7 ms·

Oddly enough, the light that Humble Bundles have shone into gaming revenue cycles has made me question our copyright system as a whole. Stay with me. In Europ

by RajT88 4y ago

Oddly enough, the light that Humble Bundles have shone into gaming revenue cycles has made me question our copyright system as a whole. Stay with me. In Europe during the time of Mozart, composers were incentivized to be prolific by only getting royalties off the first public performance of their works. Now that is not fair today because of course we can losslessy reproduce such things infinitely. However, Humble Bundles (and really, steam sales and other similar discounts and give-aways) work because the vast majority of the money a game is ever likely to make is early in the revenue cycle. Not 20 or 10 or even 5 years later. We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago
> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. I too have many gripples with copyright but this is simply wrong. Copyright is designed to protect the rightsholder. Whether it is a person or a company is irrelevant. This isn't a conspiracy or cynical-type explanation, this is by design
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ece 4y ago
  I'm not an author or artist, but you only need to search for tweets about copyright on Twitter to see it benefits the rightsholders a bit too much. If the term was shorter, maybe it would be different. Of course the reason the term is longer is because of rightsholders.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    I made a YouTube video a long time ago in 2013. It's wild to think about the fact that somebody could be in trouble with copyright infringement over that video in the year 2141. I expect to live at least another 50 years. In a large amount of countries copyright is granted for the lifetime of the author and an additional 70 years. It seems a little excessive.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Nah, let's go further. Copyright is designed "to promote the progress of Science and Useful Arts." That should be the first question.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    That sounds right, and the Constitution does seem to say that, but the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, which extended the copyright protections for old, already-existing works, was found to be constitutional, and so I must conclude that you are somehow mistaken.
    - jrm4 4y ago
      "Mistaken" is a weird word here, probably because we do this thing where we think of law as being etched in stone. It's not. It's 100% fluid all the time, but it's hard to see because it's slow. Disney and Sonny Bono hired some lawyers to ramrod some dumb crap through. It happens. Let's see if we can fix it.
      - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
        We did see. It was the famed Eldred v. Ashcroft case. Lead counsel before the Supreme Court was Lawrence Lessig, darling of the Open Source movement. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that, so long as the time limit for copyright was in some way limited, the length of time, even if lengthened after the fact, was permissible. Justice Stephens wrote an excellent dissent, but being only one of two, was official Wrong.
        EMIRELADERO 4y ago
        Ironically, that case might, at the same time, be the one who brings down the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The standard set by SCOTUS was, apart from what you've already said, that a time extension was permissible as long as the "traditional contours of copyright" were not altered. One of them was explicitly called out, fair use. The Court also explicitly mentioned that for a regulation to survive constitutional scrutiny in regards to copyright, it must not supersede, nullify, or even "disturb" the exercise of fair use. This set the precedent that fair use is constitutionally required, not only a generous grant by Congress.
dleslie 4y ago
Very few humble bundle products are financially successful. It's easy to think otherwise because of the standout few.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  Does humble bundle have "products"? I thought it was just a dumping ground for when sales slowed elsewhere, not the main place to try and sell something. So financially successful would just be any money
  - dleslie 4y ago
    There's a scant few products that launched first on HB, but yes, it does seem like a hail Mary dumping ground for previously-failed products, and a cheap marketing platform to drive interest in existing IP.
zerocrates 4y ago
In terms of moneymaking, copyright's long term is more relevant for video games in that it includes the right to make derivative works (i.e.: sequels). Certainly there are franchises that have lived longer than 20 years. Ports, remasters, official emulation, and subscriptions have given a longer "tail" for at least a handful of classics but even without that it's "the IP" that would be most jealously guarded.
- grayfaced 4y ago
  I think it'd be a stretch to say sequels are covered by derivative works. Trademark would be the primary protection and would function for sequels with no copyright protection at all.
  - zerocrates 4y ago
    Sequels that share or build on characters, plot, and so on with their predecessors are definitely derivative works. (Let's ignore the literal sharing of assets and bits of code that's also common for sequels since that's obviously more straightforward, and not strictly necessary.) Trademark definitely comes into play, and is probably the more important form of IP here in practice (and for some series may be the only really effective protection). But you still couldn't go out and make a game with Master Chief or Nathan Drake even if you called it something other than Halo or Uncharted. Trademarks are also interesting and somewhat unique for video games: the typical rule is that the title of a book or movie, etc. is not eligible for a trademark. You need a name that's being used for a series to get a trademark. But video games are excluded from this rule and can (and almost always do) get trademarks for their titles even when they're standalones.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
I'd prefer a system, where the author has to actually and actively be trying to make money in a specific market, before the copyright can be applied in that specific case (as with trademark law, where the owner has to actively protect the trademark). Some nintendo games are currently not available anywhere (from nintendo or from original publisher), but if you copy/download that rom, you can get fined due to fictional losses for the copyright holder. What losses? If you're not selling the game anymore, how can you have losses from it? If you're not selling that movie in my country, how can you show a loss from me downloading it?
