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Postscript: Who Owns The Hellmouth Posts?
To me, the moral imperative of the Hellmouth series has always been simple: get these stories out to a wider audience. That's what they were sent.
There are countless victims of a tragedy like Columbine. First, and certainly foremost, there were the 12 kids and a teacher who were slain. Secondly, there were the two emotionally disturbed kids who killed them, and then took their own lives. And finally, there were the many thousands of individualistic, interesting and sometimes-alienated kids who have suffered from the post-Columbine hysteria.
Their stories are familiar to anyone who read the Hellmouth series, or who has been following the epidemic of suspensions, expulsions, arrests, forced counseling sessions, social abuse and suspicion, and nightmare creations like Pinkerton's "WAVE America" program, an anonymous hotline on which kids are encouraged to turn in peers they consider dangerous or violent.
In the days after Columbine, many of those new victims sent messages to Slashdot, in the hopes of finding an outlet for their experiences -- since schools, the media and politicians were giving them no voice. We can't count exactly how many messages were sent this way, some posted here, others e-mailed directly to me, while many messagers were unable to get onto the site. But my best guess is close to 20,000.
In a handful of cases, posters asked for anonymity, or that their messages not ever be passed along. Those requests were, of course, honored. But as perhaps the only person who read all the messages, that got through, and that I received, I am confident about their spirit and intent, both literally and figuratively. Those people wanted to get their stories out. They sent their messages in the hopes of reaching beyond their own lives and schools and into mainstream media, educational and political circles. The Hellmouth posts are unique. They belong in the public domain. In fact, they cry out to be there.
The overwhelming majority of these kids and adults came from outside of the Slashdot community. They perceived Slashdot as a place where messages get out, where they could speak freely, where information is shared and distributed. They asked that I do everything possible to see that their words and perspectives and pleas and stories reach journalists, educators and parents. None of them were particularly aware of or interested in the many internicine issues and conflicts that characterize a site like this. They were not conventional posters to Slashdot's Threads.
So I have worked to be faithful to those requests. In these kid's lives, a year is a long, sometimes painful time. Lots of these kids have stayed in touch. Many have moved, gone on to college, switched computers or ISP's, changed their technological lives or personal interests. Many, of course, were young, complicating the posting issues still further.
Although I didn't select the messages in this about-to-be published collection, (Since I am legally under contract to another book publisher, I couldn't directly participate in the production of the book, and I also thought it would be better to have a more detached eye) I've read them. The selections were brilliant. They are the right ones, and they are powerful.
My belief and recommendation was this: the safest, fairest and most effective way to deal with publishing excerpts from the outpouring was to select the most powerful and universal posts, strip them of identifying name or e-mail addresses (some of them are young, some messages to them might be intercepted by parents or siblings, and the Net can be hostile) and publish the strongest, most representative excerpts. To do anything else, in my opinion, would be arbitrary and unfair, because:
- Messages shouldn't be excluded just because the posters were young, or had moved or switched ISP's.
-Messages should be chosen for their content, not availability.
Inclusion in the book shouldn't be part of a negotiating process, but on the basis of merit.
-All of the posted messages -- including some e-mailed to me -- were clearly sent with the intent of being seen. People wanted to have some impact on the post-Columbine hysteria.
Many people in this community have raised all sorts of questions about my motives (the accusations included profiteering, self-promotion, exploitation, opportunism, among others), and about idea ownership, and some proprietary questions about including posts. Many of these concerns are perfectly valid, others ironically coming from people who routinely download music, videos, software and other information and pass along opinions, columns and stories without a second thought, or even as a matter or principle.
Fact is, I've never been prouder to have my name on any book. I hope it's published in a timely fashion. I hope it's supported and widely read.
One of the problems with the eruption of hate-mail Friday (I define hate mail as a message with the word "hate" in it, or a message sent for the sole purpose of personal attack or injury) is that it often obscures genuine issues, and the posts that raised intelligent and important questions. That was the case in the response following the announcement that "Voices From The Hellmouth" was going to be published.
These issues, while valid, raise the risk of obscuring the point: The Hellmouth messages urgently need to be disseminated; they deserve to be heard. Don't do to these kids what so many journalists, administrators, parents and others have done -- shut them up.
Where possible, it's perfectly valid to try to reach individuals and get their permission -- believe me, that will not be a problem. In every case, e-mail addresses should be stripped and only the poster's initials used. But messages ought not be kept from the book simply because a poster was unreachable. These messages are the right ones.
That unrelated issues ought not delay the publication of the book by a single day, or result in the deletion of any valid message. Nor should they divert attention from what the Hellmouth series is really about -- the very real persecution of kids who are individualistic, different, "non-normal," and who have been wrongly caught up in an ugly hysterical response to a tragic event. These voices should not be silenced, and certainly not here.
Addendum by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
I wanted to make a few points in addition to Jon's.
- A terrible thing happened a year ago. Then the world freaked out and caused even worse things to happen to even more people. Everyone involved in the production of this book felt that this would in some small way help. You're not obligated to buy, read, or even care about this book. But there are many people who hopefully will benefit from it.
- It was impractical, and in fact undesirable to contact and credit the vast number of contributors. Under other circumstances, it might have been different, but considering the subject matter, we felt that it was better done anonymously anyway. If we were publishing the 'Slashdot Readers Guide to Hacking C++' or something, much different criteria would have been used.
- We're donating any money to charity: we'll certainly entertain suggestions about which charity, and perhaps it'll be put to a Slashdot poll, all of that however was just a nice side benefit to a larger purpose. Accusations that this is a PR stunt were pretty hurtful. We honestly feel that this was above all else, a "Good Thing". Yes, we did it through a Andover, a corporate, "For Profit" entity, but that alone doesn't make turn this into an evil plot to take your money, and earn us fame. Turn the conspiracy theory down a notch and remember that Andover just a group of human beings with real feelings and everything. Several of them were very hurt that so many people reacted so angrily to something that we all felt was good.
- We're in the middle of a big server move. After that we'll hack a permission system to allow people to decide if their words are for Slashdot only, or may be redistributed if this ever comes up again. There are many good things in the comments worthy of wider audiences, and most readers don't have any problem with that, but the few (loud) people for whom this is a major stumbling block should most certainly be allowed to determine the destiny of their own words. It has been my intent to add this for months, but ideas are plentiful, while the time to code them isn't.
- It will be published electronically. It'll be run either on Slashdot, or it'll be in some downloadable format. Its just not out yet, so chill out for a few weeks ;)
Extra-special bonus addendum 04/21 16:24 by michael : Already the jokes have begun.
Do we have to go buy the dead tree version or is there going to be a no-cost version available online? Since it sounds like you essentially just compiled a bunch of email and slashdot comments into a more readable format, do you think it is really justified not having a freely available online version? I can understand charging for the dead tree version since there are obviously publishing and printing costs but you could easily make a link off the slashdot home page for an electronic version.
As for your "problems" in seeking permission, so what? If it's not practical to ethically publish a book from Slashdot, don't publish it at all! They chose what was convenient over what was right. And heck, if I don't want my quote to appear in Katz's book because I hate Katz, what's wrong with that?
You should not surprise people like this, Mr. Katz. If you had said this originally, then we would have had the slashdot firestorm about it, a few people would put "don't reproduce this" on their posts, and most people would accept this and even want it.
Instead you come to us and say "I know you wanted it". That's not a good defense.
I don't want to slag you too hard, Mr. Katz, because I know I want this book. I want it so much it hurts. But it's the right thing to do to ask first. So how about apologizing and doing better in the future?
Don't give the money to the victim's families, unless of course you are refering to victims of violence other than the over-exposed Columbine incident. Why not them? Well first and foremost there have already been millions of dollars donated to them already. Secondly don't forget that one of the main reasons that this shooting in particular was in the media spotlight was not the number of kids killed, but who they were, well-to-do suburban kids. Not to harp on the fact that they came from wealthly families, but if the shooting had taken place in an inner city enviroment, sure it would make the news, but most people would have shrugged and just though "Oh, that must be a bad neighborhood", and any victims would be less able to pay for medical care, funeral services, and the like. As for distribution of the money we should try and find victims who can actually make use of it. Either funding things like physical therapy for victims of violent crime or toward a worthy techy cause such as the EFF would be a much better use of the money.
I've been online, one place or another, for 20 years. I've had some of the things I've said published in someone else's books.
/. was in the Jon's book, I don't really mind. I doubt I said anything worthy of more than a Bronx cheer, but I don't like being blindsided.
But in each case, the author either contacted me directly, or posted a note saying "Hey, I'd like to use some of the comments here in my book. email me and let me know if I can use something you said."
If anything I said on
How hard would it have been to say up front, "Hey y'all, can I publish your comments?"
Oh well.
Mark Edwards
Comments posted to Slashdot may be used freely, but only if I am directly contacted for permission prior to publication.
Try reading the (C) statement at the bottom of each page of SlashDot.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
But the way I understood it, Katz is also publishing email messages he received.
Anything that has been said in a public forum is fair game to be quoted -- many cases of that are covered by "fair use." The only question is whether the book-producers had the right to quote without attributing the quotations.
Fair use allows you to take others people work and _reference_ and _cite_ it in _your own work_. What Katz intends on doing is not that-- it is reproducing _other_ people's work.
If they can do this under fair use, I can reproduce any copyrighted work in the whole and claim fair use.
This does not erase the ethical issues with further republishing mateial that might contain identifying detail. We're talking about the possibility of someone being harmed by the even wider publication of this.
And, as I understand it, Katz also intends to publish some email messages, which were _not_ posted to /.
Did I say anything about whether or not you own your comment? I said that by posting to a public forum, you have given implicit permission to have that post disseminated to the public. If anything, it presumes you do have ownership (or the implicit grant of permission wouldn't be needed).
Why couldn't you have had a sort of mock-interview where the readers could moderate up old comments that should go into the book. The comments came from us and we should have had input as to which ones we felt best represented us!
The only thing that is keeping me on Slashdot is habit. I've been here since the Chips and Dips. Cmdrtaco: You should have known damn well that some of us would be pissed off for you publishing our comments this way. Don't you remember the furor that erupted several years ago when you mentioned you might make a /. compilation CD-ROM?
OH that's right, half the /. staff doesn't even pay attention to what happens on the site anymore. Thank god for places like Advogato. They will take over when /. finally dies under its own weight.
The more you know, the less you understand.
1) Don't post to Slashdot if you don't want people to read your post. The Slashdot community doesn't end at the list of user accounts. This book extends the Slashdot community, using a new media for Slashdot -- print.
2) Perhaps we better appreciate why RMS dislikes the term Intellectual Property, two words which he believes don't belong together. Comment ownership is a really strange idea--once you say something verbally, or post it on Slashdot, it's out in the open. So how can you 'own' it? In particular, I think the 'comment ownership' clause should be read as "don't sue Slashdot because of something you read in a post".
-Paul Komarek
You write
"But here is something you CAN quote me on"
followed by
"I do not give permission to any entity to use my post..."
So which is it? And where does the Slashdot forum end? Can I tell my wife what you posted? Can I print your post and put it on my fridge? What if I'm discussing Slashdot with a friend over breakfast, is that part of the Slashdot forum?
I'm starting to think that much of the trolling and other stupid posts come from people who believe that Slashdot protects their idiocy from being seen. When you look like an idiot on Slashdot, your idiocy is broadcast with a speed and scope heretofore unimaginable. And Slashdot is a more-or-less permanent record, too!
`Engage brain before opening mouth' applies to public posts. For instance, it applies to posting on Slashdot!
-Paul Komarek
However, if it was just assumed that they wanted their stories told, that's treading on some very thin ice. Legally, it's probably OK, but I think that people are right in pointing out the serious ethical issues this raises. If someone were to tell me anonymously that they were sexually molested by their parents, do I have a right to put that in a book and publish it? Sure, there's probably no chance that anyone would be able to trace it back to that particular person, but wo uld that person ever trust me with confidential information ever again? Probably not.
Nice strawman, but I don't think telling you something confidential falls into the same boat as "posting to slashdot." Slashdot is an open community, and expecting words you post here to vanish never to be seen again is not reasonable.
Excellent link. I might just repost that up higher...
:)
Yeah, Sig11 usually has something reasonable to say, but that's impressive, even for him.
Of course, no one will see our posts, because they're down here.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Is there a difference? ;)
Still, Karma Whore or not, it was still a pretty good post. (and I got flamed by an AC for it, it had to be good!)
So how're you doing?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If it were really too personal, then it shouldn't have been posted to a public forum like Slashdot. Pure and simple.
Anyone who wants to can go back to the original Hellmouth articles; they're still featured in a Slashbox. All the comments are there to be read. Archiving is part of Slashdot, and posters are not given a choice on whether or not their posts are archived.
Anything that has been said in a public forum is fair game to be quoted -- many cases of that are covered by "fair use." The only question is whether the book-producers had the right to quote without attributing the quotations.
I think that's perfectly reasonable in this case. Anyone who's really interested can go back to the original articles and find the comments there anyway.
As Jon said, requests not to reproduce the comments were honored. So in future, if you don't want what you say in a public forum to be reproduced for charity or for anything else, then ask for it not to be.
Adam
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Erm, look at factor 4 again:
``[T]he copyrighted work'' specified is the original post on /.. I'm afraid the potential market for (or monetary value of) any one post is so close to nil as to be indistinguishable therefrom.
Yes, Mr. Katz's work is built of those posts, but it hasn't affected their market potential one iota. Factor 4 falls squarely on the side of fair use.
BTW: Thanks for this book, all concerned. It gives us a chance to present the situation to those who have no access to their online form, or those (unfortunately many) who disdain anything that hasn't been transferred to dead, bound trees.
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Personal insults aside, you raised some interesting points.
So everyone here owns there comments. Fine. I guess we have to contact Linux Journal and have them remove their monthly feature 'slash quotes' which re-prints select lines posted on slashdot every month.
As for apache, if I'm not mistaken, apache is included in ALL releases of linux. And these products are all sold retail for a profit. Are the apache writers getting a percentage of the redhat sales (or any other distro)?
For profit. You keep saying this is a 'for profit' venture yet it has repeatedly been stated that all profits will go to charity. Now maybe you have a different definition of profit but in my view, giving away everything you may gain from a project is not exactly the best way to line your pockets.
And finally, how many people would be this pissed off if Katz name was not on this project?
I'm really starting to get sick of slashdot. If people aren't screaming to boycott some company because its CEO farted in the wrong direction, they're screaming about how the whole damned world it out to destroy the internet.
Now people are screaming about how they 'own' their comments they posted to a public forum.
WHERE ARE THE OPEN SOURCE ADVOCATES NOW??
If open source is so great and you believe in it so much, why are you bitching about your posts being used in what essentially is an open source project???
----
Life if possible, art at any cost.
From a community whose underlying belief is that "Information should be free" I am shocked at the response. Shame on you.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
With that said, though, I want to point out that people pursuing noble goals can sometimes do unintended harm, and the people associated with this project should think long and hard on that point (if they haven't already) before deciding that they know best how others would like their words to be used.
Here's one potential nightmare: Many of the people who posted these messages were clearly very concerned about maintaining their anonymity. You say that all identifying information has been removed, but how can you be sure that someone won't recognize a turn of phrase, or a particular set of circumstances, and figure out who actually posted something? Even one person being unintentionally exposed that way could result in serious consequences. Only the original posters know how serious those consequences might be - so how can you presume to decide on their behalf that the benefit of printing their words in the book is worth running that risk?
From a strict legal standpoint, you may well be violating the rights of the posters by reusing their words in printed form without their permission. From where I sit, it's really their call, not yours.
You're concerned about the original authors having changed ISPs, such that you can't contact them, but with 20,000 messages to choose from, I'd think you could get permission from enough of them to serve your book's nobler goals without compromising the original authors' right to control what happens to their words.
But what I don't understand here is what the difference is between this book, and say "Hard Times" by Studs Terkel, in which interviews with various parties were included in his book. If Jon Katz had sat down in person with the various posters and asked their opinions, we wouldn't be discussing this now.
I think the problem is there is no valid legal precedent to determining if "public oral" displays of this nature (i.e., postings on a web board) are ownable in the sense we use when speaking of an essay or written article.
In fact, this seems much more like writing a letter to the editor. The expectation is that people *will* see and *will* read your words. Everyone who posted here did so without expectation of payment, but with the express intent of joining a conversation and having their words heard. To complain because these same comments are being bound into a printed volume so that non-technophiles can hear and understand your statements is pure foolishness.
Note: Feel free to reproduce this comment in future media of any sort. blah blah. No payment necessary. blah blah.
After that we'll hack a permission system to allow people to decide if their words are for Slashdot only, or may be redistributed if this ever comes up again.
... to get permission to use this comment " - then make it the responsiblity of the user to be sure to keep that info updated.
I'm hoping you're not just going to include the two extremes - "No, you can't use this for anything else" and "Yes, you can use this for anything". A middle option is needed such as "Contact me at:
Why the fuck is my comment off topic?
Like it or not everyone should be read; no matter.
This was not a troll, I just asked why? Why it was marked with a -1? what other venue could I asked in?
"Think of it as evolution in action."
Rob, Jon, one of the very leasons you speak of is how the pearls of wisdom are lost in the noise.
Take heed! :)
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
Maybe that's true morally, but it doesn't make the situation any more right legally. What exactly is the point of "law" if it doesn't reflect the morals of society?
Umm, can I submit a response later?
There's nothing wrong from profiteering!!. Even if J.K. and co were in it purely for the $$$ and the fame, the book would still get out there, putting the info in the hands of the people who need to read it (non-techies). And, if J.K. etc had decided to keep the money, it would be going to the people who had had the inspiration and put in the effort to get the book written, edited, and out there - which is surely the way things should be. If you had wanted to sell your contribution for your own money, you should have done so instead of posting it in a public room. As to "a ruse to take your money" - there's no coercion in a free market and you needn't give up a cent if you don't want to buy it.
Capitalism is good, folks - everyone profits by the freedom of anyone to profit. So lose the automatic attack on money-makers.
If the posts weren't intended to be, at the very least, massively reproduced on thousands upon thousands of monitors around the world as we read the comments on Slashdot, they shouldnt' have been posted here.
I have to agree with a comment I saw earlier...these posts are important. Important enough that they need to be seen by people other than the choir. If that means Rob has to give his permission to pull content from /. to Jon to assist in the publishing of a book about a topic I think everyone with a voting voice in this country should at least skim over, then bring on the printing presses, and if you need help, I'll fire up a few copy machines at my house....
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
I believe this topic has already beed covered with regards to USENET.
You chosing to post differently if you knew you were going to be in a book is exactly why these comments need to be in the book. Just as anonymity allows people to speak more freely, having a target audience that you associate with also allows you to express yourself better. If people had to phrase what they were trying to say in order to be what they consider " publishable" , the message would not have been as clear and emotional.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
And something else I just thought of. If you take a post to Slashdot and put it in a book, separated from many, if not all, of the posts that appeared around it and that may have helped inspire it and that it may be, partially or more, in answer to, aren't you taking the post out of context, which gives it a not exactly the exact same meaning and feel?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
What if s/he has been posting anonymously from the beginning of Slashdot and just now registered to put a little more gravity behind her/his final post?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I agree that we're seeing a much better level of writing than usual from each of them here (especially Katz), but that doesn't change the fact that they should have explained all of this up front, before putting the book together.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Well now there's an issue that's probably of interest to a frightening number of Slashdotters--Is vandalism copyrightable?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Nah, he's been doing that since October of '98 and the "Halloween Papers".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Something else to be considered is that there are rights to the written speech, and rights to the "performance", and they aren't the same.
