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Jannak

Imagine if Doom hit the public domain.....

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Or rather how many years until Doom hits public domain even though the source code was released long ago but imagine if video games like Doom hit public domain, imagine the possibilities...

 

Or basically Freeware is public domain or is it different?

 

Unfortunately, I don't think any of us will be alive once that happens.....

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Most video games would be considered "works for hire" since it's made by people on behalf of a company, who holds the rights. In the US, that form of copyright is 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation, whatever comes first.

 

So in short, no, we'll almost certainly all be dead first, since the former would would be 2088, and the latter, 2113.

 

And that's assuming it doesn't somehow get extended in that time.

 

Or to put it another way: By the time you can legally play Doom for free, there may well legitimately be people actually living on Mars, and military installations on Phobos and Deimos.

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I own the data, and have the source, so I'm happy.

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57 minutes ago, kb1 said:

I own the data, and have the source, so I'm happy.

You mean you own a (more or less) perpetual lease to use a copy of the data.

 

If you owned the data, you'd own the copyright.

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5 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

You mean you own a (more or less) perpetual lease to use a copy of the data.

Wishy-washy words are of no use. We own copies of Doom, just like we'd own copies of a movie or book. It entitles use to use it and resell it, and those rights can't be infringed on. :)

 

As for public domain possibilities: There isn't a whole lot that isn't already possible, aside from distributing id-derived IWADs legally.

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56 minutes ago, chungy said:

It entitles use to use it and resell it, and those rights can't be infringed on. :)

 

If this conversation were taking place 17 years ago that would be 100% true, but it's 2019 and you're probably not going to be able to resell a game you bought digitally. Even many games you buy a physical copy of still require linking to on-line account, e.g. Steam, Origin, or uPlay.

 

For that matter, you're probably not going to be able to resell a movie or book you only own a digital copy of, either.

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2 hours ago, chungy said:

Wishy-washy words are of no use. We own copies of Doom, just like we'd own copies of a movie or book. It entitles use to use it and resell it, and those rights can't be infringed on. :)

Feel free to show me pictures of your CD or Floppies then. Otherwise, you ain't trading or reselling jack.

 

Virtually every online, digital download storefront has provisions against selling or trading one's account, and none of them allow you to give an item from your account to someone else's - unless you gift them an entire new copy.

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Note that owning a copy of a movie or a book does not entitle you to make derivative works out of it, unless it's either protected by fair use or the result is transformative.


It's possible most WADs fall on that criteria, but I doubt we will ever really know, I don't think Id / Bethesda has any incentive to prosecute. Maybe only if someone started making a lot of money out of Doom. And even then it would hurt their public image to go against the modding scene.

 

If Doom assets and lore were public domain anyone could professionally dedicate to it full time and make money out of it in total freedom without any fear of ever being called out. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason for John Romero's Sigil being free (and only selling the box) had to do with that (plus the fact that there are already a lot of high quality episodes out there that are free). He does not own the rights for Doom anymore, he probably knows he's close to a grey area and wants to play safe.

Edited by Ferk

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14 hours ago, Gez said:

IMO copyright should be extended to year of publication + 10000 years, and retroactively, so that Disney can be sued out of existence for infringing on the copyright of Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm brothers, Victor Hugo, and so on and so forth.

 

And right after that is done, then copyright needs to be reduced to just, say, 50 years after publication.

I’m of the mind that all copyrighted works should be instantly made property of Disney. That way we’ll get some sweet animated cartoons based on all kinds of characters, then 20-25 years later we’ll get terrible CGI remakes of each and every one of them.

 

This is the only way we can stop global warming.

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7 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I’m of the mind that all copyrighted works should be instantly made property of Disney. That way we’ll get some sweet animated cartoons based on all kinds of characters, then 20-25 years later we’ll get terrible CGI remakes of each and every one of them.

 

This is the only way we can stop global warming.

No, that would be by making new tales in the FernGully series.

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18 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

No, that would be by making new tales in the FernGully series.

James Cameron did, but he called it Avatar for copyright reasons.

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On 3/14/2019 at 3:36 AM, Gez said:

And right after that is done, then copyright needs to be reduced to just, say, 50 years after publication.

I'd argue for 14 years (Copyright Act of 1790), but that's a whole other discussion :)

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Nothing will change beside less how do I get the game questions by people who don't want to buy it for $5 and have no idea how to REDACTED.

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45 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Nothing will change beside less how do I get the game questions by people who don't want to buy it for $5 and have no idea how to REDACTED.

SCP-173 is at it again.

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Hmmm... I guess I've been so addicted to Doom that I forgot that it's going to lose it's copyright one day, just like everything else.

 

I hope I'll be dead before that even happens. I do not want to live long enough to see Doom lose it's copyright.

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10 minutes ago, crazyflyingdonut said:

I do not want to live long enough to see Doom lose it's copyright.

 

Why?

