[Dylan16807]

> Returning it to Blizzard directly is good for Blizzard. Returning your code is good for you.

To expand on this, it's good in general to return leaked code of active-development projects because that helps the social contract of turning work into something that can be sold. So if I found jakebasile's 2015 code in an alley, it would be in some sense good for everyone for me to return it.

But that doesn't apply to a 20 year old master for starcraft. There is no promotion of the useful arts in returning the CD in this specific case, and it's a hugely relevant cultural artifact.

[moftz]

If people want to promote the arts of game development, what does copying the code from a 20 year old game do to further today's useful arts? There are plenty of free game engines out there for someone to use and modify to build the next best game. Using buggy 20 year old code that can't run on modern computers doesn't really seem efficient.

[eridius]

So it's ok to take other people's property, as long as it's "culturally important"?

TBH this makes me think of the old practice of smuggling jade artifacts out of China. Hey, it's culturally important, so clearly that means it's ok for other people to take it, right?

[Dylan16807]

The "out of China" part is the problem there. That's a problem that's pretty much irrelevant to a question of whether or not to distribute copies of data files.

And I didn't say that cultural importance is an automatic justification. The new star wars movie also has cultural importance, but there would be large downsides to free-for-all piracy of it during its release year. Downsides that don't exist with 20 year old source code.

[yomly]

This is more like if an annotated original script of A New Hope were to find its way into the hands of a fan and s/he gave it back to Disney instead of copying it.

[eridius]

You don't have the right to determine whether someone else's source code is old enough that it's "ok" to steal. Not the legal right, and not the moral right either.

[Dylan16807]

Obviously I don't have magic law-changing wishes from a lamp. Are you telling me I don't get to have an opinion wrt lawmaking? Because that would be kind of rude and antithetical to a democratic government.