Is that seriously all you're fucking concerned about!? Nerdraging about derivative works you deem unworthy of the source material!? Jesus, that really does put the expression "first world problems" into perspective.

20 years? Are you kidding me?

Public domain should not take effect at least as long as the creators live. So yeah, 20 years isnt nearly enough.

I dont get these arguments. WTF is their problem? He should mind his own business, and not what people are doing right now.
These arguments are outrageous, lol - they shouldnt get paid because they should focus on making something new?

This is ridiculous - you create something: you get paid for it. Its that simple. What does it matter when did you make it?

Damn, I dont use that site but it seems that they're just a bunch of assholes. Its a perfect example of whats wrong with todays gaming community - being entitled (the case here) or elitist.

You use words like "nerdrage" and "first world problems" because you cannot understand the larger picture. Do you really think an author or game creator should loose ownership of his works after 20 years, no matter how much blood, sweat and tears, how much of himself he poured into those creative works? So other people can when it becomes public domain just grab it and steal those ideas without regarding to the "canon" or without understanding the works, just to make money out of it? Because that is exactly what has happened to Lovecraft's and Robert E. Howard's work.

That RPS article is openly dismissive of individual intellectual work in general, as if creative works are not at all important and after 20 years they should all return to the collective hivemind of "public domain".

You weren't born in East Germany were you by chance? Cause claiming that other people's work and property belongs to "the public" is a very GDR thing if I do say so.

40-50 years seems like a reasonable compromise IMO. Most properties do not make money and become orphaned works after 50.

I agree completely with RPS, no offense GOG.

Copyright should end after a reasonable time-frame, say 20-25 years. Art and media become part of culture, part of society, they day they are released into the wild. They are, in every meaningful sense, owned by the culture who watched and embraced them. After a long span of benefiting from your creation you should be proud to release it into the wild, in my opinion.

Source code was the important bit there.

You mean as opposed to proper IP holders, who 20 years down the line make games like Dungeon Keeper 3? :-P (if you're not aware, it's an android-only game when digging out a single block takes a couple of hours, unless you pay of course.) Then there's War for the Overworld - you know, the game praised by Peter Molyneux himself - that's actual Dungeon Keeper 3, but can't claim that name. Not to mention the fact that since words like 'Scrolls' or 'Saga' apparently can't be used in names anymore, we're soon going to run out altogether :-P

You do neither yourself nor your argument any favours. Still, you and John Walker would get on brilliantly. You'd spend all day trading rubbish put downs.

Even Cary Grant now looks pissed off becuase you're using his avatar.

Says who? An individual author has the right of ownership over their intellectual works. They did the work to create the works, no one else. Claiming that it belongs to public domain just because the author was influenced by things in culture and society.... is bizarre.

As far as I'm concerned the question should always be does the IP/etc. holder have any plans of touching the IP again and of maintaining the current instances of the IP.

Because if the answer to both of those is a resounding "no" then preventing those people who do want to do that from doing so serves little purpose.

If the answer to either question is yes then clearly allowing them to retain the ownership is reasonable.

That's actually one of the main differences between books, etc. and video games. Printing costs aside (and yes those can be large for large printings and have stopped reprintings of quite a few books from being done thus rendering them essentially unpurchasable) the ongoing maintenance costs of a printed work are effectively zero (I don't work in the publishing industry so perhaps I'm not aware of some ongoing cost.. but I doubt it). Whereas the cost of maintaining a video game (especially one that requires online servers) is far from zero.

Those factors change the dynamics of cost of ownership and chance of resurrection somewhat drastically and need to be taken into account.

LOL, you talk about IP holders? Welcome to life. You sign the contract, and thats it. It was your decision, and you should be aware of the consequences.
Yeah, you can say that its not always that simple, or that its tough, but thats what life is.

But how could you even suggest these ideas? What about indie projects? So the devs now make Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Torment Tides of Numenera - THEY are the ip holders, there is no publisher, THEY are the publisher.

So what, 20 years from now on you're gonna tell them "Well, fuck you guys. We're taking away your rights. Say bye bye to them. I dont care that its your work".

You mean exclusive rights for distribution and utilization? Copyrights don't regulate any kind of possession. It is in effect just a time-exclusive monopole.

I didn't mention authors being influenced, that's your creation. Media is owned by society because it is released into society. Society watches it, consumes it, and in cases where it becomes popular society embraces it. Art would be nothing without the society that consumes it. Our culture lives and breathes on art and shared communal experiences.

And yes, artists should benefit, but eventually for the betterment and preservation of culture they should also release their creations to be owned by society itself. This was actually the thought process behind the time limit on copyright in the first place.

Intellectual property. You know so someone write a book, and then 20 years down the road someone can't write a "sequel" to it, reusing all the characters, ideas, settings, and plot, and profiting from it, once it enters the public domain.

But how is it fair to make them release it while they're still alive? If they choose to, OK. If they're all dead already, OK.
As long as they live, however, they should be in charge of this.