This raises the question of whether the placement, timing, and formatting of a Slashdot post is separately copyrightable from the words of the post. Also, if one post quotes the post that it's replying to, or some other previous post, where do one poster's rights begin and another one's end?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
> Defining Hate mail as mail containing the word "Hate"?
I hate it when people do that...;)
I think people need to keep the goal in mind when talking about this. This book was not written to make money or anything people were TRYING to do something good. Remeber that...
"... That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas..."
-Buffy Summers
Goodbye Iowa
Here's one for you lawyers out there:
Is Slashdot/Andover violating the privacy of underage posters by publishing their comments in a book, even if they are stripped of user names?
Could the parents of one of those posters take legal action against Slashdot/Andover?
I don't know the answer, which is why I am asking...
Now here is what went wrong:
Many people didn't first hear about this from reading Rob's comments here. They found out about it through Andover's press release. If you read the original press release there is no mention that proceeds of the book are going to a charity. Also the release calls the book 'Jon Katz's'. Anyone practiced at the art of trolling through PR can easily see the release as an incredibly unsubtle attempt to firstly get attention on the year memorial of the massacre and secondly to sell the book by attaching Katz's name to it rather than the more-true-but-not-as-market-sexy 'written by slashdot posters'.
I think Rob's intentions were good, BUT someone on the Slashdot team MUST start reading Andover's PR firm's announcements before they go out on the wire. Because they are destroying Slashdot's reputation. In this case the offending PR was released by: CONTACT: Andover.Net Janet Holian, 978/635-5300
janet@andover.net
or Schwartz Communications, Inc.
Manya Rossignoli/Chris Stamm, 781/684-0770
cstamm@schwartz-pr.com
Hope that helps...
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
I'm sorry, but this post totally misses the point of the Hellmouth reports. The families of the victims were hardly the only victims.
A simple mass email to everyone known would ahve been sufficient. The trial run is all well and good for those who were contacted, but that doesn't help anyone else. If I make a simple effort to contact 200 people, and I only get in touch with 1, my effort has been worthwhile. I certainly don't expect great lengths to be taken, but a mass email and/or posting an article on slashdot is a reasonable easy attempt. The success or lack thereof isn't the question. "I didn't try because I wouldn't succeed" didn't work for me as a kid (my parents still made me try) and shouldn't count as a defense now.
Defining Hate mail as mail containing the word "Hate"? That isn't the "standard" definition. Hate mail (IMHO) is mail that is intentionally cruel or insulting, specifically excluding mail that is peacefully critical.
By Katz's definition, a mail saying: "Hey guys, the book sounds interesting, but I really hate that you used comments without permission. Next time you could ask first" is hate mail. That is a complaint, not hate.
I understand that this book touches some emotional subjects, and that if the Slashdot folks felt they were doing a good thing, they would be hurt by comments to the contrary, and I have no doubt that some people wrote very real hate mail to them about it, but that doesn't mean that they should get self-righteous about it. Slashdotters complain about people who write pro-linux flames and rants, but applaud those who write calm, accurate criticisms of anti-linux stances. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.
Okay. Technically, quoters are bound by "Fair Use", which explicitally prevents you from quoting the whole thing. There is a pending case about the Martin Luther King Jr "I have a Dream Speech" and CNN's recordings of it (It has been decided one way, overturned by an appeals court, and continues in appeals).
Thousands already read your post so what's the problem with a few more? If you didn't want your opinion to be heard why voice it in the first place?
I don't know. I didn't make any HellMouth posts. But I believe the posters have a right to make that decision, whether it is logical or not.
Certainly many of them would be impossible to reasonably track down, but from this explanation, it seems NO ATTEMPT was made. If they had posted an article saying "Any of you who posted non-anonymously who DON'T want your comments published, speak up", that would've satisfied me. I'm not worried about people not being paid for their comments, but I think they have the choice to prevent them from being further distributed.
I'm going to donate one copy to my school's library, as well as giving one or two to key administrators, and perhaps the school's counselor. Going to a small private school as I do, I didn't catch nearly the amount of flack some others did, but there were still a large number of people who dudn't understand what was happening, and that when I had "Trench coat mafia" scrawled onto my locker, they were doing the same type of thing to me that was probably done to the two who committed the crime.
It's my hope that by spreading this book around, I'll be able to raise the awareness of my classmates and school administrators even a smidgen, so that the kids who come after me will have an easier time of it.
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
Damn, I wish I had known about the Andover standard for citations when I was still in school. It would have made essay writing a breeze. No need to keep track of what book/magazine etc. you used and who said what just label it "anonymous" Hell you don't even have to type up a bibliography, if everything is anonymous because you lifted it from a source that was freely available and the topic was contraversial.
I doubt anything I said made the book, and I could care less if it did, but I would certainly like to be credited (just as "Aonaran, a slashdot user" would be fine) if my words were used. I'm not saying that they should have looked up every one's name and contacted them (though that would have been thoughtful) and I certainly don't think that anyone sould get paid for being quoted in the book, as some others here have suggested, but a simple attibution wouldn't hurt.
So far everyone that comments in favor of the book gets moderated up 2 or 3 points, everyone that is opposed gets 0 to 1 .
They have over 20 locations in North and Central America and run the "9" line (800-999-9999) where suicidal/depressed teens can start to get help when "life is in their face."
I'd like everyone to know, in preface, that I responded and may be in the book.
Having said that, where's the problem, people? I meant what I said, and I have no shame whatsoever about it. No one is exploiting you, or making money off of you (unless you mislike charity).
We all came together to speak out about the tragedy. We all (or, a lot of us, anyway) come together to defend Napster, swap source code, and belittle a certain company for locking down information. Why the sudden about-face?
Oh, wait... I know... Katz's name is in there somewhere, and that will never do.
May the One shine in us all, even if we need to practice what we preach.
--WorLord
Both Jon Katz and Cmdr Taco have talked about how the accusations about profiteering and fame-mongering have hurt them.
;-) but he does, to bring things up and be visible.
I have some sympathy, but not too much.
Katz would not have as high-profile a commentator career right now if he hadn't hitched his star to SlashDot. I could see from the beginning that he was not at all suited to the majority of the site's normal, techie population, but he persevered.
I think the Hellmouth series is interesting and worthwhile, but I also think Katz *is* going to have to keep dealing with the fact that his forum doesn't suit his message.
He said as much by saying that most of the Hellmouth messagers were from elsewhere.
And Cmdr Taco will have to deal with running a high-profile, influential site. He has a lot of power right now. It may not feel like it, with the constant sniping he gets
The site's influence and visibility is based on its community, and how its community can give feedback. So complaining when that feedback is overwhelmingly negative or irrational is, to some degree, trying to have your cake and eat it too.
From the flames since yesterday, you'd think that we all got burned by some horrible corporate activity, when the fact is (IMO), we have been honored with a hardcopy version of our online world.
I can't speak for the rest of you, but I am going to a) vote with my checkbook, AKA buy the book, and (flame mode on) b)encourage those of you who have problems with how the book came to be to look inside yourselves and think about whether or not you ought to just maybe get a life.
[Flame mode off]
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
Someone wants to take some of those thoughts, and publish them as part of a book. The proceeds are to go to charity. Where is the bad? What, you want your cut of something going to charity? You don't want people to read what you've written? A bit late for that, and your name won't even be on it. You want some sort of credit? I suggest an ego trim - yours seems to be getting a bit too large. People all over the planet read our posts, and anyone posting here must know that. It's too late - your words are out there, and they aren't going away. Someone wants to do some good with some of your writing? Mad? You should be flattered!
Perhaps you'd just like more control over what happen to your posts. Sounds like they intend to implement that. What more is there to be done?
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
No sympathy and laying blame? Not the most productive of responses, if I may say so. The deaths at Columbine were tragic, no question. We should be trying to understand why it happened - the conditions that led to it. Getting the whole thing out for calm, reasoned discussion is a step in that direction.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
Will Andover and/or Katz take a tax break based on the donations of the profits? Depending on how much is donated, this could make Andover or Katz a very nice bit of money, if they do so.
Anything written (yes, this is a 'written' medium) is immediately copyright of the person who writes the text.
The responses to the book are simply indicative of the total and complete ignorance of copyright at large in persons online.
Then there's the point that andover should have stated joint copyright, instead of sole copyright.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I really don't see any reason that this or any kind of forum on the internet should be viewed as a verbal discussion group. The similarites just arent there. Now, if you want to compare it to posting notes on a huge corkboard then go for it.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Good call :)
If you ever wanted things to matter most.. listen to what I have to say. 15 people died in a school a year ago. Fifteen people stared at death. They went to school, and they didn't come home. Fifteen people , fifteen dreams, fifteen sparks of life were snuffed out in one hellish 30 minute experience. What gives ANY of us the right to bitch about who gets credit? I'd give everything I owned away JUST to know I stopped the next one from happening. I want you to step up and admit it. You're being selfish, and I'm really ashamed to know it. You have a set of standards for a DAMN OPERATING SYSTEM.. and you have a lower set of standards for human life. What the hell is that?
We have to remember. We cannot forget what happened. Ever. We owe people of the world that cannot get to slashdot our feelings, our emotions, our beliefs. If even just ONE comment can stop this from happening again, then the entire project is worthy. And yet, many of you want to complain. Many of you want credit. How many of you even give a damn about human life, and not some damnable OPERATING SYSTEM for a stupid COMPUTER!?
I propose the money be donated to HOPE. This stands for Healing of people everywhere. It was founded by a Columbine volleyball coach, whose own daughter died in the attack. This daughter was a valedictorian and star player on the team. They retired her number. She was number eight. Don't forget her number. These were school kids.. in the library, during school. HOPE wants to remove the floor, and turn the library into an atrium above the cafeteria, where students can look up and see the rocky mountains through the windows. They need 3.1 million to do this.
Please. Stop fighting over who owns the comments. Remember what prompted the comments. An article based on the fact that 15 people died, and how it didn't need to happen. What has happened in a year to us? Most of us cared back then. We posted deeply heart wrenching posts, that allowed a little into our hearts and what we felt towards this. A year later, we all want credit for having some thoughtful thing to say. We worry about 'who'll get the money' and 'where's my piece of the pie'? Play those games with your damn OS. Don't play those games with this event. I don't want to point on my resume and say I got credit for something I wrote after fifteen people died. I would much rather the world see what we all had to say, and the people of the world maybe can try to stop this from happening again. I'll trade all the credit in the world for that.
Jarrod Henry
I have also decided to hate the following books without reading them:
Harlequin Romance Novels
Rascist Hate Literature
Religious Pamphlets
Most books available in Airport Bookstores
Why? Knowledge of the subject matter.
My mind is open, I already read 95% of the books contents on Slashdot the first time arround. Why would I re-read these comments plus John Katz's patronizing and selfserving commentary?
Blar.
The DeCSS thing is a /joke/ yah moron...
Read my reply to the other guy as to my reasons for the post you are now (pathetically) flaming.
Blar.
Slightly off topic under this topic I guess. But here is another story from Ottawa. Part of the now familiar pattern... www.canoe.ca/Canoe/canoecnews.html
I agree completely.
The currency of the Open Source movement is either ego or cash. Neither of these are being given with this published book. Except to Jon and Rob, of course.
People should keep in mind a couple of things. One is that all comments are archived somewhere on the site. If they really really want to prove that they wrote something in the book they can bring their mom over to the computer and show them the comment on the site.
The other thing to keep in mind is that this book will bring more readers to the site. The readers will be interested in reading the comment posts because that's what the book has. So, here's your chance. Start posting after the book is published under a real name (not AC) and you'll get some credit. As long as the comment makes sense, of course.
I wish people would just chill. Its not a race. Not getting your name in this book doesn't mean you aren't getting your share of the pie. There is no pie. Nothing is stopping you from being your own Rob Malda or Jon Katz.
Lisa
[grrl.org]
"Comments are owned by the poset" is, and always has been, primarily a legal dodge --- it's the way slashdot avoids legal responsibility for monitoring posts and insisting that they conform to law.
Do not post anything online that you do not want read in: /public/.
a Court of Law
on Major News Station
to your Mom or Dad.
Being online is being
Get used to it. Or make it better.
One good thing about music... when it hits you, you feel no pain. So hit me with music. -Bob Marley
All this would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
If Slashdot didn't have the disclaimer, they would have to censor posters. The servers would melt down under the responses if they did that.
Slashdot could require posters to give real information about themselves so they can be contacted, but that would get an even better response. I mean, how many posters here use their real names?
So they have the disclaimer, and the posters can say anything they want. Now people are whining because they want attribution, or want their anonymity protected completely, or they hate Katz, but posted anyway. Talk about a no-win situation.
If you don't want anyone reading your posts, don't post. It's that simple.
"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
Now comes the important question, who ELSE can sell threads from slashdot in book and reap the benefits. Can I start publishing every major thread on my home printing press in an attempt to make money off the now quasi-popular geek culture?
I have no problem with the information being available, I do have a problem with someone making money off of other's words without warning or permission.
--
RumorsDaily
Hey, that's MY post! How dare you reprint my words?
Which way do you want it, fer chrissakes?
Sheesh.
--
Uh yeah, they wanted it distributed, but they wanted it distributed here, not to the rest of the world, /..
/.. There is anonimity, but don't confuse that with privacy.
Last time I checked, the only barriers to reading slashdot were having a computer with a net connection and knowing the URL. I didn't know you had to be a geek to read
You mention the word privacy. This is a public forum. There is no such thing as privacy on
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Posting to Slashdot, thinking that you are staying private is both naive and I beleive (IANAL) that you have lost that right by posting here. Celebrities do not OWN pictures taken of them in public, nor quotes of what they said in public. If they are misquoted, then there is a problem. Newspapers sell the quotes (indirectly) all the time. Posting here is intent to widely distribute. I would also argue that saying more people are going to buy this book than read the slashdot posts will make someone REALLY rich as a publisher but that might be a bit unrealistic
Gavin Fischer
Fair Use? /. being published (even anonymously) would terrify me.
Last I checked that was only for educational use, commentary, or criticism, not for profit or the betterment of the community. If i decide to say something in a crowded area, that is in no way allowing everyone there to publish it (with or without attributing it to me). That would require my permission -- no permission, no publication.
Granted it would be very hard to find out who posted some of the comments, but there should definitely be a way to opt out. At the very least, the people involved will know who is being talked about, even anonymously. If i was a student harrassed by a teacher of mine, the idea of a comment about it which i posted on
Surely, if Andover can take comments owned by other people and publish them to make money (even though it's going to charity) couldn't we take Andover's content (i.e. Katz's Hellmouth articles) and publish it?
After all, Katz obviously wrote his articles for the benefit of the world. I believe that's the "spirit" of what he meant. :)
Is there a charity for that? Why not keep usernames attached to the comments?
It's good journalism to cite your sources.
Even if it's just a username
And the comments and usernames are already out there for everyone to read on Slashdot, so you aren't violating someone's privacy, etc by at least crediting their comments to them.
I think Rob & co. should replace the current "Comments are owned by the Poster." with something like "all Comments are covered by the GNU Free Documentation License". (i.e. by posting here, you are agreeing to have your comments covered by GNU-FDL, if you don't go somewhere else... ) (cool: our very own GNU shrink-wrap EULA).
/. than the pissing and moaning that's been going on here, or having Rob add a button on your profile telling them what can be done with your comments. I don't think Rob should bother with that one because there are other enhancements that are more needed, and who would be able to access those flags to know what the author's "permissions" are?.?.?. With the GNU-FDL I'd know that I could copy a few /. messages and put them in a document for tech support purposes without worring about getting into trouble (a much more frequent use of /. comments than writing a book).
The GNU-FDL should cover Andover etc. from liability for what others say, while allowing "modifications" or aggregations of comments to be used like in this book...
This would seem more in the spirit of
Steve
Stated in the addendum by CmdrTaco:
;)
-It will be published electronically. It'll be run either on Slashdot, or it'll be in some downloadable format. Its just not out yet, so chill out for a few weeks
I would have had sympathy, and do, for those that are persecuted and endure it every day, but it is not ever anyones right to take life in the way that they did. The reasons are simple, you first look at how they were raised (the parents), the fact the school didn't stop what was being done to them (the school) but they had no right to do what they did, and simply put IMHO they lose all victim status and sympathy when they start killing people. You last comment justifies noting, by stepping on our rights in publishing this book, we are having done to us what is being done to geeks and outcasts in schools everywhere. It is obvious that while I might even agree with what is in the book it is being published whether any of the posters want their comments in it or not, and geeks are being searched at school whether they want to or not. Welcome to reality, Katz is a part of the exact same thing he is griping about, proving that neither he nor anyone else involved in this book cares about anyones point, or feelings, or rights, but their own. I wonder if someones comments got printed, they went into andover and shot people would be make them out to be victims ?
I would dis-agree with your 99% chance. I figure none of my comments made it, but that is not the point at all. The point is none of the posters had a say at all, and that is as bad as schools searching kids, armed security, etc in my opinion. If I thought any of my comments might have made it, I would be seeking an injunction and not posting here about it. I trust that the /. crew is going to add the option later to find out what we think, but they don't care much this time. Katz and everyone at /. and Andover can say they aren't making any money all they want to, but can we trust them ? We couldn't trust them to do what was right about the comments posted here in the past so how can we trust that. It is not about credit or money at all, it is about the rights of the individual posters. If I was included I wouldn't want money or credit, I would have said yes, given the option, but in light of the events I think I would seek leagal counsel now. This was done the very wrong way, and frankly the whole scenario offends me.
I could see using the anonymous comments and any sent to Mr. Katz that were not first posted here, but those that were posted under a user ID should not have been chosen, if the author is not given credit at all then it is even worse. IANAL but I have spoken with one (not in regards to this, but another incident) if you are required to login (which we are not here) then it is not a "public forum" however I am sure there are lawyers out there who could argue that since logging in gives you benefits that this is not a "public forum". I would like to see Andover and Mr. Katz prove they care what we think by posting the chosen comments in their original form and allowing any user that does not want their comments re-produced to say so in advance, silence could be considered permission.
/.
Now before you say that the method I have suggested would be publishing the book electronically, I am only talking about the comments posted here on
Side note: Hey Taco, I am offended that you dare to say that after Columbine that the measures taken were worse on anyone than being shot in the face after being asked to confirm your religion. Columbine was a tragedy and yes there was over-reaction, but no-one has been killed by the schools. YOu are so concerned about not repressing the so called geeks, (this is not my opinion just an illustration) what do you call not allowing someone to say whats on their mind ? The kids that were killed did just that, so are you willing to violate their freedom ? There is somewhere a happy medium. I went to high school as a punk, I am white and it was an all black school (the ratio was 5:1) I was an outcast, but it is a choice, I suffered being spit on, poked fun at, and beat up, sometimes three or four times a week. I could have changed but didn't. The killers at Columbine are not now nor ever will be victims, they gave up that right when they started pulling the trigger, they became judge, jury and executioner and I have no sympathy for them. I lay the blame at the feet of their parents first, and then the school, but in the end they made their own decision and should not ever be heroes to anyone. You have vilified innocent victims, maybe not totally innocent but they did nothing that they deserved to die for.
If a person who posted does not like Katz then they should have the say as to whether or not he gets to take credit from their work, or have his name anywhere near it. This book including a single comment from someone who opposes the content violates their freedom, all your babble about ensuing battles and such just proves points that have been made over and over again, the people publishing the book care nothing about our singular opinions only about getting their point across.
b) their use falls under the fair use exemptions in copyright law
/.'s "fair use" per se, but rather with the use of said quotations without appropriately attributing the work to the authors. Where I come from this borders on plagiarism, and as such it may fall outside the bounds of "fair use."
