Like, say, Blizzard. You can play the single-player campaign of SC2 with a pirated copy, but that's about it.
Although, notably unlike Blizzard, the Minecraft guy doesn't care if you choose to run private servers instead of paying for access to the official ones.
Getting customers to pay is actually a far, far easier problem to solve than stopping thieves from stealing. There is no control over how thieves will steal, but there's 100% control over how customers can and will pay. You just have to provide that opportunity.
The "incompetence" line does get trotted out fairly often, but, as others have pointed out, it really doesn't work that way.
If you're genuinely incompetent, no open source project is going to grant you commit access (or accept your patches) into their central trees.
And when you *do* have such commit access, the immediate publication of you changes to anyone who cares to see them is a hell of an incentive to make sure that it's code you can defend as reasonable! Dodgy hacks still happen, of course, but they're almost always accompanied by a comment explaining why the dodgy hack is necessary and/or asking for ideas on less hackish solutions.
I was going to go with "Add 'roid" and wonder if it was promoting performance enhancing drugs for sports people.
Back on topic, there doesn't seem to be a lot to add to the article - Lucasfilm are going overboard again about trademark law *yawn* (although, sucks to be their target, hope it works out for you in the end mate...)
I'll repost here a comment I made when I saw this news on Ars (I doubt it would have much impact in practice, but it would let the ISPs make a point):
The ISPs should just make sure to charge customers separately for this tax, rather than including it in the base subscription.
Call it the "Government mandated recording industry subsidy" on all invoices, put a little * on all advertised prices with a "*Plus government mandated recording industry subsidy" down in the corner, wait for the complaints to roll in, then point all disgruntled customers at their local MPs.
Trademark is pro-consumer, but trademark law is actually better grouped with anti-fraud statutes than it is with copyright and patents.
In *theory*, copyrights and patents are meant to provide additional economic incentive for the creation of new works and the development of new ideas, which then benefit the whole of society.
In practice, as Techdirt has well documented, copyrights and patents are actually now more commonly employed to exploit legacy works and to intimidate legitimate competitors rather than to provide incentives for new developments. However, the fact that copyright and patent law have failed at achieving their original aims doesn't invalidate the fact that those aims were pro-consumer.
I sometimes wonder if tech lawyers these days live in fear of drawing PJ's ire. If she gets motivated to do any digging of her own, following up with whatever the rest of the crowd over on Groklaw are almost certain to ferret out in the comments, it becomes an absolute treasure trove for the lawyers on the other side of the case.
Or you simply didn't use Thors much. The standard Thors only feature specifically in one mission and a lot of players will skip them entirely in other missions.
It sounds like Twitter are following a style of trademark control that is "as much control as we have to exert, but no more".
The Python Software Foundation (the non-profit that holds the IP behind the Python programming language) tries for a similarly permissive-but-still-trademarked approach with its own trademark policy: http://www.python.org/psf/trademarks/
I think in a lot of cases, the legal nastygrams come out early because of a fundamental lack of understanding of how trademark law works. It took us quite a while in the PSF to hammer out a policy where most normal uses don't need to seek PSF permission, while still requiring a tick from our board for more borderline cases.
Monsanto has 540M shares on issue. Rumour has it that the foundation bought 500 thousand shares. 0.1% shareholders don't get a lot of say in board decisions.
FB and Zuckerberg aren't dumb enough to feed the Streisand Effect. If they do anything to try to get the movie shut down, it will just make people wonder what they're trying to hide. Given the stuff Zuckerberg has gone on record as saying, anything FB tried to legally suppress would raise a lot of red flags for people.
A single page somewhere on their website, along with a standard press release to say "hey, look at us, see how reasonable and tolerant we're being?", is probably their best bet.
Documentaries about people don't really gain a lot from being on the big screen. Action movies, or things with wide sweeping vistas, the big screen all enhances the impact. Personal documentaries? Not so much.
Still, not a bad way to generate a bit more buzz. I've been meaning to add the Freakonomics blog to my feed reader for ages, this will mean I finally get around to it.
Does it even *matter* if the person taking the paper towel from the dispenser assumes they're getting paper towels from the supplier marked on the dispenser? Those people aren't the ones buying the paper towels - whoever manages the stocking of that bathroom is the real customer here.
More importantly, the legitimate torrents tend to have trackers run by the company or organisation distributing them. You don't need to get Warcraft/Debian/Ubuntu/OpenOffice/etc torrent files from torrent search sites because you get them directly from the relevant site (a process which is built into the game client in World of Warcraft's case).
The study is basically "we ignored the major sources of legitimate BitTorrent traffic and found that most of the remaining BitTorrent traffic was illegitimate". Well, d'uh.
On the post: Minecraft's Developer Making
$350,000$100,000 Per Day [Updated]Re: Re: But he's put in anti-piracy measures!
Although, notably unlike Blizzard, the Minecraft guy doesn't care if you choose to run private servers instead of paying for access to the official ones.
