I don't know what "left of center" has to do with it.
The left is more likely to support government-provided services than the right, which usually advocates for privately-owned services, even if those services are paid for with government money.
Still there's a lesson here: people would love to see the government create an actual national free public WiFi network. I wonder if any of our representatives or agency directors managed to pick up on that subtext.
That was my thinking after reading the Techdirt analysis. While the media got the story wrong, the idea of government spending going into improved infrastructure has been popular among left of center circles for a long time. Gets money into the economy and improves the country, too.
This story is a couple of days old, but I just saw it today.
Robohand: How cheap 3D printers built a replacement hand for a five-year old boy | Ars Technica: "Now, those two men—Ivan Owen in Bellingham, Washington and Richard Van As in South Africa—have published the design for Robohand, the mechanical hand prosthesis, on MakerBot's Thingiverse site as a digital file that can be used to produce its parts in a 3D printer. They've intentionally made the design public domain in the hopes that others around the world who don't have access to expensive commercial prosthetics (which can cost tens of thousands of dollars) can benefit from it."
How Oreo was ready to take advantage of the blackout
How Oreo Culture-Jacked The Super Bowl - Speakeasy - WSJ: “Because Oreo was a Super Bowl advertiser, we had set up a team of folks at our offices with people from Oreo as well to both listen to and optimize the chatter on the Internet,” Sarah Hofstetter, president of 360i told Speakeasy via email. “While we certainly didn’t expect the blackout, the team’s first instinct upon the blackout was to figure out how Oreo can be relevant in the moment. Having a full team of creative, social media experts and the brand made it quick and seamless.”
Re: Re: Re: Here's the flip side of online culture
Glee has millions of dollars, years of praise for originality, and multiple musicians/choreographers/music producers/etc involved in the production.
I've posted the video comparison of the famous duet with Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and the very close mimic on Glee. It was viewed as an homage to the original. So I think Glee fans do get that not only does Glee do mostly covers, the covers can be done in the same fashion as the original. Glee is known for doing covers.
But when some reposts or shares something on Facebook, nobody will generally assume they were the original creator.
My point is that after something gets passed around in Facebook, the original creator is lost and people don't bother to check. That's going to become more the norm as the sharing culture increases. That's what I am saying. Sharing often results in credits being lost along the way. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just going to happen. It's the same way I view unauthorized file sharing. I don't think it's worth bringing out the lawyers to fight for or against it. It's just the way things are now.
I'm rather blasé about both copyright and credits because I see bigger issues in the world.
When you're at a live show and the band performs a song they didn't write themselves, how often do they announce before or afterward who wrote and/or recorded and/or produced/arranged the original version of the song?
Here's a great example I am facing today. A Facebook friend (I'll call him Sam) just shared a photo on his page. The credit for the photo goes to someone (I'll him Doug) who used the photo as his cover shot. Since I want to share the photo, too, but I always want to make sure the actual photographer gets credit, went to Doug's page to see more info about the photo. There is none. And looking at Doug's Facebook page, there is no indication that he takes photos. So I am guessing he took the photo from somewhere without giving credit to the photographer. Since I am not Doug's Facebook friend, I can't comment under the photo to ask who took it.
The next step I took was to look for the photo in Google images. But I couldn't find it.
Finally I shared the link to the photo (but just to the photo, not to Doug's page) asking if anyone recognizes the photo and who took it.
Now, how many people do you think would go to so much trouble just to share a photo on Facebook?
I saw the photo because Sam shared it. According to Facebook, it is now being treated as Doug's photo. I could have shared it, too, as Doug's photo, but decided not to because I didn't want to encourage the world to think it is Doug's photo until I have confirmed it. But basically, the more it gets shared as Doug's photo, the more the world will perceive it as Doug's photo until someone points out that isn't. But by then, it will have been shared so much as Doug's photo, I doubt people will go back and give the original photographer the proper credit.
What I have been saying is that what happened to Coulton happens to others, but he's gotten more attention/outrage because he's visible in the tech community. I'd like to see more consistent standards. My thoughts are that there will be more unattributed use/sharing as the amount of it increases. So I'd like to see more dialogue on who credits a work, who should get credit, what happens when someone doesn't get credit, etc.
I lean heavily toward the democratization of art, which means I think technology will enable more people to make it. But in the process, figuring out who made what contribution to each creative work will become less the norm. I think the outrage over Coulton is a bit of a step backwards. I can certainly understand why he's upset, but I think what happened to him will become very typical.
I keep coming back to the fact that showing outrage on Coulton's behalf without looking at bigger picture issues is something of a double standard.
If people expect credit to be given for every creative work, how will this be implemented? How do you enforce a "full credit society?" How many years and through how many modifications should credit be attached?
Should we have more sites like these so we can be ever vigilant when a work is copied/used/modified/mimicked without credit?
Required licenses tell music users who they must pay.
However, assume there are no licenses and it's up to the user to decide whom to credit. Here are just some of the people who might deserve credit: the music composer, the lyrics writer, the performer, the producer, the arranger. Credit is a good thing, but I don't think everyone is going to get their names mentioned every time.
I think Techdirt might be taking cybercrime less seriously than others.
Eric Schmidt Speaks to China Hackers - Business Insider: “'The disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States at a distinct disadvantage,' Mr Schmidt wrote, according to the Wall Street Journal. He argues that the Chinese state backed cyber crime for economic and political gain, making it the biggest online menace in the world....
"Mr Schmidt and Mr Cohen come close to suggesting that western governments imitate China so they are not disadvantaged by its activities."
Aside from the well-documented Slenderman phenomenon, dozens of new characters added to that universe in the last couple years. Sometimes a character will be so popular that it'll gain a following, and its customary to add "Character X" is (c) "such&such" at the end of any fanart submission about one of those characters. It's a whole "respect the original creator" mentality of that group. Hell, I've seen people give credit to an artist when they mimic the artist's style of drawing characters in that group.
I think it is easier to promote and maintain a culture of attribution within a community, especially one where everyone knows everyone's work already and everyone has agreed to post the proper credit.
But for a bigger community, Facebook for example, stuff gets passed around and it's very common to hit share without knowing who created it. Many graphics/photos get shared that are identical but have different sources attached to them. It's often very hard to know who came up with the creation first, nor do most people care. If it's funny, insightful, or cool, people share it with very little concern about attaching the proper credit. And they probably don't know how to find out who created it, even if they wanted to. It's the thing itself, not the creator, that is the focus.
The primary time the source enters in is when you want to link something, say a quote, to someone. And as we all know, often people claim celebrities or famous dead people have said stuff that they never said. So we also get fake credits.
I probably pay more attention to all of this than most. I'm a big fan of photography and of interesting quotes, so I am always trying to track down stuff. Much of the time I find the credits are either wrong or non-existent.
Actually I have a good example of how I have done it myself. Someone will post a photo on Facebook that I like. I'll hit share, and frequently the name attached to the photo is the person who shared it where I saw it, not necessarily the photographer.
In some cases I have been curious enough about the photo (as in the case of a very dramatic natural disaster photo) to actually try to pin down where it came from. I've done Google image searches and often find that the photo was actually taken years earlier and has nothing to do with the natural disaster it supposedly portrays. So even though the credit is wrong, the date is wrong, and the location is wrong, the photo continues to get passed around on Facebook and the Internet and most people showing the photo to friends don't know that it is inaccurate.
While it would certainly be nice if everyone always gave credit, we also see cases where credit intentionally isn't given. So, what do we do? Should we be prepared to monitor everything for misuse or lack of proper credit? I'm not proposing a solution. I'm just repeating my skepticism that credit is going to be routinely be given and that we'll be able to get everyone outraged when it doesn't happen. Unfortunately I think there will be too many cases where credit isn't given for it to become a continuing story.
Anyway, licensing's a bitch. Having one more credit just makes it more of a bitch.
I think everyone is going to have to get used to not necessarily getting credit, for this reason and others. The farther something moves down the line, the less likely it will be that the first person to do it gets credit.
As I have said before, I'm not saying that this is a good or bad thing. It's just going to happen. And the more everyone engages in modifying/copying/mimicking what they find, the less I think they will assume it is necessary to trace the history of the idea.
I think it is a worthy discussion: the nature of participatory art and the idea that individual creators become less important than what is created in the aggregate. It will change the nature of creatives and their fans, because the lines will blur. We may find ourselves motivated more by self-satisfaction and the exchange among our small circle of friends than worldwide recognition for what we create or think we have created.
The Internet has been promoted as a way for unknowns to become famous. But it may actually become a way for fame to become less relevant. As everyone seeks an audience, there are no more audiences to amass. Of course, I know that in actuality the long tail hasn't worked out that way and "hits" have actually become more important. But, on the other hand, the lifespan of a hit and its creator is becoming shorter and shorter. As people become empowered to create themselves, I think they will be less impressed by those "hit" creators.
This is just another example of Mike Masnick being a Google shill, he writes nothing but praise for them and never says anything bad about them...