/. could have done much to dispel ill-will by showing some of the same courtesy to its contributors.
I believe the issue here for me is not with
In the past I have had excerpts of essays I have posted to USENET published in newspaper articles. The authors of these articles went to great lengths to identify and contact me prior to publishing my work. (I didn't provide contact information in my posts for anti-spam reasons). I do not know whether they were legally obligated to do, however I appreciated their courtesy in this regard. I think that
I hope the proceeds to go a good cause.
Gentlemen,
/.. They reasonably expected that it would be part of the site and part of the on-going discussion.
While I see the good intentions behind this, I think you have erred gravely.
Is what you did illegal? Hard to say...you've hit a new, untested area. Who owns the site in aggregate and who own components of the site, such as poster comments? Hard to say, it would take years of legal haggling.
Stepping back from the legal to the ethical, though, I think it is clear that you erred.
People posted comments in the context of
By publishing this in a book, you've changed the context entirely to one that people did not expect and had no chance to make a choice on. If in posting I knew that you would be putting my comments in a book, that MAY have influenced me to make a different decision.
While you are taking the high road and not profiting personally, someone will profit from the content that these posters have made for you. What if they disagree with the charity you choose? What if they disagree, like I do, with the concept of charity for other humans altogether?
I see the good intent, but you have slid inadvertently down the road to hell with your book on the Hellmouth.
-jcl
[0] Hehehe...
-jcl
Because the archive isn't threaded? Presumably the book isn't either, though, so the point is moot. (Well, the book's probably is more threaded than the archive.)
I don't see why it should be restricted to only one format. At the very least I'd like to see plain text, HTML, Postscript and PDF. PDF and text are a must, IMO. HTML (or rather, CSS) lets you retain most of the formatting, chapter breaks, etc, and browse online. Postscript...um...is cool. ;-)
-jcl
I don't fall into either of those categories. I just think that it was rude.
As for 'growing up'; I find that to be an extremely unintelligent argument. Maybe you ought to try again.
-nme!
I agree in some regard to your comment
Unfortunately, you seem to be taking an all or nothing approach to the difficulties in venturing into an untested area of both ethics and legalities, ie republishing publicly posted materials. Even if an error has been committed, it is clear from Rob's Addendum that he plans to address the issue by allowing people to decide in the future whether or not they can be republished.
By claiming that they have slid down the road to hell rather than seeing that they are taking steps to address the issue in an intelligent and fair manner in the future is not giving Rob and crew the respect they deserve.
Just because you trip over something once doesn't mean you can't avoid it in the future. As problems go, this one wasn't bad and does a service is warning of future problems that could be much worse.
Don't get too excited...
That was Signail 11... :)
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
It seemed that many people here felt violated (or at least potentially violated, since none of them probably even knew if they had any quotes in the book), because they believe they possess certain rights which may have been violated. Worse, the arguments slashdot gave yesterday and cprincipe gives are about "convience".
Just because keeping to principles and upholding an individual's rights is difficult doesn't mean we should just ignore it for the sake of convenience. I'm not saying that /. did this, but I think others thought so, and felt (rightly) angered by it.
To make matters worse (well, maybe not), JonKatz and CmdrTaco appear to have ignored this topic entirely in todays postscript...
This is a public forum. There is a thing called fair use. Together I assume these to be sufficient, but IANAL. I think their addition of a flag to mark posts are repostable is a good idea, regardless.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
I didn't post anything to the Hellmouth debate when it first appeared, so maybe my feelings on the use of quotes is less strong than some peoples. I think of a place like /. as being sort of like a wall where you can scrawl graffiti...You do it so that it can be seen, so I don't have a big problem with posts being reproduced for a book. And as for the hellmouth book itself, I plan to buy one, and donate it to my local library. Maybe in that way some readers can be reached who would not end up on this site. I hope so at least. The wider availability the better, IMO.
First, "IAAL" is what you were looking for.
Second, it is just too perfect that you posted as an Anonymous Lawyer--I mean Coward.
It's simple.
Rob can set it up so it gives a notice that submitting a comment to Slashdot gives Andover, Etc. a license to use your post in whole or in part, with or without attribution, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do you part.
Wait. That's not quite right...
Here's an idea: everyone should assume that whenever they call me on the phone I am taping the conversation for later use as a movie soundtrack. What do you think - can I get away with that legally or do I have to tell everyone on the phone immediately at the start of the conversation that I am taping them?
I'm not one-hundred-percent sure, but I actually think you might be able to ;)
In order for me to agree to that they have to add it to the registration process -- not make it up after the fact whenever it suits them.
Not true, actually. I do agree that it must be explicitly stated somewhere to have the force of law. While they cannot make it retroactive to all previous posts, as they would have to in this case, they can make it a term of use for the site on all future posts, whether you click an "I Agree" button or not. The terms of use of a website apply to a first-time AC poster just as much as they do to a seasoned karma whore. If you don't like the rules, you don't post - it's that simple.
It's really sad that a site that was trying to preserve everyone's freedom to post whatever, wherever they like by allowing the author to retain the copyright is now coming under attack because it wasn't sticky enough about the rules. I thought we were a community that appreciated common sense over legalistic BS.
Right...
Hi, Anonymous Coward.
I get your point. I hear it all the time. A lawyer standing up and espousing legal fact, because it is helpful for me to know.
From a legal standpoint, I'm sure you are correct. But do not compare *legal fact* with *scientific fact*, or assume that I would have the same response for a Physicist or Molecular Biologist. They are FORCED to separate science from morality because science is cold hard fact that cannot be swayed by moral philosophy. Direction yes, but truth no. The law can, but isn't. I would rather hear your opinion as the moral philospher than hear about your expertise as a lawyer.
-Rothfuss
Two high school students walked into their highschool, killed 13 people, injured many more, and then proceeded to take their own lives.
/. readers are whining pitifully about misuse of the intellectual property that their posts regarding the horrible event represent.
/. - get a little blackboard, a little piece of chalk and a comfortable chair. Then sit at home and post comments back and forth to yourself without fear of ever helping anyone or anything.
Now, one year later a large number of
Shut up.
No really. Stop it.
You are belittling an incredible tragedy with your own self important rants about IPRs and permission statements. It is repulsive.
A lot of you may think Katz is pretty cheesy, but this book is a very good thing. It may help promote an understanding and diminish the propensity for further violence of this manner. If you are unwilling to directly or indirectly contribute to such a cause through your posts here on
-Rothfuss
Jeez people, I can quote anyone I damn well please -- that's what a quotation IS. I can grab a random, copyrighted book from the nearest library and quote a passage from it for use in MY newest book. That's the way it has ALWAYS WORKED.
It doesn't even matter if the comments are considered 'public discussion' or 'written works' -- you can quote from both!
I feel this will be one of the pinacle articals of the net. Allong with Philly Zimm's PGP guide and a few others, this is a great job.
I applaud you guys... even if I can't spell
jlcooke@jlcooke.net
I believe the poster meant "fuck" as in "what the fuck."
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I have no interest in lining JK's pockets. I do, however, have a RIGHT to know if my comments were included? How about a list, Katz? That's a fair request and wouldn't hurt sales of your book.
Presumably this would have to stay up for a couple of weeks, and obviously some people won't respond, but in this case I suspect that, with a little editing, it would be more than possible to publish the book using only posts which their respective posters had given permission to use in the book.
When the maintainers started to post their "well, we would have tracked everyone down, but it just would have been too hard to find everyone." messages, I was tempted to reply with (in allcaps) "TRY HARDER!".
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
If you work in the book business it is probably as clear as the difference between a pointer and a reference to a C++ programmer, but if you don't it's pretty perplexing that the guy who writes most of the text in a book and is on the cover as author is not regarded as being part of the production of it.
But if you say that's how things work, I for one believe you.
Yeah me too. I don't know where Katz get the idea of using "the cool word" from. We need someone to proof read his stuffs. Is that book online?
All you can do is NOT POST... that ensures your privacy!!
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
Well, in addition to Hemo's comment that they are working on a downloadable version, it should be noted that there already IS a downloadable version, that being the original Hellmouth stories themselves. The book is just an edited, packaged version (well, with new material, i guess, from emails to Jon and commentary by /. authors). And, last I checked, the Hellmouth series is still in the Features box at the top of the main page. I dont know how much promotion the book is getting (there was a press release in the corporate propaganda section of Yahoo somebody linked to in the first article on the book), but I'm sure its everything in /./Jon's/Andover's power. Remember this is still a "fringe" site, as far as the "mainstream" is concerned (tho its getting more mainstream everyday muahahahahaha), so they're not going to just go out and get the book featured on Oprah tomorrow. ok, so a few points. 1) Post ownership is an issue that definitely has to be resolved in the future, i think the way they're using the posts is fine and (ianal, but on the other hand i dont care) legal. Its perfectly legal for a news source to quote sources. Its perfectly legal for them not to cite the source if its in the interest of protecting the source's anonymity. 2) It would be sad (tho ironically funny) if an open source website had to stop publishing a book because its posters were yelling about IP issues. Not only would it be the hight of hypocrisy, it would feel like a victory for The Enemy 3) Books, just by their nature as a media, reach a different, more diverse audience than this site. Even if it just sits on the shelves with no promotion, this book has the potential to reach many people who just aren't aware of the issues it deals with. 4) Although I didnt post to the Hellmouth stories (at least that i remember), I did go through high skool recently and know many of the feelings and situations experienced by the posters to it. I know if I had, I would have no problem with my post being published anonymouslt, in fact I would encourage it. I think the vast majority of people who actually did post would agree with me on this. This is a message that must be spread. For all the IP moaning I've read here, I haven't seen one person who said "I posted to one of the Hellmouth articles and I don't want my post in the book!"
wisconsin does not exist.
Who says HTML is the answer? If you want an online, threaded, linked version why not refer to the original slashdot articles.
A more appropriate format for a book might be PDF. The Yale Web Style Guide was a reasonable example of how this can work (before they took it away to encourage you to buy the paper copy). Whatever tool Hellmouth was authored with it could almost certainly be rendered as PDF with very little effort.
Reason? Because someone always makes *money*
So thanks, Commander Taco, for making it clear that any gains are going to charity.
In all those paras penned by JK this basic point was not ever raised. Kinda telling.
I experienced the same isolatory lives as Meatloaf did, a decade later - and frankly, I never want to see anyone suffer that kind of misery again.
If that means I lose some rights to some words that I posted in a public forum, fine - they wern't any different than a few hundred others, and the amount I *might* get, if they were published, would barely cover the postage for the check. 1/1000th of a book might get me a penny, if 10000 copies sold, a dollar if it's a best-seller.
So, instead, I think that just saying "fine" would a) avoid the trouble and time that I'd have to go to get the measly ammount, and b) be a small price to pay to at least get the word out (as long as Andover doesn't get any profits from it). Besides, if you're worried that this is a trend, it seems that Rob's working on that from his comments so you won't have any problems with that in the future.
I believe that the profits from this book should go to help those that suffered in the aftermath of Columbine; to help those people, who, for better (mostly) or worse (sometimes) are geeks. I hate to use the words "foundation" or "charity", because I don't think that's anyone wants one. But something beyond that, something that supports people who aren't able to get in touch with other geeks - that would be a good idea.
One way or another, I'd like to see the profits help make life better for geeks, rather than debate over whether my words are worth a few cents or not. Maybe I can't avoid the pain *I* had, but I'd like at the very least to help someone else live a better life that I have.
Doones
Whatever you do... don't read this.
Which is where my questions come in. When I post, I am allowing anyone who happens upon this url to read what I've written. Katz (and anyone else) can do whatever they like with my words (as long as they remain my words and are not altered while still crediting me.)
But when I email somebody, I'm emailing that person - not an entire community. When I write a letter to a friend, I do not expect that letter to show up in a book without my explicit permission. I would be rather likely to sue if anything that I wrote in that letter could damage me, or if I felt I should be compensated for having contributed material to the book that my letter is published in.
Where are the lawyers? Let us know what you are when you post, so we can weed out the arm-chair litigators and know who we should be listening to.
Are you serious? God, I've read too many of these kinds of posts already to let this one go. What on earth gives all you people this idea that John Katz is this evil boogeyman out to get? Would you seriously think about what you're posting here for a second? Let's take this veritable two-minutes-hate message to demonstrate.
Screw the sanctimonious idealism here, this thing is going to be a tax write off for its authors/producers while you get absolutly nothing not even your right to protest who's using your writing.
Okay let's think hard about what you're accusing JK & company of doing here. In this sentence you strongly imply that Katz's and the publisher's sole purpose for this book is to save tax money. Right. So Mr. Katz here has written heaps of insightful (or whatever you would prefer to call it) material on the issue of torturous high school life for no reason other than the possibility of exploiting the discussions he inspired with his articles? Perhaps he just happened to stumble upon this evil scheme while spreading his evil pro-geek propaganda and couldn't pass it up due to his obvious lack of integrity? Maybe he was just looking for a quick tax break so he could afford some night classes to work on his deplorable grammar (read: every JK-hater's best backup argument)? Further more, of course it's a tax writeoff! They're not going to print the book and just give it out for free! Oh sure they could get some juicy PR here but unless they get on CNN with this book, the PR they do get from this book's sale will be insignificant.
Look people, bottom line here is that suggestions like the ones presented in this message are totally ridiculous. These accusations are so improbable and halfway thought out that they strongly suggest that your resentment of JK is a bit more personal and probably undefendable by itself. Unfortunately there is no way for anyone to help you resolve this issue because you all bury it underneath big college words and paranoid fantasy. They say anger is a mask, right? So please, I beg of you, someone please tell me why everyone hates Jon Katz. Thank you.
Please keep in mind that this isn't a flame nor is it flame bait. I truly wish for a honest answer and possible discussion.
> I know these seem like all the wrong reasons to give money to charity,
Speaking of wrong reasons... let me say that I'm not really sure if I believe the following, but it occurred to me and won't get out of my head, so I thought I'd share it. It will probably offend some of you.
It seems to me that many (all? some? a few?) of the posters on Slashdot have more in common with the killers than the killed. Clearly, the killers had some severe problems and I find them repugnant, but at least some of the people killed were not random targets. Rather, they we perceived by the killers to have persecuted them in the past (true or not). It seems to me that a lot of Slashdotters know all to well the kind of persecution the killers went through.
With that in mind, it seems like this should have a bearing on the charity that is chosen. While it is tragic that these people were killed, it seems... I don't know... unfair (maybe?) to me that those who persecuted geeks should benefit. It seems like money from this book would be better off if used to help persecuted geeks, especially in those in high school.
I know this seems to fly in the face of thePsychotron's first point about making it "absolutely clear to everyone that we are in no way trying to justify the attackers actions". I would not perceive giving money to help those being persecuted as in any way justifying the attackers actions, but I concede that there would be those who would. I guess my question would be, should pleasing such people be a priority for Slashdot? Between helping geeks and pleasing the easily offended, I'll take geeks every time.
I wish I could suggest a charity which would help persecuted geeks, but I don't know of any.
For the questions I will ask, I would like to pose a likely scenario. Mrs. Dow attends a meeting of the local school board because an issue will be discussed (bond referendum, metal detectors, whatever, it doesn't matter). Mrs. Dow at some point during the discussion raises her hand, is recognized, and makes a comment. The reporter, Fred, who is covering the meeting, believes the comment is insightful and wants to use it in his report. Is Fred legally required to ask Mrs. Dow permission to use her name/comment in his report? Is he required to do so according to some journalistic code of ethics? Would referring the reader to a trascript of this very public meeting be enough if he didn't ask permission?
I believe the above situation is applicable to the current /. discussion, and can be used as a precedent. Again, if there are any journalists in the audience, please respond.
I hereby place these comments into the public domain. If they can be used to inform or teach in another medium, I grant the reader permission to do so, regardless of whether my name appears with a quote. The specific intention is not to harm, so if you print out these words, make a paper airplane with it and use it to poke someone's eye out, do not sue me.
What does the medium have to do with it?
It has A LOT to do with it. There are separate rights for a copyrighted work. Movie rights. International rights. You can have certain rights but not others, and limited rights, too.
Slashdot has the right to post our comments on the internet. Not to publish books.
No comment at this time
Sure they did it to cover their asses. But, they inadvertently gave us ownership and full rights to the comments.
Slashdot must have had really, really bad lawyers
No comment at this time
Of course, all of the comments from the Hellmouth series *are* still freely available to anyone who wants them. If you want the coments in nice, convenient book form, buy the book. If not, read them here.
If you send comments to ANY public forum, whether it be Slashdot, a newspaper or a magazine, the publisher has the right to re-publish those comments. Period. If the New York Times wants to a publish a compilation of letters to the editor, do you think they need to contact the author of every letter they intend to publish? I think not.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I am wholeheartedly for publishing this book. When those articles came out, I sent emails to every person I knew who worked with children/young adults in hopes they would see and understand. Many of them did, and thanked me. Now, instead of having to see it on a screen (which many people dislike for long reading) I can simply hand them a book, a brief explanation, and leave knowing that I at least tried. /.
On one hand, I wish that the screen names could have been included with the poster. Then again, perhaps not -- my screen name is the one I use for many different things, and it would quite possibly be recognized by someone who knows me. So maybe that's not the best course. For people with screen names like "Sexybunny33" or something, it's not a big deal, but people who have something different enough to stand out it could be a problem.
Overall, what we as a subculture need is understanding. Right now many schools are running the equivalent of an Aktion against kids that don't deserve it, and this whole Pinkerton thing is an example. It's good to know that we can be heard as well, especially in a more mainstream media form than
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
then?
Last I checked that was only for educational use, commentary.
Yeah, well I expect to see a lot of commentary in the book about said comments. So guess what it's commentary. What were you thinking? Slashdot for pure hard copy hardcopy purposes? Answer this by the way: What is the difference between posting on slashdot and in a book?
Methinks you've been used as a soft target too many times.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Like many other people in the media, Jon Katz profits from these sensational killings. I don't mean that he's paid some amount in cash every time something like this happens. Ratherhis writting about these deaths is something that improves his social standing, his reputation, and his fame. This is later translated into cash when he writes on other subjects for pay.
By no means is he alone in doing this. To some degree every media person who does in depth stories about this stuff is guilty as well. Personally I think it is the moral equivalent of Yellow Journalism. In the same way that newspapers profitted from reporting war in the 1800's, broadcasters in the 2000's profit from every "killer kid".
To some degree each of us should make an ethical decision as to if this is right or not.
--
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
edit, copy, repost, etc any post on this forum.
There is no dispute about this (as far as I can
tell), rather it is the problem of credit.
Linus allows anyone to manipulate his source
freely and advocates it. Though, he would like to
be remembered for his achievements and efforts. He
is not doing it for royalty values or anything of
that sort, rather just giving credit where credit
is due. If this isn't true, then why is there, as
another example, a list of frequent contributors
to the GNU Project at gnu.org?
I believe this applies to publically stated
ideals. Sure, share them, preach them, or even
ridicule them. Just try to remember where you
gained them...
ZEN is a prime number in base-36
...and redistribute it with the quotes cited!
ZEN is a prime number in base-36
That is the best idea I've heard on this entire forum all day. They must have all of the used posts bookmarked, so it would just be a matter of throwing a *sidenote mark next to the quote in the online version which linkes directly to the actual post on the forum it was taken from. This would also allow readers to view corresponding responses without having to scan through multiple forums to match a quote to a post, and even give the origional poster credit.
This is definitely something that should be considered for the electronic version of the book.
