this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Without capitalism Tetris would have remained an obscure piece of shareware probably vaguely known outside of ex-soviet nations. It's only the desire to monitise the IP that saw it on every platform under the sun and packaged with every Gameboy.
Yeah, the creator didn't profit at the time because of communism and their belief that his creation belonged to the state. If he had been in a capitalist country at the time he could have copyrighted his game asap and exploited it for profit himself.
At the very least a smart creator in the US can go to a solicitor and make sure he isn't being mugged off before they sign a deal, you didn't have that that with the Soviet Government.
Yes lots of creators have been screwed by the people that worked for, notably in the comics field. But a lot of the time it's because they signed a contract having no inkling how big the work would be.
I don't believe some people were tricked but we're a victim of their own success. Take Alan Moore and Watchman for example. He signed the deal that he would get the rights to the book back once it went out of print as that's how the industry model worked at the time. The book was so popular that it's stayed in print for the last 40 odd years, so the rights didn't revert. Maybe DC should have renegotiated things in light of that, but I see that he and they went into the deal on good faith based on industry realities at the time.