JackKieser

Good fucking SHOW, guys. WOW. Well done, well written, well researched, well argued... ...someone at EA better pay some damn attention to this.

What, paging me? :trollface: Honestly, I don't really care about this too much. The pirates have performed their service for the world, case closed. Can't take it off the nets now, and it will still sell anyway, if its a good game. As has already been said, piracy =/= lost sales 1:1, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme, etc. Couldn't pirate it if I wanted to, anyway; my PC is on its last legs as it is. I doubt a rig that's having trouble running two flash pages at once is going to be able to handle Crysis 2.

I don't know if it CAN be made more compelling in the context of video games; if anything, I think the most that can be done is refinement of application. Like Sephfire said, amnesia is used A LOT, whereas in film or novels it is used rarely and only inspecific instances, and almost NEVER in a 3rd person context. It may simply come down to the medium needing to invent another storytelling mechanic that allows the postponement of Act 1, because for games that aren't 1st person (in story, not camera perspective), it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Well, part of the problem of amnesia is that it's a first-person storytelling device, as well. In most stories, the story is told from 3rd person omniscient, so the reader / player inherently has access to more data than the character has; this applies to video games, as well, especially ones that include cutscenes that play out independently from the player character (the Denerim scenes from DA:O, for instance). This factor draws the player out of the story, because the amnesia becomes less meaningful to a person who knows more than the character does. It also has a problem with diminishing returns; games are usually designed with lots of re-playability, meant to be run through multiple times. How does that work with an amnesia trope written into the story? The more times you play the game, the less effective the amnesia becomes as a storytelling element; granted, all forms of storytelling have this problematic relationship with amnesia, but gaming probably exemplifies it the most. An interesting design mechanic would be to see a game that can scale the amount of content that the character is amnesic about in relation to the number of playthroughs or something.

You're using exist wrong. It's my fault for choosing the wrong word. By saying it's illogical and thus shouldn't exist, I MEAN it's illogical and thus shouldn't have been created, as a construct. Illogical constructs could exist, but shouldnt in laws because laws are supposed to be loical constructs. Oh, and if we assume that only logical OBJECTS can exist, not constructs, then I could very well NOT exist. There's no proof that I exist ad it is, because I could be a computer construct in a simulation, and thus "existence" depends on the definition of existence; if existence means "physical existence", I wouldn't. Edit at g: I said that people have finite lives in my proof. Also, I said the value for x is irrelevant, not the proof as a whole.

Oh how I want to debate this rigt now... Suffice it to say, my assertion is the the status quo was created through invalid logic, so I still don't have to prove it shouldn't exist; you still have the burden of proof because you hold the affirmative argument. Also, you can't assume that copyright is logical, but I can assume no copyright is logical because no copyright is the null argument. I'd elaborate, but i'll just ask you to look it up on wikipedia.

Author, that is so backwards. I don't have to prove that anything would be worse with copyright, you have to prove that things would be BETTER with it. Also, the original market crash had to do with oversaturation, not copyright. If everyone is allowed to copy, and no one wants to buy copies, the copies won't sell. The market will naturally deal with people who make shitty copies because no one will buy them. Unless you don't think the free market works. Sorry for the oversimplified response. Stupid iPod keyboard. Typing on this thing is so cumbersome. Edit at g: of course it's a large number. What you plug in for x is irrelevant, because we're assuming x is finite for the sale of argument, which we know is false. You just can't subtract, multiply, or add infinity with any real meaning.

I'm just going to wait for zircon to post, since I'm in class and none of you are capable of evaluating hypotheticals. By making an argument variable based, you are presenting a logical argument without personal bias; for instance, using a specific idea or group of ideas (Mario games, for instance) introduced bias, because you may feel like it's wrong to use miyamoto's work. Making all possible derivatives "x" and assuming that x has a finite value allows you to display the same logical data In a non-biased way. All I set out to prove is that copyright necessarily restricts ideas from beig created, which you all admitted was true ("well, I can't make a new Mario game, but I can use another character" means there are ideas that you aren't allowed to make). It doesn't matter if some people will just copy, because that's not the concern of the system. It's accepted that copying happens. Posting from an iPod, so sorry for spelling / formatting issues.

