Nerd42 wrote:
U.S. copyright law doesn't work, as it's goal (according to the Constitution) has nothing to do with "a copyright holder's obligation to protect their property" (I have no idea where you are getting this philosophy from but I think it's credentials are dubious at best, despite my immense respect for the notion of private property) but is for "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts." That is the only valid reason for giving authors and inventors these exclusive rights, and if our courts had an ounce of sanity or respect for the Constitution, they'd require every claim of infringement to be based on an argument that stems from how the infringement hinders this progress.
As it happens I agree that U.S. Copyright law has become distorted and indeed totally preempted by corporate interests (thanks, Disney). But I doubt we'll make any progress on overhauling U.S. Copyright law during the MOUL open source process, we have to deal with what is.
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vidroth wrote:
Even for all the years that John Carmack has been releasing the source code for the id Software games, that public release has never included the game content. There's lots of precedent for open sourcing a game but keeping your content locked down.
Yes, but that's because he's still trying to sell the game content. Cyan isn't trying to sell 3D versions of their older games, only 2D versions.
You don't think Cyan would like to do RealMyst on iPhone 12? I think Cyan would like to keep the option of selling their games if the opportunity arises--Myst iPhone was so easily doable (comparatively) because it's already been through ports and rerenders.
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And speaking of Carmack's business strategy, why not build a little program that checks whether you own the original Myst or Riven before it'll let you onto those areas of Uru? Scan the CD or DVD and it will let you on. That's how modding worked for a while before the open sourcing of the id Software games. You had to have the original commercial DooM wad in order to play any un-specifically-licensed total conversions.
But how does that continue to work once the open source arrives, and anyone who wants can simply comment out that part of the code?
Several ways: