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Linspire Accused Of Misusing Creative Commons Art
SuperDuG writes "Seems that intellectual property and copyright laws are something that Linspire still doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of. Their flash intro has with it some popular Linux images made by a rather talented artist. An email to Klowner was the first notice he ever got about the images being hijacked, not once has Linspire requested permission to use these images in their ad campaign. They seem pretty similar to me, you be the judge."
Aren't the images on kde-look public domain?
Why would you think that? Images in a public place, e.g. the internet, or for a GPL project are not public domain by default. They're under whatever terms their creator wants them to be.
Ha! I kill me!
If Linspire believes they have rights to Mark's images because they sponsor www.kde-look.org where his images are available as backgrounds?
I'm not saying they are right for taking, altering, and using the images without his permission. I, too, think they have violated the Creative Commons license. But I have seen cases where companies have appropriated images, information, and physical property from groups or organizations that they sponsor.
The companies believe they have paid for it with their sponsorship (wrongly, IMHO)
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Actually, the Creative Commons licenses work the other way - they allow the artist to forfeit some of his rights. Unless explicitly stated, every content published on the Web is the exclusive property of the author. As such, Linspire would have to approach the author and ask for permission to use his work. The CC license limits the ownership of the author, and in some, clearly stated cases (in this case the use for non-commercial purposes) other may use the author's work without prior permission.
I really respect that Lindows^WLinspire is doing what it can to give OSS an outlet to the non-/. public
That being said -- there is something about that organization that rubs me the Wrong Way
Another fact about this story that leaves me wondering -- the Klown website very sneakily says (paraphrased) as of 24 April is licensed under ... Well, inquiring minds want to know: PREVIOUS to 24 April, under which (if any) license was it released under?
Of course, I am sure I don't need to point out that under US Copyright law (assuming for the moment that the artist is producing his work in that country -- and Linspire is definitely based in the US ofA ), the mere production of the work attaches copyright to the creator of the work, and s/he is under no obligation whatsoever to delineate the ways in which it can be used by others.
This is important people: Whatever you write is copyright by definition. In absence of verbiage to the contrary (i.e. GPL, CC, BSD), nobody can usurp your product. Another question: Can someone who Is A Lawyer quote some caselaw on active-protection as applied to copyright? (I know how it applies to trademarks, but copyright != patent != trademark )
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Well, depending on how much the artist depends on art for his income, I'm not sure that it could be much worse. I use a great deal of commercial art in my work, and I think most of the people I contract with for artwork sell to me because they need to pay the rent (or enjoy RAII-approved CD now and then...). There is no excuse for a sizable commercial entity like Lindspire to be misusing other peoples work in even a small way (and, really, a flash intro on your flagship web site is not a small misuse).
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I don't think that's reasonable at all. If I'm a journalist, and I cover a free concert, does that mean I can't claim that time with my employer? Are my stories and photos public domain? In any other context, that doesn't make sense.
It's like the new Firefox logo. I don't get that either. Is it really proper to allow artists to make money off of GPLed code? It may very well be legal, but I don't think it's right.
Why not, anyone else is allowed to. You may have noticed Red Hat charges for GPL'd linux too. GPL doesn't necessarily mean free as in beer.
There's no hypocracy here at all...
Copyright is generally a neutral thing. It's neither good nor bad.
Music is generally considered something people want to share and is good. The problem is how expensive and restrictive the music has been and worse, how the RIAA has chosen to go about enforcing the copyright. Instead of addressing people's concerns, they've decided to sue people and create technology which limits freedom.
But no one that I know is against artists getting compensated.
Here, we have someone who is giving his art away, but with the restiction that if you use it to make money- you have to negotiate something with him. A company has decided to use his work for just that purpose. So now people are upset.
Not only is kde-look sponsored by Linspire (they pay a large chunk of the bandwidth), I distinctly remember when kde-look was going to the toilet because they couldn't afford their bandwidth. They were saved by the sponsorship of Linspire.
kde-look is appreciated and actively used by users of KDE for enhancing the look of their KDE desktop. Many theme writers and icon developers use it exclusively to post their KDE material.
