For example, fan fiction is refered by some (most?) authors as "copyright infringement". I could go for trademark infringement, if, say, "Harry Potter" or "The A-Team" were registered trademarks, but to say that a whole ficitonal universe is the property of the creator is rather bizarre. Universes only exist when they're observed - wheter you believe in the physical, quantum physics, version of this or not, it is totally true for works of fiction. If Anne Rice writes a book and nobody reads it, then it only exist for the author, in their role as observer. From the time someone else reads it, there's not a copy of that universe - and, due the to differences of perspective, also, a derivative form of it.
I understand that creators intend to have their cake and eat it too. "Royalty", or the "ruling class", have been doing that since the beginning of historic times.
However, in an era of accelerated information, copying and deriving are even more common than basic necessities of life. I mean, you have anorexic people posting youtube videos for and against the deprivation of nutrition as a "lifestyle" or a "disease". The fact that people would rather create information, and spread their own opinions, then eat, a basic human necessity, is perhaps an extreme example but it shows that information creation is very important to people.
And in creating, we sometimes re-use things which went before.
Getting back to "piracy", the term orgionally mean physical theft, often accompanies with death and destruction of transportation systems (sinking ships which may take months or even years to build). Somehow, I don't see making an unofficial copy of a song or movie as having the same impact. At least, not to the creators. The makers of the unofficial copy, however, can be sued for more than their weight in gold (I don't exaggerate, gold is relatively cheap nowadays and the lawsuits start at $750 US per song, or some stupid thing like that), and imprisioned for several years.
Meanwhile, China, where large-scale organized unofficial production occurs, still has "most favoured nation" status in the WTO.
To reconcile this difference: the individual is persecuted, the nation is exalted, there's an obvious answer: the real crime is "being small".
Thinking Big is not just something to help you be creative in day to day life, apparently, it is also the key (or at least, part of it) to unlock the door to world domination. Large-scale production of unofficial goods by any individual is seen as seperate from their host country, and occasional "raids" to raise publicity obviously help both the producters (who are seen as victims of an Evil Empire) and the customers (who become aware that they should be supporting unofficial, rather than official products, since the official ones are more expensive).
Having said all that, I still like official stuff... I'm not one of those people who says their "only testing out" a game and don't buy it. I bought Bushido Blade, even in retrospect I can't say it was a great game for the money, I can still resell it... in the meantime, I can trade or borrow games if my money is low. Or I can use the time I would have spent playing games to make money, instead. Or educate myself. Or go to the beach.
However, the life cycle of "software", which I'm using to refer to not only games, but DVD movies, CD audio, and so on... is geared to be brief. The life cycle of the remixes, samples, and remakes could be longer, but the producers are mostly clueless and uninterested in this. THey don't even have "software maintainence" departments, and don't often keep their own source code.
No, really. FF7 hasn't been remade yet because Square lost the source code to it!
And there was a similar problem with the Japanese-language self-parody game, SGGG:
“I remember finding a pirate version in Brazil! Why the hell would such a version be made and sold, especially when you think about all the Japanese text? The Dreamcast used GD-ROMs – if the GD-ROM was used to its full capacity you could not make a copy of it on CD-ROM, so I bought one of these Brazilian CD-ROM copies and brought it back to Sega to analyze it. I realized that the content had been edited to fit the format; many things were missing or changed. But this pirate version had an interesting role afterwards as we were thinking about adapting the game for the mobile phones. We were lacking the source code and there was no possibility at the time to take it from the retail version: I recall thinking about trying to get it from the pirate version. But in the end we didn’t because the project didn’t happen."
(from an Edge story on SGGG)
In a way, it is as if the wealth of knowledge, culture, and "IP" that has been created by the "game industry" is being lost through their short-term perspective... but, why should we really care, if we're living in a short-term era?
Well, I care because I see game-making as a part of the growing entertainment sector, and related to the growing demand for "Makers", be they Engineers, Artists, or Business builders... or even construction workers, Architects... everyone who can make something are going to be in higher and higher demand, for a few reasons:
- People want more custom-made stuff. Look at the car aftermarker, but also, PC mods an even fashion.
- Entertainment, even if it is following a formula, involves a lot of creation, both for animation and live action
- Post-war areas would benefit from rapid re-building which avoids the problems of the past
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