Sunday Links

[yendi]

FIve short links from Deland, where we're relaxed and enjoying ourselves, finally (and Elayna has evangelized s00j's music to her birth-aunt!).

1. The Jim Henson Creativity Honor – Neil Gaiman, Writer. As it should be.

2. Drunken Lemurs fire casino employee.

3. Free Chicken of the Sea samples (if you're amongst the first 1000 respondents).

4. David Pogue on the generational shift in copyright morality.

5, Finally, the Amazon Video Game Deal of the Day (not enough on the Day before The Day Before Christmas to be worth hyping in its own post) is NY Times Crosswords for the DS for $9.99 (although I should mention that the Toshiba HD player I linked to yesterday has dropped another $4 or so, and is at $178.52, making it way cheaper than the first DVD player I got back in the late '90s).

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*stares at the David Pogue link*

Wow. Just... wow.

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. It's fun information like that that keeps me reading your entries.

[amokk]

2 & 4. Man.

4. I think decades of "free" TV and radio has instilled the idea in people that everything is free. nichy has been dealing with people stealing her icons lately. Some of the responses when she politely asked people to stop? "It's not your image anyway" and in another comm where the discussion came up, I got the response of "if it's on the internet, people expect it to be taken."

People are ignorant of how copyright law works (some still think it needs a © on it to be copyrighted!) and what it means. The analogy nichy thought up was people putting up Christmas lights on their house and someone coming along and stealing them. Well, they were out in public, there wasn't a sign saying don't steal these, and hey, it's not like they're expensive! The person probably has a dozen sets in the basement not even being used.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

I think that analogy is flawed. I think it's much more like someone putting up Christmas lights on their house and someone else coming along and taking pictures of the decorated house.

She can get upset and post a sign in the front yard saying "No pictures please", but nobody has deprived her of anything. She still has her house and she still has her lights, and she can enjoy them anytime she pleases.

[amokk]

The trick is, how do you know it's not depriving someone of something?

Copyright infringement does not require monetary loss.

The problem is digital copying has made it so much easier. Art no longer needs limited print runs, just save another file of it and print it off. But it doesn't change the fact that someone took the time and effort to create something that someone else has stolen and oftentimes claims, either directly or indirectly, is their own.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

"Copyright infringement" is a legal issue. I wouldn't argue that your friend's position is anything but completely within the law. I also wouldn't argue that your friend didn't take time, effort and talent to create those works.

But nobody has deprived her of that. She still has exactly what she had before a copy was made.

Consider this: You worked long and hard to earn enough money to buy a hot new sports car. You're proud of your new possession and how much work you put into getting it. I have a magic wand. I see your car in a parking lot, and I like it. So I wave my wand, and instantly an exact copy of your car appears behind me. I hop in and drive away.

What have you lost?

[amokk]

Just because one can make an exact digital copy does not make it any less IP theft.

You also missed the entire point of that article, it seems.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

I understand your point, I just disagree with it. I would also suggest that the point of the article is to start a discussion about copying as a moral issue, not just a legal or economic one.

Bob worked very hard to create something. Joe snaps his fingers, and the exact same thing magically appears in his hand.

This magical ability creates huge economic issues - it violates the basic assumptions that the whole system is founded on. Suddenly there is such a thing as a free lunch. There will be consequences, there will be chaos, and there will be legal battles as society tries to adapt to this change.

But that's not the point. The point is, on a strictly moral or ethical basis, if Joe snaps his fingers and gets something for nothing, can you call that "theft"? Ethically, is "theft" the act of getting something without effort, or is "theft" the act of depriving another person of something in their possession?

[amokk]

Theft is acquiring goods or services without rendering payment of some sort, also taking goods or ideas and presenting as one's own. Theft is also depriving another person of something in their possession.

So, in short, yes.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

Well that brings up deeper questions - Is 'something for nothing' always theft?

If I develop the ability to create food, for instance, and now I don't have to pay the farmers or the grocery store in order to eat, am I stealing? From who?

If I plant a seed from a fruit I bought in my backyard, grow a tree and harvest the fruit, am I stealing? If so, from who? If not, how is that different?

If I give this ability to magically create food to the entire world, so that now nobody has to go hungry and nobody needs to buy food ever again, is that stealing? Again, from who?

Lastly, what if I didn't create food, but instead magically changed myself so that I no longer needed to eat - I could live off sunlight, for instance? And shared that ability with the entire world as well? Are we stealing, and from who?

[amokk]

No, "something for nothing" is not always theft. If I grow my own food, I'm not stealing from farmers who try to sell the same thing on the market.

It's different because no one had to take hours of work to create that seed.

[litch.livejournal.com]

Wierd, looks like I am on the other side of the generational gap because I agree with the young people. I think the first comment is the most insightful (all the people "harumphing" about lack of education are so full of themselves they leak), the problem is that the concept of public domain has been pushed back for over a hundred years until it is almost meaningless. The last decade we've begun to see a grass roots resurgance in reclaiming the public domain but our actions as a society and our laws are out of sync.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm there as well. I see several cases that are illegal, but only one that is wrong. And a very small wrong at that.

Particularly in the case of backup and replacement copies: it is the media industry's clearly expressed position that I'm not buying the music, I'm buying a right to listen to the music. Following their own argument, there is no reason why my right becomes invalid just because my CD got scratched, broken or lost. In fact, that right still exists even decades after my CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, cassette tapes, eight-tracks, VHS, Betamax, vinyl or shellac records or even wax gramophone cylinders become obsolete.

Personally, I think they're all buggy whip manufacturers trying desperately to stay relevant in the age of the automobile. They seem to believe that because they've made profit in the past, they have a right to remain profitable forevermore.

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

Hey Yendi,

Thought of you. (http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/jessecuster2/http___www_beerorkid_com_wp-content.jpg) :)

... so hope that works.

[yendi]

Hee! Yeah, I saw that on Boing Boing the other day. :-) Needless to say, I love it.