On 10/17/2016 07:46 PM, mdn wrote:
Another one witch is also a compromise that I come up with. Is that since all video games are ephemera (1 or 2 years) what you can do is to sell the content of it and releases the software/sources under free/libre licence and when you have made/reached the estimate amount of money or more you can release under copyleft the content of the game (art etc...).
I had a similar idea, where written into the liscense for the game is a "self-destruct" feature. Basically X number of years after initial release the game code goes GPL and the assets CC (possibily GPL depending on how the copyright law works with re-using the assets in later games, especially where voice actors and celebrety cameos are concerned)
I can't help but think of Microsoft Train Simulator as a great example of why this should exist. It's a codebase old enough that it doesn't work well on modern systems, there's still a community interested in playing it, and Microsoft isn't doing anything with it. It's not available anywhere except for original retail copies getting resold and passed around amongst those who are actually interested in some old railroad simulator. If that game got GPL'ed Microsoft wouldn't miss out on a dime, but they won't bother doing so because "nobody's interested in that old thing," and they're Microsoft.