It'll essentially render it open and free like other public domain games, such as football, chess, poker, etc. I don't think being public domain has been any problem for those games, I doubt they'd have been as popular and widespread were they not public domain.

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3 hours ago, crazyflyingdonut said:

Hmmm... I guess I've been so addicted to Doom that I forgot that it's going to lose it's copyright one day, just like everything else.

 

I hope I'll be dead before that even happens. I do not want to live long enough to see Doom lose it's copyright.

Since the earliest date that could be is 2088, you almost certainly will be.

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Seeing as crazyflyingdonut could well only be in their teens, living another 69 years isn't completely unrealistic. There's a guy in a town near me who'll be celebrating his 111th birthday in a couple of weeks (no, his name isn't Frodo :)).

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2 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

Seeing as crazyflyingdonut could well only be in their teens, living another 69 years isn't completely unrealistic. There's a guy in a town near me who'll be celebrating his 111th birthday in a couple of weeks (no, his name isn't Frodo :)).

1. Thanks for noticing me.

2. By the way, do you know those textures you made that say "UAC" on them? I made my own version of them that say "CFD".

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3 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

Seeing as crazyflyingdonut could well only be in their teens, living another 69 years isn't completely unrealistic. There's a guy in a town near me who'll be celebrating his 111th birthday in a couple of weeks (no, his name isn't Frodo :)).

It's not unreasonable, but let's put it this way: If you remember Doom coming out and the immediate next few years of console ports afterwards, you will almost certainly be dead.

 

For example, I'll be 103 in December 2088. While on one hand it'd be amazing to see what that year would be like considering the world I came into, barring some revolutionary medical technology that'd let me feel like a man half that age or even younger, I doubt I will be able to celebrate by playing Doom for free with my arthritis-knurled knuckles.

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Steamboat Willy was published in 1928. Copyright for corporate works is 95 years after publication, which means that the first Mickey Mouse movie is going to enter the public domain on January 1st, 2024.

 

But when it was originally published, so in 1928, works were copyrighted for just 28 years, with a possible renewal for an additional 28 years. Meaning that its copyright was set to expire, after renewal, on December 31, 1984. However, it didn't, because eight years prior, in 1976, to a new fixed duration of 75 years. (No longer a short duration that can be renewed once; but a long duration nearly triple the previous short duration.) This catapulted Steamboat Willly's copyright to last until the end 2003. However, in 1998, there was another new copyright term extension, increasing the duration by another 20 years.

 

We are now in 2019. Mickey Mouse is going to enter the public domain in just five years. You know what this means:  copyright terms will be extended again, at some point within the next few years, but certainly before December 31, 2023.

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As long as Zenimax owns id and the DOOM franchise, such thing will never, ever happen, period.

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4 hours ago, IMX said:

As long as Zenimax owns id and the DOOM franchise, such thing will never, ever happen, period.

Pretty sure few gaming companies will last that long.

 

And no, Nintendo doesn't count - they were a playing card and toy company until the 1970s basically.

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I hope the newer generations do not take the next DMCA laying down like we did back in 98. Never even knew that shit was coming down the pipe before it hit. Now it's entrenched through international treaties.

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1 hour ago, crazyflyingdonut said:

The very idea of Doom losing it's copyright gets depressing for me every time I think about it.

Can you please explain why you think it's bad?

 

I cannot imagine any harm. It means that anybody would be able to use Doom assets without restrictions.

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On 3/17/2019 at 1:39 PM, Dark Pulse said:

Pretty sure few gaming companies will last that long.

 

And no, Nintendo doesn't count - they were a playing card and toy company until the 1970s basically.

So they went from selling recreational entertainment goods to selling.. recreational entertainment goods? lol why does that mean they don’t count? Nintendo is the exception rather than the rule in that it’s so damn old, but I just don’t get why updating your company’s focus to keep up with the times and remain competitive means the company’s age doesn’t count. Heck, if anything, that’s why they’re so old! 

 

This is is a total tangent but imagine if other companies had the kind of foresight. That would be like if Blockbuster Video had started a streaming service in like 2005 or something. There would be no Netflix and the meme would be blockbuster and chill. That’s the kind of foresight Nintendo showed in the early 80s when they first entered the electronic gaming market, coming off the back of an already decently well established name in the recreational goods industry. That kind of forward thinking is really impressive and still shows in how they do things today, even if mistakes are sometimes made. For this reason I hope Nintendo sticks around for many more years to come.

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On 3/14/2019 at 10:54 AM, Dark Pulse said:

Feel free to show me pictures of your CD or Floppies then. Otherwise, you ain't trading or reselling jack.

 

You picked on one of the people most likely to actually own a stack of media, here…

 

On 3/17/2019 at 2:39 AM, Dark Pulse said:

Pretty sure few gaming companies will last that long.

 

And no, Nintendo doesn't count - they were a playing card and toy company until the 1970s basically.

 

I don't see why that matters. Nokia used to be a pulp mill but that doesn't make then any less a phone company today.

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