Dan, Soren, Jeff....please take a peek here....:)

[Velociryx]

More thoughts and stuff....

First, thank you again to everyone who's written in here with high marks for the strategy pages! This tells me that I'm on the right road, and when the material is ready...well, I say that we "whip 'em out and compare 'em" with Prima's guide! Hey....after all....they're trained professionals and such, right? They've been doing this stuff for years....I mean....they should be able to do a bang up job....certainly much better than some hack working in a dimly lit room with an empty bag of tortilla chips and some conqueso dip as decorations. Well....we'll see.... (and for the record, I have never bought a Prima guide for anything....lol....definitely don't intend to start now!)

{Side note to Ravagon - Yeppers! All my original posts here on the forums are date/time stamped, and I'm keeping everything in an ever-growing doc file! Excellent call!}

GRRR....just ticks me off, is all. I mean, taken to the Nth degree, the argument could be made that even TALKING PUBLICALLY about the freakin' game is an "infringement of their rights" (direct competition for their saleable guide, with the public forums discussions carrying a "selling price" of $0.00 vs. the fifteen bucks or whatever they're charging for it.

The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to write them a letter....(probably a less than complimentary one at that!).

-=Vel=-
(who really must stop PLAYING and working on fanfic long enough to get back to some more strategy stuff! But....in my defense, these last couple of games have been VERY enlightening re: strategies in general!)

[Sarxis]

Just for the record:

Prima's guides are not worth the space-time continuum they inhabit.

[Velociryx]

Changed the title of this thread in hopes of getting the attention of one of the Firaxians....I realilze that Infogrames were the ones who made the arrangement with Prima on their "exclusive rights to publish the official civ3 guide," but my thinking is that the folk of Firaxis are closer to the whole thing than I am, and perhaps would be able to shed some more light on when, if ever, Prima's monopoly expires....

-=Vel=-

[GeorgeG]

I'm more than certain that the most effective strategies will be found on forums, not in the official strategy guides. Just might be a little harder to follow them sometimes.

Besides, how could the writers of the strategy guide predict where the patches will take us - the game will change, maybe subtly, maybe dramitically.

I wonder what the strategy guide says about the "2-1-3" Privateer?

[gaikokujin]

Poor Velo, somone who has poured so much energy into the analysis of Civ-genre games, and for free. Which, hopefully, will be the point of relief here, since I think this is really all about the money ($2.50). Suppressing an original product distributed for FREE would arguably involve issues of constitutional rights of free speech, I believe.

But these guys seem determined to alienate the long time Civ-genre community. Velo is hardly a "whiner", and hardly deserves this kind of treatment.

Originally posted by Libertarian
I've asked this numerous times. No response yet.

What exactly is wrong with the inoffensive ethic of greed?

I am offended, not only morally but materially, as I had put in an order for the strat guide and had wondered why I hadn't received it. Now I know why: due to the boundless prusuit of profit - see below.

Originally posted by Libertarian
Why is profit bad?

Should be _When_ is profit bad? When it is _boundless_. Follow the logic, see below.

Originally posted by Libertarian
Why ought not the owners of property be the proprietors of rights with respect to it?

The word, 'property', has no meaning in the abstract. When you see the word, 'property', think, _whose_ property? Actual property only has a real existence when it is the property of _sombody_ (or a group of sombodies). As we know from John Locke, property adheres to persons as a result of their labor in producing particular forms of property. This gives property definite _bounds_.

Property bounds which are violated and destroyed by the boundless prusuit of profit. Unless you can prove that someone at Hurricane actually stole Primas' aready existing draft, edited it and attempted to publish it, it must be assumed that the strat guide was the result of the labor of the writers who wished to publish via Hurricane, and that it is therefore their legitimite property.

Property which has been violated and destroyed, in true Jack Valenti MPAA-style, by a gang of lawyers hired by Prima/Infog, because they feared bing undercut by a competition that had rationally calculated that they could make a profit at $2.50 a shot over the internet. Delivering a better product to boot, no doubt (I've found Prima's guides pretty useless).

In contradiction to "libertarian's" notions. Libertarian, indeed.

[insert ideological apologetics for crony gangster (read: lawyer) capitalism, U.S. - style]

[SKev]

Vel,

I believe you should trust your instincts with respect to whether an "unofficial" strategy guide is legally permissible. The PG v. HG dispute appeared to be a big guy beating a little guy into submission without regards to the merits of the threatened lawsuit.

While I don't know what it was that got the dude on HG busted (it could have been content, it could have been timing), let me give you some unsolicited, free advice: Be careful about what you include in your guide. Try and avoid copying text word for word or using images directly from the game. From what I've read of your work, the "strategy" substance of your guide will not need to be dressed up anyway (unlike those Prima folks who, as someone else stated, sell a game manual rather than a strategy guide). You may draw unnecessary attention to yourself if the guide contains excessive direct quotations from the text of the game or lots of images generated by or part of the game (even from games you are playing).

