WORMY KINDA RAMBLE:Things I Kinda Wish Were Rules
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
worms here someplace.
All flames may be directed to:
alt.fan.joanrivers.whoisthiseveilwitchanyway...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The existence of a lane does not imply the right to pass.
My job sucks sometimes, too, but I try not to share the nastiness.
Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
While I appreciate the work it took to buy your new
Mustang/Lexus/Mercedes, I can't support you taking up two spaces to
protect it.
Yes, 90% of everything is worthless trash. Please remember that all
opinions about things that suck, including this one, are part of
everything.
Beware who you call loser today, for they may sign your paycheck
tomorrow.
A true conviction is defined by what it is, not what it isn't....
Anti-fill-in-the-blank isn't a conviction, it's an indictment of
character. Your own.
By the same token, I question any decision that was made by asking
yourself what X person/religion/authority figure/relative would do and
then doing the opposite.
How a person looks isn't worth insulting. Fashion is just a group
delusion, actions are what matters.
In that vein, be careful when indicting the actions of others, 'cause
we've all done something stupid and indefensible. Probably earlier
today...
Play by the rules. If you don't like the rules, try to get them
changed. If they won't change them, there's other games. If you don't
like the games, make up your own, Mr. Naismith...
No one's fists are registered as deadly weapons. This is a conceit by
entertainers to make themselves seem like "the real deal."
Native Americans have a history of actions, good and bad, noble and
ignoble, sublime and ridiculous... But it seems insulting to assume
that all Native Americans are spiritually superior beings who believe in
a "Great Spirit." (This rule brought to you by nearly every episode of
"Walker: Texas Ranger.)
You can also pretty much assume that not every Asian is a martial arts
master. (Martial Law is one right after Walker, Saturdays on CBS.)
No matter what it is that you believe, any group that advocates the
destruction of all those that oppose it may in fact be evil... Choose
wisely.
Real heroes don't kill indescriminately. (This rule inspired by Marvel
Comics' Cable.)
If a person is old, you gotta think they've learned a thing or two about
what's going on around them.
However, you won't precisely live their life, so you can't model them
point by point and make it work.
Likewise, the man who wrote the self-help book may actually want to
help, or he may want a lot of money from writing a self-help book in a
world where any hints are sorely needed.
While it is good advice to not believe everything you hear, it's equally
important not to hear everything you believe. The ability to make your
own decisions and create your own paradigms will be critical.
Respect the differences between human beings... They are what
perpetuates the species. It is not wise to marry your siblings.
The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
with a bucket of water.
Be honest about your weaknesses, when it's safe.
Your credentials mean less to me than the viability of your ideas. Some
of our best thinkers were untutored.
Even the most powerful dogma has to evolve or die.
Qui-Gon Jinn knew his biology. There IS always a bigger fish.
The service sector is filled with people who don't want to be there. Be
as nice to them as possible.
Not owning a television has pretty much ceased to be a social
statement. Television is no longer the primary opiate of the masses.
You're looking at it's replacement.
We all love to look at the opposite sex. Hell, a goodly portion of our
brain is devoted to scannning for mates. But picking your partners
based on body type is silly, fallacious and kind of arrogant. I once
put on sixteen pounds over the weekend, your new boy/girlfriend can
probably do the same.
Clothing sizes are archaic and evil and terrifying. Best not to PRINT
them on the exterior of the garments.
By the same token, if somebody honestly wants to wear a Skippy logo on
their body, it's not my place to dissuade them.
To a great portion of humanity, being secretly gay isn't a scandal and
probably never should have been. National Enquirer, take note.
To that portion of society that does think that being gay is a scandal:
I respect your opinion, and refer you to potential rule 7 above.
Most of us cannot control what makes us angry, or happy, or sad, or what
we are attracted to. I tend to question the motives of those who say
they can, and hope that they don't hurt anyone.
We're all in denial, but not all of us need to be "snapped out of it."
Often times, upleasant news is best delivered by someone close to the
person who will be hurt. It isn't always your place to be the bearer.
No matter how much it may hurt, he/she can't help the fact that she
doesn't love you right now. It's not a personal slight, and there's no
use is figuring out "what he/she's got that I don't." It's not a bank
transaction.
Life is like a box of chocolates. Cept different.
Competition isn't always a good thing, nor is it a goal unto itself.
Conversely, when used properly, it can be a good motivator. Use its
powers only for good.
Possession or non-possession of a y-chromosome doesn't make you a
separate species. The Mars/Venus battle may sound true, but only
because it plays up stereotypes that we might do well to rid ourselves
of.
"Speak English, you're in America" is a pretty selfish viewpoint from my
standards. We're pretty unique, from what I understand, in having a
national language, there's no need to get snippy about it. 8>}
Maybe the children don't need nearly as much protection as we want to
give them... Or maybe they just need protecting from something
different.
Any list of rules should be chosen and discarded from and probably end
with "although I could be wrong.">
Maraud. Odds are, I could be wrong.
Janet Miles
> <'Course, I'm weird and I haven't slept in a while. I'm sure there's
> worms here someplace.
I only saw one, and I don't plan to flame you over it, just to disagree
slightly.
> We all love to look at the opposite sex.
If you change this to read: "Most of us love to look at the opposite sex.
Nearly all of us love to look at someone", then I will agree with you
completely, on all your rules.
JanetM, who thinks this was pretty damn profound for first thing to be
read on Monday morning
posted
--
Janet Miles (jmi...@usit.net) <www.public.usit.net/jmiles>
Loyal Webcrafter: PenUltimate Productions <www.worthlink.net/~ysabet>
and SSBB DC <magenta.com/lmnop/users/xlator/ssbbcorps.html>
Member: SSBB Diplomatic Corps -- East Tennessee
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
>
> Nearly all of us love to look at someone", then I will agree with you
> completely, on all your rules.
<You're right... My flaming heterosexuality is showing... Thanks for
catching that one.>
> JanetM, who thinks this was pretty damn profound for first thing to be
> read on Monday morning
<Imagine having it leap from your head fully formed like Athena... At 7 am,
no less... Rather disconcerting.>
Maraud. Lack of sleep alchemically transforms him into Aristotle
Great-grand-cousin of him mother's side... 8>}
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
> Play by the rules. If you don't like the rules, try to get them
> changed. If they won't change them, there's other games. If you don't
> like the games, make up your own, Mr. Naismith...
Useful on the playground. Less useful for life and the world as a
whole.
> No one's fists are registered as deadly weapons. This is a conceit by
> entertainers to make themselves seem like "the real deal."
Professional fighters' hands are considered deadly weapons, registered
or not.
> If a person is old, you gotta think they've learned a thing or two about
> what's going on around them.
Or they've been lucky enough to live in a benign environment that hasn't
seen fit to kill them. (Some people are alive only because it's illegal
to kill them.)
> The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
> situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> with a bucket of water.
On the flip side, there are few situations so bad that involving
government authority, especially the police, can't make them worse.
> Your credentials mean less to me than the viability of your ideas. Some
> of our best thinkers were untutored.
And many of them were also unemployed and unknown. If you're not
Buckminster Fuller or Abraham Lincoln, best stay in school.
> "Speak English, you're in America" is a pretty selfish viewpoint from my
> standards. We're pretty unique, from what I understand, in having a
> national language, there's no need to get snippy about it. 8>}
Actually, we're pretty unique in _not_ having an official national
language.
> Maybe the children don't need nearly as much protection as we want to
> give them... Or maybe they just need protecting from something
> different.
Whenever someone harangues me to do something "for the children" or "to
protect the children," I put my hand on my wallet and brace for another
attack on the Constitution.
--
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe)
http://www.babcom.com/polymath/
http://www.babcom.com/gla-mensa/
Query pgpkeys.mit.edu for PGP public key.
Kevin Ahearn
>situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
>with a bucket of water.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Stolen!
--Kevin
P&E
"Geese are evil, and they hate us all..."
--Rebecca Schoenberg
Remove shooting star to reply.
Attn spammers: I will never, under any circumstances, purchase any good or
service advertised in an unsolicited e-mail.
Christopher Jahn
>
> >The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
> >situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> >with a bucket of water.
>
>
> Stolen!
Xjahn grabs one end of it, and starts a tug of war with Kevin...
Xjahn
Oh, heck, I'll just make a copy....
--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( Dionysian Reveler
"Gettin angry at Republican Hypocrisy is like
gettin mad at the air - it's just there." James Carville
Rift Maven
>
> worms here someplace.
>
> All flames may be directed to:
> alt.fan.joanrivers.whoisthiseveilwitchanyway...
<major snippage of funny stuff>
> Any list of rules should be chosen and discarded from and probably end
> with "although I could be wrong.">
Well, you may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic
you're looking for --- wait, that's Billy Joel. Back to matters at
hand.
Lots of good ideas! Can't say I agree with all, but certainly with
most!
Sally, the CoffeeWench
--
Cats are not clean, they're covered in cat spit!!
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> > changed. If they won't change them, there's other games. If you don't
> > like the games, make up your own, Mr. Naismith...
>
> whole.
<Dunno if I would agree with you... A situation can be changed in many ways,
including the expedient method of "I can't change anything here, so I'll be
on my way..." I guess it does depend on the situation...>
> > No one's fists are registered as deadly weapons. This is a conceit by
> > entertainers to make themselves seem like "the real deal."
>
> Professional fighters' hands are considered deadly weapons, registered
> or not.
<This one was inspired by a college acquaintance who claimed that his picture
was on file in the same place as gun owners because of his training in Hak Foo
Yung, or one of the other martial arts... This strikes me as ridiculously
silly, and as my girlfriend the police officer informed me, just plain ain't
true.>
> > If a person is old, you gotta think they've learned a thing or two about
> > what's going on around them.
>
> Or they've been lucky enough to live in a benign environment that hasn't
> seen fit to kill them. (Some people are alive only because it's illegal
> to kill them.)
<Hmmm... I dunno about that... I agree that there are some people that make
me question whether the old joke about the Texas "He needed killin'" law
shouldn't be truer...>
> > The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
> > situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> > with a bucket of water.
>
> On the flip side, there are few situations so bad that involving
> government authority, especially the police, can't make them worse.
<Hmmm... So what purpose do you see the police as serving? Or do you see NO
reason for them?>
> > Your credentials mean less to me than the viability of your ideas. Some
> > of our best thinkers were untutored.
>
> And many of them were also unemployed and unknown. If you're not
> Buckminster Fuller or Abraham Lincoln, best stay in school.
<Good call. But notice that's not precisely what I said. The implication
that I meant to convey is that simply being more educated doesn't mean that
what you see, think, and feel is more valid.>
>>> Maybe the children don't need nearly as much protection as we want to give
them... Or maybe they just need protecting from something different.
> Whenever someone harangues me to do something "for the children" or "to
> protect the children," I put my hand on my wallet and brace for another
> attack on the Constitution.
<It does seem to be a common shield for people with only their best interests
in mind...>
Maraud.
Fax Paladin
> Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
> Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
Not to mention petty, and a violation of copyright.
> The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
> situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> with a bucket of water.
Kinda like a knight in armor holding a rubber chicken?
Fax
John Palmer
wrote:
>Stacy & Matthew Peterson wrote:
>
>> Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
>> Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
>
>Not to mention petty, and a violation of copyright.
Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to change his
mind (I know that *I* would have).
--
Everything I needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten. Like:
Wrestling with a lion and a grizzly bear is not necessarily the best
way to prove that you're "Tuff Enuff"
Kris Overstreet
<jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 02 May 2000 03:20:11 GMT, Fax Paladin <faxpa...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Stacy & Matthew Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
>>> Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
>>
>>Not to mention petty, and a violation of copyright.
>
> Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
>everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to change his
>mind (I know that *I* would have).
Um, I'd like to see attribution on that, considering how hard Bill
Watterson has fought to -stop- bootleg C&H merchandise.
Redneck
Gene Szedenits, Jr.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson <pete...@terraworld.net> wrote in message
news:390E56FE...@terraworld.net...
>
> > > No one's fists are registered as deadly weapons. This is a conceit by
> > > entertainers to make themselves seem like "the real deal."
> >
> > Professional fighters' hands are considered deadly weapons, registered
> > or not.
>
> <This one was inspired by a college acquaintance who claimed that his
picture
> was on file in the same place as gun owners because of his training in Hak
Foo
> Yung, or one of the other martial arts... This strikes me as ridiculously
> silly, and as my girlfriend the police officer informed me, just plain
ain't
> true.>
>
My understanding (not a lawyer, not a cop) is that you are both right.
There is no paperwork kept by police registering anyone's anatomy
as a weapon regardless of the individual's training and physical skills.
On the other hand if a professional boxer, for example, starts
punching someone outside the ring, it is my understanding that he
may be charged with 'assault with a deadly weapon', while an
untrained schmo administering a similar beating will get a lesser
charge of plain, old assault.
Would a lawyer, please, jump in at this point.
Gene
Joe Thompson
> My understanding (not a lawyer, not a cop) is that you are both right.
>
> There is no paperwork kept by police registering anyone's anatomy
> as a weapon regardless of the individual's training and physical skills.
>
> On the other hand if a professional boxer, for example, starts
> punching someone outside the ring, it is my understanding that he
> may be charged with 'assault with a deadly weapon', while an
> untrained schmo administering a similar beating will get a lesser
> charge of plain, old assault.
This is a plot point (though not a particularly major one) in Con Air.
Nicholas Cage's character gets in a fight outside a bar with some men who
are harassing him and his girlfriend. He does a hand-to-hand move on one
-- the classic break-the-nose-and-shove-it-into-the-brain -- and kills
him. The cops come and his lawyer advises him to plead guilty. "You'll
serve a year. Maybe two."
The judge notes his military training and sentences him to ten years be-
cause "a man with your specialized training is subject to more than the
usual limitations" or something like that (I forget the exact quote --
basically "you're trained to kill, that means we come down harder when you
do").
Eight (?) years later he's finally getting out of prison, which is where
the movie proper begins. -- Joe
--
Joe Thompson | http://www.orion-com.com/~kensey/
sp...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
What happens when your arms fall | <zithrlily> my tongue is a
off? You can't pick them up. | deadly weapon
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
> worms here someplace.
