[ginsider_oaks]

I'd like to present a counterexample: SNKRX[1]. It costs 3€ and is under the MIT license, you can find it on github[2].

It sold >100,000 units[3], and AFAIK no one's massively undercut the author. I guess he's kind of undercutting himself by making it available on github, but I bet most people would rather pay 3€ and have nice steam features than download and compile a game off a site they likely don't know.

And yes, I do realize he's still the copyright holder for SNKRX, but he's not really enforcing it with a permissive license like MIT.

[1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/915310/SNKRX/

[2]: https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX

[3]: https://www.a327ex.com/posts/2022/

[coldtea]

>I guess he's kind of undercutting himself by making it available on github, but I bet most people would rather pay 3€ and have nice steam features than download and compile a game off a site they likely don't know

Well, if you don't have copyright, anybody could also publish the game on steam or in any other shop with the same "nice steam features", and get the money over him. It would just be up to the audience charity ("let's give our money to the original author instead of buying the cheaper same featured alternative release")

[ginsider_oaks]

What is stopping someone from publishing SNKRX to a site like itch.io and selling it for 1€ instead? And if nothing is stopping it, why hasn't someone done it yet (that I know of).

[coldtea]

>What is stopping someone from publishing SNKRX to a site like itch.io and selling it for 1€ instead?

Nothing, that's my whole point.

>And if nothing is stopping it, why hasn't someone done it yet (that I know of).

Not everything that can happen has happened (or will happen).

But many programs in similar open status were indeed taken and sold this way. And sure, it's legal and a particular creator might be fine if that happened to his program. But that wasn't what we were discussing in this subthread, but the fitability of this model for people wanting to make a living, e.g. the proposition that: "I guess he's kind of undercutting himself by making it available on github, but I bet most people would rather pay 3€ and have nice steam features than download and compile a game off a site they likely don't know".

Well, first, the undercutters might put their version in a nice site like Steam as well. And that's just one case (or e.g. Steam discourages them, even though what they'd be doing is legal), there's also games/apps that they are sold in the author's website or on iOS/Android app stores - and for those anybody undercutting them with their own build/copy would have an equally convenient/prestigious delivery trivially.

Now, there are some cases where the original creator would fare better, but not because of the basic mechanics of the model, but because of other factors: e.g. a creator could have a nice following and be well loved in the community, to the point that most users would go out of their way to buy their version for support, and not the third party ones, even if the latter are undercutting it.

For the average program and the average creator without fans though, if they are concerned about their own sales, that's more of a "put it out in the open and pray you don't get undercut" proposition...

[chipsa]

The MIT license explicitly lets someone do exactly that.

> including without limitation the rights to [...] sell copies of the Software.

[coldtea]

I know, that's my whole point.

[falcolas]

Cool! I'll change a few strings and sell it under a public license on Steam and itch.io and the Epic Game Store for 1€, under a slightly different name. Maybe SNKRF. Probably see if I can compile it for mobile and throw it up for free on the app stores with tons of ads.

The OC can spend their time on the updates, and I'll spend my time on marketing the new version. I'd probably want to report the original as a clone, because I can and it could help boost my own version's rankings. If the OC wants to fight that, it's his time, so cool.

And should the OC actually succeed in getting that clone off the store, the other 10 I've put up while they're busy fighting against the first clone can take its place easily enough.

After all, without IP - without copyright - it's mine to sell however I want to. Nobody can stop me, nobody can even really chastise me because nothing was taken and nothing was lost.

That copyright you're dismissing is worth a lot. It states that it is, indeed, the owners' work. It raises potential legal ownership issues with the compiled work (which isn't under the same license as the code) and store listings. Even if he's not actively using it, it's still busy protecting his work.

[dannyobrien]

Well, first, let's note that you can do all of those things now, legally. It's MIT licensed. If your argument is that without a strong intellectual property discipline in place, this would inevitably happen, your burden is to explain why this isn't happening.

Some potential arguments you might use are that it does happen, and will happen eventually to this project, that it's simply a matter of time. Another is that it currently isn't worth it for the amount of work you might put into doing this for this project, but as soon as it is worth something, it will be. Which implies in this case, the cost of all of this activity would not be covered by the return, even if you didn't have to pay the creator.

There's almost certainly a market efficiency in scaling up this packaging activity -- so that the original creator could give up some of his copyrights to pay someone to do the packaging, as long as that packager is doing it for lots and lots of other projects. That's how IP really works.

But in a world of explosive creative access -- where making copies, and creating works is extremely popular and hypercompetitive, the chances are that copyright as a sellable, alienable right isn't going to be the thing that pulls in the money for the artists. It's a thing that maybe you speculatively sell to that large-scale packager, that promoter, in a buyer's market, for a vanishingly small amount. Which makes the contrast between a world without copyright, and a world with, far less diabolically opposed. IP gets you a pittance, but for the vast majority of artists, it's not nearly enough. It may actually be kind of cruel to incentivize artists to produce with an endlessly drawn out false promise of IP riches.

Could we do better? Well, one thing is that we could stop what you're describing without an alienable right to copy, more like a system to prevent the kind of fraud or misrepresentation you describe. There are components of this in our existing creative incentive laws, but they're actually some of the least "property"-like attributes, and do not revolve around making copies -- moral authorship, some elements of trademark. But it involves a lot of work to try and reform our outlook to come out with policies that genuinely rewards artists and enables innovation. I don't see it arising from those praising current intellectual property models, and arguing for their expansion.

[coldtea]

>Well, first, let's note that you can do all of those things now, legally. It's MIT licensed. If your argument is that without a strong intellectual property discipline in place, this would inevitably happen, your burden is to explain why this isn't happening.

Because you cherry-picked an example. This (separate publishing profiting from the same work) has been happening time and again to musicians and authors - even to those under copyright protection -- the only difference is that those have some legal recourse, and have been shutting down those alternate editions.