4 hours ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

Have you read GoT fan fic? It is pure garbage.

There would have been dozens of poorly-funded episode 1's without protection. Check youtube fanmade flics for reference on the quality. Episode 1 never would have happened. Not with a real budget. Forget about any of the better ones.

90% of everything is crap, including stuff made by studios, with budgets. C.f. Episode 1, not to mention Jupiter Ascending... So there probably would have been dozens of badly-made, poorly-funded attempts at Episode 1. And by the same token, there might have been one good one in among those dozens of bad ones. In much the same way as there were dozens of bad, poorly-funded sci fi flicks in the 70s and 80s that weren't successful... And one or two that were good, and were. And one of them was Star Wars.

I've read licensed, published works that read like bad fanfic, and I've read fanfic that reads like good published works. Just being licensed doesn't mean it's bad. Same with fan films; I've seen fan films with better choreography and production values than the original trilogy, and I've seen fan films with better writing and characterisation than the prequels. Sometimes both at the same time. I've also seen fan films which are terrible. I'm just going to quote the key words in my post that you're glossing over:

9 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Or maybe, in the 80s and 90s during the time when the EU was being licensed out to third-tier hacks who invented K-Wings, some visionary would have come along, found some finance from a studio, and made Star Wars Episode 1 and had it not be dreadful, and reinvigorated the franchise a decade early. We have no way to know. Maybe in the mid-00s we would have had Rogue One, maybe now we'd be looking at a Star Wars series on Netflix, etc etc etc. It's impossible to tell. You can argue that Star Wars would have died on its derrière, I can argue that it would have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

Current IP law doesn't stop the production of terrible material, nor does it especially encourage the production of high quality material. You can assert all you like that Star Wars would be dead without current IP law, and I can assert that it could have been better off without current IP law. Neither of us can ever know for sure.

Episode 1 and Jupiter ascending are better than any of the fanmade Star Wars or other sci-fi fanfic. They just are. And they had the budget to potentially be good. Fanfic has no budget. It will never have a real budget.

It is objectively true that you are reducing profit when when you eliminate IP rights.

It is objectively true that a less profitable IP will have less funding for its projects.

You are arguing with math.

5 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

90% of everything is crap, including stuff made by studios, with budgets. C.f. Episode 1, not to mention Jupiter Ascending... So there probably would have been dozens of badly-made, poorly-funded attempts at Episode 1. And by the same token, there might have been one good one in among those dozens of bad ones. In much the same way as there were dozens of bad, poorly-funded sci fi flicks in the 70s and 80s that weren't successful... And one or two that were good, and were. And one of them was Star Wars.

I've read licensed, published works that read like bad fanfic, and I've read fanfic that reads like good published works. Just being licensed doesn't mean it's bad. Same with fan films; I've seen fan films with better choreography and production values than the original trilogy, and I've seen fan films with better writing and characterisation than the prequels. Sometimes both at the same time. I've also seen fan films which are terrible. I'm just going to quote the key words in my post that you're glossing over:

Current IP law doesn't stop the production of terrible material, nor does it especially encourage the production of high quality material. You can assert all you like that Star Wars would be dead without current IP law, and I can assert that it could have been better off without current IP law. Neither of us can ever know for sure.

We actually can know for sure. Read the fan fiction. Then take the movies we have currently and slash their budgets by 20-80%.

I'm entirely happy to agree to differ on this point, since it's clear we are never going to persuade one another.

On ‎19‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 3:32 PM, thespaceinvader said:

I'm entirely happy to agree to differ on this point, since it's clear we are never going to persuade one another.

You are correct tough. Budget is no garanty for quality.

This whole thing ignores the fact that some brilliant IP has come out of people who were prevented from using someone else's IP and therefore had to develop their own. Like Battlestar: Galactica and Warcraft and Starcraft.

I'd be happy with exclusive IP rights expiring after 15 years, then not being able refuse licensing the IP. With the licencing fee reducing over time.

14 hours ago, Vigil said:

This whole thing ignores the fact that some brilliant IP has come out of people who were prevented from using someone else's IP and therefore had to develop their own. Like Battlestar: Galactica and Warcraft and Starcraft.

