Russian Hacker Creates Unauthorized PC Port of Xbox game: The Dishwasher VS

A Russian hacker who goes by the name of "Barabus" created an unauthorized Windows PC version of Ska Studios’ Xbox 360 game The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and released it last week. [Destructoid.com] [Polygon.com]

So this is my take:

“What has happened here is that, the owner had invested his time and energy to make changes to his own copy, and in his generosity, he shared those changes to his friends and community, but that this kind of production is held as a state-granted ‘exclusive privilege’ (aka monopoly) of the copyright holder. The holder of the monopoly has been given the power to crush any competitors who competes against him in the porting of this game.

If this was true free markets, we say that the Russian hacker who ported the game has outcompeted the devs by providing this service faster and cheaper than the devs could do it themselves. But in monopoly land, doing so is an infringement on somebody’s privilege to be the exclusive provider of this service (copyright infringement). But infringement itself does not constitute moral wrong because he invades no one else’s property. He merely modifies his own legitimate property for which in normal circumstances, he would have had the right to do, but that that some of these rights to his own property has been seeded over to the copyright holder in the hopes that it will "promote the progress of ‘knowledge’ and useful arts" See US constitution copyright clause.

“US Federal Court of Appeals (8th Circuit), in 2012:

“Congress’s protection of copyrights is not a “special private benefit,” but is meant to achieve an important public interest: “to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired.” [ca8.uscourts.gov]

I’m not making this up. Hit Ctrl+F and type "copyright" on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly