From my point of view, it makes no sense to toss out the stories based on who submits them. I never pay any attention to who submits them, and I almost never read the discussions around the stories. I simply use this site as a portal to news that might interest me.
If you start tossing out stories because of who submitted them or what sort of discussion they might provoke, you reduce the value this site has to me. I care about keeping up with interesting news, nothing more, nothing less.
Since politics are very specific to the country in question, there's clearly a much smaller market for this kind of game to begin with. I don't live in the U.S. and wouldn't want to play a game that revolves around U.S. politics.
I'd say that today's break-away games depend on international sales as much as anything, and you just won't get that with a political game that's married to any one political system.
However, I could see an Indie company doing this sort of thing.
First, yes, there is a levy in Canada on blank CD-Rs that is supposed to compensate musical artists for the piracy that is occurring. But no, this does not give anybody the right to make copies. Further, only certain groups are allowed to "opt out" of the levy. In principal, this would at least minimize the expense to groups that have a legitimate right to use CD-Rs, like software companies. However, in practice, most distributors aren't even aware of the "opt-out" rule (assuming they're even aware of the levy), and none have a system in place to allow buyers to exercise it.
The levy is currently under review to see how it will shape up for the next 2-3 years.
There are a few straightforward legal arguments against the levy, that have nothing to do with "those greedy bastards don't deserve the money". The first is that, in Canada, it's against the law to tax an illegal activity. Copying music is illegal, so you shouldn't be able to tax it. However, you'll note that it's called a "levy" not a tax. The second is that, just like the US, Canada has the constitutional premise of "innocent until proven guilty". In effect, this levy assumes the guilt of every CD-R buyer, so (IMO) should be seen as unconstitutional. But that also hasn't stopped it.
For those interested, there's a lot more information about the levy at:
The one thing I haven't seen discussed is that people need a compelling reason to switch to a new media. With CDs, there were a few, including a smaller size and higher reliability. So the reasons to switch from vinyl/tape were obvious.
But with CDs, the industry also introduced a format that would last my entire lifetime (even if I'm not technologically savvy and can't copy files from one format to another). This was a first, since both records and tapes break down much more quickly.
Given that my current media will only break down after I'm dead, why would I want to switch? And remember, this is a first in the industry - we've never had a "lifetime" format before. And this means that it's difficult to predict what would happen.
I believe that any attempt to switch to a new format will meet with limited success, and will mostly succeed with "new adopters", such as teenager who haven't settled on a format yet.
When I first saw StarROMs mentioned on slashdot, I went to their site and looked for info about my right to resell the ROMs once I bought them. I couldn't find any info, so I emailed their legal department (they had a handy email address on the site) asking them about this issue.
The reply came two days later, and was very clear that the right to the use the ROMs was non-transferable, meaning that according to the company, anyway, you can't actually sell the ROM to somebody else. (Obviously, I'm not talking about selling an illegal copy, but rather the original ROM that I downloaded - of which I would not keep a copy.)
Slashdot Mirror
From my point of view, it makes no sense to toss out the stories based on who submits them. I never pay any attention to who submits them, and I almost never read the discussions around the stories. I simply use this site as a portal to news that might interest me. If you start tossing out stories because of who submitted them or what sort of discussion they might provoke, you reduce the value this site has to me. I care about keeping up with interesting news, nothing more, nothing less.
Since politics are very specific to the country in question, there's clearly a much smaller market for this kind of game to begin with. I don't live in the U.S. and wouldn't want to play a game that revolves around U.S. politics. I'd say that today's break-away games depend on international sales as much as anything, and you just won't get that with a political game that's married to any one political system. However, I could see an Indie company doing this sort of thing.
First, yes, there is a levy in Canada on blank CD-Rs that is supposed to compensate musical artists for the piracy that is occurring. But no, this does not give anybody the right to make copies. Further, only certain groups are allowed to "opt out" of the levy. In principal, this would at least minimize the expense to groups that have a legitimate right to use CD-Rs, like software companies. However, in practice, most distributors aren't even aware of the "opt-out" rule (assuming they're even aware of the levy), and none have a system in place to allow buyers to exercise it.
The levy is currently under review to see how it will shape up for the next 2-3 years.
There are a few straightforward legal arguments against the levy, that have nothing to do with "those greedy bastards don't deserve the money". The first is that, in Canada, it's against the law to tax an illegal activity. Copying music is illegal, so you shouldn't be able to tax it. However, you'll note that it's called a "levy" not a tax. The second is that, just like the US, Canada has the constitutional premise of "innocent until proven guilty". In effect, this levy assumes the guilt of every CD-R buyer, so (IMO) should be seen as unconstitutional. But that also hasn't stopped it.
For those interested, there's a lot more information about the levy at:
http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c19992000fs-e.html
http://www.sycorp.com/levy/
The one thing I haven't seen discussed is that people need a compelling reason to switch to a new media. With CDs, there were a few, including a smaller size and higher reliability. So the reasons to switch from vinyl/tape were obvious. But with CDs, the industry also introduced a format that would last my entire lifetime (even if I'm not technologically savvy and can't copy files from one format to another). This was a first, since both records and tapes break down much more quickly. Given that my current media will only break down after I'm dead, why would I want to switch? And remember, this is a first in the industry - we've never had a "lifetime" format before. And this means that it's difficult to predict what would happen. I believe that any attempt to switch to a new format will meet with limited success, and will mostly succeed with "new adopters", such as teenager who haven't settled on a format yet.
When I first saw StarROMs mentioned on slashdot, I went to their site and looked for info about my right to resell the ROMs once I bought them. I couldn't find any info, so I emailed their legal department (they had a handy email address on the site) asking them about this issue.
The reply came two days later, and was very clear that the right to the use the ROMs was non-transferable, meaning that according to the company, anyway, you can't actually sell the ROM to somebody else. (Obviously, I'm not talking about selling an illegal copy, but rather the original ROM that I downloaded - of which I would not keep a copy.)
This seems like iTunes all over again.