Sad news on new unreleased content

I wonder how this year's Cacowards will be, if anyone ever brings this up.

Besides Doomkid, has another "Doomtuber" made a video about this?

@seed The point is still there. It tends to be a lot better, and a lot more economic, to build your PCs part by part rather than from factory / OEM.

But you don't need the latest of the latest GPU. To be able to achieve native monitor resolution and refresh rate with equivalent or better frame-rate.... is an easy-peasy task for a GPU. Heck, all GPUs were designed with lots of parallelization in mind, precisely for this task of rendering to a screen fast. My 10 year old crap can run UT pretty well on high settings, especially if I offload rendering to the Nvidia card (Nouveau driver) using DRI and PRIME.

You would have to shell out in the four digits of dollars if you were to get the latest of the latest hardware. But do you really need that much of a cutting edge? Are you really gonna play all those games that make use of raytracing, or of very large amounts of post-processing? I find that excessive bloom and motion blur and whatnot tend to just hurt my eyes anyway.

Now, I don't wanna have to terminate some wuauserv.exe process every time I boot up. Seriously, I used to do that when I used Windows, because apparently it still doesn't know how to handle idle processes, or really resources at all, 30 years into development. Microsoft's stuff is over-engineered and slow and crappy and it shows. I'm... not going back. But my point is, the system does not like sharing its resources with the processes you run in it, which is pretty counter-intuitive - the OS is supposed to mediate the user experience in the computer, not be it!

30 minutes ago, Gustavo6046 said:

@seed The point is still there. It tends to be a lot better, and a lot more economic, to build your PCs part by part rather than from factory / OEM.

 

But you don't need the latest of the latest GPU. To be able to achieve native monitor resolution and refresh rate with equivalent or better frame-rate.... is an easy-peasy task for a GPU. Heck, all GPUs were designed with lots of parallelization in mind, precisely for this task of rendering to a screen fast. My 10 year old crap can run UT pretty well on high settings, especially if I offload rendering to the Nvidia card (Nouveau driver) using DRI and PRIME.

 

You would have to shell out in the four digits of dollars if you were to get the latest of the latest hardware. But do you really need that much of a cutting edge? Are you really gonna play all those games that make use of raytracing, or of very large amounts of post-processing? I find that excessive bloom and motion blur and whatnot tend to just hurt my eyes anyway.

You misunderstand, my point wasn't about building a PC versus OEM/pre-built nonsense at all, of course that is a bad idea from more than one perspective lol. Been there done that, next PC will be built part by part, pre-builts can go destroy themselves.

It was just about pricing, why a powerful rig and shelling dollars in four digits is an expense I can mostly not justify, apart from the occasional triple-A game I may run into, and for that alone it's too much. It might help with streaming, but that's it - I don't do video editing and that sort of thing.

It just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, I'd simultaneously like such a machine but I also can't quite justify it. I have other ideas for that sum - which others would tell me it's a waste and a weird one at it :p.

he created the shit!

42 minutes ago, seed said:

 

You misunderstand, my point wasn't about building a PC versus OEM/pre-built nonsense at all, of course that is a bad idea from more than one perspective lol. Been there done that, next PC will be built part by part, pre-builts can go destroy themselves.

Is a pre-built PC like an entirely off-the-shelf kind of jobbie? Because I've had good experiences with a company that allows you to select the parts and they'll build it for you. My current machine was made that way and I've been 100% happy with it so far.

Goes to show the lunacy of copyright law. The man who created it has no control over it, because the government grants a (for all intents and purposes, permanent) monopoly to someone else who had absolutely nothing to do with it, couldn't care less about it, and has no interest in doing something with it. Sadly, this is commonplace.

Probably very off-topic, but I've always wondered why more people don't challenge the notion of IP. According to economics (and really, common sense) the theory for its existence is that companies would otherwise not undergo expensive R&D costs, since other people would share in profits of but only the creator would take the burden. Fine, fair enough. But why are those IPs tradable? Why do they last for nearly a century before going free domain? Why not just grant the original creator (and nobody else) a temporary monopoly of either 10 years, or until he/she/it has earned back all of the R/D costs in profit, whichever comes first? That way, you still avoid the freerider effect, but you also don't prevent other people from creating new things. Just imagine if companies actually had incentive to create new IPs all the time, rather than milking ancient ones into perpetuity.

39 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

Why do they last for nearly a century before going free domain? Why not just grant the original creator (and nobody else) a temporary monopoly of either 10 years, or until he/she/it has earned back all of the R/D costs in profit, whichever comes first?

Because otherwise would be very important people jobless.

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

Is a pre-built PC like an entirely off-the-shelf kind of jobbie?

Yes.

