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Why Games Should Enter The Public Domain

172 points by Fargren 13y ago

msandford 13y ago
Anyone who argues about needing lifetime + 20 years for video games is isn't paying attention. The half-life of a video game is perhaps 2-6 (depending on a bunch of factors) so a 20 year gives you between 3 and 10 halvings. More than enough time for you to capture the bulk of the sales that you're entitled to, but also a reasonable amount of time to return the ideas you borrowed from society & culture back to the public domain.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  When do we start the clock? You're right that most games are pushed out the door and get most of their sales within the first few months and are basically abandoned after that. However there is the trend of "early access" games as well as games that continue to receive updates over time, minecraft or Wow would be examples of these, so there is a more gradual flow of sales. It's not inconceivable that a game like minecraft could go on for 20 years , even if it's future form bares little resemblance to it's original release.
  - chongli 13y ago
    However there is the trend of "early access" games as well as games that continue to receive updates over time, minecraft or Wow would be examples of these, so there is a more gradual flow of sales. This trend, I believe, is partly in response to piracy. One might even argue that some derivative of this model (perhaps in conjunction with crowd-funding à la Kickstarter) could succeed even in the absence of copyright law altogether!
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      I'm not sure I follow, how do early access games reduce piracy?
      - chongli 13y ago
        They don't reduce piracy (or if they do, it's not relevant). What they do is mitigate the effects of piracy by lowering the risk of development. If your Kickstarter or early access game is successful enough, you may end up paying for the entire development of the game long before you finish developing it. And if it's not successful then you stop development and move on to something else.
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        That makes sense, crowd sourcing etc can be used to take risk out of development. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say you don't need copyright though. Most crowd-funded games are still under proprietary licenses. Part of the appeal is getting a game earlier / cheaper than you would at release. If you allow unlimited redistribution you remove much of that incentive.
        chongli 13y ago
        If you allow unlimited redistribution you remove much of that incentive. I disagree. The vast majority of games developed today do not have a hope of paying for their own development, copyrighted or otherwise. It's only a very small proportion of games (so-called AAA) that are developed with the expectation of profit.
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean, surely all games are produced with an expectation of profit otherwise they would not be made. Discounting small games that people make for gamejams etc.
        chongli 13y ago
        Take a look at the IndieGaming subreddit (over on Reddit). Every single day I see half a dozen new games pop up. People are making thousands and thousands of new games all the time. Do you honestly believe they all do so with an explicit expectation of profit? No, the basic premise that people do not create without an expectation of profit is false and frankly deeply insulting to humanity. http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/
  - blueblob 13y ago
    It seems like this is providing and charging for a service instead of a product.
  - lmm 13y ago
    That sounds like a pretty easy problem: A given release should enter the public domain however many years after it was released. So after 20 years the first release of minecraft would be in the public domain and other people could base new games off that if they wanted, but newer releases would of course remain under copyright (assuming they contained any nontrivial changes).
    - JetSpiegel 13y ago
      Does "nontrivial changes" include updating the version number? Because if you open a trapdoor like that, everyone will do it.
      - lmm 13y ago
        It doesn't really matter - as long as someone keeps hold of what was actually released 20 years ago, they can use that, and it won't matter that the release from 19 years ago remains under copyright.
      - jerf 13y ago
        Then you would not get rights to the new version number, but you could get it to everything else... excepting that that is a bad example as version numbers would not be copyrightable as a brute fact, but more realistically, if you merely add one creative paragraph of flavor text the clock would start anew on that paragraph, but the protection would not magically flow backwards back in time to the entire rest of the content.
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        I'm not sure the trapdoor is necessary. If the changes are in fact trivial (whatever courts decide), people will just copy/use the public domain version.
      - CJefferson 13y ago
        Personally, I think the main problem with copyright is not the things were the owners care about them, but where they do not. Personally, I would be mostly happy with current copyright, with an extension that items must be reregistered every 5 years, and available for sale. That would deal with the huge amount of items (games are a good example) where the original owners don't care enough to release the game as public domain, or often can't even be traced.
  - jerf 13y ago
    From a copyright perspective, when a work is published, the clock starts on that work. Even if the work is software and subsequently gets modified, if you retain an older copy, it will expire on schedule. You won't get rights to the new stuff, but you could still, say, extract textures and use them elsewhere. Merely endlessly permuting a work does not give you exclusive rights in perpetuity. You keep building rights to the new stuff, but not the unmodified bits. Of course this point is entirely theoretical at the moment since it will be many many decades before any video game ever created enters the public domain.
    - smithzvk 13y ago
      Well, I assume this is true of video games the same way it is true of other art, but because people keep extending copyright terms faster than they expire, it's not clear if anything will every make it to the public domain again. We are scheduled to have some books (presumably published in 1923) enter the public domain in 2019 but you never know what some lobbyists can pull off in the next 5 years.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    Minecraft is an interesting choice of example, given that it so heavily borrowed from Infiniminer.
    - qbrass 13y ago
      And that there are a million clones of it already.
  - cma 13y ago
    What's the issue? Any additions would be covered by a succession of additional copyrights.
  - 650REDHAIR 13y ago
    EVE online was released more than 10 years ago and is still going strong (and growing). I wonder where they would fall in line.
    - aw3c2 13y ago
      Seeing as it is continuously being worked on, the copyright would extend to the new stuff all the time.
    - theandrewbailey 13y ago
      AFAIK, the EVE Online server was never released, and being an MMO, that's where the game actually happens. At that point, it might actually be perpetual. Even if it all was public domain, the creators (CCP Games) would still be in the best position to profit.
