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Old 10-08-2005, 12:43 PM   #71
Jeysie
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I'll add two points here. First, I can't see how it isn't supid to infringe copyright without thinking that Vivendi might care. It's entirely their prerogative whether or not to allow fangames, and they have every right to make those choices on a whim.
It's their legal right to make choices on a whim, yes. But what we seem to be debating here is the morality of it, and I don't find that morally right.

Let's project this into a different situation. Let's say that you're back at school in a class. Three of your classmates each perform the same action that's against the rules. One is told it's OK to do it, one gets ignored, the third gets punished, and the teacher gives no explanation why. Would you find that morally acceptable? Would you sitting your chair not worry how the teacher would react to your actions? Especially if you wanted to do the same thing your classmates did, and the reward would be great if the teacher decided to give you permission or ignore you?

I can live with people having different opinions than me and finding different things from me unacceptable if they are consistent, stick to their opinions, and don't appear to play favorites. I see no reason why I shouldn't hold a company to the same personal moral ideals I do an individual person.

If Vivendi was consistent, shut down most fangames, and gave consistent reasons why they allowed others I wouldn't be sitting here debating the issue.

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I find the idea that the KQ9 team made no real effort to seek permission for their project, despite the success of some other teams in this field, utterly bizarre. Did they just not feel like making the same effort that others had? And if not, why not? If they're not going to put in the effort to make peace with the legal department, how can they be upset if Vivendi closes them down?
From what the KQIX team members have said before they did contact Vivendi early in development and received no reply.

As I've said in other places I do agree that not continuing to try to contact Vivendi was not a good move. Nevertheless, as I laid out in my post above, all available evidence before now pointed that Vivendi approved of or didn't care about fangames. It's not the KQIX team's fault that Vivendi behaves inconsistently.

And I'd hardly say that other teams had "success" contacting Vivendi. AFAIK, AGDI didn't hear from Vivendi at all until they got their own C&D letter. And from what Colin's said in the past Vivendi has so far refused to give a concrete yay or nay to the SQ7.org project.

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Equally, shutting the project down early. Yes, that would have been nice. But doing that kind of thing would also cost Vivendi money. Someone has to write the cease and desist letters. If necessary, someone has to pay to post them. There have to be lawyers on standby in case the game makers fail to comply. All of these things cost a company time and money, so I can understand totally that Vivendi would ignore projects until they look likely to be released. That way, the projects that fall by the wayside don't have to be dealt with at Vivendi's expense.
(shrugs) You know what? I really don't care. If I'm lazy and I know I should do something but I don't want to spare the effort, and I'm forced to do it later anyway and people get pissed at me, well, tough bananas for me. Again, I'm not going to exempt a company from the same ideals, especially one that's legally required to defend abuses of its IP or lose it.

Besides, Vivendi could have headed this off at the pass by acknowledging their fans to begin with and making a definitive public statement on their views about fanworks. I suspect that the number of people who would be daft enough to violate such a statement anyway knowing for sure Vivendi would close them down would be much more manageable. But Vivendi chose to ignore their fans, so, again, tough bananas dealing with the result.

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While I understand your concerns, the ideas that some people have stated that Vivendi is in some way morally wrong to close down a copyright-infringing product is totally bizarre. Since when did it become morally acceptable to break copyright laws without permission?
I dunno, people have been creating fanfiction, fanart, fan filks, fanzines, fan *everything* for years now that all infringes on copyright to some degree. All of these things have a long history of existing in the creative arts world. Some writers and creators like Peter David even got their start making fanworks. Do you feel that fangames are any different?

If you reply to this and say you also condemn all other fanworks for the same reason, I'll respectfully agree to disagree on this specific point.

Peace & Luv, Liz
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Last edited by Jeysie; 10-08-2005 at 12:49 PM.
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