How so? The original scope of copyright law simply gave content creators one less right: the right to control their content after it leaves their hands. It doesn't say they can't make it, or that they can't sell it, or even that society is more important then them (I don't know WHERE you came up with that notion): it simply says that content creators have control of their product up until the point where it leaves their hands, which is the same as every other form of production. If anything, current law treats artists in a special manner, treating them different than people who make anything else. I mean, Someone who designs a really good hammer can't tell you that it's against the rules to modify the hammer after you buy it, or that you can't use the hammer in unintended ways. Artists HAVE that right, a right the hammer maker doesn't. It isn't. I'm not making that assumption, and neither did the Founders. They knew that art =/= practical invention (the artisan crafts), and so they gave them different protections under the law. Of course it does. A simple math proof for you: The number of unique ideas that a person can come up with on his own is X (we know it's infinite, but assume it's not because a person's lifetime is finite) The number of ideas that two people can come up with is 2X The number of ideas that one person can come up with as derivatives of another person's ideas, therefore, would be an exponential function of X (because for each unique idea that one person comes up with, another person could come up with X number of derivative ideas) Restricting derivative ideas means that these ideas cannot come into being The purpose of copyright is to restrict derivative ideas by giving content creators exclusive rights to production and derivation of ideas Therefore, copyright law causes less ideas (less creative development) by restricting what can and cannot be created. A more practical example to go along with the math (if it's too existential for you): Mario in the 80's, when he was just in platformers. I could take the Mario character and make him a race car driver (Mario Kart). I could put him in a sports game (Tennis, for example). I could put him in an RPG (SMRPG:LotSS). Or, I could put him in a first person shooter, maybe cross him over with Mega Man or something and put them both in a different perspective. Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to do this because copyright law has restricted the creative development of Mario games to Nintendo, because Nintendo has exclusive rights. My idea can never happen without Nintendo. Creativity has been stifled. Again, you're stating it as though, without copyright, an artist not only can't make money, but is somehow having his art forcefully taken from him. Not true. Whether art is a necessity or not is irrelevant to this fact. Artists made money before copyright; can you respond to that? Remember: it's YOUR job to prove that copyright is necessary, since it's the affirmative position. Why is copyright necessary for an artist to make art? Why is it impossible to sell art without copyright? I covered this above, but it did treat art and artisan crafts differently; art wasn't protected because it wasn't of practical use, while artisan crafts WERE, albeit for a limited time. I don't see how this point helps the argument for copyright, because why should we make special laws to protect something that isn't important? Patent law operates VERY differently from copyright law; it has different scope and deals with different subject matter. Comparing the worth of the two is a very slippery road. That being said, even patent law was never intended to be absolute; the purpose, again, of protecting work was never financial in nature, but rather educational. We give you a temporary patent to work out the kinks and make your product presentable, so that the world may learn how to use it properly. Afterward, the world makes edits, re-implements your original work, and new inventions are created. However, if copyright law were in its original form, that would be balanced out by other artists creating derivatives of your work freely. You might only be able to afford to make one sample library, but 12 people could take your library and edit it freely, redistributing 12 new libraries that might not exist without your original work; meanwhile, this can happen simultaneously, while you work on something else (be it another sample library or, like, manufacturing textiles). There's still a net increase. Your work is just as valid as anyone else's, and theirs is as valid as yours; why should they be restricted from possibly improving on your work just so that YOU can have exclusive rights? Again, it's your responsibility that we NEED to have those rights go to the developer, and I've merely provided reasonable doubt of that by giving an equally valid example of how derivative work COULD lead to MORE net creative output than the amount coming from you working alone. If you want a more practical example, look at the Japanese art of Doujinshii; it is, literally, IP theft. It's the practice of fans editing and remaking existing Manga, and it's so popular that it is the subject of Japan's largest convention; more Manga is sold there than at any other Japanese convention (even other Manga conventions), and it is because the people are free to create what the limited Manga creators can't possibly do by themselves. It's a thriving economy, too; even though Doujinshii is, essentially, IP theft, more money is traded there than at any other con. It's a booming market... that couldn't exist with strict copyright law. Even one instance of shackling is still shackling; if the law restricts even 1 idea, even if it allows for 10, you still only have 10 ideas, instead of 11.