  - vilhelm_s 13y ago
    Copyright law already does address the "when does the clock start" issue in great detail (in order to determine when the copyright period expires). We could keep using all that case law, and just adjust the duration of the copyright down. In particular, making a significant change to a work creates a new copyright for the changed work. If you boot up windows it will say something like "Copyright (C) Microsoft 1983-2013", meaning that the earliest code was written in 1983 and the last significant change was in 2013. That means that this version of Windows will enter the public domain in the year 2014+95. But you can start making copies of the original 1983 version of DOS already in 1983+95.
- jrs99 13y ago
  i don't think people who are against this care about the lifetime of a video game. For them, it's probably more about owning what you build. I would personally love to buy all video games made in 1993 on a set of discs sold by Microsoft for $5 that plays on an xbox.
- deleted 13y ago
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danso 13y ago
OK, someone who is a lawyer...what are the implications for reusage of non-technical assets? That is, if Super Mario enters the public domain, would I have the right the appropriate its theme music and characters for my own profit-making venture?
- belorn 13y ago
  Yes, this is why you can used a Shakespeare storyline in a game, or use one of the many classical written music in a game, movie or song.
  - JetSpiegel 13y ago
    IANAL, but in that case can I make an animated film about Cinderella? The story is in the public domain, but Disney have recent films. By making a Cinderella film did Disney gained the right to block subsequent works based on it?
    - er35826 13y ago
      You should be able to. See the regular launching of "Sherlock" shows, and the multiple on-air concurrently. Edit: Though Sherlock does have some limitations. Elements of the Sherlock stories introduced after 1922 are still copyrighted, but things from the vast majority of Doyle's stories are public domain and usable by anyone.
    - dagw 13y ago
      Nope, you can still make a Cinderella film. The tricky bit is to make sure that all your visual and story inspirations for the movie comes only from the 'original' sources (Grim, Lang etc.) and nothing the Disney movie.
    - wisty 13y ago
      Yes, as long as you don't copy anything that Disney added to it, or infringe on any of Disney's trademarks. There's actually companies who create "Mockbusters" - movies with similar titles to the latest hits, to con people into buying them. They tend to walk a fine line, but they do OK (although they piss off a lot of customers).
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
In Broussard's defense, Duke Nukem 3D was GPLed in 2003, with the exception of the assets. Although he's against the idea of entering the public domain outright, he's not resistant to openness and giving to the community.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  That's not much of a defense at all, the cultural impact of Duke Nukem 3D is in the assets, not the code, though the BUILD engine was itself remarkable in its era. Good on George for GPLing the engine, but his "openness to giving to the community" seems to stop short of anything that the mainstream public would benefit from. And on a snarkier and less philosophical note: maybe Duke Nukem should be given over to the public domain. After DNF maybe someone else should have a shot. It, after all, would not stop Broussard from pursuing his own new Duke Nukem game, and might allow someone else to salvage a pretty influential part of 90s culture. [edit] Thought about this some more. The return of a work into the public domain is less about the ability to redistribute it verbatim and more about the ability to extend and derive from it. The cultural impact of public domain for Shakespeare are the million spinoffs, reimaginings, and new productions. The freedom to redistribute the original text is only a tiny part of the intent of public domain. This is the public good that comes from the work being in the public domain. So GPLing the engine, or even opening up the assets, does not even begin to address the intent of public domain. Until someone (anyone!) can make a new Duke Nukem game, or a Duke Nukem movie, or a Duke Nukem novel (Prohibition-era Duke?), or incorporate Duke into some other work, the core intent of the public domain isn't being met.
  - amurmann 13y ago
    Yes! There are so many amazing IPs in the gaming space that are just sitting there or get mutilated by the holder.
- saraid216 13y ago
  Broussard is opposing this on the grounds of creative control as much as anything.
higherpurpose 13y ago
20 years is more than enough to monetize a game, and even most franchises out there (I very much doubt anyone will care about buying an "Angry Birds" game 15 years from now, or even a "Mass Effect" one). But franchises don't even need to be included in this rule. You can just take every game on its own. So Mass Effect 10 would still benefit from 20 years of copyright, while Mass Effect 1 will be in the public domain by then.
- amurmann 13y ago
  I actually like the idea of franchises becoming public domain. In many cases it seems that the holder either doesn't care about the IP (Sega properties like Skies of Arcadia, Landstalker or the Oasis series come to mind. Cap com has a bunch too) or they seem least competent in furthering the franchise (George Lucas, Square and now EA with Dungeon Keeper).
- dllthomas 13y ago
  I certainly agree with "most", but there are definitely franchises that have spanned more than 20 years. The first Final Fantasy was released in 1987, the first Zelda a year before.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    Yes, I would like to play the original Final Fantasy. I would download that probably right away. Someone could easily take Myst, (maybe Microsoft or Sony?) and put a good, updated version for ps4 or xbox one or even wii u and sell it for maybe $9.99. Do you know how cheap classic books are at the bookstore? You can get books by Charles Dickens for like 5.99. If prices go down for video games, an Xbox one compatible set of classic games like Myst from that era would be insanely cheap. I'd buy instantly. I wouldn't have to buy another game for like 10 years, I'd be so busy.
    - ANTSANTS 13y ago
      Have you heard of Nintendo's Virtual Console service? They've been doing pretty much exactly this since the Wii launched in 2006: old games for the NES, SNES, Genesis, and more for $5-15~. You can't get the Final Fantasy games, because Square Enix probably thinks having the original games would hurt demand for their expensive remakes, but otherwise their selection is pretty good. For PC games, you have Good Old Games, which sells DRM-free versions of classic PC games tweaked for modern hardware (or ran in an emulator, for the really old ones) with no need for CD serials. The future you wanted is already here! What do you know, they even have Myst: http://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition http://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition Or you could just Google "no-intro $game_console_of_choice" and get the entire library in minutes that way...
dagw 13y ago