ZEN is a prime number in base-36
However, I can't see the logic behind Rob's excuse of "not enough time". I mean c'mon - it's just a single checkbox and one additional field in the database. I've heard all the rumblings about the Slash code being a mess, but... how hard can it be?
Best regards,
SEAL
Jon, you know I support your efforts. I'm surprised that so many folks who post messages to a site that gets millions of hits are concerned about their words being gathered into a traditional print book. The importance of this is (and has alway been) getting the word out. How many non-Slashdotters were aware of the crap that is going on in schools in the name of "protecting the children" before the Hellmouth series started? How many are still clueless? Anything (well, almost anything) that increases awareness of this is a Good Thing. Thanks for doing that.
I won't go into my opinion on the publish/not publish debate, but I'd like to thank Katz & Taco for giving it their public attention. The anger aired by objectors was turning into a firefight, but instead they've made fertile ground for discussion.
/. get hammered a lot for what they will or won't post, archive, or comment on. I've even seen them called corporate shills. I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell them they've done something distinctly honorable.
The editors of
- Michael Cohn
The bad do bad because the bad is rewarded. The good do good because the good is rewarded.
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
The charities chosen to receive the money should be the ones the victims themselves would have chosen. Ask their families what causes they supported or endorsed, and give the money to those. Money can't replace loved ones, and I think they'd appreciate it more knowning that Charity X is receiving a donation in memory of them.
Have a Good Friday, everybody!
Constitutionally Correct
I'd been expelled before this book came out maybe *my* story could've been included, hehe, I got expelled on tuesday (4/18/00) for a joke that I made about columbine, they honestly thought that I was some kind of mass murderer, if you'd like to see *why* i was expelled, you can see what was written on my precal test here and be forewarned, the only reason they expelled me was for the last 2 comments, and none of the other BS that was written on there.
fsck -t goldfish
I do agree that slashdot et. al. didn't handle this issue as well as they could have. Some announcement that they were working on a book before its publication would have been nice. We could have given them thousands of additional comments to choose from. ;-)
I'm also not sure whether the book is published under an open-content license. If it isn't, it should be.
I've added this to my user bio:
I grant permission to anyone to reprint my comments in part or whole in any form, with or without contacting me. Anything I post here can be considered public domain. Use it as you will.
yes, but you also have to cite the quote as well. I actually agree with the the poster that supposedly just wrote his last post. Although the comments are being used for a good cause, and jonkatz isn't really making money off this, that's not the point here. Comments are owned by the poster. That's what it says. I guess quoting in a newspaper is ok, but what about a book? Everyone makes the analogy saying, "what if you were quoted in a newspaper article?" but nobody has mentioned about being quoted in a book... also, quotes are usually not the majority of the book. Quotes merely help get the point across that you're trying make and should augment your writing/article, but comments making up most of the book? I'm sure there are books out there that are a collection of comments or pieces from other people. What policy did they use?
Why not set up a SlashFund, and have it invest in high tech/open source properties, to raise even more money, and donate it back to the community by helping smaller projects?
In Nevada they passed a law enforcing the voluntary anime age labelings, all because some uptight parent caught her otaku daughter watching Ninga Scroll.
Something just seems wrong when I could be faced with 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for buying a $30 copy of Utena on DVD for my 17 year old friend...
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. Slashdot is not responsible for what they say
but they are responisble for all cash made by them
go away katz we dont like you
VISIT MY WEBSITE http://www.insidious.co.uk
This is my sig, there are many like it but this is mine
It's about the principle. As others have said, perhaps if Katz had informed (or made it more clear) that he would take the collected comments and produce a book, then posters could say if this was a good idea. Yes, the book is a good idea. Yes, this book may help people learn about such pain that others have. Yes, the best way to explain the issue is to use the words of posters. Yet, see it this way. 1) Microsoft says they want user feedback on Win 2k. Posters submit their views plus or minus. Then Microsoft places a full page ad in NYT with user quotes saying only positive things, without changing the program. Despite MS pleas to the contrary, it would be viewed harshly as a betrayal of what feedback is for. Pro-MS might see it as good (they are genuine quotes) for the PC business, while others would say that perhaps this was done under one guise but for another, profit-guided reason. If you are suspicious, or an MS hater, guess where you might fall without even having to think about it. 2) At a rape-counselling center, you finally summon the courage to come to grips with what happened to you years ago. In an environment of support, you state in painful detail to an understanding audience the traumatic events that led to your low self-esteem, your sense of victimhood, and your feelings of uncleanliness. As others tell their stories, you feel more empowered, knowing that you are not alone, and that others are understanding. Yes, it was public, but only to a subset of the pop that would understand your pain, and has probably been there before. Then, two months later, you learn that your story has been published by the parent company of the trauma center. Oh, your name has been removed, but the story is still yours, and now it is available to those who don't care about you, who might make fun of you. Even without credit, you feel humiliated, because "public" in a support group is different than "public" in front of tv cameras. Now the book is available in B&N for $15. If your comments were not to leave the room ("comments owned by poster"), and now they are available for money, I think you might feel betrayed too. It's not about the money, it's about the fact that Slashdot is a community, and some did not want community comments released into the public for profit when some notice could have been appreciated.
If it was a story published with false or no names and no distinguishing traits that could trace it to the victim it is just that: a story. Hell, it borderlines fiction. If they indeed ruled that it was a violation of privacy all the fiction authors could be in real trouble :)
Just the facts please.
BTW, I have no Xperience in law so this is of course IMHO.
--Clay
BTW, your comment on another thread contradicts what you mentioned in this thread:
<QUOTE>
I hat the facist way that the TV studios attack people who are just trying to enjoy the show. If I have some Simpson's sounds/ pictures on my web site, I'm not hurting anyone!
</QUOTE>
According to your Hellmouth comment the "intended medium" for the Simpson's sounds were TV, not your website in WAV or text. By your logic in the other thread, putting the anonymous stories in another medium (the book) isn't hurting anyone either. I guess what that really tells me is that your opinion (as mine) probably differs from the _law_(pending proof).
Besides, comments on here are (AFAIK) not copyrighted. Of course I haven't seen the book but the announcement of it the other day put it clear in my mind that the stories are not the words of the author(s) but of victims who are being kept anonymous to avoid reprocussions.
--Clay
a few weeks ago, i had visited the copyright office. i need to look up some information. Basically, you can't just take something one person has written and slap a copyright on it.. It must be a legal transfer of rights -- on paper. Also, what ever happened to Comments are owned by the poster? hmm.......
Who thinks Slashdot should fire Jon Katz and replace him with OOG THE CAVEMAN?
I sure do.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net.
So since i posted this comment, This is owned by me. So Jon Katz published Comments owned by other Posters.
Fire Katz, Replace him with OOG. OOG is more interesting
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
> Anything written (yes, this is a 'written'
> medium) is immediately copyright of the person
> who writes the text.
Yes I realise this...however, this hi-lights
an interesting problem with copyright. This is
not the same type of written medium that copyright
was intended for.
Slashdot is a discussion forum. Prior to the
ability of people to "get online" and "post" to
web pages, prior to email, this sort of thing
would go on in a big room full of people, standing
around and talking.
In many ways this forum is superior to that,
however, it brings in the whole copyright mess,
because it is "written".
Its somewhat of a cross between writting a letter
to the editor of a newspaper (which basically
assumes that unless you say otherwise, they can
print it) and speaking out in public (the comments
arn't usually directed at the owners of slashdot
like letters to the editor are.
You will note, I never said slashdot posts are
not copyright by their owners. I simply said it
SHOULD be treated exactly the same as a statment
made in public. Should being a statment of my
opinion, not necissarily my legal opinion (as
IANAL) but my opinion of how the world should work
and what I would do in their situation.
I think that the nature of this forum conveys
an understanding that what is said is public, and
should be treated as any public statment.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> This is known as an unpublished copyright
/. should be treated exactly
Not exactly unpublished.
I think that posts on
the same as if they were statments you made in
public.
I think of slashdot as the public form of a little
podium out in the park where people can gather and
anyone can stand up to it and speak out about the
issues at hand to whatever crowd gathers.
Its just so happens there is a tape recorder in
the podium that anyone can go back and listen to
what you said.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> No one is expecting them to do that. But the
> ETHICAL and LEGAL thing to do is to not publish
> unattributed quotes at all. Instead, they chose
> to publish them because it wasn't convenient for
> them to do the ethical and legal thing.
IANAL so I can't speak about legal...but I can
speak about Ethical.
In the specific case of "Anonymous Coward" posts
I disagree. In my eyes if a person has posted
anonymously, then they have, themselves, removed
their own name (well ommited) from their post.
That is, in and of itself, a request to remain
anonymous. That is them saying "I don't want to
be tracked down". As such, I think they were
perfectly right to use the posts (the ones that
were AC) in the fashion that they did.
Slashdot posts are public statments. If you walk
up to a podium at a press conference and make a
statment, without giving your name, and wearing
a black mask to hide your face, then wouldn't
you expect to have your statment published
anonymously?
I consider AC posts on slashdot to be the
easy, electronic, equivalent of such an act.
However, in the case of non-AC posts...I tend to
agree with you, they should have been asked. At
least as a curtesy. They should at the very least
get to chose whether they will want to be
anonymous or not. (ACs have already made that
choice)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
His remarks about performing first and hoping for forgivness later was for live performances. He always does ask for permission for recordings.
====
Incidently, parodies such as those done by Weird Al Yankovic don't really need permission. Parodies have long been protected by law from recrimination by the original authors. And the world is better off for it.
But nonetheless, Weird Al Yankovic thinks it important to ask for forgiveness. It's about civility. The Slashdot editors should take note.
====
If you're thinking that you actually have to file copyright papers, or attach a copyright notice, to have a copyright, then you are quite wrong.
I don't think we'd be in such an uproar if we had known of the book before publication..
Well, it certainly would've given us more time to kvetch about it.
It's not as if the entire SlashDot commnunity could make the decision on whether or not to publish the book. We use the site; we don't run it.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Comrades, I'm hardly a lawyer, but it seems to me that by posting anonymously, the poster gives up control over their comments. When you sign up for an account, you do provide a way to be contacted and then asked about what can be done with your posts. But AC posting has no such contact information. Any lawyers care to weigh in?
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I define hate mail as a message with the word "hate" in it
;)
Excerpt from some friendly email:
> My mailbox was full of spam again today. I
> hate spam.
So do I.
This is hate mail?
The one thing that I was concerned about was explained in the article. If you are going to use these posts to slashdot in a book then the book should be avaliable in electronic form. Since the article says that it will be I have no problem.
BTW these posts were submited to this site to be published. Why would anyone here make a distinction between electronic publication and book publication. Most of the people on slashdot have spent a great deal of time trying to validate electonic information.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Alright, maybe we should stop posting...
I never posted (I think) about the Hellmouth series, mainly because I didn't think that my experiences in school as a young teenager (while not particularly pleasent) were so extraordinary as to require my special wisdom on the subject. And at the time it seemed to me to be capitalizing on a tragedy.
I'm particulary glad I didn't now.
I think what concerns most at this point is not that they aren't getting credit, or money, or whatever... Its that their comments are being lifted from the context they were used, edited and reordered to tell someone elses story and viewpoint, and all of this is being done prior to any form of peer review or their own ability to edit it themselves. Thus, with a bit of creativity, their words could be used to justify viewpoints with which they do not necessarily agree, again without their ability to correct this. This bothers me alot.
Tim Gaastra
Tim Gaastra
Build a better mousetrap and the world will immediately get their fingers caught in it.
There seems to be no question that for Mr. Katz and his collaborators this book is a moral initiative. I applaud their good citizenship and their thoughtfulness. No book will assuage the pain of the Columbine victims' families and friends, but this effort might promote the sort of conversation that will change the climate.
And its what most people resort to without even realizing it. If the issue of copyright and IP involves someone else, then IP rights be damned!....but as soon as the issue hits closer to home, all the trolls come out to say "that's mine!" I get the impression that most of the people doing the loudest whining are not the ones who are likely to be quoted. It's a sad commentary on /. these days....
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
First off, that's not his call to make. As he says, this is basically Andover's baby.
As for lack of profits, it's not that there is not supposed to be any profits. There IS profits to be made, they're just giving them up to a good cause.
I'm a 21st century digital boy.
I don't know how to read, but I got a lot of toys.
I can't help it that you're stupid enough to listen to me! I'm an idiot!
-- einstein (slashdot user 10761)
I hate to say it, because it's been said before, but by posting here, you are posting in a public domain forum.
I'm a 21st century digital boy.
I don't know how to read, but I got a lot of toys.
I can't help it that you're stupid enough to listen to me! I'm an idiot!
-- einstein (slashdot user 10761)
I'm ordering a copy of the book and will definitly get the electronic version too(txt,HTML,PDF & PS I suppose?).
I'd like to express my sincerest thanks to the people that put their sweat behind this.
Spreading a compedium of information about hysteria of media,parents and educational officials, which all collectivly turn on people they are supposed to protect, is ever so important and will damn well make shure loads of people here will read it.
Airon --- this post is public domain ---
I am curious, as a bit of a law freek I have stumbled across collective works in copyright law. A collective work would be something like a book written by three seperate authors (this is granted that no special contracts exist between them), or I would imagine a series of postings to a news item on /. would fit as well. In the book senario each person owns their part of the book, but at the same time they ALL own the book. Thus the book cannot be sold, distributed or be sampled without the direct agreement of all parties involved in a creative work.
Now many discussion forums, like AOL, take complete ownership of all content (they have no liability since the CDA was passed I think section 205 deals with this), where as /. leaves ownership to the poster thus making this a colletive work in my mind.
The question would then move on to if a posting is inherantly copyrighted by the poster. In this case I would say yes due to some presidence for it in the art field (writting is still considered art unless it is footnoted or bibliographed if I remember correctly) of copyrights. The main thing that makes each post copyrightable is the fact that /. says you own your post. By submitting it to an open forum where you know it will be published to the public in that ONE forum and that you have not published it in any other location, any republishing of the postings would thus violate copyright.
Now I feel this is a good book to write, but someone might want to take a closer look at the law on this one, the fines for violating patents can be rough.
I am a programmer that has delt with copyright and patent law in the past, so check with a lawyer before you decide what I say is gospel. Pretty much I lay this out as something to help guide people to the right areas in law so they can learn for themselves. Also remember copyright and patent law is torte law, thus it is a God aweful mess.
Very true, very true, the logic is dangerous. I think anyone who really sits down and thinks about it will probably agree that this is a Good Thing. At the same time, it is also true that permission was NOT obtained, and that runs very contrary to how most people percieve the "comments are owned by the Poster" bit at the end of the page. So, I do approve this project, because I believe that it is worthy, but only so long as a system is instituted in Slashdot to let people specify whether they are willing to have their comments published.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
An oasis of sanity... But just watch some asshole sue.
The next time you want to post to /. why don't you write it down on a piece of paper and then go and lock it up, so that no one can ever possibly get at it to violate your copyright.
Grow up people, this book has been produced to try and help some of the most vulnerable members of society. If you didn't want anyone to read your comments, why the f&*k did you post them?
That doesn't say that the comments are copyrighted by their authors, only that each author owns their own comment. It is up to each author if they want to copyright their comment or not.
I feel strongly that the word needs
to get out that geeks are humans too
and that geek kids are being abused.
I read the series and saw allot of
what I went thru in the stories.
It is sad that this kind of garbage goes
on and that the system supports it.
It is time for a change in the way
things are done.
I just want to say keep up the good work
and chin up for every person screaming
here there are hundreds that support
this book being made...
..versions, like Doc, TealDoc, iSilo, and what not. I'd be glad to do it for you guys, if supplied with the material in text or HTML format.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Use this comment as you want, it is unimportant really.
These issues, while valid, raise the risk of obscuring the point: The Hellmouth messages urgently need to be disseminated; they deserve to be heard.
I the presentation of the story yesterday included the text from today, including the part from Rob, I think the flames would have been much less. I'm glad they cleared some of it up.
.
Take all good things in moderation, including moderation.
though this post will be buried in the pile, if you happen to read it, know that i absolutely support both your editorial methods and your decision to publish this book. it is tremendously powerful to be heard, even anonymously, when you have walked through the flames of tragedy and survived. it equally important for all of us who were lucky enough to have been only indirectly affected, to hear, bypassing the bullshit that the media concentrates on, the victims' experiences as directly as possible, so that we can perhaps LEARN SOMETHING! (are you listening out there, america??)
Steve O.
I am really, really exhausted.
People would be pissed about not making any money off the publication. Ensuing battle would take months.
/. posts aren't going to make them rich. They're cocnerned that they're privacy is being violated. /. think is pretty easily manipulated. They posted here because this is an alternative to talk radio and Time/Warner/AOL... People can, or at least used to, be able to trust that if they posted here other geeks would read it... Not their parents, their teachers, and well-meaning but not so understanding others...
What a load of crap. The people here are not concerned that their
Katz touches on the truth above when he says:
They perceived Slashdot as a place where messages get out, where they could speak freely, where information is shared and distributed.
Unfortunately he mixes truth there, where they could speak freely with his own slant on sharing (distribution). Uh yeah, they wanted it distributed, but they wanted it distributed here, not to the rest of the world, the world that most people on
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
And people like YOU are the reason why more people don't feel comfortable opening up... A community of non-anonymous people that respected each others desires would be a lot more useful than a bunch of cowards anonymously sniping at each other.
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
that's a very, very good suggestion, I did not thing of that, but why the anon coward?
I guess I'm one of the few people that will admit it but I'm actually looking forward to the book.
And if I can vote for it, my vote goes to the EFF as the charity that the profits are sent to.
kwsNI
Usually, when Slashdot readers say anything about copyrights, it's along lines of 'copyrights suck'. But now, suddenly, when it comes to their "own" words, copyrights are somewhat of a must? I would think that writing to Slashdot would be the closest thing to "Open Sourcing" your opinions there is? If you want to keep your text proprietary, you should write a book instead of sending comments to Slashdot.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Or, 3. Because they didn't get any additional Karma from it...
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
Yet, when a potentially controversial IP issue came up, the folks at /. did none of the two obvious things. Like:
- Respect all authors' rights in their work (that is, only publish work with permission).
- Try to gauge community sentiment on the issue by discussing (and possibly resolving) it openly before acting.
The sentiment that work should not be excluded because someone changed their email address might sound nice at first approach. But the flipside is that lots of peoples' work was INcluded because they weren't contacted at all. The scale of doing the job right (namely trying diligently to contact all authors) meant that they abandoned it.Frankly, I'm upset. Can this new, self-righteous /. be trusted as the steward of this community and its thoughts any longer? Maybe. But the messages from /. staff that I've read in this thread do not indicate that they have realized the mistake they have made. There is no admission of "mistake made, lesson learned, next time we'll do better"; only attempts to justify what was obviously the wrong course of action.
Regarding distribution of profits: Of course, your profits (a small portion of the money all parties will make from this book) are going to charity. You would be crucified by your readership if they weren't! That is the only tasteful course of action, regardless of whether you get permission or not. It is a non sequitur to imply that what you did was "right" based on that.
Let's get to the heart of the matter, because the staff of /. have some hard questions to answer. What have they learned from this lesson, and how do they plan to treat the material they handle with more respect in the future? How could they have handled this situation better?
I have been skeptical of the very idea of copyright for a long time, and this episode is a great demonstration of why. The use of the comments is pretty clearly a violation of the letter of the law. It's also quite clearly the right thing to do, and I applaud you for doing it. These comments need to be heard. Copyright was meant to encourage the production of good books, not to strangle them in red tape.
--Lee Daniel Crocker : http://www.etceterology.com My life is in the public domain.
