Date Posted: 8th Oct 2011 at 8:05 PM
Quote:
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btw how much is ea paying you again?
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This isn't the first time that someone has tried to insult another person in this way at MTS. It seems like such an odd insult. If I
were working for EA, would that be a bad thing?
This kind of insult often comes up in discussions about piracy. The logic seems to be: "If you believe in intellectual property, then you are a stooge of the evil corporation. People have a right to everyone else's intellectual property without cost, especially property which belongs to the evil empire."
However, I
do believe in intellectual property. In fact, I make my living off of intellectual property. I work hard at what I do and I make a reasonable living off of that effort.
I also donate intellectual property to the Sims community. It's my choice to make my programs open-source and to share them and my other creations with the community without cost.
I honestly believe that people have a right to ask to be paid for writing programs (including games), for writing books, for making movies, for making music, for creating graphics like paintings and photographs, etc. These creative endeavors add something to our lives. They have value.
When people work for a company, they are paid for the work that they do but they (usually) give up their rights to the finished product. In effect, they sell their rights to their intellectual property to the company. This makes a lot of sense to me, since most collaborations could not be attributed to just one person. There are other ways to split the proceeds, but being paid a salary by a company who ends up owning the finished product seems a reasonable alternative.
That isn't to say that I agree 100% with EA's piracy policy, or MTS' piracy policy, or even Canada's new copyright laws. There are grounds for reasonable people to disagree on the limits to DRM, on the right to make backups, on whether downloads should be keyed to the person or to the computer. One does not have to agree completely with EA or MTS to agree that piracy is wrong.
No, I do not work for EA. However, I don't believe that it would be a bad thing to work for a company that made some of the games that I love.
No, MTS doesn't pay me. However, I try to understand and follow their rules when I'm posting on their site. I'm a guest here; it seems only common sense to follow their rules.
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