Jeff Jarvis to the AP: "FU"

AP definitely has a point. Take note, NowPubbies: short excerpts, attribution (that means include the original author's name and date ) and a link to the original story and/or originating site (which may be different!).

To be fair though, most English types aren't all that good at math.

Saying "the Internet has been revolutionary" is a more than worn down cliche. But it also too too true. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I know it has altered the way that I shop. These days - whether buying camera equipment, books, car insurance or even Internet service - I shop in my underwear.Those who know me realize that is not a very appetizing thought, but it's the fact. Likely more than just a few of you prefer to shop in your underwear too. Heck, shopping on the net just makes it too convenient.

But our commerce habits aren't the only thing the net has changed - it's changed our ideas of property too, particularly intellectual property. We, who use the net, confuse access with ownership. We think that since the damned work showed up on my machine I can do with it what I please. And that is against the law.

However, I don't think it is necessarily the wrong idea.

There is a movie out - free and legal for downloading - called Steal This Film II. In the content of this argument it is useful to take some time to download and watch the film. From their home page -

If STEAL THIS FILM II proves at all useful in bringing new people into
the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual
property', think creatively about the future of distribution,
production and creativity, we have achieved our main goal.

While I'll not argue about the morality of this issue any further, I do know that we stand at a point where we as a people can choose to regard things and do things differently. It would be nice to see us do something differently for a change.

Mikasi, this is a gem of a statement: " We, who use the net, confuse access with ownership."

Precisely.

I don't get why the simplicity of "excerpt"" with reference is so hard to handle. 

Intellectual property is a real form of property. As Mikasi points out, we shop in our underwear (well, jammies!) these days. Because there's a pretty picture of something and a description, will they send it to me for free when I click on it?

No, I pay for the actual product. I can read a short description of it, maybe even some reviews, but if I want the actual product, I pay for it.

Simple.

Here's a goodie of a comment from ReadWriteWeb: "It's hard to take anyone too seriously who's built a site by squatting on some other sensationalist's name for ten years - but that's what we've got here, a legal spat between a smarmy little social news site and the biggest purveyors of news in bulk in the US (AP)."

This could wind up being one heckuva personal brawl. I want the beer concession for this one! (After all, everyone in the world has uploaded enough photos of beer to my Japanese space beer story, wink!)

Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon, neatly describes the problem at the core of this fight: "

One thing that I always assumed was clear fair use, though, was short excerpts of longer articles, properly credited and linked to, for the purpose of commentary. This meets several of the fair use criteria (amount used, transformation of the work, effect of use on work’s market value) head on.

Of course I Am Not a Lawyer, but I dealt with this sort of thing for years at Salon. (We took considerable umbrage at the way users at certain sites reposted entire Salon articles which they wanted to read and critique. Because they disagreed with us politically, they wanted to deny us the ad revenue we’d get if they read the articles on our site. This was not fair use. But they could have excerpted and linked easily enough!)"

Maireid copyright law doesn't change based on the date of the publication. Some noted authors and historians have damaged their reputations and gotten into trouble lifting material from older books.

If you're concerned about say, linking to an older article, if you can find it, you can link to it. If you want to include a full copy of something older in say, a longer or introspective piece covering past news, write to the person or entity that wrote/published it. Ask to use it, with an acknowledgment of their copyright, on a "one time only" basis, with full credit and links. Many times, people will give you that if you provide that copyright notice for their protection, full credit, links if possible, and the note that it's just a "one time" thing for a specific purpose.

"Fair use" doesn't entirely mean that material can be copied in whole just because there are no fees charged where it's copied to. There are other gains possible, and if pushed to courts, that can be taken into account.

The example I use is simple: if you find an artist who makes wonderful chairs out of hand-bent twigs, can you take one for your own use? No. Even if you say "I'm only displaying this here because it's beautiful and illustrates a point I'm making."

Those of us who deal with oral tradition must walk that fine line between the living force of oral tradition and published work. The oral tradition is an implied shared ownership, but modern published works are more "concrete" and have legal implications.

Can someone take the poetry from my book and publish it as their own? No. Can they publish my works on their website, just citing my name? No. Can they use one or two of my works, with full credit, when I give permission? Yes. One of my poems has its own little gig on the 'net and has had for more than a decade now. So far, it's traveled with my blessings, and that's good. But if someone decided to steal it, that wouldn't be good. (That karma would be a big bite on someone.)

I have the utmost respect for the act of creation and those who create. It's possible to share, and to use what's there to build on, as long as we honor the conventions, legal and ethical, of doing so. And them's my thoughts! Your turn!

Hi PEP, Thanks for that feedback. I decided to check out what Sir Tim Berners-Lee might have to say, and it just so happened to be entirely relevant. :)

http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/blog/4

Reading further into his blog, he has this to say:

"The less inviting side of sharing
is losing some control. Indeed, at each layer --- Net, Web, or Graph
--- we have ceded some control for greater benefits.



"People running Internet systems had to let their computer be used for
forwarding other people's packets, and connecting new applications they
had no control over. People making web sites sometimes tried to legally
prevent others from linking into the site, as they wanted complete
control of the user experience, and they would not link out as they did
not want people to escape. Until after a few months they realized how
the web works. And the re-use kicked in. And the payoff started blowing
people's minds.



"Letting your data connect to other people's data is a bit about
letting go in that sense. It is still not about giving to people data
which they don't have a right to. It is about letting it be connected
to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from
other applications.



"It is about getting excited about connections, rather than nervous."

I rather enjoyed Steal This Film II... the first edition as well ;)

PEP... I am intrigued by the apparent contradiction between your 'utmost respect for the act of creation' and your concept of imaginary ownership that, by nature, stifles creation.

Questions:

1. Would you stop writing poetry if we lived in a world where you had no control over the poem you wrote once it was placed in the public eye?
2. Have the foundations of all knowledge and ideas not come from another person? Put another way, does your poetry not stand on the shoulders of giants?
3. Would you not agree that one of (if not) the most beautiful, lively, elements of oral tradition is the transformation of the oration through minds to mouths to ears to minds to mouths... and the resulting evolution of the oration that occurs?
4. Finally, do you believe you are deprived of something if someone copies your poem cites your name as the author and publishes it in a magazine that sells for $5?

A point to keep in mind for #4-- the classic argument states that you would be deprived of your share of the price of the magazine but your true intent was not to publish your poem in that magazine (otherwise you would have a legal contract)... your true intent was for something different, perhaps emotional. Thus you had no share in the creation, distribution or sale of that magazine... so by what rights are you entitled to any portion of that $5? None. Ahh... but why invoke attribution... what is the entitlement there? Again, none. If anything the magazine editor may have an interest in citing your name as a convenience to its readers (like how you see so many requests for the name of a song used in a youtube video) or perhaps because they feel their readership appreciates citations... they may even appreciate that authors get a portion of that $5, in which case the magazine may decide to do so and publicly state as much.

Sure, its cool to be cool and get overly cited... but why should everyone pretend they can't do something as easy as copying bits when they obviously can? If you want money for your poetry, I have a simple answer: ad-hoc distributed patronage. If you want to be cited for your work: ask the user. If you find your work attributed to someone else: ask for it to be fixed.

If you find no one will donate to your work... that sucks, subsidize it yourself and find something else that might bring wealth. If you find the jerk won't cite you, c'est la vie some people are jerks. If you find they won't fix an incorrect reference, well they may be jerks as well but obviously have quality control problems which will probably lead to their demise anyway. If someone should get rich off your work... good for them, they created something with it you failed to do.

You should keep on writing and set your work free... if it returns in the form of reputation or monetary gains it was meant to be ;)

Don't guilt people into citing you or scare them with virtues of karma... evolution, the grand creator, always builds upon what is here now... attribution is inherit.

---
DEHISTROY.US
(;||<

Thanks for the lengthy comment. There is a difference between oral tradition (I'm a traditional Native American storyteller) and published material that falls under copyright and other laws. Those laws are facts.

If someone uses my poem and resells it, would it harm me? Yes. I make my living as a writer--someone is stealing my work product. While you speak of karma, consider the karma involved in declaring that works of original creation are common fodder and that the creator has no rights nor should expect no compensation. Theft and arrogance proclaiming the right to theft don't create lovely karma.

Do you work for free? Why not? If you're capable of loading bricks, shouldn't you expect someone to use that ability? If you work for free loading bricks, and they make money off it--"good for them, they created something with it you failed to do."

I'll now await your report that you have told your employer to keep your paycheck as all work is an act of creation and you feel it's wrong to be compensated.   :}  

Note: Mike, can we have the "edit" button back for our comments?

Prompt reply ;)

Your use of 'stealing' is hardly the intent of the definition (see: theft).

We must compare the real with the real.

If it suits you, we can continue to pretend that my copying your poem deprives you of some imaginary worth but not of the actual good itself (point: copying). Since however that worth is yet to be realized we need some real metric to determine actual cost... lets use electricity (watt-hours) measured in calories (help). These calories are used by my box, yours, the routers etc... every hop, processor cycle, memory access, disk spin and every 1 on the wire to copy your poem from some place into my place for my use.

Now imagine the calories required for ten minutes of brick lifting.

Since our electrical units are readily convertible to a number of dollars set by an established global market... we can define some measure of real value lost.

For simplicity let's say that, without doing the calculations, the two actions are roughly equal in calorie (dollar) cost... and every time i performed ten minutes of brick lifting or taking a copy of your poem we accept they remain roughly equal.

Now here it appears you may have a point... yet, you don't. One cannot fail to see how the subsidization of either task is distributed. Mainly, brick lifting without financial compensation causes considerably more harm to a market than the harm widely distributed across our copy network. The difference is so stark that one is not sustainable while the other is a result of rampant growth.

See, in the case of the poem the only real loss is so negligible by any given party that it is near zero... so near zero that it incurs less harm than the loss of calories in the left over food you threw away that one time. Whereas lifting bricks for hours without pay severely harms a given party.

Compare the real with the real. Otherwise I will copy your poem, sell it and claim that through my actions you will be cast as one of the great poets of all time.

As for your economic security as a writer... once a poem of yours is in the public eye you can no longer hope to profit from it (though you still may)... your security is derived from the desire of people that, based on your previous work, would like to see you write more and are thus willing to subsidize the costs of your trade... and if they really like you, some profit as well.

See the freedom in all that? Its a fallacy to pretend that copying your intellectual good (easy & convenient) is equal to copying a hand-carved table (I can't carve tables, can you?). Why persist, in contrast to freedom, on imposing a game of pretend on those who would rather not play?

All that said, I was hoping you would answer the questions that I went to the trouble of numbering for you... I mean geez... it was almost like lifting bricks.

---

DEHISTROY.US

(;||<

If I have something for sale and you take it, you're a thief. All the mincing around in the world doesn't change that.

Bye now.

Ahh PEP... come now... it does not take much mincing to copy.... to stop the copying, woo, now that's where the mincing really shows... I mean DRM is awesome, amiright?

I know it can be tough to break free from the chains of intellectual property... I can understand the fear... but... there is nothing to fear but fear itself ;)

I encourage you to research open source economies, they really are better at encouraging growth, freedom, evolution and yes even money to those who produce valuable goods... intellectual or otherwise.

For the record: Would I steal your car? No, but... I am a hacker. I have used others code. I have copied and reverse engineered. I have written in the style of some of my favorite works. I have used the quotes of others for my own purposes. I have sequenced others beat patterns and samples for the music I produce, sung like some singers I have heard. I have scraped data from internet sources for intelligence mining. I have taken others photos and have used them in the pieces I create... I have exploited the work of others for my own benefit without direct monetary compensation (thank you NP contributors)... though I always try to give credit where credit is due, I hardly ask for permission.

Yet if I am a thief, I am also a victim because I have done all of these things to simply learn and/or create under one guiding principal: Share and Share-alike because it doesn't cost much more than $0 to do so.

The rivers want to flow... let 'em.

---

(;||<

I just got this in from Robert Cox of the MBA:

"AP has indicated they do not intend to pursue Drudge Retort further, that the MBA is working to resolve the outstanding issues cited in the DMCA Take Down Notices at a meeting next week and looking to set up a process by which the AP can communicate its concerns without going to DefCon One out of the gate."

Interesting effort to hold discussion futureprogress,

"memes" reflect people's penchant for replication - copying with variation and selection. ...and we are propagating machines - meme machines.

On the positive side, we copy because we like what we see.

The saying "good artists copy and great artists steal" is attributed to Picasso.