Slashdot Mirror
Voices from the Hellmouth Released in Paperback
Yes, comments from Slashdot are used. They are short, terse quotes that provide in /no/ way indentification. That would cross privacy boundaries I'm not wiling to cross. We choose to use them to try and express to the rest of the world who will read this book the sort of things that happen to real people.
I tried to contact some of the commenters originally, but ran into dismal success. As well, many people were posting anonymously. Obviously, they were impossible to reach.
So - summary: Yes, comments were used. They were posted in a public forum, which means that anyone can quote from them - but we've removed any sort of identifying marks, to protect people. This was down to impress upon those reading the gravity of the situation.
i think i'll go sell a best of slashdot cd now, and remove your guys names from all the headlines. don't worry, i don't need to ask your permission, your headlines and stories were posted in a public forum. thanks.
I am still shocked by the fact that the Slashdot readers could identify with 2 *killers*! It is unbelievable!
For a little different point of view, read The Misanthropic Bitch: http://bitch.shutdown.com/i_want_to_be_alone.html
Some excerpts:
"White kids today. You've got to hate them. But not everyone does. Overlooking the shooters' trite nature, sympathy for them is abundant on the Web. Former high school losers (one would have to be a loser to identity with them) are crawling out of the woodwork, and expressing their supportfor what could have been the worst school massacre in United States history"
and
"But you think "life is shit" because the athletes laugh when you paint your acne-scarred skin with blood red lipstick and black as night eyeliner?
You have fantasies about "taking them out" because their lives revolve around fingering the cheerleaders in movie theaters while you're at home reading my site?
You're jealous because they're adored by teachers for doing little more than patting each other's asses and tossing the pigskin?
Suck it up, you fucking pansies. I would have made fun of you in high school, too. The only person who might love and accept you no matter what is your mother. Life is harsh, and there are always going to be people with undeserved success and adulation."
We thought about posting something before - but frankly, it's gone so damn fast, that I haven't had a chance to think. You've got a good point though - in retrospect, I should have done that.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Everyone is anonymous. No indentifying characteristics used - that crosses privacy boundaries I'm not willing to cross.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Legally, they are posted in a public forum, so they can be quoted. They are not indentified however. Please read my other comments for more information.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So the text can be distributed and read but not altered?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
You're lucky the school moved you out, even if it was for the wrong reason. You're also lucky you figured out what was going on and took advantage of it. Congratulations.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Some people have commented that it is terrible for Katz to have sympathy for the Columbine killers on this anniversery - cruel and heartless.
Well, just to remind you poeple, this is NOT about the killers. It's about the over-reaction of schools in the aftermath. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Columbine incident. After the incident, schools nationwide began the guilty-until-proven-innocent practice of profiling anyone geeky as a potential threat and murderer. It is that that is the problem. Sure, the Columbine killers were not very nice people, to say the least. No, their actions cannot be excused. But to assume that anyone geeky will turn into another Columbine killer is terribly arrogant, stupid, and draconian.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
that will most likely get downed in the general noise in this thread:)
/. crew - mostly hemos it seems - had the intestinal fortitude to go ahead with this venture knowing that they would create a shitstorm of *ahem* protest in the thread. Also, I think it's pretty neat that the /. guys are branching out and making a name for themselves in a different, but related area.
.20 cal, a .45 handgun my dad had to protect his store - he was a pharmacist - and a winchester lever action - forget the cal. And I was not an exception by any means.
1. I don't read jonkatz - nothing personal Jon, I just don't like your writing style here. But I'm tempted to buy this book. Why?
2. I think it's great the the
3. As to the timing and such, well, the whole Columbine thing IS still a controversy, and people are still trying to make sense of why it happened - and will continue to happen. So, in light of that, I think that the book could contribute positively to the whole debate. At least I hope so.
Just an aside here: I went to a central hs back in the day - graduated in 1972. I can still remember the distinct cliques that existed there:
freaks - long-haired hippie types
jocks - of course
archies - kids that lived out-of-town, mostly on farms
norms - kids who hit the books and stayed clear of the rest (this group included the rather small geek contingent)
Now, these groups did not get a long, really, and I remember the cafeteria being divided by group rigidly. Not once in the 3 1/2 years I was there was there a major violent action comparable to Columbine. And I'm talking about a smallish town with lots of kids who hunted a lot in the fall - I had access to a
This is not to say that there wasn't a good deal of low-level violence - harassment, insults, humiliation, the occasional fist fight, public snubbing in the halls, etc. That's what made hs such a shitty place - that and the fact that I really had no interest in the "learning process" that was practiced there.
My point to this whole long-winded post? I still can't understand why the Columbine tragedy happened, and maybe this book will help me get closer. I mean kids today are not THAT fundamentally different from when I was in hs, are they?
BTW, I was one of the freaks - had hair "down-to-there", smoked anything that was even close to being mind-altering, wore raggedy-assed bell-bottoms, no shoes, and a cast-off national guard shirt, had a very bad attitude toward authority figures, and thought folks who took life seriously were certifiable - and said so, often.
Anywhoooo, this has been my $.25.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Yes, two of them were criminals, but if you have read ANYTHING from that series of stories, you'd know that high school is also about kids who abuse each other, and some kids crack under the pressure, go on a rampage, etc. Being different means you get put up to a 10x dose of extra abuse and humiliation. So they too were victims.
I have copyright to programs I put under the GPL - but /so does everybody else/. Uhhh...no. Everybody else has a license to modify and distribute your programs according to the terms and conditions of the GPL. Nothing more, nothing less. You retain sole copyright unless you SPECIFICALLY state differently. How do you even think software and technology licensing work? A company /sells/ the rights to other companies. BOTH can "own" the same thing. No, the company licenses a limited subset of its rights to another entity. Look at a shrinkwrap license sometime.
While I do agree that under normal circumstances something like this would be tacky, there are some good reasons for it in this case.
1) It's not even being published yet; this is only pre-ordering. Similar, true, but this is likely to be forgotten, whereas an actual ship date would not. Pretty shrewd move on Katz's part, actually.
2) Consider: it is the anniversary. The very hysteria the book seeks to fight will likely run high today, and probably will continue for a while. We need a countering force to that.
3) Is it not possible that this is nothing but coincidence? Or even if it's not, that it might not have been Katz's decision? Don't blame him so quickly for a decision which could very well have not been his to make.
The technocrat.net comment copyright policy is that you own your comment, and you also grant us a separate and independent copyright to your comment. So you can do whatever you want with it, and so can we. We have used this to release all of our 1999 comments under the open publication license, with none of the non-free options. I could have told you that you can't reach the authors after the fact :-) . It's not even possible with free software, no less slashdot.
Bruce Perens.
..didn't prepare the book or select the comments, nor communicate any of them. He has about 5,000 posts in his e-mail folders though, from people, who have asked their comments to be distributed to media or any book or article, if it came to that. But I didn't put this book together.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I think this is appropriate time to publish this book, for many reasons, but it wasn't my decision. I do support it though. And I totally disagree. It is not the same as the media hounding students. Columbine affected many kids adversely in American schools, and it's fitting that this book be published today.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
This has nothing to do with sources. Some posts came from e-mail, some on Threads. You do not need people's permission to excerpt from e-mail posted to public sites..CNN, USA Today, NYTimes...to take part in public discussions, as a matter of fact. But the vast majority of the posts I received were from people ASKING to have their stories relayed and published. That was sort of the point. On the law, you are wrong. The questioning of ID sources doesn't apply at all here.Since many of the posters were kids, their privacy needs to be protected...especially when you read some of the posts that appear on Threads.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
A more constructive solution: Why not donate the profits from sale of the book to the Columbine families?
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
(ahem) FAIR USE!
JonKatz isn't trying to palm off your comments as his own writing, he's quoting you. That's fair use, and has been upheld by the courts many times. I don't know where your legal advice comes from, but it seems that you should try to borrow JonKatz and Hemos' lawyer for a while; (s)he knows a hell of a lot more than yours.
As long as the comment is correctly attributed, fair use is preserved. If you posted A.C., tough shit, you don't get your name or your handle printed in the book. And to head off where your reply will probably come from, "anonymous" is a perfectly good attribution for quotations, if you truly don't know who the author is. Read a few literature/poetry/music criticisms, and see how many verses are quoted from "anonymous".
0 1 - just my two bits
Personally, Hemos, I think what the book does is Fair Use, and I for one wouldn't complain if my posts had been republished. It doesn't seem substantially different than when Jon quoted posts in his NPR interview.
