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Attitude!

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hobgoblin

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« Reply #15 on: <03-25-11/1250:30> »
Holy crap! You mean the Matrix created by corporations is different from the open-standard Internet? What the eff?

You're assuming the copyright law in the Sixth World, along with its definitions of public domain, remain consistent with today's law. Given that RL corporations are currently working to change copyright law to benefit themselves, including changing when things enter the public domain
Not even that, but the Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of a 17-year old law that allows rights-owners to take back works from the public domain.
A side effect of Congress turning a international signed agreement into law, that basically says that USA is to respect the copyright durations of other nations locally. So if some place have a longer copyright duration then USA, and the work have gone public domain in USA this change will bring it out of public domain until the foreign duration runs out.

Only way i can see corporations really make use of this is for them to find some micro-nation with a infinity - 1 copyright duration and start releasing all their material there first, and then importing it to USA and elsewhere that follows the mentioned agreement.
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hobgoblin

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« Reply #16 on: <03-25-11/1257:02> »
Makes sense.  Public Domain laws differ from Country to Country even.

For example, in the British Commonwealth you can legally download all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works.  In the USA, some of his later works are still covered under copyright and cannot be legally had.  (Which is hilarious, as a lot of his works were stolen and published in the USA without his permission or even knowledge!).
USA pulled basically the same shit as China is doing while it was a upstart nation. Ignored foreign patent and copyrights well into the 1950s or so. Not that i think either system do what they set out to do any longer (if they ever did, just observe how the steam engine only saw rapid improvements once the patent had expired).
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Tycho

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« Reply #17 on: <03-25-11/1307:13> »
Why is she selling her books through this illegal publisher, her work is entirely legal, so there should be no reason to distribute it illegal? Selling an ebook is really easy even today, just put up a side or sell it over amazon. This should be even easier in 50years, where ebook is the dominant format.
If she simply choose to go illigal for better profit, this whole story is just useless, because it does not state anything about the copyright/pirate situation in 2073. If it is her only way to publish her book, the conclusion must be, that only corps are legally possible to "own" creative work and therefore publish it.

Also work of Tolstoy is public domain, because he himself released his work from copyright. No copyright law, Government or Corp on the world is able to reclaim his work, so it being illigal is just BS.

cya
Tycho


EmperorPenguin

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« Reply #18 on: <03-25-11/1336:26> »
I am having a hard time understanding why it is such an issue that a story set in the 2070s in a fictional world with AAA corps, magic, dragons and cyberzombies (to name a few) might have different copyright mechanics than we do.

I know that because it is a parallel Earth that we like to draw our comparisons, but why are we better able to suspend disbelief with Minotaur PhysAds than we are with the mechanics of the public domain?

FastJack

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« Reply #19 on: <03-25-11/1443:27> »
Why is she selling her books through this illegal publisher, her work is entirely legal, so there should be no reason to distribute it illegal? Selling an ebook is really easy even today, just put up a side or sell it over amazon. This should be even easier in 50years, where ebook is the dominant format.
If she simply choose to go illigal for better profit, this whole story is just useless, because it does not state anything about the copyright/pirate situation in 2073. If it is her only way to publish her book, the conclusion must be, that only corps are legally possible to "own" creative work and therefore publish it.

Also work of Tolstoy is public domain, because he himself released his work from copyright. No copyright law, Government or Corp on the world is able to reclaim his work, so it being illigal is just BS.

cya
Tycho
You're apply current real-world situations to a fantasy world that officially "split" from our timeline in 1990. Yes, we have great made strides in electronic publishing. We also have wireless smartphones that could be considered "smarter" than the 2050 Cyberdecks and an wireless "Matrix" a good 60 years before they do.

Remember, the Megacorps in Shadowrun got their extraterritoriality in 2001 and that that alone gives the Corps a lot more "different" rights when it comes to things like Public Domain and such. Heck, I don't even know if there IS public domain in the Sixth World since copyright and patent laws could be unrecognizable when each corporation can define such for themselves.

hobgoblin

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« Reply #20 on: <03-25-11/1556:30> »
While SR4 eased up on the legality of computing (even black hammer can be licensed) earlier editions made the simple act of carrying a cyber-terminal with a masking chip installed (what made a deck stand out from a security terminal) a offense that could give a multi-year prison sentence.

This would be the equivalent of sending someone to jail for being in the possession of a chipped PS3.
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Tycho

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« Reply #21 on: <03-25-11/1623:58> »
So, all of you have the opinion, that in SR 207x, there is no law protection a creator: If you write a book or novel, you dont have the right to sell or publish it? If you paint something, it is not yours. Literally every creative work you create, is owned by the corporation, because sometime between now and then every government on the world decided to expropriate every creator on the planet.

aint gonna happen!

This is not the first BS published in SR-Sourcebooks and the only argument here is "you comparing the real world to a fictional world blabla" which is rather ridiculous. Sure I compare the real world with the Shadowrun background because Shadowrun strifes to be a world based on reality.

cya
Tycho

hobgoblin

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« Reply #22 on: <03-25-11/1741:12> »
was the subject of the book ever defined? Could it have been found offensive by the powers that be?