Sadly, I think I have to agree on this issue here. Although posters would own the copyright, I really cannot see any value in wanting to prevent your comments from being included in the book, I mean, come on. Everything goes to charity, you get your voice out, and if you're worried about being harassed the names are omitted. Although posters do indeed own the copyrights, I cannot see any reasonable motivation for wanting to use that right....
Paranoia is the State of Perfect Awareness... or at least that's what they want you to think...
I have never seen a discussion on Slashdot that caused so many short-sighted people to bitch and moan. Browsing at +1 I still read post after post that brought up the issue of that little message at the bottom: "Comments are owned by the Poster." Had anyone taken the time to read some of the posts before posting inflammatory tripe, they would have seen numerous posts stating that any comments that are made in a public forum are in the public domain.
I would expect much more from a community like Slashdot. Blatent trolls aside, this tends to be a gathering place for intelligent people, yet by the posts yesterday I would have a hard time believing it.
By publishing this book, Jon and Andover are doing a great service to people whose voices would have remained unheard otherwise. The average American still blames the internet, Quake, TV, movies, anything... Anything we can do to stop perpetuating this myth is a Good Thing®.
I'd swear that was added after I posted the comment. Too bad my cache got overwritten why I refreshed the page... now I'll never know.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Usually I simply ignore pages that insist on using PDFs instead of HTML, but sometimes I don't have the choice. (For instance, several of my clueless professors put up things we have to read as PDFs.) Similarily, if this was only available as a PDF, I wouldn't bother reading it. I appreciate that it takes a little more effort to convert things to a more versatile format, but them's the breaks.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
An awful lot of thought and argument went on in Usenet news about this issue, particularly in misc.legal and misc.int-property. The general consensus (IMHO, I was a minor participant with decided opinions) was that the act posting to Usenet news granted eveyone involved "implicit license" to do the usual Usenet things - copy it around to all the NNTP servers, make copies for readers, archiving it, etc. Quoting activity was arguably either allowed by this implicit license ('cause it's what everbody was already doing and posters knew that before they posted) or allowed by the "Fair Use" clause of the Copyright Act. Personally, I think both are true. However, there was almost universal agreement that posting to Usenet didn't place the work in the public domain or grant license to "non-Usenet" use beyond "Fair Use". While a lot of the participants in the discussion were lawyers or law students, we have never got the opinion that matters - a ruling of a Federal judge (in the U.S. - YMMV in other jurisdictions).
In the web cases to date, it looks like the courts are upholding copyrights of web site authors in general, so there's no particular reason to think the rules are any different in the new media than in the old. That being so, contributers/poster have "Fair Use" rights to quote each other and the "nature of the work" probably makes those "Fair Use" rights very broad - more so than quoting for commercial publication.
A. J. Teel has, shall we say, very non-standard legal ideas. He once posted to Usenet the letter that he sent to the state of Indiana demanding that they revoke his birth certificate. I wouldn't exactly consider his writings reliable source material on the law. (He also appears to be one of the first political spammers, see this)
However, that quote actually almost matches the law as I know it, the quibble being:
a publishing company could reprint a contribution from one issue in a later issue of its magazine
This is not right. For purposes of this clause, different issues of a magazine are different collective works. This clause lets a publisher print the same article in both the New England and Midwest editions of one particular issue, despite minor differences in the 2 editions, but doesn't grant re-use in a subsequent issue.
Other than that, it's right.
(I am a lawyer) is IAAL, not IIAL.
Everything in this post is false.
IANAL, but it appears the whole issue somes down to Fair Use. If the quoting was legal, then the whole issue of asking for permission is moot.
If permission was required, then the law was broken. The fact that people could not be reached makes no difference. If the person could not be reached to ask for permission, then those posts should not have been used in the book.
Everything in this post is false.
FNAR - "For no apparent reason"
The problem that I've been observing, is that their quotes are being published in a book, which is being sold for money.
Posters don't like the fact that Katz is reproducing their comments, without asking them first. As Katz stated though, getting in contact with the many people who posted comments is impossible, due to the changing nature of the net.
Most of the comments he received were via email anyways, by kids begging to share their stories. The people who are whining now are the ones with over-inflated egos who think Katz can't live without their +5 insightful posts.
A couple upper-middle-class white teenage boys whacking a dozen classmates isn't more tragic just because it's more unusual.
Perhaps we all need to examine why we're not doing more to make everywhere a more civilzed place to live, instead of just snow-white Colorado.
ahem.
Not A Sig
Just shows you "You can't please all the people all the time" as the old saying goes. The best thing that can come of this is for the /. community to lighten up on Andover & /. & the book's author, and for the above mentioned to find a tasteful way to repay the perceived wrong the angered minority?/majority? have expressed. In the words of Rodney King... "C..c..can't we all just get along?"
Can I write a book entitled "What geeks do in their spare time" and quote you all for arguing about who owns the copyright of a quote in a public forum?
I was going to reply to this topic, but I'm not sure now. I read at the bottom of the page that "Comments are owned by the poster" and I read in the comments by Rob and John that they seem to feel the comments are in the public domain--there seems to be a conflict.
I intend for my comments to be directed to this one public forum, and I have no anticipation that they will be taken out of the forum bodily and placed in a book for sale by somebody else.
I haven't seen any legal opinion here except from non-lawyers, but to me this is a violation of copyright law, and I would suggest that Andover check with their lawyers before publishing such a book.
I would also suggest that Andover immediately revise the warning that "Comments belong to the Poster." Under current copyright law anywhere where the Berne Convention applies (including the U.S.), copyright to any original creative expression, such as posts here, is automatically by the poster. No qualification therefore need be made by Slashdot. If they were to make a qualification, it would have to be something like, "poster automatically agrees that post is in the public domain" or (like AOL or h2g2) "post is copyright 2000 by Andover.net and poster automatically agrees Andover.net can use the post in any subsequent publication". (Whether or not that would hold up in court as an agreement should be determined by lawyers, not us.)
So, Andover.net lawyers, please do your job and make it possible for me to post my reply to this important question!
Anyway, it's all too complicated to be decided by less than 50 lawyers and 9 justices, so the legal point is moot. What does matter is that this site has made a statement: "Comments are owned by the Poster" They have failed to live up to that promise. This is unfortunate because I still agree that this information should be widely disseminated instead of being seen only by slashdot readers. Nonetheless, the ends do not justify the means...
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Personally, I think the book concept is a good one and I agree that the information is screaming to get out to the world at large. Nonetheless, slashdot set the language at the bottom of the page and they are clearly in violation of the covenant they themselves established. Sorry guys, but you made the rules.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Here's an idea: everyone should assume that whenever they call me on the phone I am taping the conversation for later use as a movie soundtrack. What do you think - can I get away with that legally or do I have to tell everyone on the phone immediately at the start of the conversation that I am taping them?
In order for me to agree to that they have to add it to the registration process -- not make it up after the fact whenever it suits them.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
You don't mean to say you really believe that bullshit, dou you? I'd expect people that gullible to be extinct by now.
That said, now where can I download pictures of the corpses?
Perhaps this is off-topic. I haven't been following the story here on /. But this story has finally stirred up the mess of emotions that began with Columbine so that I feel the need to speak.
It could have been me.
If that statement gets me taken to jail, so be it. I've grown up now, I've learned to use my voice. I might even welcome it.
I could have been one of those two shooters at Columbine a year ago. The rage was certainly there. The hate was. Ask yourself, honestly, if you every daydreamed about doing it.
The shooting at Columbine was not the first. I can recall a story of a kid who mowed down some fellow students who were praying around a flagpole before school. I heard it on the way to school; it was on the radio, somewhere between the 30 Second Sports Blitz and the Howard Stern Show. Someone riding in the car with me said "Oh my god. That's terrible. Did you do your math homework?"
I leave the question to you -- what was it about Columbine that set off the Red Flag in our collective mind?
Now, after Columbine, similar crimes seem to be reported every day. They are beginning to occur in Europe, and Europeans are shocked; they did not think it could happen to them. We didn't either, a year ago. Why are they happening now?
This is only a personal observation, but I have little doubt that the statistics will back me up if anyone cares to check: In the great majority of these 'kid pulls gun on students' stories, the gun is never used. A gun has only one purpose, but in all these instances, it is not being used for that purpose.
So what, then, is the purpose of pulling the gun? Humor me for a moment while I attempt to answer this question.
A kid who pulls a gun in school is crying for help.
Up front, let me say it -- this is stupid. It is a dead-end. It cannot accomplish the kid's intended purpose.
And deep down, the kid knows this.
So again, what is the purpose in pulling the gun?
Simple enough. The kid is not being listened to. He may not even know that he has been calling for help, but yet he knows that those calls are going unanswered. He thinks, maybe, that he was simply not making himself heard. And so he does something he knows will get everyone's attention. He pulls a gun. He says -- did you think I was kidding? Maybe just whining? No, I'm serious. You want to know how serious?
THIS serious.
Serious enough to throw my life away for it.
It is almost impossible to take this little theory this far without beginning to point fingers. It would seem, from what I have said, that I consider the kid blameless. And he is. Except for that whole pointing-a-deadly-weapon-at-unsuspecting-citizens part.
This is an important point. The gun itself is insubstantial. It has no purpose beyond some symbolic value. You could replace it with a rubber chicken if the chicken had the same stigma surrounding it.
So forget the gun. What do we have left? A kid, crying for help. What kind of help?
Well, I don't know. But I have an inkling that the Hellmouth Posts could tell you a lot about it. Those kids are crying for help too. Just the same as I did, and still do, even with this posting. It could have been me, and it could have been them too. It could be any of us. There is only one difference between us and the kids with guns.
We have learned to use our voices.
This doesn't necessary mean there is anyone to hear them. This perhaps, is why Slashdot has become the forum for this -- because Slashdot, evil corporate spawn that it may be [sic], is an open forum. Perhaps it is their slogan -- "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." that brought the nerds who spoke about what mattered most to them. It doesn't matter why, because the fact is that Slashdot *did* become that forum.
And what of the kids who haven't learned to use their voices? What about them?
Well, that's the entire point of this post. What about them? What are we, as human beings, going to do about them?
I would say that we need to listen. Don't say that we cannot be expected to read their minds. We can. They are children. Nearly grown children, yes. But the fact that they cannot ask for help makes them children. No matter their age.
People under the age of 18 in the U.S are considered minors. Their lives are essentially subject to the whims of their guardians. They cannot be convicted of crimes as adults can be. They cannot enter into binding contracts. They are denied the freedom promised in the Bill of Rights. And they should be.
But do we, as people, remember why?
We seem to remember this only when it is convenient. A child's learning is incomplete. They are denied the freedom to do many things because we consider them to be unprepared to handle the responsibility.
And what separates the 17 year old from the 18 year old. Nothing. Really; I remember my 18th birthday. So what do we intend with those 18 years before that birthday? What is the purpose of drawing that line?
We intend those years for teaching. That time is for preparing the child for the responsibilites coming. And how do we do that?
Suddenly, methinks I am on shaky ground.
How do you train a dog? Do you expect him to tell you he doesn't see the difference between inside and outside when you spank him for pissing in the living room?
Have you ever tried to explain Monty Python to a Mexican? When you tell him the frenchman said "No, we've already got one." and he doesn't laugh, is it because he doesn't know what the Holy Grail means? Or is it because he doesn't understand your put-on 'english accent?'
You just kind of have to guess. It's not mind-reading, really, but it works pretty well given enough time.
So let me bring this back to the topic at hand. We know the kids with guns are crying for help. We know the problem is that their not being heard. We know that others with greater skills in articulating have spoken -- they have sent their words to Slashdot, for good or ill. And we are arguing over whether Slashdot has the right to publish these cries.
Slashdot has no right not to.
These comments cannot be attributed to this person or that. The words, yes. But we do ourselves a great disservice by allowing that to stand in our way.
The Hellmouth posts belong to all of us; they are an expression of all our own voices. They are an expression of the unspoken words that killed the students at Columbine. They are not a symptom -- they are the cause, and the remedy. This book could, in a way, be a greater 'parenting manual' than any Dr. Spock book.
Damn, I'm getting all misty.
It doesn't matter if Andover makes a million bucks off this book. Please, let's all be thankful that the resources and the will exist to publish it.
"That's all I have to say about that" --Forrest Gump
gargle says:
The poster owns the copyright to the post. Since the Berne Convention, you own a copyright to everything you write, even when a copyright statement does not appear. For something to go into public domain, the author has to place very explicit statement to that effect.
Well, yes, that's why it says 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." On the other hand, I'd say that since the text is in an public forum with international visibility, fair use copying should be interpreted rather liberally. If you don't want to see your text written somewhere else, this isn't the best place to put it.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Personally, I don't see how it being difficult to contact some of the authors in any way absolves them of the responsibility to do so.
The only thing that gives me any pause here is that Rob still has a lot of credibility with me -- I can't believe that he'd want to, say, use other people's words to set himself up as some sort of "geek authority" with traditional media (which is what I'm half-convinced Jon Katz has been trying to do since day one of this tragedy).
No matter what the motivations, however, it still seems to me that, when possible, someone compiling a book like this still has a responsibility to make every effort to contact the original authors.
This is a case where the right thing to do ethically is backed up by the force of law. Rob, at least get someone from the publisher to try and contact the original authors, no matter what Katz says about it.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'm also really amazed by the attitude so many here seem to have that "if somebody is making money from something that includes my post, I want some". First off, Rob has made millions (at least on paper) from your posts; when's the last time you hit him up for some cash? As well, to see this attitude on the same site where people are constantly complaining that musicians and programmers might actually want to get paid for their work is downright offensive. Yes, I know people with all kinds of attitudes post here, but I have seen posts complaining about the possibility of being used in a 'Slashdot compilation' from the same people who say musicians should give away their recordings and make money from touring (easy to say when you don't play, I suppose).
Can we please get over the wanting something for nothing attitudes and just get on with things?
Incidently, parodies such as those done by Weird Al Yankovic don't really need permission. Parodies have long been protected by law from recrimination by the original authors. And the world is better off for it.
Also, I think the Slashdot editors' attitudes can be just as easily thought of as 'defensive' instead of condescending and righteous. They've been attacked in a big way. Also, they've never really acted condescending in the past (occasionaly righteous, perhaps).
-Paul Komarek
To anyone saying something stupid about their intentions, or public forums and fair use and blah blah blah...
READ THIS FIRST.
As much as some of you might hate him, Signal 11 has some relevant stuff to say, and from what I know about copyrights, it sounds good to me.
This is a real issue, and I'd like to know what Katz and Slashdot are going to do about it.
Comments?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Before you answer "none!", remember that this post- and all the posts made about the Hellmouth, Microsoft, Linux, and whatever- are being hosted on machines paid for and maintained by Andover, and distributed over bandwidth paid for by Andover. We recognize that a book publisher has some rights over the works being published- why not Andover?
The more I think about it, the more I think "Intellectual Property" is an oxymoron.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
GROW UP FOLKS!
/. or further publication is great. of course as i look down i see score +1 tick box, anon tick box, a format pull down... i fear posting to /. will become akin to wading through warning labels in dept stores...
/. folks will do dead tree (and other media) versions in new and (hopefully) better ways.
first, i think rob's idea of a button saying that the comment is intended for
the whinging and screeching over this has been absolutely disgusting. rob and his crew - and that includes jon katz - have taken an issue they care about and have attempted to get information out on it. free software takes a similar tack in releasing stuff that's almost perfect in the idea that it can be improved and used. in the future
rob's comment that andover, et al are made up of *people* just can't be emphasised enough. what feedback on your work (and your mistakes) do you want to get? what are you giving out in public forums?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Reread the article.
;)
---
It will be published electronically. It'll be run either on Slashdot, or it'll be in some downloadable format. Its just not out yet, so chill out for a few weeks
---
...still have a complaint? Sounds to me like you'll be able to get it online by the time the book is available - of course, the use is limited online as the people who need to see it will be offline, primarily.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I never posted to the original hellmouth, namely because slashdot already had 1000
/explicitly/ clear that when
/say/ /it/. Fight to overturn those
comments and I had nothing new to contribute - I've had similar experiences as those
who posted, however I can't take any action over other's postings. That's my
disclaimer, now on with the show..
I think it's hypocritical to post articles about how company X is violating
the GPL, or how such-and-such company is advertising "open source" when it's not,
while simultaniously holding the line that software patents are bad and violating
the copyright of the people who posted to slashdot. For slashdot to have any
credibility in such matters, it needs to address these issues.
Why was there no mention of the book until now? You noted in previous postings
that it would have been "too difficult" to contact everyone. If contacting people
was a problem, why did you not post an article - they were slashdot readers then,
many probably still are. The most effective and lowest-cost method of reaching
those people for approval would have been to post an article asking them. If
I took a hundred slashdot articles, compiled a list of "Best of Slashdot" and
sold it (even if I donated all my profits to, say, the FSF), wouldn't you be
upset? Yes, and you'd sue. That "The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net." means
something for you guys, "Comments are owned by the Poster" ought to mean
something too.
I would have serious objections if people quoted me without even asking/telling
me until after the fact. Maybe it is better to ask forgiveness than permission,
but I'd still be pissed. You either need to make it
people post to slashdot that their comments can be quoted and/or are "public domain".
It's fair use to quote.. but turning around and selling a book off other's ideas,
feelings and thoughts is illegal whether you make a profit or not. You guys have
been around long enough - you should have known better. If you guys disagree with
copyrights and patents then say so - and do the equivalent of GPL'ing the site and
it's content - make it available to all and
laws. Otherwise, stop speaking with a forked tongue and respect those people's
copyright, instead of just your own.
--
Signal 11 -o- BOFH, malign.net
"I got everybody to pay up front...then I blew up their planet."
"Now why didn't I think of that?" -- Post Bros. Comics
I didn't compile the excerpts and have no such list. It will be in the book. I wouldn't give it out if I had it.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
The level of hypocrisy here exceeds even that exuded by Microsoft lawyers. A sincere (and important) effort is being made on behalf of countless people who are being victimized by the system, and the "data wants to be free" crowd is having a hissy fit over copyright.
IANAL, but it is worth pointing out that unless you register your copyright by sending the actual paper form to the federal government, you cannot sue for punitive damages. You can only sue for compensatory damages, i.e., only if you can demonstrate that Andover prevented you from making money from your words that you would have made if the book had not been published.
I dunno 'bout the rest of you, but when I emailed Jon -- as when I email any journalist -- I assumed that I was risking publication unless I specifically requested otherwise. And while I'd be surprised if anything I said ends up in this book, it doesn't bother me at all. There's a lot more at stake here than whether I ever get a dime for writing an email. And if someone does make some money off of it, I don't give a rat's ass.
The level of sheer, mindless, greedy grasping and r-complex territorial behavior being demonstrated here is mind-boggling. Explicit copyright notices on your Slashdot posts? How childish! Do you stamp the old circle-C on the end product of your digestive processes? (Most AC's may as well.) Go work for Microsoft or the RIAA and quit cluttering public forums with spurious copyright claims.
The preceding comments are released into the public domain, where they belong, along with everything else I've ever said or ever will say in a public forum.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
comments are the property of the authors -
How about, everyone who feels cheated read the pub, if you see your post, put in a claim for a share of the books' profits that you don't want to go to someone's favorite charity - there should be some ways of verifying ID and that you actually did write it.
