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I don't understand. Say I pay a Valve employee a million dollars for the current working source-code of Half-Life 3. I then compile it and release the first co

by columbo 14y ago

I don't understand. Say I pay a Valve employee a million dollars for the current working source-code of Half-Life 3. I then compile it and release the first couple working levels for $10 a pop... I should easily be able to make 50 million out of that exercise. What protections would Valve have in your no-copyright, no-ip scenario?

gnaritas 14y ago
Criminal law, it wasn't his to sell, you both broke the law.
- columbo 14y ago
  Nothing was "stolen". Without copyright there was nothing that was removed from Valve. It is just a copy.
  - gnaritas 14y ago
    False, a trade secret was stolen, and said employee did not have the right to copy it or disclose it.
    - columbo 14y ago
      Wait a sec... so get rid of patents, copyrights but leave the concept of trade secrets? How does that make sense?
      - gnaritas 14y ago
        You can't outlaw companies keeping confidential information. And you certainly can't legalize its theft and maintain a functioning market.
Suncho 14y ago
I'm not anti-trade secrets. In your scenario, the source code to Half-Life 3 is a trade secret that the Valve employee is obligated to keep. However, if the code is ever made publicly available to read, it's no longer a secret and no money should be made from selling or licensing it. And even if the source is never public, once binaries are made public, it should be perfectly legal to reverse engineer those binaries. In a no-copyright world, Valve's business model would certainly have to change, but your particular example would work mostly the same as it does now. The major difference is that you wouldn't be able to make 50 million dollars. Once those levels were released, people would be able to share them freely among themselves. Only the first person has to pay the $10, which means if you're willing to pay a million dollars for illegal access to secret source code, you should probably have a better plan for what to do with it. =P
- columbo 14y ago
  > Once those levels were released, people would be able to share them freely among themselves > In a no-copyright world, Valve's business model would certainly have to change Yes it would have to change. Honestly I don't think you've thought this all the way through. You need to show how companies like Apple, Microsoft, Valve and the thousands of smaller software makers (Adobe, Autodesk, Bethesda, Roxio, Zynga, IBM, Oracle, Blizzard, Symantec, Norton, SalesForce.com, Konami, Blackboard...) can still make as much money as they do today and have the same protections they have today. If you can't well, then we may as well sit around discussing what the world would be like if there was no war, or what kind of tidal waves two moons would generate.

by columbo 14y ago

gnaritas 14y ago

Criminal law, it wasn't his to sell, you both broke the law.

columbo 14y ago
Nothing was "stolen". Without copyright there was nothing that was removed from Valve. It is just a copy.
- gnaritas 14y ago
  False, a trade secret was stolen, and said employee did not have the right to copy it or disclose it.
  - columbo 14y ago
    Wait a sec... so get rid of patents, copyrights but leave the concept of trade secrets? How does that make sense?
    - gnaritas 14y ago
      You can't outlaw companies keeping confidential information. And you certainly can't legalize its theft and maintain a functioning market.

Suncho 14y ago

I'm not anti-trade secrets. In your scenario, the source code to Half-Life 3 is a trade secret that the Valve employee is obligated to keep. However, if the code is ever made publicly available to read, it's no longer a secret and no money should be made from selling or licensing it. And even if the source is never public, once binaries are made public, it should be perfectly legal to reverse engineer those binaries. In a no-copyright world, Valve's business model would certainly have to change, but your particular example would work mostly the same as it does now. The major difference is that you wouldn't be able to make 50 million dollars. Once those levels were released, people would be able to share them freely among themselves. Only the first person has to pay the $10, which means if you're willing to pay a million dollars for illegal access to secret source code, you should probably have a better plan for what to do with it. =P

columbo 14y ago
> Once those levels were released, people would be able to share them freely among themselves > In a no-copyright world, Valve's business model would certainly have to change Yes it would have to change. Honestly I don't think you've thought this all the way through. You need to show how companies like Apple, Microsoft, Valve and the thousands of smaller software makers (Adobe, Autodesk, Bethesda, Roxio, Zynga, IBM, Oracle, Blizzard, Symantec, Norton, SalesForce.com, Konami, Blackboard...) can still make as much money as they do today and have the same protections they have today. If you can't well, then we may as well sit around discussing what the world would be like if there was no war, or what kind of tidal waves two moons would generate.