Hacker News Reader

Comment by RealStickman | Hacker News Reader

"...resort to illegally torrenting them."

I'd argue that pirating games that aren't available anywhere should not be illegal. I had the same problem with the original Metro Exodus. I couldn't find it anywhere, only the Redux version. It's sad to see older games neglected.

View on HN

On what basis?

Do you think a creator has no right to control their work?

Not sure why you're being downvoted. Surely a creator has the right to sell something, and then refuse to sell any further copies.

We should have a good reason for restricting what third parties may do with copies of the work. If nobody benefits (e.g., more sales) it's purely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss.

Not everything need be evaluated through the lens of free market economics.

...no, I don't think they do.

Copyright exists for the sole reason of -promoting- the creation of works (by allowing the creator to have a monopoly on it long enough to extract profit).

If a creator no longer wishes to sell those copies...the copyright's very purpose is undermined. Obviously the law as written allows them to do so, but the law as explicitly intended should not do so.

Certainly, outside of the particulars of the law they have no such right. It's not a 'god given' one, or any such thing; preventing people from making copies of something is in fact extremely unnatural and goes against what has allowed our species' cultures to flourish.

No it isn't... The fact that I no longer wasnt to distribute my work didn't mean you get to take that right from me. I created the work for the sole purpose of making a limited edition. It incentivized me to create it, and because it was a limited edition I may have made more money... But now you say you get to copy it because you want to? What is the point of giving control to the creator, if you are just going to take that control away, if you don't like how they are distributing it? I don't believe the law gives any intention on distribution.

And if I have a copy of your work already, and I want to distribute it myself, what is to stop me?

For hundreds of thousands of years of human history, nothing. Copyright is a fairly new invention. It doesn't take a law to allow me to distribute works I have a copy of that are not my creation; it takes a law to stop me.

The law was created to stop me so that you, the creator, -could- control how it was distributed, for your profit. For a limited time. Those are the key bits; it was to allow you to profit from it, and it was to be a limited time. Mickey Mouse lawyers and "forever minus a day" notwithstanding, that was the goal.

If a work is no longer sold not because the original creator(s) decided it should be 'limited', but because the original creator is no longer determinable, i.e., an orphaned work, it's perfectly reasonable to put it into the public domain, as quite clearly, the goal of allowing the creator to make money from it no longer applies. It's also why extending copyright makes no sense.

But that's neither here nor there; my point was simply that copyright is an unnatural thing, one created by society with the idea that it better society, and in instances like this that breaks down.

The question at hand is whether, when a creator exercises their right to refuse to sell their work, those who can no longer buy it have the right to copy and distribute the work.

It seems obvious that you can refuse to sell your work, but if you don't exercise an exclusive right to distribute content, should you lose that exclusivity?

Absolutely not.

I don't understand why this is controversial.

Say you release a volume of experimental poetry, in a small print run of 100 copies.

You decline to do any further printing.

Should anyone who wants just be able to make bootleg copies?

Why should we stop them? If you demanded to buy back those 100 copies and burn them, we wouldn't even consider enforcing that.

Because the creator has rights?

That's a circular argument if the parent asks "why should the creator have that right?"

Because they’re the creator and not some random internet punk?

Because if people simply are allowed to make bootleg copies of limited edition things, then the limited editions become a meaningless concept, _undermining_ the creator's business model.

Just for the reference, creators in general have nothing to do with these games anymore. As explained in the article, it's stockpiled by publishers who don't even have a clue if they own the rights or not.

I think there needs to be more nuance to it.

Perhaps some modification that if a copyrighted product is offered for sale, and then some time later is withdrawn from sale/no longer generally available - then the copyrights in that work should revert to the public domain after some period of time.

We have a similar problem with books, movies and music - things that were once available have become not. Certainly it was a genuine excuse previously that the costs were too high to keep every book/movie/album in-print, but now that digital copies are incredibly cheap that excuse is going away.

In the US Constitution, at least, the purpose of limited-time monopolies is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts...", not to ensure that creators of works are able to profit. Granting limited-time monopolies is a way to create profit for the creators, but as I read it, the goal was to promote progress for all of society, not for the creators.

In this case it is to promote useful art. One way to do that is to allow the creators to profit off they work. It gives them the incentive to create, plus it gives them the ability to create.

The growth of the public domain is a method to promote the useful arts. Particularly in the realm of patents. The eventual guarantee that patented inventions become public knowledge means that more innovation is prevented from remaining in the realm of trade secrets forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Moral rights are quite distinct from copy rights.

Fundamental to moral rights is control over over how the work is marketed or presented. My OP did not make any claims at all WRT to copyright.

"I'd argue that pirating games that aren't available anywhere should not be illegal. "

The only reason that I can see that this would be illegal would be due to copyrights.

I don't think they're arguing that the original author/publisher shouldn't recieve attribution and credit for the original work.

If someone was originally selling a product openly, and they now no longer choose to do so - then they're effectively abandoning their interest in those copyrights. Sharing those abandoned items shouldn't be illegal.

I am willing to grant a creator that right in exchange for the work becoming public domain after a limited, and reasonable, period of time. Outside the context of a social contract then, no, I think a creator has no right to control their work if they decide to share it with others.

The only reason we gave creators the right to control their work is to encourage them to create it and make it available.

If they aren't going to make it available, then no, we have no obligation to protect their work with our money and our legal system and enforcement officers that we're funding.

Otherwise, they get a lot from us, and we get nothing from them.

I suspect the huge majority would not care and that most of the things falling into this category would be orphaned works due to byzantine ownership issues.

No. We give creatures a right to control their work, so they will create works. They did create the work. Now they are working on something new. The fact that you want it, and they don't want to release it, doesn't mean you should get it. Basically we have them control over their work for a limited time. You can't just take that control away from them because you want a copy. Now I believe that the current "limited time"is to long . But that is a different argument

Why would we care if they create works if nobody can have them?

Because the more of their rights you take away the less incentive they have to create?

That libertarian capitalist bullshit. People create things for free all the time. The purpose of creation is for the use of those creations. The purpose of government is to administer the common desires for the common good of the society they administer.

Incentive to create things I can't have, use, or see, regardless of my willingness to pay?

Okay. I don't care if they have that incentive, and I don't think many other people do either.

Now, if they're going to create AND distribute things, that's another story. Then I'm on board.

At this point the creators literally have no right to control their work. That right rests in one of three corporations, none of which are interested in finding out if they actually have the right, nor to grant that right to a third party. We have already passed the point where creators lose the right to control their work when they do work for hire, which is the majority of art being created nowadays.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com