If we repealed section 1201, that would address 90 percent of my criticism. I’m not wild about the other provisions, but they aren’t nearly as problematic.

I’m fine with reducing the term of copyrights, and patents for that matter. Fair use is something I think the DMCA should more clearly address.

Also, Tim, would you treat music, games and software differently in terms of copyright policy?

Here are some data points about myself, that might help see if I fit the profile:

• Contribute to the EFF.
• Despise the DMCA anti-circumvention provision, and let eveyone know it.
• Think Creative Commons and open-source software are way cool.
• Don’t file share, and disapprove of those who do so frequently, especially if they have the money to pay for stuff.
• Hope that creators will always get paid, ’cause that will lead to lots more good creations.

So am I in the crowd or not? I’m trying to understand how such a term could be helpful…

First, in theory we have a free market system. That means risk. Risk can come in any number of forms, one form of course is piracy. If a company cannot make money because they did not properly evaluate risk, too bad. We seem to forget that profits are not guaranteed, profits are earned.

Second, how much a company invests in a product does not justify appeals for pity. Like everyone, I like to enjoy well done entertainment that is in many cases expensive. Nevertheless, if a company invests a lot of money on a speculative project and they fail to make money it implies they did a poor job of designing the product to match the potential market and in conducting market research.

That makes sense. Clearly, if there’s no feasible way to get people to stop pirating movies and video games, then we’re going to have to live with that, and those companies are going to have to find more creative ways to generate revenues. And no, that won’t be a disaster. But I do think it’ll be unfortunate for people like Adam who are willing to shell out big bucks for elaborate games, and so if we can find reasonable ways to forestall that outcome, we should do so.

I think you’re taking me to have a stronger opposition to copyright than I actually have. Yes, I’m very optimistic about technology lowering barriers to entry in various creative fields. But I still believe in the need for copyright. I think that we need to reform it to shorten its term, deal with orphan works and expand fair use, but none of those changes really apply to this argument.

My point was that even under the current copyright regime, piracy is going to exert a transformative effect on these industries — but that this doesn’t mean we’re not going to be able to watch movies or play games. Here’s the paragraph that followed the ones Tim quoted:

Piracy’s going to continue to be effective. It’s also going to become much more accessible to people without soldering irons and Linux servers. The industry will respond by chasing ad revenue; by adjusting the cost:benefit ratio for piracy by making smaller, cheaper games; and by continuing to move toward service-based offerings (e.g. subscription fees in MMORPGs). For Madden devotees, this is bad news. For those of us bored by the industry’s addiction to big titles and consequent inability to innovate, it’s not a bad thing at all.

Adam, I assure you that I do understand what goes into game development. And I expect many big franchises like Madden to continue to thrive. But piracy and increased ease of distribution will change the sorts of games that are most profitable, and that’ll change what sorts of games are made — in the same way that Hollywood stopped making sprawling historical epics and extravagant musicals (although digital effects have made the former cheap enough to produce once again). You can already see this happening in the runaway success of many smaller games on Xbox Live Arcade.

If you’re dead-set on the enormous franchises Adam cites, then yeah, I think you’ll be disappointed to find that you have a smaller selection of them in the future (relative to the overall size of the market, anyway). But there’s no reason to think that the current trend in game budgets is sustainable as the predominant model for the industry — people like John Carmack and J Allard have acknowledged as much. So have the folks at Nintendo, whose latest console represents a conscious retreat from the graphics arms race. I’m looking forward to an era of smaller, cheaper, riskier games; I can understand that others might not. But I think it’s going to happen either way.

I think you’re taking me to have a stronger opposition to copyright than I actually have. Yes, I’m very optimistic about technology lowering barriers to entry in various creative fields. But I still believe in the need for copyright. I think that we need to reform it to shorten its term, deal with orphan works and expand fair use, but none of those changes really apply to this argument.

My point was that even under the current copyright regime, piracy is going to exert a transformative effect on these industries — but that this doesn’t mean we’re not going to be able to watch movies or play games. Here’s the paragraph that followed the ones Tim quoted:

Piracy’s going to continue to be effective. It’s also going to become much more accessible to people without soldering irons and Linux servers. The industry will respond by chasing ad revenue; by adjusting the cost:benefit ratio for piracy by making smaller, cheaper games; and by continuing to move toward service-based offerings (e.g. subscription fees in MMORPGs). For Madden devotees, this is bad news. For those of us bored by the industry’s addiction to big titles and consequent inability to innovate, it’s not a bad thing at all.

Adam, I assure you that I do understand what goes into game development. And I expect many big franchises like Madden to continue to thrive. But piracy and increased ease of distribution will change the sorts of games that are most profitable, and that’ll change what sorts of games are made — in the same way that Hollywood stopped making sprawling historical epics and extravagant musicals (although digital effects have made the former cheap enough to produce once again). You can already see this happening in the runaway success of many smaller games on Xbox Live Arcade.

If you’re dead-set on the enormous franchises Adam cites, then yeah, I think you’ll be disappointed to find that you have a smaller selection of them in the future (relative to the overall size of the market, anyway). But there’s no reason to think that the current trend in game budgets is sustainable as the predominant model for the industry — people like John Carmack and J Allard have acknowledged as much. So have the folks at Nintendo, whose latest console represents a conscious retreat from the graphics arms race. I’m looking forward to an era of smaller, cheaper, riskier games; I can understand that others might not. But I think it’s going to happen either way.

Indeed, I don’t think this guy you’re debating here has any appreciation for what goes into modern video game development. There’s the concept pitch by the visionaries behind the game. Then storyboards are created, filled with renderings of game action sketched by artists. Someone has to write all the scripts for the game’s dialog. Then the coders come in and render it. CGI effects specialists add the whiz-bang graphics. Music and dialog is then added (indeed, an entire cottage industry of game music composers now exists, and professional actors are routinely fired to do voice-overs). And then the packaging, distribution and marketing begin. At every step of the process there are rights that must be cleared and people that must be paid. And if the games involve any depictions of other copyrighted / trademarked material (think movies and professional sports leagues), then there are countless more rights that have to be cleared. This is why the game developers take game piracy so seriously, but it’s why game lovers should take it seriously too.

This guy is trying to tell us that a world full of $2 Burger King games (filled with tons of product placement to pay for game development) is just fine and dandy. Well, SCREW THAT. I want “Gears of War.” I want “Gran Turismo.” I want “Star Wars: Battlefront.” I want “Madden 2008.” Sophisticated games like these are only going to be developed if the creators have at least some basic level of certainty that they will be able to recoup the significant cost of game development. While not perfect, copyright law provides at least SOME of that certainty / security.

And this guy talks about “the slickness of fan productions like Star Wars: Revelations” and pretends that peer production is somehow an adequate substitute for what we have access to today. PUH-LEASE! Two notes about “Star Wars: Revelations.” First, it’s based on a very successful and impressive media property that benefited from copyright protection. Second, while I too was impressed with the storyline in this “Star Wars: Revelations” amateur effort, it was decidedly amateurish in other important ways, too. Namely, have you ever tried to scale up the video to a big screen TV? Well, I have. It looks like shit. Moreover, it sounds like shit. In sum, when it comes to the quality of the final product, it really is amateur hour.

There’s no appreciation among the anti-copyright crowd for the issue of quality control. What the hell use is a $3000 new 50″ plasma HDTV and a 7.1 surround sound audio set-up if all I have to play on it is grainy YouTube videos and stupid Burger King games? Again, screw that.