Not entirely the same, but I really wish the concept of compulsory mechanical licensing that exists for music would cover more creative endeavors. I'm kind of OK with creator of the original Duke Nukem character getting royalties for uses of his character, I'm less OK with him being able to forbid anybody else from ever making a 'cover' of his game.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  What would a 'cover' of a game be? You can make a game which is very very similar to Duke Nukem as long as you don't reuse characters , assets or code from the original.
  - girvo 13y ago
    Tell that to anyone who cloned any Nintendo game ever, even if they recreated everything.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      Do you have any examples? There are a ton of platformers which are very mario-like and I don't think got into any trouble. Of course if you reproduce a mario game with a mario character even if you redrew him you would be in trouble.
      - girvo 13y ago
        That latter sentence of yours is entirely the point! Wouldn't it be cool to get a "mechanical license" to allow you to recreate (I'm your own way) Super Mario Bros with the original characters (even if you make the graphics yourself)? Quite literally a "cover", in a way that's more recognisable than just sheer mechanics? You can argue that you almost can now, and in some cases yes, but I'd love to pay royalties to someone to "cover" my favourite RPG from the Megadrive, beyond just making a "spiritual successor"!
        jiggy2011 13y ago
jrs99 13y ago
Every year, Microsoft could come out with a very cheap console. The first could be called something like THE 1993 COLLECTION It would just be a simple box with a 1993-strength processor on it. And it would have a controller and a huge hard disk on it that has every game created from 1993. I think that would be a great idea for gamers. Something else Microsoft could do is release an XBOX ONE disc with the top games from 1993. That could be a huge hit and I bet a lot of the classic games would make a big comeback and get popular again.
- lucb1e 13y ago
  Wait, why Microsoft? I'd say they're the last company to do this. It sounds more like a Valve action to do this kind of awesomeness.
  - MartinCron 13y ago
    Ideally it would be great if a bunch of different companies did it. I personally wouldn't want everything from 1993, but an exquisitely curated set would be worth paying for.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      If the games were in the public domain, a devoted group of fans could produce an exquisitely curated set for free.
      - MartinCron 13y ago
        Or both! Wouldn't that be great? Sigh, perpetual copyright...
- alanctgardner2 13y ago
  I'd just like to comment, because this comment hasn't attracted any replies yet, and it is: a) moronic b) completely tangental to the point under discussion The list of "things that people could do" is quite long. You, for example, could go live in a hole far, far away where there is no internet. To qualify for this list, things do not have to be: profitable, rational or feasible. However, when a company like Microsoft creates a product, they consider all of those things, likely in that order. Thus when you propose that "a thing Microsoft could do" is to find every game created within every calendar year, then, at great expense, replicate the antiquated equipment on which that software ran, then market and sell it very cheaply despite the costs of research, licensing and quality assurance, I think that is a thing which Microsoft is very unlikely to do. I don't think it would be a very clever thing for Microsoft to do, nor would it be good for gamers, because after the inaugural release of a million games from 1993 nobody cares about Microsoft would cease to exist as a commercial entity, having wasted all of it's resources on this terrible, terrible idea. On the other hand, why were you even compelled to write this? The most imaginative, creative scenario you could imagine was that if software copyrights expired very quickly, you would like to pay someone for that software? Which is totally already a thing you can do, and the proceeds (in reality) would go to the creator of the software? In conclusion, the internet has broken me. I have no more will to live, and I can only hope in the distant future a giant, faceless corporation will populate different planets with clones of all the people born in each year, so that my clone can go and live happily on the planet 1991 forever. Hopefully your clone will not be present.
skywhopper 13y ago
Yes, please. I'd argue for all copyrights to expire at 20 years after publication. The idea that there's a perpetual right to intellectual "property" is a very dangerous one to a free society and to freedom of expression. There's no inherent right to own ideas. That's a legal construct created to encourage sharing of those ideas. But the idea that a 20-year limit is too short to encourage authors and musicians and game developers to create new creative work is ludicrous. If anything, the essentially unlimited copyright of today encourages less creative output and less innovation. Why develop any new characters or stories if you've got multiple generations worth of copyright left to go? Keep pumping out the sequels.
- sp332 13y ago
  I wouldn't even mind a compromise where anyone who paid a small extension fee could keep copyright going. That way Disney, Bono, etc could keep their own copyrights without messing things up for every other copyrighted work.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Yes! Are you an EU citizen? If so, it would be great if you could voice your opinion in the ongoing consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules, currently held by the European Commision. Here's the link: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyr... Even non-complete surveys will be considered and you can be sure your contribution will be read since the number of contributions is always relatively low. The same goes for any other EU citizens on HN. Now is the time to make yourself heared!
  - gabemart 13y ago
    This idea is floated quite often in reformist discussions of copyright, but I think it would be a huge headache. I have worked with public domain material quite a bit. Currently, anything published in the United States prior to 1923 is in the public domain in the United States [1][2]. Some works published after 1923 are also in the public domain if they meet certain conditions (e.g. a work published in 1925 with a copyright notice where the copyright was never renewed), but it can be an extreme headache to work out which post-1923 works are in copyright and which are not. Although I am in no way a fan of the current system, it at least has the advantage of clarity for pre-1923 works. In a proposed system of copyright extension, renewal or terms that are in other ways modifiable on a per-work basis, establishing whether or not works are still in copyright would become an absolute nightmare. Consider that, in the US, copyright applies to any eligible creative work at the moment it is "created and fixed in a tangible form" [3]. In the internet age, millions or billions or works are created each day that are protected by copyright. Most of these works do not have a title and will never be registered anywhere, but copyright applies none the less. A central registry of copyrighted works is impossible, much less a registry that records the specific extensions or renewal term on a per-work basis. In my opinion, the only possible system that can work is one based on fixed lengths of time. If copyright is extendable, the large majority of works will fall into a legal grey area where it is unclear whether or not the copyright has been extended and almost impossible to find out. Under such a system, the only safe approach to handling copyrighted works would be to assume each work had had its copyright extended to the maximum term possible under law, unless it was provable that was not the case (which, as I have argued, would be extremely difficult). Under a fixed-term system, it is simple to work out whether or not most works are still copyrighted, even in cases where the title, author of record or copyright holder are not identifiable. [1] There may be some obscure exceptions to this rule, but it holds broadly enough that I have never encountered any in practice. [2] http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm [3] http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
