Say I make an indie game to sell on steam, earning a meager but acceptable income from it, and I want to provide it 15 years of patches and updates (not unseen in indie games).
Does updating it with a new patch adding a few features count as a new work or the same one? Or should I instead not do updates, but make a "part 2" instead since that's a new work? But then it's not the same game anymore and it may be a worse experience for players to have to get two separate games, rather than one improved one!
under this proposal, if you only copyrighted part 2 or your patch, then people would be free to copy the original version and make derivative works of it
This is already addressed by existing copyright law. For example, Sherlock Holmes has entered the public domain (mostly), but many of the more recent updates to Sherlock Holmes are not in the public domain.
So, existing law wouldn't be impacted by these questions.
The current law is that things in the original work are copyrighted from the time they are published, and additions or updates to the character start from when they are first published. If I draw a character today, the copyright clock starts today. If in 10 years I draw the same character but with a silly hat, then the clock for the character and hat starts from that date. It’s a little weird in the modern system, since both end up being the same (if since it’s author’s death+70 years), but in prior systems that have the clock run from publication, that’s how it works.
And these prior systems still matter, since there are works like Sherlock Holmes where most of the character has entered the public domain, but certain revisions remain under the copyright of the Conan Doyle Estate.
To more concretely answer your question, if you release version 1.0 of your game today, with “Space Marines” fighting each other with a shooting stat of 10, then in 10 years release an update that gives +5 to the space marines shooting stat, updates the art for the marines, and adds “Firebats”, then the parts no longer under copyright would be the 1.0 binary of the game, the old version of the Space Marines art, and the stats. What would be subject to copyright would be the 1.1 binary, the new space marines art, the new shooting stats, and the firebats art and characters.
For example, much of the DnD kerfluffle is over the open rulebook and monster manual. If you make a game that has a Blue Dragon and operates totally differently from the "Adult Blue Dragon" that's in DnD you're probably OK.
But if you make a game that has an "Blue Dragon" with an Amour Points of 19, a Health of 255, a Speed of 40, but 80 while flying, and a Str 25, Dex 10, Con 23, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 19...then you're a lot more likely to get into trouble.
So you make make a knock-off DnD that has pretty much the same _mechanics_ its true that you're probably fine. But once you start borrowing all the of stats of things from another work that fit into those same mechanics... well, I Am Not A Lawyer, but that's definitely the kind of thing that you'd want to start running past a lawyer.
Right, your example got me thinking about Dwarf Fortress, which was initially released on 2006 (according to Wikipedia). By GP's assessment they would have to pay $100,000 a year to preserve their copyright? Seems a bit harsh, I think.
$100,000 for 5 years (though, again, my specific numeric suggestions were mostly an example placeholder, not the result of considered thinking about what exact values make the most economic sense).
It's also not clear to me that continued updates wouldn't reset the term.
So, if they wanted to maintain a copyright on the 2006 version of DF (v0.21.93.19a, released August 2006), they would need to pay $500 in 2011, and $5,000 in 2016, and $100k in 2021, for a total payment to the unitd sates treasury of $105,500.
However, even if they paid nothing the latest release (50.09, released June 28, 2023) would remain under copyright automatically and for free until June 28, 2028. So they _could_ choose to let the community have access to the oldest versions of DF under public domain, while retaining copyright on the most recent versions. Or they could choose to pay to keep even the initial versions locked up.
I'd also probably want to make sure that the legislative language ensured that you didn't have to pay the copyright registration on each patch release. So, if the DF team paid for the initial version to remain under copyright, _all_ the patch versions would retain that same copyright status without needing to be individually paid for. That seems like an implementation detail for the legislation that would be important to get right, but I didn't feel it was important to specify in the proposal.
> I'd also probably want to make sure that the legislative language ensured that you didn't have to pay the copyright registration on each patch release
Does that actually matter? Updated versions are derivative works of the original so as long as the original remains copyrighted who cares whether the patches are or not? Unless you're trying to monetize updates individually separate from the main product in which case why not register them?
Maybe? It's why I think it's something that if you got the far the legislative process would need to consider.
It's a detail that I could see being important to address in the actual law, or (as you note) it might be that everything falls out pretty naturally without needing to be addressed.
I think my point is: "if this ever got to the point where it was being drafted into draft legislation, the drafter should make sure this part works sensibly instead of being crazy".
I don't think anyone is trying to fork Dwarf Fortress and sell it on a different platform.
Actually, even if they did, they would likely have proved the market to the founders earlier; maybe lighting a fire under their feet to monetize quicker. The current renaissance of DF via the Steam release could have happened five years earlier -- inspiring five more years' worth of other business-focused indie developers...
well, dwarf fortress was for most of that time a freely available game with no DRM and sustained by donations, so it's hard to see how copyright was really benefitting them much. If as mentioned new updates would get a new copyright (and only older versions would lose it), I don't really see what incentive they would have to renew it much at all.
While it seems harsh for someone who is well-regarded today, the system itself discourages abuse of the intent of copyright. I think the tradeoff is warranted.
Say I make an indie game to sell on steam, earning a meager but acceptable income from it, and I want to provide it 15 years of patches and updates (not unseen in indie games).
Does updating it with a new patch adding a few features count as a new work or the same one? Or should I instead not do updates, but make a "part 2" instead since that's a new work? But then it's not the same game anymore and it may be a worse experience for players to have to get two separate games, rather than one improved one!