But that's just speaking for me. Knowing the kind of folks that post here, I expect the Slashdot readership, and especially the quoted posters, will demand an explanation from Jon Katz and Slashdot of why they chose not to attribute and not to seek permission. That "owned by the Poster" comment at the bottom of the Slashdot implies an obligation by Slashdot to its posters. By asserting poster-ownership of comments, you're implying that Slashdot won't treat the comments as Andover property or as public domain. Yet this book seems to take the opposite attitude.
There's a contradiction here. On the one hand, Slashdot claims poster ownership of comments. On the other, Slashdot claims that they're in the public domain (because they're taken from a public forum). So which is it?
--Jim
/. isn't legally required to excerpt from e-mail posts that are posted to be part of a public discussion, and as I understand, the posters are not ID's by name or e-mail anyway. They may have contacted or tried to contact the e-mailers.
Then why does Slashdot's copyright notice at the bottom of every page say that comments are owned by the poster? What does "owned" mean if Slashdot is freely able to take comments and republish them? On the one hand, it's claimed that people own their work, but when it becomes inconvenient to respect that ownership, suddenly it's a public forum, and the comments are public domain.
Let me put this another way: what if I took all the Jon Katz posts including the original articles, stripped them of the Katz name, then without permission republished those posts in a book called Voice from the Slashmouth? How long would it be before I heard from your attorney? Remember, these are posts to a public forum, so they're fair game, right?
What's really sad about this brouhaha is that it's going to detract from what is otherwise a very deep and compelling story.
First off, you don't know that Jon didn't get permission from those he published. It's a compilation, but it may be a selective compilation, and those selected may have given their permission. But I'd like to hear Jon and Rob say so. Otherwise, I don't see how this book can be in keeping with the copyright notice at the bottom of every slashdot page claiming that "Comments are owned by the Poster." (That's a verbatim cut-n-paste.)
2. Since the origional source is from /., I think /. should get to decide where some of the profits go [I say EFF]
Agreed. The EFF is not only deserving, but given recent attacks on electronic freedoms, probably needs the funds more than ever. I too would vote EFF.
--Jim
Personally, Hemos, I think what the book does is Fair Use,
The more I think about this position, the less I think I can support it. Fair Use is a legal issue, whereas my questions about Slashdot's behavior are of a moral nature. Forget whether some lawyer can construe their actions as legal -- I'm more concerned with whether it was right for Slashdot to do what it did. To ignore their own copyright policy, just because it wasn't convenient to follow it. That was wrong, and I think Rob and Hemos should acknowledge that.
--Jim
At some point though someone was going to persecute those two simply because no one goes through life without being persecuted. What were they going to do then, with no teacher or principal to protect them?
Call the police. Believe it or not things that are blown off during school are taken seriously out in the real world.
I couldn't count the number of girls' asses that I squeezed before 10th grade, it was stupid and childish and I shouldn't have done it, but if I did that now, I'd go to jail.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Just because you did not copyright something doesn't mean its not copyrighted. Everything I say is copyrighted, regardless of whether I put a (c) or not. I can write a book. If someone takes it and publishes it, and says "it didn't have a copyright notice on it", they'll still get raped in court. Therefore, I believe that publishing people's comments is still copyrighted by author, regardless of whether there's a claim or not.
I agree with your sentiment in general, but I disagree with this particular comment. The media didn't force anyone to do anything. They may have misinformed the nation and the world, they may have over-sensationalized the Columbine killings, and they may have hurtled to the wrong conclusions like a speeding locomotive, but they didn't make educators, parents, and non-geeks act the way that they did in the weeks following Columbine.
People are ultimately responsible for their own actions, and only their own actions. Any "nazism" that occurred was because people thought that the ends were justified by any means - everything from name-calling to ostracism and civil rights abuses. The media just gives the nation a convenient excuse once the excitement is over. Even if the media could cover tragedies like Columbine in a sober, objective manner, the capacity of humans to hate and fear other humans just for being different would remain, and people would find other excuses for acting on those feelings.
Food for thought: I see more violence on the evening news than I have ever seen on the Internet.
[OT] Slashdot coders: after previewing, my HTML tags are gone from the "comment" text field. This makes previewing a real pain. This was working correctly this morning.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I've seen the Salon article (a very good wrap-up, BTW) but I don't think that whether the two killers were geeks or not is the real issue. The real issue is that parents, educators, administrators, and peers of geeks nationwide used the assumption that the killers were geeks to act with prejudice towards the geeks that they knew.
The story isn't "geeks are tormented, snap, and gun down classmates", it's "people think geeks are potential killers because they are loners and like computers, video games, the color black, and/or goth music".
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Just a thought, but is Slashdot now reaping what you've sown?
Cheers,ZicoKnows@hotmail.comYou have a notice at the bottom of the page that says all comments are owned by the poster. But it doesn't preclude any retransmission of them. This isn't a book, there is no disclaimer that states 'you may not republish any part of this via any unknown media/time machine/video conferencing, etc.' Yeah, you own the comment, but you can't dictate what happens to it. By being brief, the disclaimer is rather obtuse. In this case, it can be mis-interpreted either way, and, as you can see, it is.
The proffits are going to *charity*. The content is ALL available online allready!
What reason would they have to package this in any format other than print? It's allready available and probably more complete (full comments) than the book!
Sorry, but it's just not reasonable to any degree for them to spend more time making a special PDF archive of a dippy John Katz book.
Sure Katz might not deserve a nobell prize for this one, but it's his job. Ja know, that thing that people grow up and get? ... and I doubt he'll net any proffit as he probably draws some kind of salary from Andover.
Slashdot doesn't suck because of lame columnists, it sucks because of lame posters. The posters made slashdot what it is, and we've also contributed much more to its decline than any long winded writers.
WTF are you talking about?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
If people want to remain anonymous, they should not post in a non-anonymous fashion to a public forum.
As for 'preserving' their copyright.. they do have a copyright. The problem is, they are commenting publicly on a topic for public discussion in a public forum, and anyone is free to take public comments and re-distribute them verbatim, in whole or in part.
So John,
/. seems to revel in this view?
Have you used any of the updated information that has been leaked and released over the past year (particularly at Salon.com), that shows that rather then the knee jerk reaction everyone had that assumed these were poor picked on geeks out to kill jocks, etc... that these were just a couple of mentally troubled kids who snapped? Or is there some value in continuing to perpetuate this unfortunate and inaccurate view of the situation. Esp, in light of your audience on
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The fact that it's non-profit is irrelevant. I can't take someone else's work and republish it, even if I don't make anything from it.
Yeah, but if you were to sue and win (fat chance) your damages would be damn near zero in this case.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Dude, you are way wrong with this one. If any of my comments are featured in that book of yours, then I'll definitly sue.
Don't flatter yourself, asshole.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
We can pay homage to the 15 (yes 15) vicims of Columbine
You misspelled 13 victims and 2 criminals...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I HATE JON (*&##@ KATZ. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MARK STORIES ABOUT HIM AS BEING BY HIM SO MY @#@#%* FILTER WORKS.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Maybe it's that this feels like weasely self-promotion. Just because nobody is keeping the profits from the book doesn't mean nobody is getting anything out of it. Slashdot, Andover, Katz and Cdr Taco's girlfriend all get good amounts of publicity from the book.
It also makes me uneasy because the people whose comments are used are not getting anything out of it either. Basically their comments were grabbed, jammed together, edited, and put in a book which someone then sold for indirect financial gains.
I know comedians get pretty pissed when someone "steals their bit" and uses it without giving them credit. Isn't this the same sort of thing?
Here on the Slashdot site itself, Andover makes money off people's comments indirectly. If an interesting story / comment gets posted people look at it and some might click on a banner ad nearby and so Andover makes money. But the poster and the general community also benefit. That post becomes part of a discussion. The poster can read people's responses and understand their advice, their suggestions, their point-of-view.
In dead tree format, the people who made that book possible get nothing out of it. Their stories are taken and given to the world. The world may benefit from it somehow, but what does the poster get?
The bottom of the page says "Comments are owned by the Poster." Does that only apply when they're being sued for what someone said? It seems like they shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Either the comments are ours and all you do is display them, or the comments are yours and you can use them as you see fit, but you have to take responsibility for everything said here.
Sorry if this rambles a bit, but I really am bothered by this. And I really don't know why. If my comments were used and they entertained, helped, or taught someone something that's great. But aren't they my comments? Shouldn't I have some say if they're going to be used? Shouldn't I have known that this was being planned?
Btw, the "preview" seems to be busted. When I previewed this comment it stripped all the tags from the text box.
Wait a second...so, if you identify the quotes, then you need to get people's permission to use them. And, of course, there'll be somebody out there that wants money or something. Blah blah blah, too much hassle. So instead you choose to just take everybody's work without their permission, by denying them attribution? How does that make it right? If I started grabbing source code off newsgroups and mailing lists (public forums, no?) and pulling out all the comments, does it make it ok for me to sell it? Doesn't that fundamentally contradict one of the most important principles that we talk about around here?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
story. News for nerds. Whatever.
There are over 100,000 registerd slashdot users, I doubt less then 1% of those people come here regularly.
Next time, try thinking.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Check out ANY Canadian news source for the lastest news, like the Natinoal Post, here's a clip:
ORLEANS, Ont. - A 15-year-old boy who was often teased by his peers went on a stabbing rampage in an Ottawa-area high school yesterday, an attack that came on the first anniversary of the fatal school shooting in Columbine, Colo.
The story has already been submitted to Slashdot, now we wait.
Actually, I think that was a typo - he meant "we're only going to be selling this through Think Geek." Can Hemos or someone clarify that?
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
5. We tried to deal with the Amazon thing, but you can't stop them from ordering for a resaler. Once something has entered the ISBN system, anyone can order it. However, at this time, we're only selling it through Amazon. [bold added] There you have it: "we tried not to sell through Amazon but since we couldn't prevent them from ordering the book, we're only going to be selling through them". What an utter load of crap!Go ahead and mark this as flamebait, but if this attitude on the part of /. doesn't piss you off, you must be dead.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
For those who posted in a public forum, they were not consulted. We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year
... simply because a message is posted in a public forum does not make it public domain.
/. page should read: All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster up until the point they press submit, then they are public domain for anyone to publish in any other form they wish without permission or recognition of the source. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net.
I understand your problems with tracking people down and commend you for making the effort to do so, however
If it did, your copyright notice at the bottom of each
I mean, you can't have it both ways right? You can't "own" your comments yet not have any control over it right?
Slashdot. Where we hate intellectual property laws, but when someone takes ONE SENTENCE of our stuff, we scream bloody murder.
I can't speak for other posters, but I have never, ever posted something that would make me a hypocrite with regards to IP. You may or may not have noticed that there are many thousand user accounts. From one to the next, views differ. I believe that IP is useful, but that 50 years after the death of the author (in America) is far too long a period of time. I would post a complaint on an article talking about the possible extension of this time period.
I would not, however, post a comment saying "IP law sucks. Get rid of it altogether." Others would. The difference here is that realists are posting more about the potential misuse of their own property than the idealists who like to post about something that has no significant impact upon them.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
I don't see any justification for linking that debate with Columbine. All those fascist school policies came down the pike immediately afterward, true, but that's just one of life's crazy coincidences.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
But as a matter of law, comments posting in public for public dissemination can be reprinted, since they were posted for public discussion. Somebody please provide a reference for this, because it's 180 degrees away from anything I've ever read on the subject. My understanding is the posting to such a forum implies permission to reproduce and quote the work in that forum, but not outside of it. Thanks. and people are not identified by e-mail or name, so their privacy is protected. Perhaps their privacy is protected (though how much expectation of privacy is there in a public forum?), but they get no credit for their work! I don't mind at all having my work (net posts, poetry, music, whatever) copied and redistributed. I want it seen by the widest possible audience. (If you're making money at copying or distributing, I'll demand a cut, but otherwise feel free.) But I absolutely demand that I be given full authorship credit for anything I write. While short quotes without full attribution may be fair use, if any lengthy part of a post of mine was reprinted somewhere without my name on it I'd be hopping mad. Lawsuit mad, even.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You don't have to register a work, or display a copyright notice, for it to be "protected" under copyright law. Any fixed expression of a creative work is covered. However, if you value a work, displaying a copyright notice and registering with the copyright office will help in any legal dispute.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Huh? I'm confused. It seems you don't know much about the book /you/ wrote. Or did you not write it? And if so, why are all the press releases saying so? If not, then is it just a compilation? If you didn't pick the posts or put the book together, who did?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
'"Comments are owned by the Poster."'
/so does everybody else/. How do you even think software and technology licensing work? A company /sells/ the rights to other companies. BOTH can "own" the same thing. So in this case, the poster has copyright on their post, but /so does the public/. Right?
IANAL, but...
**HELLO** Did you miss the whole intellectual property controversy? It is possible for two different people to "own" the same thing. I.e., I have copyright to programs I put under the GPL - but
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
so you can get a few copies and mail them to school staff...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I wonder how copyright/credit for the texts where handled. Obviously some people would want to remain anonymous...how then do they preserver their copyright? Sort of a stupid question, but just wondering. Maybe somebody wants to write an autobiography sometime...?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Chill out. Many comments were sent DIRECTLY to Katz...Slashdot never seeing them. I remember Katz specifically saying that if you don't want your name or content reproduced please SAY SO. So people were plenty forwarned that anything they sent DIRECTLY to Katz might actually be used.
Now, about taking comments from the public forum, I'm not sure.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Beaten to unconciousness and then had her head held underwater by a girl who bragged about it at school the day after.
Happy now?
More info on Virk here.
This is probably related to the fact that many suicidal people come to the point where they want to take the person who caused their suffering with them.
There was an excellent 60 Minutes II on this about a month ago.
Y'know, I've been reading slashdot for well over a year, and I don't think I've ever posted anything before... But this, this is upsetting.
/very tiny/ on a person person basis.
/.'s behaviour.
2. For those who posted in a public forum, they were not consulted. We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.
This is really unnacceptable. Even Jane's Intelligence Review had a system setup for payment for those who were quoted in their publication. Surely, with slashdot funding Katz's trips to meet security guards, they can give a little money back to their community.
4. The reality, in terms, of paying people is that the book wouldn't happen at that point. The amount of time that would have added to things would have made the book impossible. Besides, the amount of actual quoting from people, once the rest is considered is
The amount of quoting is irrelevant. The fact is, people were quoted, and their words helped produce a book that is being commercially distributed. At the very least, Slashdot could have had the courtesy to mention that this was going to happen, and allow people to write in, stating that they would not want their comments used, for whatever reasons. This lack of notice, and lack of forethought is really unsettling. I expected a lot more.
5. We tried to deal with the Amazon thing, but you can't stop them from ordering for a resaler. Once something has entered the ISBN system, anyone can order it. However, at this time, we're only selling it through Amazon. As far as funds collected at this time, Katz is not taking money, I'm not taking any - we have to pay for the cost of making the book and the editor, but besides that, nada.
Somewhere between "tried to deal with the Amazon thing" and "only selling it through Amazon," I think I got lost. There are enough alternative e-bookmarkets that slashdot would not be forced to resort to Amazon. Homestly, I imagine they never cinsidered the boycott too seriously in the marketing for this book.
Actually, it doesn't seem like they took very much at all seriously, when planning this.
If I get moderated down for this, whatever. This is the first time I've actually cared enough about a topic to speak my mind on it, and I'm really rather shocked at
Jairus Pryor
Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
God, I hope I didn't end up in Jon's book..
I mean, he's a decent writer and all, but 'Anonymous Coward, as quoted in the Jon Katz masterpiece' is decidedly not what I want as my one historical footnote!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Since this is the basis for the rest of your argument, I'll stop you right there. Slashdot is NOT private.
Let me ask you this: did you post from a special slashdot.org network? did you post from behind some firewall slashdot runs, this making it impossible for anyone in the internet at large to post? or at least, did you have to enter some special password to access this site?
What?? Are you saying you didn't?? Pity. According to the court ruling earlier just this year on deep linking, that means Slashdot is quite public.
IOW: Your argument is utter bullshit and perhaps you should consult a lawyer before shooting off your mouth.
ufdraco
Despite your naive beliefs, this is *not* a "public forum" and everything *written* on these pages is fully protected by copyright law. The key difference between slashdot and standing on a soapbox on the street corner is that *everything* you see has been reduced to tangible form. Copyright law can't apply to nontangible speech (since human memory is fallible and nobody can be absolutely sure what was said), but anything put down in tangible form (handwriting, books,... or little magnetic fields on a small disk) is born copyrighted.