However there's definitely the stench of hipocritical narcisstic solipsism - anything *you* create *I* want to be able to use anyway I want, but anything *I* create I want to control and regulate. Pfft. I'm not a professional writer, and anything I post anywhere is gratis and would be pleased to see it get mass attention, just as long as it's credited to my handle or 'a slashdot discussion contributor', and nobody outright claims to have written it verbatim. I'd even allow for subconscious plaigurism - i.e., someone reads my post, forgets about it, and later on repeats a part as if they'd thought of it. That's just saying they pretty deeply agree.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
However, I cannot let stand uncontested the implication that the rule of law should never be challenged. The law is but an approximation of fairness and justice, and it is those things to which we must first bear allegance. Yes, we should be commited to approximating fairness and justice, thus should be committed to the rule of law. But let us never forget the law is a means to a more important end, and where it fails that end, it is the law that should yield.
Good point. I agree completely.
Rosa Parks was participating in civil disobediance. She was not infringing on anyone else's rights. Her rights were being denied.
In the examples I gave, I tried to focus on those instances where someone assumes they know what is best for someone else, against that person's wishes.
That said, I don't know when breaking a law would be justified, but I agree that there are times when it is.
But in cases where there is a legal way to bring about change (voting, via the courts, peaceful protest, etc.) vigilantism is to be avoided. This is a complex issue. The really important ones usually are. Unfortunately, as your parting line notes, instead of reasoned discussion we get flame wars, whether it be on Crossfire or /..
Steve M
The last time I did taxes, taking a 'tax break' on
donations meant you deduct the donation from your
income.
Book sells. Andover adds income to total, donates
income to charity, deducts donation from taxes,
pays taxes as if they hadn't published the book
at all.
Where in this Andover makes money, I don't see.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
The fact is, people on the outside are likely to pay more attention because it costs money. I know a guy who published a directory of people and companies in a certain industry. When he doubled the price of the book, he sold about twice as many. Having it in buyable book form also will get it reviewed in mainstream publication, free advertising.
Larger Audience? (Score:2) by _xeno_ on 04-21-00 10:45 AM EST (#33) (User Info) To me, the moral imperative of the Hellmouth series has always been simple: get these stories out to a wider audience. That's what they were sent. So to get the comments out to a wider audience, you are going to publish a book and sell it for ~$15... Will that REALLY get it to a wider audiance? Is the publisher going to do any publicity on the book? Are you going to be on Oprah? Or is the book just going to sit on bookstore shelves, being bought only by those /. readers who feel for whatever reason they should buy a copy? How about posting the entire content of the book to a website so people can read it online for free. If you're not making a profit, then why not? It can't hurt profits if there aren't supposed to be any. And that might help get to a wider audience. You should really read the entire article before posting - Rob says explicitly that it will be available in downloadable form. In fact, it's the final thing in his addendum, and it's in boldface!
This is not a direct comment on the specific issue. I just want to point out to Jon Katz and Slashdot in general that some of the logic used in this post is very dangerous. "I know I didn't have explicit permission but I know they'd want me to do this" and especially "It's for their own good" are very dangerous arguments. It's the same ones used by those people who profile our every click on the internet, you know: "It's for their own good so we can avoid repeating ads and can target ads more towards their interests." I would not compare this endeavor to that sort of profiling by any means :-), but the road to hell[mouth] is paved with good intentions... and a lot of those intentions are really good. You're probably OK this time, but don't get in the habit of justifying things this way; it can be arrogant and elistist to do something like this with somebody else's property without permission. (If you were intending to make a profit, I would be roasting you. I understand the intentions and applaud them, just be careful with that logic.)
You wrote on slashdot to be heard (as did i). take it as a complemet that YOUR WORDS will be used to tell OUR side of the story. if you're scared you parents are going to see this and question you about it, get past it and grow up. if you need help get it. if not stfu
So.. you're mad that your public comments are in a little book somewhere? Why? It's not like the book is all about your comments..
hey.. wait.. ARE your comments in the book, or are you just blowing hot air?
Why is this so hard to understand?
/. chose to say that comments are 'owned' by their authors... as in, the authors are responsible for the content of the comments, not /.
You post to a PUBLIC FORUM. it *IS* by all definitions a PUBLIC FORUM.
Comments posted to a PUBLIC FORUM are in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
Just because something is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN doesn't mean somebody isn't responsible for writing those words..
If something is all too private, they shouldn't have posted it to a PUBLIC FORUM in the first place!
Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net
/. and then that company wanted to take action on Slashdot for it. You don't get to say who gets to use your posts and in what form, rather, other people can't use these posts against /.
;)
I don't know about you people, but when I read this I don't think "This is my post, and I can sue because you used something I own without my permission" or something like that. Rather, I see "Don't try to sue Slashdot for these posts, cuz we didn't write them".
In essense, I think it has less to do with you being able to excersize rights on your posts, than it has to do with Slashdot covering their ass if some company (M$ for example) got the crap flamed outta them on
But perhaps the way I read things is different from most people.
For instance, the attorney general in Illinois (where I live unfortunately) is talking about enforcing the voluntary ratings system on vidieo games now.
Tell your attorney general that there already is a voluntary rating system on video games, and has been for quite some time since Senator Lieberman went balistic about Doom and Mortal Kombat a few years back. Of all the things to "blame" why do people ALWAYS blame video games?! I never remember a video game that killed anyone in real life. There are a lot worse things out there.
Sue the bastards, after all if the book flops because your post(s) is missing, then the best writing in the book WAS your post and you deserve a piece of the pie, whether you decide to give it to charity is your business.
That's a small pie with *many* pieces. Are you sure there's enough to go around?
Will you begin to demand that slashdot pay you for the priviledge of you posting here?
I say, let it be. No one is any worse off than they were before. No one was expecting any money when they first posted to slashdot, why should they expect payment now? Because their posting will be published in a book that will get sold? Do you realize that Andover gets money for selling banner ads? What is the difference, really?
This is a Web Forum. The Internet is very open. Posting here and expecting your words not to be echoed is hypocritical.
No harm has been done. No one is entitled to anything. Posts to slashdot are certainly not heavily rivised and edited. Getting paid for something means that you put a bunch of effort into it. I just don't see that happening.
There's no doubt that the poster "owns" the comments, as in, "possesses the copyright for their comments". So much for "ownership". But holding the copyright is not the be-all and end-all. Other people can copy and use your works if:
a) you license them to do so
b) their use falls under the fair use exemptions in copyright law
There is no question, for example, that by posting a comment on slashdot, you grant them a long-term non-exclusive license to publish your work on the website - though you still own the copyright. You could post the same words on another website and license them to publish your words too.
Fair use allows a book reviewer, for example, to quote passages from the book without obtaining any sort of license from the book publisher or author. That's why people are upset about UCITA - it would abolish this right with regard to software.
But in any case, people need to distinguish between ownership and use.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Let's say someone posted a comment on the Hellmouth topic on slashdot.org, the comment got included in the book and the original author of the comment doesn't like it. Also, it is really important for that person that the comment is not included.
How does one make sure that the person that is claiming to have written the comment really is the author? It's impossible IMHO, so in the very improbable case that someone will make a trial out of this, there is no basis...
What I cannot quite understand is that the people running slashdot haven't made it absolutely clear (and legally correct, I guess they have the money to pay some lawyers) that content published here can be republished in any form.
I'd just like to take a quick second to THANK taco and katz for posting a katz article under his authorship. Every time it doesn't happen, we get hundreds of accusatory posts - but no one is ever grateful. Let's at least show some respect around here. . .
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
I am not a lawyer, but I will answer your questions based on my understanding of copyright law.
First of all, fair use is somewhat of a misnomer. There are quite a few things that fall into the category of fair use, and it is something that can't simply be set in stone. For example, quoting from a book for educational purposes may be ok for one book, but horrible for another. A court may find you guilty if you quote one thing, but let you get by with another. The law is rather vague, and it is intentional. In many cases, it actually takes a court case to make a real decision.
Secondly, oral comments are not necessarily copyrightable. Copyright covers 9 categories, and some of them involve oral presentations (like sound recodings, performances, pantomimes, etc). Walking outside and shouting something probably does not entitle you to a copyright.
Finally, the archiving of things on Slashdot is not republishing them. Think of Slashdot as a publishing medium for my comments. I post something (like what I'm saying here), and Slashdot facilitates its presence on the internet. When they are archived, they are kept for posterity like any other book or literature.
I hope that answers your question, and I am open to any further interpretations of copyright law.
My disclaimer:
This comment is owned by me, and cannot be reproduced outside of this medium without my permission.
Well, I have to say that I agree that each and every poster has copyright over his or her own comments on slashdot, there is no doubt there.
The question about this being a public forum and therefore Andover can just take the comments, publish them into a book, and reap profits (even if these profits ultimately go to charity) makes absolutely no sense to me.
Fair use? Probably if they were just quotes and not whole duplication, but quotes also need to be credited back to the author, which isn't done here.
The comments belong to the individual poster, there is no doubt about that, and there is a pretty strong case for the posters if they didn't want their works published in any forum they didn't ask it to be published in.
This being said, I think we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. Just because you can sue doesn't necessarily mean you should. Where would the comments do more good? In the book which might get read or not in the book? Where would the money you sue for do more good? In the charity that it gets donated to or your pocket?
Yes, you own the comments, but wouldn't it be a better service to humanity if they were published and the money go to a deserving charity?
-- iCEBaLM
Thanks for the accurate concise information! Most people here appreciate expert analysis (even though *some* posters seem to prefer playing 'bash all lawers').
:(
IIRC, the notice about posters owning their comments came after some news site reproduced slashdot posts in their entirety. The news site did this in a very unflattering way, picking the most violent flames to demonstrate that the geek community is totally irrational. I wish I could remember the news site's name or the aprozimate date
At the time, everyone (including Rob Cmmdr. et. al.) was really pissed off about the unauthorized reproduction, so the current controversy shouldn't come as a shock. It's a bit hypocritical to say that CNN can't reproduce post in their entirety, but Andover can. Since this site depends in part on trust from community, the staff would be wise to ensure that this issue is addressed.
Does anmyone else remember this? Or am I totally confused?
- bridgette
The book isn't out yet.
They didn't contact quoted people.
Therefore, we have no way of knowing if we are quoted in the book.
More importantly, we have no way of knowing if we will be quoted in some future book unless this discussion influences slashdot policy.
- bridgette
"If you didn't want your opinion to be heard why voice it in the first place?"
/. as a community of sorts built on trust. When you start doing things like this without advance notice, and then using legalities to justify what you did, you lose some of that trust.
This is particularly disengenuous. No one said 'I don't want my opinion to be heard'. No one. I see people having a problem with the use of quotes specifically because 'Comments are owned by the poster'.
"Fair-Use" and "Public Forum" issues aside I think that the real problem is that people see
I guess that's how I feel about. I can't speak for anyone else.
-nme!
I feel like Q talking to Picard in that episode where he offered Picard a second chance. All of the posts here are protected by copyright (they are *not* in the public domain, despite some air-headed comments about "public forums" and the like), but the world wouldn't change one iota if any author (or even hundreds of authors) remained silent.
This even applies to the posts selected for inclusion (with editing) in the book. The post, no matter how moving, is still a single testimonial read by a few tens of thousands of people.
But select a large number of those posts, organize them and present them in an overarching conceptual framework, and you have a new work which is far more than the sum of its parts. The IP in that book lies not in the individual stories, but in their selection and organization. Because of that, and the sad fact that there were so many personal stories to pick from, it seems clear to me that this use clearly falls under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law.
As others have alluded to, I have a *very* hard time imaging that anyone who contributed a story wanted it to be read by handful of people on Slashdot, then forgotten.
Even if they do care (and did't take the trivial precaution of writing Jon Katz directly and explicitly state their reservations), I can only compare the book to a magnificent building made of bricks. Obviously you need bricks to make that building, but each individual brick - by itself - is pretty much worthless. It's easy to substitute one brick for another during construction, and even afterwards the loss of a brick or two won't cause the building to fall down. But when we look at the building, do we see the bricks or the intelligence (and compassion) that organized them?
In closing, I would remind everyone of a famous axiom: the law should be treated as a shield, not a sword. IP rights are a shield when you seek to deny others taking credit or changing your words. While a few posters would have a legitimate beef about lack of credit, there's no doubt that the decision to anonymous all posts was justifiable considering the persecution reported by many writers. Sadly, many of these posts seem to be using the law as a sword. I wonder if they greet coworkers with "hello (c)", "want to grab lunch (c)?", etc.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Slashdot tells me that I retain all rights to my posts.
Therefore, I post whatever I like. I post, knowing that my words will be archived on this site, possibly quoted in other posts on this site, and so forth. That's a combination of fair use and the caveats of posting a comment on Slashdot.
Because I own the sole copyright to my posts, Andover cannot legally reproduce them anywhere but on Slashdot without permission. If they ask for my permission, I would likely give it, but there is a chance that I will not in some cases. I have no problem with Slashdot publishing a book per say, but I do have a problem with the violation of my copyright, should one take place.
You say "if you don't like it, then maybe you shouldn't post here." I'm sorry, but you are basing this upon incorrect beliefs. "Comments are owned by the Poster." That's the way it is. No public domain involvement. I exchanged some email with Hemos, and as mentioned by Rob, they will likely implement an opt-in policy. Good. Everyone's happy. The people who wish to control their posts continue to do so, the rest can be as altruistic as they desire.
If, however, they state that every comment posted here belongs to the public domain, I will indeed go away and not post. I do some freelance writing. I am happy to post my thoughts on Slashdot without compensation, but only because I retain ownership of my words. I'm sure that a fair number of people find themselves in similar situations. Do you understand where I am coming from?
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
Hmm. Seems they want to have their cake and eat it too - they appear to want to a) avoid liability by saying "that post is the posters" and b) be able to publish them en-masse. Sorry guys, this seems wrong.
Is the book right? In my view no. I realise that this may be redundant but firstly I'm a Brit so I don't have the emotional baggage that a lot of people posting here seem to have, and secondly I think that there will be a counting of voices going on at some point ("most people thought it was bad/good").
The reasons are twofold: no real effort was made to contact contributers - news on the front page about this three months ago ("We're going to publish a book about `Hellmouth`"), mass e-mailing. Anything realistic in fact. This needed to be done because those posts were not yours - you are entitled to publish them on your web site and that is all. Secondly the posts in the book are unattributed - this was a major error of judgement.
There is also the unsubstantiated nature of the claims - which is compounded by publishing them unattibuted. This devalues the book so much: imagine if the "Diary of Anne Frank" was called "The Diary of someone". It removes a lot of the books credibility.
Think about if, for example, a book on Perl had been published based on the contents on Slashdot's archives, and none of the posts were attibuted: there would have been, justifiably, outrage (well, more unanimous outrage). Because there may be good reasons for this book to be published does not, and cannot, justify the actions: two wrongs do not make a right.
What I would like to see is some statement by Slashdot clarifying the position - at the moment we are in a bit of a limbo where nobody knows under what conditions they are posting. I'm not bothered one way or another, but others are, and this should be clarified, and soon.
Perhaps (and I'm not saying this is right) this is a question of the feeling that what is posted here is within the community and what is published in a book is outside of the community.
:) But some people do see /. as a community of people like themselves, and would be willing to share more here than with those perceived as outsiders.
/. reader. Sometimes I wonder if I should even post here. :)
I agree that if one wants to maintain absolute privacy about one's personal life, one should not say anything about it to anyone -- electronically or otherwise.
I'm not saying that this makes the hellmouth book a BAD idea. Quite the contrary. But it is a way to explain people's reactions to the book, and even some of the negativity that gets tossed at Katz (who's seen as "not one of us" by many here).
Heck, I've got more in common with Katz than with the average prototypical
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
This is the same argument as was proposed by Rosa Parks when she refused to yield her seat on a city bus. This is the same argument as was/is used by dissidents who met in secrecy defying oppressive regime's laws against peacable assembly. etc.
I agree the rule of law is important. I even have sympathy for your main point concerning the specific case of the Hellmouth posts.
However, I cannot let stand uncontested the implication that the rule of law should never be challenged. The law is but an approximation of fairness and justice, and it is those things to which we must first bear allegance. Yes, we should be commited to approximating fairness and justice, thus should be committed to the rule of law. But let us never forget the law is a means to a more important end, and where it fails that end, it is the law that should yield.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled flamewar.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Er, I assure you, if we do give the money to survivors' families, we (collectively) will be pilloried in the press for appearing to try to appease them. There is no good press in doing that.
Try the ACLU, the nice folks who were looking into the situation. Alternatively, if there's any real money involved, it would be cool to set up a fund or grant for funding programs for/in schools which promote tolerance and non-violence.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Perhaps it needed to be better spelled out in the user agreement when you registered on Slashdot, but it seems reasonable to assume the following:
When you post a comment to Slashdot, you are granting a license to all readers of Slashdot to read your post free of charge. Furthermore, you are giving the owners of Slashdot the license to relocate, edit, and publish your comments in another forum. Like it or not, that seems a reasonable precondition to using the website.
The real key to your retention of your copyright is that Slashdot cannot, in turn, prevent you from reposting your own comment elsewhere, because you hold the copyright.
Granted, that's a very GPL way of looking at comment posting, but we keep saying that source code is speech and should follow the same rules, right?
Right...
You are probably filing the class action lawsuit papers right now, rat weasel. What will your cut be?
This is exactly what I hate about self important lawyers.
"Blah Blah I know the law. Blah Blah who cares what is right, we have a clear LEGAL obligation to see Andover go down in flames."
The creation of this book is a good thing. It will further disseminate the feelings of a group of people that do not otherwise have a strong voice. Please do not soil it with legalistic tripe.
-Rothfuss
Didn't CmdrTaco say that they'd be adding a feature whereby people could opt-in or out of having comments reproduced? Then they could simply say "Comments are owned by poster. Slashdot reserves the right to post comments with the "Reproduce Me" flag on".
Then we could set a universal "Allow comment reproduction" option, which we could optionally override at the comment level. E.g., in most cases I want to allow my comments to be reproduced elsewhere, except those comments in which I make an ass of myself, for which I should be able to turn the "Reproduce Me" flag off (or the "Don't reproduce me" flag on).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Indeed, "What the fnar?". (what the hell does that mean?)
I posted a reply to JonKatz's message asking this, and also asked in #slashdot...but apparently some invisible genie just conjured up this book all by himself.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Copyrights are not mutually exclusive!! (right lawyers???) I can have copyright on something, and SO CAN somebody else. It gives me the right to copy or reproduce something. If I spray paint some stuff on an overpass I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to retain copyright when somebody photographs and publishes the writing. That's what this is. A public forum. We are all writing on a big public wall. Why aren't you afraid some people who just found Slashdot will take all these messages and publish them some place? There is certainly nothing stopping them.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
OK, who else here saw this headline and thought they were making a postscript version of the book availible?
From reading his description of the attempt, it sounds like he made an effort to contact many more than 200 people. And he got exactly 1 response.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
>>Now this is lame. Make it available for download, or don't do it. This old "in the near future" routine makes me sick.
Think about it. The book was probably not written in HTML, most likely it was written and edited in Word or some other Word processing package. The planning would come in by determining how they want to post it back online in HTML format. (Do you include links? Do you Thread the comments? Just post as plain text?) If you thought about what needs to be planned for instead of just BITCHING about it, you would understand at least a few of the problems facing the Slashdot Crew in creating the Book. If you really want to help them, offer to help put the book into HTML. (Then you would really see and understand the TIME it takes to put the book online!.)
I like the idea behind the book. (And the fact that no-one is aiming to profit personally). Keep pushing the message out!
Big_Lamer
A /. poll for this?? Almost nobody is going to say no, and most people are being pissed off for not being asked.
The simple solution will be to hold back the publication, till people are given a chance to say yes. Can you do that? Put up a poll on this issue?