But are Warcraft and Starcraft better or worse because they couldn't be Warhammer and Warhammer 40k respectively?

3 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

But are Warcraft and Starcraft better or worse because they couldn't be Warhammer and Warhammer 40k respectively?

We really can't say that without having a Blizzard WHF or 40K game and if you are speaking about the franchise in genereal, well that's very subjective and everyone has to find his own answer for that but nevertheless it gave us a new fantasy and sci-fi franchise and diversity doesn't hurt in my opinion.

5 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

But are Warcraft and Starcraft better or worse because they couldn't be Warhammer and Warhammer 40k respectively?

I'd say that in the case of Warcraft it was definitely improved by not being WFB. I've played WoW and Warcraft, and while I never really loved WoW the lore is really quite good. I'd say it's much better than Warhammer.

On 5/2/2017 at 2:16 PM, Vigil said:

This whole thing ignores the fact that some brilliant IP has come out of people who were prevented from using someone else's IP and therefore had to develop their own. Like Battlestar: Galactica and Warcraft and Starcraft.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Star Wars created because Lucas couldn't make a Flash Gordon movie?

On 03/05/2017 at 3:32 PM, VanorDM said:

I'd say that in the case of Warcraft it was definitely improved by not being WFB. I've played WoW and Warcraft, and while I never really loved WoW the lore is really quite good. I'd say it's much better than Warhammer.

Wouldn't you'd support a loosening of IP rights, then? I very much doubt Blizzard would have gotten away with making Warhammer-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off if Warhammer had been a Disney IP rather than owned by a relatively tiny and insignificant company in Nottingham.

If Blizzard can make a transparent copy of someone else's IP and change it to their own, why can't everyone?

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Wouldn't you'd support a loosening of IP rights, then?

Blizzard didn't make a transparent copy of WFB so I'm not sure I see your point.

10 minutes ago, VanorDM said:

Blizzard didn't make a transparent copy of WFB so I'm not sure I see your point.

They really did (Starcraft more so than Warcraft, perhaps - Terran Marines, Protoss, and Zerg being pretty strong analogues to Space Marines, Eldar and Tyranids respectively, whereas Warcraft only ended up with humans and orcs), but you're never going to agree that they did so meh.

It's long since been rumoured that they were planned as GW licensed games, but there was some licensing dispute and they went their own way, but I can't actually lay hands on harder evidence than this to back that up.

But I'd stand by my assertion that had GW been Disney, Warcraft and Starcraft would have either been licensed products, or sued into oblivion before launch.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

They really did (Starcraft more so than Warcraft, perhaps - Terran Marines, Protoss, and Zerg being pretty strong analogues to Space Marines, Eldar and Tyranids respectively

Except that all those things are far from new archetypes created by GW. Terran Marines come from Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the Tyranids or Zerg can also be found in other places and space elfs are elfs in space.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

whereas Warcraft only ended up with humans and orcs)

Again, nothing new there or anything that GW could actually claim any sort of ownership over. So even if they were owned by Disney they wouldn't have much ground to stand on if they tried to sue, since Humans vs Orc's dates back to Tolkien.

Plus the lore and tone of Warcraft had nothing in common with WFB, neither did the lore or tone of Starcraft for 40k. So while I had also heard they wanted to make a 40k and WFB game, what they ended up with is nothing like either of those two IP's.

3 minutes ago, VanorDM said:

Except that all those things are far from new archetypes created by GW. Terran Marines come from Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the Tyranids or Zerg can also be found in other places and space elfs are elfs in space.

Again, nothing new there or anything that GW could actually claim any sort of ownership over. So even if they were owned by Disney they wouldn't have much ground to stand on if they tried to sue, since Humans vs Orc's dates back to Tolkien.

Green, tusked Orcs were pretty uniquely GW until Warcraft, tho.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Green, tusked Orcs were pretty uniquely GW until Warcraft, tho.

Not really no. Look at the early versions of D&D's monster manual. Orc's were green or gray and had tusks, of course D&D took a lot from Tolkien. His orc's were also green with fangs, so tusks are hardly a stretch there.

Pretty much everything GW has done, they got from some other source. They either used concepts so old or generic they weren't protected or they changed them enough to avoid violating IP law.