You, too? I'm glad I wasn't the only one. EDIT: Oh my god, you have to watch that clip with YouTube's "Transcribe Audio" setting on. It's worth it.

Brushfire, that might have made my night.

Well, that's simple: because creative development depends on derivative works; in fact, Ignatio Götz defines creativity as "the concretion of insight" (to make insight physical), and insight relies on the the processing of existing information (be it a theory, a formula, or a series of notes) in a new or different way. This is the spirit of derivative works (for instance, everything on this site), and is impossible without the freedom to not only create a work derivative of another's, but distribute that work so that it can be experienced by society as a whole; what good is an idea if it's shackled? The founders (Jefferson, in particular) understood this, and so they phrased the original copyright clause to apply not to art, but to science, and only for a limited amount of time (as I said before, this was so that inventors would have the time to perfect their work and teach others how to use / reproduce it). No one complained back then about how artists were getting screwed out of money (at least, we have no historical records of it), but that's because everyone else was too busy being creative. Well, the theory is that they would have been proven right when they were first put forth as laws, but that didn't happen; I'm actually in favor of a system that revamps the entire body of laws every 10-25 years, excising unnecessary, impractical, outdated, or just plain improperly implemented laws. But, that's neither here nor there. The stance I've been espsousing the whole time is "original copyright law was fine as it was"; I've been tackling individual laws and statutes up until now as they come up, but I don't have to; I'm arguing a negative position, so it's everyone else's job to prove that the laws are necessary. I argued the negative position above for you.

What, copyright law? No, not at all. Copyright law and how companies can exercise their "rights" (forget the rights of the consumer) will determine in what ways they try to control the internet. Like I said earlier in the thread, the government is trying to draft a bill that will require all internet users to authenticate their real-world identity to even use internet services. For instance, forums could require you to divulge your real identity before you're allowed to post. It would also give the gov't compete authority as to who gets a license to access the internet. How messed is that? That initiative only exists because we're conditioning ourselves to think it's ok for private interests to control cyberspace and how WE use it.

Well, Zircon, I start back up work tomorrow, so my personal time to discuss the merits, flaws, and particulars of copyright is about to plummet. Assuming I had the time, though, I'd be willing to do so; yes, I'm saying that I'd be willing to go over every point of copyright law... just that I wouldn't be the one having to prove anything, unless I was playing Devil's Advocate. If what you're telling me is "copyright is a complex subject, and no one wants to really talk about it in depth", I'd have two responses: this is probably one of the most important issues of our generation, so it SHOULD be important, especially to anyone who uses a computer (seeing as the very essence of the internet requires breaking copyright law on a daily basis), and if no one wants to discuss it, then no one will post in the thread. As to where we go from here: well, like I said, I'm willing to discuss. This subject (game pricing) has a lot of facets, and there's plenty we haven't even considered covering yet.