And they're dogshit lol.

i enjoy the idea of unreleased dev materials for the same reason that I found the exposure of the creative process a la the History of the Lord of the Rings series fascinating. the one thing dev material that would put me over the moon would be something germane to the timeline of the master levels production - particularly this early snapshot

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

Goes to show the lunacy of copyright law. The man who created it has no control over it, because the government grants a (for all intents and purposes, permanent) monopoly to someone else who had absolutely nothing to do with it, couldn't care less about it, and has no interest in doing something with it. Sadly, this is commonplace.

 

Probably very off-topic, but I've always wondered why more people don't challenge the notion of IP. According to economics (and really, common sense) the theory for its existence is that companies would otherwise not undergo expensive R&D costs, since other people would share in profits of but only the creator would take the burden. Fine, fair enough. But why are those IPs tradable? Why do they last for nearly a century before going free domain? Why not just grant the original creator (and nobody else) a temporary monopoly of either 10 years, or until he/she/it has earned back all of the R/D costs in profit, whichever comes first? That way, you still avoid the freerider effect, but you also don't prevent other people from creating new things. Just imagine if companies actually had incentive to create new IPs all the time, rather than milking ancient ones into perpetuity.

First time posting here, but the subject of copyright is something I'm quite passionate about and this is yet another example of how grossly one-sided the law leans. Going to go on a bit of a rant here, hope you don't mind.

As a start, I encourage everyone to question the term "intellectual property", or to avoid using it. It's charged language that meshes several separate groups of law (copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets) into one, alongside confusing said laws with property law. I constantly see people using the term and the same people are often at a loss at what type of law is actually being applied in their debates - it's chiefly copyright which is a concern in these creative communities, and the term "intellectual property" perpetuates these confusions.

Copyright doesn't need to be "protected" in order to be maintained; it's the genericization of trademarks which companies are most concerned with, and that's not the case here.
The impetus of copyright (what is actually the issue here) is to supposedly enrich the public domain, and I'd say that many people, like you, would disagree with that given the absurd length it lasts and how convoluted the law surronding it is. In its current state, it pretty much solely benefits massive monopolies, hoarders of copyrights such as Disney, and in this case, Microsoft, and its initial purpose has been so stretched that it does the exact opposite of what it's intended.

There's no sensible, ethical reason why Romero shouldn't be able to release assets from ages ago, besides the whims of executives who wish to "protect" the Doom "intellectual property".

Let's be real - Doom should be in the public domain. Hundred-plus year copyrights are far from sensible. If you buy Doom nowadays, or any of its old expansions, who benefits? Not Romero, not Carmack, not Adrian - nobody who originally developed the game - the profits all go to ZeniMax (or so I've heard anyways).
What if you - gasp - downloaded the Doom WAD off the internet somewhere? You can't just "pirate" (another loaded term in itself) a nearly three decade old game! Think of the shareholders!

I was watching Decino recently and in his Master Levels of Doom II playthrough I was hearing that he can't distribute the combined WAD he made of the levels because the original collection of WADs is still a product being sold - nothing against him, but it's absurd that that's the case, given how old those levels are (not even taking into account their quality. or lack thereof) and how I highly doubt that any of those levels' original authors benefit.

To surmise: copyright law in its current state is perhaps the greatest injustice to culture, and past some terribly biased laws, there's no reasonable argument as to why Romero shouldn't be able to release those assets.

Whenever i think of Doom and copyright/licensing/whatever, i remember that another series often associated with fan content and its fanbase is Touhou.

They're very different in a lot of ways obviously, but i know that Touhou has some commercial fanmade content (like fan games and musical works) even if creators may have to meet certain rules or standards by ZUN, with one i remember being no crowdfunding. (this one i think it's was from a Smash clone with Touhou characters)

Another thing is that, even if i'm repeating myself, Doom as a series was affected by fans/the public one way or another.

The nickname "Doomguy" (and even then naming for the Pinky and Unmaker), the weird popularity of Brutal Doom, source ports, ALWAYS_RUN being almost standards, most documentation with the games, the fanservice in the new games, how so many different ideas that could/should/would have happened with the franchise happened in fan works.

Even purists or older fans get confused with fan concepts or ideas with the actual games.

Doom is a great example of a "fan driven/dominated" series, even moreso than others.

Speaking of piracy, even Crunchyroll is said to start as a pirate site.

23 minutes ago, Northadox said:

I was watching Decino recently and in his Master Levels of Doom II playthrough I was hearing that he can't distribute the combined WAD he made of the levels because the original collection of WADs is still a product being sold - nothing against him, but it's absurd that that's the case, given how old those levels are (not even taking into account their quality. or lack thereof) and how I highly doubt that any of those levels' original authors benefit.

There's mod that's publicly available which more or less does that. I think you need to have the Master Levels already, but it exists.

23 minutes ago, NoXion said:

 

There's mod that's publicly available which more or less does that. I think you need to have the Master Levels already, but it exists.

