Even if you decide to write your own book and you accidentally make an exact copy (for the sake of argument, in court, a rough copy will usually do) of a book you've never even heard of, it's still copyright infringement.
I don't believe it is, actually. You'd have one hell of a hard time proving that you happened to independently come up with such a similar result, but if you did manage to do so, it would not be infringement. There would be no theft of intellectual property.
However, in the real world, so to speak, it would almost certainly be trademark infringement. And that would shut you down real good.
I don't believe it is, actually. You'd have one hell of a hard time proving that you happened to independently come up with such a similar result, but if you did manage to do so, it would not be infringement. There would be no theft of intellectual property.
However, in the real world, so to speak, it would almost certainly be trademark infringement. And that would shut you down real good.
Trademark infringement? Where did that come from?
Trademarks have nothing to do with copyrights. You don't get automatic trademarks, nor are copyrighted works "trademarked". A trademark is (usually) a brand name that has been officially registered with the proper authority. It's related to the usage of that brand name in a specific context (for example, "Windows" is a trademark owned by Microsoft in the context of computer operating systems, but not eg. in the context of architecture, where someone could perfectly well use the brand name without infringement, as long as it's not confused with the operating system).
In the context of a piece of art, eg. a book, you could trademark a specific name which can be considered a brand (eg. "Star Trek"), but that's distinct from copyright.
A trademark or trade mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers originate from a unique source, and infringement is the unauthorized use of that, but that isn't important right now.
RIP, Leslie Nielsen
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I was mostly hoping to get across the point that copying input is something that requires some sort of justification (especially when the input is from a predecessor to the movie being created), not something to be encouraged, when you take into account the quality implications. Lack of time and whatever else may be acceptable excuses (excuses I've used before too), but excuses of any kind are something we should be at least vaguely dissatisfied with if the excuses are for the contents of a TAS. So I wouldn't want to start seeing lots of runs where the author only tries to improve one part of the run, for example. But, maybe I'm thinking of this in too short-term a way...
Scepheo wrote:
It just seems silly to, rather than copy someones work, do it all yourself and then end up with exactly the same input file.
While I agree in principle, the thing is, how do you know you would end up with exactly the same input file? My experience has been that we're very bad judges of that, e.g. I don't think I can improve a movie at all, but if I actually try to do so then I am much more likely to succeed than I originally suspected. So encouraging people to try to make "full" improvements seems like a good thing to me, since they so often have the potential to do it. (Not to suggest that I think we need to make some new rule for that purpose.)
As for the original topic, I would be in favor of codifying something compatible with the status quo (about input copying) in the form of a license or rule or guideline, purely for the purpose of more openly communicating what's considered acceptable practice.
Nitsuja has already said what I think needs saying regarding direct copying of input- it can save time, and it can lose (game)time.
Also, the potential of achieving the same or better time with different 'style' or better entertainment (consider the score-combos in Castlevania(NES), inputs on JXQ-100% Super Metroid, Mister's SMW (any%? I forget which had the input artistry)).
I agree with moozooh here, but I think some of what nitsuja said needs commenting on:
nitsuja wrote:
If I am capable of improving the input that I copied, I would be submitting a movie that contains sloppy input compared to what I could accomplish. Therefore I clearly shouldn't copy the input.
If I am capable of exactly matching the level of perfection of the input that I copied, then it makes sense to not duplicate the effort and simply reuse the input. But, how could I know I fall into this category without trying it first? And if I try it first then I will have no need to reuse the existing input since I will already have my own, unless mine is actually worse in which case I'm really in category 3 below and not this one. Therefore I have no reason to copy the input if I want to be as sure as I can be that I've created the movie as well as I can.
If I am not capable of even matching the level of perfection of the input that I copied, then it's likely that I'm not qualified to meet the community's standards in creating a successor to a movie of whatever game it is. Therefore I probably shouldn't make the movie at all, or I should try harder until I fit into category 1 or 2 above.
If the new movie is better than the existing one, then it doesn't matter which category you are in, it should still be published. Here is an example: A game has been frame-warred for a long time and is thought to be very close to perfect. Then, a novice taser discovers a marvelous new strategy for a course of the game. He cannot match the input precision of the previous movie, and the stage he is trying to improve is noticably less precise than the other stages. Still, the new movie is 1 minutes faster than the previous one, with an interesting new path nobody had thought about before. Should this new movie be published? Definitely!
Why insist that a movie as a whole should be the smallest possible unit of improvement? Why shouldn't one be able to quickly improve a single stage? The easier it is to make improvements, the more people will do it. As a somewhat contrived example, imagine if we only accepted movies that complete two different games here. That would definitely put off everybody who only wants to work on one of those games.
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amaurea wrote:
Here is an example: A game has been frame-warred for a long time and is thought to be very close to perfect. Then, a novice taser discovers a marvelous new strategy for a course of the game. He cannot match the input precision of the previous movie, and the stage he is trying to improve is noticably less precise than the other stages. Still, the new movie is 1 minutes faster than the previous one, with an interesting new path nobody had thought about before. Should this new movie be published? Definitely!
I can see you weren't paying attention to the discussion when JNX submitted his Ocarina of Time run. Have fun reading :)
EDIT: Bonus reading from another submission that more matches your point.
In general, just because a movie uses a massive new trick (or several) does not necessitate that it be published, if the rest of the movie looks noticeably worse than the published movie.
Here is an example: A game has been frame-warred for a long time and is thought to be very close to perfect. Then, a novice taser discovers a marvelous new strategy for a course of the game. He cannot match the input precision of the previous movie, and the stage he is trying to improve is noticably less precise than the other stages. Still, the new movie is 1 minutes faster than the previous one, with an interesting new path nobody had thought about before. Should this new movie be published? Definitely!
I can see you weren't paying attention to the discussion when JNX submitted his Ocarina of Time run. Have fun reading :)
EDIT: Bonus reading from another submission that more matches your point.
In general, just because a movie uses a massive new trick (or several) does not necessitate that it be published, if the rest of the movie looks noticeably worse than the published movie.
The rest of the movie would look the same in this case, since we were talking about copying input. Also, I do not agree N 'optimal' frames are better than N-1 poor frames. The goal isn't to have as many optimal-looking frames as possible, it is to have as few frames as possible.
I guess this is a question of whether one sees a publication as a statement of "this is the best we can do" vs. "this is the best we have so far".
But really, I think TASvideos works just fine as it is right now - no new rules regarding this is needed.
