There's a little bit of overreaction going on here. From the clear language of the EULA, IG/BW is only laying claim to the module itself.
The way I interpret it, the creator retains rights to the underlying story, characters, plot, etc. and grants IG/BW an exclusive right to one particular embodiment of that work, that being the Module created with the Aurora Toolset. The creator is free to create other derivative works, including modules for other game engines.
Personally, I think IG/BW is creating a lot of trouble for itself doing this, because if I were an owner of a copyright that has been infringed by an overeager NWN user, I would go after IG/BW because they have granted themselves the power to stop the distribution of the infringing Module, and thus shift the costs of enforcement onto them.
Herego, their lawyers end up billing a lot of hours. Maybe that's what they wanted...:P
The calculation you are performing doesn't take into account risk. Sure, if 100% of all companies that canceled support had a system crash within 2 years, your calculation works. But that is not true (as far as I know). What the city did was basically a calculated gamble, one that, based on your calculations, isn't even all that irrational. The problem is that in this particular gamble, they lost.
Some of the ideas mentioned in this article support the need for reducing inequality of resources as both ideological and pragmatic. The laissez-faire idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats" may not, in fact, be true when people who are no worse off than they were before nonetheless feel "left behind."
The teenage rebel quoted in the article said, "' I see on television you have motorbikes, cars. I see some of your children on TV this high' -- he held his hand up to his waist -- they have bikes for themselves, but we in Sierra Leone have nothing.'" Is Sierra Leone worse off thanks to globalization? Probably not. But people feel worse off in comparison to the "developed world."
It seems that the overall point of the article is that media necessarily simplifies and thus lends itself to polarization. In terms of equality, it is easy for the poor to idealize what they see as the "good life" here in the U.S.
Gambling is addictive; why not gaming?
on
The Lure of Heroinware
·
· Score: 3, Informative
No one really laughs at gambling addiction; why isn't gaming addiction taken seriously? Researchers have found that gambling generates similar brain patterns as cocaine usage. Gaming certainly shares many characteristics with gambling.
As someone who has personally become addicted to all sorts of games ranging from Civ to RPGs to Mechwarrior to Tetris, I think gaming addictions should be studied seriously.
Speaking of which, what am I doing here, at this hour???
...I left out the main point that there's a difference between an employee listening to music and the company, as a company, piping music around. The "hush money" I mentioned is for things like playing music at company-sponsored events, e.g. something as small as singing the copyrighted song "Happy Birthday" at a party. So, if you hire a DJ for a company event, legally either that DJ needs to pay the (c) fee or the company does... and guess which one is easier to collect from?
This isn't all that different from what the various (c) organizations have been doing for some time. Most infamous was the 1996 effort by BMI/ASCAP to slap fines on the Girl Scouts for singing copyrighted songs around the fireplace -- an effort that backfired in terms of the PR (and led Congress to specifically exempt the Boy / Girl Scouts).
(This article at GigaLaw provides some useful background).
I've heard IP attorneys compare these guys to the Mafia -- they basically go around extorting companies to pay them hush money and keep their attack dogs at bay. For large companies, the price of buying them off is cheaper than the price of hiring defense attorneys.
Globalism and growing disparity between the rich and poor are linked, if you believe that the accumulation of capital leads to even more accumulation of capital (which seems to be a presumption among many anti-corporates). To grossly oversimplify, gaining access to a global market of labor means more workers to exploit, as well as more consumers from whom to make profits.
Try "open sourcing" your text in a way that would allow people to interact with it such that you build a community of people around the book.
Then, when people buy the book, they aren't really buying the book... they are buying the community that comes with the book, a community that has one precious commodity that no pirated copy has: your personal involvement.
Yes, you will lose some revenue to people who don't care to interact with a book community but instead want something quick to read and throw away. But what you get in exchange is a more satisfying interaction with and greater loyalty from your core readers... and potential support for the next book you roll out.
*** BLATANT PLUG FOLLOWS ***
If you're interested in the idea of "open source" texts, please email me. Yes, we're a startup, and yes, this is our core value proposition.
"I think everyone should be able to vote on a post..."
