6 ms·
(Repeating for n-th time:) I like the idea of exponential cost of IP protection. First 10 or so years the protection is free. Then, on the first year of paid p
by nine_k 2y ago
(Repeating for n-th time:) I like the idea of exponential cost of IP protection.
First 10 or so years the protection is free. Then, on the first year of paid protection, you pay $10. On the second, $20. On the tenth, $10,240. On the sixteenth, $655,360. The year you miss a payment the protection ceases.
If your IP is immensely valuable and is bringing you gobs of money, you can continue paying and keep your monopoly. But the case of keeping reams of stuff under the lock "just in case" would be largely eliminated. Anything that's not a cash cow currently being milked and paid for would get released to the public domain.
On top of that, the federal budget would receive some extra money, but only from those who is making money, and not the small guy who just has published an indie game on Steam.
- pixelpoet 2y agoThat sounds like a really good idea, one problem though: this doesn't benefit the lawmaking and law-exploiting classes, so why would it happen? It's pretty clear that the legal system mostly exists to preserve big financial interests. I spent much of my adult life watching SCO play the system...
- bluGill 2y agoVoters need to make it clear that it does benefit the lawmaking class. Votes are more powerful than money in politics - but only if you use them. If you fall for one party is all good you have lost power. The hard part is getting enough other voters to care. If it is just you money is more important. If it is you and many others though you beat money.
- AlienRobot 2y agoWhom would you side with? People whose livelihoods and retirement depend on their copyright. Or people who want to play old video-games for free.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoShow me an actual person whose livelihood or retirement depends on their copyright (and not, say, owning somebody else's copyright). I'm not convinced that the current state of copyright law actually benefits authors and artists.
- AlienRobot 2y agoOkay so say I write a book. And I go to a publisher and show them the book I wrote. What is the name of the law that prevents the publisher from kicking me out of the building, printing the book I wrote, and making money off it?
- wizzwizz4 2y agoThat would be copyright law. Is this a deliberate misinterpretation of my request, or do I need to make GP clearer?
- AlienRobot 2y agoYour request is that I find you someone who has benefited from a law that makes entire professions viable? Does this help? https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/ https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/ Or do you want a list of movie directors? Perhaps of authors of assets in asset stores for game development? Comic artists? Do you want a Spotify playlist?
- drewbeck 2y agoNobody is suggesting throwing out all copyright protections.
- AlienRobot 2y agoBut someone IS suggesting that people lose copyright protections over some of their works, and eventually all of them when they don't have 10 thousand dollars to pay to keep their rights per work after just 20 years.
- wcarss 2y agothe people who want to play old videogames for free
- winocm 2y agoReminds me about how many times I've ended up buying the same game I already own, but on another platform because the original is on something I no longer have reasonable access to anymore. (I don't have a television with a RF modulator handy and getting a proper setup working takes more effort than I'm willing to put in at this age.)
- rob74 2y agoUnfortunately, the other people have more lobbying power...
- lxgr 2y agoWith the people that understand that reality isn’t as black and white as you make it out to be and that will hopefully find better compromises going forward.
- appreciatorBus 2y agoBeing able to play old video games for free is not the point though, it's just a nice side effect of an intellectual property regime with a reasonable duration, say something less than 150 years.
- wormius 2y agoThere are no residuals for game devs. It's work for hire, so holding on to this idea that they will get paid money for every sale (even after it's no longer sold - but maybe somehow once these assholes "resurrect" a game they never bothered to bring back after 30 years, will somehow benefit the actual people who made it is a joke). This has nothing to do "their livelihood and retirement"It's about protecting corporate profits in the very slim case they may discover that bringing something back (ha sure) will benefit the corporation that OWNS the rights. IP isn't the same across the board it's not like game devs are singers who have ASCAP/BMI etc protections. Game devs are code jockeys who get shit on by the corporations with NO rights to the actual work THEY produced. Why do you act like this is the same as music with perpetual rights to the actual creators? It rarely if ever is. You can go ahead and "blame" the workers you claim to support for failing to "put that in their employment contract, it is a "free market" for labor, after all" or you can work on changing the system to at least let the past be free and open and history have a chance of being important or just let it all be locked in a vault, in disuse in the "hope" that maybe someday a corporation will "release" it again as a game. Or you can let people who ARE passionate about it work on it and let the public have the right to it. As the parent comments point out, the LITERAL REASON OF COPYRIGHT IN THE US CONSTITUTION is to benefit the public. It has nothing to do with giant corps getting rich as fuck off other people's labor. Contract law gets in the way and lets these pricks steal the work and wealth, deny people the rights and only THEY get the benefit, this is the precise opposite of the public benefit intended. Culture happens on faster and faster cycles than ever before, yet instead of admitting the speed of it, these behemoths who own IP, demand continual extensions (well until the most recent time when Disney finally relented and let Steamboat Willy enter the Public Domain recently). Instead of promoting "innovation" (as phrased in the US Constitution), it promotes lethargy slouch and continued re-use of the same things. It's the exact opposite of the intent. And no, this bullshit about "livelihoods and retirement" mean jackshit in game dev. You shit your game out, you got paid for that work, and that's it. All the excess profits go to the corp, not the actual devs. IP in this case is not about humans owning/making, and it's corporations through and through, and unless you held onto the same corporation for 40 years, as the creator, it's not going to be you getting the supposed benefit of this.
