No. You cannot. Where on earth did you get that idea?
You can use part or all of a person’s work IF YOU HAVE THEIR PERMISSION.
Printing my own copies of Harry Potter novels and saying “Credit to JK!” and selling them is not at all legal.
If you want legal backing in case you think I’m just talking out of my ass:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html
[b]
Who May Prepare a Derivative Work?
Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.[/b]
I thought that the understanding to making a FanPatch was that they couldn’t make any money on it, they did it because they wanted to, they can put on their website for donations, but they can not put a price on the patch.
and everyone knows that you can’t do that but I didn’t read him say anything about selling. but also like you stated, you do have to have their premission to do so. and around 70% of the time, if you are not making any money on it or if you are going to make something off of it you give them a % of it (there is no way to track it if you are not part of a company so authors are not very fond of letting people make money off their product by making a patch.)
Everything above is my opinion and a few things I have read.
but they can ask the owner and get premission.
it doesn’t mean anything if you are making the patch for yourself, and not going to distrubit it.
papillon I am no way disagreeing with you, I just didn’t read the post as they wanted to sell it. and I am more than anything agreeing with you that they have to have premission
[ 10-05-2006, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: ms308680 ]
I beg your pardon, that quote was not stupid (gets a bit bias), it was featured in game that not everyone can enjoy. And besides, how much of it is stupid ? It is access to information that helps bring down tyranny. Where ignorance is used to prevent the masses from knowing too much, information shows them what they don’t know about the world. Anyone who ahs seen the French Revolution, as well as Amsih communities, would know that, although ignorance may be bliss, it is, at the same time, a deterrent to progress.
Anyway, back on topic… how much of a person’s work, and his fiction, is not information ? We can say ‘it’s just entertainment’, but, the moment you put ideas in them, it ceases to be ‘just entertainment’. And, even if it is just entertainment, and I admit,t he quote would be out of context here, availability is a big issue. We have come a long way from the time when availability used to be a big issue in the world, and it shouldn’t always remain a big issue.
I apologise for getting worked up, but it is not a stupid quote, and secondly, I believe that information is applicable to anything from which a human being with the ability to reason can discern some lessons from.
~
I don’t deny that it is a copyright violation, and it is hardly ethical or moral. But, at the same time, I can’t help but forget that it was these very violations that allowed the spread of such knowledge.
“Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny” is a gross oversimplification. Should I be allowed to install video cameras in public restrooms and sell the video feeds on the Internet? Should I be able to commit industrial espionage under the guise of “my competitor’s confidential data just wants to be free?” For a real world example, should HP be able to hire private investigators to fraudulently obtain records of who’s talking to reporters? (The mob used a similar tactic to find out which of their guys were calling police telephone numbers. Guess what happened next?)
What’s important is how the information is flowing. More is not automatically more better. Man by the name of George Orwell wrote a book you might have heard of that deals with what can happen when the government can see your every move. It’s called 1984.
Even if it was “free” in the sense that anyone could spy on anyone else, not just the government, would that really change what could be done with the information?
[Edit: lern to spel]
[ 10-05-2006, 11:29 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
I agree nondemonai, and apologise over the fact that I had not elaborated on the foundation of the quote.
(Note: The character of Pravin Lal in the game was of a defender of democracy, and was the last bastion of the U.N. on Alpha Centauri)
I would like to note that I was taking the quote purely in the democratic context. Some control has to be practised, as too little of it would be anarchy, while too much of it would be totalitarianism.
I remember 1984 well… and I’dd add that it was also very good example at how memes and memtics work. You can easily take the original information, in any way, and twist it to serve one’s end.
And yet, at the same time, it is the very existence of the original information, if in the hands of a proper person, that cna be sued to counter the spread of false information, which si the reason why i sue the word free flow.
In an essence, it’s all based on context and usage. While it’s true that it’s the flow of the information that matters, the presence of the free flow also matters.
Selling isn’t the key that makes something legal or illegal, though. Distribution is still illegal even if it’s free, it’s just that you’re a lot less likely to be sued because it’s hard to prove damages.
Now, illegal doesn’t necessarily mean immoral. Fanfiction is technically a copyright violation unless the original author grants permission, but I don’t think there is a single thing wrong with making free fanfic.