justinhj 13y ago
This is very long and I made it only a third of the way. Does it say anything more substantial than. "I would like to play old games for free?" I did enjoy the pictures.
- argc 13y ago
  I don't think its about playing old games for free. I think its about releasing the source of old games so that the craftsmanship, ideas, technology etc can be used and reused by the developers of today and tomorrow.
  - teamonkey 13y ago
    Uh, tech's not really a great reason. The tech behind 20 year old games is hardly an arcane mystery. The Games industry in general is pretty good at sharing techniques, perhaps because by the time they're shared, they're already old. You don't need a game to enter the public domain to deconstruct ideas and craftsmanship either. You DO need it to legally play the majority of games for free, or to resell without paying royalties.
lostcolony 13y ago
One thing his linked article misses is the fact that if these things entered the public domain, a lot of games that are currently tied in ownership hell would be free for GoG to remaster/rework to work on modern computers, and sell. And recall, a LOT of these games are only now available, even to the original owners, because of GoG. The original owners just sat on the IP, because the profits weren't enough to justify porting them to a modern OS.
- jrs99 13y ago
  I think Microsoft should really work on this law. They can easily have an INSANE game store that comes with all windows 8 machines. They also have an advantage in porting old windows games to newer operating systems. Without development costs for game design, they just have to port, and will be able to profit massively. They can easily make it difficult to get a game working that is not from the Microsoft Classic Game Store. But, at the same time, this would still be GREAT for consumers, because games would be cheap. They could just have a set of old Mario games or Final Fantasy games even for FREE if you create a store account and add your credit card information. Companies with consoles or distribution (like Amazon) would have a great advantage. Amazon could even provide every game for free if you sign up for Amazon Prime. I cannot wait for Mario on Xbox. haha. That's going to be weird but seriously awesome.
Fasebook 13y ago
While we're at it lets let industrial applications and nuclear technology enter the Public Domain. The same argument works there.
- lucb1e 13y ago
  If it weren't for all the idiots in the world that don't care about Mutually Assured Destruction, that might not be a bad idea. MAD keeps countries at peace, or, at least there is something to say for it. I'm not sure MAD is really the way to world peace, but the idea that owning nuclear weapons is inherently bad for any government in the world... I'm not sure how right that is, either. If you are sure that you will be destroyed as soon as you attack, no matter whether you attack first, there is suddenly a lot less incentive to attack.
argc 13y ago
This idea, that ideas come from society and should be returned to society, resonates with me profoundly. (And 20 years seems generous.) It almost seems selfish to keep ideas from the public so that the "creator" can continue to profit. As developers, we have seen over and over again the exponential multiplier that the community can be. Release the source and open the doors to infinite possibilities.
pikachu_is_cool 13y ago
How about games enter the public domain the instant they are released? How about these developers spend their efforts on something that has actual value to society?
mehwoot 13y ago
Expressing a desire for a game to enter the public domain, let’s say twenty years after publication, does not in any sense whatsoever suggest a desire for developers to not get paid. I resent having to type this. It’s a bit like finding yourself having to say that you’re not in favour of gruesomely starving children to death because you expressed a thought that they probably shouldn’t get to exclusively eat at McDonald’s. “But the prisoner is still in prison!” he’d cry, as he left the police station, his pockets out-turned, not having done any other work in the thirty-five years since and bemused as to why he wasn’t living in a castle. Dude complains about people exaggerating his opinion and then proceeds to completely exaggerate the opposing opinion (a policeman deserves to live in a castle for arresting one criminal 35 years ago).
mehwoot 13y ago
I guess the explanation to why someone deserves to be paid for something as long as they live is: if somebody is creating something to be sold to other people, and that is their job, why should it matter when that thing is sold to someone? A policeman isn't being paid for keeping someone in Jail, they are being paid to put them there. Content creators don't get paid for creating a work, they get paid for selling it to somebody- so why an arbitrary restriction saying once X years are up, you can't sell it anymore (or can't effectively since anyone can have it for free). The answer is, it is in the common interests to have these rights expire at some point, since after a certain period of time the utility of having everyone be able to do what they want with the work is greater than the expected value the content creator would be able to extract. But if you believe that copyright should be valid for any period of time at all, don't act like it is a given that it should expire after some arbitrary period of time. You are taking away a right from somebody in the interests of the public good, and there is always going to be discussion when that happens because you are taking away from one group of people specifically to benefit society as a whole.
- Sssnake 13y ago
  >so why an arbitrary restriction saying once X years are up, you can't sell it anymore (or can't effectively since anyone can have it for free). That is backwards. We set up an arbitrary restriction saying people can't reproduce it, and that is the only reason this artificially created business exists. There is no reason for this arbitrary restriction to extend indefinitely. The business would exist just fine with 20 year copyright, so we should do that.
- usea 13y ago
  Copyright isn't a right to sell a work, granted to the creator. It's a restriction on copying works that others have created. You can still sell something to somebody, even if it's in the public domain.
  - mehwoot 13y ago
    I know it isn't technically, but that is the effect of it and for all intents and purposes the right it grants.
chrismcb 13y ago
I'm amazed at some of the complaints about the original article, I wonder if they know that their copyrights will end eventually? But to put it into perspective, here are a few of the games released in 1994: Doom II, Mortal Kombat II, Marathon, Daytona USA, Super Metroid on SNES, Earthworm Jim.

