Author of Minecraft's Iconic 'End Poem' Gives Text to the Public Domain Against Microsoft's Wishes

There's a bunch of reasons why Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, one of them being the fact that the Minecraft world is truly open. There's no wrong way to play—one can choose creative mode, in which the player can unlock all the different kinds of blocks available and build almost anything imaginable. Or the player can choose survival mode, where resources are scarce, predators loom, and the game's internal lore becomes more apparent. Anyone who's managed to kill the Ender Dragon has likely read the game's iconic End Poem that appears when the player uses the exit portal before the credits roll. Julian Gough, the End Poem's author, has recently taken to Twitter to announce that he's put the poem in the public domain. Remarkably, Gough managed to hold onto the rights all these years, and now he wants to give it to Minecraft's millions of fans, free of charge. 

While the average person might wonder, "what's the big deal?" many Minecraft fans replied to Gough's thread with heartfelt messages about how the End Poem moved them many years ago.