That moves the issue into one of freedom of press and freedom of speech more then "freedom to sell" tho. And with the AA-AAAs ability to say what goes on their turf, that may be highly variable compared to what one is used to today.
« Last Edit: <03-25-11/1743:00> by hobgoblin »
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JM_Hardy

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« Reply #23 on: <03-25-11/1743:46> »
So, all of you have the opinion, that in SR 207x, there is no law protection a creator: If you write a book or novel, you dont have the right to sell or publish it? If you paint something, it is not yours. Literally every creative work you create, is owned by the corporation, because sometime between now and then every government on the world decided to expropriate every creator on the planet.

aint gonna happen!

This is not the first BS published in SR-Sourcebooks and the only argument here is "you comparing the real world to a fictional world blabla" which is rather ridiculous. Sure I compare the real world with the Shadowrun background because Shadowrun strifes to be a world based on reality.

cya
Tycho

No on went to the extent to which you are going. This is what we are saying:

1) In the current world, corporations are often looking for ways to either prevent works from going into the public domain in the first place or to find ways to remove some works from the public domain.

2) Given the strong corporate interest in owning copyrights, it is reasonable to extrapolate that when corporations have more political power than they do now, they will make further assaults on the concept of "public domain."

3) Anytime corporations crack down on copyright, there is a response from the market to create new avenues for obtaining the restricted goods, even if they are selling or distributing goods without the permission of the copyright holder. So you get piracy.

4) If corporations pull things out of public domain, they would likely go after pieces that still have contemporary appeal, i.e., works deemed classics.

5) In a vast marketplace, where anyone can instantly distribute their work, the challenge becomes getting your work noticed. In Attitude, Rodregaz chose to get her work noticed by packaging it with unlicensed versions of works that had been in the public domain, but were taken out of it. These are the "illegal avenues" the book refers to.

6) No one is saying you don't have the right to sell or publish your work. People in the Sixth World have the same right to do that as people do now. But you'll notice that a lot of people still go with a publisher instead of self-publishing, because it can be good to have the infrastructure of a publisher at your disposal, and going with a publisher is a good way to get traffic to your work. That's why Rodregaz did what she did, and Horizon didn't like it.

Jason H.
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CanRay

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« Reply #24 on: <03-25-11/1752:31> »
It's also why there's so many restrictions on DRM, and why FastJack wants to punch someone in the Junk.

(I'm sorry, the image of a 70+ Year Old Hacker punching a random stranger in the street in the crotch just amuses me to no end.  It doesn't help that, after reading that, I keep imaging FastJack as looking like Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan.).
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Adarael

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« Reply #25 on: <03-25-11/1910:59> »
Since I keep reading the copyright argument on a number of forums, and Frank wanted to make a big deal about it, here's the thing: why the hell would a megacorporate nation even give a shit if something was public domain or not? If they want to make money, and own you (because you're a citizen) and have enough sway to make other nations kowtow - like the Cal Free State, or Free Los Angeles, or wherever - what does it matter what Tolstoy did in 1880?

If they have the Authorized King James Bible 2073, now with embedded narration, and they want to make free public domain bibles illegal, they can, because *they have all the guns and they own you*.

I don't know why people find this so implausible in a world where workers can literally have their skills and memories erased if they are company property. The law has nothing to do with anything, when a AAA decides something is illegal.

hobgoblin

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« Reply #26 on: <03-25-11/1920:15> »
Those with the money, and guns, make the law...

And i would recommend not taking everything Frank writes at face value, he has a very set bias related to SR...
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Tycho

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« Reply #27 on: <03-25-11/1951:48> »
The Point you dont get is: Strong Copyright means also that nobody can "reclaim" Tolstoi because he used his copyright to release his book to the public. Copyright is the right of the author to do whatever he sees fit, not the right of the Corps to claim whatever they want.

If the corps can just claim Tolstoi and other classics, there is no copyright anymore. There is a right that allows the corps to do what they want. A creator is at their disposal.

cya
Tycho

JM_Hardy

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« Reply #28 on: <03-25-11/2006:20> »
Since I keep reading the copyright argument on a number of forums, and Frank wanted to make a big deal about it, here's the thing: why the hell would a megacorporate nation even give a shit if something was public domain or not? If they want to make money, and own you (because you're a citizen) and have enough sway to make other nations kowtow - like the Cal Free State, or Free Los Angeles, or wherever - what does it matter what Tolstoy did in 1880?

If they have the Authorized King James Bible 2073, now with embedded narration, and they want to make free public domain bibles illegal, they can, because *they have all the guns and they own you*.

I don't know why people find this so implausible in a world where workers can literally have their skills and memories erased if they are company property. The law has nothing to do with anything, when a AAA decides something is illegal.

These are good points. In the Sixth World, the law tends not to favor the individual, and if it happens to, the corps are generally not obligated to pay attention to it.

Jason H.
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Tycho

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« Reply #29 on: <03-25-11/2032:47> »

These are good points. In the Sixth World, the law tends not to favor the individual, and if it happens to, the corps are generally not obligated to pay attention to it.

Jason H.

So Public Domain must be really big in SR because it favers the whole society rather than an individual copyright holder.  :P