Ok, so if I'm reading you properly, your master's thesis is centered around the function of the Quebec / E. Ontario bilingual theatre movement from the late 1970's as a form of commentary. I'm sure you talk about other smaller, dependent topics, but that's your main one, right (basically)? (Side note: the number of plays doesn't make your subject matter broad, you know; they're still all theatre productions. Talking about plays, film, music, and sculpture in the same thesis? Now, that's broad.) Well, I've said before that (if we strip away all other peripheral or interdependent topics) that video game companies/publishers can afford to lower prices at no real risk to damaging the industry. That's probably the closest I could come to compressing EVERYTHING into one statement. Of course, we lose all of the data about how it's in the consumer's best interest, about how current copyright law could be argued to be unconstitutional, about how the market for digital data is, logically, pedantic (from a consumer standpoint), and how capitalist mechanisms allow no efficient and non-self-destructive methods for consumers to combat high prices, which are all reasons that play not only into why companies can afford to lower the prices, but also the extent to which they should lower them. And because that data is lost, if I try to bring it up as a crucial piece to the puzzle, I get yelled at for "bringing up meaningless topics" or some other drivel. @Zircon: because CHANGES have to be proven necessary, not the other way around. I don't have to prove why the changes aren't necessary, the people making the changes have to prove that they ARE. That's like saying "prove God doesn't exist"; well, NO, because the burden of proof is on you to prove it does. Copyright law, in the form we had it in 200+ years ago, worked and protected everything it needed to... until companies got greedy and wanted more control over their products, control that they never actually proved they needed. "Intellectual property", as a concept, was never proven valid, but because it seems common-sense enough, people went with it. What's worst is that it can be proven NOW to be an oxymoron (because you can't own an idea), but it's so entrenched that eliminating or reforming it is an uphill battle.

You don't have to give a fuck about what I think anyway. As far as you're concerned, you don't even have to be a rational person; you can live your life as an irrational sociopath, addicted to meth under a bridge for all I care, and it affects my argument no differently than if you had believed me word for word. Just don't infringe on anyone else's human rights, and I don't care. Do you want a sentence, again, that describes my current argument? One that is a compilation of all of my arguments? One that succinctly wraps up the pros and cons of capitalism, the issue of piracy, the the dangers of over-restrictive copyright laws, and all of their relations, specifically, to the particular price points of video games? Or just a sentence about what we're talking about right at this moment (copyright law, and the effect it has on viable markets)? If you want me to butcher my argument into a single sentence, I will to shut you up, but it's not going to be good, pretty, or accurate, because the topics I'm discussing are broad.

Sure, it's possible... but if that was truly the best and most complete way to say what you wanted to, why write a paper at all? A simple sentence will never be accurate because there's too much data lost; think of it like encoding an mp3. Sure, lower the amount of data allowed in the file enough, and you could encode the file using minimal disc space, but how shitty would it sound? In your efforts to reduce the size, you've lost all the important information.

Um... where have YOU studied law? We already HAVE a method for changing the context, meaning, or intent of the Constitution from it's original structure... it's called the Amendment process. The Supreme Court interprets and rules on laws passed by Congress as to whether they fit into the existing framework of the Constitution; if that framework needs to be updated for whatever reason, such as with Civil Rights and voter rights, you amend it outright, which is an act of Congress, not the courts. Well, technically, but for a thesis such as one as complex as the one THIS would require, it wouldn't be a simple 3 sentences; I've seen doctoral dissertations on subjects simpler than this with page-long theses before. A thesis simply has to be a summary; the length is really determined by context. I'll concede that the most common form is simply a sentence or two... but like I said, this is a complex topic, and boiling the entire thing down to 3 sentences would be... well, counter-productive. I'm glad my "current thesis" helped; we should, like, keep that trend going.