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  This seems like a solution, but who judges what "availability" is? If Nintendo say they'll reproduce any NES cart you want anywhere in the world for the low low cost of a hundred thousand dollars per unit, and all requests must be made in writing, please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, is that "available"?
- LukaD 4y ago
  Downloading roms is certainly not illegal, sharing them is. From my experience most older Nintendo games are not available for purchase. I would gladly pay to play classic Pokémon for example games on the switch (or on Steam).
  - naet 4y ago
    And nintendo will later rerelease those classic pokémon games in some form and rake in money off people like you (and me). Waiting is part of their market strategy. The NES and SNES classic editions sold out quickly iirc; when the time is right, a gameboy classic might do the same.
- beachy 4y ago
  Whatever the merits of your sugggestion, verifying that a company was "actually and actively be trying to make money" would be wide open to abuse and practically speaking, impossible.
jimbob45 4y ago
We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. An advocate for the devil would claim that those creators were compensated upfront rather than over the lifetime of the product. Therefore, the company is rightfully collecting the revenue that the creator left to them that they already paid for.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Wouldn't such an argument strongly favour the company (Nintendo's) copyright expiring early--as they were compensated up front by the first raft of sales--and so suggest we, the public, should limit their copyright as that won't inhibit new development and will enrich the public domain.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  You’re both essentially saying the same thing: this copyright dynamic is a vehicle for investment capitalism. And I’m not pointing this out to be glib, just recognizing that this particular line of advocacy is somewhere along the spectrum between “the thing you observe is working as designed” and “that’s good, actually”. Which is a view you’re welcome to hold, but I’d certainly prefer a system designed for people who engage in creative work to have a greater share of what they create, and for the economics of creative work to not be so deeply entrenched in wealth consolidation for its own sake. Disclaimer: the sum total I’ve been paid for purely creative work is approximately $11 from my share of ticket sales and a couple of drinks on the house. Which is $11 dollars more than I ever sought out, because I realized making a living as an artist had dim prospects before I even got a chance to try.
syntheweave 4y ago
I believe the specific reason why copyright is in such an awful state for rewarding creation is tied to the ease of copying. When copying was extremely hard(back in antiquity) everyone who was an artisan was producing 1 art per 1 unit. So you didn't even need a state-level enforcement of copyright; either it was good work or it wasn't. During the run-up to industrialization more possibilities to make units without making art came about. But the means of production were still capital and labor-intensive - there were only so many printing presses in town. Therefore, copyright built a social contract: the state enforces what the presses can do to copy your work. As soon as you exited the borders of that state, piracy was prolific. This regime continued all the way through the 20th century and only started cracking when homemade copies became good enough, which, within media industries now fully enmeshed with state interests, the obvious response was "don't tape at home, don't copy that floppy, you wouldn't download a car." Nowadays there is no scarcity of copies, only scarcity of attention. "Likes" are effectively a currency, but likes aren't state money, they're an awkward mediation of platform algorithms. Instead we have a two-class media system where, in each form of media, there's "the industry", which deploys all the mechanisms of the state(corporate investment, IP laws, marketing campaigns) to encourage consumers to give up their state bucks, and then the "gig workers", who have assembled a patchwork of social media mechanisms to get eyeballs to their work and pick up commissions, crowdfunding, and other forms of fundraising that allow indirect exits to state bucks. Because you mostly can't get paid for what you already did without utilizing the full might of the state, everyone is inclined to push monetization further towards promises of future work: the stretch goal, DLC, etc. Buying the rumor and selling the news. In this framework, we have to discuss NFTs. They aren't "ready for use" in the current state of things, but they present an alternative mode of exit: discard the unit production mindset and define the art as a financial asset. It already has some analogue in the gallery system, but digitization makes it a cheap, low-friction process. With "all my apes are gone" comes some demonstration of effectiveness: You can, in fact, just put a price to art, let traders make risky gambles with it, and rely on a non-state, independently operated system to give you a cut of the resulting carnage. What we don't have yet is strong coordination between likes and trading. What made NFTs a bubble was the degree of misrepresentation on display; far too many works were being inflated through traditional boiler-room schemes, and many more were stolen works scraped from unwilling or unaware sources. Everyone pounced on proof-of-concept tech with an angle for a rug pull. But this is the kind of thing that tech has seen many waves of: snake oil salesmen turning some genuine breakthrough into fools' gold, followed by a gradual address of each specific problem that made it foolish. So I think of the possibilities for art as a thing society can fund and reward going forward as a thing that will look both more social-media-like and asset-like; maybe not in the specific mode NFTs took, or in the specific form that engagement on TikTok takes, but drawing on some aspects of both and building a greater-than-the-sum result.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zamalek 4y ago
> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. I can almost guarantee that this isn't Nintendo's primary motivation for the behavior. There is much more money to be made with xplat games, and almost all (if not strictly all) consoles are loss-leaders. Nintendo is ruled by dogma, nothing more, nothing less. Nintendo is much like Larry Ellison[1], don't try to make sense of them. If it wasn't for a core set of IP that their designers/developers routinely ace, they would be dead in the water. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246