I'm much aware that there's been similar efforts in the past, but the point still holds. The act of file sharing shouldn't be criminal!

36 minutes ago, Northadox said:

 

I'm much aware that there's been similar efforts in the past, but the point still holds. The act of file sharing shouldn't be criminal!

Well in this case, the Master Levels are something that are being commercially sold, and a basic repackaging means that someone can obtain a copy of the master levels for free without needing to pay for it. That constitutes piracy, and ignoring the issues of whether piracy is right or wrong, it is something that is illegal at the moment, so you don't want to go out posting your links in the open. With that being said, what can be done (and indeed, what the similar WadSmoosh project does, which is fairly widely used) is that it provides a program to build the combined WAD. When it gets ridiculous is when companies start going after that; Nintendo is notorious for shutting down Rom Hacks, despite that Rom Hacks nowadays are generally a patch file to turn a pre-existing rom (which can be aquired legally) into a hacked version of the Rom, so nothing illegal is going on there. 

2 hours ago, Northadox said:

There's no sensible, ethical reason why Romero shouldn't be able to release assets from ages ago, besides the whims of executives who wish to "protect" the Doom "intellectual property".

Agreed.

2 hours ago, Northadox said:

Let's be real - Doom should be in the public domain.

No it shouldn't. It's still popular and still selling. To expect a company to put something like that in the public domain is lunacy. It's not like it's expensive.

26 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

No it shouldn't. It's still popular and still selling. To expect a company to put something like that in the public domain is lunacy. It's not like it's expensive.

I never beseeched id Software/ZeniMax/Microsoft to license the assets under CC0 or something; as great it would be, that's simply foolish, and antithetical to their business interests in general. It should be in the public domain because a hypothetical copyright term I would have suggested would have expired (as a reminder, the original United States copyright terms were at fourteen years plus an additional fourteen year renewal, and by an academic's claim, the ideal term would be just fourteen and it's been nearly double that), placing it into the public domain.

Keep in mind that copyright, rather contradictory to its name, is supposed to be a privilege, not a right, hence why it is limited in duration; eventually, all things will ascend into the public domain because copyright in concept is supposed to be a limited time monopoly that benefits the public's interests and spurs culture. Unfortunately, copyright in the US is nigh perpetual nowadays, thanks to the US becoming a signatory to the Berne Convention and the enactment of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

46 minutes ago, 3saster said:

Well in this case, the Master Levels are something that are being commercially sold, and a basic repackaging means that someone can obtain a copy of the master levels for free without needing to pay for it. That constitutes piracy, and ignoring the issues of whether piracy is right or wrong, it is something that is illegal at the moment, so you don't want to go out posting your links in the open. With that being said, what can be done (and indeed, what the similar WadSmoosh project does, which is fairly widely used) is that it provides a program to build the combined WAD. When it gets ridiculous is when companies start going after that; Nintendo is notorious for shutting down Rom Hacks, despite that Rom Hacks nowadays are generally a patch file to turn a pre-existing rom (which can be aquired legally) into a hacked version of the Rom, so nothing illegal is going on there. 

"Piracy" is illegal at the moment, that's true, but I would call it something of a meme crime. Because everyone's infringing on copyright nowadays by sharing copyrighted files, it's unreasonable to totally enforce it. Unless you're doing it on a massive scale, a la ThePirateBay, at best you're going to be slapped on the wrist by your ISP with a warning for doing it - though generally it's a liability for most sites to engage in if they want a clean legal standing hence why it's discouraged in public forums like these (and because I don't like being banned I abstain from doing it in said places). For further context on why I take this stance, see the second link in my original post.

And believe me, part of the reason I've become so keen on the injustice of copyright law is greedy publishers working against the interests of their developers and their fans, and Nintendo is a prime example of exploiting the law in their own perceived interests. They wield DMCA takedowns like Doomguy does shotguns, and have really shot up the Internet with them in the past year. Add ZeniMax to the list of companies whose selfishness has harmed the public; in this case, it's the history of one of the industry's most iconic titles.

And yes I am much aware of how you can play Master Levels of Doom II as a single WAD!! I was just using Decino's case as an example to benefit my argument.

The original Doom cost $40 dollars in 1993, according to the shareware screen. That's over $70 in today's money according to this calculator. I just checked and you can buy The Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, the Master Levels and Final Doom in a bundle for £9.99. So long as that bundle includes the original WAD files, so that people can use their own source ports, then that's a serious bargain.

I'd be happy if those Doom games were to become public domain, but I still think that a tenner for all the WADs is excellent value for money. When people get tired of overhyped modern AAA games that promise the Earth and deliver disappointment, they can still turn to an entire series of classic games for less money than getting a single takeaway meal delivered.

P-p-p-pounds?! Thou are on truly thin, slippery ice, mate! Tis not too long till all things o' British banner forgo every last smidge of reliability whatsoever.

but why???????????????
why would you do that??????????