It should also be made clear that a lot of the art of kde-look is given under a free license, not a none-commercial license.
Unless I see a post from the artist complaining about the use of his art, I'm going to consider this article a troll because of the weak tie-in to the Microsoft trademark dispute.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Previous to the recent application of license, WAS there a specific disclaimer that it was "free for all to use"? Or are you speculating that merely publishing an image on a website is an abandonment of rights of authorship?
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Does anyone here think critically?
Does all this Knee-Jerk, Anti-Lindows/Linspire trolling ever once take into account that as a corporation, Linspire/Lindows didn't say: "Hey! Let's go rip off as much stuff as possible, and not pay people for it..."
Can anyone consider the possibility that someone who made up that Flash Presentation used the material and didn't happen to mention they lifted it?
It happens all the time.
It doesn't require Linspire to be an evil company looking to rip people off, and make a buck off someone's work.
It just takes one person who isn't clear on copyrights, and assumed they could use that artwork without permission. They might not even have realized they were doing something wrong.
How many people do YOU know, who totally understand IP and Copyright laws?
I'm getting tired of the automatic Anti-Linspire sentiment expressed by most Linux people. Linspire has given back A LOT to the Linux community. They've donated big bucks to WINE, KDE, Reiser-FS, and other projects. Go check their website.
And if you read their financials in the item about their upcoming IPO, if they are making money... They've sure fooled everyone.
If your offer up your creative material with no copyright protection and state that it is free for all to use, why shouldn't Linspire (or for that matter Microsoft or SCO) feel free to use it?
Because if no specific license is offered, then basic copyright applies. This means you have no right to make derivatives, commercial or otherwise.
Prior to the addition of the CC license on Klowner's wallpaper site, there was no specific copyright, although standard international copyrights still hold.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
I agree completely about the GPL and profit; however, I would have to add that the Creative Commons license is more restrictive than the GPL. Otherwise I would suspect that the use in question here would be allowed.
They took an image (no argument here - illegally), made minor changes to it and are now commercially distributing it. If the Creative Commons license was similar to the GPL, then as long as the source to the image (the flash presentation could be considered a compiled work) was available - this would be allowed. The Creative Commons is more restrictive than the GPL.
If find it interesting that a license like Troll Tech's is considered so terrible (when it is much like the Creative Commons), but everyone is so understanding about artists rights.
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
"As of April 24th, the images are licensed under the Creative Commons License (Attribution/NonCommercial) which explicitly states that the work may not be used for commercial purposes, unless permission is provided by the author"
This is extremely interesting on many levels since the artist changed the licensing terms for his art 2.5 business days ago. What were the licensing terms before then? The artist doesn't say, and neither does his web site. I'm not saying the artist is right and Linspire is wrong, but these questions are entirely unanswered:
1. What were the pre-4/24 Creative Commons licensing terms? Did the artist change the terms after Linspire had already grabbed the art and used it? If so, it's pretty oily for an artist to change the licensing terms for their art *after the fact.* I'm not saying this happened, but to be blunt, there's no documentation either way.
2. By default, the user isn't obliged or required to notify the person whose art they're using as long as they abide by the CC license. Look it up and see for yourself on creativecommons.org.
3. The person posting this story says "not once has Linspire requested permission to use these images in their ad campaign." Uh, no shit Sherlock. If the artist's pre-4/24/04 license didn't forbid their use in a commercial medium, Linspire isn't required to get his permission - it's self-evident in the license.
Sorry, but until there are more details, the person posting this story may either be 100% right or 100% f*cked-in-the-head. For now, I'd hold off on crucifying Linspire until all the details are reported. So far, they haven't been...
What makes you say that? The have already used it. They will end up paying fair value for it, plus any lawyer fees.
