Thieves or...

[Søren Krarup Olesen]

Donald D. Markstein wrote:

 > Your casual dismissal of theft is appalling. If you are simply unable
 > to comprehend why a creator doesn't like it when a no-talent creep
 > steals his work by removing it from his control, then there's no
 > point in arguing. So let's just stick to legalities.

Sure. If someone actually stole my scans (or other material) and
physically removed them from my harddisk, I certainly would get more
than offended.

 > When a person creates something out of his own mind, it is his
 > property, not just in a moral sense but also, in every civilized
 > country in the world, legally. He DOES NOT HAVE TO JUSTIFY his choice
 > not to allow others to use it.

My ideas etc. are my own, and they fully belong to me *unless* I offer
them for free in a public forum. Just as it is only natural for you to
copy my text in your mail without asking, because that's the way things
work on a mailing list.

 > The fact that it is very easy to steal from the Internet is
 > immaterial -- it is also very easy to steal a bicycle left on the
 > front lawn. The fact that Internet theft is condoned by people who
 > have no proprietary interest in the work is not.

That comparison is not fair. If I steal your bicycle, it will be
unavailalbe to you, out of your hand, which is not the case for
"copying" other people's material on the Internet. Information on the
Internet if free by default, which is something many people cannot
comprehend. If you don't like that you have many choices like: 1) Remove
it from the Internet, 2) Make it shareware so people only have limited
access to it and/or have to pay you for it later, 3) Put a copyright
mark on the material, 4) Make it password protected ...

The idea itself of possessing "soft" material doesn't fit the philosophy
behind the Internet too well. Although you personally may find it
"civilized" that you can claim ownership of this or that, then in this
particular case, it is utter oldfashioned capitalism brought to its
limits. That's perfectly alright to have such an opinion of course, and
it can be implemented on Internet material with a minor effort.

 > If you don't own intellectual property that you consider valuable
 > enough to protect, that's fine. Just put a "no copyright" notice on
 > whatever you do, if anything. But don't go around claiming it's okay
 > to steal from those who care about their work.

As I already explained, it's the other way around. Sorry, I thought
everyone knew that.

Gilles used the argument, that since he and Sigvald had spend a lot of
time finding and buying Don Rosa family trees, it wouldn't be okay for
anyone to copy *scans* of the material. Hey, let's say I spend ten years
looking for just that old white Volvo Amazone, you can be pretty sure
that I'll take a picture and scan it and put it online (just for
bragging :-) and I really don't see the problem in anyone copying that
scan...not even had I spent twenty years searching for the old wreck.

Søren