by RajT88 4y ago

EMIRELADERO 4y ago

> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. I too have many gripples with copyright but this is simply wrong. Copyright is designed to protect the rightsholder. Whether it is a person or a company is irrelevant. This isn't a conspiracy or cynical-type explanation, this is by design

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ece 4y ago
I'm not an author or artist, but you only need to search for tweets about copyright on Twitter to see it benefits the rightsholders a bit too much. If the term was shorter, maybe it would be different. Of course the reason the term is longer is because of rightsholders.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  I made a YouTube video a long time ago in 2013. It's wild to think about the fact that somebody could be in trouble with copyright infringement over that video in the year 2141. I expect to live at least another 50 years. In a large amount of countries copyright is granted for the lifetime of the author and an additional 70 years. It seems a little excessive.
jrm4 4y ago
Nah, let's go further. Copyright is designed "to promote the progress of Science and Useful Arts." That should be the first question.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  That sounds right, and the Constitution does seem to say that, but the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, which extended the copyright protections for old, already-existing works, was found to be constitutional, and so I must conclude that you are somehow mistaken.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    "Mistaken" is a weird word here, probably because we do this thing where we think of law as being etched in stone. It's not. It's 100% fluid all the time, but it's hard to see because it's slow. Disney and Sonny Bono hired some lawyers to ramrod some dumb crap through. It happens. Let's see if we can fix it.
    - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
      We did see. It was the famed Eldred v. Ashcroft case. Lead counsel before the Supreme Court was Lawrence Lessig, darling of the Open Source movement. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that, so long as the time limit for copyright was in some way limited, the length of time, even if lengthened after the fact, was permissible. Justice Stephens wrote an excellent dissent, but being only one of two, was official Wrong.
      - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
        Ironically, that case might, at the same time, be the one who brings down the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The standard set by SCOTUS was, apart from what you've already said, that a time extension was permissible as long as the "traditional contours of copyright" were not altered. One of them was explicitly called out, fair use. The Court also explicitly mentioned that for a regulation to survive constitutional scrutiny in regards to copyright, it must not supersede, nullify, or even "disturb" the exercise of fair use. This set the precedent that fair use is constitutionally required, not only a generous grant by Congress.

