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What is interesting about comparing reactions to GPL copyright against music copyright? Without saying that either of the two copyright cases is right/wrong, th

What is interesting about comparing reactions to GPL copyright against music copyright? Without saying that either of the two copyright cases is right/wrong, there are major differences. In GPL copyright violation, the violation hinders sharing. In music copyright violation, the violation usually helps sharing. So the comparison is a bit meaningless.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
How does it 'hurt sharing?' Maybe in the most trivial sense. The original code is still out there. How does not paying for works not hurt sharing? If return on investment on works is being hurt then that's a demotivator for future works. Monument Valley had something like a 95% pirating rate on Android. That affects the expectations of indie devs and investors. Brushing this under the carpet doesn't change the facts. If pirating was more under control, we'd see more innovation and top notch applications in the Android market. Instead, we see all the top notch applications go to iOS either exclusively or only to Android after they've made money on iOS and then publishers decide to push out a port because its just going to get pirated anyway. The difference between these two ecosystems is proof enough that pirating games hurts innovation, companies, and customers.
- Anderkent 12y ago
  The usual argument for how nonGPL hurts sharing is that people write improvements to the open work that the original release cannot replicate, thus outperforming it. This causes people to use different (closed-source) works on different platforms, fragmenting the community and hurting sharing.
ksk 12y ago
The original piece of code is left unchanged. The author can share it as much as they want. You certainly can ask people if they want to share their own work. You can't take it for granted that people have a moral obligation to share the products of their labor. People might say if you don't agree with the license "then stop using GPL code", similar to how someone might say "then stop using copyrighted music/movies/games". It seems to me, that these statements are equivalent, but the attitudes of people are not the same.
- tracker1 12y ago
  But the people who modified the author's code didn't comply with the terms of use for that code... they took something and didn't "pay" for it... the price in terms of GPL and licensing code isn't money, but it is still payment. If a company doesn't want to pay for code that they take, they should write it all themselves or take code that doesn't require payment... GPL requires payment of including modified sources with redistribution.
  - ksk 12y ago
    You may have missed my first post. I understand all that. My point was the that people show differing attitudes to violating copyright when it comes to the GPL vs. Movies/Music/etc.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

How does it 'hurt sharing?' Maybe in the most trivial sense. The original code is still out there. How does not paying for works not hurt sharing? If return on investment on works is being hurt then that's a demotivator for future works. Monument Valley had something like a 95% pirating rate on Android. That affects the expectations of indie devs and investors. Brushing this under the carpet doesn't change the facts. If pirating was more under control, we'd see more innovation and top notch applications in the Android market. Instead, we see all the top notch applications go to iOS either exclusively or only to Android after they've made money on iOS and then publishers decide to push out a port because its just going to get pirated anyway. The difference between these two ecosystems is proof enough that pirating games hurts innovation, companies, and customers.

Anderkent 12y ago
The usual argument for how nonGPL hurts sharing is that people write improvements to the open work that the original release cannot replicate, thus outperforming it. This causes people to use different (closed-source) works on different platforms, fragmenting the community and hurting sharing.

ksk 12y ago

The original piece of code is left unchanged. The author can share it as much as they want. You certainly can ask people if they want to share their own work. You can't take it for granted that people have a moral obligation to share the products of their labor. People might say if you don't agree with the license "then stop using GPL code", similar to how someone might say "then stop using copyrighted music/movies/games". It seems to me, that these statements are equivalent, but the attitudes of people are not the same.

tracker1 12y ago
But the people who modified the author's code didn't comply with the terms of use for that code... they took something and didn't "pay" for it... the price in terms of GPL and licensing code isn't money, but it is still payment. If a company doesn't want to pay for code that they take, they should write it all themselves or take code that doesn't require payment... GPL requires payment of including modified sources with redistribution.
- ksk 12y ago
  You may have missed my first post. I understand all that. My point was the that people show differing attitudes to violating copyright when it comes to the GPL vs. Movies/Music/etc.