Posting work written by others. **ALL MEMBERS READ**

"Holy alphabet, Batman! That was a lot of reading"

- Robin, of Batman and Robin, episode 16

Posting work written by others. **ALL MEMBERS READ**

-Springer & SkepticOverlord

Was this manditory to read all this? It took me nearly 40 minutes.

Originally posted by Springer
.. . plagiarism .. .

plagiarism is a tool for greedy vain people trying to present words as though the very base of communication, or a peice of it, is owned by them. How can people own words? Are we so selfish and greedy that we can't openly share our own language?

owning communication when communication is key could be promoting ignorance.

There are billions of people on this planet, and if everyone on the planet were to spend thier waking hours writing for one month straight, I doubt any combination of words would not be owned. 200 years from now they will have to create new words and change language itself out of fear of the reprocussions of stealing words. What a concept. Trading the mark. Trade mark.

"in the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God"

- The Book, aka The Bible

I for one am not so vain, nor selfish, nor greedy. These words existed before me, and I'm more than willing to share them for free. Take my words whenever you want, I don't think they are mine to begin with.

The lawyers who specialize in this field are looking to make a mint by suing people, organizations, companies and any other entity .. . . .

-Springer & SkepticOverlord

Oh, see you had that covered, i forgot it after reading all 50 some contributions.

Now for some reality .. . .

But, seriously: I do see the necessity of it, and do wholeheartedly support it. I would hate to see my favorite site deminished because of peoples' unwillingness to follow the rules.


[edit on 3-1-2006 by Esoteric Teacher]

Originally posted by Esoteric Teacher
Was this manditory to read all this? I took me nearly 40 minutes.

Then you missed the important part.

This isn't about legality (though it's a potential future factor), it's about ethics (as I've said). It's simply not ethical to republish the work of another without due credit and source to the original. There's no excuse not to, and thus, we must.

I fully understand SkepticOverlord, and my compliance comes with no hesitation. Just like to try to present the other side (all be it extreme) of the presented points of views. You have no arguement from me, and i fully understand the importance of this issue. I sincerely hope plagiarism does not become nor continue to be a problem on ATS. This sight is one of great enjoyment for me, and i hold a high reverence for the rules and regs.

This will be a good thing for ATS. Considering it will only add about 3 seconds to the length of time it takes to quote an external source, it will have quite an effect.

Workflow Enhancements

Originally posted by llama009
This will be a good thing for ATS. Considering it will only add about 3 seconds to the length of time it takes to quote an external source, it will have quite an effect.

Actually, since the "ex" tag is three characters shorter than the "quote" tag, that saves three keystrokes per tag, and six keystrokes per tag pair.

If we figure an average ATS typing speed of 35 words per minute, we find that this actually saves us about one second per tag, or two seconds per tag pair.

So not only do the new "ex" tags serve to better differentiate and protect external intellectual property on ATS, but they will also decrease the amount of time and effort required to post it!

Great work, SO. Accounting is going to love this.




Edit: Revised to improve eyestroke efficiency.


[edit on 1/3/2006 by Majic]

I tried to find it, but I assume it has yet to be asked.

What about books?
Would the name of the author and the title of the book be good enough or would you rather it be done how I have to do at College?

[Author, Title, Date published, who published and so on and so fourth.]

Originally posted by Odium
I tried to find it, but I assume it has yet to be asked.

What about books?
Would the name of the author and the title of the book be good enough or would you rather it be done how I have to do at College?

[Author, Title, Date published, who published and so on and so fourth.]

This was addressed in the initial post made by Springer:

If the work you are posting is not on the internet, from a book for example, you MUST give a credit for that Book ( the title), its Author and Publisher.

I must just be blind...

Thank you for that...lol

WyrdeOne:

What you don't seem to get, is that this isn't about the LAW necessarily, but about ethics and about ownership of intellectual property. Frivolous litigation is another subject, and one that I agree with you about, but I don't believe that this is the crux of what we're taking about here.

I don't agree with your 'I have the right because I can' philosophy. You DON'T have the right, no matter what you think. Morally you're wrong to presume you have any right to another person's creation just because they didn't lock it up and make it unavailable for you to steal.

And you are absolutely wrong, even legally wrong, about manipulated images. An artist has the right to have a say in how his art is used, even for non-profit. It's not about revenue but about ownership and copyright.

Copyright infringement means that copyrighted artwork has been displayed, modified, distributed, or reproduced, without permission from the artist. Doesn't matter if you make a crying dime off of it.

If it's such a 'non-crime', then you might want to talk to the various websites that have been shut down, or forced to remove artwork that was used without permission.

Obviously there's a lot of grey in this subject, but in a thread about the ethics of plagerism, I find it disconcerting to see your total disregard with your "i do what I want" stance.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
The fact that this move was motivated by a desire for higher standards in community-driven internet journalism makes me even more proud of my association with ATS.

If only everyone in the "conspiracy theory community" considered ethical issues of copying content:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

We have a situation where another website has copied one of our posts, created a derivative work (in violation of our clearly stated Creative Commons use license), and used it to promote selling a book (in further violation).

Credibility in our chosen subject matter (conspiracy theory and "alternative topics) is a difficult and tenuous thing to establish and maintain. One of the things that can hurt a "conspiracy theorist's" credibility more than anything else is an obvious lack of ethical standards. And, as we've seen, when one "conspiracy theorist" is exposed to be less than honest, it rubs off on all of us.

EDIT: Nevermind. I re-read the thread.

[edit on 6-1-2006 by curme]

I didn't see anything on this yet. How are Biblical quotes handled? Do they get the new External Source tags, or do we continue to use the standard quotes for them?

Originally posted by junglejake
I didn't see anything on this yet. How are Biblical quotes handled? Do they get the new External Source tags, or do we continue to use the standard quotes for them?

I would say anything being quoted from somewhere other than ATS gets the new external quote box.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

— Howard Aiken
www.quotationspage.com...

Wich may not be a helpfull comment, considering the serious tone of this thread, but one that had to be made .

It's how i feel about my ideas and is imo a rather accurate description of how knowledge and ideas spread.

Stellar


[edit on 8-1-2006 by StellarX]

Great speech back there WyrdeOne, I feel exactly the same.

As a musician/artist, people can copy and spread my music as much they want; they know I wrote it, I know I wrote it.

I am also an musician/artist/photographer and I would like my work to be afforded the same respect as my literary brothers and sisters. If my work was used as an avatar I would like to be given credit for it. Or do copyright laws not apply here at ATS? Does a double standard exist between the written word and graphic arts? Many times photos and art are cut and pasted with absloutly no indication as to the creator. What's up with that?

I'm with Jadette on this; Copyright infringement should not be tolerated in any form, regardless of the media presenting it. There are real legal issues here. I would never litagate for my work but some of these big dog comic book artist or photographers, might. I take pride in my work, I don't think a little recognition is to much to ask.

[edit on 10-1-2006 by whaaa]

[edit on 10-1-2006 by whaaa]

[edit on 10-1-2006 by whaaa]

I feel a little bump is in order. I am suprised that there is no response to my last post. I thought DTOM had added something but I don't see it.

Anyone?

No, whaaa, I didn't add anything to the thread. It was a mod bump to keep the thread visible. It confused me the first time I saw it, too

Avatar Of Righteousness

Originally posted by whaaa
Anyone?

Well, I can say the avatar issue has been beaten to death in the anime fan forums, and the verdict is: no, you don't need to put a copyright notice on avatars.

You'll note that most of mine don't feature them.

Part of the reason for that is the fact that avatars tend to be small – on most boards they're usually less than 100x100px.

The copyright notice for my haibane avatars would be, at minimum, “Copyright © 2003 Yo#oshi ABe * Aureole Secret Factory”. However, since the avatars are made from screenshots produced by a cooperative venture of producers, it should probably include the names of Geneon Entertainment and RADIX as well.

That presents both practical and aesthetic problems.

I understand the desire of artists for proper attribution.

After all, I'm an artist and I would like that too.

Pleasing Attributes

Where reasonably possible, I provide attribution. As an example, I used a piece of art made by a fellow member on a haibane fan board for one of my avatars:



Logozo's handle is short enough to fit, and since most people associate haibane with Yo#oshi ABe, I made a point of putting the copyright notice on Logozo's derivative work.

The prevailing thought on the use of avatars in the anime fan community – and one which I have never seen an anime producer dispute anywhere (they seem to like having fans promote their products for some reason) – is that they are fine and considered “fair use” if they're reasonably small (ATS icons are awesomely huge by avatar standards, but still small by art standards), are used tastefully and are not used for commercial purposes (specifically, to directly market products, especially competing animes).

Most artists complain that nobody knows who they are. If thousands of people around the world decide to promote your art by featuring it in their avatars -- buddy, there are much worse problems to have!

Trail Of Breadcrumbs

For my part, I make a point of identifying my haibane avatars by including the names of characters or the show itself, Haibane Renmei, and I include a “pseudofield” (“Species: Haibane”) beneath them that identifies the graphic with the unique word “haibane”, which can in turn be used to locate the official website HaibaneRenmei.com by using a simple google search.

I also have a link in my signature block, Concerning Haibane, which points to a podthread where I describe the series in detail (some would say too much detail).

I've been avoiding direct links to the official HaibaneRenmei.com website because I didn't want to give the impression I'm out to promote a commercial product on ATS.

But since it's come up, screw it. I'll put a link in the Concerning Haibane thread, and if the staff deems it inappropriate, I will certainly not object if they remove it.

Also, should I ever be requested by any artist not to use their work in my avatars, or hear of such a request via any credible channel, I will immediately cease doing so.

I love Haibane Renmei and admire its creators. I would never deliberately do anything to hurt them or their interests.

Ever.

Economy Of Scale

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I understand and respect the concerns of artists that their rights and their work be treated with respect and in accordance with law.

What I recommend is that artists consider the big picture (pun intended) and focus – as may be needed – on actual theft and misuse and not get overly uptight about things that are ultimately positive for artists, like exposure and popularity.

But if people want to beat their chests over it, I won't try to stop them.

Just don't expect me to join the chorus of indignation over something that isn't really a problem.






* NOTE: Yo#oshi ABe's name sets off the automatic censors. His name transliterates as Yo-shi-to-shi in English, but when you put that all together, well, sorry Abe-sensei.

this is only a test, please do not be alarmed if your computer screen melts from the test.

[quote/]

[edit on 14-1-2006 by goose]