Thank you for the mention, Jeff. Without your adding that here I would
have missed Richmond's reference; he's among a small number of members I
generally don't read anymore (so much to learn, so little signal in a
noisy world...)
FWIW I agree with what you wrote, and felt it was important enough to
quote it in whole below. Thank you for taking the time to write that.
Richmond's original comment about me was:
> Richard Gaskin will probably now come after me with the castrating
> irons.?
How you arrive at your legal and ethical choices is entirely up to you.
Unless it involves my work it doesn't affect me. Knock yourself out.
For the other readers here, I don't mind sharing a personal opinion on
copyright law:
There are some details of US copyright statutes I don't much care for,
particularly the control one giant American corporation has held over US
copyright expiration ("Steamboat Willy", I'm looking at you).
But overall I not only do my best to conform to US and applicable
international copyright law per the terms of the contracts I sign, I
wholeheartedly celebrate it.
IMO the Berne Convention, which lies at the heart of most copyright law
among signatory nations, exemplifies a profound wisdom we all benefit
from, esp the readers here, since most of us earn our living from
intellectual property.
It holds that at the very moment of the creation of any original
creative work, the creator of that work has sole authority over it.
Let that sink in. Savor it. It's wonderfully delicious.
It recognizes that creative effort is a uniquely valuable human
activity, and maintains as a matter of international legal guidance the
sanctity of the act of creation.
Man, if nations could agree on anything else so beautifully principled
our Spaceship Earth might be a paradise. :)
I love it so much that when I come across old works I'm interested in
that appear to be abandoned, I try to reach the creator or current
rights holder to see what can be done to re-use it.
It's the least I can do. If I am to embrace the excitingly bold spirit
of the Berne Convention, I'm obliged to not only enjoy its fruits but to
also honor its responsibilities.
It is not for me to assume control of any other creator's work.
In honoring copyright, I'm creating of a world where copyright is honored.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
Jeff Reynolds wrote:
Richmond,
And I’ll be right there with Richard.
Just because it’s not being supported does not remove copyrights. You know
that’s a stupid argument. Maybe fine with your own morals but it’s not how
copyright works. As a content creator for over 4 decades of my professional
life I really hate that attitude of self justification. Fine for your own use
but if you want to redistribute it then get the rights. Not for profit label
has nothing to do with the rights involved.
I have experience working in and with media companies and licensing others’ materials and having others licensing ours. We were told all the time by management and legal to not respond to requests to license unless management was interested in the proposal and they would handle that. I thought it pretty strange that a denial letter could cause any issues and may have just been paranoia or don’t waste your time but those were the instructions.
Getting an odd bob out out of relicensing an old project involves figuring out
who you are getting in bed with and if you even want to get into bed with them
in the first place, time to come to an agreement, research out the original
projects licensing (media projects are rife with licensed media that at times
are not transferable or require additional permission and/or payments), create
and agree on a contract, deliver the goods, then make sure everything is being
done as contracted. That’s not simple and all the steps cost time and money and
usually folks are not willing to pay much for the rights to cover these costs,
let alone a profit.
I’ve done this process a couple of times with old projects and it was way more
work than I thought it would be and that was with a very good relationship with
the rights holder (I built the original product for them) and in good rights
situations. One was easy and owner was happy with a handshake on the deal until
I had a product to sell and then we would pen a contract. I totally trusted him
he would honor the handshake (and I’m still absolutely sure he would have, very
good chap), but a year and a half later he ended up having to sell the rights,
so our handshake of course was no longer good. He was transparent about all
this and I just did the hand shake as it would have been a good chunk of change
with lawyer to pen the rights contract and I didn’t have a publisher onboard
yet. So even in the best of situations things can go sideways on these kinds of
things and life is not as simple as you think it is Richmond.
I was approached by an old employer about resurrecting an old commercial cdrom
project. I knew the rights had changed hands a couple of times, so my first
question was who has the rights now and have you secured them? His response was
well it’s abandoned and one of the publishers that were distributing the
product to the education market (that wanted to partner with him on this deal)
thought they could do it under their publishing agreement. Again I questioned
did they have a full rights deal or just a publishing contract (I knew from the
original days on the project we had very specific publishing contracts with
different channels like Apple, media distributor and some educational
publishers and they were rabid about retaining the work’s rights). Response was
they feel confident they could stretch it legally. He then tried to say well we
could construe this to be in then public domain as most paid for with
public/private partnership money from NSF and EPA grants. I had to laugh in his
face as they had made sure that even with this public money the company had
complete rights to everything. I said I’d be happy to talk to him (and spend my
own time) about it once he can put through the lawyers. He did and planning
abruptly stopped.
The real killer usually is that media licensed in the original work was not
contracted for sub licensing, transfer, or reuse or requires new payments.
Sounds like something most would plan for to allow better life for their
products, but I was amazed how many times this was not done or, at times, even
thought of.
Sorry I’ve been around this tree too many times.
_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
