To poorly translate Victor Hugo : "The principle is twofold, let us not forget it. The book, as a book, belongs to the author, but as thought, it belongs - the word is not too vast - to the human race. All intelligences are entitled to it. If one of the two rights, the right of the writer and the right of the human mind, should be sacrificed, it would certainly be the right of the writer, for the public interest is our sole preoccupation, and All, I declare, must pass before us."
If you didn't know anything about Blizzard, what would you speculate? Someone elsewhere in the thread for example is speculating Blizzard would destroy the copy -- if I thought that'd be a possibility, I would personally never send it their way and you could in no world convince me it's moral to send a piece of history to its demise.
As for morality, I apply the golden rule: if someone found the code I wrote for a groundbreaking piece of software, and I didn't want to open source it, I'd really like for them to respect my wishes and return it.
Edit: I'm unable to reply further, but to clarify I was referring to the maxim of reciprocity or "do unto others". If the positions were reversed I'd want my property returned. If I find someone's wallet I'd return it if possible, as I'd want someone to return mine.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is my favorite Star Trek quote, but I don't think it applies in this situation as it was intended as a motivation for a personal decision to sacrifice, not to force someone else to sacrifice. That line of thought can get pretty dark pretty fast.
Is that really the golden rule? What about "the good of the many"?
Returning it to Blizzard directly is good for Blizzard. Returning your code is good for you. Realistically, it has little monetary value (all the "value" will be spent on lawyers arguing what the value is), so maybe it's only good for you because it's simpler for you.
What if your sense of morality is not in line with everyone else's sense, and I'm returning code to someone who will not do "the moral thing" afterwards? Does that make me immoral?
Point is, this is not an easy decision at all. It's not an easy answer at all. I'd be petrified and I believe anyone else who spends time to consider the implications would be too.
That's like saying that robbing Bill Gates and distributing the money to millions of poor people is morally good because it's good for many people.
Unless you systematically take most of the money away from billionaires, which could be totally justified if society wanted to enact such a tax.
In the case of 20 year old source code, there's not really an important norm to uphold.
Your reasoning for that is "it degrades property rights", but you're for publicly releasing Blizzards property for "the good of the many"?
You want the source to be available and you're trying to back into it with some sort of moralistic argument instead of just admitting that you want the work to be available but have no real basis for it outside of personal preference.
Because that's what happens when you try and make a rational argument for why you just want something. You get ridiculous arguments like "it's not ok in this case because property rights, but it's ok in this other case despite property rights".
just the information on the cd, obviously.
degradation of property rights has nothing to do with copyrights.
and suddenly it's very clear, if the round bit of plastic was very valuable (maybe it's gold, maybe it's the only copy), then yeah obviously you're doing right if you give it back.
after you made a copy.
There are different kinds of property rights.
The property rights for the money you have in your bank account are important. (But if we wanted to add a rule-based tax across everyone that would be okay.)
The intellectual property rights for recently-made things are important.
The intellectual property rights for 20 year old code are not at all important. It's okay if we file off that specific corner of the law.
we had to invent copyright to mean anything at all, it didn't exist before. but even animals have some basic concepts about actual property rights (they can get righteously angry about it, for instance).
it's the word "property" in "intellectual property" that is misleading (deliberately, like the word "patriot" in "patriot act"). it's just a legal term, it didn't (quite) magically turn information into physical property when we came up with it (just one or two centuries ago).
oh wait.... something is wrong with that thought process, but I'll let you split another hair in your attempt at a meaningful dichotomy.
I can't wait until you find out that sufficiently old intellectual property goes public, while sufficiently old houses don't go public! Have fun blaming that on me splitting hairs when it wasn't my idea.
More seriously, intellectual property is a number of different things lumped together, and they serve different purposes. Copyright exists to encourage new works, and while you can make arguments that there are some benefits from copyright being long-lasting on the creation of works like books and pictures, it's basically impossible to make a similar argument for code.
Blizzard's IP hasn't expired, your argument here holds no water.
By the way, I'm not making any arguments about morality. I'm just pointing out that IP is different from physical property in important ways.
Under the law, damages have occurred, especially if someone then takes that source code and makes it public.
So whether you have 2 copies or 1 copy or umpteen copies, if you've economically affected someone, you will lose that fight in court.
But this is not relevant to this discussion and I think we should keep on topic.
The point is this:
Dylan16807 is just trying to rationalize something that he wants, which is for the source code to be public.
It doesn't matter how IP differs from owning a house. It doesn't matter if it can be copied (and thank you for having the arrogance to explain that on board full of developers, btw...).
None of this matters. What matters is that Blizzard paid for the creation of the code, and they're afforded protections under the law.
It's very simple. I'm saying we should look at the upsides and downsides of each type of IP. This (20+ year old source code) is a type of IP that has no upside. Therefore while it's against the law, there's no purpose in it being against the law, and it's not immoral. Easy peasy.
> What matters is that Blizzard paid for the creation of the code, and they're afforded protections under the law.