Wait.
*Actually reads Article*
Actually the two recent Techdirt negative articles about Google weren't written by Mike. This one and the previous one were written by Glyn Moody.
When push comes to shove for a publicly traded company, what's best for the company is going to dictate what the company does and stands for.
That's why I think there are far bigger issues than what the big tech industry wants. If you want significant changes, I think you'll need to look at campaign financing, how we view ownership, and whether the goal of business in general should be to grow big, or whether it might actually be better to support companies that stay small and even self-destruct once they reach certain goals and/or outgrow a certain size.
If you believe disruption is a good aspect of technological advancement, then you need to look ahead to what will disrupt the big corporate players of the present.
While some folks believe it is wrong to advocate income redistribution among individuals and companies, if you have certain societal goals that encourage the decentralization of wealth/power, then it is a perfectly legitimate societal goal to look for ways to discourage/prevent concentration of wealth. And this can extend to global politics. Is it in the best interests of the world to have a few superpowers? It can be, if it results in a level of stability. But, on the other hand, there can be arguments against allowing a few empires dominating the world.
If you are famous, like Barbra and Judy and Fox mimics your arrangement, everyone is cool because it is an homage.
If you are a nobody, you can't get the fans to be outraged on your behalf because you don't have enough fans to get coverage across the media.
Coulton is the situation where he feels he's not famous enough that people will know it's his work without credit from Fox, but he's famous enough that when he complains, he gets press.
So rallying your fans to get mad at someone as big as Fox is good if you have enough fans to rally, but gets much less attention if no one picks up the story. Or worse, if you're used as an example of someone who doesn't want to share your ideas in exchange for exposure.
That's my issue. Varying standards of outrage depending on who you are.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't reform make each less accountable to the other?
For example, one version of copyright reform would be changing the mechanical licenses for derivative works such that they do cover more creative and different arrangements, while at the same time establishing clearer boundaries between derivative works and transformative works, and creating new mechanical licenses to cover things like synchronization for broadcast. In such a setup, everyone could potentially get paid for the use of their creative contribution without the need for "permission" complicating things or slowing them down.
The reform I described would be less restrictive while also providing greater protection (and greater clarity of legal status) to Coulton's work... so I think your premise is flawed.
It would clarify the system, but I'm not sure I'd call it less restrictive. To me it extends copyright to more creations. That's good if you want that, not so good if you want fewer works protected.
I can certainly understand people pointing out the flaws in copyright. But I'm not sure what will happen when more nuances are added. My primary interest in all of this is Coulton's sense of violation. I don't see him being victimized any more or less than others who have been copied. If his cause is a righteous one, then I think everyone in his situation should also become poster children for the issues. Or let's back away from it and ask why he's being elevated to the poster child while others have not been.
I'm not sure I follow your meaning. I am just pointing out that it creates a very unclear legal situation -- not advocating any particular interpretation of the law or who was in the right/wrong here.
Yes, I get that. And I'm just pointing out that I don't think protecting Coulton's interests legally is what the copyright reform movement probably wants to have happen.
Yes, I think it is fair to point out the flaws in copyright law. But the issue with Coulton may be "Be careful what you wish for."
On the post: The Real Story Behind 'Super WiFi' And The Fight Over Spectrum; It's Not What You Read Yesterday
Re: Re: Re:
The left is more likely to support government-provided services than the right, which usually advocates for privately-owned services, even if those services are paid for with government money.
On the post: The Real Story Behind 'Super WiFi' And The Fight Over Spectrum; It's Not What You Read Yesterday
Re:
That was my thinking after reading the Techdirt analysis. While the media got the story wrong, the idea of government spending going into improved infrastructure has been popular among left of center circles for a long time. Gets money into the economy and improves the country, too.
On the post: Nokia Releases 3D Printing Kit For Anyone To Print Their Own Phone Cases
Even cooler
Robohand: How cheap 3D printers built a replacement hand for a five-year old boy | Ars Technica: "Now, those two men—Ivan Owen in Bellingham, Washington and Richard Van As in South Africa—have published the design for Robohand, the mechanical hand prosthesis, on MakerBot's Thingiverse site as a digital file that can be used to produce its parts in a 3D printer. They've intentionally made the design public domain in the hopes that others around the world who don't have access to expensive commercial prosthetics (which can cost tens of thousands of dollars) can benefit from it."
