In fact, Cory, some of us consider virginity to be a continuum as well. ;-> But I digress...

To draw this topic and "Saddam Hussein, Novelist" together, http://www.jonathonart.com/LotusMaiden1/saddam.html is a page by the artist of the painting that Saddam used without permission as the cover of "Zabibah and the King". Howzabout "Saddam Hussein, Copyright Violator"?

It is false, Zed. This revolves around the idea that someone who infringes on your IP might be able to go to court and say that they did so in good faith, on the basis that they understood tha tyou had allowed previous infringements to stand.

This is a legit worry, but it's not the same thing as "if you don't defend your IP, you lose it."

There are different kinds of infringement. If a nonprofit daycare center paints your registered trademark characters on their walls and you let it stand, that means that other nonprofit daycares can probably defend subsequent uses of those marks.

However, it DOES NOT mean that your commercial competitor can use those marks on, say, their rival themepark. Judges aren't idiots -- it's not credible that someone from, say, Universal Studios who showed up in court to defen thteir new "Mickey Mouse Action Adventure" ride on the grounds that Disney, say, had allowed their marks to be used by a daycare would be acquitted.

There's this idea that IP is like virginity, off or on. In fact, it's a continuum, and failure to defend does not engender loss of all rights.

Found in New World Disorder: Google restores Xenu Links.

bfrost, your xeroxing the works of Cory straw man seems like a bizarre non sequitur. Note that you posit starting out with Cory's copyrighted material, modifying it and distributing it. That's not what these gamers did (caveat: my knowledge of this example only comes from the discussion here). If they'd bought a copy of a commercial server, and distributed it, modified or not, that would be piracy and illegal. What they did was build something from the ground up that worked with their clients the same way... something that had the same effect.

If you wanted to write from scratch a story that had the same _effect_ on a reader as one of Cory's, that would be perfectly legitimate. If there were an idea that that was wrong, there wouldn't be new stories.

Cory, you corrected someone below about "if you don't defend your copyright, you lose it." I thought that was the case -- that it's the copyright holder's responsibility to tell violators to cease and desist, and that if they're lax in that responsibility, they ran the risk, upon ever actually trying to stop someone's use, of being told: "sorry, it's public domain now." You're saying this is false?

thanks. i didn't know that about the star wars novels.

The Star Wars example isn't a good one, because SW novels are licensed.
Blizzard is a client-server application -- like Netscape server and Netscape Navigator, or Outlook and Exchange. Making a new server for someone else's slient is like making a dry-cleaning accessory for a home clothes dryer 00 I have created something that adds value to other people's labor.

when it comes to copyright, i probably know just enough to be dangerous and i know absolutely nothing about gaming. it seems to me, however, that the game server would fall under derivative works? if they took the basic idea, didn't copy the code and built something new that improved on the original idea and performed better, how is that different from something like fan fiction? aren't there dozens of books by different authors based on star wars?

another example - a few years ago there was a dispute between two photographers in nyc. photographer 1 was up and coming, his works deemed "trendy". i think an example of his work was a big blow-up dog doll, sitting on a staircase. photographer 2 bought the same dog, found the same staircase and took the same picture. photographer 1 sued #2 and won. in this case, it was not a derivative work, it was a copy. if photographer 2 had used a different doll, or even had the dog surrounded by cans of dog food or something, then it would have been derivative.

this has been a really interesting discussion! yay!

Or, better still, what if someone decides to re-tell Gone With the Wind from the slaves' point of view, call it "Wind Done Gone," and have their right to do that affirmed in a court of law?

Or what if Robert A Heinlein decides to write a bunch of books with L Frank Baum characters in them?

Or what if Geoff Ryman wants to write "Was," and win the World Fantasy Award for a novel that uses Oz characters and L. Frank Baum?

No hard feelings, either, btrost. A better example, though, is what if someone like Isaac Asimov invents the idea of a Galactic Civilization in decline, and a number of science fiction writers use that as the
"foundation" (heh) of their works?

Edited by author 03-22-2002 12:01 PM
Btrost: In order not to dismiss you as a troll, all I requested was that you actually address some of the isues being raised, by Cory and Theory at the time, although Cletus raises a great point as well.
I do not believe that "opinion" is sancrosanct, nor do I believe that everyone has "a right to his or her opinion." I believe that everyone has a right to his or her informed opinion.
I do not find it difficult to respect those I disagree with, as long as they are able to justify and explain their beliefs well.
Lastly, I apologize for the percieved pomposity of my previous post, but I also recognize that none of the issues I raised have been actually addressed by you. Furthermore, you've had no problem characterizing those who disagree with you (and agree with the law and the US Constitution) as naive at best and willing pirates and thieves at worst.

Too bad btrost dropped off this discussion. Given his (or her)interpretation of copyright law and the concept of intellectual property, I'd be interested in hearing what he (or she) thinks about fantasy rpgs, such as say... oh, I don't know, maybe Everquest, which are based on the intellectual property of the Tolkien estate. You can argue that Tolkien's work was based on northern european folklore, which obviously no one owns the rights to. However, Everquest's concept of "Halflings" is clearly based on Hobbits, which are an original "invention" of Tolkien. Jesus! He even calls Hobbits "Halflings" at some points in his copyrighted works. So did Everquest secure permission from the Tolkien estate to include Halflings in their game?

personally I think there should be a doctrine of first sale, where if it can be shown to an arbitrator(note not a court) that party B is receiving monetary benefit from works somehow derived from the works of party A, then party A has the right to receive a percentage, chosen by the arbitrator, or the monies earned by party B. Then do away with older copyright, in other words, you can make a porno film of mickey and minnie and Disney can't stop you, they can just get a share of your profits.
Aside from that, I wonder if the scientologists will go after the wayback machine and if they do, what then?!

I'm with Ulrika. www.xenu.net shows up fourth in a search for "scientology" at 1:50am PST 3/22/02.

JRC- Fine. Troll I am. Dismiss me all you want. I will no longer participate in your discussions. Thanks for the hospitality. Who says the Internet is not a wonderful place for intelligent and courteous discourse?

Consider for a moment.. a moment.. that you are a pompous ass.


Cory and Theory, Thanks again for sharing your opinions, although I disagree with them, and taking the time to talk with me. It was fun. But not enough fun to put up with people like JRC.