172 points by Fargren 13y ago

Anyone who argues about needing lifetime + 20 years for video games is isn't paying attention. The half-life of a video game is perhaps 2-6 (depending on a bunch of factors) so a 20 year gives you between 3 and 10 halvings. More than enough time for you to capture the bulk of the sales that you're entitled to, but also a reasonable amount of time to return the ideas you borrowed from society & culture back to the public domain.

jiggy2011 13y ago
When do we start the clock? You're right that most games are pushed out the door and get most of their sales within the first few months and are basically abandoned after that. However there is the trend of "early access" games as well as games that continue to receive updates over time, minecraft or Wow would be examples of these, so there is a more gradual flow of sales. It's not inconceivable that a game like minecraft could go on for 20 years , even if it's future form bares little resemblance to it's original release.
- chongli 13y ago
  However there is the trend of "early access" games as well as games that continue to receive updates over time, minecraft or Wow would be examples of these, so there is a more gradual flow of sales. This trend, I believe, is partly in response to piracy. One might even argue that some derivative of this model (perhaps in conjunction with crowd-funding à la Kickstarter) could succeed even in the absence of copyright law altogether!
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    I'm not sure I follow, how do early access games reduce piracy?
    - chongli 13y ago
      They don't reduce piracy (or if they do, it's not relevant). What they do is mitigate the effects of piracy by lowering the risk of development. If your Kickstarter or early access game is successful enough, you may end up paying for the entire development of the game long before you finish developing it. And if it's not successful then you stop development and move on to something else.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        That makes sense, crowd sourcing etc can be used to take risk out of development. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say you don't need copyright though. Most crowd-funded games are still under proprietary licenses. Part of the appeal is getting a game earlier / cheaper than you would at release. If you allow unlimited redistribution you remove much of that incentive.
        chongli 13y ago
        If you allow unlimited redistribution you remove much of that incentive. I disagree. The vast majority of games developed today do not have a hope of paying for their own development, copyrighted or otherwise. It's only a very small proportion of games (so-called AAA) that are developed with the expectation of profit.
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean, surely all games are produced with an expectation of profit otherwise they would not be made. Discounting small games that people make for gamejams etc.
        chongli 13y ago
        Take a look at the IndieGaming subreddit (over on Reddit). Every single day I see half a dozen new games pop up. People are making thousands and thousands of new games all the time. Do you honestly believe they all do so with an explicit expectation of profit? No, the basic premise that people do not create without an expectation of profit is false and frankly deeply insulting to humanity. http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/
- blueblob 13y ago
  It seems like this is providing and charging for a service instead of a product.
- lmm 13y ago
  That sounds like a pretty easy problem: A given release should enter the public domain however many years after it was released. So after 20 years the first release of minecraft would be in the public domain and other people could base new games off that if they wanted, but newer releases would of course remain under copyright (assuming they contained any nontrivial changes).
  - JetSpiegel 13y ago
    Does "nontrivial changes" include updating the version number? Because if you open a trapdoor like that, everyone will do it.
    - lmm 13y ago
      It doesn't really matter - as long as someone keeps hold of what was actually released 20 years ago, they can use that, and it won't matter that the release from 19 years ago remains under copyright.
    - jerf 13y ago
      Then you would not get rights to the new version number, but you could get it to everything else... excepting that that is a bad example as version numbers would not be copyrightable as a brute fact, but more realistically, if you merely add one creative paragraph of flavor text the clock would start anew on that paragraph, but the protection would not magically flow backwards back in time to the entire rest of the content.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      I'm not sure the trapdoor is necessary. If the changes are in fact trivial (whatever courts decide), people will just copy/use the public domain version.
    - CJefferson 13y ago
      Personally, I think the main problem with copyright is not the things were the owners care about them, but where they do not. Personally, I would be mostly happy with current copyright, with an extension that items must be reregistered every 5 years, and available for sale. That would deal with the huge amount of items (games are a good example) where the original owners don't care enough to release the game as public domain, or often can't even be traced.
- jerf 13y ago
  From a copyright perspective, when a work is published, the clock starts on that work. Even if the work is software and subsequently gets modified, if you retain an older copy, it will expire on schedule. You won't get rights to the new stuff, but you could still, say, extract textures and use them elsewhere. Merely endlessly permuting a work does not give you exclusive rights in perpetuity. You keep building rights to the new stuff, but not the unmodified bits. Of course this point is entirely theoretical at the moment since it will be many many decades before any video game ever created enters the public domain.
  - smithzvk 13y ago
    Well, I assume this is true of video games the same way it is true of other art, but because people keep extending copyright terms faster than they expire, it's not clear if anything will every make it to the public domain again. We are scheduled to have some books (presumably published in 1923) enter the public domain in 2019 but you never know what some lobbyists can pull off in the next 5 years.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  Minecraft is an interesting choice of example, given that it so heavily borrowed from Infiniminer.
  - qbrass 13y ago
    And that there are a million clones of it already.
- cma 13y ago
  What's the issue? Any additions would be covered by a succession of additional copyrights.
- 650REDHAIR 13y ago
  EVE online was released more than 10 years ago and is still going strong (and growing). I wonder where they would fall in line.
  - aw3c2 13y ago
    Seeing as it is continuously being worked on, the copyright would extend to the new stuff all the time.
  - theandrewbailey 13y ago
    AFAIK, the EVE Online server was never released, and being an MMO, that's where the game actually happens. At that point, it might actually be perpetual. Even if it all was public domain, the creators (CCP Games) would still be in the best position to profit.
- vilhelm_s 13y ago
  Copyright law already does address the "when does the clock start" issue in great detail (in order to determine when the copyright period expires). We could keep using all that case law, and just adjust the duration of the copyright down. In particular, making a significant change to a work creates a new copyright for the changed work. If you boot up windows it will say something like "Copyright (C) Microsoft 1983-2013", meaning that the earliest code was written in 1983 and the last significant change was in 2013. That means that this version of Windows will enter the public domain in the year 2014+95. But you can start making copies of the original 1983 version of DOS already in 1983+95.
jrs99 13y ago
i don't think people who are against this care about the lifetime of a video game. For them, it's probably more about owning what you build. I would personally love to buy all video games made in 1993 on a set of discs sold by Microsoft for $5 that plays on an xbox.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

danso 13y ago

OK, someone who is a lawyer...what are the implications for reusage of non-technical assets? That is, if Super Mario enters the public domain, would I have the right the appropriate its theme music and characters for my own profit-making venture?