On the post: Oreo Wins The Superbowl Ad Wars With A Timely Tweet
How Oreo was ready to take advantage of the blackout
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Re: Re: Re: Here's the flip side of online culture
I've posted the video comparison of the famous duet with Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and the very close mimic on Glee. It was viewed as an homage to the original. So I think Glee fans do get that not only does Glee do mostly covers, the covers can be done in the same fashion as the original. Glee is known for doing covers.
But when some reposts or shares something on Facebook, nobody will generally assume they were the original creator.
My point is that after something gets passed around in Facebook, the original creator is lost and people don't bother to check. That's going to become more the norm as the sharing culture increases. That's what I am saying. Sharing often results in credits being lost along the way. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just going to happen. It's the same way I view unauthorized file sharing. I don't think it's worth bringing out the lawyers to fight for or against it. It's just the way things are now.
I'm rather blasé about both copyright and credits because I see bigger issues in the world.
On the post: Jonathan Coulton Publicly Shames Fox For Copying His Arrangement In Glee
Here's another question for you
On the post: Jonathan Coulton Publicly Shames Fox For Copying His Arrangement In Glee
Re: Re: Re: What's the bigger solution?
The next step I took was to look for the photo in Google images. But I couldn't find it.
Finally I shared the link to the photo (but just to the photo, not to Doug's page) asking if anyone recognizes the photo and who took it.
Now, how many people do you think would go to so much trouble just to share a photo on Facebook?
I saw the photo because Sam shared it. According to Facebook, it is now being treated as Doug's photo. I could have shared it, too, as Doug's photo, but decided not to because I didn't want to encourage the world to think it is Doug's photo until I have confirmed it. But basically, the more it gets shared as Doug's photo, the more the world will perceive it as Doug's photo until someone points out that isn't. But by then, it will have been shared so much as Doug's photo, I doubt people will go back and give the original photographer the proper credit.
On the post: Jonathan Coulton Publicly Shames Fox For Copying His Arrangement In Glee
Re: Re: What's the bigger solution?
I lean heavily toward the democratization of art, which means I think technology will enable more people to make it. But in the process, figuring out who made what contribution to each creative work will become less the norm. I think the outrage over Coulton is a bit of a step backwards. I can certainly understand why he's upset, but I think what happened to him will become very typical.
On the post: Jonathan Coulton Publicly Shames Fox For Copying His Arrangement In Glee
What's the bigger solution?
If people expect credit to be given for every creative work, how will this be implemented? How do you enforce a "full credit society?" How many years and through how many modifications should credit be attached?
Should we have more sites like these so we can be ever vigilant when a work is copied/used/modified/mimicked without credit?
Who stole my pictures? :: Add-ons for Firefox
you thought we wouldn't notice
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
The complications of credit
However, assume there are no licenses and it's up to the user to decide whom to credit. Here are just some of the people who might deserve credit: the music composer, the lyrics writer, the performer, the producer, the arranger. Credit is a good thing, but I don't think everyone is going to get their names mentioned every time.
Just 5% of today's best-selling songs are written solely by their performer | Music Week
On the post: Cyber War: A One-Sided Battle Against A Trumped Up Enemy
I just saw this
Eric Schmidt Speaks to China Hackers - Business Insider: “'The disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States at a distinct disadvantage,' Mr Schmidt wrote, according to the Wall Street Journal. He argues that the Chinese state backed cyber crime for economic and political gain, making it the biggest online menace in the world....
"Mr Schmidt and Mr Cohen come close to suggesting that western governments imitate China so they are not disadvantaged by its activities."
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Re: Not only musical artists
I think it is easier to promote and maintain a culture of attribution within a community, especially one where everyone knows everyone's work already and everyone has agreed to post the proper credit.
But for a bigger community, Facebook for example, stuff gets passed around and it's very common to hit share without knowing who created it. Many graphics/photos get shared that are identical but have different sources attached to them. It's often very hard to know who came up with the creation first, nor do most people care. If it's funny, insightful, or cool, people share it with very little concern about attaching the proper credit. And they probably don't know how to find out who created it, even if they wanted to. It's the thing itself, not the creator, that is the focus.
The primary time the source enters in is when you want to link something, say a quote, to someone. And as we all know, often people claim celebrities or famous dead people have said stuff that they never said. So we also get fake credits.
I probably pay more attention to all of this than most. I'm a big fan of photography and of interesting quotes, so I am always trying to track down stuff. Much of the time I find the credits are either wrong or non-existent.
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Re: Here's the flip side of online culture
In some cases I have been curious enough about the photo (as in the case of a very dramatic natural disaster photo) to actually try to pin down where it came from. I've done Google image searches and often find that the photo was actually taken years earlier and has nothing to do with the natural disaster it supposedly portrays. So even though the credit is wrong, the date is wrong, and the location is wrong, the photo continues to get passed around on Facebook and the Internet and most people showing the photo to friends don't know that it is inaccurate.
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Here's the flip side of online culture
5 ways online photos get stolen - MarketWatch
On the post: Just Weeks Before Coulton Story, Glee Was Accused Of Copying Without Credit On Another Song
Re: Licensing headaches preemption...
I think everyone is going to have to get used to not necessarily getting credit, for this reason and others. The farther something moves down the line, the less likely it will be that the first person to do it gets credit.
As I have said before, I'm not saying that this is a good or bad thing. It's just going to happen. And the more everyone engages in modifying/copying/mimicking what they find, the less I think they will assume it is necessary to trace the history of the idea.
I think it is a worthy discussion: the nature of participatory art and the idea that individual creators become less important than what is created in the aggregate. It will change the nature of creatives and their fans, because the lines will blur. We may find ourselves motivated more by self-satisfaction and the exchange among our small circle of friends than worldwide recognition for what we create or think we have created.
The Internet has been promoted as a way for unknowns to become famous. But it may actually become a way for fame to become less relevant. As everyone seeks an audience, there are no more audiences to amass. Of course, I know that in actuality the long tail hasn't worked out that way and "hits" have actually become more important. But, on the other hand, the lifespan of a hit and its creator is becoming shorter and shorter. As people become empowered to create themselves, I think they will be less impressed by those "hit" creators.
On the post: Google's Other Bad Idea: Offering 50 Million Euros To French Newspapers [Updated]
Re:
Wait.
*Actually reads Article*
Actually the two recent Techdirt negative articles about Google weren't written by Mike. This one and the previous one were written by Glyn Moody.
On the post: Google Decides Smartphone Market Share Is More Important Than Net Neutrality
The nature of corporate ownership
That's why I think there are far bigger issues than what the big tech industry wants. If you want significant changes, I think you'll need to look at campaign financing, how we view ownership, and whether the goal of business in general should be to grow big, or whether it might actually be better to support companies that stay small and even self-destruct once they reach certain goals and/or outgrow a certain size.
If you believe disruption is a good aspect of technological advancement, then you need to look ahead to what will disrupt the big corporate players of the present.
While some folks believe it is wrong to advocate income redistribution among individuals and companies, if you have certain societal goals that encourage the decentralization of wealth/power, then it is a perfectly legitimate societal goal to look for ways to discourage/prevent concentration of wealth. And this can extend to global politics. Is it in the best interests of the world to have a few superpowers? It can be, if it results in a level of stability. But, on the other hand, there can be arguments against allowing a few empires dominating the world.
On the post: Broken Copyright: Jonathan Coulton Is Actually Infringing Copyright, But Glee Is Not
Here's my take
If you are a nobody, you can't get the fans to be outraged on your behalf because you don't have enough fans to get coverage across the media.
Coulton is the situation where he feels he's not famous enough that people will know it's his work without credit from Fox, but he's famous enough that when he complains, he gets press.
So rallying your fans to get mad at someone as big as Fox is good if you have enough fans to rally, but gets much less attention if no one picks up the story. Or worse, if you're used as an example of someone who doesn't want to share your ideas in exchange for exposure.
That's my issue. Varying standards of outrage depending on who you are.
On the post: Broken Copyright: Jonathan Coulton Is Actually Infringing Copyright, But Glee Is Not
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't reform make each less accountable to the other?
The reform I described would be less restrictive while also providing greater protection (and greater clarity of legal status) to Coulton's work... so I think your premise is flawed.
It would clarify the system, but I'm not sure I'd call it less restrictive. To me it extends copyright to more creations. That's good if you want that, not so good if you want fewer works protected.
I can certainly understand people pointing out the flaws in copyright. But I'm not sure what will happen when more nuances are added. My primary interest in all of this is Coulton's sense of violation. I don't see him being victimized any more or less than others who have been copied. If his cause is a righteous one, then I think everyone in his situation should also become poster children for the issues. Or let's back away from it and ask why he's being elevated to the poster child while others have not been.
On the post: Broken Copyright: Jonathan Coulton Is Actually Infringing Copyright, But Glee Is Not
Re: Re: Re: Re: But wouldn't that mean...
Yes, I get that. And I'm just pointing out that I don't think protecting Coulton's interests legally is what the copyright reform movement probably wants to have happen.
Yes, I think it is fair to point out the flaws in copyright law. But the issue with Coulton may be "Be careful what you wish for."
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