Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Chimneys And Tulips

from the like-it's-1923 dept

In our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1923, we had a tie in one of our prize categories, with two entries winning Best Visuals. This week, we're putting the winner spotlight on the first of those two games: Chimneys and Tulips by litrouke.

Graphics are famously among the most labor- and resource-intensive parts of the game development process, so in a 30-day game jam, achieving something visually noteworthy isn't easy. It takes ingenuity and inspiration, and that's exactly what this game has, even if it's a little lacking on the gameplay side. Chimneys and Tulips is a creative presentation of four poems by E. E. Cummings as short interactive design experiences, with a focus on typography. Each one has a different style, and aims to harmonize its graphical and interactive elements with the meaning of the poem.

The first poem, gee i like to think of dead, is presented as a fairly simple linear story, interspersed with illustrative icons, that reveals itself one piece at a time. All in green went my love riding is more intricate, using a "swapping" mechanic for the opening words and offering more and more colorful typography as it progresses. Picasso you give us uses some additional graphics and a simple but captivating animation trick, and is the most visually elaborate of the four. And why did you go little fourpaws deconstructs itself as the user clicks on various words, all the while slowly fading from view.

Though simple, the visuals in Chimneys and Tulips were more closely and thoughtfully united with the game's purpose and content than just about any other entry, which earned it a win for the category alongside another game that we'll feature next week. You can play Chimneys and Tulips in your browser from its page on Itch, and don't forget to check out our other winners as well as the many great entries that didn't quite make the cut.

Filed Under: game jam, poetry, public domain, video games

Glass-Tongued Copyright Troll Thinks Google, Popehat, and Boing Boing Are Engaged In 'Black Hat Seo'

from the what-a-maroon dept

After taking a hiatus from issuing bogus DMCA takedowns against this site, self-proclaimed poet "Shaun Shane" is back at it. The harassment of anyone who dares to publish a certain poem of Shane's -- the one about tongues made of glass -- is a (possibly) Texas-based cottage industry. The harassment continues to this day, but not much of it is directed at Google. Most of Shane's "work" is done over at Twitter, where tweets are greeted with takedown requests.

Presumably, this had led to an immeasurable increase in books sales for Shane. I mean, an unauthorized tweet = 1 lost sale, if I'm not mistaken. Whatever the case is, Shane is back to abusing the DMCA process for something that neither looks like fun nor for profit. Shane has issued several bogus takedown requests over the past couple of months.

Some are normal takedown requests targeting any place that has reproduced his poem. These are fine, but only by comparison. In other requests, targeting TorrentFreak, Boing Boing, Popehat, and Techdirt, some very interesting theories are being advanced. (But not respected. No one is being delisted for the imaginary crimes against IP that Shane has pitched to Google.)

This notice argues contributory infringement, claiming the posting of the poem in full somehow "encourages criminal infringement." That's as sane as the notices get. From there, all bets are off.

This one, targeting a Techdirt URL, attempts to fashion a defamation claim out of thin air (and all without once using the word "defamation").

The reported Url violates Title 28 U.S. Code § 4101 by making the false statement that I do not know the Director John Waters . I have know and been with friends with him since 1984. I was formal film student of his from 1985-86. I acted in the film "Reckless Eyeballs" directed by him. To prove these facts I will provide you with the phone number and email John Waters so you may verify these facts from him directly.

"Reckless Eyeballs" is mentioned on John Waters' Wikipedia page. But there are no links supporting it and it has "this film featured the poet Shaun Shane as the lead" appended to it for no apparent reason. Oh, wait. There's a very apparent reason. The IP address that added the edit traces back to Pearland, Texas, one of "Shaun Shane's" stomping grounds. So, make of that what you will. (And chances are you will make "Shaun Shane did not appear in a John Waters short" of it.)

Another notice, sent April 15, attempts to fashion a conspiracy theory out of Google juice.

I am the Author Shaun Shane, someone is using Bots to artificially raise the reported Url's ranking in Google search results beyond what Google's search algorithm has naturally assigned it and are engaging in "black Seo".

Apparently Shane realized there's no such thing as "black Seo" as the DMCA notices sent the following day attempt to amend that error.

I am the Author Shaun Shane. Someone is using Bots for the reported Url to artificially raise it's rank in Google search results and beyond what Googles search algorithm would naturally assign it and is engaging in Black Hat Seo.

This is better but still stupid. At least we have "Black Hat Seo" instead of "black Seo" to work with, but there's nothing artificial about these search engine rankings. The sites targeted by these notices are all high-ranking sites: Boing Boing, Popehat, Techdirt and… um… I guess, Twitter. (A Popehat tweet is also targeted.)

Welcome back, Shaun. The world is a little duller without you around. We await your newest conspiracy theory about SEO black magic and defamation that dare not speak its name. Meanwhile, we've been given another "anomaly" to file away with the hundreds of others in the annals of DMCA abuse.

Filed Under: black hat seo, copyright, copyright troll, dmca, poetry, shaun shane, takedowns
Companies: boing boing, google, popehat, techdirt

DailyDirt: Creative Bots Generating An Art Overload

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some folks are worried that robots are poised to take over too many jobs, leaving a path of unemployed destruction in their wake. Usually, this fear is limited to jobs related to manual labor and manufacturing, but programmers aren't content to make software that will harvest crops or 3D print car parts. Here are a few projects where bots are creating works of art.

• E-David is a welding robot programmed to paint forgeries of human-made art. It only paints with acrylics, so it's not going to fool any experts, but with a few more software upgrades, it might churn out some nice originals someday. [url]
• Computer generated poetry has been around for about as long as computers have existed, and one poetry software project produced at least a few poems that were a bit quirky and sometimes oddly dark. In 2003, the Darwinian Poetry website attracted the attention of a human audience willing to rate a few thousand poems, but that website is gone now. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like... tears... in... rain. [url]
• Emily Howell isn't a person -- UC Santa Cruz professor David Cope used that name for his software that composes music, a successor to his previous project called Experiments in Musical Intelligence (aka EMI or "Emmy"). EMI produced music that mimicked the styles of human composers, but Emily has developed her (its) own style and can modify her compositions based on audience feedback. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: algorithms, art, artificial intelligence, automation, computer generated art, david cope, emi, emily howell, music composition, painting, poetry, robot, software

How Confusion & Lack Of Clarity In Copyright Law Make Reviewing Poems Difficult

from the can't-quote-this dept

techinabox alerts us to a short NY Times piece by David Orr, in which he notes yet another problem with copyright law, in that publishers are afraid to publish reviews of poems that actually dare to quote the poem, because it might be considered copyright infringement. At issue is that it's not clear what would be considered fair use in quoting a poem -- especially a short one. There are different theories about what's okay, but those theories don't seem to fit well with certain poems. Orr gives an example of a one line poem, and notes that quoting just 5% (a standard some suggest) would mean quoting 2 letters. As Orr notes the whole thing is an "incomprehensible system," and most publishers won't touch anything that might be interpreted as infringing, because they just don't want the headache of a legal battle.

Of course, quoting for the purpose of reviews should be fair use. The US Copyright Office itself uses:

"quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment;"

as an example of what qualifies for fair use. But, tragically, the "excerpts" part of that standard is unfortunately vague, and it limits what people can do.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, poems, poetry, reviews

Poet's Son Says No One Can Quote Father Without Paying Up... Even Academic Dissertations...

from the uh,-that's-not-how-it-works,-son dept

crcb alerts us to the bizarre situation where the son (and heir to the copyrights) of poet Louis Zukofsky isn't just brandishing the copyrights against those trying to republish his works, but he seems to be demanding fees from anyone quoting his father or writing about him -- even academic dissertations. It doesn't appear as if Paul is doing this to protect a legacy or anything (if anything, it sounds like he's not a fan of his father), but he does want cold hard cash:

"I hardly give a damn what is said about my father (I am far more protective of my mother) as long as the name is spelled properly, and the fees are paid."

The full copyright notice is quite a doozy, where the son basically seems to think copyright law means he alone gets to determine what is acceptable and what is not -- and, for the most part, his view is that he doesn't want you ever quoting or discussing his father, but if you must, then he wants money. He also seems to think that fair use is as he defines it, rather than what the law actually says.

All Louis and Celia Zukofsky is still copyright, and will remain so for many many years. I own all of these copyrights, and they are my property, and I insist upon deriving income from that property. For those of you convinced that LZ would find my stance abhorrent, the truth is that he kept all copyrights (initially in his name) as he had the rather absurd idea that said copyrights would be sufficient to allow for the economic survival of my mother, and their son. My stance is congruent with that hope.

Despite what you may have been told, you may not use LZ's words as you see fit, as if you owned them, while you hide behind the rubric of "fair use". "Fair use" is a very-broadly defined doctrine, of which I take a very narrow interpretation, and I expect my views to be respected. We can therefore either more or less amicably work out the fees that I demand; you can remove all quotation; or we can turn the matter over to lawyers, this last solution being the worst of the three, but one which I will use if I need to enforce my rights.