It really is a shame if this means that comments from an ongoing discussion can't be reproduced just because it occurred online and not in meatspace.
I understand that Taco and Hemos were trying to do something good, but they should have expected that people would jump all over any chance to cause a problem--you know, the "if I can't be part of the solution, then I'll be part of the problem" mentality.
It really doesn't suprise me that some of the same people that took comfort from the discussions that occurred here would be greedy little pricks (or just pricks in general) and stand in the way of others getting a chance to learn and take comfort. I suppose it's sad, but I've really come to expect this kind of thing.
I hope some of them finally realize that they're as bad or worse than the people they look down their noses at and kid themselves that they are superior. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but do yourselves a favor and look in the mirror and think about what you've said here today. It could be your first step on the road to recovery from prickdom.
numb
PS: The comments about IP and copyright issues are important and thanks to the people that wrote them. Those that would rather the book not be published should think twice.
Since Jon catches so much grief here I just want to say that I recently checked out Geeks from the local library and was really impressed. Nice writing, and the book really moved me. Took it back to the library and told the librarian "You need to order more than one copy of this, 'cause its really good and some kid's gonna steal this one."
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
It is ironic to me that a forum of people (seemingly the majority of /. participants) who supposedly promote open source and limits on patents would be so irate over this.
What's the difference between somebody posting a code snippet vs. a comment here? If it was a source snippet you'd assume somebody would use it if it was a response to a direct query. We've fought to get code recognized as free speech, yet now we're being stingy about letting free speech be quoted.
I can't speak for anybody else, but when I post here I do so with the assumption that I will not receive monetary compensation (or even personal recognition) for doing so. While I doubt that anything of mine is quoted in this book, I would consider it an honor, not a ripoff, if my comments were deemed worthy of publication.
I posted to these threads with the assumption I would get nothing in return, and I am thus far meeting my expectations.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Tired of seeing his name? Would you like to avoid reading/seeing/being exposed to JonKatz? Then follow these few sinple steps, and you can be on your way to "Katz free /." [1] If you haven't already loged in, Login to Slashdot.org/users.pl to create an acount. [2] Load the main page, and along the menu on the left side look for preferances. [3] Now, along the top of the page you'll see a link called Customize Homepage. click on it. [4] Half way down the page, you'll see a series of check boxes with the heading "Exclude Stories from the Homepage". In that list, you'll see a colume labeled "Authors". Half way down the list, locate the name JonKatz and click the checkbox next to that name. [5] Scroll to the bottom of the page and look for button labeled savehome and click on it. Congradulations, by taking these few simple steps, you're on your way to making /. a better place.
___
... besides it's not like I'm going to spend 15 bucks on a paperback of marginal worth. I'd get more value out of three trips to Taco Bell. So who cares where it's sold?
As the other poster pointed out, quoting isn't the same as wholesale copying and republishing.
The fact that they even tried is admirable, considering that they have absolutly NO legal obligation to do so.
He doesn't sound like he tried very hard. He basically made a few attempts, then gave up. At the least, he should have made a good faith attempt to contact every poster whose comment appears in the book.
Or Slashdot could have posted an article, asking what the Slashdot readership thought of having their posts republished. Instead, out of the blue, CmdrTaco tells us "Guess what! We're going to publish and sell your comments! Make sure you buy a copy!"
====
Actually nowhere when you post do you say that you are giving Slashdot permission to publish your post.
The act of submitting my post to Slashdot, with the understanding that it will appear on Slashdot, is equivalent to my giving permission to Slashdot to publish my post in that particular forum. What I have not given is permission to resell my posts in a book.
There is a fundemental difference between an article written by someone and published by Slashdot, and a comment displayed by Slashdot. In the former Slashdot is buying rights to display the article (buying may not involve monetary exchange though.)
I don't see the distinction. Jon Katz's articles in particular can be seen as the starting point of the discussion, essentially, the first post in the forum.
They are in no way agreeing to any conditions other then you still own the content of it.
If I still own the content of it, then my permission is required before it can be republished.
And since it is a public discussion forum, and called a comment, someone can probably quote your entire comment from it without having to reimburse you.
You could quote my entire comment in the forum, since it is assumed that the poster understands the nature of a forum. You could quote parts of my comment and resell it in a book. That's fair use. But you could not reproduce the entire content of my comment and resell it in a book.
e.g. Consider a book of publicly given speeches or lectures. No sane publisher would try to publish this without first obtaining permission from the speakers. Even if it were legal (I doubt so; the speaker could probably sue and win), it would be highly immoral.
Another example Technocrat.net states clearly on its posting forms that "By submitting this message, you grant TECHNOCRAT.NET and its owners a separate and independent copyright to your posting, and you retain your own copyright. Thus, we can do whatever we want with your posting, and so can you." Slashdot does not have such a statement on its comment posting form; I do not give similar permission when I write a comment on Slashdot.
====
The joke answer will be "Hemos". And Hemos will keep everything.
====
I looked at the link you posted but I cannot find anything related to the present discussion. Perhaps you can be more specific and quote the relevant portion here?
Certainly limited quotation is fair use, but I don't see anything specifically relating to public forums there.
====
We thought about posting something before - but frankly, it's gone so damn fast
/.? Especially on an issue as important as this (unless you think respecting your readers isn't important)?
Frankly I find that difficult to believe. Slashdot posts tens of articles a day (many of them inane), but there wasn't time in the 2 months you've been working on this to post a simple article to
I don't want to disparage your efforts, or indulge in conspiracy theories, but I think there's something seriously wrong with the way this affair has been handled.
====
Some questions:
For those who posted in a public forum, they were not consulted. We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.
This sounds like blatant copyright infringement. Slashdot clearly says that "Comments are owned by the poster". If you couldn't contact the author, then maybe the comment shouldn't have been included in the book.
The amount of time that would have added to things would have made the book impossible.
So you don't ask the author for permission, and you don't pay them, simply because it's inconvenient? Don't mind me, but that sounds like a very convenient excuse.
As far as funds collected at this time, Katz is not taking money, I'm not taking any - we have to pay for the cost of making the book and the editor, but besides that, nada.
At $15 a copy, much higher than the cost of a regular paperback, you say that none of you are making any money?
====
Slashdot. Where we hate intellectual property laws, but when someone takes ONE SENTENCE of our stuff, we scream bloody murder.
I can't speak for other Slashdotters, but personally, I'm a strong supporter of the principle of (although not necessarily the implementation of) intellectual property.
Limited quoting is fine. Wholesale reproduction without permission is not.
====
I was this close to wearing my black trenchcoat today just to piss people off, but it's too warm. Maybe next year.
-Legion
I think this just goes to show you that schools should pay a LOT more attention to teasing/abuse and make moves to prevent it rather than report the kid as dangerous. Big brother programs within schools would probably be very effective at helping this problem. Partner the teased kid up with an older, sensible and most importantly popular/big kid to deflect flac and help the misfit regain self esteem.
Isolation is the problem!
no sig.
To quote someone, you have to cite them. To quote someone and make them "not identifiable" which is what Hemos said, you aren't quoted, but rather your Intellectual Property stolen. They could quote you by name, Handle, whatever, but they can't invent names to quote people... to do that they would IMO, need a release signed....
IANAL, but I think that fair use to use someone's work for profit DEFINITELY requires them to give credit to the copyright owner... and everything is automatically copyrighted...
Alex
The fact that they were cold-blooded mass murderers sort of trumps their "victim" status, I'm afraid. NOTHING excuses their crime.
There are way too many victims in American schools these days
I'm sorry, but I absolutely cannot abide this "we're all victims" pap. Add a victim menality to moral relativism, stir, bake in high school with 1500 students for 4 years and -- Presto! -- instant criminal.
And ya know what? Things haven't changed for millenia. Geeks vs. Jocks. Bloods vs. Crips. Greasers vs. Socs. Sharks vs. Jets. Allies vs. Axis. Protestant vs. Catholic. Jew vs. Samaritan. Human nature really has not changed, and likely will not. If you learn nothing else from history, learn that.
JimD
This is Flamebait?!
So what if jonkatz isn't a geek like you? Here he's actually done something that may just prevent another Columbine from happening, may improve the lives of millions of geeks everywhere, and MIGHT JUST ALLOW SOME OF THOSE SUBURBAN NON-GEEKS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, and you all are bitching?