I am actually interested in assembling a team of people to work on adding this feature to Slash code to add these features:
Community voting on quality of content
One or more global moderators able to rate or certify (binary on/off) content as "approved." You can have more than one moderator... so this allows you to pick the one who matches your ideology / humor / whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a little bit of overreaction going on here. From the clear language of the EULA, IG/BW is only laying claim to the module itself.
:P
The way I interpret it, the creator retains rights to the underlying story, characters, plot, etc. and grants IG/BW an exclusive right to one particular embodiment of that work, that being the Module created with the Aurora Toolset. The creator is free to create other derivative works, including modules for other game engines.
Personally, I think IG/BW is creating a lot of trouble for itself doing this, because if I were an owner of a copyright that has been infringed by an overeager NWN user, I would go after IG/BW because they have granted themselves the power to stop the distribution of the infringing Module, and thus shift the costs of enforcement onto them.
Herego, their lawyers end up billing a lot of hours. Maybe that's what they wanted...
The calculation you are performing doesn't take into account risk. Sure, if 100% of all companies that canceled support had a system crash within 2 years, your calculation works. But that is not true (as far as I know). What the city did was basically a calculated gamble, one that, based on your calculations, isn't even all that irrational. The problem is that in this particular gamble, they lost.
Some of the ideas mentioned in this article support the need for reducing inequality of resources as both ideological and pragmatic. The laissez-faire idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats" may not, in fact, be true when people who are no worse off than they were before nonetheless feel "left behind."
The teenage rebel quoted in the article said, "' I see on television you have motorbikes, cars. I see some of your children on TV this high' -- he held his hand up to his waist -- they have bikes for themselves, but we in Sierra Leone have nothing.'" Is Sierra Leone worse off thanks to globalization? Probably not. But people feel worse off in comparison to the "developed world."
It seems that the overall point of the article is that media necessarily simplifies and thus lends itself to polarization. In terms of equality, it is easy for the poor to idealize what they see as the "good life" here in the U.S.
No one really laughs at gambling addiction; why isn't gaming addiction taken seriously? Researchers have found that gambling generates similar brain patterns as cocaine usage. Gaming certainly shares many characteristics with gambling.
As someone who has personally become addicted to all sorts of games ranging from Civ to RPGs to Mechwarrior to Tetris, I think gaming addictions should be studied seriously.
Speaking of which, what am I doing here, at this hour???
...I left out the main point that there's a difference between an employee listening to music and the company, as a company, piping music around. The "hush money" I mentioned is for things like playing music at company-sponsored events, e.g. something as small as singing the copyrighted song "Happy Birthday" at a party. So, if you hire a DJ for a company event, legally either that DJ needs to pay the (c) fee or the company does... and guess which one is easier to collect from?
This isn't all that different from what the various (c) organizations have been doing for some time. Most infamous was the 1996 effort by BMI/ASCAP to slap fines on the Girl Scouts for singing copyrighted songs around the fireplace -- an effort that backfired in terms of the PR (and led Congress to specifically exempt the Boy / Girl Scouts).
(This article at GigaLaw provides some useful background).
I've heard IP attorneys compare these guys to the Mafia -- they basically go around extorting companies to pay them hush money and keep their attack dogs at bay. For large companies, the price of buying them off is cheaper than the price of hiring defense attorneys.
Globalism and growing disparity between the rich and poor are linked, if you believe that the accumulation of capital leads to even more accumulation of capital (which seems to be a presumption among many anti-corporates). To grossly oversimplify, gaining access to a global market of labor means more workers to exploit, as well as more consumers from whom to make profits.
Try "open sourcing" your text in a way that would allow people to interact with it such that you build a community of people around the book.
Then, when people buy the book, they aren't really buying the book... they are buying the community that comes with the book, a community that has one precious commodity that no pirated copy has: your personal involvement.
Yes, you will lose some revenue to people who don't care to interact with a book community but instead want something quick to read and throw away. But what you get in exchange is a more satisfying interaction with and greater loyalty from your core readers... and potential support for the next book you roll out.
*** BLATANT PLUG FOLLOWS ***
If you're interested in the idea of "open source" texts, please email me. Yes, we're a startup, and yes, this is our core value proposition.
"I think everyone should be able to vote on a post..."
I am actually interested in assembling a team of people to work on adding this feature to Slash code to add these features:
Interested? Email me at gkoo@law.harvard.edu