[Dylan16807]

If you look at the other posts I made, it should be more clear.

There are different kinds of property rights.

The property rights for the money you have in your bank account are important. (But if we wanted to add a rule-based tax across everyone that would be okay.)

The intellectual property rights for recently-made things are important.

The intellectual property rights for 20 year old code are not at all important. It's okay if we file off that specific corner of the law.

[tripzilch]

"intellectual property rights" aren't even "property rights", they just confusingly use the same terms.

we had to invent copyright to mean anything at all, it didn't exist before. but even animals have some basic concepts about actual property rights (they can get righteously angry about it, for instance).

it's the word "property" in "intellectual property" that is misleading (deliberately, like the word "patriot" in "patriot act"). it's just a legal term, it didn't (quite) magically turn information into physical property when we came up with it (just one or two centuries ago).

[braveo]

and the property rights to my house are unimportant because the house is 20+ years old.

oh wait.... something is wrong with that thought process, but I'll let you split another hair in your attempt at a meaningful dichotomy.

[Dylan16807]

You don't see any difference between physical property and source code?

I can't wait until you find out that sufficiently old intellectual property goes public, while sufficiently old houses don't go public! Have fun blaming that on me splitting hairs when it wasn't my idea.

More seriously, intellectual property is a number of different things lumped together, and they serve different purposes. Copyright exists to encourage new works, and while you can make arguments that there are some benefits from copyright being long-lasting on the creation of works like books and pictures, it's basically impossible to make a similar argument for code.

[braveo]

So the splitting of the hairs you're attempting is to point out that IP typically expires at some point, and therefore we should all consider anything "old" as effectively having expired IP, regardless of whether that's true or not.

Blizzard's IP hasn't expired, your argument here holds no water.

[wtetzner]

IP is different that physical property. If someone takes something physical from anther person, the original owner loses that object. But if someone "takes" (copies) source code from someone, the original owner still has it. Now two people have it instead of one.

By the way, I'm not making any arguments about morality. I'm just pointing out that IP is different from physical property in important ways.

[braveo]

It's an unimportant distinction for the purposes of this discussion.

Under the law, damages have occurred, especially if someone then takes that source code and makes it public.

So whether you have 2 copies or 1 copy or umpteen copies, if you've economically affected someone, you will lose that fight in court.

But this is not relevant to this discussion and I think we should keep on topic.

The point is this:

Dylan16807 is just trying to rationalize something that he wants, which is for the source code to be public.

It doesn't matter how IP differs from owning a house. It doesn't matter if it can be copied (and thank you for having the arrogance to explain that on board full of developers, btw...).

None of this matters. What matters is that Blizzard paid for the creation of the code, and they're afforded protections under the law.

[Dylan16807]

> So the splitting of the hairs you're attempting is to point out that IP typically expires at some point, and therefore we should all consider anything "old" as effectively having expired IP, regardless of whether that's true or not.

It's very simple. I'm saying we should look at the upsides and downsides of each type of IP. This (20+ year old source code) is a type of IP that has no upside. Therefore while it's against the law, there's no purpose in it being against the law, and it's not immoral. Easy peasy.

> What matters is that Blizzard paid for the creation of the code, and they're afforded protections under the law.

You don't think it's possible for the IP rights given by law to have a mismatch with the IP rights that are most moral? Because this conversation thread was about what is good or bad, aka what the law should be, not what the law currently is. Of course it's against the law as it is right now. That's not the only thing to discuss.

[wtetzner]

> So whether you have 2 copies or 1 copy or umpteen copies, if you've economically affected someone, you will lose that fight in court.

First, I never argued that it was or wasn't against the law.

Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard. It's not like someone could start releasing competing StarCraft games. They still don't own the brand etc.

> (and thank you for having the arrogance to explain that on board full of developers, btw...).

I mentioned it because of your argument about a house being 20+ years old.

[jhasse]

If I steal your house, that means that you lost it. The same isn't true for the code, as Blizzard would still also have it (along with the right to distribute binary copies of it, which is a million times more valuable).

[jhasse]

What would be the damages for Blizzard if he had released the code?

[tripzilch]

are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human??

because I can make up constructs all day that suffered more damages either way.

[jhasse]

> are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human??

No.

[braveo]

this distinction does not matter, if you steal my code and release it I can sue for damages exactly the way I would if you were to somehow steal my house.