He stole my comment! If you only commented to hear yourself talk, or to make money from it, then sure, say this. But your precious "stolen" comment is being used to help fight the oppression that geeks are living (and dying) every day. You have a problem with this?
JonKatz doesn't understand us! He isn't one of us! He's definitely not, but don't think he doesn't understand. Not being a geek, I doubt he'll fully understand what it's like, but he got the important parts: nobody deserves to be harassed, insulted, spit on, kicked, beaten, or driven to suicide or even to murder, and everybody deserves the opportunity to live up to their full potential, whether that be assistant drive-through manager at McDonald's, or leader of a revolution. It pains me to think of how many de Icaza's and Torvalds's are out there in high schools right now thinking about killing themselves, and actually doing it, because people in general don't understand. JonKatz has an ability to make the general population understand, and that's what the geeks dealing with harassment and violence in school need.
You know, I never thought I would end up defending JonKatz, but I'm sick of people flaming him because he doesn't get it. That's not the point. He gets enough to make the regular people see what's going on, and that's why he's important. Maybe we don't need to listen to him, but the rest of the world could only benefit by listening to him, and we would reap the benefits of their hopefully being able to come to terms and accept us for what we are.
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
It would seem that the issue of comment ownership/licensing will be a big issue for some.
My thoughts:
It would seem as though all comments have been licensed to slashdot already by nature of the fact that they were posted. Slashdot is a public forum, so posting your comments here is like posting them on a telephone pole, or a bullitin board. As well, slashdot seems to own the bullitin board. While this doesn't give them ownership of the post, it would seem to give them license to distribute it. If, as some are asserting, they must get permission, then I too must get permission to print out slashdot pages. They would also have to get permission to display these comments because they are allowed to dislplay them on the web.
The issue of ownership, however, would seem to be one of liability. If I were to post "I'm gonna kill tomorrow at 10:00pm" I'm liable for that comment; slashdot isn't. Now, if I were to try and compile everyone's comments, it may be a different story.
Anyway...who cares...having your comments in this book is the biggest karma boost I can imagine.
-fp
P.S. I don't claim to be an expert, so flames about how stupid I am won't be of much use...my way makes more sense, whether it's the law or not.
...that Taco has a girlfriend. ;)
BlackNova Traders
'cause I've seen pictures of Malda... and he ain't... ;)
BlackNova Traders
Get a grip, guys. if your comments were worth anything, people would be willing to pay subscription rates to read Slashdot.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
I wish I had a rock to throw at every person who has said "Information wants to be free."
"Assume the worst about people, and you'll generally be correct"
When one looks at the shootings that have saturated the air over the last year or so, there is a common thread. In all of these cases, various political groups, promoting various agendas, have blamed Bill Clinton, the NRA, video games, violent movies, "goth" kids, the Internet, public education, Republicans that cut public education funding, bad parents, apathetic parents, student social cliques, or whatever promotes their agenda best. In nearly every case, the killers were mentally unstable children who often needed to rely on powerful medication to even function in society.
While Katz's "Hellmouth" stories occationally fell into the trap of scapegoating the bullies and cheerleaders of America, I really hope his insights are read by thoughtful people, even those of us who disagree with his conclusions. I completely reject the notion that these killer kids are misfits lashing out at a cruel system, but the conversation that Katz has started has called attention to how dreadful the lives of teens in America has become.
The baby boomers, for all their nostalgia of rejecting the "older generation", must at least recognize that they were raised by adults that doted on them. In the early 60's, all of American cutlure was shaped around teenaged whims. Mass media followed them through college and onward. For decades, the childred on the Baby Boom have been the center of society.
As a Gen X'er, I was lucky enough to coast in the wake of the boom. We were never the center of attention and people did not take us very seriously (Boomers stopped saying "Don't trust anybody over 30" at the exact moment you would expect), but society was not really hostile to us, for the most part we were ignored. The term "latch-key kids" became common in those days for a reason. For us geeks, escape from teen angst was very easy. We could hack code in our basement all night and nobody bothered us.
However, I must admit that I fear for the so-called "Generation Y". The reason why so many of us find shows like South Park to be so disturbinly funny is that the nasty humor often veils an even nastier truth that we are a little uncomfortable admitting. Kids today are unwelcome guests in a world that revolves around the desires of graying, self-centered adults. The "Hellmouth" stories call attention to this trend in a way that few other publications have. There are plenty of reason to pick on Katz, but this book merits at least that much credit.
Just to remove all doubt, I hereby give Slashdot, Mr. Katz, Andover, and anybody else the right to use this post any way they see fit.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
IMDUM
Yeah, I'm that guy.
We may eBook it eventually, but not for the time being - no good clients exist with broad support yet.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Anyone can do it. That's the nature of publishing comments into a public forum - legally, you are responsible for what you say, but people can pull them.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Sorry Jon, but all the stories I posted in those forums were fake. I had a totally normal High School life. Maybe I was just trying to fit in with the real geeks here (like you), or maybe I was trying to surf the wave of feedback, and add to it, just to magnify the collecive grief.
Or maybe I was just messing with you.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think it's very appropriate to remember the kids who were killed at Columbine..and you will see them remembered in every newspaper, magazine and TV show in America all week. But the killers were victims of a different sort, as are the many kids for whom school is a nightmarish experience. They include some geeks and goths but are by no means limited to them. There are way too many victims in American schools these days, certainly including the kids killed at Columbine. They would be foremost among them.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
No, the book couldn't possibly include all of the posts. There were thousands posted to Slashdot, many thousands more posted to me over the year. Many are not in the archives, and I lost two computers which crashed during the volume of e-mail. There could only be a fraction chosen..
P.S. I don't use any moderating system. I consider it self-censorship.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
The fact is this, no matter how warped these two were, no matter how many innocent people were hurt by these lunatics this will always be true, if schools didn't sit back and do nothing while certain kids were RELENTLESSLY persecuted by other kids and school faculty this wouldn't have happened.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm also doubtful of how tasteful it is to bring the book out on the anniversary...but on the other hand, if the book could do some good in getting the nonsensical "Zero Tolerance" policies of the world lifted, then perhaps it's a good thing that it gets wider publicity. Here's a good page discussing the problem.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
> It is legitimate law-abiding gun owners who have been harmed the most by Columbine.
How?
Have their guns been taken away? No.
Have they had to register guns that weren't registered? No.
Have they been banned from buying more guns? No.
Have any legitimate law-abiding gun owners been arrested and prosecuted? If so, please tell me the name & place.
"It was me against the world, I was sure that I'd win.... but the world fought back, punished me for my sins" - Social D
We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.
/. the message shows up at the top of the first page.
;)
In case something like this ever comes up again, you might want to consider adding a new feature to slashdot. Instead of tracking people down by email, why not track them down using their user id? Write a "sysop message" facility; if you send a message to them, the next time they login to
I'd offer to help by I hate perl
I agree with you that geeks are exploited. Not just by JonKatz and his more egregious colleagues, but by the larger part of society. We're in demand to businesses and others for our domain over modern technology, without which they would be less wealthy and/or nowadays, less intellectual-chic. At the same time, we're constantly disposed of outside of the business world, treated as sub-human and unworthy. Maybe this is why some geeks sleep in their cubes -- at work, they're valuable, at the nightclub, they're trash. YMMV of course, but those whose mileage does vary aren't in the majority, and aren't the somehow the better among us for it.
But I tell ya, feeling exploited as you and I do, I can't help holding onto some feelings of disdain and even a little emotional distress over being treated this way. Every time I read a tech news story full of nonsense, mis-statements, doble talk, and derisions of the "deviant" dig-enerates of the world, I get pretty heated. I could read some other news outlet and pretend that those news outlets "don't matter", but I'd only be kidding myself. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the Boston Herald article about the Geek Pride Festival early this month.)
So if JonKatz is going to publish a book decrying the mistreatment, ostracization, segregation, and prejudice brooding against geeks, nerds, freaks, and anyone who shows up to school wearing a black trenchcoat, I'm absolutely thrilled. And if Andover.Net wants to put out a press release about it, that makes me even happier, because I know more people will hear about this book -- not just the relatively tiny sub-set of the population that visits Slashdot. Seeing as you yourself can become so vocal when you feel exploited, I would think you would appreciate it, too.
If you don't like being understood by others, even just a little bit more, I can't help you, 'cause I definitely don't feel that way.
I gotta say, a little geek pride is a damn good thing to have. (To Tim McE.: Thanks.)