Just my 0.005 cents (US)
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
I would suggest perusal of 10 Big Myths about copyright explained from Brad Templeton of ClariNet and EFF. I would suggest concentrating on the following items:
Was the original series a Good Thing? Yes.
Did everyone involved with this book have good intentions? I think so.
Was this the right thing to do? Well, I don't know about right, but it is at least doubtful that it was the legal thing to do. As the person above claiming to be a lawyer states, the Slashdot bunch, and therefore Andover, have explicitly not claimed copyright or ownership of the original messages -- which means that the original poster retains all rights to that material. Just because you can't get a hold of one or all of the posters does not give you permission to use the posts, IMHO it bars you from using them as you cannot establish ownership yourself, and in publishing them you are asserting just such a right over that material.
Many of us would not read or post to Slashdot if we were not concerned about issues like privacy, the GPL, and IP. While nothing, in my opinion, ever justifies hate mail, nobody should at least have been surprised that many Slashdotters would be concerned about this.
(IANAL)
So, as a lawyer, so you want to tell us whether the fair-use provisions of copyright law allow for the reprinting of comments? It seems to me that anyone can quote *parts* of a comment, under fair
use. Does the law change if an entire, short
comment is quoted?
Also, what about the following analogy. Say I make a oral comment in an obviously public way. Is it illegal for someone to print my public comments? (I *own* my own oral comments -- at least certainly no one else does.)
If it is not legal to print the comments in a book, then is the Slashdot archive illegal?
If someone doesn't want to be quoted I believe they have the right not to, or is this just the begining of Katz's next book about the horrors of IP?
Screw the sanctimonious idealism here, this thing is going to be a tax write off for its authors/producers while you get absolutly nothing not even your right to protest who's using your writing.
Sue the bastards, after all if the book flops because your post(s) is missing, then the best writing in the book WAS your post and you deserve a piece of the pie, whether you decide to give it to charity is your business. If it is well written book it won't need to rely on your post. By adding all these posts it sounds like it really isn't and posters deserve credit, rights, and royalties.
Regardless of what cprincipe says, writers have rights and its ok to hate Jon Katz.
If all the content is FREE and ONLINE, why the book? Who is this magical demographic who would pay to read this stuff compiled from a hack author when its here to be seen by all the 'moms' in the world? Free, unedited and in its original form. Can't beat that.
This book and posts, regardless of how important you think they are, are definatly niche items, they seem all important to the 'geek' but to the paranoid parents and church ladies its not worth the 10 bucks. To those who are really interested in it, why buy the book when you've read the best parts of it already? Maybe we won't tell them its online, or Rob and company can remove it to help sales.
In the end, this is just an unethical attempt to create a commercial product from the contributions of many people who weren't even considered for their opinions on the matter. If we're going to 'chill out' about something, lets let the ignorant zeal of idealism die down and think about whats really happening here.
I suppose you're right.. We couldn't have decided..
.sig: Now legally binding!
This is exactly the issue we cite time and time again whenever we get in a pisser over DVD and the MPAA. Fair use. Slashdot's use of the posts constitutes fair use. They are not representing the content as their own, they are using the posts as fuel for the book. This is also not a Jane's situation. Jane's solicited our comments for the express use of publication, and the comments were the story, per se.
/. ??
Do we want to be hypocrites? Shall we scream 'fair use' at the MPAA and scream 'but you're stealing my property'
A wee bit of advance notice would have been nice though.. I don't think we'd be in such an uproar if we had known of the book before publication..
.sig: Now legally binding!
First of all, I agree that the legal risk is probably very small. However, we've all seen how the legal system (doesn't) work, and /. could be opening themselves up to those sorts of arguments.
Second of all, I don't consider copyrighting my posts to be childish. In fact, I make my living as a writer. Not once have I said that "data should be free." Now, unlike some others, all I ask is that I recieve due credit for what I've written. All Rob or Jon Katz or anyone needs do is ask me for permission and I'd be glad to allow them that.
The fact is, I really don't have too much of a beef about the book and its publication. I just don't want /. getting into a legal can of worms over it. I agree that if you post anonymously, you pretty much lose any control over your words. However, if I post in a public forum, I give my consent only for my words to be used in that forum. As the bottom of /. says, I don't give up my rights to those words, and neither do you. You or I can choose to public domain your comments, and that's fine. I was really just trying to make a point with that - since you called me on it here's a better alternative that's more in line with the spirit of the Free and Open Software world that I still consider myself a part of.
This post is covered under the Open Content Public License.
First of all, I do find one aspect of this story troubling. We've been told that these people want their stories out - did they specifically say so or was that just assumed? If they said they wanted their words to be published in a medium other than /. , then that's perfectly fine.
However, if it was just assumed that they wanted their stories told, that's treading on some very thin ice. Legally, it's probably OK, but I think that people are right in pointing out the serious ethical issues this raises. If someone were to tell me anonymously that they were sexually molested by their parents, do I have a right to put that in a book and publish it? Sure, there's probably no chance that anyone would be able to trace it back to that particular person, but would that person ever trust me with confidential information ever again? Probably not.
Now, in all fairness, those posts are still readable, archived on /. for all to see. Publishing them in a book only makes them accessable to a wider audience, most of whom have probably seen the posts already.
There's one final thing I want to point out, a dangerous prescedent that might be set here. If an AC posts something, and /. publishes it in a separate form, that could be considered /. saying that they "own" the content of posts. That would mean that /. has a legal responsiblity as a publisher for the content of *every* post made on /. Should a certain Ms. Portman wish to sue the living blazes out of /. for some very defamatory comments made about her, all her lawyers need do is hold up that book and call /. a publisher. Now, I'm no lawyer, and I make no claims about the legal accuracy of this, but it is something I think could very well be probable.
The addition of an opt-out system should be an A1 priority for the next Slash upgrade, and I'd start seriously looking at the legal ramifications of this move.
The preceding comments are (C)2000 Wombat Control. Reproduction in any form requires the explicit written consent of the author.
I did think it was a bit sad to see all the posts that rip on Katz on the publishing/copyright issue. If it was anyone other than him I doubt it would happen. This book isn't for profit. Considering the situation, I think taco/hemos and Katz handled everything pretty well.
I'll probably buy the book too, maybe even from amazon.com. As much as I appreciate protests, I think the shlashdot community goes on too many jihad's, whether it's against amazon, Katz, or whoever. Don't get me wrong, I usually see slashdot as a kind of defender of freedom, I just wish people would understand that every corporation, every person, and all your ancestors have blood on their hands and skeletons in their closet. I think we need to cut Katz some slack.
I suppose maybe /. is analogous to having a bunch of people scrawl graffiti on a huge wall owned by Andover.net. Andover.net doesn't own the scrawl, the writer's don't own the scrawl, it's just "out there" in the public domain. Anybody who want's to look can look, anybody can refuse to look if they don't want to.
This situation could probably be alleviated by changing the disclaimer from "Comments are owned by the Poster" to "Comments are in the public domain and not the responsibility of Andover.net" or something like that. Of course that subtly changes the nature of the whole thing, now doesn't it? But really thats the result of what CmdrTaco, JonKatz, and Hemos (in the posts yesterday) are arguing for.
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
FPhlyer has posted 1 comments (this only counts the last few weeks)
Do you honestly think that my comments or yours would really be missed? If you are submitting a comment to a public forum for ALL to read you are contradicting yourself.
Sure, the comment is owned by the poster but you've voluntarily responded to a public forum being published on the net. Publishing in a book is just another means of distribution. By posting, you signified intent that you want your opinions to be shared. What does the medium have to do with it? Instead of being locked forever in 1's and 0's, your comment would be locked forever in paper.
Do you realize that at this very moment your words are not only sitting on Slashdot but in hundreds/thousands of other netizens browser cache (or perhaps only the moderators and mine)? Perhaps multiple times? Did you intend this to happen? What if they link to your comment off another site. Are you going to get uppity over that because you didn't intend it?
Slashdot/JonKatz/whoever isn't taking credit for your post but they are giving the ability for others to read it. They are the ones making the initiative to get posted and privately e-mailed stories & comments out to a larger % of the public (until everyone has a computer & net access).
You sound ignorant as to the way data works. If you can get at it so that it is useable, it can be re-distributed ANYWHERE. A dinky little button DOES NOT GUARANTEE JoeSchmoe isn't going to make a comment harvester and broadcast your stuff on another site. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to keep your comment on this site if it can be read.
Do you also foolishly think that any other copy protection scheme by the recording and movie industry will actually fly if you still have the ability to view the material on their proprietary box?
I guess you've already solved your problem: If you don't want it seen, don't post it.
Then again, perhaps you just wanted Karma.
--Clay
There is no blanket answer to the question that will make everyone happy.
No, there is. The poster owns the copyright to the post. Since the Berne Convention, you own a copyright to everything you write, even when a copyright statement does not appear. For something to go into public domain, the author has to place very explicit statement to that effect.
====
. Archiving is part of Slashdot, and posters are not given a choice on whether or not their posts are archived.
S C/17usc.txt
,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.
I posted this earlier, but it is relevant and refutes your point:
From http://www.etext.org/Politics/Conspiracy/AJTeel/U
(On anthologies:)
"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."
As Jon said, requests not to reproduce the comments were honored. So in future, if you don't want what you say in a public forum to be reproduced for charity or for anything else, then ask for it not to be.
The onus is not on the author to ask not to be reproduced. The author has a copyright by default. The onus is on the publisher to ask for permission to reproduce.
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It occured to me that it might be a good idea to donate at least some of the money to the families of those killed in the Columbine tradgedy. There are a number of reasons for this:
1) It makes it absolutely clear to everyone that we are in no way trying to justify the attackers actions.
2) The families have more power than they realize. With the intense media focus on them, thier attitudes and statements can strongly influence future descisions. If we donate money to them, they will become aware of the book and perhaps even read it. Hopefully, then they might realize where the real roots of problems in public shools lie. If the families ever decide to "take action", then they might just end up doing the right thing.
3) Making a donation to them would generate media attention in and of itself, thus making the general public aware of the book.
I know these seem like all the wrong reasons to give money to charity, and I am aware that there are others that could make better use of the money. But this would accomplish alot towards our goal and in the end might end up helping the most people.
thePsychotron
Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
I don't see what the big deal is here. People who post to Slashdot post to a public forum, available to the whole world. They post so that their comments are out there, in the public domain. No one is under the impression this is a private chat room.
So why anyone has a problem with their previous publicly posted comments being available merely in a different media, with what is likely to be a smaller audience, is beyond me.
Is the problem with lack of credit? If there were user names, what would that solve, since very few people seem to post under their real names, and there are many anonymous posts. I barely pay attention to any of the poster's names myself, those who never read Slashdot will not pay attention at all, and would not gain any useful information by learning that "MisterPudding" has posted an insightful comment about Columbine.
The mass media outlet known as the news is good for nothing as far as this issue goes. In my opinion they are partly responsible for these events by glamorizing it. People don't really care about it, they just want to make you think so. For instance, the attorney general in Illinois (where I live unfortunately) is talking about enforcing the voluntary ratings system on vidieo games now. I hope you can get the word out about why Orwellian tactics are a bad idea in schools. I have to go. The thought police are coming to get me.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
I think the real issue here is that the posts were just taken and used without any kind of prior notice and no chance for those who would like to avoid publication to voice their objections. Next time, tell us what you intend to do...how hard would it be to post a story titled "Slashdot Considering Hellmouth Book"? Give us a chance to voice our opinions before the decision is made, hey?
-- WhiskeyJack
I know that if I _had_ been a slashdot reader at the time of the original hellmouth, I certainly would have posted the bad experiences I've been having for the past few months in highschool, and I know that Icertainly would want this to be published so that other people know that they're not alone in their pain. Just a few weeks ago, I was accused of saying that I was going to bring a weapon (I assume a gun) and blow everyone away. In fact, this is routinly suggested by classmates as something that I'd do, merely because I read a lot and don't talk to a lot of people, and when I finnally read all the original hellmouth stuff yesterday, I was happy and on the verge of tears that _so_ many people were experiencing what I was feeling. So jon, I really feel that slashdot is doing the right thing by publishing this hellmouth stuff, it certainly moved me, and I"d like it to move non-slashdot readers. I, in fact, plan to buy 2 or three copies for myself to distribute to principals or school board members. Thank you!
I really don't think they they're even gonna put it on book shelves. And everytime someone goes into B&N (the store :)) and see columbine, they're gonna buy it, I guarantee that it will be bought by a few non-/.ers. I think it'd be terriffic if they'd put it on shelves, esspeccially for people like me who don't have a credit card to use at thinkgeek and don't think mom & dad'll buy it for me.
well, the comments and e-mails added to the book (as far as I can tell) are in response to columns that Jon wrote. Since these columns are the basis for the book, and Jon wrote them, it makes sense that his name is on the book.
-fp
So to get the comments out to a wider audience, you are going to publish a book and sell it for ~$15... Will that REALLY get it to a wider audiance? Is the publisher going to do any publicity on the book? Are you going to be on Oprah? Or is the book just going to sit on bookstore shelves, being bought only by those /. readers who feel for whatever reason they should buy a copy?
How about posting the entire content of the book to a website so people can read it online for free. If you're not making a profit, then why not? It can't hurt profits if there aren't supposed to be any. And that might help get to a wider audience.
If you want to suggest that this is just to "get the word out" I'd like to hear about how you plan on announcing this to the people you wish to hear these words. Obviously you don't really intend this to be for /. readers only, you want this to be for those who don't read Slashdot and for those who aren't Internet savvy. Don't just publize this on Slashdot if you want to get the word out, get it in the public eye.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
11:25 AM 4/21/00 Yesterday, in the midst of media frenzy over this bleak "anniversary", I sent out a message to some of my friends with a link to John Katz' essay "The Price of Being Different" in order take advantage of the opportunity I saw to raise some awareness. Then I read the news about this new book and smiled. My story: When I was in junior high, my step-mother freaked out because I was quiet, withdrawn (her perception), always reading tech manuals or tinkering with electronics, dressing in black jeans, black T-shirts, black boots, had a piercing, and listened to punk music. Her "solution" was to ban punk rock, and to buy me clothes that I didn't want to wear. School was even worse. I was easily identified as different from a hundred yards away. I endured verbal and even physical attacks on a regular basis from people whose names I did not know. I learned to fight in self-defense, and got to be very good at it. As I went through junior high and high school, I saw a number of my geeky friends get beaten into submission and conformity. By the time we were 18, they were unrecognizable and indistinguishable from all the others that I graduated with. Now most of them have ordinary, average, dull lives. I stuck it out. I knew who I wanted to be, and I've worked hard to become that person. My junior high story dates back to 1980, when I was 14. The tech manuals were for a TRS-80, the electronics were cb radios that I was trying to fix, the piercing was in my ear (daring back then), and the punk came from Devo, Sex Pistols, Blondie and the like (Yes, Blondie was considered "punk" in 1980). My step-mom was concerned that I was suicidal because of recent media reports about suicidal teens and their prediliction for punk music. In typical media fashion, they were obviously confusing cause and effect, and in typical "mom" fashion, she over-reacted. I made it through my adolescence, and thank the powers-that-be that I will never have to go back to it. But now I have two daughters, age 8 and 10, who are also intelligent, technical, questioning, and feeling social pressures. I worry about them -- that they will lose their individuality. I've already seen my daughter's second-grade teacher raise "concerns" to me that "K" is withdrawn at times, or that she is making friends with boys rather than girls, or whatever. I tell my kids that they are wonderful and perfect the way that they are, and I hope that they have the guts to make it through to adulthood while staying true to themselves. But I still worry. As for myself, when I finally see this book in stores, I plan to buy a copy for every public school and library in my town. Just like the email message I sent out to my friends yesterday, this tome could be used as an opportunity to make some small difference. Our culture's perceptions and fears of geeks go back centuries to stories of wizards, alchemists, and mad scientists. Things haven't changed much. As a group, I think that we should work together for social acceptance, or at least tolerance, so that my kids (and their kids) will not have to go through the same day-to-day trauma that I and thousands of others have endured, or are still trudging through (for you younger folk). I believe in this book! I hope that those of you whose posts contributed directly to it will be able to see the value in it, and get over your personal feelings of "offense" or "betrayal" for what I see as the greater good. Sean Lewis seant@geek.com Portland, Oregon
Uncle Sam sent me to the Persian Gulf, and all I got was this lousy Syndrome!
What's the problem with including anonymous submissions to Slashdot in this book? Why would anybody care?
Look, you posted the comments anonymously. That means there is no way to trace you back. Sure, there might be server logs -- but come on! Why would Katz or any of the Slashdot crew go through the time and trouble to pair up web server logs, hunt down IPs, trace them back to an ISP, and through some MIRACLE find out who you were. That's SILLY and totally, totally impractical.
Katz's little opus here has a lot of merit to it. People posting in the under the guise of anonymity share more information -- information that can be used in this book.
Seriously, you all post anonymous comments and then get mad when they get published for a profit. You think Slashdot doesn't make a profit already? All that ad revenue comes in because of the hits and the hits are caused by returning traffic -- traffic that READS your COMMENTS. Oh God forbid, a PROFIT IS MADE!
Seriously, if my comments were included I'd be rather flattered. Unfortunately I never posted on the whole Hellmouth issue. If I had, and my comments were published in a book, I'd be sort of thrilled.
All you whiners need to grow up. It's not a GPL world and, hopefully, it never will be.
Luis Casillas asks:
So, really, who owns the posts?
I thought it covered that. There is no blanket answer to the question that will make everyone happy. Since the question can't be answered collectively, Slashdot will soon have a feature that allows you to answer that question for your own posts.
And what if one of the featured decides that the published version is too personal, and, despite of the alterations for privacy, all too personal and identifiable?
Then there's a problem. Either the person can quietly stew and be generally upset, or yell and scream, making themselves even more visible. This isn't a perfect world we live in, and some things just don't have easy solutions.
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Open mind, insert foot.
But the article does not address the issue its own title raises _at all_ beyond suggesting the emails/posts _should_ be in the public domain.
So, really, who owns the posts?
And what if one of the featured decides that the published version is too personal, and, despite of the alterations for privacy, all too personal and identifiable?
I read the outpouring of venom on the announcement of the Hellmouth book, and admiteddly I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this user-comment/ownership stuff.
I was especially concerned that there wasn't a Taco/Hemos post (if there was a missed it, please correct me) that DIRECTLY addressed the question of a perceived incosistency between the "comments owned by poster" text on the Slashdot footer and the charachterization by Hemos of the posts as "a public forum".
HOWEVER, Rob's comments above resolve any concerns I could see with any of this for two very important reasons:
1) Rob informed us that this book WOULD be available electronically, and presumably, this means free of charge - (again, please correct me if I'm wrong). This means that we can make the choice to whether we wish to support the chosen charitable organizations involved with the book in harmony with reading and passing along the important messages it contains. Feeling free to pass the text of this book around to as many people as possible seems like something I WANT to do; I'd be willing to host a mirror of the text on a non-commercial area of my web sites. I'm assuming if it's deemed helpful I could be called on to do so.
2) Rob has stated that we will have the ability to designate our comments as "proprietary" or "public" as soon as possible. This is a very Good Thing on multiple levels: the level of confusion this will clear up on Slashdot, and knowing that the Slash code, and presumably this new functionality, will be "open", it will be possible to use this code as inspiration for the ame functionality in Slash and other GPL'd weblog applications, like the one I use, PHPSlash.
I don't always post "pro-slashdot" sentiments, so I stand by my objectivity, but Rob/Hemos/Katz deserve a ton of credit and respect here, and those who would otherwise need to grow up.
