I just read a lot. Loads. Tons. Words, words, words... made of light emerging from my screen, rendered by O ands I's.
Reading is to recreate a meaning on the basis of decoding the letters words, and understanding the words by knowing about the context, the world in which they are set.
So I tried to grasp the thoughts, motives etc's behind the flickering dots on my screen. trying not to fall asleep as it was text full of boring brainwords, pretend legalese... totally lacking perspective really.
And it was all about greed. About snapshooting and attribution, and copyrights and who is the original creator, who should get the profit, etc, etc. In the physical world the question of copyright and patents ALLWAYS comes down to the dudes with the most money anyway. No case has yet made it, to the courts in the physical world, prolly becoz, no profit mentionable was ever made from an SL snapshot being sold.
As kids we get born into the world and wants to explore it. We play, we pretend, we recreate, we try to grasp and mainly we have FUN. When I got into SL as Kean Kelly that was the first thing I found: my childhood fun. We could play with each other in sandboxes, pretend, explore and laugh, a lot. The only limit in there was my imagination. I could create anything i would imagine.
I never fully understood who decided that growing up should be so boring. Adults never go out and play in the rain. Suddenly the fun things was deemed a waste of time. And SL is becoming a bit like that... loads of people whining about copyright infringement, people selling pictures of SL. And the original 'creator' fighting with the 'photographer' over the loot.
One creator went so far as to claiming she'd rather limit access to her creations... than having a "... snapshotographer to come over, take a high rez snap, apply 2 filters in Photoshop, make a smudge here and there and/or there and sell prints in RL of what I have created...".
All this, the rules we make, (they are so hilarious no?) will shape our use of this playground. And the fun will stop. All because of simple greed.
That’s why I now will set all I make in world from now on to free.
And I will attribute the creators if I feel like it. And if that creator is especially needy, and greedy, and nasty, I'd prolly refrain from doing anything at all with that creators stuff.
And I will dance a merry dance for people like Four Yip, Runo Runo, AM radio, and Eloh Eliot who makes beautiful quality content and share it freely.
May fun and beauty rule over greed any day. Lets laugh eh? Anyway... money is really just a value we agree on in the first place. We have the means today to live like kings, if greed didnt come in the way.
Happy New Year.
5 had something to say:
I did not read this blog, yet I am commenting on it.. which means that I will read it... eventually. but, in the mean time this will give you more to read...
Ahhh... you might be interested in a book that I'm reading called "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde. I'm still reading it so I can't summarize it yet. But then again.. it's one of those books that can't be summarized. It's a thinking book (Je pense....)
One of his main points is that we have transformed almost everything into commodities that we buy and sell for a price in the market. Thus, I make something, and I sell it to someone else so that I can "have" something else in return. It's basically an exchange - I give you something in exchange for something else.
But.... he says that we have forgotten about gifts. He says that the value of a gift is not in what we can "get" for it. A gift is just "given" and its value is in how much it gives rise to more giving.
An example that he gives in the part I haven't read yet (!?) is a work of art. A real work of art has its value not only in the "price" you can "get" for it, but in how much it is "given" as a gift for others to enjoy and as something that inspires people to make more.. and to give more. Therefore, the more people who can experience the art, the more valuable it becomes...the gift spreads and makes more gifts.. it keeps moving and growing...
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than this, and like I said, it can't be summarized in just a few words. I still have to think about it more... but... I'm thinking this has much to do with love and being Real....
Eh.. but those are thoughts for another time :p
I read these posts you refer to and all the various arguments back and forth just suck the life out of me.
The answer cannot be in the little details, in this or that level of attribution and I'm sure the discussion of copyright in SL snaps has only arisen because LL has encouraged people to see SL as a cash cow full of real money... And now a bunch of people are chasing the imaginary cash.
I really think the thing stems from this feeling people get in SL "I've made something really great. Now, where is the money?"
Then they see a few pictures on flickr, maybe some for sale in a second life gallery...
"Ah ha! that's where the money is! Someone else is getting it!"
Edward Castronova's book "Exodus to Virtual Worlds" makes the point that RL will start to lose our attention as we will all spend more time in virtual worlds because they are more fun. He believes that RL will have to start to become more like virtual worlds in order to compete and win back our attention.
I don't know if this will happen... maybe someone can figure out a way to make a fun game out of filing a tax return... but I do get the feeling that RL copyright law is not gonna last much longer without major changes. It was not designed for the (real) world we live in now, let alone the virtual one.
I hope everyone can just be practical (not always the strong point of the law).
More and more companies are realising that restrictive DRM copy protection often serves just to piss people off and reduce the reach of the product.
The internet is, above all, about connecting people and virtual worlds are even more focused on giving us the possibility of a shared experience.
I have no problem with someone wanting to make something private and to have total control over it.... but if that's what they want, then what are they doing making it in a public area of SL?
If you don't want people taking pictures of your build, then make it in private... fuck it.... just make it in Maya, or Modo, it'll look better and you can sit at home and admire it without fear that others will somehow steal its value, maybe post some pictures yourself...
To apply the same laws that originated in the 18th century to stuff that our avatars are wearing or interacting with in the virtual worlds of the 21st is just crazy... we might as well dunk all virtual content creators underwater for witchcraft.
I think Kean is right about the fun. This issue forces people to look at why they are doing what they are doing.
If you are not going to benefit from sharing your creation, then just stay out of a shared space. Make it with lego in your basement.
The rest of the world is sharing stuff faster and more widely than ever and its accelerating. It feels to me like connecting and sharing is becoming more important than owning and keeping, and that is a fundamental shift in what feels to me like a good direction.
We can't do much about it as individuals but I'm going to follow Kean's suggestion and set my flickr images free from now on. I'll have fun and attribute what I think deserves attribution (if I remember) and if I really upset anyone, then tI will happily give them all the money I have earned from selling SL screen grabs.
So I guess this means whenever I visit Robin I can pick up a souvenir.. ;) On a serious note, this is a true act of integrity. You are setting to L$0 some of the nicest work I've seen, and being an example of good principle for all of us, even the non-artists like me. :)
@ Francz: when i am done reading about reading and stuff, then I have the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugest list of books that i wanna read for fun, I'll put "The Gift" on that and see how far I get. But if its about love and being real, I'll prolly put it in the top :D
@ Rob: Yes! yes and yes! hehehe... Go play Lego you suckers! And I'll put that book on the list too... unless I can get a digest one day.
@ Krissy: Hi! And thank you for your kind words :) Hope to meet you in-world someday... after the exams.
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