[cc-community] No Hard Copy Distribution Condition (Let's discuss)
Ocetalo
zelus.et.radix at gmail.com
Sun Feb 17 00:31:37 EST 2008
*Good grief, what are you talking about???*
Greg, I'm talking about this. You wrote it, didn't you?:
*I'm having a problem reading this because it
sounds so much like the discussions I hear
when "serious" "literature" types want to look
down their noses at science fiction and the
sort of stuff I write.
Generally speaking, I've found people who think
of their works as "serious" as the sorts of folks
who think that the world should all view their
works a certain way (good) and all other works
another way (bad).
*
So, as a reply to above, I wrote:
*I apologize, Greg. I don't look down at sci-fi. I think it's serious and
important but in its own way. I probably did not use the right term (I'm not
a native speaker, you know).
Some read the whole Asimov's Foundation series and that won't make much
difference, but one only article of Chomsky will make them change their mind
or take relevant decisions for their lives, such as voting certain way,
supporting certain law projects, etc. Hobbes' Leviathan and Machiavelli's
The Prince are used to prepare rulers so they certainly have an influence on
the life of thousands. You can't fairly compare Cordwainer's IOM to Mao's
Red Book, you know, many were willing to rise in arms and make revolution by
Red Book, but few would do the same by IOM. More people model their lives on
the Bible than on Herbert's Dune. That's what I meant by "serious", which is
not excluding other kinds of seriousness.
*You get it now? I put my discussion on moral rights in standby for replying
to your comment by explaining the fact that what I meant by *serious* didn't
exclude sci-fi was serious. I see you're misundertanding or distorting my
words.
*To put it bluntly, this is NOT the email list
for that discussion.
*
You're right in that my apology and explanation were off list but I just
wanted to make clear I didn't intended to insult abybody. Sorry, but this is
email list for the issue I was treating before all this started. My, Greg,
this is leading to an argument which is confusing and unfair for me, and a
real waste of time for you. Please don't bite newcomers, compadre.
Here a link you'll maybe find interesting (about moral rights, not about
seriousness): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/926577.stm
BTW I'm a freelance English/Spanish translator. I've donde volunteer
translation for several organizations such as Orphanage Africa and Kidlink.
I find your *Libre Labyrinth* very interesting. May I ask your permission
for translating it into Spanish, if it hasn't yet?
Thanks for all your help and God bless you
On Feb 15, 2008 10:01 PM, Greg London <email at greglondon.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Hobbes' Leviathan and Machiavelli's The Prince
> > are used to prepare rulers so they certainly have
> > an influence on the life of thousands. You can't
> > fairly compare Cordwainer's IOM to Mao's Red Book,
> > you know, many were willing to rise in arms and make
> > revolution by Red Book, but few would do the same
> > by IOM. More people model their lives on the Bible
> > than on Herbert's Dune.
>
> Good grief, what are you talking about???
>
> The point of copyright law is to create a reward
> to encourage folks to create new works.
> The point of Creative Commons is to allow people
> to leverage various rights in exchange for something
> else, such as community contributions for something
> like ShareAlike, or community advertising for
> something like NonCommercial.
>
> Both are social structures intended to encourage
> the development of works.
>
> You can't do that with something like the Bible.
>
> Copyright and CC are intended as different sorts
> of reward systems to encourage individuals or
> communities to develop works.
>
> Something like the Bible has power because it is
> something far more influential than anything that
> copyright law or a creative commons license could
> ever give it.
>
> You can't design social structures such that these
> sorts of "serious" works will suddenly be developed.
> You can't design a social structure such that without
> that social structure, these sorts of serious works
> are NOT developed.
>
> World-changing works such as the Bible, the Quran,
> Hobbes' Leviathan, Marx's Manifesto, and so on,
> are not works that require copyright protection
> to encourage their development or moral rights
> to protect their "seriousness" after they've
> developed.
>
> If you are really talking about these kinds of works
> then copyright law, licenses, and moral rights are
> totally moot and irrelevant in effecting such works.
>
> One might as well debate what it will take to make
> the sun rise in the morning, as if it was something
> within our influence. We can encourage the creation
> of works like the bible and protect them about as
> much as we can force the sun not to rise tomorrow.
>
> Anything else means you don't get that fundamental
> point.
>
> > Now I feel more relieved about moral rights.
>
> The importance of something like the Bible is not
> proof for the need of Moral Rights. If you think
> it is, you've missed the point by a barn's width.
>
> Moral Rights is, and always has been, a circular
> argument.
>
> Alice wants Moral Rights to control every aspect
> of her work after she's sold it to someone else,
> based on the argument that it could reflect poorly
> on her character, her status as an author, etc.
>
> But it can only affect her status as an author
> if she has power to control every detail of how
> her work is used by consumers and does not exercise it.
>
> If she does not have Moral Rights, then it is not
> a reflection of her personal character that her
> work is being sold next to works of pornography.
> She can't control where her book is stacked in
> every single bookstore in the world.
>
> Unless she has moral rights in the entire world.
>
> And if she does have moral rights, then any time
> her book is being shelved next to pornography,
> and she doesn't do something about it, then it
> does in fact become a reflection of her character.
>
> There are no authors whose works are so "serious"
> that they need legal protection of Moral Rights
> to protect the sanctity of their works. If an
> author's works are that world-changing, then the
> world will protect the importance of the work by
> its memorization of the work.
>
> "To be or not to be" is a work that altered the
> world. And the world will not allow it to be
> twisted and turned without reminding us of the
> original version.
>
> Any author who thinks their works are that important,
> but needs legal protections to maintain their purity,
> doesn't get that by the fact that they need legal
> protection by its very nature means their works
> really aren't world altering. If you need legal
> protections to protect the "sanctity" of the work,
> then that's only because the work didn't inscribe
> itself into the world consciousness.
>
> Copyright is a bounty, an reward incentive system
> intended to encourage authors to create new works.
> And the United States has two centuries of authors
> creating works without these "Moral Rights" that
> others would argue are needed to defend the
> "seriousness" of their work.
>
> And that says to me, that Moral Rights aren't needed
> to encourage plenty of people to create works.
>
> Certainly, just like some authors want Life-Plus-N
> terms to protect their works, other authors will
> demand Moral Rights.
>
> But just as the US history shows plenty of authors
> creating works for far shorter, fixed terms, the
> history of the US also shows plenty of authors
> creating works without Moral Rights to defend
> the "seriousness" of those works.
>
> And that says to me, that Moral Rights are NOT a
> required part of a copyright incentive program,
> are NOT needed to get plenty of authors to create
> new works.
>
> copyright, licenses, and moral rights
> are irrelevant to the creation of truly world altering
> works. The bible was created without copyright.
> So was Hobbes' Leviathan and Machiavelli's Prince.
> Copyright, licenses, and moral rights are little
> more than grains of sand that have no effect on
> whether the sun rises in the morning. And two
> centuries of US history show that plenty of authors
> don't need the guarantee of Moral Rights to create
> new works, just as it shows that plenty of authors
> don't need infinite copyright terms to create new
> works either.
>
> Debating the best incentives to encourage the
> development of world-altering works (or how
> to best protect them after they're created) is
> little different than two fleas arguing over how
> best to get the dog to turn left. It is a waste of
> time based upon the fallacy amongst the fleas
> that they have some sort of influence on the
> dog, when in fact they do not.
>
> To put it bluntly, this is NOT the email list
> for that discussion.
>
>
>
>
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