*heehee* Not really, just comments...
> Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
> Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
The ones around here are not only peeing on <enemy truck logo>, they're
giving the audience the finger. :-P
> The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of any crisis
> situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> with a bucket of water.
*kitten* May I put this in my .sig file, pleeeeease?
> Life is like a box of chocolates. Cept different.
Right, you can't poke your fingernail through to the fillings to cheat on
which one you get.
Thanks, Maraud, that was fun! :)
maenad
--
__Anna________fun is good!_________BORDEAUX = spamblock__
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not. -Yogi Berra
---------------------------------------------------------
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> > situation that would not be vastly improved by the presence of a gorilla
> > with a bucket of water.
>
<Sure, but PLEEEEASE, can you use my name? It's all part of my horrible ploy
to make it into the .sig files of every Callahanian.>
Maraud. Figgers he's got some work ahead of him to get into Polymath's. 8>}
John Palmer
>
>This is a plot point (though not a particularly major one) in Con Air.
>Nicholas Cage's character gets in a fight outside a bar with some men who
>are harassing him and his girlfriend. He does a hand-to-hand move on one
>-- the classic break-the-nose-and-shove-it-into-the-brain
Which, I was given to understand, is an urban legend. It might be
possible to kill a person by a blow to the head, but there's nothing
magical about breaking a piece of cartilege and shoving it back. I think
what you'd more likely do is rupture the person's sinuses, which will cause
them lots of grief, but I don't think it'd kill them.
John Palmer
wrote:
>On Tue, 02 May 2000 00:45:23 -0400, John Palmer
><jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 02 May 2000 03:20:11 GMT, Fax Paladin <faxpa...@my-deja.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Stacy & Matthew Peterson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Personal expression is a wonderful thing, but a picture of Watterson's
>>>> Calvin peeing on something you're contemptuous of is kind of disgusting.
>>>
>>>Not to mention petty, and a violation of copyright.
>>
>> Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
>>everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to change his
>>mind (I know that *I* would have).
>
>Um, I'd like to see attribution on that, considering how hard Bill
>Watterson has fought to -stop- bootleg C&H merchandise.
Shrug. I'd like to see an attribution for it too. I've heard that
he gave license; I haven't seen any legal documentation on it.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> He does a hand-to-hand move on one the classic
> break-the-nose-and-shove-it-into-the-brain
>
> Which, I was given to understand, is an urban legend. It might be
> possible to kill a person by a blow to the head, but there's nothing
> magical about breaking a piece of cartilege and shoving it back. I think
> what you'd more likely do is rupture the person's sinuses, which will cause
> them lots of grief, but I don't think it'd kill them.
<Don't trust any maneuver used by comic book heroes.>
Maraud. That one is a specialty of Lobo, and thus highly suspect.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> Shrug. I'd like to see an attribution for it too. I've heard that he gave
> license; I haven't seen any legal documentation on it.
<I was under the impression that he was fighting them at one point legally, but
hadn't heard any denouement on the whole mess.>
Maraud.
Duane Peters
>
> Stacy & Matthew Peterson wrote:
>
> > changed. If they won't change them, there's other games. If you don't
> > like the games, make up your own, Mr. Naismith...
>
> whole.
Michael Dell. Ted Waitt. Paul Orfala. A host of others who didn't like
the rules as they were, and refused to play by them, so they started
their own games...
Master Charles Henri Beaufort
Keeper of the Crossed Keys Inn
(Who has worked for two of the three listed above...)
VirtualBabe
"Stacy & Matthew Peterson" took computer in hand to expose the following
master plan of his one dat to the patrons of Callahan's
> <Sure, but PLEEEEASE, can you use my name? It's all part of my horrible
ploy
> to make it into the .sig files of every Callahanian.>
>
> Maraud. Figgers he's got some work ahead of him to get into Polymath's.
8>}
>
Well Maraud, good luck, but it's gonna have to be very good to dethrone
Mike.
--
Debbie;
"And the man in the rain picked up his bag of secrets and journeyed up the
mountainside, far above the clouds, and nothing was ever heard from him
again, except for the sound of TUBULAR BELLS"
(Mike Oldfield)
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> Well Maraud, good luck, but it's gonna have to be very good to dethrone
> Mike.
<Hmmm...
"I don't care if she's your mom, she has to die because she's a MINION OF
SATAN!" -- Me, last evening.>
Maraud.
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
> to make it into the .sig files of every Callahanian.>
*grin* Deal! :) BOYC?
maenad
--
____Anna________fun is good!_________BORDEAUX = spamblock____
The Wonder Twins had the right idea. I defy you to think of
any crisis situation that would not be vastly improved by the
presence of a gorilla with a bucket of water. <Maraud>
-------------------------------------------------------------
dennyw...@zipcon.net
saying:
(The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!)
>Would a lawyer, please, jump in at this point.
>
For FREE?????????????
-denny-
curmudgeon
-----------------------------
"Every man takes the limits of his own field
of vision for the limits of the world."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
dre...@my-deja.com
John Palmer <jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
*snip*
> Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
> everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to
change his
> mind (I know that *I* would have).
>
Errr. To the best of my knowledge Mr. Watterson has never licensed
*anything* except the books/collections. From what I've heard every
single Calvin and Hobbes bumper sticker, keychain, stuffed animal,
calender or poster you've ever seen was produced in violation of
copyright.
See http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/html/the_end.html
In particular there is a quote:
"Also, Watterson has stood virtually alone in refusing to license his
characters. He explains why in a preamble in his latest collection of
strips, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book.
Licensing, he writes, turns the cartoonist into a "factory foreman,
delegating responsibilities and overseeing the production of things he
does not create. Some cartoonists don't mind this, but I went into
cartooning to draw cartoons, not to run a corporate empire."
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
dre...@my-deja.com
*snip*
>
> Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
> everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to
change his
> mind (I know that *I* would have).
Oooh, I've gotten more information.
http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/html/comicopia.html
In particular, there are quotes like:
"Watterson had resolved to quit rather than let Universal Press
merchandise the characters. At this point, Universal agreed to
renegotiate Watterson's contract. The exploitation rights were returned
to the creator. "And I will not license Calvin and Hobbes," the
cartoonist writes. "
and:
"The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
Janet Miles
> Oooh, I've gotten more information.
> http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/html/comicopia.html
> "The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
> us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
> made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
Um. Please tell me that doesn't apply to the book compilations?
JanetM
Brenda Daverin
<Mw0Q4.612$7B6....@nntp1.onemain.com>:
>dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> Oooh, I've gotten more information.
>> http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/html/comicopia.html
>
>> "The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
>> us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
>> made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
>
>Um. Please tell me that doesn't apply to the book compilations?
"It doesn't. The books are the only thing Watterson has allowed."
--
Brenda Daverin
bdav...@best.com
"Usenet is just e-mail with witnesses." - Rob Hansen
The Unravelled Ferret - http://members.aol.com/lysana/
Alison
GMT:
>dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> Oooh, I've gotten more information.
>> http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/html/comicopia.html
>
>> "The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
>> us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
>> made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
>
>Um. Please tell me that doesn't apply to the book compilations?
No - the books are legit, but the t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. are
all pirated. Watterson has said he never plans to merchandise the
strip, because it would require the characters to be taken out of
their context and genericized (I'm paraphrasing a lot).
One thing I remember him saying specifically: what would a stuffed
Hobbes look like? Would it be the version we all see and that Calvin
sees, or would it be the version the grownups in the strip see?
Alison
(remove 'SPAMKILL' from address to reply)
Adam Littman
>In article <h9nsgskqn5jake6q9...@4ax.com>,
> John Palmer <jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>*snip*
>
>>
>> Sadly, no, if I heard right. He's released Calvin and Hobbes for
>> everything except comic strips. I think he might have wanted to
>change his
>> mind (I know that *I* would have).
>
>"Watterson had resolved to quit rather than let Universal Press
>merchandise the characters. At this point, Universal agreed to
>renegotiate Watterson's contract. The exploitation rights were returned
>to the creator. "And I will not license Calvin and Hobbes," the
>cartoonist writes. "
>
>and:
>
>us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
>made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter but that
is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
to either?
What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
legitimate merchandise.
--
___________
Adam Littman / ^ \
AL...@cornell.edu /\ / \ /\
/__\__/___\__/__\
/ \( ) ( )/ \
\ /\ o /\ /
\ / \( )/ \ /
"Four minutes twenty-two seconds, \/____\_/____\/
Baldric, you owe me a groat" \ \ /
--Blackadder \ / \ /
---------
Gene Szedenits, Jr.
Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:8eq7v6$6ba$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu...
[snip stuff about no legit Calvin & Hobbes merchandise except for the books]
> What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter but
that
> is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't
interested
> in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be
allowed
> to either?
>
> What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>
> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and
the
> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders)
sell
> legitimate merchandise.
I am going to have to think about this one. My knee-jerk reaction is to
side with the schmuck in question. Then again I sort of see your point,
however much it also sounds like extortion.
A question to clarify, if you would. Straczynski, creator of Babylon-5,
has licensed all sorts of B-5 merchandise, hats, shirts, Psi-Corps pins,
etc.
For a brief time he also licensed B-5 shot glasses. Eventually he
discontinued
those for reasons of discomfort with being seen as promoting drinking.
There is demand or at least interest in owning a B-5 shotglass among
the fans of B-5. Is Straczynski a schmuck for not providing one?
Would he be a schmuck to prosecute someone bootlegging B-5
shotglasses?
At bottom B-5 was a TV show and Calvin & Hobbes a comic.
Where does the obligation to provide peripheral merchandise
come from?
And now, going off on a tangent, is there a word for the kind
of entertainment package so often seen these days? Once upon
a time, you started with a book or movie or cartoon or TV show,
and then spread out to, maybe, dolls, or T-shirts, or a few things.
Then TV-shows became movies or movies were pilots for TV-shows.
Then came the cartoon version or the live version of the cartoon.
Now it seems there no longer is an identifiable original medium.
The movie, TV-show, cartoon, clothing, action-figures, board
game, vidseo game, etc. are all planned at once. This kind of
thing deserves its own word.
Gene
Christopher Jahn
> What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this
> matter but that is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have
> heard of. He isn't interested in directing the making of stuffed
> C&H toys so no one else should be allowed to either?
>
> What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
Yeah, how dare he care about his own creation. Just because we
never would have known Calvin and Hobbes if not for Watterson
dreaming them up every week, where does he get off deciding how
they'll appear, and where and in what form?
sarcasm/off
Adam, bar none, this is the most assinine comment you've yet made.
And you've made a lot of assinine comments.
Xjahn
>
> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
> legitimate merchandise.
>
> --
> ___________
> Adam Littman / ^ \
> AL...@cornell.edu /\ / \ /\
> /__\__/___\__/__\
> / \( ) ( )/ \
> \ /\ o /\ /
> \ / \( )/ \ /
> "Four minutes twenty-two seconds, \/____\_/____\/
> Baldric, you owe me a groat" \ \ /
> --Blackadder \ / \ /
> ---------
--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( Dionysian Reveler
Lee S. Billings
says...
>And now, going off on a tangent, is there a word for the kind
>of entertainment package so often seen these days? Once upon
>a time, you started with a book or movie or cartoon or TV show,
>and then spread out to, maybe, dolls, or T-shirts, or a few things.
>Then TV-shows became movies or movies were pilots for TV-shows.
>Then came the cartoon version or the live version of the cartoon.
>
>Now it seems there no longer is an identifiable original medium.
>The movie, TV-show, cartoon, clothing, action-figures, board
>game, video game, etc. are all planned at once. This kind of
>thing deserves its own word.
I think they call it "marketing". I call it "sleazy".
Celine
Lee S. Billings
says...
>>"The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
>>us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
>>made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
>
>What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter but that
>is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
>in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
>to either?
>
>What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>
>A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
>public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
>legitimate merchandise.
WHAT "implied contract"??? Excuse me, no one has a *right* to merchandise made
using someone else's creation, implied or otherwise.
This is an issue all Trek fanfic writers skate the thin edge of, and we know
it; the only reason we don't all get sued out the wazoo by Paramount is that it
would keep them so busy they wouldn't have time to do anything else! The usual
compromise is a disclaimer on the front of the story, acknowledging that the
characters belong to Paramount and that no infringement is intended. But if
they ever wanted to get nasty, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Is that fair
to those of us who want to explore those characters further? Probably not. Is
it the way life is? Absolutely. Paramount owns the characters, and they get to
decide what can or can't be done with them. If they want to be petty about it,
they can be. Period.
I'm sorry, Adam, but you're just dead wrong here.
Celine
Adam Littman
>
>Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote in message
>news:8eq7v6$6ba$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu...
>
>[snip stuff about no legit Calvin & Hobbes merchandise except for the books]
>
>
>that
>> is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't
>interested
>> in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be
>allowed
>> to either?
>>
>> What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>>
>> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and
>the
>> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders)
>sell
>> legitimate merchandise.
>
>
>side with the schmuck in question. Then again I sort of see your point,
>however much it also sounds like extortion.
>
>A question to clarify, if you would. Straczynski, creator of Babylon-5,
>has licensed all sorts of B-5 merchandise, hats, shirts, Psi-Corps pins,
>etc.
>For a brief time he also licensed B-5 shot glasses. Eventually he
>discontinued
>those for reasons of discomfort with being seen as promoting drinking.
>
>There is demand or at least interest in owning a B-5 shotglass among
>the fans of B-5. Is Straczynski a schmuck for not providing one?
>Would he be a schmuck to prosecute someone bootlegging B-5
>shotglasses?
Kind of a niche market. Not strongly related nor expected merchandising for a
TV show AFAIK. Whereas t-shirts, plush toys, lunch boxes, etc. are traditional
merchandising of comic strips.
>At bottom B-5 was a TV show and Calvin & Hobbes a comic.
>Where does the obligation to provide peripheral merchandise
>come from?
No obligation, anymore than one has an obligation to hold a door for someone.
They would still be a schmuck to let it slam in someone's face.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
> in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
> to either?
<Buh? Hang on... He created the characters. He owes no person a thing. If he
doesn't wish to see toys or anything else made, that would seem to be his
prerogative...>
> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
> legitimate merchandise.