Yeah, because it's a complicated topic. What you're saying is akin to "I don't like dealing with complex issues that have interdependent disciplinary conflicts, and so I want you to take an extremely far-reaching and complex issue and boil it down to 3 sentences." Well, I'm not going to do that. My CURRENT argument, however is: "Copyright law was created for a specific purpose and has been hijacked to fit and serve an entirely unrelated purpose. As such, it causes dissonance by not serving its job in a discrete, enforceable, and warranted way. It is necessary, but not in the form it is now, and as such should be reverted back to its original intent through extensive reform." How this relates to game pricing is obvious: if digital data isn't copyrighted, it can be distributed freely and as people see fit / are capable of doing so; if that means selling video games is a fruitless endeavor, then so be it, because the technology will decide what markets are valid markets and which ones aren't. The court's job is not to "update meanings", they're job is to interpret meaning, and the word "interpret" implies "original intent" plays a part in it. It's not my fault that the Supreme Court is now filled with partisan idolatry. I'm simply stating the original intent, and that said "original intent" is all that matters, at the end of the day... unless you have a Constitutional amendment, which has not been done for copyright. Legally, that's the only thing that's SUPPOSED to be able to invalidate "original intent". Piracy rates disagree with you. It is sufficing, but losing ground as more people realize the folly of buying something that is intangible and infinite (data). But, you're disregarding "digital distribution" platforms like BitTorrent, instead implying that Steam and XBLA are the only ways game makers can distribute their product. BitTorrent distributes digital data. Therefore, it is digital distribution. What is or is not digital distribution has nothing do do with whether you pay for it or not. Again, statistics show that the record companies have been in steady decline over the past decade since mp3s really took off. They are out the door; they just don't realize it yet. But it DOES work. Girl Talk will tell you. You're right: piracy happens. And, once the internet infrastructure gets broadband in every home in the US, and assuming the government doesn't pass its draconian "internet ID" initiative and private enterprise doesn't destroy net neutrality, piracy will win. It's just a matter of time, though the current social atmosphere and legal structure will slow it down. It WILL win, though. Except, you DON'T create a product in the classical sense (though you ARE creating something), and people are realizing that. Music, movies, and data are not physical products and are mechanically different from REAL physical products, so they get treated differently. I know you don't like it, but if you don't, then YOU find a way to kill piracy and the copying of digital data. Oh, and you OBVIOUSLY didn't read the thread I linked to, because if you did, you'd have read the part that explained how, in the years leading up to and after the Revolution, America was, statistically, one of the biggest pirate distributors of British goods in the world. Piracy is quintessentially American! Also: read the full Constitution; it never sets up America as a Capitalist nation. In fact, we don't HAVE an official economic system, Constitutionally speaking; it's just not dealt with at all in the text. You're totally repeating mistakes by beating your head against the brick wall that is technological progress. What you described is how the physical world works. The cyber-world is much different; if the tech allows for free distribution of data, so be it: the data should be free. The tech decides the markets, not the other way around; always has been. There was a stranglehold on information until the printing press allowed for near-infinite copies of books to be made (something book publishers tried to outlaw, too, in Gutenburg's time). Now, there is no reason anyone without a big enough hard drive SHOULDN'T have access to the combined knowledge of all of humanity, aside from greed and people wanting money. The data is there, and is free to copy and distribute. Sorry, but the future is now; BitTorrent has changed the playing field forever. Stealing is wrong because you deprive someone of a resource that they otherwise would have had, and now cannot. Stealing is possessing an item that is not yours at the expense of someone else having it. Digital piracy, by current law, is stealing, however it can be argued quite easily that it's not, in a general sense. Will it? I doubt it. But the argument, while not air-tight, is there.

Kenogu, name me a single person who, today, uses the term "arts" to mean "artisan skills". "Arts" now means creative endeavors. This was not the case when the Constitution was drafted; any etymologist will tell you that, including this one. It's only made worse by the fact that they specifically included the word "useful" to denote a separation in context between "arts" as an artisan term and "art" as in artwork. It's not "misrepresentation" if you use the original historical context when discerning meaning... which is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do when they deliberate, BTW. *sigh* I'm starting to lose my cool because people are refusing outright to read. It's not like I'm even making a logical claim anymore; this is all history stuff. This is all documented.

