They are still legally bound to either be listed as a co-author, a lower-rank author, or a full author with full acknowledgement of the previous author(s). Here it's been common practice for the author to just put your name there, at least unless they didn't copy whole chunks of gameplay from the previous movie.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Similarly, in books, a vast majority of the character-sequences used to tell the story will be "unoriginal". In fact, in most novels, 100% of the character-sequences will have been previously discovered and used by other people. That is to say, they will be previously existing words that the author did not invent or even refine.
And in many cases, these character-sequences will be the only possible character-sequence to convey the intended meaning within the system of the language.
Yeah, and with books you can't copyright what has once been copyrighted, otherwise you can receive a lawsuit for plagiarism. In TASing, plagiarism doesn't just happen often, in vast majority of the time it's a good thing that means the result is as good as known. If we were to copyright parts of the movie, that would be just sad.
Derakon wrote:
In general, though, I suspect you'd find that all of the following qualify as creative work, and thus are eligible for copyright:
1) Figuring out the best path through a given area.
2) Figuring out how to manipulate input to minimize lag or re-synch a desynched level.
3) Actions taken during mandatory waiting periods.
4) Specific patterns of "null" input (e.g. buttons pressed that have no impact on the game)
I can promise you that the day somebody claims copyright on any of those and demands the offender to find their own way TASVideos is going to die a very retarded death. It's in the nature of the site to take an existing work and improve upon it — books don't work that way.
Derakon wrote:
Arguments like "Do you worry about copyright when you email images to your friends" don't hold when we're talking about an official organization like TASVideos.
TASVideos is an official organization now?.. It's not even a legal entity to begin with, it's basically a private site.
Derakon wrote:
There's plenty of things we can choose as private individuals to do that TASVideos can't be seen to be doing.
Yes, that I know. I was, however, surprised that you would do such thing while getting pissed that somebody would do the same to you.
All that aside, I'm not sure there is a copyright license that fits TASVideos best. So far the closest match seems to be GPL, while some users suggest Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike (by-sa) or an even stricter license be used.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Maybe you can argue that input files aren't sufficiently creative to justify giving the author copyright (with the associated protections against other people distributing the work without their permission). In that situation, you might be able to make a plausible argument that you can simply appropriate someone's work and show it on the site. I don't think you'd get very far that way, though, since the barriers for what's considered a creative work can be pretty low. And if you don't have either copyright on the work, or permission from the copyright holder, then you can't distribute the work.
The problem with movie files is that about 20% to 95%+ of their input is either:
1) unoriginal (meaning similar or exact same input was discovered by somebody else, in many cases independently from each other, and/or incorporated in an earlier version of a movie if there was any), or
2) the only one possible (i.e., when an optimal solution for some problem has been found, with any deviation proved to be inferior). How exactly do you claim any kind of copyright in this case? How exactly do you defend the notion of everything in your movie being original content? And finally, if/when an improvement is made reusing the same input, how is it affected by copyright?
A movie file is basically a wiki page. Anyone can edit it, and edits are attributed to an author, but the whole content isn't.
Besides, I would like you to think for a minute if you've always asked the author's permission before distributing their work in some way. Do you never send links to images found on the internet to your friends? Do you always ask the authors if you can distribute their work in that case?
[EDIT]
It's been brought to my attention that 20% is not a low end. However, the point is that there will always be unoriginal input strings, no matter where they come from. With this in mind I don't think the author has the right to claim the entire movie as their own.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
It's curious how the general view on this issue changed since the submission system became popular. Back in their infancy Arc's and Bisqwit's sites were catalogues of tool-assisted movies, rather than having their "brand" that other people could subscribe for. As far as I know no-one complained about their run being listed, and no-one requested their run be removed from the list. Just some food for thought.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I think SpiDeY means it in the context of playing TASes back on the original hardware making verification more-or-less impossible.
Well, what can I say? As I have verified several runs for SDA, I can say that realistically, unless there are noticeable differences between the recording and normal console output (such as lag or sound pitch), the verification process puts emphasis on the gameplay, analyzing things that can give clues on tool-assistance: button tapping speed and patterns, speed of reaction to on-screen events, accuracy, etc.