It's all about damages. This artist has no reputation to damage. You seem to think that Joe Blow's art getting used is the same as Big Name Artist's art getting used. Sorry, it's not the same.
I get the impression from your comments that you think this is a minor infraction.
As a matter of fact, it is.
I take it you are not a commercial artist?
No, but I work with a real commercial artist. Very few artists make a lot of money from their art. Sorry, but this guy is not Wyeth. His art is worth about $100, and that's if I want to buy an original using traditional mediums
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
There are some questions to ask:
Where exactly did Linspire get the works from?
When they did get the works, what was the copyright notice?
I look at kde-look.org and there are no explicit copyright notices; yet the purpose of the system is to allow people to download and use backgrounds, suggesting an _implied _license that anyone who puts a background there is making it available for fairly unrestricted use. You like to argue this, but I am trained in Law and this is how it is intepreted. The "hairy" questions are always over "just what are the terms of this implied license", usually the courts have to argue about it.
Note that if you just put an image on your webpage, there is no implied license that you're allowing anyone to use it, so any copying other than the intended purpose of viewing and so on is infringement. However, when you put an image into a system that is _designed_ to allow people to download it, it can be said that you are agreeing to an implied license.
In fact, if you go to the kde-look and choose "Upload", you have to choose a license (GPL, LGPL, "Other", etc) for your work, but when you are a downloader, there is no display of the license. This is a problem that kde-look needs to fix.
It seems to me:
(a) the author (Klowner) and kde-look.org have a few issues to sort out regarding the proper clarification and visibibily of copyright licenses for their works;
(b) Linspire may be acting within the law, but we need to know more information;
In fact, in this case, kde-look could be liable: because if Klowner did apply the appropiate license on upload, but didn't display it for downloaders, yet Linspire relied in good faith upon an implied license, then in fact, neither Linspire or Klowner did anything wrong: the fault is with kde-look who negligently didn't indicate the proper rights for the work.
...although, under present copyright law, everything is "born copyrighted" whether there is any notice or not--to put up material on a public website without a copyright notice, as was apparently done before adopting the Creative Commons license, seems to me to be inviting infringement.
Sure, the Lindows folks should have known better--but so should Klowner.
Just how hard is it to write "Copyright [year] by [so-and-so], all rights reserved?"
When in doubt, add a copyright notice. Whether or not it actually changes the legal situation, it definitely changes people's behavior. Even if you plan to grant permission to just about anyone for just about anything, putting a copyright notice on your work greatly increases the probability that people will ask.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It's just another example of some heartless corporation who runs roughshod over the rights of the "little guy". We should do everything we can to negate the influence of this EVIL corporat...what? No, this is Windows they're talking abou...oh, you mean it's just a Windows lookalike...ohhhhhhh....
Nevermind.
(Dammit! So much for picking up a cheap +5 Insightful...)
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
If you meant the latter, there's no such thing as intellectual property laws. If you meant the former, then what do you mean by "intellectual property", and how is that different from copyright? After all, you did list them as two distinct things.
This has been your words-to-avoid public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
Nope, no sig
I myself have noticed alot of confusion concerning the usage of the creative commons licences. The original idea seemed simple to me - pick which clauses you want and list them. They even provided simple icons to help mark what your licence allows. But apparently alot of people just don't get it. I don't know how many sites I have seen that simply state that thier works are available under a creative commons license, without bothering to mention which one.
However the problem is not entirely the fault of the artists. I went back to the creative commons site today, and it took me ten minutes to find the original simple page explaining the different licences. Before that I went through their "Choose a licence" path it and they actually encourage people to mark the works on their websites vaguely as being under a creative commons licence. To get the terms of the specific license you must click on the link.
This is bad practice. People are used to the name of the license telling them roughly what you can do with the licence. GPL, BSD, Open Source, Shareware, Freeware, these all give you at least a rough idea of what you can do with the work. Therefore someone stumbing on the Creative Commons Licence for the first time would naturally extend what they know to think it is yet another licence. But it isn't - it is a collection of licences.
