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Comment by ibejoeb | Hacker News Reader

Hmm. I don't think I agree with the philosophy of it, even if the outcome is good for consumers. For one, just because something is not available for purchase does not mean that the creator is not deprived of the would-be revenue. An existing owner of a copy of the media should have access to it for the duration, but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable. Secondly, that puts an unfair burden on creators. If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally, and I shouldn't have to always carry excess inventory just in case it's a hit.

Beyond that, as you say, it'll never happen, because entities like Disney are not going to forego their ability to drum up demand by "vaulting" their properties.

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> An existing owner of a copy of the media should have access to it for the duration, but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable.

Because copyright laws (in the US at least) are (supposed to) provide to creators a limited time monopoly on their work in order to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

Getting the right to squat on a piece of art that you claimed copyright over but not doing anything with is counter to that whole purpose of providing copyright in the first place.

> Secondly, that puts an unfair burden on creators. If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally, and I shouldn't have to always carry excess inventory just in case it's a hit.

This is a strawman interpretation. There is a lot of room between "I ran out of stock today" and "this game hasn't been on sale for 3 decades".

Plus, when a game is out of print, any third-party resales don't benefit the original copyright holder anyway. Nintendo doesn't profit off those $120 SoulSilver cartridges for sale on eBay.

Well they've got that covered by now selling you non-transferable licenses to games instead, so the second-hand market simply can't exist anymore...

That is one of the major reasons the game industry wants to push consumers to all-digital.

Another reason is that costs are far lower with digital distribution as is time to market.

Another reason is that retail traditionally took like 30% but if you buy off of PSN or the eShop, now the game company gets that sweet sweet free money, while actual businesses normal human beings can run can't function anymore.

I'm just describing a potential disincentive. It's not a straw man.

That's why the notion of expiring copyright works out. I didn't suggest removing that. And sure, there's plenty of room in between there. What would call for, then? If there is any demand, the owner of the work needs to front the expense to fulfill it, otherwise lose the rights to the work? There are lots of ways for this to go wrong.

Anyway, copyright is already a mess, and it will only get worse over the next decade. It's worth talking about it.

> If there is any demand, the owner of the work needs to front the expense to fulfill it, otherwise lose the rights to the work?

This discussion started with the topic of video games, and this thread is about digitally distributed video games.

The upfront work needed to host an executable online is essentially zero, especially when there are platforms like HumbleBundle, GoG, and Steam which will do the hosting for you in exchange for a cut of sales.

> This discussion started with the topic of video games

not really

>> Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc.

> Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc.

The pedantic point being that this started with video games and then was extended to other works. But fine let's talk about everything else too.

Everything on that list can be sold digitally.

Even physical works can, to a large degree, be made to order and drop shipped.

But again this is beside the point. These are the technicalities of how it would be implemented and beside the real point: if you have not been selling a copyrighted work for some length of time (between 1 minute and 3 decades) you should no longer have the right to that government granted monopoly since you are no longer using it for the reason it was given to you.

> but I can't get to why it should become freely shareable.

A side effect of this would be to encourage the creator or company to continue making it available.

That’s why I explicitly included a short time period to account for such hiccups. And, for example, if you’re talking about books then print on demand is certainly a way to satisfy the for sale criteria.

I think vaulting was relevant in the 90s-00s when physical movie sale revenues were relevant, but the business model of movies has changed... a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if all their back catalog are on Disney+ now or released slowly in a few years whenever new content production hits droughts.

> If I do a run of of my book, and it sells out, I don't think it becomes open season on duplicating it digitally

Nobody is asking for that. We only want it to become open season on duplicating it digitally if you choose not to do any further runs of it.

One instance I recently saw in the eXo project was them trying to figure out who owned a magazine. First guy 'i sold it to second guy' second guy 'i sold it to thrid guy' third guy 'never owned it first one always owned it'. Basically one of those 3 own it but do not even care anymore about it other than 'not mine'. There are a lot of instances of 'lost ownership'.

> For one, just because something is not available for purchase does not mean that the creator is not deprived of the would-be revenue.

That's what the large conglomerates keep saying, although they haven't been able to produce any study proving that.

Since there's no proof of it, the loss of revenue is some urban legend.

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