belorn 13y ago
Yes, this is why you can used a Shakespeare storyline in a game, or use one of the many classical written music in a game, movie or song.
- JetSpiegel 13y ago
  IANAL, but in that case can I make an animated film about Cinderella? The story is in the public domain, but Disney have recent films. By making a Cinderella film did Disney gained the right to block subsequent works based on it?
  - er35826 13y ago
    You should be able to. See the regular launching of "Sherlock" shows, and the multiple on-air concurrently. Edit: Though Sherlock does have some limitations. Elements of the Sherlock stories introduced after 1922 are still copyrighted, but things from the vast majority of Doyle's stories are public domain and usable by anyone.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Nope, you can still make a Cinderella film. The tricky bit is to make sure that all your visual and story inspirations for the movie comes only from the 'original' sources (Grim, Lang etc.) and nothing the Disney movie.
  - wisty 13y ago
    Yes, as long as you don't copy anything that Disney added to it, or infringe on any of Disney's trademarks. There's actually companies who create "Mockbusters" - movies with similar titles to the latest hits, to con people into buying them. They tend to walk a fine line, but they do OK (although they piss off a lot of customers).

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

In Broussard's defense, Duke Nukem 3D was GPLed in 2003, with the exception of the assets. Although he's against the idea of entering the public domain outright, he's not resistant to openness and giving to the community.

potatolicious 13y ago
That's not much of a defense at all, the cultural impact of Duke Nukem 3D is in the assets, not the code, though the BUILD engine was itself remarkable in its era. Good on George for GPLing the engine, but his "openness to giving to the community" seems to stop short of anything that the mainstream public would benefit from. And on a snarkier and less philosophical note: maybe Duke Nukem should be given over to the public domain. After DNF maybe someone else should have a shot. It, after all, would not stop Broussard from pursuing his own new Duke Nukem game, and might allow someone else to salvage a pretty influential part of 90s culture. [edit] Thought about this some more. The return of a work into the public domain is less about the ability to redistribute it verbatim and more about the ability to extend and derive from it. The cultural impact of public domain for Shakespeare are the million spinoffs, reimaginings, and new productions. The freedom to redistribute the original text is only a tiny part of the intent of public domain. This is the public good that comes from the work being in the public domain. So GPLing the engine, or even opening up the assets, does not even begin to address the intent of public domain. Until someone (anyone!) can make a new Duke Nukem game, or a Duke Nukem movie, or a Duke Nukem novel (Prohibition-era Duke?), or incorporate Duke into some other work, the core intent of the public domain isn't being met.
- amurmann 13y ago
  Yes! There are so many amazing IPs in the gaming space that are just sitting there or get mutilated by the holder.
saraid216 13y ago
Broussard is opposing this on the grounds of creative control as much as anything.

higherpurpose 13y ago

20 years is more than enough to monetize a game, and even most franchises out there (I very much doubt anyone will care about buying an "Angry Birds" game 15 years from now, or even a "Mass Effect" one). But franchises don't even need to be included in this rule. You can just take every game on its own. So Mass Effect 10 would still benefit from 20 years of copyright, while Mass Effect 1 will be in the public domain by then.

amurmann 13y ago
I actually like the idea of franchises becoming public domain. In many cases it seems that the holder either doesn't care about the IP (Sega properties like Skies of Arcadia, Landstalker or the Oasis series come to mind. Cap com has a bunch too) or they seem least competent in furthering the franchise (George Lucas, Square and now EA with Dungeon Keeper).
dllthomas 13y ago
I certainly agree with "most", but there are definitely franchises that have spanned more than 20 years. The first Final Fantasy was released in 1987, the first Zelda a year before.
- jrs99 13y ago
  Yes, I would like to play the original Final Fantasy. I would download that probably right away. Someone could easily take Myst, (maybe Microsoft or Sony?) and put a good, updated version for ps4 or xbox one or even wii u and sell it for maybe $9.99. Do you know how cheap classic books are at the bookstore? You can get books by Charles Dickens for like 5.99. If prices go down for video games, an Xbox one compatible set of classic games like Myst from that era would be insanely cheap. I'd buy instantly. I wouldn't have to buy another game for like 10 years, I'd be so busy.
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    Have you heard of Nintendo's Virtual Console service? They've been doing pretty much exactly this since the Wii launched in 2006: old games for the NES, SNES, Genesis, and more for $5-15~. You can't get the Final Fantasy games, because Square Enix probably thinks having the original games would hurt demand for their expensive remakes, but otherwise their selection is pretty good. For PC games, you have Good Old Games, which sells DRM-free versions of classic PC games tweaked for modern hardware (or ran in an emulator, for the really old ones) with no need for CD serials. The future you wanted is already here! What do you know, they even have Myst: http://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition http://www.gog.com/game/myst_masterpiece_edition Or you could just Google "no-intro $game_console_of_choice" and get the entire library in minutes that way...

dagw 13y ago

Not entirely the same, but I really wish the concept of compulsory mechanical licensing that exists for music would cover more creative endeavors. I'm kind of OK with creator of the original Duke Nukem character getting royalties for uses of his character, I'm less OK with him being able to forbid anybody else from ever making a 'cover' of his game.

