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Balancing the Budget…For Fun and Fun

More a widget than a real game, today the New York Times has an interactive “puzzle” where readers can attempt to fix the budget deficit.

It’s kind of fun to try cutting programs or raising taxes when you can see in real time the projected savings, not just in 2015, but also in 2030.

Posted in Miscellaneous.


Internet publication does not destroy Copyright

Last week there was a lot of good discussion about an online publication republishing articles from other sources without permission, and with occasional editing.

The editor of the magazine, when contacted by the author of such a republished article, claimed that anything on the internet is “public domain” and that he had been obtaining content this way for years.

Sigh. Where to begin?

Let’s take a moment to look at US Copyright…which doesn’t have an exception for online publication. You still have to affirmatively donate your work to the public domain, or have it be published before 1918 for it to be unquestionably free to use and copy. This is in contrast to some of the principles of the tech community, with collaborative coding projects, and viral open source licensing.

Copyright owners retain ownership and control of their work, even if they publish it online, and even if they don’t have an explicit message reiterating their ownership. Whether you agree with it or not, the current system of US Copyright law defaults to protection, not sharing.

Where the editor may have some justification (and misinformation) is in his evaluation of risk. As previously stated, the two aspects to evaluating legal risk are: 1) how illegal is your action? and 2) how likely are you to be caught? So while the editor may have gotten away with taking other content for years, his behavior is actually against the rules, and he could be held liable to each author for each act of infringement, and each “act” can include each copy of the magazine made, sold, or downloaded.

Update: Magazine takes down Facebook page and “apologizes” for not having writers verify that the writing submitted is actually their own. Kind of ignores the fact that the writer who drew attention to their practices HADN’T submitted her work at all, and nicely attempts to shift blame that way. I think the magazine is attempting to save face, but hasn’t really learned anything except publicity can be bad.

Posted in Tuesday: Potpourri.


The Marvel Brothel (A late comment)

Over the weekend, there was some talk about an RPG that was called “The Marvel Brothel” and was essentially Professor Xavier of the X-Men deciding to better the mutant relationship with mankind by turning his school for the Gifted and Extraordinary students into a brothel starring some of the series’ favorite characters.

However, when I investigated this morning in order to link to the game, I found it had been taken down. Therefore I will point the reader to a few sources that provided screenshots and commentary, and will say a few things about fair use and popular media before being sad I never got to experience the thing for myself.

Fair use, as stated previously, is a legal defense to copyright infringement that protects artists and researchers (primarily) who remix and republish creative content in their artistic work and research. The four factors are enumerated in 17 U.S.C. §107, and are supposed to be given equal weight by the judge deciding whether the defense should apply in the case before them. In the US we also have a limited trademark fair use defense, which might also have been needed here because generally popular characters are protected under both copyright (creative idea, general style) and trademark (distinctive look and feel, specific possibly registered design) principles.

Would fair use have applied? Possibly, because the game’s author did not appear to be making money off the game, had used a free game design engine to create and share his or her work, and had put an interesting spin on the characters from a popular world without focusing too greatly on any one creative element beyond the character design. The big “However” comes because borrowing characters graphically is generally less acceptable than doing so in writing, which is why fanfiction is often ignored by publishers while fan-based artwork is not. In addition, Marvel, now owned by Disney, is one of the more litigious publishers out there, and both companies are very diligent about protecting their “family friendly” brands, meaning that it’s possible the game isn’t available because of a quick draw nasty legal letter.

Whether it was a good game or not is actually fairly irrelevant to most of the legal analysis, though the popularity and exposure would have played a part in determining the extent of potential trademark infringement. All in all, a good thought exercise, but not one that most individual game developers would be willing to follow through with by themselves once attention was drawn.

Posted in Wednesday: Current Issues.