So, if somebody goes through all the hurdles of creating a TAS that consistently looks like realtime play throughout, modifies the hardware, records on it and plays innocent forever after, maybe it doesn't really make any difference to the end viewer.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Not to denigrate your argument, but I don't think it's fair to use the "price of hard drive space" while bearing in mind that portable devices, where disk space is a much larger issue, are gradually ousting desktops in popularity.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
People like Windows 7, paradoxically, because it's exactly like Windows Vista. It's the Windows Mojave experiment playing out in real life.
I don't think it's as simple as that. Windows 7 is the only Windows release in the last 10 or so years that is unanimously considered better than the previous one. And the people who like it are mostly those who already have switched to Vista prior. Those who are still on XP mostly remain skeptical.
upthorn wrote:
As I understand it, Stereo Mix is a feature of the sound card, not the operating system. I remember way back I had a sound card that had the "What U Hear" recording device, instead of Stereo Mix.
I believe it's even better: it's the feature of a driver of a sound card.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
It's interesting, and relevant to the site's policies, but completely misplaced. It can and should be continued elsewhere, in a thread of its own, and when everyone willing to continue it has chilled out. You suggested to see how it will play out — this is exactly what I'm suggesting too. The discussion can as well happen after we have the results.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I believe the same happened later to Doom TASes as well.
Anyway, I would like to expressly request the discussion to be civil, and pertain to the movie in question and not the circumstances of its submission. If you're willing to continue bashing each other, do it in PM, or I will lock this thread for 24 hours after each such post. Hear me?
mmbossman wrote:
Setting this to "Needs more information". If the author of this input file does not want his works submitted here without his consent, or does not explicitly state his desires regarding this submission within a reasonable amount of time, this submission will either be rejected and locked or outright deleted (I have not decided yet). However, if the author makes it known that he is ok with this movie being submitted under his name, this submission will be judged as usual. Please restrict the discussion of this movie to whether or not it should be published based on entertainment and technical prowess, and not authorship.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
This is a split from #2459: veup's DS Tetris DS in 01:37.53. It was made to discuss the site's policy towards submitting movies by a different author without their express approval.
Original post content goes here.
Ok guys, before you all gang up on the nasty villain FractalFusion, let's remember that he did not publish this TAS, but only submitted, allowing more people to learn about it and watch it. Think of it as if he had linked to it publicly. We can still reject, postpone or do nothing at all to this submission until we get a response from veup.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
However, it's still a valid view and, as I find the discussion quite interesting, one I would like to share.
That's a perfectly valid opinion in itself, but there is one part that bothers me.
Kharay1977 wrote:
For non-glitched, actual real time gameplay 100% completion videos, we have SDA and the like.
So, if SDA and the like are for "non-glitched, actual real time gameplay 100% completion videos", what exactly is TASVideos for, in your opinion? Because for me, also an avid viewer, it isn't lowest possible numbers of whatever. I fully endorse maximum precision — it's always a good thing — but sacrificing awesomeness just to fill the quota for lower completion time rubs me the wrong way every time.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Weight can also matter if she, say, likes to use the laptop from her lap while lying on a couch as much as I do. :P
But if that is really not an issue, I would concentrate on getting a decent screen size for low price.
These models seem to fit:
MSI A6005-201US ($650)
HP Compaq Presario CQ61-320CA ($500)
The MSI one has some nice powerful hardware to boot.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Well, if you aren't fixed on these two models, I can help you refine the search if you provide me with some more information.
Firstly, if she's not going to use it for performance-demanding applications, you can go pretty much all the way down with system specs. All laptops made in the last 2-3 years handle most games that don't explicitly demand high graphics performance.
You can instead concentrate on stuff like general ergonomics, battery life, and price. For instance, let's determine the physical dimensions.
If she's going to transport it on her shoulder (rather than using a car or at least a backpack), you should be looking at a weight of below 2 kg (meaning a screen size of no more than 14"). Anything more is going to make it uncomfortable to walk long distances with.
If she's going to type a lot of text, which I suppose she is, she needs to have a fullsize keyboard (meaning a screen size of at least 12").
Is she going to use it to watch movies?
Is she comfortable with Windows?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
IIRC, adelikat's reason for placing PSX on top was to minorly promote the fact that we're so cool to have rerecording on such advanced systems. :)
So I thought we might go a bit further with that, considering NDS, Wii and PS2 are still "current" systems.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