Except that, no, fair use is somewhat broadly defined under the law, and just because Paul wants it narrowly defined, it does not follow that this is the case. As Paul's father, Louis Zukofsky once wrote: "The best way to find out about poetry is to read the poems." Apparently, Paul would like to make that a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive. And, yes, Paul, quoting that was fair use.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, louis zukofsky, paul zukofsky, poetry

$1 Trillion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Oprah Dismissed

from the well,-phew dept

We've seen all sorts of bizarre copyright claims over the years, but I can't recall anything quite like this. Apparently, Oprah Winfrey was sued by some poet for $1 trillion, claiming that the TV talkshow star had ripped off a poem. One would hope that his poetry is better than his legal skills, as the lawsuit was quickly dismissed, noting that the poet failed to register a copyright on his poems, and a prerequisite before a copyright infringement lawsuit is to have the works registered. While it's never good to support bogus litigation, it's difficult not to wonder how this guy planned to substantiate the $1 trillion number. Even the big shots in the RIAA and MPAA don't go that far...

Filed Under: copyright, oprah, poetry

Intellectual Property Laws... Rewritten As Poetry

from the did-you-copyright-that dept

Damn. Techdirt reader Yehuda Berlinger alerts us to the fact that he recently completed rewriting UK Copyright Law, in verse. Yes, he's reimagined the law as a poem. Here's just a clip:

3
You copyright books
And programs, all sized
Written or recorded
Even unauthorized

3A

Databases, too,
By which they mean lists
Of things, are also
In this here gist

4

Art includes maps
And casts of all sorts
Buildings and sketches
So on and so forth

And it's not just UK Copyright Law. He's actually done US Copyright Law, Canadian Copyright Law, US Patent Law and US Trademark Law. It's impressive, to say the least. Berlinger is the first to admit that the poetry isn't particularly good, but says "that's part of the point." He says he does it "because I want to read the actual copyright codes, but can't do it unless I'm entertaining myself in the process. Also, writing summations of each section helps me to remember." Check them all out...

Filed Under: copyright, laws, poetry, yehuda berlinger

Who Cares Whose Footprints Those Are In The Sand... The Real Question Is Who Gets The Copyright?

from the of-all-the-ridiculous-copyright-battles... dept

You've probably come across the infamous "footprints in the sand" poem at some point in your life. It's hard to avoid. It's usually used as a religious parable about having God/Jesus/something "supporting" you during the toughest period in your life. For many years, it was attributed to "anonymous" and found on all sorts of kitschy merchandise. Except, at some point, with all that merchandise, people started to realize that there may be money in "owning" such a poem, and suddenly, out of the woodwork, approximately a dozen different folks have shown up to claim authorship -- with a few filing for the copyright, and a legal battle now ensuing. If you thought the saga over the Happy Birthday copyright was confusing, you haven't seen anything yet.

Some of the stories of alleged authors seem slightly more credible than others, while some are just downright bizarre:

"Meanwhile, there's Carolyn Joyce Carty, the other defendant in Zangare's suit. A self-proclaimed child prodigy and "world renowned poet laureate," Carty surfaced in the "Footprints" debate earlier this decade, saying she wrote the poem in 1963, when she was 6 years old, as an epilogue to a longer story she called "The Footprints of God." Actually, she claims her grandmother first wrote it in 1922, and then young Carolyn wrote it, and it is unclear, from a brief e-mail exchange with a reporter, if Carty understands what it means to have written something. She also filed a copyright on "Footprints," claiming it as her "contribution to society." She maintains a wondrously baffling "Footprints" Web site where, among other things, she claims she wrote the lyrics to "In My Life" before the Beatles did.

The real kicker, though, is that research suggests none of the dozen or so claimants actually wrote the poem or deserve the copyright for it. One researcher has tracked the concept of the story back to a sermon in 1880 and it may go back even further. Even more amusing, that same discussion points to the poet Robert Louis Stevenson writing an essay in 1894, where he discusses tangentially the same idea of footprints in the sand... but uses it to explain why it's so difficult it is for a creative writer to avoid borrowing from the works of those who have come before. Indeed. But, thanks to copyright, there's apparently plenty of money in pretending you came up with the idea all on your own. For one of the many folks who "claim" that she wrote the poem, and who has been most aggressive about licensing it, it has turned into "best-remunerated poem in history," according to her lawyer. Those footprints in the sand sure can carry a lot of weight, but what good does it do if it doesn't come with a copyright and a boatload of cash?

Filed Under: copyright, footprints in the sand, ownership, poetry