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Before the blood even dried at Columbine, Jon Katz has been trying to tell us that the real victims were the geeks, goths, oddballs, etc. who had to undergo a little bit of extra hassling by school administrators. No, Jon: the real victims were the ones who died there a year ago today, who were robbed of their lives by 2 madmen (not just geeks "acting out" against their "oppressers"). 364 days a year, feel free to capitalize on their deaths however you see fit. But not today, not on the anniversary of that tragedy. Today, we should remember the victims.
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Despite your naive beliefs, this is *not* a "public forum" and everything *written* on these pages is fully protected by copyright law. The key difference between slashdot and standing on a soapbox on the street corner is that *everything* you see has been reduced to tangible form. Copyright law can't apply to nontangible speech (since human memory is fallible and nobody can be absolutely sure what was said), but anything put down in tangible form (handwriting, books,... or little magnetic fields on a small disk) is born copyrighted.
A bit more broadly, it sounds like you're under the mistaken belief that the "public domain" is a vague catchall that everything we write falls into unless we explicitly declare our IP rights. That was arguably true many years ago, but part of the Bonn Convention(?) is that all works are born copyrighted and must be explicitly placed into the public domain (if desired, prior to the automatic conversion well after death). The only difference an explicit registration of the material makes is in the damages that can be rewarded if the IP rights are abused - without formal registration the owner can only sue to stop further publication. With registration, he can sue for puntative damages.
Finally, from what I understand about the book, it seems likely that all of the quotes are protected by the "fair use" clause of copyright law. They would have only required permission to quote articles in full.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The real story of Columbine, at least from the slashdot point of view, has never been the killers or why they did their horrific deeds. In the end, as much as people dread to hear it, I don't think there was any reason behind their acts; I think they were just nuts, and there isn't a whole lot you can learn from a nutcase. No, the real story of Columbine is what came after; it's all the hysteria from baby-boomers who don't understand their progeny, and who fear them accordingly. The victims Katz speaks of were not Klebold and Harris; they were all the kids who got harassed, suspended from school, or worse in the aftermath of Columbine for the arch-crime of nonconformity. Those kids deserve an advocate, and that's what Katz is trying to be.
-rpl
"The real tragedy of Columbine is that it was entirely avoidable and some of the victims must share a little responsibility for what happend to them (though, to be clear, not as much as the two killers - NOBODY deserves the the treatment they got but NOBODY deserves to die because of it)."
Perhaps I'm more vitriolic than the rest but my opinion can be summed up by the Malcom X quote:
"The chickens have come home to roost. Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad."
You reap what you sow.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Sometime I don't understand you people. You freely post your comments to a public forum. Then someone comes along and tries to assemble the jist of the discussion in an easily comprehendible book and you run around screaming willy-nilly? CmdrTaco and Jon already explained that _no one_ was going to be making money on this. All profits will be going to charity. Yet a year after the fact you think your comments are suddenly worth something and wish to be compensated. Get a life. If you were that protective over your comments you shouldn't have posted them in the first place. On an off note, I think it would be nice to give the charity money to an organization that in some way relates to the topic at hand. LiNT
Now those are exploitive. I guess the main determinant would be the presence or non-presence of an agenda. One thousand "I was [kicked | beaten | shut out] stories don't make an agenda, however.
;)
.sigs, The computer network is the most important invention since the printing press, but they are most powerful when combined.
I was wondering when these stories were going to be printed. I hope there wasn't much editing of individual comments, and that moderation totals and a url to the archived stories were included. I'll also be mildly dissapointed if grits are not included.
A few miscellaneous notes:
-- Andover's PR release (and the book) will keep the anti-intelligence issues on the radar screen.
It is always fun to show craniorectalists where their heads are. This, at risk of seeing more of those same masses in this forum.
-- As far as being "behind a glass window", that's a little better than being in a black box, but only a little.
-- I hope Jon's not "trying to make a difference," because it probably won't, although it will probably turn out better than that trip to Charlotte (except for the sweet tea, that's always a good thing).
-- What the hell is the deal with all the copy-patent-wannabe arguments? Sounds like egos going bump in the night.
-- By providing some of our opinions in a form accessible by the non-internet community, Slashdot provides an antidote to the designation of of Slashdot as some 'net version of Los (Mos?) Isley, by the conventional media outlets.
And, in case you filter out
I see nothing in there that supports Slashdot. In fact, it even says this about anthologies:
,and without requiring any unqualified transfer of rights to the owner of the collective work. This is coupled with a presumption that, unless there has been an express transfer of more, the owner of the collective work acquires, 'only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.
The second sentence of section 201(c), in conjunction with the provisions of section 404 dealing with copyright notice, will preserve the author's copyright in a contribution even if the contribution does not bear a separate notice in the author's name
...
Under the language of this clause a publishing company could reprint a contribution from one issue in a later issue of its magazine, and could reprint an article from a 1980 edition of an encyclopedia in a 1990 revision of it; the publisher could not revise the contribution itself or include it in a new anthology or an entirely different magazine or other collective work.
====
I have a few questions and thoughts, if you will will bare with me...
...
/., I think /. should get to decide where some of the profits go [I say EFF]
1. Can he just take our comments and publish them? Doesn't he have to give credit or get permission from the writers of the origional comments? I mean even if he para-phrases them, he still have to
2. Since the origional source is from
3. Is it gonna be summerized or is anything gonna be cut?
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
No crap, have a sixteen volume "paper back" of all the slashdot post on the hell-whatever serious. Have 2000 pages of exciting reading, like:
:)
"HOT GRITS IN YOUR PANTS"
and others like
"Mmmm portman... droool"
I think a rain forest can die for this
I do like Joh Katz's writing, but I am glad they aren't going to put in ALL of the slash posts. Nice to get a "filtered" version of the serious in paper book format.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Shame on the squabblers who are more interested in discussing the copyright of their idle scribbling; there is a serious issue here, and that it ameliorating the hellmouth.
Two suggestions:
*sigh*
Yeah, I'm that guy.
We're trying to avoid Amazon - it's only through ThinkGeek. My fault - and I'm sorry for the confusion that I may have caused.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Slashdot. Where we hate intellectual property laws, but when someone takes ONE SENTENCE of our stuff, we scream bloody murder.
The misguided millions who understand little about computers, gaming, networking, and other intellectual persuits, and who consider it a breeding ground for pathological criminals are the one's in need of enlightenment - hopefully they can turn off the sleeze-TV long enough to even read.
As a kid I used to stay in the library to dodge bullies, jocks and other wild animals - they didn't fit in there.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That's true about the Columbine killers, but the fact that they were origionaly painted as 'geeks' caused a national 'scare' or sorts and led to the presecution of profiling of anyone who matched the defination of 'geek'
So even though Harris and Klebold were not in that group you speak of, that group has taken a lot of abuse because of the precieved connection.
Finkployd
uh-huh. What are you going to sue for? Not Getting A Piece Of The Action?
I suggest you and all your pointy headed allies take a look at http://www.etext.org/Politics/Conspiracy/AJTeel/U
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
for more information. You can, of course, start looking elsewhere (online, even) to see what actual rights you have, rather than relying on your weak "Wah, wah, I've been victimized and I have no coping skills and despite the fact that I don't know the law from the flaming baby Jesus I'm going to sue" logic.
This comment may NOT be published or otherwise redistributed except as part of the Slashdot web page. This comment is NOT released to the public domain and is copyrighted by the poster.
"Comments were used. They were posted in a public forum, which means that anyone can quote from them - but we've removed any sort of identifying marks, to protect people. This was down to impress upon those reading the gravity of the situation."
Although I must confess that the last sentence of the above quote seems incoherent to me, it seems that Jon Katz's understanding of fair use law is flawed and incomplete. Asserting that the publishing of a copyrighted work into a public forum nullifies the right of the copyright owner to restrict distribution and benefit from the publishing of the work is utterly ludicrious and goes against centries of precedent for the reasons that I will summarize briefly. I don't have the inclination or time to put together a detailed point by point rebuttal of the arguments put forward by Katz and Hemos (given their faulty interpretation of copyright law, my comment could be reused in a context different than that which permission for use is granted), but what I say should be materially accurate. Now, I must preface my comment with the note that the information presented here is only general information. If you want true legal advice, you must obtain this from an attorney-client relationship with a specific understanding of all the facts in a particular situation. This information should not be relied on as a substitute for obtaining legal advice.