Try again, my friend; it was written "to Promote the Science and useful Arts". Again, I already explained that the usage of the word "arts" in the Constitution is an outdated term not used today; it does NOT mean "arts" as in music or dance, it means "arts" as in "ARTISANS", people who craft. The copyright law is meant to promote innovation through education; an inventor has a limited period with which to perfect his invention, discovery, or creation, and after that copyright period the theory is that he would have perfected it enough and taught others how to duplicate it properly, so that the rest of the world could reproduce his work at will for the benefit of "the Sciences and useful Arts". An even CURSORY glance supports this. Whatever we added to copyright law since then is totally irrelevant, since (in my opinion) it should have required a Constitutional amendment to change copyright law, something that has (obviously) not happened. Current copyright law is BLATANTLY unconstitutional, but we overlook it in the interests of business, because companies like Disney have strong-armed the American government into editing the law past its original designs. THAT'S NOT WHY IT WAS CREATED. Yes, it can be renewed because we added that functionality into the law later; it originally COULDN'T be renewed because the point of the law wasn't to make people money, but to protect innovation by not allowing cheap imitation knockoffs to be produced before the world knew how to properly recreate a product. Again, this is not debatable; this is historical fact. Fact that I linked to earlier. Copyright law and digital media is probably the single largest passion I have; I've studied and read up on the subject for years. It's not MY fault that you can't critically read / never read the Constitution's original text / don't know the history of the changes to the law. Don't tell me what I do and do not know when I have been the ONLY person citing sources on the issue; you just cited Wikipedia, WHICH DOESN'T EVEN DISAGREE WITH ME: See? You didn't even read your own source, dude. What the hell? EDIT: You know, maybe your business model isn't that good, just like the record companies are finding out with CDs. Did you ever consider that? Instead of writing laws like the DMCA or strong-arming people with EULAs, maybe you should innovate like the creators of BitTorrent and the Australian media companies did. You assume that you deserve money for your work, but like I said, that's an assumption, one not even upheld by the highest law in our country (the Constitution). But, you refuse to listen to an opposing viewpoint at all and just barrel on through with this concept that you DESERVE your money. Maybe you're selling a product that is becoming less and less marketable as people realize that there are ways to get it without paying and ways to distribute it for free. Maybe you're selling something that is only marketable because we wrote special laws to not make your market obsolete. Just like the button makers guild wanted. Just like Vaudeville wanted when the phonograph came out. Just like Recording companies wanted when radio came out. Just like producers wanted when CABLE TV came out. Just like Hollywood wanted when VCRs came out (Hollywood; ironically, the pirate city created by thieves who stole Edison's original recording technology!). And we all know how THOSE endeavors turned out. The only reason Hollywood has such a vice-grip is because of the changes Disney forced into the copyright law so that they could claim Mickey Mouse for longer than they were supposed to. Whenever a new content distribution schema comes out that makes previous business models obsolete, there is a HISTORICAL TREND that old business models try to outlaw the new technology to save them from obsolescence; again, this is historical fact that companies / businesses do this. Maybe you shouldn't repeat the mistakes of the past.

I already did, dude! Jesus, read! I didn't say that content creators DON'T have exclusive rights now, I said that the historically never did until the law was butchered for private interests! This is history; I'm not trolling you. This isn't some elaborate lie; it's the fucking Constitution of the United States of America in its original, unedited glory. And, you call me the troll? You're not even reading.

Except, it was never PROVEN that artists deserve payment for their work, not in the modern context of "payment" (meaning absolute control and exclusivity of sale / production). Even so, before artists had draconian protections written into the law, they WERE getting paid for their art. They just weren't getting paid for someone ELSE'S art, which was fairly derived from theirs. Da Vinci got paid plenty, just by his patrons. Artists made money in the past, of that there is no doubt. They just didn't have absolute control of their work once it left their hands, which was totally justified. You can make songs / books / games without copyright and still make money. You just can't make as much of it and you have to do it in different ways. You didn't even READ my article, did you? No, you didn't, because if you did, I wouldn't have to answer that. Be honest, DS: did you read it? At all? There are ways, 21st century ways, ways that have proven results, to make money off of a product that you aren't selling to consumers. Do some research on your own, if you're so insistent on ignoring my sources. Suffice it to say, you CAN make money with BitTorrent, even without making direct sales. Now, I think THAT is disrespectful: "I haven't read your source or your proof, but you're OBVIOUSLY just wrong". Deplorable; at least I'm reading and responding to links posted at me. EDIT: Crap, sorry for the double post, guys.