Copyright is a stupidly complicated subject, and even as a game developer myself who is supporting myself based solely on sales of a computer game, I find the boundaries murky.
I didn’t say anything about seeling a work that uses the material of others, although I’m fairly sure that’s covered in there as well.
The problem is that laws are always based on what’s right, but by who stands to make money from them.
Strictly speaking, and I’m not a lawyer or anything, but violation of international copyright law is probably minor compared to some of the DRM-type laws that exist.
Still, I think he should go ahead and finish it. Give us the choice of morals.
So i take it, no ordinary person owns their own car, its all the designer(s) car?
Ok. If they distribute it as being completely their own work and you’re not credited, yes. If however, they distrubute it and its mentioned that it’s based on your work, its okay, unless you specifically ask them not to, and by that i mean address them in a manner that you would find worthy of respect.
At the same time, if you say paint some strange lettering on your car than only certain people can understand, but not everyone and if someone decieds to translate it and you respectfully ask them not to, if they decide to go ahead, they could still be justified by the same priciple of infomration sharing, ie the spread of knowledge vs. elitism of knowledge.
As to Phineas Lucis’s quote. It is taken out of its original context meaning, but like many things in history, it can be used for purposes other than its original meaning. Here, FE, the tyranny could represent culture by barrier of language. Not allowing translation at all could in a sense represent this because its acting as a sort of elitism, ie you must know Japanese language to play and understand the game.
15% of a work is what is allowed i believe, legally and without the authors permission.
As for translation, well as long as you do not distubute a patch in any manner that would allow you to bypass buying the game, ethically there is nothing wrong since it’s the same as if someone typed it into a text file. It’s still a translation.
As for legality, they must also show a loss-of-profit. If you make certain to do your best to make it so they must purchase the game, the burden is then upon the originating company to show a loss-of-profit. And with a work that is fan-translated where it has a chance to be viewed by more people, it is harder to do, atleast for games. The damage is something many company’s would like to skim pass because it doesn’t benifit them.
Even piracy is hard to procecute because courts might make the companies prove the person would have bought that game and as many people will attest the higher the price something is, the less inclined you are to purchase it. However, that doesn’t mean the entire burden is on the company.
[ 10-09-2006, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
Thanks Jinnai. (Btw, the original quote by Pravin Lal was targeted mainly at totalitarianism, but, free flow of information, in its pruest essence, is a freedom itself)
From what I know about the genre, and those who play it, the majority of the people who play ergoe, esp. the ones direct from Japan and untranslated, have developed a sort of elitist behaviour (which is an irony when one considers the general image of the average fan as being far from elite) At the same time, there is a wealth of material in any language that would not have had an impact on society had it not been translated in a language common to others.
One should not forget the attempts to make the Bible publishable in more than one language outside Latin, which was forbidden then. And later on, the translation of Dostoyevsky into German, which would lead Nietzsche to develop his thesis on the will to power. And talking about Harry Potter… surely it wouldn’t be a worldwide phenomena if it were just printed in English, would it ?
Admittedly, the best way to appreciate any medium is to understand the original langauge (for instance, Nietzsche should be read in German, and the Bible read in Latin; hence,e rghoe should be enjoyed in Jap.), but, before this should take place, fore-knowledge and udnerstanding of the mdium on the large scale, effectively, requires one to appreciate it in a language known to many.
Lastly, to get back on topic… Kanon was the first b-game I knew about, and it was featured in an issue of PC GAMER US. (the first game I played was Kana). Also, noting that megatokyo features the game, and that it ahs become somewhat famous in its own circle, I’m surprised that the game itself had not been released in English. If the players of Kanon themselves had form a sort of elitism concerning it, such that only those who can understand jap should play it, than I find it rather sad.
[ 10-09-2006, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: Phineas Lucis ]
Well, this was originally a debate on whether or not it was ethical. It got sidetracked into legal issues which are entirely unrelated (15% rule? Dude, this was intended to be a full patch … the partial patch was halfway thru the game …)
No, we were generally referring to copyright law, not saying for him to go ahead and translate 15% of it. 