dleslie 4y ago

Very few humble bundle products are financially successful. It's easy to think otherwise because of the standout few.

thatguy0900 4y ago
Does humble bundle have "products"? I thought it was just a dumping ground for when sales slowed elsewhere, not the main place to try and sell something. So financially successful would just be any money
- dleslie 4y ago
  There's a scant few products that launched first on HB, but yes, it does seem like a hail Mary dumping ground for previously-failed products, and a cheap marketing platform to drive interest in existing IP.

zerocrates 4y ago

In terms of moneymaking, copyright's long term is more relevant for video games in that it includes the right to make derivative works (i.e.: sequels). Certainly there are franchises that have lived longer than 20 years. Ports, remasters, official emulation, and subscriptions have given a longer "tail" for at least a handful of classics but even without that it's "the IP" that would be most jealously guarded.

grayfaced 4y ago
I think it'd be a stretch to say sequels are covered by derivative works. Trademark would be the primary protection and would function for sequels with no copyright protection at all.
- zerocrates 4y ago
  Sequels that share or build on characters, plot, and so on with their predecessors are definitely derivative works. (Let's ignore the literal sharing of assets and bits of code that's also common for sequels since that's obviously more straightforward, and not strictly necessary.) Trademark definitely comes into play, and is probably the more important form of IP here in practice (and for some series may be the only really effective protection). But you still couldn't go out and make a game with Master Chief or Nathan Drake even if you called it something other than Halo or Uncharted. Trademarks are also interesting and somewhat unique for video games: the typical rule is that the title of a book or movie, etc. is not eligible for a trademark. You need a name that's being used for a series to get a trademark. But video games are excluded from this rule and can (and almost always do) get trademarks for their titles even when they're standalones.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

I'd prefer a system, where the author has to actually and actively be trying to make money in a specific market, before the copyright can be applied in that specific case (as with trademark law, where the owner has to actively protect the trademark). Some nintendo games are currently not available anywhere (from nintendo or from original publisher), but if you copy/download that rom, you can get fined due to fictional losses for the copyright holder. What losses? If you're not selling the game anymore, how can you have losses from it? If you're not selling that movie in my country, how can you show a loss from me downloading it?

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
This seems like a solution, but who judges what "availability" is? If Nintendo say they'll reproduce any NES cart you want anywhere in the world for the low low cost of a hundred thousand dollars per unit, and all requests must be made in writing, please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, is that "available"?
LukaD 4y ago
Downloading roms is certainly not illegal, sharing them is. From my experience most older Nintendo games are not available for purchase. I would gladly pay to play classic Pokémon for example games on the switch (or on Steam).
- naet 4y ago
  And nintendo will later rerelease those classic pokémon games in some form and rake in money off people like you (and me). Waiting is part of their market strategy. The NES and SNES classic editions sold out quickly iirc; when the time is right, a gameboy classic might do the same.
beachy 4y ago
Whatever the merits of your sugggestion, verifying that a company was "actually and actively be trying to make money" would be wide open to abuse and practically speaking, impossible.