<Y'know, I don't want to seem arrogant or antagonistic here, but I think I have to
quote the great Polymath on this...
"Bullshit."
The man made his money as a comic strip artist. He provided comic strips until
such time as he no longer felt that he could. So he stopped.
No creator owes you or me a damnable thing, Adam. It's not our RIGHT to read Bill
Watterson's work, or to hear the songs of Metallica, nor is it our right to DEMAND
of them anything under some farcical "implied contract."
They do a creative job, in a manner that they see fit. We either embrace or shun
their ideas. That's the end of the contract, as far as I can tell.>
Maraud.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> If I did, I would exploit it to the hilt. If someone came to me with a way to
> exploit it I wasn't using and wasn't interested in I would license that way to
> them. If you throw something away you shouldn't complain if someone else rescues it from the dump.
<Watterson didn't throw away Calvin and Hobbes. He gave it an ending. That is his right as a
creator.>
> Does he intend to license these things in the future? If not then your analogy
> fails. Disney OTOH, as evil and slimey as they are with their "last chance to
> buy this movie for 10 years" is a far better case for your point. They have
> not decided to give up the product, just take a break before selling it again.
<But by your analogy, they're morally defensible, as they are exploiting it, even if they're not doing
it by a schedule you support...>
> In fact if someone who would not have bought the CD in any case pirates it
> then the copyright holder is none the worse for the piracy.
<If they couldn't get the CD illegally, they would naturally never buy it through normal channels?>
> BTW who do you think is ripping off recording artists more? Pirates, or record
> companies that make $5 per album while giving the artists $0.50?
<Pirates. Seems like ripping someone off for a tenth of what you get is better than refusing to pay
them at all.>
Maraud.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> creators... like, oh, say, Spider Robinson... say, 'Sorry, no fanfics.' People
> take advantage of goodwill."
<On a slightly different note, there's the case of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.
They recieved in the '40's a sum of (I believe) $2000 dollars for all rights to the
character they created... They were legally selling their rights to the
corporation...
They WERE paid, albeit a mere fraction of what they were truly owed.
In the 1970's after years of outcry, the corporation GRUDGINGLY allowed both men a
stipend, admitting that previous higher-ups had, in fact, screwed the living
daylights out of them... At the time the rights were sold, the company had already
made MILLIONS of their property, and have continued to make MILLIONS and MILLIONS
and BILLIONS of dollars, and made their property a cornerstone of the entire
company...
Was the corporation wrong? Did Joe and Jerry have any rights in 1970, to something
they created 40 years earlier? The company thought so. Joe and Jerry thought so.
The frickin' US government thought so...
Legally and morally, the company was WRONG. And, I'm sorry, Adam, but in this case,
so are you.>
Maraud. And Superman is published monthly in hundreds of countries to the tune of
billions of dollars to this very day... Slash Maraud... Good day!
Adam Littman
>In article <8eq7v6$6ba$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu>, al...@nospam.cornell.edu
>says...
>>
>>In article <8eq2gs$r7t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>>"The only Calvin and Hobbes products on the market, Watterson assures
>>>us, are those that have been pirated: "Only thieves and vandals have
>>>made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise," he declares."
>>
>
>>is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
>
>>in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
>>to either?
>>
>>
>>public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
>
>>legitimate merchandise.
>
>using someone else's creation, implied or otherwise.
Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
Also why do you think these things run out?
Now someone might naively assume it is for the good of the writers and
inventors that these things are protected, they would be wrong.
They benefit from it too but that is secondary to the main goal. The reason
these things are protected is for the benefit of the society, so that artists
and inventors will have incentive to create, and especially disseminate their
creations rather than keeping them secret. After they have had a certain time
to benefit from them the rights revert to the public.
This is not the same thing as physical property ownership, where one person
can't have a thing without depriving its owner of the use of it. This is a
deal to make good thing available to the people and make money in the process.
Some individuals and companies abuse the system but that is its ultimate goal.
>This is an issue all Trek fanfic writers skate the thin edge of, and we know
>it; the only reason we don't all get sued out the wazoo by Paramount is that it
>would keep them so busy they wouldn't have time to do anything else! The usual
>compromise is a disclaimer on the front of the story, acknowledging that the
>characters belong to Paramount and that no infringement is intended. But if
>they ever wanted to get nasty, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Is that fair
>to those of us who want to explore those characters further? Probably not. Is
>it the way life is? Absolutely. Paramount owns the characters, and they get to
>decide what can or can't be done with them. If they want to be petty about it,
>they can be. Period.
Paramount provides copious licensing. Many movies, hundreds of books, a
plethora of the worst computer games ever sold retail. Even TV shows with new
characters set in the same universe. Not to mention literally millions of tons
of comic books, t-shirts, action figures and other knick-knacks.
They are admirably living up to their end of the deal. As long as they are
providing all that it is wrong to produce competing products, even if free.
However if they were to suddenly say "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". And stop
making use of the characters and franchise then there would be no ethical
reason not to use it.
Any more than fishing an abandoned pair of shoes out of the trash would be
unethical. Illegal in some cases maybe, but not unethical.
Lynn Allen
>(Lee S. Billings) wrote: >WHAT "implied contract"??? Excuse me, no one
>has a *right* to merchandise made >using someone else's creation,
>implied or otherwise.
>
> Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
> protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
> Also why do you think these things run out?
I hestitate to step in here, but I suspect you don't make a living off
of any kind of intellectual property or artistic product, Adam.
If you did, you might be a little less willing to spread that "right"
around to profit from other people's creative product. Just because
someone is not exploiting their own creation does not mean the public
has a right to. The time we who DO create have to exploit our own
product is limited enough, and if a project lies fallow, for a few years
or until the copyright expires, it does not therefore confer a right to
exploit to anyone else. Period.
If copyright is expired, yes, the public can do as they please. If not,
encouraging piracy is morally wrong, if not actively criminal.
Calling someone who displays artistic integrity in not bending his art
to suit the desires of the teeming masses a schmuck is uncalled for.
It's his art and his possession, until that copyright expires. Just
like those are your shoes. If you kick them off, is someone justified in
picking them up and walking away in them?? After all...you weren't using
them any more.
And yes, intellectual property and artistic product are just as much
possessions in our society as actual physical objects. Volumes of case
law prove that. What is the worth to all of us of the protection of
copyright? Look at all the fine innovative software coming out of places
like Hong Kong, where the software pirates reign...oh wait. There isn't
any.
Maybe someday you'll have something worth protecting. Perhaps then
you'll see why exploitation in violation of copyright isn't acceptable.
Lymaree
Adam Littman
>Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote:
>
>>(Lee S. Billings) wrote: >WHAT "implied contract"??? Excuse me, no one
>>has a *right* to merchandise made >using someone else's creation,
>>implied or otherwise.
>>
>> Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
>> protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
>> Also why do you think these things run out?
>
>
>I hestitate to step in here, but I suspect you don't make a living off
>of any kind of intellectual property or artistic product, Adam.
>
>If you did, you might be a little less willing to spread that "right"
>around to profit from other people's creative product. Just because
If I did, I would exploit it to the hilt. If someone came to me with a way to
exploit it I wasn't using and wasn't interested in I would license that way to
them.
If you throw something away you shouldn't complain if someone else rescues it
from the dump.
>someone is not exploiting their own creation does not mean the public
>has a right to. The time we who DO create have to exploit our own
>product is limited enough, and if a project lies fallow, for a few years
>or until the copyright expires, it does not therefore confer a right to
>exploit to anyone else. Period.
Not a legal right. I think you are correct there. But I suspect very few
people would feel any qualms about making a bootleg copy of something that was
no longer commercially available.
>If copyright is expired, yes, the public can do as they please. If not,
>encouraging piracy is morally wrong, if not actively criminal.
I disagree with you on the order of that. Piracy is actively criminal under
even those circumstances. But not necessarily morally wrong.
For me a necessary (but not sufficient) qualification for an action to be
immoral is for it to harm an unwilling other person. If person A holds the
rights to license product B, and has chosen not to, then he is no worse off if
person C comes along and uses it.
Let's try patents. Suppose Merc came up with a cure for AIDS, $0.50 marginal
cost of production, one dose, no side effects. They get a patent on it and
refuse to sell it because to do so would cut down on sales of long term
treatments. Think it would be immoral for someone else to make it instead of
waiting a decade for their patent to run out?
Suppose it wasn't AIDS, but herpes, or some other incurable but non-fatal
disease. Then is it immoral to pirate it?
>Calling someone who displays artistic integrity in not bending his art
>to suit the desires of the teeming masses a schmuck is uncalled for.
>It's his art and his possession, until that copyright expires. Just
>like those are your shoes. If you kick them off, is someone justified in
>picking them up and walking away in them?? After all...you weren't using
>them any more.
Does he intend to license these things in the future? If not then your analogy
fails. Disney OTOH, as evil and slimey as they are with their "last chance to
buy this movie for 10 years" is a far better case for your point. They have
not decided to give up the product, just take a break before selling it again.
>And yes, intellectual property and artistic product are just as much
>possessions in our society as actual physical objects. Volumes of case
>law prove that. What is the worth to all of us of the protection of
>copyright? Look at all the fine innovative software coming out of places
>like Hong Kong, where the software pirates reign...oh wait. There isn't
>any.
Part of the problem rabid defenders of intellectual property law have in
getting the masses to go along with them in not pirating is their insistence
on equating physical property with intellectual property.
If someone doesn't have any other reason to respect copyright than you saying
"piracy is just like stealing a physical object". Then they have no reason at
all to stop them from pirating once they realize the glaring difference
between the two.
If someone steals a chair from you, you are no longer able to sit in it. This
is why most societies way back when decided "stealing is a bad thing". Because
it deprives the owner of the use of the thing, not because it provides the
thief with the use of it.
If someone copies a CD, the original owner still has it, can still play it, or
run any programs on it.
In fact if someone who would not have bought the CD in any case pirates it
then the copyright holder is none the worse for the piracy.
As for Hong Kong, that supports my point about the purpose of intellectual
property law being to benefit society, not primarily the individual copyright
holder. They have lots of piracy and their society suffers for it. To the
extent of not having locally produced software.
>Maybe someday you'll have something worth protecting. Perhaps then
>you'll see why exploitation in violation of copyright isn't acceptable.
I would find it unacceptable for someone to pirate a copy of my (or anyone
else's) work if they would otherwise have bought it. I would not have a
problem with someone who would not otherwise (in the absence of the ability to
pirate) have bought it making a copy.
BTW who do you think is ripping off recording artists more? Pirates, or record
companies that make $5 per album while giving the artists $0.50?
--
Joe Thompson
> Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
> protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
> Also why do you think these things run out?
The US Constitution says (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) that Congress
shall have the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right
to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
> Now someone might naively assume it is for the good of the writers and
> inventors that these things are protected, they would be wrong.
>
> They benefit from it too but that is secondary to the main goal. The reason
> these things are protected is for the benefit of the society, so that artists
> and inventors will have incentive to create, and especially disseminate their
> creations rather than keeping them secret. After they have had a certain time
> to benefit from them the rights revert to the public.
The Constitution says "exclusive right". In practice there is recognized
the concept of "fair use" to a limited degree. I'm sure everybody here
read at least one photocopied story in high school English -- that's fair
use in action. Project Gutenberg is a prime example of the benefit to so-
ciety enabled by the time limitations on copyrights and patents.
However, that word "right" comes with a lot of connotations, in this case
those of ownership. One way of defining ownership is a right of refusal,
as is used in many editorial contracts; my editor has a "right of first
refusal" on anything I write as a newspaper column. If I were to write
for another paper I could do so, as long as every column printed had either
already run in his paper or he had declined to print it.
Bill Watterson has a right to merchandise his creations. But that right
means nothing if he does not also have the right *not* to merchandise
them, just as my ownership of a piece of property means little or nothing
if I don't have the right to deny use of it to others. The law doesn't
say I have to admit people onto my property except law enforcement offici-
als backed by due process of law. Watterson has no legal obligation to
allow anyone onto his property either.
All that, however, is just legal back-and-forth. The moral question is,
"What impact has Watterson's denial of merchandising rights had on socie-
ty?" And in my opinion the answer is "none at all". I don't think society
is particularly impoverished by a child not being able to buy a stuffed
Hobbes or her parents not being able to put a Calvin bumper sticker (offen-
sive or not) on their station wagon. I don't see that such things materi-
ally would improve our standard of living; they're just vehicles for merch-
andisers to make a quick buck, and their shot at making money doesn't out-
weigh the right of the creator to determine how his creations are used.
> Paramount provides copious licensing. Many movies, hundreds of books, a
> plethora of the worst computer games ever sold retail. Even TV shows with
> new characters set in the same universe. Not to mention literally millions
> of tons of comic books, t-shirts, action figures and other knick-knacks.
>
> They are admirably living up to their end of the deal. As long as they are
> providing all that it is wrong to produce competing products, even if free.
>
> However if they were to suddenly say "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". And
> stop making use of the characters and franchise then there would be no
> ethical reason not to use it.
>
> Any more than fishing an abandoned pair of shoes out of the trash would be
> unethical. Illegal in some cases maybe, but not unethical.
In the case of your shoes the owner has clearly (and legally, so far as I
know) repudiated ownership by throwing them in the trash. In this case the
creator has *explicitly refused* to repudiate or distribute his ownership
rights. The two cases are light-years apart. -- Joe
--
Joe Thompson | http://www.orion-com.com/~kensey/
sp...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
What happens when your arms fall | <zithrlily> my tongue is a
off? You can't pick them up. | deadly weapon
Kristling Dreamflyer
>
>What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter but that
>is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
>in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
>to either?
>
>What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>
>A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
>public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
>legitimate merchandise.
Sound of a glass shattering. Everyone looks at the Raven Shaman who is blinking
so much it's almost a fit.
"Pardon?"
He very carefully stays where he is.
"Sir... it is HIS copyright. He has his choice in how to use it. Charles Schultz
choose to merchandise and, in his quiet way, maintain quality control. Lynn
Johnson has a small For Better or For Worse catalog. Watterson said, 'No, that
doesn't jive with how I see my craft.'
