6 ms·

My interpretation of the legal status is that the author is entitled to accept the €20k as payment for his time but that amount doesn't constitute payment for t

by spuz 4y ago

My interpretation of the legal status is that the author is entitled to accept the €20k as payment for his time but that amount doesn't constitute payment for the copyright of the work. Mojang subsequently wanted to purchase that copyright and hence why they sent the contract for £1 to be signed. Julian believed the copyright was worth more and so rejected the offer. All that is to say that if my interpretation is correct then Julian is legally entitled to do what he wants with the work including selling it to someone else or in this case release it under a creative commons license.

richardwhiuk 4y ago
At minimum, they are buying a non-exclusive license to copy the work. Beyond that is speculation. (Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft on nothing related, and love Minecraft the game.)
- hnbad 4y ago
  I'm German and used to do freelance work. This interpretation is what I've been told by a lawyer in a similar case: the money is for the license, not the copyright, and unless specified, the license is the minimum of what could reasonably be expected, i.e. a non-exclusive, non-transferrable, limited license for the scope of the product. IANAL but I think Microsoft is in the clear here because they bought out Mojang but they couldn't for example use the ending (or derivative works of it) in a spin-off game because Mojang couldn't have done that either and they have no standing to go after anyone reproducing the poem as a whole or in part. In fact, the poem now being CC0 grants Microsoft more rights than they had, except it's still non-exclusive, meaning the same rights are granted to everyone else too.
  - mcv 4y ago
    MS can now use the End Poem in spin off products, or even adapt it and use variations or sequels of it in spin off products. Pretty good deal for them, I'd say. Though to be perfectly honest, if I were them, and they needed something like that, I'd hire Julian to write it. Or maybe ask him to write it for free after giving him a massive donation.
mcv 4y ago
> Mojang subsequently wanted to purchase that copyright and hence why they sent the contract for £1 to be signed. That is the move by Mojang that I didn't understand. They were about to be paid 2.5 billion. Why not offer 1 million for the signed contract? They could easily afford that, and with his financial troubles at the time, Julian would probably have signed it. And he'd have missed out on his subsequent personal growth, and we wouldn't have gotten this beautiful story, and the universe wouldn't have gotten the End Poem, but Microsoft would, and the world would have been more normal, predictable, corporate. But he would have been able to eat and pay rent.
- Karellen 4y ago
  > Why not offer 1 million for the signed contract? Because they believed (erroneously or not) that they already had paid for the thing the contract was about, and were offering a "peppercorn" payment for the signature itself to make the exchange complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law)
  - salawat 4y ago
    ...and people wonder why I think contract law is as damn close to a poson pill as you can have in something brazenly referred to as a justice system.
    - djur 4y ago
      What's objectionable about this specific example of contract law? If the law didn't require contracts to have some consideration they would have offered $0. No real difference.
- s3000 4y ago
  There was something similar with the soundtrack of Doom Eternal [1]. They were also about to get paid billions by Microsoft and didn't pay the composer. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33532078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33532078
contravariant 4y ago
In the UK I think you're probably right, but it's not the clearest situation. You may argue that all of the communication up to the point where he agreed with their offer is part of the contract. > However, in some circumstances, for example when copyright is not dealt with in the contract to commission the work, courts may be willing to find that there is an implied licence allowing the commissioner to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. This does not necessarily result in a transfer of ownership. Instead, the commissioner of the work may only get a limited non-exclusive licence. This situation demonstrates the importance of establishing who owns copyright through a contract. [1]: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works
- paledot 4y ago
  It's very likely that an attempt on his part to sue Microsoft would fail on the grounds that a tacit agreement was reached for the use of the work, based on his acceptance of payment. However, it doesn't sound like there was any agreement, tacit or otherwise, that the license should be exclusive. So he's still well within his rights to dedicate it to the public domain.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
> Julian believed the copyright was worth more and so rejected the offer. Julian didn't read the contract when he first got it, because he apparently didn't care.
ryandrake 4y ago
It kind of reminds me of the story of Clare Torry, who did the vocals on Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky[1], and received the standard £30 flat fee for session work. Of course the song ended up being a critical piece of an album that went on to be one of the best selling albums in the history of music. Sometimes, we make a big contribution to something and don't end up with a big payoff. It's sad that business shrewdness and negotiating skills tend to have a higher ROI than actual subject matter talent. Torry ended up suing and they settled out of court, so I guess that's a win.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Well, and you're not reading about the countless people who contributed to something that never made any money. Or for that matter the countless people who work on Hollywood blockbusters for guild scale and a small credit at the end.