jiggy2011 13y ago
What would a 'cover' of a game be? You can make a game which is very very similar to Duke Nukem as long as you don't reuse characters , assets or code from the original.
- girvo 13y ago
  Tell that to anyone who cloned any Nintendo game ever, even if they recreated everything.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    Do you have any examples? There are a ton of platformers which are very mario-like and I don't think got into any trouble. Of course if you reproduce a mario game with a mario character even if you redrew him you would be in trouble.
    - girvo 13y ago
      That latter sentence of yours is entirely the point! Wouldn't it be cool to get a "mechanical license" to allow you to recreate (I'm your own way) Super Mario Bros with the original characters (even if you make the graphics yourself)? Quite literally a "cover", in a way that's more recognisable than just sheer mechanics? You can argue that you almost can now, and in some cases yes, but I'd love to pay royalties to someone to "cover" my favourite RPG from the Megadrive, beyond just making a "spiritual successor"!
      - jiggy2011 13y ago

jrs99 13y ago

Every year, Microsoft could come out with a very cheap console. The first could be called something like THE 1993 COLLECTION It would just be a simple box with a 1993-strength processor on it. And it would have a controller and a huge hard disk on it that has every game created from 1993. I think that would be a great idea for gamers. Something else Microsoft could do is release an XBOX ONE disc with the top games from 1993. That could be a huge hit and I bet a lot of the classic games would make a big comeback and get popular again.

lucb1e 13y ago
Wait, why Microsoft? I'd say they're the last company to do this. It sounds more like a Valve action to do this kind of awesomeness.
- MartinCron 13y ago
  Ideally it would be great if a bunch of different companies did it. I personally wouldn't want everything from 1993, but an exquisitely curated set would be worth paying for.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    If the games were in the public domain, a devoted group of fans could produce an exquisitely curated set for free.
    - MartinCron 13y ago
      Or both! Wouldn't that be great? Sigh, perpetual copyright...
alanctgardner2 13y ago
I'd just like to comment, because this comment hasn't attracted any replies yet, and it is: a) moronic b) completely tangental to the point under discussion The list of "things that people could do" is quite long. You, for example, could go live in a hole far, far away where there is no internet. To qualify for this list, things do not have to be: profitable, rational or feasible. However, when a company like Microsoft creates a product, they consider all of those things, likely in that order. Thus when you propose that "a thing Microsoft could do" is to find every game created within every calendar year, then, at great expense, replicate the antiquated equipment on which that software ran, then market and sell it very cheaply despite the costs of research, licensing and quality assurance, I think that is a thing which Microsoft is very unlikely to do. I don't think it would be a very clever thing for Microsoft to do, nor would it be good for gamers, because after the inaugural release of a million games from 1993 nobody cares about Microsoft would cease to exist as a commercial entity, having wasted all of it's resources on this terrible, terrible idea. On the other hand, why were you even compelled to write this? The most imaginative, creative scenario you could imagine was that if software copyrights expired very quickly, you would like to pay someone for that software? Which is totally already a thing you can do, and the proceeds (in reality) would go to the creator of the software? In conclusion, the internet has broken me. I have no more will to live, and I can only hope in the distant future a giant, faceless corporation will populate different planets with clones of all the people born in each year, so that my clone can go and live happily on the planet 1991 forever. Hopefully your clone will not be present.

skywhopper 13y ago

Yes, please. I'd argue for all copyrights to expire at 20 years after publication. The idea that there's a perpetual right to intellectual "property" is a very dangerous one to a free society and to freedom of expression. There's no inherent right to own ideas. That's a legal construct created to encourage sharing of those ideas. But the idea that a 20-year limit is too short to encourage authors and musicians and game developers to create new creative work is ludicrous. If anything, the essentially unlimited copyright of today encourages less creative output and less innovation. Why develop any new characters or stories if you've got multiple generations worth of copyright left to go? Keep pumping out the sequels.

sp332 13y ago
I wouldn't even mind a compromise where anyone who paid a small extension fee could keep copyright going. That way Disney, Bono, etc could keep their own copyrights without messing things up for every other copyrighted work.
- sentenza 13y ago
  Yes! Are you an EU citizen? If so, it would be great if you could voice your opinion in the ongoing consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules, currently held by the European Commision. Here's the link: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyr... Even non-complete surveys will be considered and you can be sure your contribution will be read since the number of contributions is always relatively low. The same goes for any other EU citizens on HN. Now is the time to make yourself heared!
- gabemart 13y ago
  This idea is floated quite often in reformist discussions of copyright, but I think it would be a huge headache. I have worked with public domain material quite a bit. Currently, anything published in the United States prior to 1923 is in the public domain in the United States [1][2]. Some works published after 1923 are also in the public domain if they meet certain conditions (e.g. a work published in 1925 with a copyright notice where the copyright was never renewed), but it can be an extreme headache to work out which post-1923 works are in copyright and which are not. Although I am in no way a fan of the current system, it at least has the advantage of clarity for pre-1923 works. In a proposed system of copyright extension, renewal or terms that are in other ways modifiable on a per-work basis, establishing whether or not works are still in copyright would become an absolute nightmare. Consider that, in the US, copyright applies to any eligible creative work at the moment it is "created and fixed in a tangible form" [3]. In the internet age, millions or billions or works are created each day that are protected by copyright. Most of these works do not have a title and will never be registered anywhere, but copyright applies none the less. A central registry of copyrighted works is impossible, much less a registry that records the specific extensions or renewal term on a per-work basis. In my opinion, the only possible system that can work is one based on fixed lengths of time. If copyright is extendable, the large majority of works will fall into a legal grey area where it is unclear whether or not the copyright has been extended and almost impossible to find out. Under such a system, the only safe approach to handling copyrighted works would be to assume each work had had its copyright extended to the maximum term possible under law, unless it was provable that was not the case (which, as I have argued, would be extremely difficult). Under a fixed-term system, it is simple to work out whether or not most works are still copyrighted, even in cases where the title, author of record or copyright holder are not identifiable. [1] There may be some obscure exceptions to this rule, but it holds broadly enough that I have never encountered any in practice. [2] http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm [3] http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

justinhj 13y ago

This is very long and I made it only a third of the way. Does it say anything more substantial than. "I would like to play old games for free?" I did enjoy the pictures.

