Faux pas at The Wargamer?

[Michael Dorosh]

Actually its the same for either written work or digital. You have to defend your copyright or you can be considered to have vacated your right to the IP. Now that doesn't mean you have to know of every case of piracy to keep your copyright I believe the way it works is if you KNOWINGLY ignore violations of your copyright and do not enforce it can you can be considered to lose it, however if it happens and your unaware of it than you still maintain the right. There is a lot of grey area around this though as its hard to prove you knowingly vacated your right to your copyright.

This is actually something that has come up recently due to YouTube tightening monetization options for game footage on YouTube. Various game companies have publicly said they want people to be able to use footage from their games and monetize them and various legal experts have pointed out that if company's simply allow people to do this WITHOUT updating their terms of use and therefore ignoring enforcing their copyright it would potentially invalidate their copyright as they would no longer be defending said copyright and would be knowingly encouraging the violation of that copyright.

This sounds like gibberish to me. What does using footage of gamplay in a video have to do with someone owning the rights to the game code?

It sounds like you're conflating a few different issues.

If I put images from a game you've published online in a YouTube video, and you don't "assert your copyright", that doesn't mean I somehow have the right to sell pirated copies of your game. I'm not seeing how the two relate.

[Nefaro]

It is interesting to note that someone is at least attempting to track the issue.

But are they profiting from the accusational info they "gather"?  Including simple employment.

Sounds like a problem in the making, if so.

Why is that a problem? Someone is breaking the law and someone else is charging a fee to gather evidence of it.  This happens all the time with other areas of the law.

Ahhh yes.  Just like the traffic camera companies who make a certain percentage of the ticket profits from the tickets issued via the traffic cams they build. 

Aside from the social & ethical questions regarding such practices, the slope doesn't get much more slippery.  This is also where a, "wolf guarding the sheep" metaphor, about readily available abuse for self-interest and the resultant wasteful proliferation of oversight countermeasures would be in order.

[Jarhead0331]

It is interesting to note that someone is at least attempting to track the issue.

But are they profiting from the accusational info they "gather"?  Including simple employment.

Sounds like a problem in the making, if so.

Why is that a problem? Someone is breaking the law and someone else is charging a fee to gather evidence of it.  This happens all the time with other areas of the law.

Ahhh yes.  Just like the traffic camera companies who make a certain percentage of the ticket profits from the tickets issued via the traffic cams they build. 

Aside from the social & ethical questions regarding such practices, the slope doesn't get much more slippery.  This is also where a, "wolf guarding the sheep" metaphor, about readily available abuse for self-interest and the resultant wasteful proliferation of oversight countermeasures would be in order.

Should Police officers forego salary and overtime pay, too?

[Nefaro]

It is interesting to note that someone is at least attempting to track the issue.

But are they profiting from the accusational info they "gather"?  Including simple employment.

Sounds like a problem in the making, if so.

Why is that a problem? Someone is breaking the law and someone else is charging a fee to gather evidence of it.  This happens all the time with other areas of the law.

Ahhh yes.  Just like the traffic camera companies who make a certain percentage of the ticket profits from the tickets issued via the traffic cams they build. 

Aside from the social & ethical questions regarding such practices, the slope doesn't get much more slippery.  This is also where a, "wolf guarding the sheep" metaphor, about readily available abuse for self-interest and the resultant wasteful proliferation of oversight countermeasures would be in order.

Should Police officers forego salary and overtime pay, too?

No.

But they shouldn't be given bonuses for making more arrests and issuing more tickets.  It leaves far too much room to be abused in the hands of those given such responsibility.  If anything has been consistently proven about human nature throughout history, it's that a fair number will use extra powers given them for their own advancement at the expense of others.   We shouldn't lightly give the easy opportunities to do so.

I have a Libertarian streak so this is as much a political viewpoint as anything else.