by spuz 4y ago

richardwhiuk 4y ago

At minimum, they are buying a non-exclusive license to copy the work. Beyond that is speculation. (Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft on nothing related, and love Minecraft the game.)

hnbad 4y ago
I'm German and used to do freelance work. This interpretation is what I've been told by a lawyer in a similar case: the money is for the license, not the copyright, and unless specified, the license is the minimum of what could reasonably be expected, i.e. a non-exclusive, non-transferrable, limited license for the scope of the product. IANAL but I think Microsoft is in the clear here because they bought out Mojang but they couldn't for example use the ending (or derivative works of it) in a spin-off game because Mojang couldn't have done that either and they have no standing to go after anyone reproducing the poem as a whole or in part. In fact, the poem now being CC0 grants Microsoft more rights than they had, except it's still non-exclusive, meaning the same rights are granted to everyone else too.
- mcv 4y ago
  MS can now use the End Poem in spin off products, or even adapt it and use variations or sequels of it in spin off products. Pretty good deal for them, I'd say. Though to be perfectly honest, if I were them, and they needed something like that, I'd hire Julian to write it. Or maybe ask him to write it for free after giving him a massive donation.

mcv 4y ago

> Mojang subsequently wanted to purchase that copyright and hence why they sent the contract for £1 to be signed. That is the move by Mojang that I didn't understand. They were about to be paid 2.5 billion. Why not offer 1 million for the signed contract? They could easily afford that, and with his financial troubles at the time, Julian would probably have signed it. And he'd have missed out on his subsequent personal growth, and we wouldn't have gotten this beautiful story, and the universe wouldn't have gotten the End Poem, but Microsoft would, and the world would have been more normal, predictable, corporate. But he would have been able to eat and pay rent.

Karellen 4y ago
> Why not offer 1 million for the signed contract? Because they believed (erroneously or not) that they already had paid for the thing the contract was about, and were offering a "peppercorn" payment for the signature itself to make the exchange complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law)
- salawat 4y ago
  ...and people wonder why I think contract law is as damn close to a poson pill as you can have in something brazenly referred to as a justice system.
  - djur 4y ago
    What's objectionable about this specific example of contract law? If the law didn't require contracts to have some consideration they would have offered $0. No real difference.
s3000 4y ago
There was something similar with the soundtrack of Doom Eternal [1]. They were also about to get paid billions by Microsoft and didn't pay the composer. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33532078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33532078

contravariant 4y ago

In the UK I think you're probably right, but it's not the clearest situation. You may argue that all of the communication up to the point where he agreed with their offer is part of the contract. > However, in some circumstances, for example when copyright is not dealt with in the contract to commission the work, courts may be willing to find that there is an implied licence allowing the commissioner to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. This does not necessarily result in a transfer of ownership. Instead, the commissioner of the work may only get a limited non-exclusive licence. This situation demonstrates the importance of establishing who owns copyright through a contract. [1]: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ownership-of-copyright-works

paledot 4y ago
It's very likely that an attempt on his part to sue Microsoft would fail on the grounds that a tacit agreement was reached for the use of the work, based on his acceptance of payment. However, it doesn't sound like there was any agreement, tacit or otherwise, that the license should be exclusive. So he's still well within his rights to dedicate it to the public domain.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

> Julian believed the copyright was worth more and so rejected the offer. Julian didn't read the contract when he first got it, because he apparently didn't care.

ryandrake 4y ago

It kind of reminds me of the story of Clare Torry, who did the vocals on Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky[1], and received the standard £30 flat fee for session work. Of course the song ended up being a critical piece of an album that went on to be one of the best selling albums in the history of music. Sometimes, we make a big contribution to something and don't end up with a big payoff. It's sad that business shrewdness and negotiating skills tend to have a higher ROI than actual subject matter talent. Torry ended up suing and they settled out of court, so I guess that's a win.

ghaff 4y ago
Well, and you're not reading about the countless people who contributed to something that never made any money. Or for that matter the countless people who work on Hollywood blockbusters for guild scale and a small credit at the end.