Yes, and you have copyright on the photo - not the layout of the plants and trees in it, nor even the angle of the subject. Someone else can go with a camera and take their own photo without touching your copyright.
A work is original if it is independently created and is sufficiently creative. Creativity in photography can be found in a variety of ways and reflect the photographer’s artistic choices like the angle and position of subject(s) in the photograph, lighting, and timing. As a copyright owner, you have the right to make, sell or otherwise distribute copies, adapt the work, and publicly display your work.
So if someone intentionally reproduces a picture, they violate copyright, IIUC.
In the case of minecraft, I think a case can be made, where the “picture” is the minecraft world, and the creativity is the selection process by the artist. The artist chooses their angle, position, lighting, etc, in this case they choose properties of the world, maybe by visiting thousands of them, using seed search machines, or other reverse engineering tools etc.
I all depends on if the artist can raise their work above just the random noise they get as an input in a creative way. I am not saying that all minecraft worlds (or save games for that matter) are subject to copyright, but since we are dealing with blurry lines of copyright, it is possible.
IANAL, but I think if I would look into case law, I would find examples for both options, in some cases the “selection process” was enough to demonstrate creativity, and in other cases it wasn’t.
You are correct it isn’t about the numbers, it is about the artistic and creative product that is copyrightable, which, in case of digital art, is represented as numbers, and distribution of those might be punished by law.
I am just saying that digital art can be more that just still or moving pictures and sound. It can be a world space the artist prepared for you where you can move around.
About the section on the law, I would read it just as stating what is covered under copyright, and not what isn’t. I also just mentioned what original work is, not describing derived work.
Nature is often random and unpredictable, but the process of selecting a interesting POV and taking a picture of it is still copyrightable.
I wouldn’t be so sure that if you discover a seed, that can be transformed using minecraft into a world with very interesting and specific properties, could not be under copyright protection.
In fact movies, pictures and books are specific numbers on a digital storage medium as well, that are transformed using a codec. That isn’t something that can be easily replicated without that codec.
I am not a copyright lawyer, but I think there are precedences where just the selection process from a stream of (semi-) random number, pictures, sound or events alone can produce copyrightable products.
I meant minecraft world file which stores the chunks the player explored and potentially modified. And I said “could” not “must”, it depends on if hits a certain creative threshold.
If the player decides to teleport around while creating a dickbud or whatever by just the explored chunks, that could meet it.
If someone selectivly openes quests to use the open quest markers on a map in an RPG to create a dickbud, that cloud meet it as well.
The save game could tell your individual story through the game, that cloud meet the threshold as well.
Also, because the unmodified minecraft world is randomly generated, it would not be under anyones copyright.
With AI, there could also be made an argument that the selection process might make it copyrightable. Like if you take a picture of a interesting looking cloud. The clouds might be semi-random, but you selecting a specific one reaches the threshold.
Well, I think both are human creation, you are using the machine and the game to create something new. In that sense, a save game file could also be under the players copyright. Lets say a Minecraft world for instance.
When the current copyright comes from books, wouldn’t plugins or transient changes/cheats be like taking side notes with a pencil on their individual copy?
Are side notes and annotations copyright infringements?
I would love to see them argue that taking snarky side notes, which change the tone of their words, is copyright infringement.
Yes, but not with an unmodified toolkit, which opens levels as read-only, and disallows creating new levels. But there is a patch for the toolkit on nexusmods which unlocks the toolkit and makes the map editor and other stuff available. If you know what you are doing, you should be able to edit the main campaign or make your own.
I played around with it a bit, and all I can say, its complicated.
Sure, it is largely the fanbase, however I also think that the game industry seems to sometimes do somewhat of a “woke-washing”, meaning opically supporting the LGBTQIA movement because of financial, shitstorm-prevention or other reasons than just wanting to create more diverse and inclusive games.
For instance I like Hogwarts Legacy, but it also takes place in the Victorian era, and it seems to project the modern tolerant society ideals onto the wizarding world of that time.
Depicting the society as inclusive and diverse is somewhat history revisionist. If you play as a non-binary or trans person at that time, then you should have to deal with prejudice and marginalization, otherwise it is just “woke-wash” the history.
So, IMO there are some cases, especially in historic (fantasy) games, where injecting modern ideals and standards might not fit or needs to be better addressed, than just let it be cosmetic.
You made a good point, this is actually DLC, I just forgot about it.
I bought BG3 when it was in EA, so I got this DLC automatically, so I never really thought about it recently, I don’t even remember seeing it on any shop front.
But now that you mentioned it, I think I thought that they should probably release it for free for everyone at that time. Just like CDPR released some cosmetic ‘DLC’ for free after launch.
AFAIK, modding is the main reason for Skyrims long term success. Sure, it did its part in inspiring people initially, but what keeps at least me coming back is my interest in trying new mods.
But it also didn’t start there with Elder Scrolls series. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas use a very moddable predecessor of the Skyrim engine, and thus build the community up for Skyrim and later games.
Modability of KC:D was rather limited, so there isn’t a community around as big as the Skyrim one. That means with Skyrim, you get what you can mod into it, while with Kingdom Come, you mostly just get what you buy.
So I don’t expect it to be the next Skyrim, but never the less I am interested in it.