I'm no legal expert, so I can't actually say whether or not this could only have been done out of sheer malice, but the impression I'm getting is that this action was made to avoid a potentially dangerous precedent.

While all the legacy content released by Romero has been rather harmless, it's up in the air whether the same can be said for the rest he still has on him. Former employees being able to release all this confidential material that they likely don't have the rights to without getting permission first seems like a rather slippery-slope to me.

This sucks, either way, but I feel like context is missing.

On 2/8/2021 at 11:57 AM, QuaketallicA said:

Why do they last for nearly a century before going free domain?

'Cause an anti-semite drew a funny rat 

On 2/8/2021 at 9:57 PM, QuaketallicA said:

I've always wondered why more people don't challenge the notion of IP

because we already can buy chineese clones, and download everything from torrents.

On 2/9/2021 at 12:45 AM, Murdoch said:

 

No it shouldn't. It's still popular and still selling. To expect a company to put something like that in the public domain is lunacy. It's not like it's expensive.

 

You fundamentally misunderstand public domain and what he is arguing for. He is saying that Doom should have gone, or should be going into public domain soon by requirement, not because the company should voluntarily do so.  Public domain also doesn't simply mean "make the product free", it allows anyone to legally base derivative works on the contents of said product, including its assets, which may then in turn be copyrighted and sold again.

This means that the development of a game such as Doom Eternal would still have been possible, and that this product could still be sold just the same. What would be different is that Bethesda and Id would not be the only ones who are legally allowed to make games based on the designs of the original Doom. HOWEVER, it is unlikely that those derivative works would be permitted to bear the "Doom" brand, because trademarks apply separately to public domain, and can be extended indefinitely by the trademark holder.

I'd argue that this community, out of all gaming communities out there, should see the value in games such as Doom going into the public domain after a shorter, more reasonable period. The sheer amount of custom levels, textures, sounds, sprites, etc. that have been created, many of which are in some ways based on assets from the original game, are only somewhat protected because of the good grace of Id Software and Bethesda, and not because of any rights enshrined in law. If the original Doom, and by extension Doom II, were to go into the public domain, such derivative works would no longer reside in a legally gray area, and could be shared and distributed without legal concern.

But of course, it is hard to predict how a product such as Doom going into the public domain would actually affect the cohesion of the community, considering that historically, no such event has ever come to pass. Perhaps the creative efforts would grow even further, with impressive custom creations being sold legally and being celebrated -- or perhaps the copyrighting and selling of custom content based on the original Doom assets would cause antagonism between individuals in the community, and stifle creativity instead.

Edit: Moreover, and to return to the original topic, Doom being in the public domain would mean that Romero would have no issues with releasing the remaining beta content, as the copyrights for those assets would be voided as well.

Each product should have a copyright life of 65 years, starting from the first day it was copyrighted and ending exactly 65 years later with absolutely no room for renewal or extensions, no matter who owns the rights or who they’ve been sold to over time.

That seems fair. But, Like all things that start out reasonable, it gets corrupted by lobbyists and we end up in Copyright Hell© where no property will ever enter the public domain until the heat death of the universe.

3 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

That seems fair.

...if we'll remove "6" from "65".

9 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Each product should have a copyright life of 65 years, starting from the first day it was copyrighted and ending exactly 65 years later with absolutely no room for renewal or extensions, no matter who owns the rights or who they’ve been sold to over time.

 

That seems fair. But, Like all things that start out reasonable, it gets corrupted by lobbyists and we end up in Copyright Hell© where no property will ever enter the public domain until the heat death of the universe.

I even think 65 years is too long!

As I understand it, copyright is to give the creator a period where they are the only ones that can make money on it (which is fair, they put all the work into creating it)!

I recon like 25-30 years makes much more sense! 25-30 years should be well long enough to make a fortune of of something and if you can’t make a profit in that timeframe, the idea probably shouldn’t have been copyrighted in the first place!

Well, 65 is my compromise number, which seems better than 95, or the lifespan of the creator plus 70 additional years! The current lengths are absolutely out of this world.

as nobody will listen to us anyway, let's go wild! ;-) i'm thinking about 5 years of exclusivity, then 5 years when others cannot sell derived works, and then PD. it should be more than enough to milk the cow.

also, i demand publishing the source code for software when it goes PD.

'cmon, let me dream a little.

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Well, 65 is my compromise number, which seems better than 95, or the lifespan of the creator plus 70 additional years! The current lengths are absolutely out of this world.

45-55 would be even better then IMO.

Since, if you don't manage to do much with it even by that time, then you probably shouldn't have copyrighted it to begin with. With the dinosaur ages currently in place though, I doubt much will change, if at all in the future.

Romero could just make another megawad (Ala SIGIL), use the beta textures, say they're custom (they technically are), and call it a day.