> But you are not the one publishing it! Someone else is, because they copied your public-domain game and put their name on it. That someone else is getting a lot of money, and you aren't.
That is going to happen. Not all countries have or enforce copyright laws even if you rely on those.
It would however be trivial for the author to go public proving the third party game used their code without attribution. Apple famously used openstreetmap data without crediting them and openstreetmap publicly shamed them until they corrected the mistake.
People should have attribution if they ask for it, but it also should not be legally enforced. Only socially and technically.
> Really? I genuinely don't understand how you can not see how it is a problem?!
Anyone in the connected world has likely benefited from software I have written or security bugs I have identified and helped get fixed. Some of that work took years with little to no pay.
If you can get my work to more people than I can, do it!
My experience is still easy enough to monetize enough on a contract basis to pay my bills, and that is plenty. Often people pay to prioritize what features I add to open source projects they benefit from. Paid or not, I am always happy knowing my work benefits as many people as possible, rather than having it benefit only those that can afford to pay for it. My ego is not so fragile as to demand my name be in everyone's faces all the time.
Our mission in life as humans should not be about maximizing dollar amounts in our bank accounts. It should be about maximizing the amount of value we can give back to society. If value can be copied and replicated to benefit a lot of people, that is amazing! Shame we cannot do that with food, but at least we can do it with information, media, etc.
