Some time ago a website stole some work from dA.(secondary digg) Recently, the website apologizedand dugg the article.

Cue some guy named "nepawoods" wanking all over the post how it wasn't stolen because it was IDEAS and ANYONE who posts IDEAS on the INTERNET deserves to have them redistributed without permission and they have no RIGHTS to protest even though RIGHTS are granted by LAW and he doesn't follow the LAW if he doesn't WANT TO. But not in so many words.

People like you deserve it. You post your work to a site like deviantART which allows anyone to download it without agreeing to any terms whatsoever, and then you start whining about "copyright violation". You're no better than the RIAA.

It's INFORMATION. Once you make it public (in the sense of not secret), others can copy it, and you have no right to control information - i.e. you have no right to control the states of bits of memory in physical hardware that I OWN. Wouldn't it be nice if you could ... yeah, yeah, yeah - I know - but you can't. Get over it.

If you could only defend the notion that it is "stealing". When you steal physical property, someone suffers a loss - they are deprived of that property. When you copy information (be it art, music, whatever), the original remains intact. NOTHING is taken away from anyone. NO ONE has less of anything than they had before.

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Gah.

confluence
2007-03-22 12:57 am UTC (link)

I do really fricking hate it when people use the word "stealing" to describe either plagiarism or copyright infringement. 1) It's emotive, inaccurate language used by companies lobbying for restrictive IP laws; 2) it further conflates these two separate things in the minds of idiots.

That said, this guy is a complete ass, since he apparently sees nothing wrong with a skanky company not only infringing the copyright of, but also plagiarising an independent artist (it's totally the same as sticking it to The Man by filesharing movies!!). Or, you know, the difference between trade secrets and content protected by copyright. Impassioned rants against the system kind of fall flat when you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

*squeegees*

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Re: Gah.

mcity
2007-03-22 01:19 am UTC (link)

The problem with sticking it to the Man is that you're sticking everyone who he's ever slept with.

Wait.

Seriously, you have to shaft all the people who work for him just to get to The Man. And I don't know if I have that kind of shaft in me. I might have to get some other guys, just to help me shaft the Man and everyone near him.

It's emotive, inaccurate language used by companies lobbying for restrictive IP laws

I know of a fair amount of actual people, not faceless 'companies', who use the word thusly. In fact, you just saw a few in the Digg thread. IMO, if a given work or creation is being used or possessed without permission, within reasonable limits, it's theft.

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Re: Gah.

confluence
2007-03-22 07:20 am UTC (link)

I know of a fair amount of actual people, not faceless 'companies', who use the word thusly.

Yeah, I know it's a common usage of the word in some fan circles, and I see the rationale. I still don't like it, and I can see how people from different internet communities can misunderstand each other over the usage of this word. I get the impression that when artists use it they are usually referring to plagiarism (e.g. someone tracing or Photoshopping over someone else's art and passing it off as their own -- so credit is what is being "stolen"). When companies use it, they are complaining purely about copyright infringement (and their usage of the word attempts to evoke an image of tangible and unambiguous material loss). Then there's the separate issue of whether the perpetrator is making money off the infringed or plagiarised work (something else which could be considered "theft"). And there's the problem -- saying "this art has been stolen" does not say which aspect(s) of the infringement you're actually objecting to.

...oops.
*mops up*

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