On Fri, 2003-04-25 at 11:26, Jeremy Hankins wrote: > On one hand, the > benefits to be gained from a free-software-like approach to purely > artistic/aesthetic (i.e., non-functional) works aren't as obvious.
A rather ironic statement in a Bazaar-type development of the wording of a position statement, methinks :-) Also, I must strongly disagree in general. Take artwork for example. Suppose you create a (digital) painting of a flower, and you make it red. I decide that orange would be better, so I change it. Maybe aj comes along and thinks the leaf would look better if it were a little rounder. Or, more pertinently to Debian, I think the icon for a program is ugly, so I change it. Or I dislike a theme author's choice of fonts, colors, etc. These are, as much as anything can be, purely aesthetic considerations, and yet, clearly benefit from being free. Art also often includes other art into itself. For example, I've got a neat desktop background which uses the Debian Swirl. Novels may not benefit much from word-for-word copying from each other, but copying things like characters, scenes, etc. could sure be useful. You don't see it much because it's against copyright law. The ones that are seen are parodies, and are only allowed due to fair use. And they have to fight it out in court half the time anyway (recent example: _The Wind Done Gone_) Many movies have been made from fairy tales, fables, and legends that are, free due to their public-domain status (go ask Disney about that hypocracy). Many pieces of music borrow themes, or even the entire tune, from other, now public-domain music. I'm not sure where the myth that the benefits of freedom are less for non-software comes from, but it sure isn't true.
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