First, some definitions
"Willful infringement":the party distributing copyrighted material was aware of infringment and went on despite this
"Good faith fair use defense": Ignorance of the law is not normally exculpatory, however, demonstrating that one reasonably believed that what one did was fair use may be cause for a court to refuse to award damages.
What is considered to be copyrighted?: The presence or absence of an explicit copyright notice means essentially nothing after 1989. Posters do not place their comments into the public domain unless they give explicit notification that they do so; the notice at the bottom of every Slashdot page "All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster" lends additional credence to this concept.
When does copyright law come into effect?: If someone other than the copyright owner wants to exercise rights that exclusively belong to the owner (including reproduction, redistribution, creation of derivative works, performance, archival, or display). Some uses are, however, exempt from liability from infringement (including fair use, libraries, and certain educational purposes).
What constitutes fair use?: Traditionally, a four pronged test has applied to determine whether a specific usage falls under fair use or not. These are:
1) The nature and character of the use: nonprofit, educational, artistic, and personal uses tend to be looked upon more kindly than for-profit or commercial uses. Closer on the continium to preserving the rights of the copyright owner include criticism, newsreporting, and commentary. Note that receiving profits from the sale of a derivative work and than donating these profits to a charity does NOT fall under the category of nonprofit use; the user of the copyrighted material gains a benefit from the sell of the derivative work.
2) The nature of the copyrighted work that is being used: Works that are published and factual in character may be used more freely than creative or imaginative works. Judging from most Slashdot comments, it would appear as if many posters reflect on how incidents have affected their personal lives and emotional state. This is not neccesarily of a factual nature.
3) Amount of work used: needless to say, taking a copyrighted work in its entirety would severely diminish any plausible claim of fair use. I don't know how much of each comment Katz reproduces in his book.
4) Effect of use on status of original work: The situation in this case leans against fair use for the following four reasons.
-The original comments are still available and can be accessed freely.
-The copyright owner/s is/are identifiable, but, by Hemos' own admission no substantial effort was made to locate them beyond a token effort and then a comment to the effect that it was too difficult.
-Avoids payment for permission in an established market, where the owner of the comment has the reasonable expectation of being compensated for the use of his or her work (witness Janes' effort to locate the people quoted in their article)
-It is the specific intention of Katz and Hemos to delete all identifying information such that no credit is given to the owner of the copyrighted work, an enormous no-no in copyright law.
Considering these facts, especially the fourth prong of the test (interpreted via Princeton University Press vs. Michigan Document Services wherein the concept that the potential for economic damage caused by use of a copyrighted work negates fair use, even without regard to the first three prongs of the test), it seems beyond question that Jon Katz has made a severe mistake in publishing what is essentially a derivative work blatantly drawing on the creative works of others, with a deliberate effort to suppress the identities of those who contributed materially to it.
This comment may NOT be published or otherwise redistributed except as part of the Slashdot web page. This comment is NOT released to the public domain and is copyrighted by the poster.
Amazon.com patents are bad - they shouldn't be able to protect their ideas...but...Slashdot readers' post's copyrights are good - they should be able to protect every word.
Open Source / Open access to info is good - access to software and information should be free...but...Taking public posts and putting them into a book is bad - Slashdot posters should be paid for their comments.
This is the problem I have with the anti-patent / open source everything mentality - it only is supported when you are on the getting end, not the giving end.
How about instead we talk about the actual book and the potential good it might do for kids dealing with the shit in it?
Every time I see an article from Jon Katz, I am filled with resentment. I feel like we, the so-called geek community (I am even ashamed to call it that) are placed behind glass and shown off to the rest of the world by him. Like a zoo, with Katz as the zoo tour guide. He pretends to be "one of us" but he's an outsider, incapable of understanding what this culture is about. This latest book only underscores my dislike for him since he's effectively going out and selling tickets to come gawk at us!
"Look! Look!" he says, pointing to us, the geeks, in our glass cages. "Observe the things they eat, their mating habits..."
Doesn't he realize that we're human beings too? And maybe, just maybe, we just want to be left alone to do our thing?
--
(PS: Moderators: Please, moderate this up. This is not a troll. I am speaking truly from the bottom of my heart here. I am genuinely offended by the way Jon Katz treats us as objects to be exploited.)
1. No. They are not identified in a way that allows for any sort of indentification of them.
/really/ high, and the cover is expensive. At some point, we will probably do a cheaper version, but not for at least six months.
/very tiny/ on a person person basis.
2. For those who posted in a public forum, they were not consulted. We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.
3. Fair amount of new material, but a lot of is edited material that draws all the columns together. The text, when printed, should be about 200, I think, although we don't have the final number back yet. We tried to go cheaper for the book, but the cost of paper is
4. The reality, in terms, of paying people is that the book wouldn't happen at that point. The amount of time that would have added to things would have made the book impossible. Besides, the amount of actual quoting from people, once the rest is considered is
5. We tried to deal with the Amazon thing, but you can't stop them from ordering for a resaler. Once something has entered the ISBN system, anyone can order it. However, at this time, we're only selling it through Amazon. As far as funds collected at this time, Katz is not taking money, I'm not taking any - we have to pay for the cost of making the book and the editor, but besides that, nada.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
Will the book include all of the posts? I ask this because not all of the posts are in the Slashdot archive. For example, two posts in the original Hellmouth piece which were modded to -1, and everything in reply to them , are not in the archive. This is bad, since some of the best posts were in reply to those (some had even been modded to 5), and are now gone. I only realized this recently, when I had to do a speech for a Persuasion class and was looking through those archives for research (yes, the speech was against geek profiling).
Frankly, that's enough that I can now say I have a grievance with the moderation system. And as an ardent believer in the system otherwise that's no small feat. But post archives should be complete archives, even if that means including the trolls. Otherwise, too many "good" posts (as defined even by moderation) are cut out.
And to the trolls reading this: don't think this means I'm joining your immature ranks anytime soon. I have better things to do then meet in the big UCTAM treehouse for milk and cookies. But I do agree with you on one small and easily-fixed aspect of the moderation system now.
This book isn't being published by me, so I'm not taking anybody's comments and publishing them. It's being published by Andover. I didn't select the postings in it.
But as a matter of law, comments posting in public for public dissemination can be reprinted, since they were posted for public discussion. The comments in this book are excerpts from among the many thousands of e-mails, and people are not identified by e-mail or name, so their privacy is protected. It's also a non-profit book, so there is no question of anybody's getting money. Nothing is paraphrased, though, as I understand it.
There were thousands of pots, both to
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Hello?
Public forum - anything said in a public forum can be quoted by ANYBODY without ANY permission.
You own the comments, but that doesn't give you some magical right to roll back 200 years of law.
The fact that they even tried is admirable, considering that they have absolutly NO legal obligation to do so.
- The unexamined life is not worth leading -
Hey everyone, did we all just forget that these guys turned out not to be the "Geeks" Slashdot wanted them to be? Has that little detail been conveniently forgotten?
Sure, there's no reason we can't talk about the horrible treatment of Geeks (and others) in today
s high schools, but you know what? I don't see any justification for linking that debate with Columbine.
The Columbine killers were just crazy. Remember the Trench Coat Mafia? That group of outsiders that had an ongoing feud with the jocks, and talked about getting picked on constantly, and about how high school was hell for them? Yeah, well, Harris and Klebold were not in that group.
Harris and Klebold turned out to be, well... crazy. Two guys who just had it in for everyone else for no particular reason at all. Hard as it may be for you to believe, that is what a thorough investigation of their diary and videotaped rants has concluded.
There it is.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Yes, because today a 17 year-old girl is being sentenced to life in prison for the beating death of another teenaged girl named Reena Virk.
Reena was a 14 year old of Indian decent (that's from India not aboriginal) who was a little overwieght and a visible minority. Three years or so ago she was kicked to death and then thrown in a river and drowned by a group of teenagers who thought she was a 'goof' and 'weird'. They were the 'cool' kids and she was the outsider. Another group of teens has already been sentenced to jail in the case.
Reena's case is the extreme but it demonstrates that there is more than just 'a little bit of extra hassling by school administrators' and peers going on. How many other children take their own lives after the cruel harassment and torture of their so-called friends has become too much - what number is bigger, the number of school death by shooting or the number of teen suicides?
We can pay homage to the 15 (yes 15) vicims of Columbine not by stiffling discussion about the issues surrounding the tragedy but by shouting it from the roof tops so every kid will hear. We will never stop the Columbine's of the world from happening if we pretend they were madmen about which we could have done nothing. On the contrary, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided if only one teacher or one other student had spoken out against the kind of treatment the two killers (and many others) recieved on a daily basis, some time in the past before the two snapped.