jimbob45 4y ago

We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. An advocate for the devil would claim that those creators were compensated upfront rather than over the lifetime of the product. Therefore, the company is rightfully collecting the revenue that the creator left to them that they already paid for.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
Wouldn't such an argument strongly favour the company (Nintendo's) copyright expiring early--as they were compensated up front by the first raft of sales--and so suggest we, the public, should limit their copyright as that won't inhibit new development and will enrich the public domain.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
You’re both essentially saying the same thing: this copyright dynamic is a vehicle for investment capitalism. And I’m not pointing this out to be glib, just recognizing that this particular line of advocacy is somewhere along the spectrum between “the thing you observe is working as designed” and “that’s good, actually”. Which is a view you’re welcome to hold, but I’d certainly prefer a system designed for people who engage in creative work to have a greater share of what they create, and for the economics of creative work to not be so deeply entrenched in wealth consolidation for its own sake. Disclaimer: the sum total I’ve been paid for purely creative work is approximately $11 from my share of ticket sales and a couple of drinks on the house. Which is $11 dollars more than I ever sought out, because I realized making a living as an artist had dim prospects before I even got a chance to try.

syntheweave 4y ago

I believe the specific reason why copyright is in such an awful state for rewarding creation is tied to the ease of copying. When copying was extremely hard(back in antiquity) everyone who was an artisan was producing 1 art per 1 unit. So you didn't even need a state-level enforcement of copyright; either it was good work or it wasn't. During the run-up to industrialization more possibilities to make units without making art came about. But the means of production were still capital and labor-intensive - there were only so many printing presses in town. Therefore, copyright built a social contract: the state enforces what the presses can do to copy your work. As soon as you exited the borders of that state, piracy was prolific. This regime continued all the way through the 20th century and only started cracking when homemade copies became good enough, which, within media industries now fully enmeshed with state interests, the obvious response was "don't tape at home, don't copy that floppy, you wouldn't download a car." Nowadays there is no scarcity of copies, only scarcity of attention. "Likes" are effectively a currency, but likes aren't state money, they're an awkward mediation of platform algorithms. Instead we have a two-class media system where, in each form of media, there's "the industry", which deploys all the mechanisms of the state(corporate investment, IP laws, marketing campaigns) to encourage consumers to give up their state bucks, and then the "gig workers", who have assembled a patchwork of social media mechanisms to get eyeballs to their work and pick up commissions, crowdfunding, and other forms of fundraising that allow indirect exits to state bucks. Because you mostly can't get paid for what you already did without utilizing the full might of the state, everyone is inclined to push monetization further towards promises of future work: the stretch goal, DLC, etc. Buying the rumor and selling the news. In this framework, we have to discuss NFTs. They aren't "ready for use" in the current state of things, but they present an alternative mode of exit: discard the unit production mindset and define the art as a financial asset. It already has some analogue in the gallery system, but digitization makes it a cheap, low-friction process. With "all my apes are gone" comes some demonstration of effectiveness: You can, in fact, just put a price to art, let traders make risky gambles with it, and rely on a non-state, independently operated system to give you a cut of the resulting carnage. What we don't have yet is strong coordination between likes and trading. What made NFTs a bubble was the degree of misrepresentation on display; far too many works were being inflated through traditional boiler-room schemes, and many more were stolen works scraped from unwilling or unaware sources. Everyone pounced on proof-of-concept tech with an angle for a rug pull. But this is the kind of thing that tech has seen many waves of: snake oil salesmen turning some genuine breakthrough into fools' gold, followed by a gradual address of each specific problem that made it foolish. So I think of the possibilities for art as a thing society can fund and reward going forward as a thing that will look both more social-media-like and asset-like; maybe not in the specific mode NFTs took, or in the specific form that engagement on TikTok takes, but drawing on some aspects of both and building a greater-than-the-sum result.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zamalek 4y ago

> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. I can almost guarantee that this isn't Nintendo's primary motivation for the behavior. There is much more money to be made with xplat games, and almost all (if not strictly all) consoles are loss-leaders. Nintendo is ruled by dogma, nothing more, nothing less. Nintendo is much like Larry Ellison[1], don't try to make sense of them. If it wasn't for a core set of IP that their designers/developers routinely ace, they would be dead in the water. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246