Keep working on those strategies. I need help....badly.

Kev

[Velociryx]

Well....still nothing from the folk of Firaxis, but that's okay....I'm gonna keep right on doing what I enjoy....that is....coming up with new (and hopefully innovative) ideas to toss out for discussion....when there's enough, I think I will follow my gut tho, and see where it leads....

-=Vel=-
(thumbin' my nose at the folk who write "that other guide")

[Venger]

Originally posted by MarkG
hmm, well Vel, the hurricane guys were not simply talking strategy, they were selling something for which prima had payed to get the exclusive rights...

The exclusive rights were for the OFFICIAL strategy guide. Any other strategy guide would be fully legal, depending on content.

i wonder though if these rights are for eternity or... less

What I really wonder is what they would think of Vel's SMAC guide if it were for Civ3...

Venger

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Venger
The exclusive rights were for the OFFICIAL strategy guide. Any other strategy guide would be fully legal, depending on content.

tell that to the lawyers of hurricane gaming....

btw, they werent calling it "official" or anything like that...

[Xentropy]

The real issue, as always, is with money.

If the guide had been free, Prima would probably have never even HEARD of the thing, and Hurricane would be fine.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by gaikokujin
The word, 'property', has no meaning in the abstract. When you see the word, 'property', think, _whose_ property? Actual property only has a real existence when it is the property of _sombody_ (or a group of sombodies). As we know from John Locke, property adheres to persons as a result of their labor in producing particular forms of property. This gives property definite _bounds_.

Well, of course, but Locke was merely a philosopher expounding his theory on property. Marx, on the other hand, considered all property as theft. Basically, said Marx, the only way anyone owned property was to steal it from someone else. Or, to twist Locke a bit, by mixing my labor (burglary) with your property, it becomes mine.

This was rather succinctly stated in an exchange between the characters of Ric and Vivian on the classic British humor show “The Young Ones”:

Ric: Vivian, is that my record player you’re throwing on the fire?
Vivian: Umm, yeah!
Ric: But that’s *my* record player!
Vivian: Well, *you’re* the one who said all property was theft. So I nicked it!

Anyway, back on topic. The point I’d like to reinforce (as others have already made) is that I doubt Prima had a leg to stand on, legally speaking. I don’t see how they could legally enjoin anyone else from writing a book about how they feel the best way to play CivIII is. Sure, Prima may have the exclusive right to call their guide (which, IMO, is rather poorly done) the “Official” guide. But once the subject matter of the book is in the open, it’s fair game for the public to comment on. Copyright protection only covers the actual words as written, not the concept they describe. Prima can prevent others from using their work to make money (either whole or in part) but they cannot (IMHO) prevent others from talking about the same thing they are.

At least legally they can’t. They can request, threaten, cajole, plead or try whatever else they might to keep others from trying to compete with their product, but at the end of the day I don’t see them convincing a judge that they should be the only ones in the world to be able to publish a strategy guide on CivIII simply because Infogrames said they had “exclusive rights”. After all, contracts are only binding to the signatories of the parties, not unrelated third parties.

A final caveat: This is all based on the premise that Hurricane’s guide was an original work and not simply derived from Prima’s . If Hurricane used Prima’s guide to help produce their own, then Prima might have a case. But Prima would have to prove that Hurricane based their work on Prima’s; they couldn’t simply allege it and win their case.

[Libertarian]

gaikokujin,

Thanks for the lecture, however gratuitous. Libertarianism — or opposition to the initiation of force and fraud — is not lacking in a definition and contextualization of property. Infogrames, owning the name "Civilization" and variants as well as certain intellectual items with respect to the game may, as is well precedented, establish who may and who may not publish its official strategy guide. Prima, having secured exclusivity, was understandably miffed when a third party undercut its rights, which rights were extended by the property's owner.

I'm not defending anything about Prima or Infogrames here other than what I've stated. I don't know whether their strategy guides are worth the money or not. Frankly, I'm satisfied with what I've learned from Vel's compendium of notes. But rights with respect to property (the only rights that are ontologically relevant) may not be abridged solely because the rights holder is stupid.

[Mannamagnus]

Can't we have an Apolyton Great Library for civ3 with all useful info in it unpoluted by posts that are not relevant?

[Libertarian]

We do. See Vel's thread in the strategy forum.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Mannamagnus
Can't we have an Apolyton Great Library for civ3 with all useful info in it unpoluted by posts that are not relevant?

http://www.apolyton.net/civ3/strategy