I'm willing to bet some of the victim's families wish someone had.
The real tragedy of Columbine is that it was entirely avoidable and some of the victims must share a little responsibility for what happend to them (though, to be clear, not as much as the two killers - NOBODY deserves the the treatment they got but NOBODY deserves to die because of it).
You want to remember the victims? Teach you children tolerance, manners and respect for others so there are never any other victims to remember.
Don't poke your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I have seen both Hemos and Katz respond to selective questions yet neither of them has responded to the most obvious, the ones about OUR comments. This disturbs me highly.
Lest you get disturbed, I'll clarify some points for you about YOUR comments.
All comments posted to Slashdot are copyright of the poster. Posting them essentially constitutes publishing. Now, by fair use provisions anybody, even Jon Katz, can take excepts from these posts and use them -- this is called quoting. Nobody needs any permission to quote any published material. Nothing happens to copyright -- it still resides with the original poster.
If quotes from your comments being used in Katz's book disturbes you highly, I'd recommend to try and get a life. I understand this is a hard problem, but I've heard it's fun...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
You people sicken me. You, the people who are posting and patting yourselves on the back for being so intelligent for pointing out a possible conflict of interests on Slashdot's part or a question of copyright law... as if any of the sound and fury you pour into these posts signifies anything at all.
A book has been compiled to reflect your opinions regarding Columbine and its aftermath. It'll be something in hard copy. Something at a bookstore that your average Joe can pick up and think about. Maybe Joe is an alcoholic who beats his kid, and the book will make him think twice about the consequences. Or maybe Joe is the leader of a local PTA who thinks that her son's school "would be just fine if it weren't for those few creepy kids who dress in black all the time and spend all their time on that Internet-thing."
Being in print legitimizes what you have to say--far more than many of you realize. The countless posts you've poured your hearts and souls into here don't amount to a hill of dingo's kidneys while they're just sitting on Slashdot's servers, because 99.999% of the world is *never* going to hear what you have to say. But getting it in print, getting those words an ISBN and a place on a bookstore shelf--*that* act can drop that percentage of people who aren't hearing you.
BUT... what is the overwhelming response to this chance for the message to be heard? A great Wave of whining idiots who are more concerned with looking out for number one. "What about crediting ME for MY words?" "How could Slashdot have the gall to snip a couple dozen words from MY post and violate MY rights guaranteed by God and the Internet and the message at the bottom of this page?" "Exactly who is getting rich off of the sweat of MY brow?"
Andover is *actually doing something* about the bad rap that geeks and others have been receiving from the mainstream media for years--they're doing something more than just typing little words into a little box on a little website--and you want to jump all over their backs because your little words might actually have an impact beyond the Slashdot community, and you don't have full creative control over it.
"And, for Pete's sake, make sure they don't sell it on Amazon.com!" Sure... God forbid that the book be sold somewhere prominent where people who *aren't* geeks might find out about it. Let's make sure we're only preaching to the choir, here.
The message in the book is a powerful one, and it *has* power because so many individuals have something to say. Not one person--thousands of people--make this book important. Your one little post didn't mean anything until there were another hundred posts just like it, so quit puffing yourself up with self-importance and righteous indignation.
Will some people make money from this book? Yes. UPS will probably make a killing on shipping charges, if it turns out this book is a success. Andover will make money--but then, it's their money that they're putting on the line to get this thing published and out to everyone. Booksellers will make some money, too. But the money that CmdrTaco and Hemos and company make--the only money that they really have control over--will go to causes that they hope this community believes in.
The message is bigger than you are. Have the decency to be big enough, yourselves, to let it be heard.
-----------------------------------------------
Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups.
For the upcoming anniversary of Slashdot, I will be releasing the paperback version of "Voices From The Trolls."
Table of Contents:
Chapter I:
"First Post!"
Chapter II:
"The Glorious MEEPT -- Early Slashdot"
Chapter III;
"Futility -- GPL vs. BSD, KDE vs. GNOME, Emacs vs. vi"
Chapter IV:
"Nudity and Petrification -- From Segfault to Slashdot"
Chapter V:
"Hot Grits -- Not Just For Breakfast Anymore"
Chapter VI:
"The Final Option -- CmdrTaco/Hemos/CowboyNeal Sucks"
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I just want to clarify something that seemed ambiguous in both Taco's post and the Think Geek page - are comments posted on slashdot by us, its audience, posted in this book?
If so, a few questions:
1.) Are the posters of those comments listed by name and/or handle?
2.) Have they been consulted about have their comments published?
3.) How much "new material" is in this book? How many pages is the text? $15 for a paperback seems like a bit much.
4.) As noted at the disclaimer on the bottom of each page of slashdot, "Comments are owned by the Poster." I think that giving the proceeds to charity is a worthy cause, but what if someone desired a cut of the profits for the portion of the content they provided? I sure hope no one here would be so selfish and arrogant, but it does happen. . .
5.) Has anyone at slashdot made an effort to keep this from going on Amazon? Put your money where your mouth is and support that boycott - and I'm sure that someone is making money through the sale from Think Geek, which is, of course, owned by the same people who are donating the rest of the proceeds - is it just the slashdot staffs' portion of the proceeds that go to charity, or everything andover and its employees get from this?
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
The impression we get of them from the media are not real, they are cardboard cut outs meant to represent "the teenaged menace" and allow for a crackdown the like of which America has never seen.
Jon Katz Hellmouth stories weren't about two sociopaths who went on a killing spree, they were about people who were victimized in its aftermath. They aren't about a town Littleton or a school called Columbine, they are about media generated illusions designed to push a repressive political agenda.
It is irrelevant that today is the anniversary of Columbine save to those directly affected by the tragedy. Did anyone notice the anniversary of Jonesborough, Arkansas or Paducah, Kentuky? Not in the mainstream media, at any rate, they've decided the most useful instrument for their statist agenda is the illusion they created around Columbine.
Perhaps Jon Katz is not the best person to write a book and expose this agenda, but at least he is doing something. I've seen very few people elsewhere tackling the spectre created by the media who used the victims of the Columbine tragedy for their own ends. I have watched the TeeVee news this week, and you know what I hear, "This just in, the anniversary of the Columbine Tragedy (a trademark of Time/Warner Inc.) is set to come up, are your children safe. We now go to a drill being conducted by the Lutz PD, in case a similar event happens here." (Cut to scenes of kids being walked out of a school with their hands over their heads, looking like criminals. I'm not sure it was actually Lutz, but it was one of the schools around here. Oh, and of course I satirically paraphrased the newsreader's words, but that was the gist of them.)
It shouldn't shock me that so many people posting to Slashdot these days are completely duped by the media, or hate Jon Katz so much, that they'll go on and on about how this announcement is "poor taste" but I doubt have written to their local News stations to express the same sentiments. However, it is important that these people are not the only voices heard or posts read.
Someday, maybe soon, I'm going to have kids. I do not want them thrust into some Orwellian nightmare just because a bunch of people are whining about "poor taste." If you want to whine about poor taste, why not try the conventional media? MSNBCVs Article on the Anniversary I'm sure they'll really care about your complaints, and store them in a strong metal container... a trash can.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The rest of the world NEEDS a tour guide to geeks. This is what many of us seem to miss completely. We can't understand why the rest of the world can't understand us, but it comes from a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of the outside world, so to speak. The mass media has turned the word "geek" into one of two things - a revered, nearly god-like individual who controls technology and can make the world fall to peices with the very click of his mouse, or a dangerous antisocialite who is a threat to everyone, both digitally or physically.
These people are the ones that look at the words "computer gaming" and think "doom is a killing simulator". This does not bode well for many of us, who enjoy a FPS once in a while. (Note : This applies to most gaming genres. Tell someone that Civ II is a "world building" game and they'll give you the 'look'). So, what's the solution to bridging this gap that exists?
People like Katz. He might not be a geek, and he might not fully understand geeks, but he's actually got a grasp on many important issues. For the most part, he gets his information somewhat right. And a book like this is, in my opinion, VERY important. Who else to present the facts "from the other side of the fence" than someone who is riding the rails? Hopefully, this won't just be a one-time thing. Perhaps we need to get a "Geek Lifestyle 101" written as an open source project from slashdot comments or something, heh.
and that's my $0.02