Comment on Rock Band 4 to be delisted on tenth anniversary following the expiration of its licenses
frongt@lemmy.zip 3 weeks agoIt’s certainly ethical, if not legal.
You could make a good argument in court, too. Hard to show damages when there’s no possibility of profit because you’re not selling it.
tmyakal@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
That’s actually a very bad argument in court. Taking things off the market to drive scarcity and boost sales at a later date is a normal and common business tactic. See: the McRib, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and the Disney Vault.
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think there’s a difference between unavailable and limited availability.
There are some old games that may never come back. In many cases, there’s no agreed owner. Imagine if something became public domain after a short period of no use (5 years, 10 years maybe).
tmyakal@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Rights-holders can make these products available whenever they want. Nintendo added many old “abandonware” games to their subscription catalog that had been unavailable for much longer than ten years. If someone else is putting them out for free, they’re stealing Nintendo’s lunch.
There are very few cases where copyrighted material would have no owner and no legal mechanism to determine ownership.
Not saying I support the current system. I think current US copyright law is ridiculous and a net negative for our culture. Just clarifying that “Well, no one was selling it” is not a legally defensible position when it comes to copyrighted work.
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It absolutely isn’t a legal defense. You’re right.
I’m saying it should be legal. Starting now, since digital is a standard. Nintendo needs to put it out or let people share it. They can have 10 years (or the highest of 5 years from now/10 years from when it was last available). Something like that.
The TV movie standard of everything being available should be the video game standard.
frongt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I can’t name any cases off the top of my head, but I don’t see a reasonable court equating hypothetical future earnings with present losses.
Like if it was “he stole my harvest of beans that I was going to sell at market” then yeah the harm is obvious, but when it’s “well I’m not selling the beans now, and I’m not planning on selling them in the future, but someday I might, therefore no one else should be able to appreciate beans in the meantime” that’s ridiculous. Especially since piracy is not theft; the number of beans has not changed.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The McRib is actually an awful example for this, because McD’s primary deciding factor is the price of pork. When pork prices drop, McD revives the McRib. They want to manufacture them as cheaply as possible. Then when the prices start to climb again, they pull it from the menu. That’s why they don’t do big “it’s coming back on this date, and leaving on this date” announcements ahead of time, because those announcements would affect the pork prices as pig farmers would anticipate the upcoming large McD orders, and subsequent dips when they stop selling.
Apeman42@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago