Software Testing
Author: Isaac Kuri
Summary
The scope of the text is to inform the reader about the relevance of protecting intelectual property via copyright. Our
main scope will regard blogs but also we will have a glance at some examples in the videogame industry.
Keywords: Software, License, Copyright, Intellectual Property.
Introduction
How much is an idea worth? Everyone should ask that whenever they have an idea. An idea can change one’s life. Nowadays
originality is harder to find because as times goes on humanity will eventually find all the obvious facts about our
universe and even if we can claim that what is to know is infinite when someone discovers something it’s gone from the
unknown thus not new nor original.
There forth our efforts are mainly on innovation and creativity. How? by adding, adapting, entertaining, enhancing,
etc. Valuable ideas come from those actions, it is on the persons responsibility to recognize the impact of the idea
and thread it in a way that can be relevant to his/her communities’ context because a blog with no viewers is just a
file laying on a server waiting to be of any use. Once the authors canalize everything and they finally create a bright
idea, once it goes public there is in no going back the idea is out in the world changing and evolving out of the
author’s grasp.
How do authors safeguard those ideas? because many people are looking to stole ideas and take credit for them. There
are many organizations throughout the world that can be of use for that depending on the idea is possible to protect it
in many ways. Maybe the author’s idea can’t be eligible for a patent, but it can be protected by copyright. The
difference between those is simple a patent aims to protect a concept that can be perfectly described and distinguished
from other similar concepts while in the other hand copyright aims to protect abstract concepts like visuals, music,
texts, sentences.
From now on I will talk about my experiences publishing articles on videogame blogs and videos on YouTube. In which
keeping your content protected is of most importance and even more keeping yourself from taking others content because
it is not always clear when you can or can’t use others content and it can lead into legal issues, ending your
blog/channel on the spot. Being taken down by copyright is sometimes not an easy thing to fix but I will go on deeper
about this topic on the following section of the text, also don’t be hesitant to protect your work even if it means
ending someone’s career because in the end the only one being harmed is you and no one else.
People are hungry for ideas, especially on the internet
Throughout my many attempts at working on a creator’s platform like YouTube and WordPress, I encountered many issues
keeping my articles and videos at bay. I used to write in the year 2010 back then regulations for copyright weren’t as
strict as they are today but within my community, we had issues regarding our posts, many people started to copy them
but with small alterations thus making the post their “own”. I as a blog amateur had no idea what to do in order to
protect my posts. At some point small side-notification that said Copyright started to emerge on blogs, usually it was
just a banner you could add to the webpage to inflict fear over copiers.
But that was over eight years ago and nowadays people want more than ever to monetize their content to earn “easy”
money in platforms like YouTube or by abusing of systems like AdSense within their own blogs.
So, what is the solution? Many Copyright organizations started to emerge and offer lots of plans for each type of
content published on the internet like WIPO, DMCA, etc. The prices range from free (Like copyrighted.com) to even
hundreds of dollars depending on the volume of publications or media type, videos, text, etc.
When should you protect your content?
As an author you might never encounter the thought of being famous or popular, it may not even be your focus but
sometimes you hit the spot and your work goes viral. As soon as growth starts to occur it is important to research
about how your works are protected.
Wait, are my works protected? In some cases, yes and even for free. YouTube has a strong copyright policy and offers
free courses on how to apply them. Why is that? Because YouTube must protect both your content and the content of
others within the platform.
A worldwide free-platform like YouTube faces many problems keeping their site clean of copyright demands, because
anyone can upload a movie with slightly altered pitch, mirror or reproduction speed. And even with the highly advanced
copyright algorithm that YouTube has developed over the years it is still possible to find obvious copied content like
movies, anime episodes, full manga chapters, music, etc.
But that’s the organizations duty after all, but you as an author should strive to inform yourself in those manners
because unlike YouTube, you might be publishing your work on another platform like WordPress, where you don’t own
everything on the website. What you don’t own? Everything that you didn’t add, for example the lines of code that make
the structure of your website, the programming language, the API’s it uses etc. Once you identify what is that you own,
then it is your duty to protect your content with the organizations previously mentioned and to claim your rights of
the content whenever they are inflicted.
Is there any example on the industry?
One of the greatest examples in the gaming industry is the World of Warcraft Vanilla private servers. Lets give some
context to the problem World of Warcraft has been running since November 24, 2004 developed by Blizzard Activision and
over the years the game has changed and it evolved into a much different game experience than what it used to be 14
years ago. Players who just don’t fit in the new game design wanted to relive old days, as Blizzard didn’t have an
official alternative to a Classic World of Warcraft experience at the time, a group of programmers started a project
called Nostalrius which implied the use of an older version of World of Warcraft via a private server, as development
went on the Nostalrius team managed an unprecedented achievement they replicated as closely as possible the World of
Warcraft Vanilla experience and the server’s popularity grew into something big, big enough to caught the attention of
Blizzard themselves, in was an special case because usually private severs for World of Warcraft had been common
throughout all of the game’s life span.
The community finally got what they asked for, they wanted the experience and now it was available for everyone to try.
As the project grew it reached over 240,000 active players in was then that Blizzard acted and sued Nostalrius.
But was it right that Blizzard took action over thousands of players who wanted to relive an experience that isn’t
available anymore? The answer lies in the intellectual property and the implications that lead to a possible loss of
the intellectual property itself.
Analyzing the situation, why in this case they had the risk of losing the intellectual property? Other developer teams
had managed to replicate other world of warcraft experiences in the past. Nostalrius not only managed to emulate the
game with near flawless scripting but also, they simulated the game like it was launching once again. They went into a
progression system for the game meaning that they would develop the game from the first patch to the last meaning that
it was just as if the was released once again.
Had Blizzard not taken action many people on the company would have suffered on the economical side and losing the
intellectual property is a no go for the companies’ reputation. That’s why taking action on your intellectual property
is upmost importance be Copyright or a patent, you should value your originality and don’t let others use what you have
earned through hard work or luck.
Conclusion
Being exposed to the subject of intellectual property I encourage people to value what they create because it is
unknown whether a drawing, a photo or a text will be of relevance in the future. And letting other people take credit
for it is something unfair and unethical from my perspective. People who steal other ideas are not stupid they know
something that the author doesn’t, and they take uninformed people by surprise in some cases even losing the
intellectual property; in the best scenario wasting lots of money and time regaining what originally was yours.
No one is immune to be stolen in todays world with the anonymous power that internet gives over anyone who has access
to it. I think that it is worth talking about international copying because it may be the hardest to detect. For
example, when someone translates your articles and is gaining money over them, how are you able to detect that? I mean
they are on a completely different language for most people it is impossible to understand more than three languages
let alone one that its typography is not even based on the Greek alphabet.
Also, there is the possibility of transforming your work into another type of media, there is a famous case in the
World of Warcraft community of a youtuber who was stealing articles online and read them as they are in his YouTube
videos. They went viral and the guy earned a ton of money during the process, once it came to light his reputation was
ruined and he had to take down all the plagiaristic videos.
What I mean from all of these examples is that it is unethical to steal other content and it is our responsibility to
ensure that everyone involved in our intellectual property gets its well-deserved credits.
We also shouldn’t be jealous of our intellectual properties, because if for example you create a powerful API that
would facilitate the life of many programmers involved in similar workflows as you. You have ways of making the license
of your intellectual property be more flexible to those who can’t pay a premium fee. Don’t let a great idea be wasted
because you are stingy with it.
Knowing all these things I intend that people make better decisions at the moment of submitting their ideas out in the
internet or any other media. And to be conscious of the problems even big companies encounter protecting their
intellectual property.
Bibliography
https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/copyright-protection#strategies-zippy-link-2
https://www.wipo.int/portal/en/index.html
https://www.copyrighted.com/pricing
https://en.nostalrius.org/