On the post: Minecraft's Developer Making
$350,000$100,000 Per Day [Updated]Re: Re: Please
On the post: Preparing New Techdirt CwF+RtB Offerings, And Extending The Crystal Ball For Those Who Bought
Re: Re: Personal Bookmarks / Library
But being able to easily "star" an article for later reference might be a nice enhancement.
On the post: Open Source Animated Movie Shows What Can Be Done Today
Helping people do nifty things
(* I'm one of the devs for Python, which Blender uses as its embedded scripting language: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Extensions/Python)
On the post: Microsoft Exec Says 'Open' Means 'Incompetent'
The fishbowl effect
If you're genuinely incompetent, no open source project is going to grant you commit access (or accept your patches) into their central trees.
And when you *do* have such commit access, the immediate publication of you changes to anyone who cares to see them is a hell of an incentive to make sure that it's code you can defend as reasonable! Dodgy hacks still happen, of course, but they're almost always accompanied by a comment explaining why the dodgy hack is necessary and/or asking for ideas on less hackish solutions.
On the post: Would A Moron In A Hurry Confuse R2D2 With An Ad Platform? No? But George Lucas Would...
Re: Um...not Ad Droid
Back on topic, there doesn't seem to be a lot to add to the article - Lucasfilm are going overboard again about trademark law *yawn* (although, sucks to be their target, hope it works out for you in the end mate...)
On the post: Why Must ISPs Pay To Be The Mandatory Copyright Cops Of The Entertainment Industry?
Explicitly blame the government
The ISPs should just make sure to charge customers separately for this tax, rather than including it in the base subscription.
Call it the "Government mandated recording industry subsidy" on all invoices, put a little * on all advertised prices with a "*Plus government mandated recording industry subsidy" down in the corner, wait for the complaints to roll in, then point all disgruntled customers at their local MPs.
On the post: Consumer Group Points Out That IP Laws Are Often Anti-Consumer And Need To Be Fixed
Re:
In *theory*, copyrights and patents are meant to provide additional economic incentive for the creation of new works and the development of new ideas, which then benefit the whole of society.
In practice, as Techdirt has well documented, copyrights and patents are actually now more commonly employed to exploit legacy works and to intimidate legitimate competitors rather than to provide incentives for new developments. However, the fact that copyright and patent law have failed at achieving their original aims doesn't invalidate the fact that those aims were pro-consumer.
On the post: Texas Attorney General 'Investigating' Google, With Little Basis In Reality
Groklaw
On the post: Did Activision Violate Arnold Schwarzenegger's Publicity Rights With Austrian Accented Thor?
Re: Re:
The dryads's human call in WC3 is still one of their best :)
On the post: Did Activision Violate Arnold Schwarzenegger's Publicity Rights With Austrian Accented Thor?
Re: Re:
On the post: Lessons In Smart Trademark Management: Free Licensing Of The Mark From Twitter
Liberal trademark licensing
The Python Software Foundation (the non-profit that holds the IP behind the Python programming language) tries for a similarly permissive-but-still-trademarked approach with its own trademark policy: http://www.python.org/psf/trademarks/
I think in a lot of cases, the legal nastygrams come out early because of a fundamental lack of understanding of how trademark law works. It took us quite a while in the PSF to hammer out a policy where most normal uses don't need to seek PSF permission, while still requiring a tick from our board for more borderline cases.
On the post: Bill Gates Foundation Investing In Monsanto?
Re: Maybe a change is at hand
On the post: How Should Facebook Respond To The Social Network Movie?
A single page somewhere on their website, along with a standard press release to say "hey, look at us, see how reasonable and tolerant we're being?", is probably their best bet.
On the post: The Insanity Of Music Licensing: In One Single Graphic
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Freakonomics Flips The Window: Releasing Movie Online Before In Theaters
Low risk (for them)
Still, not a bad way to generate a bit more buzz. I've been meaning to add the Freakonomics blog to my feed reader for ages, this will mean I finally get around to it.
On the post: If You Don't Get The Matching Brand Paper Towel Out Of A Dispenser In A Restroom... Is That Trademark Infringement?
Who is the customer?
On the post: Everyone Has Something To Hide: Why Privacy Is Important Even If 'You've Done Nothing Wrong'
Direct link and RSS feed
So the list of articles is here:
http://techland.com/author/gellmanb/
And the RSS feed is here:
http://techland.com/author/gellmanb/feed/
On the post: Is There A Need For A Dedicated Journalism Outfit To 'Follow Up' On News?
Re: Re:
On the post: Why Does The Press Still Blindly Believe 'Studies' Put Out By The Entertainment Industry?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow... someone tell Blizzard!
The study is basically "we ignored the major sources of legitimate BitTorrent traffic and found that most of the remaining BitTorrent traffic was illegitimate". Well, d'uh.
Next >>