"This is not an automatic service to you, this merchandising. it is an option to
the creator- one many take it if he wishes. However, saying that not taking it
is give fans permission to pirate boogles my mind. If you like something, but do
not respect the creators wishes about it, that's like spitting on the creator
and then saying, 'Please, continue drawing your lovely pictures! <PUITOO!> Yes,
that's a nice one! <PUITOO!>'"
Kristling takes several deep breathes.
"You know, I suspect it's that attitude that, at least in part, makes some
creators... like, oh, say, Spider Robinson... say, 'Sorry, no fanfics.' People
take advantage of goodwill."
Kristling takes a few more lungfuls, and smirks ruefully.
"Next round on me."
-d-d-d-d-d-
Keeper of the Fourteen Black Paintings. I remain:
Daniel S., aka Kristling Daysleeper Dreamflyer,
ICQ # 53874855 / ahsdrea...@home.com
Holder of 74 useless quote points.
--------I am Sigfreud, the Living Sig, V. 74.70
People who hate children read
The Delirium of Being Daniel
You don't love children, do you?
< ahsdrea...@home.com >
Matthew T. Russotto
Alison <har...@SPAMKILLhis.com> wrote:
}
}One thing I remember him saying specifically: what would a stuffed
}Hobbes look like? Would it be the version we all see and that Calvin
}sees, or would it be the version the grownups in the strip see?
Certainly a faithful representation would look both ways, depending on
the perspective of the viewer. Not yet, wait another 20 years :-)
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Adam Littman
>On Thu, 04 May 2000 00:04:36 GMT, Adam Littman wrote:
>The Constitution says "exclusive right". In practice there is recognized
This is effect, not cause. This right did not exist in primitive cultures
because the value of a work was almost entirely in its physical form. Very
little came from the information content.
It is that way with books (on paper) to this day. What they are selling is
mostly paper and ink.
>the concept of "fair use" to a limited degree. I'm sure everybody here
>read at least one photocopied story in high school English -- that's fair
>use in action. Project Gutenberg is a prime example of the benefit to so-
>ciety enabled by the time limitations on copyrights and patents.
>Bill Watterson has a right to merchandise his creations. But that right
>means nothing if he does not also have the right *not* to merchandise
Certainly. Just as each of us has the right to destroy our old clothes rather
than donating them to the poor. Just because I _have_ a right to do something
doesn't mean I _am_ right to do it.
>ty?" And in my opinion the answer is "none at all". I don't think society
>is particularly impoverished by a child not being able to buy a stuffed
>Hobbes or her parents not being able to put a Calvin bumper sticker (offen-
>sive or not) on their station wagon. I don't see that such things materi-
>ally would improve our standard of living; they're just vehicles for merch-
>andisers to make a quick buck, and their shot at making money doesn't out-
>weigh the right of the creator to determine how his creations are used.
As I said, I think he has a right to do so. I just think he is wrong to.
As I said, "dog-in-a-manger" I don't want to use it, but I won't let you use
it either.
>> Paramount provides copious licensing. Many movies, hundreds of books, a
>> plethora of the worst computer games ever sold retail. Even TV shows with
>> new characters set in the same universe. Not to mention literally millions
>> of tons of comic books, t-shirts, action figures and other knick-knacks.
>>
>> They are admirably living up to their end of the deal. As long as they are
>> providing all that it is wrong to produce competing products, even if free.
>>
>> However if they were to suddenly say "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". And
>> stop making use of the characters and franchise then there would be no
>> ethical reason not to use it.
>>
>> Any more than fishing an abandoned pair of shoes out of the trash would be
>> unethical. Illegal in some cases maybe, but not unethical.
>
>In the case of your shoes the owner has clearly (and legally, so far as I
>know) repudiated ownership by throwing them in the trash. In this case the
>creator has *explicitly refused* to repudiate or distribute his ownership
>rights. The two cases are light-years apart. -- Joe
In the case of the shoes it would cost the owner space to spitefully deprive
other people of them, and keep them available for later use, while in the case
of intellectual property it doesn't.
I will go this far. I think that if they want to claim the rights back later,
with some notice so people can make an orderly shut down they should be able
too.
As an aside, I lost a lot of respect for intellectual property laws in the US
when they US government screwed the people out of the free use of Mickey Mouse
for the next few decades.
If they wanted to extend copyright for all future works that is one thing,
that could arguably encourage even greater levels of creativity (I doubt it
though). But to deliberately reneg on a deal made between Walt Disney and the
public over 50 years ago? Is he retroactively going to be more creative as a
result?
Chris Wesling
>
> One thing I remember him saying specifically: what would a stuffed
> Hobbes look like? Would it be the version we all see and that Calvin
> sees, or would it be the version the grownups in the strip see?
Ooh, I think it should be one of those stuffed animals you can turn
inside out to turn into something else. So one way it would be the
grownup version, but when you pulled it inside out it would become the
Calvin version. Would that be cool or what?
Chris W.
--
Remove spam to email me.
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is
an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." - James Baldwin
Joe Thompson
> In article <slrn8h1pkk...@crowley.orion-com.com>,
> sp...@orion-com.com (Joe Thompson) wrote:
> >In the case of your shoes the owner has clearly (and legally, so far as I
> >know) repudiated ownership by throwing them in the trash. In this case the
> >creator has *explicitly refused* to repudiate or distribute his ownership
> >rights. The two cases are light-years apart. -- Joe
>
> In the case of the shoes it would cost the owner space to spitefully
> deprive other people of them, and keep them available for later use, while
> in the case of intellectual property it doesn't.
>
> I will go this far. I think that if they want to claim the rights back later,
> with some notice so people can make an orderly shut down they should be able
> too.
This, I think, is the kernel of the matter. Under our current intellectual
property system, an author who allows others to exploit his creation and
does nothing to stop it *is* giving up his right to stop it later. Aspirin
was originally the name of the specific pain reliever made by Bayer; they
make half-hearted attempts to promote brand loyalty today but US courts
ruled long ago that their trademark is now a part of the language and its
use cannot be restricted.
In the Netherlands (? their home nation) this is not true and if you ask
for aspirin you *will* get Bayer.
Coca-Cola was (or so I was told) on the verge of losing their trademark on
"Coke" as applied to soft drinks, and so some years ago ran "sting" opera-
tions where operatives would go into restaurants, etc. and order "a Coke";
if they were given a Pepsi, Coke would send a warning letter to the owners.
Word got around. Now it seems Pepsi may be having the inverse problem, if
the "Hey! I ask for a Pepsi, and you give me dis?" commercial is an indi-
cator.
And all you have to do is pick up any writer's magazine to see how much
companies like Xerox and Kleenex are willing to expend to protect their
trademarks from the fate of aspirin.
I still think the ultimate authority must rest with the creator. Art is a
very emotional and personal thing and I think one of the reasons copyrights
last longer than patents is to protect an author from having to see his
creation perverted and beingunable to stop it. (Now, of course, as of 1978
new works are protected for life-plus-50, with some weird maneuvering for
works created betwen 1964 and 1978, but anything created before 1964 is
only protected for 75 years, meaning everything before then will be out of
copyright by 2039, and anything created before 1925 is already out.) -- Joe
Kerry J. Renaissance-McAdams
<pete...@terraworld.net> wrote:
>> What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter but that
>> is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't interested
>> in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be allowed
>> to either?
>
><Buh? Hang on... He created the characters. He owes no person a thing. If he
>doesn't wish to see toys or anything else made, that would seem to be his
>prerogative...>
>
>> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
>> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
>> legitimate merchandise.
>
><Y'know, I don't want to seem arrogant or antagonistic here, but I think I have to
>quote the great Polymath on this...
>
>"Bullshit."
>
>The man made his money as a comic strip artist. He provided comic strips until
>such time as he no longer felt that he could. So he stopped.
>
>No creator owes you or me a damnable thing, Adam. It's not our RIGHT to read Bill
>Watterson's work, or to hear the songs of Metallica, nor is it our right to DEMAND
>of them anything under some farcical "implied contract."
>
>They do a creative job, in a manner that they see fit. We either embrace or shun
>their ideas. That's the end of the contract, as far as I can tell.>
I agree.
There's no implied contract in creative work. It's pretty
straightforward: the artist creates. He or she may then choose to
market to the public (often through some type of intermediary agent,
be it a gallery, a publisher, or what have you). The public
reads/views/experiences it, and may end up plunking some money down,
which serves to support the artist to some degree. Everyone benefits;
the public gets information and/or entertainment, the creator gets
recognition and something to live off on (so he or she can produce
more of the same). And that's about as far it goes.
To reach more people, or to make more money, the creator may choose to
merchandise the work (toys, t-shirts, video games... you know the
list) or to option its transferance to a new medium (comic
strip/book-to-animated or live-action movie; book-to-movie;
movie-to-book; book-to-comic; movie-to-comic; computer game to book or
comic; etc...). But it's a choice, and an option. Some creators may
not choose any of those because they feel it debases their work, or
could; because they don't want to go through the hassle of the
paperwork; because they don't want to risk getting screwed over
thoroughly by other people profiting off their work; and no doubt for
many other reasons.
Kerry J. Renaissance-McAdams
-- Master Fireweaver
kerr...@circle-of-fireweavers.org
http://www.circle-of-fireweavers.org -- the Circle of Fireweavers' Website
Lee S. Billings
says...
>>Bill Watterson has a right to merchandise his creations. But that right
>>means nothing if he does not also have the right *not* to merchandise
>
>Certainly. Just as each of us has the right to destroy our old clothes rather
>than donating them to the poor. Just because I _have_ a right to do something
>doesn't mean I _am_ right to do it.
This, I think, is the real heart of the disagreement. You seem to be arguing
that Watterson is *morally* wrong not to provide lunchboxes, action figures,
calendars, and all the rest of it -- as though you were somehow ENTITLED to
those things just because you like the characters -- and I just don't see it.
In the same way, while it's less wasteful for me to donate my old clothes to
Goodwill, it's not a moral failing if I choose not to do so.
Celine
Lynn Allen
>
> For me a necessary (but not sufficient) qualification for an action to be
> immoral is for it to harm an unwilling other person. If person A holds the
> rights to license product B, and has chosen not to, then he is no worse off if
> person C comes along and uses it.
Except that person A can no longer change their mind and become the
primary developer of their own property. That's the fallacy in your
"you can still sit in the chair" argument.
> >
> Does he intend to license these things in the future? If not then your analogy
> fails. Disney OTOH, as evil and slimey as they are with their "last chance to
> buy this movie for 10 years" is a far better case for your point. They have
> not decided to give up the product, just take a break before selling it again.
Do you know Watterson's mind? I don't. Statements made today about not
licensing do not release his copyright. He might change his mind...and
then where would he be? All those pirated versions become
legitimized...and he gets no compensation.
>
>
> Part of the problem rabid defenders of intellectual property law have in
> getting the masses to go along with them in not pirating is their insistence
> on equating physical property with intellectual property.
>
> If someone doesn't have any other reason to respect copyright than you saying
> "piracy is just like stealing a physical object". Then they have no reason at
> all to stop them from pirating once they realize the glaring difference
> between the two.
>
> If someone steals a chair from you, you are no longer able to sit in it. This
> is why most societies way back when decided "stealing is a bad thing". Because
> it deprives the owner of the use of the thing, not because it provides the
> thief with the use of it.
A thief of my property, intellectual or otherwise, HAS deprived me of
the use of it. I can't use a chair taken away...and I can't develop and
sell an intellectual property when the market has been contaminated by
pirated copies. If I insist I'm the author, then my reputation is built
on copies that may be defective, debased, and for which I have received
no compensation. Now isn't that a fine inducement to further creation?
As someone who works in a profession where the value I sell is my
creativity, I can tell you that protection from piracy is vital to my
continuing success as a small business owner. And small business owners
drive a large part of the economy that we all benefit from.
>
> If someone copies a CD, the original owner still has it, can still play it, or
> run any programs on it.
But the original AUTHOR will never see another penny once those pirated
copies become the standard of the marketplace.
>
> In fact if someone who would not have bought the CD in any case pirates it
> then the copyright holder is none the worse for the piracy.
Actually, they are. Because pirates who get away with it encourage
others. And that hurts sales of legitimate copies. And contaminates the
market with substandard products.
>
> I would find it unacceptable for someone to pirate a copy of my (or anyone
> else's) work if they would otherwise have bought it. I would not have a
> problem with someone who would not otherwise (in the absence of the ability to
> pirate) have bought it making a copy.
I frequent professional Usenet groups related to my work...and the logic
there from the password trolls is "I wouldn't buy this software anyway,
so I need a pirated serial number to do my work." Well..if they
wouldn't buy it why are they using it? Huh? If they use it, they are
your market, but you don't get the money. Way to make a business work!
Well the operative word there is "need"....If one "needs" it, buy it.
Honest people who need or want things buy them. Dishonest people don't.
It's that simple. And yes, the shareware I use, I pay for. My software
is all legal.
Piracy is not a "no harm no foul" act.
Lymaree
Adam Littman
>> "You know, I suspect it's that attitude that, at least in part, makes some
>> creators... like, oh, say, Spider Robinson... say, 'Sorry, no fanfics.'
> People
>> take advantage of goodwill."
>
> Siegel.
>
>They recieved in the '40's a sum of (I believe) $2000 dollars for all rights to
> the
>character they created... They were legally selling their rights to the
>corporation...
>They WERE paid, albeit a mere fraction of what they were truly owed.
>
>In the 1970's after years of outcry, the corporation GRUDGINGLY allowed both
> men a
>stipend, admitting that previous higher-ups had, in fact, screwed the living
>daylights out of them... At the time the rights were sold, the company had
> already
>made MILLIONS of their property, and have continued to make MILLIONS and
> MILLIONS
>and BILLIONS of dollars, and made their property a cornerstone of the entire
>company...
>
>Was the corporation wrong? Did Joe and Jerry have any rights in 1970, to
> something
>they created 40 years earlier? The company thought so. Joe and Jerry thought
> so.
>The frickin' US government thought so...
>
>Legally and morally, the company was WRONG. And, I'm sorry, Adam, but in this
> case,
>so are you.>
Morally perhaps. Legally nope. The copyright laws allow people to sell the
rights. They sold them. Unless they were coerced they had no legal claim. The
company may have given them more money but I suspect it was more because of
negative publicity than any legal or moral reason.
Of course it is also possible that there is something off kilter in the
copyright laws as applied to corporations that would let them hold onto it
longer if they pretended the creators had rights to it.
IIRC it is life plus 50 years for an individual, not sure what it is for a
corporation.
Adam Littman
>> Does he intend to license these things in the future? If not then your
> analogy
>> fails. Disney OTOH, as evil and slimey as they are with their "last chance to
>> buy this movie for 10 years" is a far better case for your point. They have
>> not decided to give up the product, just take a break before selling it
> again.
>
><But by your analogy, they're morally defensible, as they are exploiting it,
> even if they're not doing
>it by a schedule you support...>
I said they were evil and slimey, not immoral. Probably a mistake on their
part too. To paraphrase JFK (I think): If you make legal purchase of 101
Dalmations impossible, you make illegal purchase inevitable.
>> In fact if someone who would not have bought the CD in any case pirates it
>> then the copyright holder is none the worse for the piracy.
>
><If they couldn't get the CD illegally, they would naturally never buy it
> through normal channels?>
That was specified, that was the "If someone who would not have bought the CD
in any case" part.
Case in point. Someone likes one song on an album, the song isn't released as
a single. She doesn't figure $12-$15 is worth it for the one song. She isn't
going to buy the CD, ever. Is the artist (more accurately the music label) any
worse off if she gets an MP3? If she gets the MP3 they don't sell an album, if
she doesn't get the MP3 they also don't sell an album. No harm, no foul.
>> BTW who do you think is ripping off recording artists more? Pirates, or
> record
>> companies that make $5 per album while giving the artists $0.50?
>
><Pirates. Seems like ripping someone off for a tenth of what you get is better
> than refusing to pay
>them at all.>
In absolute terms not relative I meant. What really scares the Record labels
is artists who don't need them, not artists getting ripped off.
Gaze into the future with me. 10 years from now hard drives will be 100 to
1000 times larger at the same price. Bandwidths will be large enough that CDs
will be sent in under a minute, never mind MP3s. CD (or DVD, or whatever nth
generation followup comes down the pike) burners will be common as muck.
These are things which _will_ happen. The question is, will the industry take
advantage of it or stand like King Canute and order the tide not to roll in?
For the artists, low quality MP3s equivalents, for free, played on programs
that let you order the song in CD quality or beyond at the click of a button
and a cost of 10 to 25 cents a copy will pay them far better than the industry
does.
The big danger is that people will get so used to getting music free from
programs like Napster that they won't pay even this pittance.
The music industry is doing their level best to insure that people do get used
to it by going after MP3.com for a service that let people listen to copies of
CDs they already owned. Cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Adam Littman
>In article <8eqqi3$et6$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu>, al...@nospam.cornell.edu
>says...
>>
>>In article <slrn8h1pkk...@crowley.orion-com.com>, sp...@orion-com.com
>>(Joe Thompson) wrote:
>
>>>Bill Watterson has a right to merchandise his creations. But that right
>>>means nothing if he does not also have the right *not* to merchandise
>>
>>Certainly. Just as each of us has the right to destroy our old clothes rather
>>than donating them to the poor. Just because I _have_ a right to do something
>>doesn't mean I _am_ right to do it.
>
>This, I think, is the real heart of the disagreement. You seem to be arguing
>that Watterson is *morally* wrong not to provide lunchboxes, action figures,
No, not morally wrong. I make a distinction between "hurting" which is often
immoral and "not helping" which is not (except in special circumstances).
More like not holding the door for someone with their arms full of packages.
Not immoral, but not an admirable thing to do.
>calendars, and all the rest of it -- as though you were somehow ENTITLED to
>those things just because you like the characters -- and I just don't see it.
>In the same way, while it's less wasteful for me to donate my old clothes to
>Goodwill, it's not a moral failing if I choose not to do so.
And refusing to make easy money on something like merchandising, well, it's
just un-American. ;-)
dre...@my-deja.com
al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam Littman) wrote:
*snip*
> What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter
but that
> is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He isn't
interested
> in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one else should be
allowed
> to either?
Err. Y'know, I've heard some other things about him that imply that
he may, indeed, be capable of acting like a schmuck on occasion...But I
literally can't understand why you'd believe him so, in this case.
The characters are his creation. He chooses to draw comics. That is
his art. He seems to feel that his characters are best viewed within the
context of his art and that to use them as marketing tools would cheapen
their impact within his chosen medium. Maybe he just didn't want the
characters themselves to be limited by a political or financial
agenda.
He may be right, he may be wrong. One thing that is absolutely
certain is that he felt strongly enough in his beliefs that he was
willing to give up millions of dollars worth of merchandizing money to
stand for his principles.
Even if he *is* a schmuck, I kind of admire a schmuck who is willing
to stand up for his beliefs and for his honor.
> What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>
Buh?
> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders
and the
> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright
holders) sell
> legitimate merchandise.
>
He sold comic strips. One would assume that he felt that those comic
strips were legitimate merchandise.
Do you honestly believe that the merchant is *obligated* to sell
precisely what the buyer desires, even if the merchant has no interest
in producing that item?
As someone who has worked as an artist myself, I have to admit that
your post *really* rubbed me the wrong way. I've been harrassed
(followed around, phoned, e-mailed, etc) in the past by people who
wanted me to draw porn to their specification involving characters of
my own creation. By this point in my career, I was not drawing erotica
of any kind for sale. Further, I felt that the specific images that the
person in question wanted put to paper were insulting and degrading to
my characters.
The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the implied
contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide the
legitimate merchandise that he desired?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Joyce Melton
>In article <39110393...@terraworld.net>, pete...@terraworld.net wrote:
>>> "You know, I suspect it's that attitude that, at least in part, makes some
>>> creators... like, oh, say, Spider Robinson... say, 'Sorry, no fanfics.'
>> People
>>> take advantage of goodwill."
>>
>><On a slightly different note, there's the case of Joe Shuster and Jerry
>> Siegel.
>>
>>They recieved in the '40's a sum of (I believe) $2000 dollars for all rights to
>> the
>>character they created... They were legally selling their rights to the
>>corporation...
>>They WERE paid, albeit a mere fraction of what they were truly owed.
It was $130 dollars. Later they received other payments for other
rights. They had to sue to get paid for the rights to Superboy which
they had created and took to DC/NPP and were told that there was no
interest. Only to have DC come out with a Superboy book shortly
afterwards. That case was settled out of court.
>>
>>In the 1970's after years of outcry, the corporation GRUDGINGLY allowed both
>> men a
>>stipend, admitting that previous higher-ups had, in fact, screwed the living
>>daylights out of them... At the time the rights were sold, the company had
>> already
>>made MILLIONS of their property, and have continued to make MILLIONS and
>> MILLIONS
>>and BILLIONS of dollars, and made their property a cornerstone of the entire
>>company...
At the time they (DC) started paying, after some bullying by almost
all of the artists working in the industry ("Pay Jerry and Joe what
you owe them or draw it yourself" more or less), they had just fired
Jerry from his regular free lance writing job along with dozens of
other oldtime artists and writers for fear that the creative talent
was about to unionize. And Joe Shuster was going blind, could not work
as an artist and was living in his brother's garage with help from
Jerry.
>>
>>Was the corporation wrong? Did Joe and Jerry have any rights in 1970, to
>> something
>>they created 40 years earlier? The company thought so. Joe and Jerry thought
>> so.
A few of the artists and writers and editors and production people
offered to find legal help for Jerry and Joe to prove that the
contract selling Superman was coercive and so not legal.
>>The frickin' US government thought so...
>>
>>Legally and morally, the company was WRONG. And, I'm sorry, Adam, but in this
>> case,
>>so are you.>
>
>Morally perhaps. Legally nope. The copyright laws allow people to sell the
>rights. They sold them. Unless they were coerced they had no legal claim.
Some lawyers thought coercion could have made a good case. Jerry and
Joe worked as freelance writer and artist for DC at the time and had
to sell the rights to what they produced in order to keep getting
assignments. Legally, the company may have owed them millions and
their lawyers knew it.
>The
>company may have given them more money but I suspect it was more because of
>negative publicity than any legal or moral reason.
Fears of negative publicity, economic whitemail by the rest of the
industry (some OTHER companies were actually beginning to think of
paying Jerry and Joe a pension!), more whitemail by fans and workers
in the industry and maybe most important, someone actually got to the
people at the top of the company and said, "Hey, Jerry and Joe need
pensions!" and the people at the top said, "What, you mean we aren't
already paying them pensions?" The lack of pensions was mostly because
no one had ever specifically decided to do it before not that the
company didn't think they owed it to them. But Jerry and Joe had
mostly been freelancers not employees.
In fact the firing of the old timers (The Friday Night Massacre, aka,
End of the Silver Age) was because they had asked that a portion of
their pay be withheld as a form of savings. The higher ups had seen
this as the first step toward creating a union.
>
>Of course it is also possible that there is something off kilter in the
>copyright laws as applied to corporations that would let them hold onto it
>longer if they pretended the creators had rights to it.
In some ways, perhaps now. But not under US copyright as it was then
AFAIK.
>
>IIRC it is life plus 50 years for an individual, not sure what it is for a
>corporation.
It's more complex than that.
Comic book production has usually been done under a work for hire
contract. This was a legal fiction that the studio or publisher owned
the rights and the artist or writer was just filling in the details.
Current laws make it harder to operate under this sort of arrangement
but it is still done to some extent. But the case of one West Coast
comic book company driven out of business by the IRS who refused to
believe that work for hire contracts for this sort of thing were valid
has made the other publishers much more careful.
In case you are wondering, I wrote, edited and published comic books
in the late seventies, early eighties. :)
Joyce
Adam Littman
>In case you are wondering, I wrote, edited and published comic books
>in the late seventies, early eighties. :)
Which?
Joe Thompson
> In article <8er2ds$sl$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>, stard...@mindspring.com (Lee S. Billings) wrote:
> >This, I think, is the real heart of the disagreement. You seem to be arguing
> >that Watterson is *morally* wrong not to provide lunchboxes, action figures,
>
> No, not morally wrong. I make a distinction between "hurting" which is often
> immoral and "not helping" which is not (except in special circumstances).
>
> More like not holding the door for someone with their arms full of packages.
> Not immoral, but not an admirable thing to do.
I still haven't seen you really explain this. If it's "not helping", then
in what matter does *licensing* his merchandise substantially *help* anyone
but the people he licenses to, and possibly himself?
There is precedent for a similar idea to the one you espouse in music copy-
right, the "compulsory license". That is, if a band wants to make a cover
version and the original author just absolutely refuses to license them the
rights, they may claim a compulsory license and record anyway. But they
then have to pay royalty fees set by law, which are often much higher than
you can get by making a reasonable pitch.
*And* the author still has one inalienable right that as far as I know can-
not be taken away even by contractual agreement: the right of determination
for the first mechanical license. Look up the case of Bob Dylan, the Byrds
and the Brothers Four in _The Straight Dope_: Dylan denied a mechanical
license (permission to commercially record) to his own record company
because he didn't like the way "Tambourine Man" was done. He couldn't,
according to his contract, control the production, but he could reject any-
thing the studio sent until they did it his way.
Ultimately he worked things out, an event the Brothers Four were waiting
for so they could release *their* version as a possible comeback hit. It
might have worked except that during the dispute the Byrds had recorded
their own version, and when both were released that was the one that be-
came famous.
In other words, if we spread this idea to our friend Watterson, once he
started making merchandise, in our hypothetical new set of copyright laws
others could do so whether he wanted them to or not. But he would *always*
have control over who gets to do it first, and if he has decided nobody but
him could do it justice, and he himself hasn't the time, well, there you
are.
I also somehow doubt Watterson would object to somebody, say, crocheting a
Calvin & Hobbes blanket for their own kid; it seems to be commercial and
public exploitation he wants to quash. -- Joe
Adam Littman
>In article <8eq7v6$6ba$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu>,
> al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam Littman) wrote:
> *snip*
> Err. Y'know, I've heard some other things about him that imply that
>he may, indeed, be capable of acting like a schmuck on occasion...But I
>literally can't understand why you'd believe him so, in this case.
One of the implications of "schmuck" is "idiot".
> The characters are his creation. He chooses to draw comics. That is
>his art. He seems to feel that his characters are best viewed within the
>context of his art and that to use them as marketing tools would cheapen
>their impact within his chosen medium. Maybe he just didn't want the
>characters themselves to be limited by a political or financial
>agenda.
I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not The
Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
> He may be right, he may be wrong. One thing that is absolutely
>certain is that he felt strongly enough in his beliefs that he was
>willing to give up millions of dollars worth of merchandizing money to
>stand for his principles.
Bingo. Schmuck city.
> Even if he *is* a schmuck, I kind of admire a schmuck who is willing
>to stand up for his beliefs and for his honor.
>
>> What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>
> Buh?
Having that kind of "my art is so important that I couldn't possibly let it be
commercial" attitude is pretentious and arrogant about things that, at the end
of the day are just comic characters.
Personally I own no C&H mechandise, not even books. Wouldn't buy them if he
did sell them. But as a fervent capitalist I resent someone who could, with no
more than a few days effort, create millions of dollars of wealth for the
economy but refuses to do so.
>> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders
>and the
>> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright
>holders) sell
>> legitimate merchandise.
>>
>
> He sold comic strips. One would assume that he felt that those comic
>strips were legitimate merchandise.
Which IIRC are no longer being sold.
> Do you honestly believe that the merchant is *obligated* to sell
>precisely what the buyer desires, even if the merchant has no interest
>in producing that item?
He doesn't have to produce them. Just license them to someone else to produce.
As I have said before there is a difference between "not helping" and
"hurting". However when the ratio of difficulty of helping to benefits to
others of helping gets low enough someone would have to be a pretty big jerk
not to help.
If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for a
year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk for
not doing so.
> As someone who has worked as an artist myself, I have to admit that
>your post *really* rubbed me the wrong way. I've been harrassed
>(followed around, phoned, e-mailed, etc) in the past by people who
>wanted me to draw porn to their specification involving characters of
>my own creation. By this point in my career, I was not drawing erotica
>of any kind for sale. Further, I felt that the specific images that the
>person in question wanted put to paper were insulting and degrading to
>my characters.
Porn doesn't enter into it. There has been no suggestion here of "adult"
versions of the merchandise.
> The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the implied
>contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide the
> legitimate merchandise that he desired?
Not in that case. But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version of images
you had already drawn, and someone else would be willing to make them for no
effort of your part beyond cashing your royalty checks then, yes.
Adam Littman
>On Thu, 04 May 2000 06:56:10 GMT, Adam Littman wrote:
>I still haven't seen you really explain this. If it's "not helping", then
>in what matter does *licensing* his merchandise substantially *help* anyone
>but the people he licenses to, and possibly himself?
Well I suppose if I were to get all schmaltzy I could wax poetic about the joy
a nice stuffed toy of a beloved character can bring to a child.
If people want to buy something and you sell it to them, that is helping them.
Pure distilled essence of Capitalism there. In an uncoerced deal with no
fraud, everybody wins.
>There is precedent for a similar idea to the one you espouse in music copy-
>right, the "compulsory license". That is, if a band wants to make a cover
>version and the original author just absolutely refuses to license them the
>rights, they may claim a compulsory license and record anyway. But they
>then have to pay royalty fees set by law, which are often much higher than
>you can get by making a reasonable pitch.
Sounds sensible to me.
>In other words, if we spread this idea to our friend Watterson, once he
>started making merchandise, in our hypothetical new set of copyright laws
>others could do so whether he wanted them to or not. But he would *always*
>have control over who gets to do it first, and if he has decided nobody but
>him could do it justice, and he himself hasn't the time, well, there you
>are.
He did his characters first, already.
>I also somehow doubt Watterson would object to somebody, say, crocheting a
>Calvin & Hobbes blanket for their own kid; it seems to be commercial and
>public exploitation he wants to quash. -- Joe
Yeah, I really hate people with that attitude. Especially people who have
already used the system they supposedly shun to get rich. (See Ben and Jerry).
Gene Szedenits, Jr.
> In article <3910a761$0$84...@wodc7nh6.news.uu.net>, "Gene Szedenits, Jr."
<szed...@servicelevel.net> wrote:
> >There is demand or at least interest in owning a B-5 shotglass among
> >the fans of B-5. Is Straczynski a schmuck for not providing one?
> >Would he be a schmuck to prosecute someone bootlegging B-5
> >shotglasses?
>
> Kind of a niche market. Not strongly related nor expected merchandising
for a
> TV show AFAIK. Whereas t-shirts, plush toys, lunch boxes, etc. are
traditional
> merchandising of comic strips.
I take it I am to infer non-schmuckhood then? On grounds of meeting
cultural expectations?
> >At bottom B-5 was a TV show and Calvin & Hobbes a comic.
> >Where does the obligation to provide peripheral merchandise
> >come from?
>
> No obligation, anymore than one has an obligation to hold a door for
someone.
> They would still be a schmuck to let it slam in someone's face.
I am having a real hard time seeing the situations as analogous.
Gene
Alison
03:54:28 GMT:
>Alison wrote:
>>
>> One thing I remember him saying specifically: what would a stuffed
>> Hobbes look like? Would it be the version we all see and that Calvin
>> sees, or would it be the version the grownups in the strip see?
>
>Ooh, I think it should be one of those stuffed animals you can turn
>inside out to turn into something else. So one way it would be the
>grownup version, but when you pulled it inside out it would become the
>Calvin version. Would that be cool or what?
"Ooh - yeah! And the stuffed Calvin could be turned inside out to
become Spaceman Spiff!"
Alison, marvelling at the possibilities
(remove 'SPAMKILL' from address to reply)
Adam Littman
>
>Adam Littman <al...@nospam.cornell.edu> wrote in message
>news:8eqe0l$8u0$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu...
>> In article <3910a761$0$84...@wodc7nh6.news.uu.net>, "Gene Szedenits, Jr."
><szed...@servicelevel.net> wrote:
>
>> >There is demand or at least interest in owning a B-5 shotglass among
>> >the fans of B-5. Is Straczynski a schmuck for not providing one?
>> >Would he be a schmuck to prosecute someone bootlegging B-5
>> >shotglasses?
>>
>> Kind of a niche market. Not strongly related nor expected merchandising
>for a
>> TV show AFAIK. Whereas t-shirts, plush toys, lunch boxes, etc. are
>traditional
>> merchandising of comic strips.
>
>
>I take it I am to infer non-schmuckhood then? On grounds of meeting
>cultural expectations?
Generally it is thought that refusing some large sum of money on principle is
an admirable thing. Refusing on a stupid principle is quite another. Not
wanting to promote drinking is an example of the first. Not wanting plush toys
and bumber stickers of your characters is the second.
>> >At bottom B-5 was a TV show and Calvin & Hobbes a comic.
>> >Where does the obligation to provide peripheral merchandise
>> >come from?
>>
>> No obligation, anymore than one has an obligation to hold a door for
>someone.
>> They would still be a schmuck to let it slam in someone's face.
>
>
>I am having a real hard time seeing the situations as analogous.
Unless one is a doorman there is no obligation to hold the door. This does not
make not holding a door a nice thing to do.
dogbertcarroll
abought him 'pimping' out his characters.
I also saw a cute shirt with Calvin and Hobbes on it
in Korea that said "Death before reinlistment."
I think they just bring them out for us sailors.
dogbertcarroll
Jacob Sommer
>
> "Gene Szedenits, Jr." wrote:
> >I take it I am to infer non-schmuckhood then? On grounds of meeting
> >cultural expectations?
>
> Generally it is thought that refusing some large sum of money on principle is
> an admirable thing. Refusing on a stupid principle is quite another. Not
> wanting to promote drinking is an example of the first. Not wanting plush toys
> and bumber stickers of your characters is the second.
If he wants them to stay the way they are, that is his choice as the creator
of Calvin and Hobbes. Considering the evil Calvin and Hobbes rip off stuff
I've seen I'd say he's right to be worried about merchandising. I mean,
Calvin was a brat but was never truly evil. Stuff I've seen have included
Calvin drinking, throwing up, pissing on stuff, giving the finger - Calvin
was *never* portrayed as that mean.
Creative control is just that - *control*.
You know, I find it interesting that you support people having the right to
live the way they want but don't want to let a creator have the right to do
the same.
> >I am having a real hard time seeing the situations as analogous.
>
> Unless one is a doorman there is no obligation to hold the door. This does not
> make not holding a door a nice thing to do.
This much is true. Still, holding a door is a lot different from
merchandising.
Jacob
dogbertcarroll
dogbertcarroll
- I know I didn't have to say it but I felt like it.
Joe Thompson
> Chris Wesling <cwes...@home.cannedmeat.com> wrote on Thu, 04 May 2000
> 03:54:28 GMT:
>
> >Alison wrote:
> >>
> >> One thing I remember him saying specifically: what would a stuffed
> >> Hobbes look like? Would it be the version we all see and that Calvin
> >> sees, or would it be the version the grownups in the strip see?
> >
> >Ooh, I think it should be one of those stuffed animals you can turn
> >inside out to turn into something else. So one way it would be the
> >grownup version, but when you pulled it inside out it would become the
> >Calvin version. Would that be cool or what?
>
> "Ooh - yeah! And the stuffed Calvin could be turned inside out to
> become Spaceman Spiff!"
You'd have to get Stupendous Man in there somehow too. -- Joe
Jacob Sommer
> He doesn't have to produce them. Just license them to someone else to produce.
> As I have said before there is a difference between "not helping" and
> "hurting". However when the ratio of difficulty of helping to benefits to
> others of helping gets low enough someone would have to be a pretty big jerk
> not to help.
There are reasons why artists are wary of licensing out things. The entire
scope of what the art represents can be changed and the artist could very
easily hate what it comes to represent.
I can even cite an example from a more commercial art called cooking. There
used to be a chain called Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips here in the USA.
They had great batter dipped fish and large steak style french fries. It
was the fast food restaurant of choice for my family as Dad (health nut that
he is) liked the idea of fish and all of us liked what they sold.
The Arthur Treacher's franchise rights were bought by a particular company
that sells frozen fish in supermarkets. This company told the franchise
owners that it wanted them to sell the holding company's brand of frozen
fish in their freezers. Most of the franchise owners refused - from what I
have been told, they cited putting the Arthur Treacher's stamp of approval
upon what they considered to be a far inferior fish product. As a result
most Arthur Treacher's lost their franchises and the chain is TTBOMK quite
dead, at least in the USA.
I've had the fish of that holding company and it's decent for frozen fish.
However, it was not in the same league as Arthur Treacher's.
> If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for a
> year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk for
> not doing so.
Which is not the same as an artist saying "I'm not going to compromise my
art." It may be "common" art, but it *is* art.
> dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > As someone who has worked as an artist myself, I have to admit that
> >your post *really* rubbed me the wrong way. I've been harrassed
> >(followed around, phoned, e-mailed, etc) in the past by people who
> >wanted me to draw porn to their specification involving characters of
> >my own creation. By this point in my career, I was not drawing erotica
> >of any kind for sale. Further, I felt that the specific images that the
> >person in question wanted put to paper were insulting and degrading to
> >my characters.
Adam Littman wrote:
> Porn doesn't enter into it. There has been no suggestion here of "adult"
> versions of the merchandise.
<shrug> If you saw some of the "Calvin" rip off stuff on trucks and vans
you probably wouldn't debate this point...
Jacob
Joe Thompson
> In article <8er8ie$5ia$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > The characters are his creation. He chooses to draw comics. That is
> >his art. He seems to feel that his characters are best viewed within the
> >context of his art and that to use them as marketing tools would cheapen
> >their impact within his chosen medium. Maybe he just didn't want the
> >characters themselves to be limited by a political or financial
> >agenda.
>
> I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not
> The Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
> Having that kind of "my art is so important that I couldn't possibly let
> it be commercial" attitude is pretentious and arrogant about things that,
> at the end of the day are just comic characters.
So then, all art is just a commodity? Where do you draw the line between
"real" art, "popular" art and commercial art? No matter where you draw it,
somebody can justifiably claim it shouldn't be drawn there.
> Personally I own no C&H mechandise, not even books. Wouldn't buy them if
> he did sell them. But as a fervent capitalist I resent someone who could,
> with no more than a few days effort, create millions of dollars of wealth
> for the economy but refuses to do so.
[...]
> If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for
> a year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk
> for not doing so.
This sounds a lot like "trickle-down economics". The problem is, just in-
jecting money into an economy does no good at all. Ask post-WWI Germany.
If you dump a load of cash into an economy with no real capital being
produced, all you do is ultimately add a little to that year's inflation
rate. If he were selling washing machines it would be different, IMHO.
I don't think trickle-down economics was ever meant to be applied to any-
thing that didn't result in production of capital.
> > The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the implied
> >contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide the
> > legitimate merchandise that he desired?
>
> Not in that case. But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version of
> images you had already drawn, and someone else would be willing to make
> them for no effort of your part beyond cashing your royalty checks then,
> yes.
That's an interesting claim. Essentially you are denying the artist the
right to determine the disposition of his creation. If I may descend into
political rhetoric for a moment, this is one of the most insidious forms
of collectivism I've ever seen: collectivism as mandatory capitalist exploi-
tation.
As a test if I understand you, would you say that someone who buys a hundred
acres of prime farmland and then lets it go back to wild is delinquent in
his duty to produce or allow others to produce? -- Joe
Joyce Melton
>If he wants them to stay the way they are, that is his choice as the creator
>of Calvin and Hobbes. Considering the evil Calvin and Hobbes rip off stuff
>I've seen I'd say he's right to be worried about merchandising. I mean,
>Calvin was a brat but was never truly evil. Stuff I've seen have included
>Calvin drinking, throwing up, pissing on stuff, giving the finger - Calvin
>was *never* portrayed as that mean.
>
>Creative control is just that - *control*.
Watterson of course has the right to do what he is doing. But his
refusal to license is paradoxically part of what makes the worst
examples of piracy of his creations possible. No one has an economic
interest in protecting Watterson's characters. Not even Watterson, it
would cost him money to pursue violators with no real hope of getting
much back.
So, the sleaze merchants merchandize sleaze. And Calvin is rapidly
becoming the symbol of a sort of nasty antisocial attitude that is
totally contrary to the individuality and creativity that Watterson
and Calvin should represent.
I don't agree completely with Adam or his reasoning on this. But I
think that Watterson has made a mistake. Thirty years from now, will
Calvin be remembered as a character in a gently satirical comic strip?
Or as a bumper sticker of a boy pissing on some corporate logo?
Joyce
Joyce Melton
>The moral question is,
>"What impact has Watterson's denial of merchandising rights had on socie-
>ty?" And in my opinion the answer is "none at all". I don't think society
>is particularly impoverished by a child not being able to buy a stuffed
>Hobbes or her parents not being able to put a Calvin bumper sticker (offen-
>sive or not) on their station wagon. I don't see that such things materi-
>ally would improve our standard of living; they're just vehicles for merch-
>andisers to make a quick buck, and their shot at making money doesn't out-
>weigh the right of the creator to determine how his creations are used.
Morally and legally, Watterson is in the right. Practically, in the
real world, his decision has resulted in the ongoing destruction of
much of the future value of Calvin and Hobbes to himself, to the real
fans of C&H and to society.
I don't agree with Adam or with his reasoning on this. But with no one
who has an economic interest in protecting Calvin and Hobbes, the
pirates will continue to produce works that are contrary to
Watterson's wishes and intents. It would cost Watterson both time and
money to fight the pirates with very little return for him. No one
else has much in the way of incentive at all. The book publishers
being a small exception.
Not licensing characters like Calvin does not result in them not being
exploited. It just means that no one with a legal or moral right to do
so will earn anything from the exploitation.
You don't see bumper stickers of Bugs Bunny shitting on the Disney
logo because Time-Warner has lawyers who make their living off suing
people who might do that.
Joyce
Joyce Melton
>As an aside, I lost a lot of respect for intellectual property laws in the US
>when they US government screwed the people out of the free use of Mickey Mouse
>for the next few decades.
>
>If they wanted to extend copyright for all future works that is one thing,
>that could arguably encourage even greater levels of creativity (I doubt it
>though). But to deliberately reneg on a deal made between Walt Disney and the
>public over 50 years ago? Is he retroactively going to be more creative as a
>result?
This is not just intellectual property anymore. Mickey Mouse is
trademarked. Different laws.
Joyce
Joyce Melton
>Under our current intellectual
>property system, an author who allows others to exploit his creation and
>does nothing to stop it *is* giving up his right to stop it later.
Not exactly. It might make it harder to win a case, but under
COPYRIGHT the author does not lose the right to pursue remedies
against one group just because they have not done so against others.
>Aspirin
>was originally the name of the specific pain reliever made by Bayer; they
>make half-hearted attempts to promote brand loyalty today but US courts
>ruled long ago that their trademark is now a part of the language and its
>use cannot be restricted.
That's trademark as you note. Trademark is different from copyright.
Joyce
dre...@my-deja.com
> > The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the
implied
> >contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide
the
> > legitimate merchandise that he desired?
>
> Not in that case. But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version
of images
> you had already drawn, and someone else would be willing to make them
for no
> effort of your part beyond cashing your royalty checks then, yes.
Even if I have no way of verifying the craftsmanship or good
business practices of this third party who wishes to produce plush toys
of my characters? Even if I have no idea what materials they use, where
the product is being produced,how much they are paying their work
force, etc? Even if I disagree with their methods of marketing? Even if
I have moral problems with some of the other products that they market?
Bleah. Remind me never to share or create anything in a world that
you run.
Joyce Melton
>I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not The
>Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
This is pretension on your part. The Mona Lisa is "only" pigments on
wood. David is just calcareous imagery. Your pretense of being able to
make the judgement of ages on someone else's creative efforts is kind
of unintentionally humorous considering that both of the art objects
and artists you mention have more parallels to Watterson than you
probably imagine.
But at least your argument here has been entertaining. :)
BYNO?
Joyce
Adam Littman
>Adam Littman wrote:
>>
>> "Gene Szedenits, Jr." wrote:
>
>> >I take it I am to infer non-schmuckhood then? On grounds of meeting
>> >cultural expectations?
>>
>> Generally it is thought that refusing some large sum of money on principle is
>> an admirable thing. Refusing on a stupid principle is quite another. Not
>> wanting to promote drinking is an example of the first. Not wanting plush
> toys
>> and bumber stickers of your characters is the second.
>
>of Calvin and Hobbes. Considering the evil Calvin and Hobbes rip off stuff
>I've seen I'd say he's right to be worried about merchandising. I mean,
>Calvin was a brat but was never truly evil. Stuff I've seen have included
>Calvin drinking, throwing up, pissing on stuff, giving the finger - Calvin
>was *never* portrayed as that mean.
>
>Creative control is just that - *control*.
>
>live the way they want but don't want to let a creator have the right to do
>the same.
He can live however he wants (within reason). That doesn't mean he isn't being
stupid. The right to be stupid and otherwise wrong is an important one.
But that has nothing to do with the characters.
I strongly suspect that there would be _far_ fewer "evil Calvin" knock offs
out there if there were legitimate t-shirts to drain off the market for them.
I don't recall seeing "evil" knockoffs of any other cartoon character on
t-shirts, but I have seen people wearing a "friends don't let friends beer
goggle" t-shirt with Calvin on it (surrounded by boozles).
You may protest that it is his right not to have knockoffs made anyway. You'd
be correct. However it is also a person's right not to be mugged if they walk
down the street in a bad neighborhood counting money and yelling "God I am so
rich, with all this untraceable cash on me here, and I don't believe in
carrying a weapon".
This doesn't mean they aren't going to get mugged if they do that. Just that
the person doing it is violating their rights.
One of those "what did you expect" cases.
>> >I am having a real hard time seeing the situations as analogous.
>>
>> Unless one is a doorman there is no obligation to hold the door. This does
> not
>> make not holding a door a nice thing to do.
>
>This much is true. Still, holding a door is a lot different from
>merchandising.
Small effort on his part, small benefit to very large numbers of other people.
Lots of good with little effort.
Adam Littman
> I know he use to tease the creator of Bloom County
>abought him 'pimping' out his characters.
Maybe, but I have never seen a knockoff t-shirt of a Bloom county character
doing anything Berke Breathed wouldn't approve of.
Adam Littman
>Adam Littman wrote:
>> dre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > As someone who has worked as an artist myself, I have to admit that
>> >your post *really* rubbed me the wrong way. I've been harrassed
>> >(followed around, phoned, e-mailed, etc) in the past by people who
>> >wanted me to draw porn to their specification involving characters of
>> >my own creation. By this point in my career, I was not drawing erotica
>> >of any kind for sale. Further, I felt that the specific images that the
>> >person in question wanted put to paper were insulting and degrading to
>> >my characters.
>
>Adam Littman wrote:
>> Porn doesn't enter into it. There has been no suggestion here of "adult"
>> versions of the merchandise.
>
><shrug> If you saw some of the "Calvin" rip off stuff on trucks and vans
>you probably wouldn't debate this point...
This makes my point more than yours. In practical terms he can license them,
and keep creative control, and let the licensing company stomp on the rip-off
stuff. Or he can have lots of unauthorized stuff as the only example of C&H
that anyone will see from now on.
I meant that porn doesn't enter into _authorized_ C&H merchandise.
Adam Littman
>On Thu, 04 May 2000 14:00:43 GMT, Adam Littman wrote:
>So then, all art is just a commodity? Where do you draw the line between
>"real" art, "popular" art and commercial art? No matter where you draw it,
>somebody can justifiably claim it shouldn't be drawn there.
Real visual art (IMHO no official backing on this) is something that takes
more than a day to make it, generally something you would not toss or line
your bird's cage with, after you were done reading it.
>> Personally I own no C&H mechandise, not even books. Wouldn't buy them if
>> he did sell them. But as a fervent capitalist I resent someone who could,
>> with no more than a few days effort, create millions of dollars of wealth
>> for the economy but refuses to do so.
>[...]
>> If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for
>> a year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk
>> for not doing so.
>
>This sounds a lot like "trickle-down economics". The problem is, just in-
>jecting money into an economy does no good at all. Ask post-WWI Germany.
>If you dump a load of cash into an economy with no real capital being
>produced, all you do is ultimately add a little to that year's inflation
>rate. If he were selling washing machines it would be different, IMHO.
This kind of misunderstanding of economics saddens me. I did not say he would
be "dumping a load of cash into the economy", like some counterfeiter. I said
he would be creating wealth. In this case, something of value to other people.
Just as a furniture company creates wealth when they take wood and turn it
into a finished product.
If anything that is deflationary since the total value people have access to
goes up without a corresponding increase in the money supply.
>That's an interesting claim. Essentially you are denying the artist the
>right to determine the disposition of his creation. If I may descend into
>political rhetoric for a moment, this is one of the most insidious forms
>of collectivism I've ever seen: collectivism as mandatory capitalist exploi-
>tation.
Nope. He has the right to do so. Just as a store owner has a right to refuse
service to someone because he doesn't like their height. That doesn't make
such a refusal the right thing to do.
>As a test if I understand you, would you say that someone who buys a hundred
>acres of prime farmland and then lets it go back to wild is delinquent in
>his duty to produce or allow others to produce? -- Joe
If the state sold him the land with the understanding that he _would_ produce
then, yes. In this case patents and copyrights are given in the expectation
that the holder will make productive use of them, not sit on them.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
Maybe, but I have never seen a knockoff t-shirt of a Bloom county character doing anything Berke Breathed wouldn't
approve of.
<You know the man, then? Can I have his autograph?>
Maraud.
Joe Thompson
> This makes my point more than yours. In practical terms he can license them,
> and keep creative control, and let the licensing company stomp on the rip-off
> stuff. Or he can have lots of unauthorized stuff as the only example of C&H
> that anyone will see from now on.
Seems to me that whoever publishes the books has a definite interest in
keeping the image of the characters unsullied. Is this something they're
not doing because they don't realize, are they not doing it because they
explicitly don't care, or are they in fact doing it and this whole argu-
ment is moot? -- Joe
Adam Littman
>al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam Littman) wrote:
>
>>I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not The
>>Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
>
>This is pretension on your part. The Mona Lisa is "only" pigments on
>wood. David is just calcareous imagery. Your pretense of being able to
Neither was done in one day. Both required large amounts of time and care by
skilled artists in their creation. Unlike a comic strip. They have been
deliberately and at great expense kept intact for centuries. People use comic
strips as kindling.
Get to the comic _book_ stage and it starts to become serious art
(potentially).
Adam Littman
>In article <8es03a$sl8$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu>,
> al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam Littman) wrote:
>*snip*
>
>> > The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the
>implied
>> >contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide
>the
>> > legitimate merchandise that he desired?
>>
>> Not in that case. But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version
>of images
>> you had already drawn, and someone else would be willing to make them
>for no
>> effort of your part beyond cashing your royalty checks then, yes.
>
> Even if I have no way of verifying the craftsmanship or good
>business practices of this third party who wishes to produce plush toys
>of my characters? Even if I have no idea what materials they use, where
>the product is being produced,how much they are paying their work
>force, etc? Even if I disagree with their methods of marketing? Even if
>I have moral problems with some of the other products that they market?
That is what contracts are for. You act as if he had such control over C&H
merchandise people are illegally producing now.
Kris Overstreet
Littman) wrote:
>
>Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
>protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
>Also why do you think these things run out?
>
>Now someone might naively assume it is for the good of the writers and
>inventors that these things are protected, they would be wrong.
Obviously you are not a writer, or if you are you have no real
attachment to your work.
>They benefit from it too but that is secondary to the main goal. The reason
>these things are protected is for the benefit of the society, so that artists
>and inventors will have incentive to create, and especially disseminate their
>creations rather than keeping them secret. After they have had a certain time
>to benefit from them the rights revert to the public.
Bullshit.
Copyright is not a gift of society, it is a moral right of property
guaranteed to the individual.
It is not merely an economic right (although in the US that is its
strongest use). It is also the principal means a creator has of
protecting their creation from misuse and abuse. Copyright law keeps
fanfic to a small and scattered level, instead of mass-marketed
against the original creator's wishes.
>This is not the same thing as physical property ownership, where one person
>can't have a thing without depriving its owner of the use of it.
Yes, it is; the property involved is control over a specific
intellectual property, i. e. a work of art.
>They are admirably living up to their end of the deal. As long as they are
>providing all that it is wrong to produce competing products, even if free.
What 'deal'?
Any deal which forces someone to produce material or else lose their
control over the work sounds more like blackmail to me.
>However if they were to suddenly say "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". And stop
>making use of the characters and franchise then there would be no ethical
>reason not to use it.
Except for the fact that:
(a) it's theft, plain and simple;
(b) it's disrespectful to the creators.
>Any more than fishing an abandoned pair of shoes out of the trash would be
>unethical. Illegal in some cases maybe, but not unethical.
Your metaphor is unsound; the proper one is fishing out a pair of
shoes from someone else's closet.
As a fanfic writer myself, I respect the basic restrictions on my
actions: I may not sell the work for profit, I must acknowledge the
rights of the creators, and if any creator orders me to stop, I must
stop.
As a creator in my own right, I expect and demand such restrictions on
those who would create material based upon my works. This is not so
much from economic reasons as from a deep-seated love for my
creations. Simply put, I do not want them to be misused by others.
Redneck
Adam Littman
Since I have never seen an unauthorized Bloom county t-shirt. Or for that
matter one in which the characters were doing anything of a nature they didn't
do in his own strips then unless he wouldn't approve of them doing what he had
them do the statement is true.
And no, I never met the man.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> > through normal channels?>
>
> That was specified, that was the "If someone who would not have bought the CD
> in any case" part.
<Circular logic. You've just said "A person who acts like I describe is going to
act like I describe.">
> >> BTW who do you think is ripping off recording artists more? Pirates, or
> > record companies that make $5 per album while giving the artists $0.50?
> >
> ><Pirates. Seems like ripping someone off for a tenth of what you get is better
> > than refusing to pay them at all.>
>
> In absolute terms not relative I meant. What really scares the Record labels
> is artists who don't need them, not artists getting ripped off.
<You're not making sense, man. I can tell this is a hot button issue, but you're
only restating your case over and over, and when someone asks a question, you refer
them to your previous statements, which have yet to be qualified...
I'm saying that it's the ARTISTS whose work is being copied without any recompense,
it's the artists/musicians, etc. who have the right to sue a Napster or to say "No
merchandise" or to make decisions based solely on what THEY see fit for their work.
Copyright is in their name. And as far as I'm concerned, being ripped off for a
percentage of my money by big business is one thing, but losing ANY AND ALL possible
profits by pirating is wholly another.>
> The music industry is doing their level best to insure that people do get used
> to it by going after MP3.com for a service that let people listen to copies of
> CDs they already owned. Cutting off their nose to spite their face...
<On the contrary, they're trying to set a legal precedent as a firebreak against the
events you've already predicted... Whether it's gonna work is one thing, but I
think the artists and record companies have a right to do it.>
Maraud.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> in the late seventies, early eighties. :)
<Whadja write?>
Maraud. Hopes he's read it!
Manuel A. McLure
>(Adam Littman) got on his soap box in alt.callahans and said::
[SNIP]
>>A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and the
>>public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright holders) sell
>
>>legitimate merchandise.
[SNIP]
>"Sir... it is HIS copyright. He has his choice in how to use it. Charles
> Schultz
>choose to merchandise and, in his quiet way, maintain quality control. Lynn
>Johnson has a small For Better or For Worse catalog. Watterson said, 'No, that
>doesn't jive with how I see my craft.'
I actually understand where Adam is coming from - I disagree with his
conclusions, however.
The issue is that copyright does imply a "contract" between the copyright
holder and the public. The copyright says to the creator "Instead of
you having to keep this secret so that people can't steal it, I will give you
protection against stealing on the condition that you publish." (similar to a
patent). From this it could be implied that the copyright holder is also
required to produce stuff such as merchandise, or allow others to do so. IMHO,
this is a false implication.
--
The World War 1 Flying Ace
Adam Littman
>On Thu, 04 May 2000 17:48:46 GMT, Adam Littman wrote:
>> This makes my point more than yours. In practical terms he can license them,
>> and keep creative control, and let the licensing company stomp on the rip-off
>> stuff. Or he can have lots of unauthorized stuff as the only example of C&H
>> that anyone will see from now on.
>
>Seems to me that whoever publishes the books has a definite interest in
>keeping the image of the characters unsullied. Is this something they're
>not doing because they don't realize, are they not doing it because they
>explicitly don't care, or are they in fact doing it and this whole argu-
>ment is moot? -- Joe
Generally (not in all cases, but in most) the manufacturer cares more about
competition than the image of the characters. They go after exact copies of
their own merchandise with the same zeal as they go after nasty versions.
The image is often stated, where possible, but it is an excuse, so they don't
have to say "we at the megaslime corporation stomped on this low rent guy
purely because we want the money from selling our shirts to the people who
were buying his instead." That sounds a lot greedier than "protecting the
purity of our image" does.
Since the t-shirt knock offs are not direct competition, the book people don't
care as much as a t-shirt company would.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
<Relax...>
> Personally I own no C&H mechandise, not even books. Wouldn't buy them if he
> did sell them. But as a fervent capitalist I resent someone who could, with no
> more than a few days effort, create millions of dollars of wealth for the
> economy but refuses to do so.
<That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.>
> If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for a
> year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk for
> not doing so.
<What?>
>>But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version of images you had already
drawn, and someone else would be willing to make them for no effort of your part
beyond cashing your royalty checks then, yes.
<This is beyond frustrating, Adam. This is arrogance, pure and simple.
As someone who wants to write and publish his ideas, I find this entire
conversation to be chilling, at the very least.
I don't want this to become a personal attack, so I'm done.>
Maraud.
Eleri
:-o >
:-o >> >There is demand or at least interest in owning a B-5 shotglass among
:-o >> >the fans of B-5. Is Straczynski a schmuck for not providing one?
:-o >> >Would he be a schmuck to prosecute someone bootlegging B-5
:-o >> >shotglasses?
:-o >>
OK, having utterly lost the first part of this conversation, I may be
just stating the already said...I've *seen* B5 shotglasses. They're
nifty.
And no, I don't think any creator of any item, who holds the rights to
that item, is under any obligation to authorize spin off merchandice.
Now, who spaced that teddy bear...
El
~~Eleri~~
Mighty Lap Huntress and TempestWench
Kris Overstreet
Littman) wrote:
>I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not The
>Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
Anyone who points at a work of art and says, "THAT is not ART!" is
themselves being pretentious.
And an ass.
>Having that kind of "my art is so important that I couldn't possibly let it be
>commercial" attitude is pretentious and arrogant about things that, at the end
>of the day are just comic characters.
>
But to Bill, those characters are HIS creations, beloved characters he
put great effort into developing.
Again I say, you are obviously not a creator.
>>> A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders
>>and the
>>> public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright
>>holders) sell
>>> legitimate merchandise.
Bullshit.
This is like saying that my wallet is an 'implied contract.' Either I
spend my money right away, or you will have the right to come and take
it from me.
>> Do you honestly believe that the merchant is *obligated* to sell
>>precisely what the buyer desires, even if the merchant has no interest
>>in producing that item?
>
>He doesn't have to produce them. Just license them to someone else to produce.
But, in your view, he -DOES- have to give up his right to -not- sell?
>If you come to a button, the pressing of which will feed a poor family for a
>year, you are under no obligation to push it. You would still be a jerk for
>not doing so.
So everything anybody does should be done with a mind to what should
happen to everyone else, directly or indirectly?
And it's immoral to choose your own well being over that of another,
any day, any time?
>Porn doesn't enter into it. There has been no suggestion here of "adult"
>versions of the merchandise.
Calvin pissing/shitting on (insert logo here) isn't adult to you? Or
at least a gross perversion of the original character?
>> The characters were copyrighted to me. Was I perverting the implied
>>contract between myself and the fanboy, because I refused to provide the
>> legitimate merchandise that he desired?
>
>Not in that case. But if what he had wanted was a plush toy version of images
>you had already drawn, and someone else would be willing to make them for no
>effort of your part beyond cashing your royalty checks then, yes.
Um, NO.
This implies that a person has no control over their own creation
beyond what YOU- not society, but YOU, Adam- are willing to grant.
In my book, that makes you a gross thief, a scoundrel, and an asshole.
Redneck
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> skilled artists in their creation. Unlike a comic strip. They have been
> deliberately and at great expense kept intact for centuries. People use comic
> strips as kindling.
>
> Get to the comic _book_ stage and it starts to become serious art
> (potentially).
<Please stop talking. Please stop talking before you get yourself in trouble...>
Maraud. Wants some blinders like that at work...
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> merchandise people are illegally producing now.
<Which are adult material, bordering in some case on pornographic.
Which side you on, man?>
Maraud.
Stacy & Matthew Peterson
> beyond what YOU- not society, but YOU, Adam- are willing to grant.
<Redneck, you speak bluntly, but you speak well...
BOYC?>
Maraud. Ain't giving up creative control if'n he can help it... "The Days and
Nights of the Mighty King Cobra" kinda has a ring to it, donnit?
Matthew T. Russotto
Joe Thompson <sp...@orion-com.com> wrote:
}
}I still think the ultimate authority must rest with the creator. Art is a
}very emotional and personal thing and I think one of the reasons copyrights
}last longer than patents is to protect an author from having to see his
}creation perverted and beingunable to stop it. (Now, of course, as of 1978
}new works are protected for life-plus-50, with some weird maneuvering for
}works created betwen 1964 and 1978, but anything created before 1964 is
}only protected for 75 years, meaning everything before then will be out of
}copyright by 2039, and anything created before 1925 is already out.) -- Joe
It's life plus 70 now, and I think 100 years for copyrights originally
owned by entites other than people. They keep extending it, some
claim to preserve Mickey Mouse's copyright.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
Adam Littman
>On Thu, 04 May 2000 00:04:36 GMT, al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam
>Littman) wrote:
>>
>>Most people don't think about it too deeply, but why do you think society
>>protects (assuming without prejudice that it does) patents and copyrights?
>>Also why do you think these things run out?
>>
>>Now someone might naively assume it is for the good of the writers and
>>inventors that these things are protected, they would be wrong.
>
>Obviously you are not a writer, or if you are you have no real
>attachment to your work.
I am not saying that writers should not have these rights. I am just giving
what I see as the reason society provides them.
As to "you are not an X otherwise you would hold position Y". Well if I were a
psychopathic serial killer I would probably be anti-death penalty and
pro-light sentences. That doesn't make that position correct.
>>They benefit from it too but that is secondary to the main goal. The reason
>>these things are protected is for the benefit of the society, so that artists
>>and inventors will have incentive to create, and especially disseminate their
>>creations rather than keeping them secret. After they have had a certain time
>>to benefit from them the rights revert to the public.
>
>Bullshit.
>
>Copyright is not a gift of society, it is a moral right of property
>guaranteed to the individual.
Since when? Why, in moral terms, should you get exclusive right to use an idea
just because you were the first to think of it? If you come up with a new
invention, your own personal use of it is not impaired by others making use of
the same idea. Your ability to sell it is. But why is that a moral right?
>>This is not the same thing as physical property ownership, where one person
>>can't have a thing without depriving its owner of the use of it.
>
>Yes, it is; the property involved is control over a specific
>intellectual property, i. e. a work of art.
You are not prevented from listening to a piece of music you recorded if I
also have a copy. You are prevented from sitting in your chair if I stole it.
See the difference?
>>They are admirably living up to their end of the deal. As long as they are
>>providing all that it is wrong to produce competing products, even if free.
>
>What 'deal'?
Society protects copyrights and patents. That is our end of it. You provide
the stuff you have invented or written (for a price). That is your end of it.
>Any deal which forces someone to produce material or else lose their
>control over the work sounds more like blackmail to me.
You aren't forced to produce it. You don't lose control over your work. Just
copies of it, if you don't provide society with an incentive to let you also
control copies of your work. It takes a lot of labor on your part to produce a
manuscript. And no labor at all on your part for others to copy it.
How long do you think patent laws would exist if all patent holders refused to
sell or license the products they patented?
>>However if they were to suddenly say "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". And stop
>>making use of the characters and franchise then there would be no ethical
>>reason not to use it.
>
>Except for the fact that:
>
>(a) it's theft, plain and simple;
See, that is what I was talking about. Give the real reasons it is wrong to
make unauthorized copies and you might convince people. Try to make copying be
something it isn't and people just ignore you. If you made it yourself it
ain't stealing.
Sounds like those loons who go around saying "meat is murder". There might be
legitimate arguments against meat eating, but by making a ridiculous statement
the veg people turn people off.
"This woman came up and asked me 'Did you know a cow was _murdered_ for that
jacket?'. I said 'well, I didn't know there were any _witnesses_. Now I'll
have to kill you too'" - Stephen Wright.
>(b) it's disrespectful to the creators.
>
>>Any more than fishing an abandoned pair of shoes out of the trash would be
>>unethical. Illegal in some cases maybe, but not unethical.
>
>Your metaphor is unsound; the proper one is fishing out a pair of
>shoes from someone else's closet.
I specified "no more Star Trek stuff, ever". Not "no more Star Trek stuff
until we feel like it".
There are a significant number of works which would not exist at all now if it
were not for piracy.
Would that someone had made bootleg copies of the early Dr.Who episodes. Then
we might still have them instead of their having been taped over by the BBC,
and lost forever.
Kris Overstreet
>In case you are wondering, I wrote, edited and published comic books
>in the late seventies, early eighties. :)
Going to be at San Diego this year?
Kris Overstreet
publisher, White Lightning Productions
Alison
18:06:11 GMT:
>In article <9u93hs4s949rpqdvd...@4ax.com>, Joyce Melton <jo...@qnez.com> wrote:
>>al...@nospam.cornell.edu (Adam Littman) wrote:
>>
>>>I think I already mentioned "pretentious". They are comic characters not The
>>>Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David.
>>
>>This is pretension on your part. The Mona Lisa is "only" pigments on
>>wood. David is just calcareous imagery. Your pretense of being able to
>
>Neither was done in one day. Both required large amounts of time and care by
>skilled artists in their creation. Unlike a comic strip.
Um...photographs, particularly of the documentary variety, only take
*minutes* to make. Are they not art?
Alison
(remove 'SPAMKILL' from address to reply)
Brenda Daverin
<hhn1hsk163oooac4h...@4ax.com>:
>(Adam Littman) got on his soap box in alt.callahans and said::
>
>>
>>What a schmuck. I mean it is his right to be a schmuck in this matter
>>but that is one of the most dog-in-a-manger things I have heard of. He
>>isn't interested in directing the making of stuffed C&H toys so no one
>>else should be allowed to either?
>>
>>What an arrogant, pretentious jerk.
>>
>>A real perversion of the implied contract between copyright holders and
>>the public. _We_ (the public) don't pirate and _they_ (the copyright
>>holders) sell legitimate merchandise.
>
>Sound of a glass shattering. Everyone looks at the Raven Shaman who is
>blinking so much it's almost a fit.
>
>"Pardon?"
>
>He very carefully stays where he is.
>
>"Sir... it is HIS copyright. He has his choice in how to use it. Charles
>Schultz choose to merchandise and, in his quiet way, maintain quality
>control. Lynn Johnson has a small For Better or For Worse catalog.
>Watterson said, 'No, that doesn't jive with how I see my craft.'
"My thoughts exactly! The artist is NOT required to merchandise his
characters, EVER. They're his babies, he has every right to control how
they're handled."
<snip>
>Kristling takes a few more lungfuls, and smirks ruefully.
>
>"Next round on me."
The laughter of a raven other than Kristling's companion descends from the
rafters. Brenda just grins, hands him a towel wrapped in plastic "for
afterwards," and ducks behind a giant umbrella.
--
Brenda Daverin
bdav...@best.com
"Usenet is just e-mail with witnesses." - Rob Hansen
The Unravelled Ferret - http://members.aol.com/lysana/
Adam Littman
>> ><If they couldn't get the CD illegally, they would naturally never buy it
>> > through normal channels?>
>>
>> That was specified, that was the "If someone who would not have bought the CD
>> in any case" part.
>
><Circular logic. You've just said "A person who acts like I describe is going
> to act like I describe.">
No. Not circular logic. And I didn't say that.
I said a person who would not purchase the item, even if circumstances were
such that the result of not purchasing was that they would not have a copy (as
in, no way to make a pirated copy). Then the result would be no money from
that person going to the record company under any circumstances _whether or
not they made a pirated copy_. Then the record company is not materially worse
off if they _do_ make a pirated copy.
BTW, you are free to make a copy of this post. The price is $1 trillion per
copy. So if you do make a copy you will have robbed me of $1 trillion. By
record company logic.
>I'm saying that it's the ARTISTS whose work is being copied without any
> recompense,
>it's the artists/musicians, etc. who have the right to sue a Napster or to say
> "No merchandise" or to make decisions based solely on what THEY see fit for their
> work. Copyright is in their name. And as far as I'm concerned, being ripped off for
> a percentage of my money by big business is one thing, but losing ANY AND ALL
> possible profits by pirating is wholly another.
Do you think they should have the right to stop mp3.com from letting people
listen remotely to copies of songs they own legitimate, purchased copies of?
>> The music industry is doing their level best to insure that people do get
> used
>> to it by going after MP3.com for a service that let people listen to copies
> of
>> CDs they already owned. Cutting off their nose to spite their face...
>
><On the contrary, they're trying to set a legal precedent as a firebreak
> against the
>events you've already predicted... Whether it's gonna work is one thing, but I
>think the artists and record companies have a right to do it.>
Make fair use impossible and people get used to piracy. Makes it tough to get
them to give it up.
Think they should be allowed to make CDs that will only play in one stereo,
too?