- causal 2y agoMy only issue with this approach is that some people need a lot of time to start monetizing something they invent. Say I write something cool and it takes me 20 years to find someone to buy it. This punishes anyone that can't move quickly. I like the current model of works becoming public domain after X years, but would prefer we shorten those timelines a bit given the speed of software.
- nine_k 2y agoOK, person A invented something, patented it, and sits on it for 20 years, unable to find an useful application. Person B invents the same thing, and immediately sees a way to make it a big hit, with lots of demand. Should person A be blocking person B for 20 years? Why do you think person A should be entitled to that? What do you think would be more beneficial for the society?
- nwiswell 2y agoThis clearly benefits wealthy owners of IP (disney, movie studios, game publishers, etc) over small-time artists (self-published authors, small bands, etc) since the period of time that IP protection remains an economic choice is strongly tied to the value of the IP. E.g., if you write a book and realize $5,000 in sales per year, then 10 * 2^x=5000 where x is 8.97, so you only enjoy 8 years of revenues ($40,000) and you've paid Σ(1->8) 10 * 2^x = $5,100 for the privilege, for a net $34,900 or 6.98x the yearly royalty value. If Dreamworks sees $500M a year in Minions merchandising, then 10 * 2^x=500,000,000 where x = 25.56 and so Dreamworks realizes 25 years of revenues ($12,500,000,000) and pays Σ(1->25) 10 * 2^x = $671,088,620 for the privilege, for a net $11,828,911,380 or 23.66x the yearly royalty value. This is backward, in my opinion.
- nayuki 2y agoIt's not backward. It means that wealthy IP owners pay more tax to society for the privilege of earning more!
- nwiswell 2y agoSmall owners of IP get to enjoy less value from their creations due to weaker IP protections. That's backward. Moreover the amount of tax paid as a fraction of total value realized is actually lower for the large owner of IP because the total tax payment is dominated by the final years, but the total revenue is determined by the number of years. In the example above, we had: $5,100 / $40,000 = 12.75% tax for the small author, and $671,088,620 / $12,500,000,000 = 5.37% tax for Dreamworks. The ratios would be even worse if the small author could've just barely justified the 9th year. Pretty much unconscionable. The fact that we're collecting tax from IP is not interesting. We have progressive income tax for this purpose.
- jmward01 2y agoSo your argument is that something that takes in 500m in its useful lifetime shouldn't net the creator more than something that takes in only 100k in its useful lifetime? Yes, big content X that churns out mega movies that have more staying power than indy film y would make more money, but now instead of that mega company X holding onto everything for 10 lifetimes they are forced to releases it. If this is structured to kick in with normal lifespans accounted for then it shouldn't really hurt the indy side of things.
- danny_codes 2y agoOr just don't have IP at all. It's entirely a waste of resources. What, you won't work on a cure for cancer because you can't rent-seek discovery? No, of course not. The marginal profit is sufficient. The entire system is unnecessary and serves no public utility. It just facilitates a new form of rent on knowledge. It's as bad as the idea of privatizing land rents.
- nine_k 2y agoPatents were invented for a good reason. They prevent important inventions from dying as trade secrets, and being lost to the society. A patent requires a clear explanation of an invention, in exchange for a limited time of monopoly on its use. After that, the invention enters public domain. Before patents. important inventions would stay tightly guarded secrets, because once the invention leaks, there's no recourse, every competitor can freely use it, and put you out of business. Hence the inventions were lost forever (at best, need to be reinvented from scratch) if the original inventor went out of business somehow without sharing the secret. Patents are a boon for everyone as long as the detrimental effects from the monopoly don't outweigh the beneficial effects of sharing knowledge and general ease of business operation without thick shrouds of secrecy. That is, as long as the time of protection is set right.