our modern notions of copyright. I do agree that many (but not all) examples of such work are just simply rip-offs of other people's work. On the other hand, does it make sense for any work to be untouchable for an essentially unlimited period of time? So while you might argue that mods are all shameless copies of another person's work, I direct you to 'The Stanley Parable'[1] which was a mod of Half-Life 2. I think most people would argue that it is a creative work that is unique despite the fact that it re-uses assets from a copyrighted work. There are many counter-examples to the idea that the only way to have creative value in a game is to "draw your own monsters". Jim Sterling ran a contest where people were to come up with original works based on an overused Unity asset, and the winning entry was a game made entirely out of textures based on that asset[2]. Is that not a creative work? I think that ultimately it's a disservice to argue that all such works should not be allowed because many examples of people building on previous work is lazy or a transparent rip-off. That the requirement for a creative work be a strict sense of originality (not to mention that you need to decide how do you define sufficient originality -- is "Harry Potter Told Using Pokemon" an original work?). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTL6NlPF0Lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTL6NlPF0Lw
- lsalvatore 8y ago
  Thanks for your comment. I'm certainly not arguing for a binary definition of creativity. I would play The Stanley Parable and vouch for it's existence as a stand-alone work of art. But should The Stanley Parable be able to profit and set up a free enterprise on the tireless work of Valve engineers? Well, I wasn't really arguing that either. All I was saying is that, as an artist, if you consider yourself "fucked" because you can't profit off of releasing a commercial game "Harry Potter with Pokemon" that sits on the shelves of GameStop alongside the originals- even though you would be quite good and creative artist in my mind, hell I would play the shit out of that game- you are not realizing that respecting copyright law and abiding by those rules, as "unfair" as they may be, is the only thing that protects companies from being ruthlessly shared on uTorrent for free, and that if you were truly creative and trying to form a business, why not respect this law, and take additional effort to create something "new" and "original", which I understand is total hyperbole, but within our confines of law is simply a matter of "reskinning" so yes Shakespeare could be regarding on the level of reskinning someone else's Angry Birds, but clearly he put his creative spin on it enough to be different or else he wouldn't have made his mark. In conclusion, nothing is completely "original", and fanfiction is still creative, but artists should strive to not self-identify with other creative entities, if they wish to form a business, out of respect for the law that protects from 100% bad actors which do not wish to creatively enhance, but to sell or distribute identical copies of original creative work.
  - shawn 8y ago
    Again, Disney did exactly that. They ruthlessly exploited Alice in Wonderland and built an empire on it. And you're arguing that no one should be able to do the same. This is the definition of unfair. I see we're very far apart and probably won't find some common ground, but the way I feel about the situation is that as automation removes the rest of manual labor jobs, people will need to specialize. And modding old ideas is one of the few ways people could specialize and make a living for themselves. You're free to disagree here, but the future is coming, and one day we'll both be gone. The best ideas, however, will be around. And it's hard to imagine that the best idea is not to let anyone else use anything you've thought of for your entire life plus ninety years.
  - cyphar 8y ago

cyphar 8y ago

(I'll be honest that I didn't originally didn't read that the topic under discussion was modding of games. Passing off a game as your own is obviously not right, but that isn't the only topic under discussion here.) Of course modding is not the same as Shakespeare. My point was that stories like those of Shakespeare would not have been possible with our modern notions of copyright. I do agree that many (but not all) examples of such work are just simply rip-offs of other people's work. On the other hand, does it make sense for any work to be untouchable for an essentially unlimited period of time? So while you might argue that mods are all shameless copies of another person's work, I direct you to 'The Stanley Parable'[1] which was a mod of Half-Life 2. I think most people would argue that it is a creative work that is unique despite the fact that it re-uses assets from a copyrighted work. There are many counter-examples to the idea that the only way to have creative value in a game is to "draw your own monsters". Jim Sterling ran a contest where people were to come up with original works based on an overused Unity asset, and the winning entry was a game made entirely out of textures based on that asset[2]. Is that not a creative work? I think that ultimately it's a disservice to argue that all such works should not be allowed because many examples of people building on previous work is lazy or a transparent rip-off. That the requirement for a creative work be a strict sense of originality (not to mention that you need to decide how do you define sufficient originality -- is "Harry Potter Told Using Pokemon" an original work?). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Parable [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTL6NlPF0Lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTL6NlPF0Lw

lsalvatore 8y ago
Thanks for your comment. I'm certainly not arguing for a binary definition of creativity. I would play The Stanley Parable and vouch for it's existence as a stand-alone work of art. But should The Stanley Parable be able to profit and set up a free enterprise on the tireless work of Valve engineers? Well, I wasn't really arguing that either. All I was saying is that, as an artist, if you consider yourself "fucked" because you can't profit off of releasing a commercial game "Harry Potter with Pokemon" that sits on the shelves of GameStop alongside the originals- even though you would be quite good and creative artist in my mind, hell I would play the shit out of that game- you are not realizing that respecting copyright law and abiding by those rules, as "unfair" as they may be, is the only thing that protects companies from being ruthlessly shared on uTorrent for free, and that if you were truly creative and trying to form a business, why not respect this law, and take additional effort to create something "new" and "original", which I understand is total hyperbole, but within our confines of law is simply a matter of "reskinning" so yes Shakespeare could be regarding on the level of reskinning someone else's Angry Birds, but clearly he put his creative spin on it enough to be different or else he wouldn't have made his mark. In conclusion, nothing is completely "original", and fanfiction is still creative, but artists should strive to not self-identify with other creative entities, if they wish to form a business, out of respect for the law that protects from 100% bad actors which do not wish to creatively enhance, but to sell or distribute identical copies of original creative work.
- shawn 8y ago
  Again, Disney did exactly that. They ruthlessly exploited Alice in Wonderland and built an empire on it. And you're arguing that no one should be able to do the same. This is the definition of unfair. I see we're very far apart and probably won't find some common ground, but the way I feel about the situation is that as automation removes the rest of manual labor jobs, people will need to specialize. And modding old ideas is one of the few ways people could specialize and make a living for themselves. You're free to disagree here, but the future is coming, and one day we'll both be gone. The best ideas, however, will be around. And it's hard to imagine that the best idea is not to let anyone else use anything you've thought of for your entire life plus ninety years.
- cyphar 8y ago