Deserted Earth bad end

(tags game, PC, shmup, doujin, Windows, ECsite, philosophy)

That last post about "Doujin games, better access?" was totally unresearched and didn't represent the rest of my thought experiment. I really concentrated on creator compensation in that last post. I threw around the phrase "Trusted Computing" without the requisite Wikipedia-level research (that's a laugh). I was hoping that having a dependable system would allow creators to reach audience farther away.

There are many drawbacks for society when creators still have control of their work when it is already in the hands of the viewer. It hinders discourse, artistic criticism, reuse, archeology and historic analysis. Perhaps tens or hundreds of years from now, people will not be able to understand what went on in the Trusted Computing era. They'll have the data and the binary programs, but it will be like sand in a empty, deserted earth, useless.

It really is a battle between the needs of the creator and the viewer. Does the creator "owe" the viewer for anything? Is this a basis for the individual's implicit contract with other people or society? Does a viewer have the right to reuse work? It is ironic that I'm talking about doujin game creators, because they are both viewer and creator at the same time.

I keep thinking back on the humble quote from Issac Newton, "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Who can control the work of ancestors past?

This whole topic is probably too big for my poor video game playing brain to ponder, but it is fun to reach for understanding  for a little while.