You don't think it's possible for the IP rights given by law to have a mismatch with the IP rights that are most moral? Because this conversation thread was about what is good or bad, aka what the law should be, not what the law currently is. Of course it's against the law as it is right now. That's not the only thing to discuss.
First, I never argued that it was or wasn't against the law.
Second, it's not clear that releasing the source would economically affect Blizzard. It's not like someone could start releasing competing StarCraft games. They still don't own the brand etc.
> (and thank you for having the arrogance to explain that on board full of developers, btw...).
I mentioned it because of your argument about a house being 20+ years old.
Even if you ignore the fact that Blizzard owns the rights to the code. Which you shouldn't, but some people here seem to think that's alright.
EVEN IF you ignore that, SC is still televised in South Korea. Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC.
But you won't accept that because this isn't really about what's fair, it's about what you want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_StarCraft_competi...
> Over US$4,000,000 in prize money has been awarded in total, the vast majority of which comes from tournaments in South Korea.[3] For several years after the release of StarCraft II, competitive StarCraft: Brood War was no longer televised. However, in early 2015, the game returned to Ongamenet's televised lineup.
well THAT is actually an interesting argument, unlike rehashing the old argument of whether it makes sense to ignore the enormous fundamental differences between IP and physical property, and getting all worked up when people don't want to play along and pretend to weaken the definition of theft.
how will it affect the integrity of the competitive scene? and will it do so in a bad way, or maybe just change things up a bit?
I actually think that's a way more compelling moral argument than worrying about Blizzard's IP rights.
Actually, no, it's not. I'm not even arguing that the source code shouldn't have been returned to Blizzard. I'm only pointing out that most of the arguments (that I've seen here, anyway) against it haven't been good ones.
> EVEN IF you ignore that, SC is still televised in South Korea. Releasing that code could affect the integrity of the competitive scene for SC.
This actually strikes me as one of the more defensible arguments I've seen here.
because I can make up constructs all day that suffered more damages either way.
No.
To expand on this, it's good in general to return leaked code of active-development projects because that helps the social contract of turning work into something that can be sold. So if I found jakebasile's 2015 code in an alley, it would be in some sense good for everyone for me to return it.
But that doesn't apply to a 20 year old master for starcraft. There is no promotion of the useful arts in returning the CD in this specific case, and it's a hugely relevant cultural artifact.
TBH this makes me think of the old practice of smuggling jade artifacts out of China. Hey, it's culturally important, so clearly that means it's ok for other people to take it, right?
And I didn't say that cultural importance is an automatic justification. The new star wars movie also has cultural importance, but there would be large downsides to free-for-all piracy of it during its release year. Downsides that don't exist with 20 year old source code.
If some distributed the source code, what would happen? It's not like people could start releasing new StarCraft games to compete with Blizzard. And it seems unlikely that the source code is going to give someone some kind of an advantage it creating other competing games against Blizzard.
Obviously legally it's Blizzard's right to keep the code private, and there are times where it's advantageous to do so, but this doesn't really seem like one of those times.
I don't see why. Even if the code was leaked, it would still be illegal for people to use that code. Blizzard still owns the copyright, and I doubt it would be hard to show that a game was just StarCraft reskinned.
> Blizzard doesn't want people making money off their IP, plain and simple.
I'm sure they don't, but it's not clear that it would have any real effect on them. If they've released the game for free, would it harm them in any way?
I don't know if it's right or wrong to distribute the source or to return it to Blizzard. Obviously it's against the law to redistribute it, but I'm not sure that it would be immoral. Mostly, I see a lot of half-baked black-and-white arguments in the comments on this article, and I'm just trying to point that out.
The golden rule is, like most other unilateral rules, an oversimplification. Of course, that's what makes it attractive — it's an effortless substitute for having to think through the complex and messy realities of any given situation. But let's not kid ourselves that something is automatically good because we would want that thing in Blizzard's situation, case closed.
so does "do unto others", if you follow it.
additionally you just argued that the same moral rules and rights that apply to you, a living breathing individual with an inner drive to enact right over wrong, can be transferred to an entire corporation, a legal construct blind to ethics unless forced by legal rules. which is kinda inhumane.
and, the golden rule is only a good moral yardstick if your choices in what you'd want to have others do unto you are moral in the first place. not a very nice thing to question, sorry, but your hypothetical example does feature you writing groundbreaking software but wanting to keep it closed source. depending on the software and how groundbreaking it is, that's an open question, very much up to discussion.
What if you said that after the copyright had expired? Would you still say it's immoral to release it against your wishes?
If you believe in private property rights, then sure. If not, then no. Some such as Max Stirner, 19th century philosopher, would disagree with your assertion that it is a moral issue.
Now everyone's free to be the gremlin sitting on the sack, but if that sack literally is a masterpiece that shaped the whole of civilization, one day people will gently hoist you aside and replace the sack beneath you with a sack of similar monetary value, to put your original sack in museum.
Sorry if that's inconceivable in a black and white worldview. And no - its not communism, that is civilization. A right to destroy art does not exist.
No moral or ethical issue whatsoever. Nobody's rights violated. Everybody wins.