Comment on Top EU Court’s Advisor Explains Why Video Game Cheats Are Not Copyright Infringement

• cmhe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Nature is often random and unpredictable, but the process of selecting a interesting POV and taking a picture of it is still copyrightable.

  I wouldn’t be so sure that if you discover a seed, that can be transformed using minecraft into a world with very interesting and specific properties, could not be under copyright protection.

  In fact movies and pictures are specific numbers as well, that are transformed using a codec. That isn’t something that can be easily replicated without that codec.

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  • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, and you have copyright on the photo - not the layout of the plants and trees in it, nor even the angle of the subject. Someone else can go with a camera and take their own photo without touching your copyright.

    Much like with digital files, the copyright is as it is a non-random transformation of a mostly replicable media product. People don’t have a copyright on numbers, even if their 5000 trillion billion digit number happened to turn into a 1960s Disney short if you run it through the right compiler.

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    • cmhe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes, and you have copyright on the photo - not the layout of the plants and trees in it, nor even the angle of the subject. Someone else can go with a camera and take their own photo without touching your copyright.

      A work is original if it is independently created and is sufficiently creative. Creativity in photography can be found in a variety of ways and reflect the photographer’s artistic choices like the angle and position of subject(s) in the photograph, lighting, and timing. As a copyright owner, you have the right to make, sell or otherwise distribute copies, adapt the work, and publicly display your work.

      www.copyright.gov/engage/photographers/

      So if someone intentionally reproduces a picture, they violate copyright, IIUC.

      In the case of minecraft, I think a case can be made, where the “picture” is the minecraft world, and the creativity is the selection process by the artist. The artist chooses their angle, position, lighting, etc, in this case they choose properties of the world, maybe by visiting thousands of them, using seed search machines, or other reverse engineering tools etc.

      I all depends on if the artist can raise their work above just the random noise they get as an input in a creative way. I am not saying that all minecraft worlds (or save games for that matter) are subject to copyright, but since we are dealing with blurry lines of copyright, it is possible.

      You are correct it isn’t about the numbers, it is about the artistic and creative product that is copyrightable, which, in case of digital art, is represented as numbers, and distribution of those might be punished by law.

      I am just saying that digital art can be more that just still or moving pictures and sound. It can be a world space the artist prepared for you where you can move around.

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      • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        First, we’re talking cross duristicion, since I was using the EU ruling above.

        Second, I’m wondering if what that US page means is that a non-original work doesn’t get copyright protections, or that non-original work is itself in breach of copyright? Maybe I should go digging to find out.

        I agree deliberately designed digital worlds are artistic creations. Just that randomly generated ones are not.

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