Consider the first time someone encounters a creative commons licence. Unsure of what it is suppose they actually do click the link on the bottom of the page and read the (very nice and clear) human readable creed. They will then think "okay that is what they creative commons licence allows" and never bother to click on any other link again, because they think they already know what the licence allows.
I do not think that creative commons concept is too confusing for people, but it is different, and the way it is being handled does nothing to indicate to people that it is different. At the very least people should display the applicable clause icons next to the creative commons link, so that people may notice that there is something different.
PS:
This does not directly apply to this case since prior to April 24th these had no licencing information, and after that the notice was clearly displayed, and in either case Lindows should have contacted the author to get permission. It is just a side discussion.
I get the impression from your comments that you think this is a minor infraction.
As a matter of fact, it is.
Why? Because he's not rich? That's a stunningly ignorant attitude. How do you expect someone to ever become 'big-name' if they can't afford to pay the bills because people ignore the copyright on their works? There is just so much wrong with that attitude I don't even know where to start.
You can't just twist around the meaning of fairness and say "this guy is more important, so it's not allowed, but this guy is less important, so who cares." The law must be applied equally. We're all equal. There cannot be some people who are "more equal" or the whole damn system implodes.
Copyright protects anyone and everyone who produces a creative work. If the judge decides that the "fair value" of his work is $100, fine. But he deserves absolutely every penny of that $100. Only the reparations scale with damages, his rights do not. As the previous poster said, "They will end up paying fair value for it, plus any lawyer fees."
Random and weird software I've written.
Copyright is neither good nor bad, it is simply a legal way of protecting anything from illegal copying, for a very long, arguably far too long, period of time. Amongst other things, it makes a claim that you made that thing on that date, so that it can be enforced from a time period starting from then, or a different period from the date of you, the author's death. Copyright does not protect the GPL, it is enforceable as a licence agreement (i.e. a Contract) which you accept when you use the software, and has recently been upheld in a German court. (Copyright laws internationally make more or less teh same set of provisions, as they are based on the Berne convention, the US also being a signatory, so it would most probably also he upheld by a US court if someone such as Darl McBride was stupid enough to challenge it, as we may soon see....) With no GPL, the copyright would in fact prevent you from making copies (everything which is created is copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise, although it is best to make the satement), but the GPL, like all contracts, gives you some, in fact lots of, rights, in return from you accepting that you will not limit anyone else's righs as far as that piece of software is concerned.
The only way that copyright would support the GPL in any way is that the GPL is a document. It gives you rights to make verbatim copies, so no problem there, but copyright law would disallow making, for example, perverted versions of the GPL, containing a clause which assigned all rights to Sir Bill Gates, and passing the copies off as real.
BTW I have rerely if ever seen anyone here say that music should not be subject to copyright protection. It is fair that the artists should earn a living. What is usually debated is that most of us think that you should be free to play your DVD anywhere, on any equipment, so pernicious laws such as DECSS are very wrong indeed. Copying the DVD is an offence under copyright law, it does not need encryption to be enforceable, and why should someone with a room full of Linux computers have to buy a Windoze box or a DVD player, just to play the thing, which he has paid for? The music and cinema industries are very wrong on that point, the RIAA are clearly fascist, and the law is an ass.
Likewise if you own a piece of music, it might even be an old, delicate and valuable LP, you ought to be allowed to make a copy so you can enjoy it in the car, or on a portable player. Again the fascists say no, you can't, but you are not making a copy for anyone's use but yourself, and not depriving the artist of income. Hence the frequent debate about music, it is about not being able to make copies for legitimate use, or even for backup.
As to linux art, I have not seen the items in question, but if they were not put in the public domain, any use contrary to copyright law, or as allowed by a licence such as the GPL,is quite wrong.
IMHO most people here will want copyright to be applied fairly, sensibly and reasonably.