argc 13y ago
I don't think its about playing old games for free. I think its about releasing the source of old games so that the craftsmanship, ideas, technology etc can be used and reused by the developers of today and tomorrow.
- teamonkey 13y ago
  Uh, tech's not really a great reason. The tech behind 20 year old games is hardly an arcane mystery. The Games industry in general is pretty good at sharing techniques, perhaps because by the time they're shared, they're already old. You don't need a game to enter the public domain to deconstruct ideas and craftsmanship either. You DO need it to legally play the majority of games for free, or to resell without paying royalties.

lostcolony 13y ago

One thing his linked article misses is the fact that if these things entered the public domain, a lot of games that are currently tied in ownership hell would be free for GoG to remaster/rework to work on modern computers, and sell. And recall, a LOT of these games are only now available, even to the original owners, because of GoG. The original owners just sat on the IP, because the profits weren't enough to justify porting them to a modern OS.

jrs99 13y ago
I think Microsoft should really work on this law. They can easily have an INSANE game store that comes with all windows 8 machines. They also have an advantage in porting old windows games to newer operating systems. Without development costs for game design, they just have to port, and will be able to profit massively. They can easily make it difficult to get a game working that is not from the Microsoft Classic Game Store. But, at the same time, this would still be GREAT for consumers, because games would be cheap. They could just have a set of old Mario games or Final Fantasy games even for FREE if you create a store account and add your credit card information. Companies with consoles or distribution (like Amazon) would have a great advantage. Amazon could even provide every game for free if you sign up for Amazon Prime. I cannot wait for Mario on Xbox. haha. That's going to be weird but seriously awesome.

Fasebook 13y ago

While we're at it lets let industrial applications and nuclear technology enter the Public Domain. The same argument works there.

lucb1e 13y ago
If it weren't for all the idiots in the world that don't care about Mutually Assured Destruction, that might not be a bad idea. MAD keeps countries at peace, or, at least there is something to say for it. I'm not sure MAD is really the way to world peace, but the idea that owning nuclear weapons is inherently bad for any government in the world... I'm not sure how right that is, either. If you are sure that you will be destroyed as soon as you attack, no matter whether you attack first, there is suddenly a lot less incentive to attack.

argc 13y ago

This idea, that ideas come from society and should be returned to society, resonates with me profoundly. (And 20 years seems generous.) It almost seems selfish to keep ideas from the public so that the "creator" can continue to profit. As developers, we have seen over and over again the exponential multiplier that the community can be. Release the source and open the doors to infinite possibilities.

pikachu_is_cool 13y ago

How about games enter the public domain the instant they are released? How about these developers spend their efforts on something that has actual value to society?

mehwoot 13y ago

Expressing a desire for a game to enter the public domain, let’s say twenty years after publication, does not in any sense whatsoever suggest a desire for developers to not get paid. I resent having to type this. It’s a bit like finding yourself having to say that you’re not in favour of gruesomely starving children to death because you expressed a thought that they probably shouldn’t get to exclusively eat at McDonald’s. “But the prisoner is still in prison!” he’d cry, as he left the police station, his pockets out-turned, not having done any other work in the thirty-five years since and bemused as to why he wasn’t living in a castle. Dude complains about people exaggerating his opinion and then proceeds to completely exaggerate the opposing opinion (a policeman deserves to live in a castle for arresting one criminal 35 years ago).

mehwoot 13y ago

I guess the explanation to why someone deserves to be paid for something as long as they live is: if somebody is creating something to be sold to other people, and that is their job, why should it matter when that thing is sold to someone? A policeman isn't being paid for keeping someone in Jail, they are being paid to put them there. Content creators don't get paid for creating a work, they get paid for selling it to somebody- so why an arbitrary restriction saying once X years are up, you can't sell it anymore (or can't effectively since anyone can have it for free). The answer is, it is in the common interests to have these rights expire at some point, since after a certain period of time the utility of having everyone be able to do what they want with the work is greater than the expected value the content creator would be able to extract. But if you believe that copyright should be valid for any period of time at all, don't act like it is a given that it should expire after some arbitrary period of time. You are taking away a right from somebody in the interests of the public good, and there is always going to be discussion when that happens because you are taking away from one group of people specifically to benefit society as a whole.

Sssnake 13y ago
>so why an arbitrary restriction saying once X years are up, you can't sell it anymore (or can't effectively since anyone can have it for free). That is backwards. We set up an arbitrary restriction saying people can't reproduce it, and that is the only reason this artificially created business exists. There is no reason for this arbitrary restriction to extend indefinitely. The business would exist just fine with 20 year copyright, so we should do that.
usea 13y ago
Copyright isn't a right to sell a work, granted to the creator. It's a restriction on copying works that others have created. You can still sell something to somebody, even if it's in the public domain.
- mehwoot 13y ago
  I know it isn't technically, but that is the effect of it and for all intents and purposes the right it grants.

chrismcb 13y ago

I'm amazed at some of the complaints about the original article, I wonder if they know that their copyrights will end eventually? But to put it into perspective, here are a few of the games released in 1994: Doom II, Mortal Kombat II, Marathon, Daytona USA, Super Metroid on SNES, Earthworm Jim.