Well, I make long posts. I try to be thorough. Sorry. *shrug* In my defense, that's at least the second time I've used that source, and it seems that the same people are just ignoring it; that's why I'm driving it home so much. Oh, and on the more esoteric points of this discussion, I concede that my points still have to be proven... but the thread I linked to has HISTORY in it, and that's what I'm citing; if you make a claim counter to history and can't back it up, you're just wrong, no matter how you cut it. I am? I haven't taken anything personally, have I? If it seems that way (and your name isn't the Damned), I apologize for misrepresenting; as I've said before, at the bare minimum I respect Zircon and Gario for being reasonable and counterpointing me. So... another off-topic post? Sorry if that seems callous, I just don't see the point of that, unless you thought you'd somehow strike to my core and give me to give up in a fit of indignant rage or something. As far as I'm concerned, good discourse is still going on, so I'm fine with continuing if the people giving me counter-points are.

What I'm trying to inform you guys about is that, HISTORICALLY, this isn't true; you are mistaken, possibly because you don't know the history of the subject. Again, according simply to the Constitution, without all of that Disney interference crap, anything that ISN'T built or invented for the advancement of the sciences ISN'T covered under copyright, which means that the creators have only one fundamental right: the right to make art. Not the right to sell it, or the right to make a profit. Those aren't rights, they are privileges. The only reason that those are RIGHTS is because copyright law was butchered so that a company that was going to lose its copyright, fairly and by the rules, could extend it and continue profiting past the allotted time, which was already against original law. TL;DR: Your bias as an artist is blinding you to the HISTORY of copyright law. This isn't debatable; this is fact. Copyright has a history, and for thousands of years, art wasn't copyrighted, and wasn't copyrighted when the Constitution was written because the Founders / philosophers back then realized that what we NOW call "piracy" was essential for artistic creation (the ability to use and expand on someone else's work, without restriction). Need v. luxury has NOTHING to do with it. According to original copyright law, I'd have the right to use MARIO, not his "concept", but the character, in any way I'd want, including remaking the game, but with better programming so it'd run better. "Fair use" came into being in 1976, almost 200 years AFTER copyright law was created in the States. That's because, for nearly 200 years, anything that wasn't scientific in nature could be reproduced at will. But, that doctrine hasn't been formally applied to games. I can't remake WoW, but with more efficient programming and better graphics, yet the same game design / art STYLE / characters. That'd be breaking copyright, and yet it is logically equivalent to "re-recording" a song. (Emphasis added) You actually have it backwards. Again, legally speaking, the content creators had NO RIGHTS to sell their work exclusively (full rights to sell, just not exclusively), nor should they, because it's art. Because intellectual property is not a scarce resource, that doesn't mean I ONLY have to right to make my own; it means I should also have to right to reproduce existing works as I see fit, which was how the law ORIGINALLY was written. I swear, did no one read the thread I posted? I understand it's long, but seriously: important historical information here. Also, there's a big lie going around the forums that digital distribution costs content creators money; that's not true. Using Steam costs money. Digital distribution, in and of itself, doesn't. Proof: read the thread I linked. It has a seminar given at, IIRC, the TED talks about how BitTorrent can be used for free by content creators to distribute their work AND still make a profit, even though they aren't selling anything to consumers; television companies in Australia have been doing this for years. Please, please read that link. It's so informative. EDIT@Below post: I haven't read it yet (whew, 61 pages), but I did a document search for the term "art" and didn't come up with any matches... so I just want to make sure, are you submitting it as evidence that things (products, goods, services) should be sold? Or that artists have a right to get paid when someone copies / reproduces / creates a derivative of their art?