Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Intellectual Property

It appears the uncouth jerks over at a blog-that-won't-be-named-here are still claiming that "intellectual property" just refers to the stuff you only think you own. Their latest known victim disagrees.

Srsly, that unmentioned blog? Don't link to them. Don't treat them as your ethical equal, because they are not; they don't even understand the difference between "trade" and "theft." (Or, it would seem, much HTML, as the site-owner attempts to join the aristocracy of ignorance.)

Geesh.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, it works for Fareed Zarkaria!

/sarc

I suggest that attribution is a bit of a problem in the internet age as (A) linking to a photo or article is very easy and (B) everybody does it under rules that are not at all well-defined.

For example, if I merely copied a post you wrote, slapped it under my name, and "published", that would pretty clearly be plagiarism. But what if I did the same but also noted that it was written by you? Or offered a hyperlink? Bloggers do this all the time with various news articles, etc.

It strikes me that the sin here is that he claims "by courtesy", which is, indeed, a dishonest statement.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Agree with docjim. Courtesy implies that one sought permission first. Doesn't sound like he sought it, and certainly without the link-back it wasn't very courteous at all.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Hopefully, someday soon, they are going to steal something from a Blogger that has a "Fistful of Lawyers."

Bear said...

I gave fighting the pirates. I just don't write anymore. Let 'em steal that.

Still trying to understand why so many people wanted to download my dreck anyway.

Alan said...

As much as I dislike the site in question, if they'd followed normal Internet protocol and linked the photo back to my blog I wouldn't have minded. (too much)

Linoge said...

And that is, unfortunately, the core problem, Les - no one Farago steals from is in any real position to do anything about it. Until he does something actionable, he will just keep on keeping on.

Of course, given the negative attention Farago's site has garnered over the years, I really have to wonder who his readership / commenters are, especially sine there is functionally no overlap between them and readers / commenters at actual gunblogs.

Roberta X said...

Bear: gee, I dunno, maybe they like to read good SF...but not pay for it. :(

Roberta X said...

Les: Lawyers, yeah, that's one method.

Cincinnatus said...

Farago remains scum, and my boycott of TTAG continues.

Bear said...

RE: TTAG: I don't understand them anyway. Doing _honest_ gun news aggregation (summaries with links) would easy and less of a load on their own server. The only advantage I can see for _them_ is that the clueless could get the impression that all those writers are actually in their stable. And that would actually work against them when someone inevitably _does_ take them to court.

Roberta, I think it was Heinlein who pointed out that good SF is the stuff people pay for. That rules me out. Unless you count the suckers who apparently still buy the ten-freaking-dollar-pirated versions on Smashwords and the Apple store. Huh; I guess if piracy works for Smashwords and Apple, why shouldn't it work for TTAG?

Roberta X said...

Bear, "Screwed by publishers" <> "People won't pay." They're just paying the wrong guys. It's like the worst of the pulps or some of the 60s SF paperback publishers, the ones who paid years late or never. :(