Thread:AuraMasterNeal/@comment-4991685-20150314034911/@comment-25205511-20150314193001

I don't believe copyright as an idea is bad, I believe it needs to be kept up to date to be effective. Considering the current US copyright law is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was made almost 16 years ago, it is in serious need of an update. Copyright is an amazing thing, but if abused, it is a very dangerous thing. We have fair use for that, but the definitions of fair use are currently very vague. Copyright law should only apply when the violation in question has a significant negative impact on the market of the original work. Take, for example, the ongoing debate on Let's Plays as fair use. They can bring significant revenue to the games that are played (I could list off a dozen games that I only bought because a youtuber introduced them to me), but it is unclear at best under current copyright law if they are actually fair use. Since they have no negative impact on the markets of the games used, and, in fact, have a quite positive impact, that is one example of something that should clearly be fair use and isn't. This is one very clear example of the ineffectiveness of old copyright laws, but these old laws also apply to Spore. As EA will in all likelihood not be making a significant amount of money from Spore anymore, and has an even lower chance of making a Spore 2, the community making a sequel would probably have no significant impact on the market of the original. However, EA being the company it is, they would take their 'rights' given to them by the outdated copyright laws and send a cease and desist almost immediately. This is why copyright, in its current implementation, is ineffective. I apologize for the wall of text.