Minecraft and Intellectual Property

Gamasutra just posted a rather longish essay of mine about Minecraft and what's wrong today with the intersection of games and intellectual property law.  Here's the link.  In some ways, I think I'm echoing Ted's criticisms of the new Star Wars MMORPG in the last post .  In short: the more games become like movies, the less interesting they become.  On the other hand, the more games let us express ourselves artistically and socially, the more interesting they become. 

One significiant problem, as I see it, is that the current trajectory that intellectual property law is pursuing is much more supportive of the the former (games on rails) than it is of the latter (games that let players become authors).

Comments

[Stabs]

1.

That was a very good read, thank you Greg.

[greglas]

2.

Thanks for reading it!

[thoreau]

3.

A good read indeed.

I have not played Minecraft although I have read about it. What would happen if a player created a statue that looks exactly like Optimus Prime?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Prime

What is that player sold the blueprint (not sure if this is even possible) to another player for a profit?

How would this be different than a person using Legos and doing the same thing?

[inklink]

4.

So... not DIRECTLY related, but close anyhow...

Any thoughts on the shutdown of Megaupload?

Obviously the situation was untenable, Megaupload was making tons of cash, primarily off fencing pirated materials. No sympathy for them or for their con-artist founder Mr. dotcom. So something had to give sooner or later, although a little bit later might have caused less unnecessary uproar.

Then again the chosen path of criminal investigation and the reasoning behind many of the points seem ... extreme? Weird? Not a lawyer, but would really like to know what those who are think about chances of success for the U.S. gov on this one.

[greglas]

5.

@thoreau -- many thanks. The Optimus Prime statue would be infringing, I would think. Non-commercial copying (like copying mp3s and giving them to friends) is still copyright infringement, unless it is protected by fair use. Many courts have found various forms of non-commercial copying to be outside the scope of fair use, so I would hardly bet that the Optimus Prime statue would be protected by fair use doctrine. And w/r/t Legos -- the Lego company gets licenses to make Harry Potter and Batman (etc) Lego kits, including copyright licenses. So a great rendition of OP in Legos could be a copyright infringement too.

@inklink: Megaupload can afford very good lawyers. If they were penniless pirates doing the exact thing that they are doing, I would call it an easy case for prosecutors. However, with good lawyers, I think they've got some good arguments on DMCA 512 compliance. The result of the YouTube case, which I discuss in the Gamasutra piece, may influence what ultimately happens with the Megaupload prosecutions. There may be some interesting jurisdictional questions too about whether US criminal copyright provisions should apply to them (even if they should be subject to personal jurisdiction here, which will probably be contested too).