I post on this forum because it is freely available to the world. I understand the philosophical unease someone might have with formerly "free" comments being gathered and edited for a non-free publication, for someone else's benefit.
People post comments, to make their ideas heard, but their choice of forum is also a comment, if that makes sense. Some people want ideas to be exchanged freely. I know I feel that way, and so I don't willingly donate my free time to creating content that someone else plans to package and sell.
I suspect I'm not alone in feeling this way. (Though I stop short of condemning this book. My feelings are mixed on this subject.)
ObOT: I am, however, livid about Slashdot's new affiliation w/ DoubleClick. I encourage all readers to grab a fresh copy of Junkbuster and terminate Slashdot's ad revenue w/ extreme prejudice.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
OK,
for the record you may republish any and all of my posts as long as you cite the author... please just be responsible and follow basic Open Content guidelines.
However, I think that if you're going to use our posts from a public forum, you ought to make the book freely available on the web. This only seems appropriate given how you obtained (at least some) of it's content, and considering how important some of that material might be for teens unable or unwilling to purchase the publication on paper.
...is a collection of columns written last year, and the excerpts chosen by a book editor. I didn't assemble it. Of course, they are my columns. Is there something here I'm missing, or that isn't clear?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
That would be fine, except for the fact that there's a copyright disclaimer at the bottom of every page on Slashdot, and it reads
The emphasis is mine. "Comments are owned by the Poster" What does this mean if, anything? I believe it means that Slashdot gives up their public-domain claims on Poster's comments -- if not in a legal sense then at least in the broader moral sense. If it doesn't mean that, then what does it mean?That's not a rhetorical question, Rob. I'd like to see an answer. What do you intend "ownership" to mean, if anything?
--Jim
You make an excellent point here. If the comment is owned by the poster, what right does anybody (including andover) have to use the post in any fashion other than that to which the poster originally intended? Personally, I have a real problem knowing that any comments that I might post to slashdot might appear at any time in a book. I really feel that this Hellmouth book has done a GREAT dis-service to the Slashdot Community. YRO: Who owns your Slashdot comments? I can't say it enough. This REALLY BUGS ME. I have NEVER intended for my Slashdot Comments to be used outside of the Slashdot forum. But here is something you CAN quote me on: This will be my final post to Slashdot, UNLESS these guys can give me a button on the Post Comment page to opt out of having my comment used in a forum outside of Slashdot. And that won't be too hard. Just give me a little button that says "Do you consent to allowing John Katz to further his career by using your comment in his next book? . ------------------------------------------- As the owner of the above post, I do not give permission to any entity to use my post in a forum outside of slashdot.org. -------------------------------------------
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Fair use is covered in Circular 21 (pdf). I found this part quite interesting:
Looking at the above list of factors, it would seem that 1 and 4 may be problematic. The book is clearly commercial (even if the profits are going to charity), and the included posts influence the market potential of the book considerably (i.e., they are the market potential for the book). There isn't clearly a problem, IMO, but I would definitely want an IP lawyer to take a look at the book before it was published.OTOH, reading down a little, it appears that comments can safely be reprinted in their entirety without violating the authors copyright--in particular, it states that short stories, which are far more substantial than most posts, can be used in their entirety. The caveat is that this specific example only applies to classroom use (these are the provisions for educational use), but it would seem to imply that shorter works can be reprinted safely. (Of course 'imply' doesn't mean much, legally.)
-jcl
I bet none of the people who are quoted in the book have any problem with it. Unless you are one of the people quoted in the book and you have a problem with it, it doesn't really matter what you think, now does it?
Where I come from this borders on plagiarism
People keep bandying around the word plagiarism and that is 100% dead wrong. Plagiarism is taking someone elses work and claiming it to be your own. I'm assuming these quotes are simply anonymous. Like this:
One Slashdot reader commented, "I'm a blithering idiot, and a zealot to boot!"
There's a huge difference between that and plagiarism. They aren't even in the same ball park. Not to mention that accusing an author of plagiarism is somewhat akin to accusing a judge of accepting bribes, or a sports player of throwing a game. It strikes right at the heart of their profession and isn't an accusation that should be leveled lightly.
--GnrcMan--
Although there may be copyright issues involving a post, when an actor or politician says something in public there's always the possibility that he can be quoted. The same thing applies here. Thousands already read your post so what's the problem with a few more? If you didn't want your opinion to be heard why voice it in the first place?
Well, there are quite a number of issues here.
First off, there is a difference between quoting and publishing. When somoene is quoted, only a part of a larger text is re-printed. When text is re-printed in its entirely, the rules for quoting do not usually apply.
It should also be noted that things said in public are not in the public domain. For instance, a speech given in public can still be copyrighted. The same applies to sporing events and concerts. Just because a song is played in an open forum certainly does not mean that it can be re-produced or re-broadcast.
What concerns me most though is that no attempt was made to contact the authors and verify the stories, as this is one of the most important tennants of responsible journalism. Putting something in print that was submitted anonymously is just flat out irresponsible.
This story has the potential to be an excellent and very powerful book. It is too bad that is nothing more (in essesnce) than a collection of sound bites. Welcome to reporting in the 21st century...
Hardly. There are other issues involved here, such how the book characterizes Slashdot, and by extension, its users. It would be disingenuous for the book to cite only comments that support his thesis, and then pass this off as the collective work of the Slashdot community, as there were and are dissenters here on even the least controversial issues. If the book implies that everybody here feels that geeks are abused during HS, then that is providing a false impression.
In addition, it would be decent to cite entire threads -- and whether or not that occurred has not been mentioned. Realize that this is a *discussion* board and *not* a board for posting isolated messages that must stand alone...
The issue of anonymity hurts the credibility of any such work. Many of us, if sufficiently bored, could probably employ multiple writing styles and positions in order to simulate an entire discussion under the 'Anonymous Coward' epithet. Without at least making some effort to verify individuality and authenticity, the book could not really claim anything much stronger than, "These messages appeared on Slashdot and were attributed to (x) different accounts".
Quoting people without giving credit, in a published work, raises ethical issues; while there may be a right to quote, one may argue that there IS a responsibility to offer credit. I really would not WANT to be identified on such a permanent medium, out of context, but perhaps some of the posters WOULD want that option. That providing this option might be a tedious burden does not absolve the editors of it, any more than "taxes being onerous" is a legitimate argument for accepting the benefits of citizenship and residency without paying.
Finally, there are ethical issues about using the speech of others to support charities, most of which work for causes that some of us may oppose...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I once read an interview with Weird Al Yankovic, where he said that he would sometimes perform parodies of popular songs without permission, then hope for forgiveness later.
But what annoys me most about how Slashdot has handled the whole affair is how incredibly self-righteous the Slashdot editors have been about it. There is no tone of apology or asking of forgiveness, such as "We used your posts without permission, we thought it was important, but we're sorry about it."
Instead, what we have is a big brotherly, condescending, holier than thou attitude. To paraphrase: "We know they would have wanted their comments in the book"
or "the few (loud) people for whom this is a major stumbling block should most certainly be allowed to determine the destiny of their own words" (translation: you whiners, you should be ashamed of yourselves)
or "it's a public forum. We can quote you without asking."
I don't think anyone here would seriously object to having their posts appear in a book. But what we want is to be asked first. It's a simple principle really, and goes a long way towards showing regard for you readers.
If asking isn't possible, then do as Weird Al Yankovic does, and ask for forgiveness. The condescending and righteous attitude displayed by the editors is disgusting.
====
I have to admit that I was a little surprised (not in a good way) that posts from the whole Hellmouth series were being published.
Then I thought about some of the things that were said - the feelings that were expressed (I had some A/C posts in the threads somewhere)and the experiences shared. I realized that I didn't just want my words heard by the Slashdot community. That's preaching to the converted. There is a whole, wide world out there that has to learn of the impact of growing up a geek can be - and the scars that it leaves.
I am still a little ambivalent about the whole thing -- but I have enough trust in Rob & Co to let them run with this ball and see where it takes us.
I would suggest that the money go to youth outreach groups - ones that could make a difference for younger versions of all of us.
An almost final thought: a little warning would have been nice that this was coming out. As hurtful as some of the responses were - I think a lot of that was out of surprise, and perhaps, a feeling that perhaps Slashdot might be using its community to promote their own agendas. And then again, the whole thing involved JonKatz -- which causes AutoFlame/Trollz.
Final note: I bought the book yesterday. And sent it to my parents. I never could make them understand why my highschool years were hell. Hopefully the thousands of words in this book will paint the picture.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
While a discussion of ownership is an interesting one, abstractly, in this case it seems many of you are missing the true point here. Anyone who followed the media's coverage of this "anniversary" would have seen many stories discussing culpability that variously put things in the laps of the police, the parents (of Harris and Klebold), various flavors of media/stimulation - but hardly a word was said about the systemic abuse perpetrated against the "different" by not only fellow students, but the "adults" in schools as well.
I work in a high school and not five minutes ago one of the brightest students here approached me and said that she'd been dragged into the office by the "Life Skills" teacher (irony, eh? - and note that the word "teacher" form here on out is used questioningly) for her "inappropriate" dress. After making the kid sit for a half-hour the teacher asked this student what her G.P.A. was and when the student (honestly) replied that it was a 4.0 the teacher sneered, "Kids like you don't get good grades".
If "Hellmouth" can instigate the _necessary_ dialogue on these issues then I'm all for it and, frankly, bless Jon and Slashdot and Andover for putting it together.
I personaly think that publishing that book is a good thing, and I love that it will also be available in electronic form for free. I do not understand why so many people are upset about it, maybe it's a cultural thing but I don't get what is so bad about someone else making profit from your work (as long as the original work is still accessible and free for other to use and modify). When I post on a public forum, I simply assume that my post might be used by other in ways I never imagined, that's what free communication is all about. Why should the poster care if someone is making a profit from his work? I tought that was what the internet was all about, the sharing of information. The real question is, can I take this book that was made not for profit but to share information, copy it and sell or give away the copies? If not, then that is wrong.
English is not my first language, but feel free to criticize my spelling and grammar if that's your thing.
IIAL, and I just wanted to make a few comments. First of all, the fact that this site has "The following comments are owned by whoever posted them" on every discussion page is very important. This sentence doesn't just absolve Slashdot from all responsibility for the content of the posts, it actually confers ownership to the posters. It seems like the Slashdot administrators would like to have it both ways: for the disclaimer to mean that the site is not responsible for the content, while at the same time having the people posting them really not having the right to them. I've seen a few posts about this being a "public" forum, etc, and that because of this they have the right to reproduce the comments and make a profit from them. This just isn't true. First of all, from a legal standpoint, this has no merit. Slashdot would have to post some sort of disclaimer in the membership agreement (or on the page where people submit comments) saying that they reserve the right to reproduce the comments in the future, etc. for them to be able to do so without asking permission. Just because it was "too difficult" for them to obtain permission from everyone doesn't make it legal not to do so. Sure, you've got Jon Katz saying how these stories needed to be told. Maybe that's true morally, but it doesn't make the situation any more right legally.
As far as I can tell, the bulk of the content was written by Jon Katz for slashdot, as opposed to being written for the book. Some content was included from other slashdot posters. The employees of Slashdot did the editing, and Andover did the publishing. Therefore, Jon Katz should get authorship credit, since he wrote most of the material.
Disclaimer: I was not involved in the production of the book, the above is merely my interpretation of various comments by Jon Katz, Commander Taco and Hemos.
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Open mind, insert foot.
At risk of sounding harsh, then they shouldn't have posted them to start with.
Look, folks: how many people read Slashdot on a frequent basis? How many people see any given article or high-rated comment? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
How many people have seen a substantial part of the "Hellmouth" series? At least tens of thousands? Closer to hundreds of thousands?
More than you think than will see a book with a print run of, say, 25,000? I've worked in publishing. 25,000 would be an big run for a first printing of something that didn't have the name Danielle Steel or Stephen King on it.
Wake up, folks. These posts have already been published. There are some valid copyright concerns in theory, but I don't think this can be said to set a "once online, all rights are lost" precedent. (You can, of course, kiss first serial rights in all countries goodbye, but that's another story.)
The change in media is irrelevant--the question is only whether or not this falls under "fair use" provisions of copyright. If you're prepared to argue that it doesn't, you'd better be prepared to argue against
...you can see where I'm going with this. The media and the distribution of that media aren't relevant to copyright concerns; you don't get to say that those examples are okay but the Voices from the Hellmouth book isn't simply because there's a chance you'll be able to find it at Borders.
I'm not going to name names, but there are a bunch of you who regularly post GPL-the-world, proprietary anything is bad, MP3s deserve to be free, intellectual property is a myth, type posts. Now these same people are whining that their slashdot comments are being quoted in a book.
How does it feel now? are you going to stop posting anti-copyright diatribes, or do you just think your writing is more deserving of legal protection than anyone else's?
Notice: I grant permission to the slashdot editors to reprint my comments in part or whole in any form, with or without contacting me.
The above is now in my user bio section, I encourage everyone else who feels the same way to put something similar in their info.
0 1 - just my two bits
Putting something in print that was submitted anonymously is just flat out irresponsible.
You had me, right up until this statement.
In the middle of an insightful, well-reasoned post, this is just rubbish.
If you submit something to Slashdot anonymously, you're not sending it to small, secret group of people; you're sending it directly to several tens of thousands of people worldwide, and you're listing it on search engines where it'll show up to anybody typing a keyword or two.
What would be irresponsible would be backtracking the Anonymous postings to identify their poster, so he could be credited; that would completely undermine people's confidence in the anonymity of their postings, and have a chilling effect on a tool that's getting a lot of important messages moved from inside people's brains (where they often aren't accomplishing much) and out into the wide world, where they sometimes are accomplishing useful things.
Slashdot isn't a private messagebase on a BBS somewhere, it's a public forum.
It's a bit like a big reader-edited newspaper, which doesn't really have parallels in the non-virtual world because it's not feasible without Tim Berners-Lee's amazing invention.
I assure you, when we collectively interview somebody, he doesn't assume he's speaking to use in our living rooms privately; he assumes he's being published.
If you post something to Slashdot anonymously, the very act of making it anonymous removes any right you have to hope it remains unpublished, because you've made it unattributable.
Let me start by saying that I think that the book is a good thing. I think that the way it was done is a bad thing.
/. page."
I agree that this is a story that must be told. I think that it is extemely important that "freaks and geeks" not be persecuted for being different.
There was a right way to do it. Unfortunately, Andover et. al. didn't choose that way.
In reading the comments in this thread I've seen a number that express the idea "The issue is too important to worry about the legal issues." or "We have a moral imperative that supercedes any other issues."
This is the same argument used to murder abortion doctors. This is the same argument that is being used to keep a young Cuban boy from his father. This is the same argument used to destroy research projects and careers in the name of animal rights. This is the same argument used by the religious right against gays. It is used everytime someone 'knows' what is right for everyone else.
And this is the same argument used by the Pinkerton company to run roughshod over the rights of kids whose only "crime" is that they are different.
The outrage I have with Andover et. al. is not that they put together this book or even the way they did it. My problem is the attitude they are now displaying after the issues were raised. "We know best." "We are above the law." "We don't have to stand by what is written on every
For better or worse we (at least in the US) live by the rule of law, not by the rule of force (in theory at least). You may not like the fact that abortions are permitted, or gays have rights, or that animals are used in experiments, or that kids who are different get persecuted. But you do not have the right to take matters into your own hands and ignore the rights of others.
I find CmdrTaco's, Jahn Katz's, and Andover's actions both unfortunate and disturbing.
Steve M
Although I didn't select the messages in this about-to-be published collection, (Since I am legally under contract to another book publisher, I couldn't directly participate in the production of the book,
Ok, then, who did write the book and why is your name on the cover?
-p.
I'm just a little feller. I don't post early and often, I'm not 1337, and I've only read half of the DMCA.
/. take IP seriously. Whether it's software patents or click-through licenses or copy protection or GPL, there's a lot of posts and a lot of argument about it. I know it's a topic that I think is interesting and important.
But I'm standing up with you. And Jon and Rob. I hope the book spreads some consciousness about the almost-timeless problem of adolescence, how rough it is for most people, and how most people cope with it okay without losing their sanity, and what can help them make it through instead of making it harder.
I think it is a good thing, and is the right thing, and I salute the people who went to the effort of doing it. From the kids brave enough to tell the world about their pain and humiliation, to the folks at Andover (who are NOT going to make a lot of money at this, I expect), to Jon and Rob, who also endure more pain and humiliation than they should have to.
Now here's my two cents on the intellectual property mess.
It seems that lots of people on
Now, I'm not as rabidly paranoid as some others, so I think that Jon and Rob are not cleverly scheming to use other people's work for their own devious purposes. I expect that most of the stories published are:
- not from the people whining about their rights to their posts
- from people who wanted to tell their story, and would be honored to have it more widely published
- quite possibly fair use.
But I don't know, and neither does almost anyone who's posted about it. Therefore, maybe we should wait until it comes out and see if anyone whose work is published feels like their rights have been infringed before we unleash all our righteous rage. There are things Jon has said that I've thought were inaccurate conclusions, but that hardly seems reason to presume that this book is going to have infringing material in it that the copyright owner's going to be upset about.
In the this-isn't-the-law-but-it's-what-I-think-is-right
category, I don't think anyone's going to make a lot of profit from this. So I don't really feel that anyone's liable to benefit overmuch from someone else's talent. And the only situation that I can imagine someone getting hurt from their post being published is if they sent to Slashdot expecting that no one they knew would read it, and when it is published as a book, someone does read it and is able to identify them, and they didn't want anyone they knew to read it. But this seems somewhat unlikely. No undue benefit, probably no undue harm -- in my little world, there's no foul.
And if in your little world, there's some horrible moral lapse or negligence that _might_ be going on, maybe hold judgement and a little trust that the good guys we know and love are doing a good job, until you see the end product?
Bob
I've really only seen two types of angry arguments from the /. crowd over this book. Some people are upset that a whole sentence or two of what they posted in an already public forum is being spread into a more public forum. The rest of the people are complaining that /. is just selling out, trying to make money by exploiting the community it has. I'm pretty sure they've said numerous times that this book is not making them any profit.
What I haven't seen much of is criticism of the underlying idea, which is that the people publishing this book, and the posts and emails that were quoted in it are trying to fight a culture that has allowed a tradgedy to get far out of hand.
Why are you whining that Katz is trying to speak out on behalf of people who need a voice? In this case, it doesn't sound like he's really trying to speak for the geek community as a whole (which he sometimes seems to do), but rather just relaying a message that has found much discussion among us.
I guess the point is, most of you need to stop your petty selfish whining. Shut up and swallow the whole "information should be free" concept. If you don't believe that, well, fair enough, but /. is a community built on sharing information, and if you don't like it, then maybe you shouldn't post here.
ps. - There have been a few posts of people actually arguing the real issue, and while they have point some valid points across, I don't think they're significant enough that they should prevent a spreading of the views of thousands of others.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Here's the text of an email I sent to Jon yesterday in response to learning about the publication of the book:
Thank you too, CmdrTaco!
'Nuf said.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Although there may be copyright issues involving a post, when an actor or politician says something in public there's always the possibility that he can be quoted. The same thing applies here. Thousands already read your post so what's the problem with a few more? If you didn't want your opinion to be heard why voice it in the first place?
--
|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
Everybody who is upset about getting their /. posts quoted in the book are upset because of one of two reasons:
Jon and Rob are not idiots. If they were to seek permissions for all the posts they chose to include, they would run into the following problems:
Grow up and get a life outside of /.
bun-fhuinneog agam!