Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Not only is the process for creating cultural works different, so is the process for enjoying them and working with them. While a person might enjoy having the rights to modify a book, essay, or movie, the works function as intended without those rights. The same is often not true of code. Users legitimately need the rights to fix and distribute software that does not work properly on their hardware, no one "needs" the right to revise non-variant sections of GNU documentation containing RMS' opinions on free software."
Posted Jul 8, 2011 23:11 UTC (Fri)
by liljencrantz (guest, #28458)
[Link] (36 responses)
Posted Jul 8, 2011 23:37 UTC (Fri)
by cantsin (guest, #4420)
[Link] (3 responses)
Even with contemporary cultural works, there is no such thing as a fixed original. Andy Warhol almost exclusively made images that were based on images made by others (news media, Hollywood, package designers etc.). If you go into any poster shop, you will find color variations of Warhol images that were never produced by himself.
Conversely, software can be a creative expression and/or opinion piece. This is especially true for games, dynamic web sites and mobile phone applications.
It is a valid concern that expression of opinion in a work should not be distorted. A famous example is how a satirical political French novel was rewritten by others into the antisemitic pamphlet "Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion" in the 19th century. Continental European legal systems have a good system for this by differentiating copyright into (a) exploitation/distribution rights and (b) author's moral rights. As an author of a work, you may free the distribution rights and even allow modifications of your work, but in the worst case, legally insist on your moral right that the opinion expressed in the piece is not distorted or perverted.
For free culture, a simple solution could be that modification of a work that changes its contents would necessitate giving the work a different title and attribution, with credits to the original work and author.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 1:43 UTC (Sat)
by wahern (subscriber, #37304)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 14, 2011 21:09 UTC (Thu)
by gezza (subscriber, #40700)
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Posted Jul 14, 2011 18:34 UTC (Thu)
by NRArnot (subscriber, #3033)
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The key would be making sure that if those moral rights are not recognised under any particular local jurisdiction, then trying to take advantage would leave you with no license to modify and distribute at all.
I also wonder whether it would be possible to assert any moral rights in respect of open-source code? A way to fight against "abuse" of one's code by malware-writers or Tivo-izers or even those who wrap it in crapware and sell it for profit? (I'm thinking of Don Knuth's "Literate Programming" at this point. )
Posted Jul 9, 2011 9:33 UTC (Sat)
by eMBee (guest, #70889)
[Link] (28 responses)
invariant sections in documentation would only be ok if they can be removed as
for the most of the rest however i think brockmeiers point still stands. code
there are still exceptions however, one is architecture.
greetings, eMBee.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 15:52 UTC (Sat)
by njs (subscriber, #40338)
[Link] (6 responses)
I know the editor of a very good online poetry magazine[1], publishes some famous people, widely read in its area, and some of their stuff is just amazing. But no-one makes any money off it because, well, it's poetry. One thing they do is put a black-and-white photo next to each poem; it's nice, part of what makes the whole presentation work. So they have to get these photos free, CC-licensed, and if it says no-derivatives then never mind because they usually have to make them black-and-white, and if it says no-commercial-use then also never mind because it may be a shoestring operation but they do pay their poets.
The only way this magazine can exist and do what it does is because there are people who extend the four freedoms to their photos. I know it's not the kind of "problem" you were thinking of, but even so. Is publishing poetry a problem worth solving?
[1] http://stonetelling.com/issue4-jun2011/
Posted Jul 10, 2011 18:47 UTC (Sun)
by cwillu (guest, #67268)
[Link] (3 responses)
They will pay a poet, but won't pay a photographer?
Posted Jul 10, 2011 19:58 UTC (Sun)
by njs (subscriber, #40338)
[Link] (2 responses)
So even if they were able to license photos for $5/each (which is incredibly low, what photographer would find that worth their time?), then they would only be able to publish half as many poems. And it's a poetry magazine, so...
Obviously one could just publish the poems without any graphics, but it really makes a big difference in the presentation. People being generous enough to share their photos via CC without the -nd, is what makes it possible for this really professional, high-quality magazine to exist without a professional budget. 10 years ago it wouldn't have been possible.
[Also, I was wrong -- it looks like they do use CC-nc photos sometimes; it's -nd that's really a problem. But -nd seems to be what this debate is about; the arguments for and against licensing your work -nc are exactly the same for software and other cultural works, AFAICT.]
Posted Jul 11, 2011 6:50 UTC (Mon)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
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Posted Jul 11, 2011 7:56 UTC (Mon)
by wvholst (guest, #67089)
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Posted Jul 12, 2011 6:14 UTC (Tue)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 12, 2011 15:04 UTC (Tue)
by njs (subscriber, #40338)
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Like I said above, this has more to do with social norms among writers than anything else. There's a long history of people scamming writers, so one way to tell whether a market is serious/prestigious is how much they pay, and one way to tell whether a writer is serious is that they insist on getting paid. So it's partly just a way to keep score :-/. I think it'd be fabulous if free culture made more inroads there; just, these are some of the considerations for anyone trying to advocate it...
Posted Jul 10, 2011 16:00 UTC (Sun)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
[Link] (19 responses)
How is it different not to envision all possible changes to your code and not to envision all possible changes to your photographs? What makes you blanket approve the first one and disallow the second one across the board?
Posted Jul 11, 2011 7:27 UTC (Mon)
by eMBee (guest, #70889)
[Link] (9 responses)
on the other hand a photo always includes a message. (it may be a boring message if the photo shows an empty wall, but it's a message) messages can be neutral, or they can be positive or negative. a photo can be used in a negative message, and that makes all the difference for me.
greetings, eMBee.
Posted Jul 11, 2011 13:32 UTC (Mon)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
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So it is OK to use (part of the) code for evil; while it is not OK to, say, render the photograph in B&W or cut out a detail to illustrate a poem on the web. The mind boggles.
Posted Jul 11, 2011 14:10 UTC (Mon)
by renox (guest, #23785)
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Neutrality of the tool? Yeah right, so if you are working in a factory which create guns, landmines, it's the same as working in a TV factory?
> a photo always includes a message.
Uh? The message is provided by the viewer. Different viewer of a photo may see a different message (and some may see no message): your assertion is baseless.
Posted Jul 11, 2011 14:53 UTC (Mon)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (5 responses)
The message behind software can be simple (PGP, patch, gaim), or it can be the incomprehensible result of thousands of stories all coming together in chaotic collaboration (4.2BSD, libreoffice, x.org), but every project and every source file has a message behind it too. Some are tools (great firewall of china), some go far beyond (Debian).
You are presenting a double standard with no evidence to back it up.
Posted Jul 12, 2011 10:49 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (4 responses)
Although there's no technical difference between someone changing someone's code so that it prints out obscenities ("Check out what Jason's program is doing here, LOL!") and copy-pasting a face in a photograph onto a naked body in another ("Check out what Jason's doing here, LOL!"), the latter most certainly offers the biggest bang for the buck if you want to upset people. And although people might be annoyed if someone uses a photo of theirs in an advertising campaign, perhaps because they might have earned some cash for licensing the image, it's a different story to having one's code powering a revenue-generating product when you or someone in the photo appears in an advertisement. Of course there are things like model release obligations that potentially prevent the most blatant cases of "likeness exploitation", but that doesn't address all the other things that people might not want others doing with their work ("Check out Jason's car after this paint job, LOL!"). Sometimes just having artistic works made available is enough of a gift to the commons. Whereas restrictively licensed software can cause immediate practical problems, if someone won't let you redistribute their work in a modified form - say, you want to distribute an image as a wallpaper with a particular aspect ratio - you can always ask their permission.
Posted Jul 12, 2011 18:38 UTC (Tue)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (3 responses)
Too obscure? Biggest bang for the buck for upsetting regular people? You talk about publishing doctored photos of them but that seems easily debunked. I think I'll use 0day to steal their bank and medical records. Or maybe I'll tweak a virus to delete all their files and ruin their registry, maybe even get them to buy a new computer. How about a remote desktop backdoor, or maybe send all audio coming to the microphone to a public ftp server, or do something with all their facebook and email contacts? There are tons of opportunities! Good luck getting anywhere near this sort of mayhem with photo manipulation.
You must admit, the biggest bang for the buck has to go to the coders.
Posted Jul 12, 2011 21:22 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (2 responses)
It was not my point that changing somebody else's code can have severe repercussions; it was that doctoring some "fair game" photo is a sport within everybody's reach (unlike that zero-day exploit) that can have an immediate negative effect on the way people are perceived - it's probably a standard tool of juvenile bullies in this day and age - and may have an emotional effect that singles out an individual as author, subject or artist in a way that a zero-day exploit will not generally do.
Posted Jul 13, 2011 14:27 UTC (Wed)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link] (1 responses)
Best I can tell, you're now talking about some hypothetical world where people are allowed to ignore the licenses on photos and prose but not software? Or maybe all photos and prose are required to be in the public domain?
Neither of those sound like very useful scenarios to speculate about, and they're certainly not what Nina Paley was advocating.
Posted Jul 14, 2011 16:40 UTC (Thu)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
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I am aware of that. I have made photos available under such terms, although admittedly I slapped an NC on the end. No, I am talking about the real world where people might distribute software under copyleft terms but don't feel that they can share a photographic record of their life under the same terms, even if they might want to share that record with others. I certainly don't see that they should be called a hypocrite for that. I'm not even sure that someone who always distributes their software under permissive licences should be regarded as a hypocrite for not doing the same with their own content. Copyleft is all about building a basis for collaboration. Thus, all those arguments about whether licensing stuff under the GPL is fair on other people who build on such work (and claim that they wrote the bulk of the finished product and should decide the final licence) rarely change people's minds because those people don't accept the premise of the thing in the first place. I would think that some artists wouldn't see why people would want to collaborate around their work, which they would regard as a finished article. I wouldn't argue that such artists are generating free content, however. You can claim that people who receive content might not need to actively collaborate around such content, but might want a reasonable set of privileges that permit them to transform the content in practical ways. That gets us onto discussing the integrity of a work and whether it can be realistically preserved while allowing operations which change it in various ways. Whether content with "integrity restrictions" can be considered free content is debatable, but I would think not. Nina Paley's biggest problems are ND (no derivatives) and NC (non-commercial), and I would argue that the bigger of the two problems is ND. As most of us already know, there is a degree of liability or insecurity when building or collaborating around non-free software where ND dictates what can be done. The danger is that people are often led to trivialise the issues because they "got the software for free" or "it's a free download" or whatever, yet the software fills a functional gap and a genuinely free alternative appears unnecessary. A community can be left stranded in an unsustainable situation if that non-free component is no longer usable or available. And I suppose that a "creative community" would be similarly affected if they based a set of works on a similarly non-free image, for example. What I take issue with is that people are labelled hypocrites for regarding software and content differently. The fact is that they do, and people would be better off trying to understand this (and the general reluctance of people to contribute to the free content commons) if they ever want to see NC and ND disappear from the free content scene. An example: I doubt that people would ever want to use my software or even "big name" software to promote forms of alternative medicine, yet I have been asked if someone could use a photo of mine to do just that. I said no. As I noted before, the ethical issues around sharing content confront many more people directly and have an impact at many more levels, like it or not.
Posted Jul 14, 2011 11:45 UTC (Thu)
by sorpigal (guest, #36106)
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Posted Jul 12, 2011 6:48 UTC (Tue)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (8 responses)
Two reason come to my mind:
* Coding is technique, photography is art... different brain hemispheres; while I strive to see how others can improve my code, I prefer my photographs to remain intact.
* After reading all arguments presented, I haven't still seen how freeing my photographs will benefit me. Am I being selfish? Or are those who tell me about the benefits to them, if I shared my work, being selfish?
Posted Jul 12, 2011 8:06 UTC (Tue)
by jezuch (subscriber, #52988)
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Coding - maybe, and I doubt even that. Designing - I do not wish to work with anyone who thinks designing software is merely technique.
Posted Jul 12, 2011 18:48 UTC (Tue)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
[Link]
The link posted by pabs earlier does a good job of showing the confusion in Brockmeier's rant: http://grep.be/blog/en/computer/legal/freedom_II
Posted Jul 13, 2011 16:09 UTC (Wed)
by Otus (subscriber, #67685)
[Link] (5 responses)
Suppose you take pictures of cats and like casual computer games.
1) You share your photo of a cat under a permissive license.
Posted Jul 14, 2011 8:50 UTC (Thu)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
[Link] (4 responses)
I would not hesitate to "donate" a piece of work to any OSS project that could benefit from it (GCompris is the first one that comes to my mind, for example), even if I have no interest in such project.
Posted Jul 14, 2011 9:46 UTC (Thu)
by neilbrown (subscriber, #359)
[Link] (1 responses)
Is it? Would not the game be a derivative work of your photograph, which you have not permitted? Do you really think that cropping, scaling or adjusting the contrast is something that you don't want to allow?
What sort of "Derivatives" do you imagine that you do not want to allow?
> I would not hesitate to "donate" a piece of work to any OSS project that could benefit from it (GCompris is the first one that comes to my mind, for example), even if I have no interest in such project.
That is very generous of you, but how (in general) would anyone know to ask? The real value of a permissive license is that people can use the work without asking. Having to ask is a real cost even when the answer is "yes" - which cannot be assumed.
Posted Jul 15, 2011 10:22 UTC (Fri)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
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>Is it?
Well, I am open to discussions...
>Would not the game be a derivative work of your photograph, which you have not permitted?
As long as the photograph is presented verbatim in the game, I do not see it as a "derivative work".
>Do you really think that cropping, scaling or adjusting the contrast is something that you don't want to allow? What sort of "Derivatives" do you imagine that you do not want to allow?
Yes, precisely those kind of modifications are what I want to avoid. I see a photograph (or a poem, or a song, or whatever other piece of art made by anybody else) as an atomic entity that must be preserver intact; any modification must be approved by the author.
>> I would not hesitate to "donate" a piece of work to any OSS project that could benefit from it (GCompris is the first one that comes to my mind, for example), even if I have no interest in such project.
>That is very generous of you, but how (in general) would anyone know to ask? The real value of a permissive license is that people can use the work without asking. Having to ask is a real cost even when the answer is "yes" - which cannot be assumed.
Considering how much I have benefited from free software, I do not think it is that generous of me, but thanks.
I see your point, and it makes sense; I will think about this, and add a comment to my "license" page.
Posted Jul 14, 2011 10:48 UTC (Thu)
by Otus (subscriber, #67685)
[Link] (1 responses)
Assuming the combination wouldn't be seen as a derivative, the photo couldn't be cropped, converted or otherwise modified for the game's needs.
What license could the game use that was compatible? Even without ND it couldn't use e.g. GPL due to the NC restriction. BSD or MIT for the code and "various licenses" for media?
Posted Jul 15, 2011 10:27 UTC (Fri)
by eduperez (guest, #11232)
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>Assuming the combination wouldn't be seen as a derivative, the photo couldn't be cropped, converted or otherwise modified for the game's needs.
As I have just commented above, I do not see a game that includes a photograph as a derivative work; but those kind of modifications are precisely what I try yo avoid.
>What license could the game use that was compatible? Even without ND it couldn't use e.g. GPL due to the NC restriction. BSD or MIT for the code and "various licenses" for media?
Interesting question...
Posted Jul 11, 2011 9:25 UTC (Mon)
by liljencrantz (guest, #28458)
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I got a bit burned out, but I hope to get the energy and enthusiasm back and hopefully I can rejoin the community.
Posted Jul 10, 2011 23:36 UTC (Sun)
by huayra (guest, #58915)
[Link] (2 responses)
No argumentation, just a plain "Next question, please."
R.
Posted Jul 11, 2011 9:28 UTC (Mon)
by liljencrantz (guest, #28458)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 11, 2011 13:33 UTC (Mon)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
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If he gets the question regularly, he should have an answer at hand...
Posted Jul 9, 2011 5:01 UTC (Sat)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (10 responses)
Users have legitimate reasons to revise and reuse documentation all the time. Invariant sections in the GNU FDL are a legitimate problem and has hindered such reuse within Free software. One could find many examples of this easily. I agree that documentation and code are sometimes treated differently but Zonker is just plain incorrect in what he asserts.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 13:58 UTC (Sat)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (9 responses)
But on the subject of content whose licence does not allow modification, which affects those invariant sections amongst other things, the RMS position on a broader reform of copyright, at least as I remember from a talk he gave a couple of years ago, is that while most content should be freely modifiable there are areas where this can be problematic, two examples being political or ideological opinion (where you don't want someone editing someone's work and attributing a different opinion to the author) and scientific literature (where you don't want someone editing someone's work and giving the impression that some other result or conclusion has been demonstrated).
So I don't think that the assertion that code is different from content is necessarily incorrect.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 20:16 UTC (Sat)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 9, 2011 23:09 UTC (Sat)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (1 responses)
One thing I wanted from the Simplified FDL was a clarification about the "source" form of a work. If someone makes a game and distributes bitmap images generated from vector images, derivatives are likely to suffer if people are only obliged to provide the bitmaps to recipients, since recipients will only be able to tweak the bitmaps rather than have access to the source artwork in vector form and to make higher-quality modifications.
There's an argument that the bitmaps are good enough - people can still modify them and thus enjoy the privilege of doing so - but just as we wouldn't tolerate people sharing the result of the C preprocessor instead of the original C source files, we should demand the acknowledgement of the relationship between different forms of content.
The only game I've ever released has its SVG content licensed under the GPL, just like the game. Indeed, Inkscape has the GPL as one of the licence choices when making images. But it would be nice to afford the privilege of vector modifications to the end-user rather than have them end up with someone's modified bitmaps and a claim that SVG isn't code and thus the GPL doesn't apply.
Posted Jul 18, 2011 9:51 UTC (Mon)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
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Fonts have the interesting property of being both a technical object that needs fixes and updates (Unicode is ever increasing, display technology is evolving) and a work of art.
And BTW this is all a direct consequence of the evolution of the Web (cf HTML5 css font embedding, the Google font directory, that all hapened last year and required legal licensing clarifications) and of new gadgets (smartphone, kindle-like stuff, etc). There have been huge changes there lately, text display is not a solved problem, and is still a central part of any computer system.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 21:06 UTC (Sat)
by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
[Link] (5 responses)
There is already a lot of user-accessible documentation in the GNU and other programs themselves. Some of it is user-accessible, like the string that is printed out when you type --help, or error messages that are displayed. Other programs have really elaborate in-program help systems.
Nearly every piece of code out there has documentation in the form of comments in the code, doxygen tags, annotations, and so forth.
How can you argue that the documentation in the code should be licensed under one license, and the documentation in a separate file should be under a completely different and incompatible license?
Also, if you think a "man" page is political speech, you're doing it wrong.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 22:54 UTC (Sat)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Jul 10, 2011 6:50 UTC (Sun)
by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
[Link] (1 responses)
Your original comment started with "On the subject of the GFDL, I think that someone has to restart the Simplified FDL initiative." Since GFDL stands for "GNU Free Documentation License," I naturally assumed your comment was about documentation!
Personally I don't have a strong opinion about the license scientific literature or political speech should be released under. I just haven't thought about it. But I do have a strong opinion that the GFDL is silly, for the reasons I outlined.
Posted Jul 10, 2011 7:30 UTC (Sun)
by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
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Posted Jul 10, 2011 15:06 UTC (Sun)
by cowsandmilk (guest, #55475)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 10, 2011 19:42 UTC (Sun)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
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Taking a look at the PLoS Open Access definition it notes... That probably works well enough within the scientific community, but what some people worry about is some guy taking a climate science article, for example, and messing with the figures or conclusions and then sticking them in his documentary, just as has been done to criticise scientific work. And by "people who make scientific literature" you mean "people who make scientific literature available", of course.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 6:40 UTC (Sat)
by job (guest, #670)
[Link]
This article is a very long way of expressing personal disagreement and a bit disconnected from contemporary discourse. One pretty important concept around Creative Commons is remixing, brought up here as an example of a right no one needs. Surreal.
It will probably drive some traffic for Network World though.
Posted Jul 9, 2011 13:21 UTC (Sat)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 10, 2011 22:13 UTC (Sun)
by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
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Posted Jul 9, 2011 23:00 UTC (Sat)
by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375)
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You're trying to solve a problem with a copyright licence which is better solved elsewhere: in trade mark. FSF or RMS' branding and market exposure can be used to protect from people copies which reflect badly on them. Anything past this is beating the air.
Posted Jul 10, 2011 20:45 UTC (Sun)
by davide.del.vento (guest, #59196)
[Link] (4 responses)
He says that Free Software solves the "practical problem" of doing something that proprietary software doesn't allow, such as fixing a bug yourself. This is untrue. You could fix this problem in an infinite number of ways, e.g. having access to the source code under a proprietary license and NDA, just for your own bug fixes (in fact this is common practice). You can negotiate with the vendor a gazillion of other options.
