It’d be like me donating a dollar to the homeless (did that today). But still you must admire someone who can make that kind of money from products like windows.
- pofo
I don’t understand…one one hand you say that “people will steal it anyway,” and “few people use the copyright anyway,” but then turn around and suggest that if the work is important, one should copyright it. I do not think that the copyright, in and of itself, will protect me. It does provide significant value in two ways, however:
- It provides a culturally-sanctioned means of identifying behavior that is considered wrong.
- It provides a framework whereby individuals that have been harmed, can, if they so choose, seek legal remedy.
Without copyright, neither of these would exist. I would also suggest that your idea of different levels of protection already exists- it’s called discretion, and can be exercised by the copyright holder as he/she/it sees fit.
I’m not suggesting that people won’t steal. But I do think that there’s a vast difference between one idea that says unequivocally, that stealing is wrong (and provides a means of remedy), and one that doesn’t. The reason I believe this is that not everyone thinks like, “hey, if I do this I’m going to be doing something bad.” It’s more like, “hey, if I do this, I’ll get what I want and it won’t cost my anything.” There’s every likelihood that people might very well come to believe that because there’s no immediate physical consequence, there’s nothing wrong with it, and unfortunatley, this kind of thinking has already become standard fare in certain segments of the American culture.
On an unrelated note…does anyone know why, when you logon to elysiun, it times out after only about 5i minutes?
I don’t see what is so hard to understand about this. You are arguing over something that makes absolutely no sense. Of course discretions exsists, what I propose we do, is make a statement with it. You can say whatever you want about the copyright, or peoples intentions to steal, and wave the little copyright symbol around all you want, but that is not change. I say if it is important one should copyright it, beacause that’s what you do, you copyright it.
What is the problem with using your work, that you don’t really mind people using, and providing a system for people to learn from that ? If you can explain why this is bad please go ahead. What you say applies in no way to what I am describing. I don’t see anyone else having problems with this idea. You use the fact that discretion already exsist as an argument to unsubstantiated claims, yet any decision made by a human contains a certain value of discretion.
What I have to say to parnoid people who are scared of people taking their stuff…lock it in a safe or bury it in the backyard! I am not inventing anything, I am not rewriting any law, I am simply devising a way for people to express what it is that they would like to convey through their work as an example to others. If we interface with others more, learn to put more of a personality behind our works, I believe in the end this prevents piracy. What would it be like if Ton didn’t exsist, if Blender was just a program that came out of some company named NaN ? Do you think people would have nearly the same respect ?
As creative artisitc individuals, we need to learn that not only our specific works and compositions, but everything we do (web sites, written articles, quotes, ideas, methods, etc…) conveys something about us. If this is not true then I think everybodies web site would just be a template holding their work. If someone wants to be a no-name, no-face artist, then they have that right. But your works are you, and people want to see that. The Mutual Artistic Respect clause is meant to do nothing more than build better relationships of mutual respect between artists of like causes, sort of a mission statement, which is based on a copyright with exceptions.
I do not see any logical flaws in this thinking. I’m not saying people won’t steal, but unlike a regular copyright, I think if we provide a personality behind the work, a little generosity to back up the personality, and the means (links to easy tutorials and free code…etc…) to create their own works, more people than normal would end up finding artistic pride, and wanting to continue to do more on their own.
For all of the people that are concerned about their work being
stolen(me at first post) you can just put together a legal document.
Could be something to sort of only for non commercial purposes. Or
maybe that when using the file/document/art pice… credit has to be
given to creator, or has to be modified a certain amount.
And then you peoples done talking about Bill Gates. Yea maybe he
gives away so much of his money or whatever. But in relation to
copyrights, how many of you accutualy know how Bill done got DOS and
some of the other basis for windozes. He done stole it from IBM. So
technicly alot of that money isnt rightfully his. Not to mention how he had
basicly had total contol of the cumputer industry. Man he gotta make a
ton then.
My to sense. © rogerm3d 2002
Concerning Bill Gates, even if you was to forget what Microsoft did in the past, look what they are doing now and want to in the future. I hope people start to wake up (it seems some are) and see what Microsoft is doing. Sure, I believe Microsoft has a place to be in the computer industry. (It’s definitely not in servers though, those things get infected faster than a two-cent blind hooker…well maybe not a good example). But the fact is, I here people all the time saying that Microsoft makes such good products, even if they did make good products, they take advantage of their situation and their customers. They don’t care about their customer (unless they’re really big maybe), they care about the cash. A company whos customers meant anything too them wouldn’t try and manipulate and force them into signing contracts, then raise the prices at the same time forcing them to upgrade, while in the meantime squeezing legitimate competitors out of business.
Some people think Linux is restricted, only for those with no imagination. If you use windows, wake up and see how restricted you are. Your hobby, job, and perhaps life is controlled by one comapny. That sure sounds like fun.
For Zarf:
The mailing yourself a copy provides no additional protection. The US mail will happily forward an empty, unsealed envelope through it’s system, postmarking it and everything. The only thing that affords true legal protection would be registration with the US copyright office (or, more obviously, publication of your work prior to the announced creation date of the infringing party, but they would have to REALLY stupid to do that.)
It’s not that I have a problem with this idea, it’s that I’m not sure exactly what you’re proposing. Any artist who publishes something can already attach whatever conditions they want to its use. Whether or not an artist wants to use their work as a means to educate others is a matter of personal choice, but I don’t think this role should be mandated by virtue of the fact that an artist has chosen to publish his/her work.
Are you talking about a cultural change, or a change in the legal environment surrounding copyrights?
I’m just talking about something like the Blender Web Ring. Just to set up a system in which we would be associated with a standard in which we believe in. The only legal parts would be the regular copyright.
Ok…then I completely misunderstood your intent. My apologies.
Thats cool 
…just now we could use some suggestions on how about to start this. I’m leaving for Atlanta for a week on Sunday, but I’ll try and maybe write a little while I’m gone. But if anyone has any recomendations on how we can set this up…please let me know.
I’m thinking like a little paragraph of exclusion, then stating the domain(s) or parts of, to where it applies. Kind’ve like a linked stylesheet, we’ll create a ‘style sheet’ of copyright exclusions and exceptions, which would apply to certain elements thorughout the site (pics, text, code, etc…)