🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2108@acf5.NYU.EDU> checker@acf5.NYU.EDU (checker) writes:
>toddl@county.lmt.mn.org (Todd Lehman) gives his opinions on `simple' games:
>>Getting back to the copyright thing, it's really a matter of luck who gets to
>>own the simple ideas, and it's really sort of sad when someone does.  I mean,
>>nobody cares if someone owns the copyright to Super Mario World XXVII.  But
>>we're all a little peeved when a simple game like Tetris is copyrighted.
>
>I think you have things backwards here.  Coming up with more levels to
>Super Mario Brothers is my definition of easy (perhaps brainless is a
>better description).  Coming up with something elegant and simple like
>Tetris is a _lot_ of work.  Of course you're peeved; all great ideas
>seem to be simple, once you hear about them.
>
>Let's give credit where credit is due.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to denounce the work of Alexy Pazhitnov and Vadim
Gerasimov (Tetris) and Erno Rubik (The Cube).  The entire world owes them a
hearty round of applause for their creations.

But what I meant was that in these two cases (and probably others), these
games are so simple as to be discovered by any civilization, given enough
time.  I'm not saying it doesn't take a great deal of ingenuity to create
them, I'm just insisting that they weren't "invented."  When a new
mathematical theorem or proof is discovered, we give credit to the scientist
making the _discovery_.  And that's a good thing.  But you wouldn't want
copyrights on things like the Mean Value Theorem.  And you wouldn't want
Dr. Mandelbrot to own the copyright to the Mandelbrot set just because he
discovered it.  So why should the "inventors" of Tetris be allowed to own
the copyright to Tetris?  I don't see the reasoning there. 

I realize that my opinions here may be way out in left field, and I realize
that computer games can be copyrighted while mathematical objects and theorems
cannot, but the landscape of the whole thing looks like such a gray area...

--
Todd Lehman
toddl@county.lmt.mn.org