Not knowing the Freedom, with Free Culture he does the very same mistake: since he is not an artist, nor does he try to put himself into an artist's shoes, he claims that there isn't any "practical problem", so there isn't the need for Freedom. First, the "practical problem" is there, and even more sore than with software: think about a filmmaker wanting to use some music (usually very expensive, but negotiable), or a plot from an orphan book (usually just plain impossible and illegal). Second, besides the "practical problem", the core of the issue is Freedom, not "practicality". Even more! Since this is culture, the lack of this Freedom, is more strictly related to the Free Speech one: effectively I can't have fully Free Speech Rights with copyright (I'm limited to "fair use", which might be enough most of the times, but not always)
Posted Jul 10, 2011 20:55 UTC (Sun)
by job (guest, #670)
[Link]
Posted Jul 11, 2011 3:45 UTC (Mon)
by jzb (editor, #7867)
[Link] (2 responses)
Exactly. "Wanting." There is no *need* - just want. The fact that Paley and others refuse to make the distinction between an artist *wanting* to appropriate other works and users *needing* to have freedoms to make their computers work is my biggest issue with her Rantifesto.
"since he is not an artist"
And how would you presume to know whether I am an artist or not? Because I don't think like other artists you know?
While I don't claim to be a *good* artist, I do consider myself an artist - and not strictly due to writing. I've spent the last year re-immersing myself in drawing and starting to paint. I've given the issues a bit more thought than you give credit for. You might consider that a person could understand these issues and legitimately come to a different conclusion.
I may *want* to create derivative works of other artists' works - but I do not need to. I legitimately *need* to have a functioning computer to make a living. The two are very different.
Posted Jul 11, 2011 8:19 UTC (Mon)
by cjwatson (subscriber, #7322)
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Posted Jul 11, 2011 8:39 UTC (Mon)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
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No, I don't need to be able to modify the software I use. I do not need it to be free (many programmers work solely with proprietary tools) and I couldn't really say that I need it at all. I *want* them. and I *want* them to be free because it makes my live so much better.
So where exactly is the great difference between me - a software artist and user - and all the other artists and consumers?
His comments make me believe that Brockmeister has never worked on producing documentation. Situations where you could reuse significant chunks of documentation from other sources surface all the time. When I was documenting the ulimit command for fish, I wanted to reuse the bash documentation, since the commands are basically identical. But that wasn't possible, since the Bash manual is released under GFDL and the front page is invariant. I pointed this problem out to RMS a few years ago, and he brushed me aside rather rudely.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
For free culture, a simple solution could be that modification of a work that changes its contents would necessitate giving the work a different title and attribution, with credits to the original work and author.
Or, as the GPL requires, "[t]he work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date."
The problem with both of these suggestions is figuring out what the modifications were. With source code that's comparatively easy.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
part of the software and it should be under the same license as the software
itself.
a whole.
and art are different, for the most part. i don't release my photographs under
a free license, because i am unable to envision everything that people might do
with them. (and i am able to envision things that i don't want my photos to be
used for) as brockmeier says, noone needs to modify my photos to fix a problem
they have.
architecture is as much art as it is function, just like code. and if the
function is broken, then the owner of the building needs the right to change
it, and should not be stopped by the artists right to have his artwork remain
unmodified. (i remember at least one case where an artist in germany
successfully sued a city for modifying a publicly displayed work of art. i
don't remember however if there was a functional reason for the modification)
ps: great to see you here axel, greetings from the fish community. we still love fish and we miss you :-)
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
they have.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
The magazine uses a standard publishing contract that just gives them a non-exclusive license to publish; the copyright and most rights remain with the author. So technically, it depends on the author. In practice, it wouldn't hurt to ask, but, probably not.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
I guess I have no idea what you mean by "fair game" (it's now clear that you're not talking about fair use). CCSA-style licenses require you to accurately show authorship, be clear that you've made changes, etc.
Best I can tell, you're now talking about some hypothetical world where people are allowed to ignore the licenses on photos and prose but not software? Or maybe all photos and prose are required to be in the public domain?
Neither of those sound like very useful scenarios to speculate about, and they're certainly not what Nina Paley was advocating.
A photo may always include a message, but not always the same message. Do you also want to say that -nd means I cannot place your (unmodified) photo in a context which changes the message you intended?
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
2) Someone uses it and other such images in an casual computer game.
3) You benefit.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
> content is necessarily incorrect.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
> scientific literature, for example, you don't modify an existing article
> to include your own results - so you're going to have to come up with
> arguments about those situations, not about whether I think code and
> documentation should have separate licences, which is not something I
> actually advocated at all.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Free Software is about Freedom (whatever you define it, the FSF-like way or the BSD-like way).
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same
Brockmeier: Anti-rantifesto: Why free software and free culture aren't the same