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."

Comments

Not just the one flash, either.

[Mr. Darl McBride]

While you're on about this, you might also ask why the painting of the four rasta musicians used in the Lindows Rock video isn't credited.

I also see what I recognize as a stock Associated Press photo of Bill Gates, and I wouldn't be surprised if the other photos were borrowed without credit (or payment) as well.

Re:Not just the one flash, either.

[Steve_Jobs_HNIC]

Lindows is using a stolen image from Klowner, who's using a stolen style from Apple (read:Aqua Tux), who's using a stole system from Xerox, ...

Side note, is it just me or has this shading technique been over used. I'm starting to see this stuff on cereal boxes.

Re:Not just the one flash, either.

[trick-knee]

also see what I recognize as a stock Associated Press photo of Bill Gates

they seem to have purloined the song as well. it might be in the public domain, however. or maybe they paid for it?

anyway, they don't seem to mind taking stuff and not acknowledging where they got it from.

Re:Not just the one flash, either.

[The Wicked Priest]

Eh? The rasta art is credited (to "Colin F." at colin-f.com). The credit screen appears at the end of the Flash movie.

Unless they just added that credit in the last hour...

Re:Not just the one flash, either.

[saden1]

He might have been inspired by apples Aqua Look but his work is original and in the fact that he actually created the images of penguins. Lindows on the other hand took his entire work and simply claimed it all on their own. I don't blame Lindows itself bur rather the person in their art department who is dumb enough not to seek permission. That individual needs to be fired. Did they really think no one would notice?

Lindows should promptly compensate this gentleman. I think $500 would do it.

Marketing...

[mahdi13]

It seems that Graphical Artists in any Marketing division seem to run into this problem all the time.
Aren't the images on kde-look public domain? Or is there a disclaimer that forbids this?

Another misleading title

[ericspinder]

From the referenced site...

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. Prior to the addition of the CC license on Klowner's wallpaper site, there was no specific copyright, although standard international copyrights still hold.

So, the CC license wasn't applied when the flash demo was created, in fact it was a response to the art appearing on the commercial site. It's clear the the material was previously being offered "free" to anyone who wanted to download it, without any mention of a copyright. but does that imply a right to use the materical by a business. If you offer items for download, but do not state your intentions, does this allow commerical vendors to make a profit out of your work. I think that now that he has applied the CC license, future uses in presentations would be protected, but I am not sure of the offending one.

Re:Another misleading title

[tepples]

An absent statement of public license policy equals "All Rights Reserved" under the law.

Re:Another misleading title

[Otter]

That's true and given that Lindows' primary activities are modifying other people's work and passing it off as their own and engaging in legal conflicts mostly of their own making, you'd think they'd know better.

Nonetheless, the story would be clearer and Lindows' actions would seem less distasteful if it explained that they took the images off a site with no explicit copyright statement and that the Creative Commons was only invoked afterwards.

Re:Linspire are Lassholes

[SavedLinuXgeeK]

I do not know. Linspire is trying really hard to gain a niche in the desktop market, and while Microsoft undoubtedly has shot their momentum down to nothing, they haven't given up. Im not defending their misuse of artwork or anything else but as a linux distribution, especially one that charges for the distro, I am sure that Linspire has a strong desire to correctly protect IP laws. And while I know I would be upset if someone misused my work, it was just a flash intro on the website. Honestly, it could have been much worse.

Bait and switch

[Anonymous Coward]

This title is misleading because the artwork had no CC license when originally posted. 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?

Changing the license afterwards like the author did in this case is also your right, but it is like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

FWIW, I've seen the same artwork in other Live CD's (Slax comes to mind) so Linspire aren't the only people who grabbed it.

Re:Bait and switch

[Crispy Critters]

"It also means you have no right to download it seeing as downloading a file technically copies it (and yes, that technicality matters until a court rules otherwise)."

So, the web is inherently illegal except for public domain material. Fascinating theory.

Courts have ruled in other cases that incidental copies made as part of the normal use of a program do not violate copyright laws. It is hard to see that this is any different. You also ignore fair use. It is not illegal to tape a TV program so I can watch it at a different time, but it is illegal to make copies of the tape and sell them.

I have read a few court rulings (simply as an interested citizen), and judges do not seem to make hyper-technical interpretations of the law (such as claiming it is illegal to browse a copyrighted web page without an explicit license) when they defy common sense.

Re:Bait and switch

[Mr. Hankey]

The question isn't whether the artist was negligent about posting a license. He assumed that his intent was clear, obviously not everyone gets it. He's learned this lesson the hard way, and has put a license on his site now.

The question is, why did Lindows/Linspire/... choose to use these images without even contacting the artist? The least they could have done is drop a note before using it in a commercial product. They do intend to make a profit using the artist's efforts. If a company uses a major label's song or logo in their product without asking, they'll surely be hearing from the RIAA's thugs. If it has to be this way, then there should be no double standards. Companies should also pay for content created by people.

Disappointing, really

[consolidatedbord]

It's a shame that this company who is supposed to be bringing the spotlight to desktop linux, is bringing it in such a way. First, we had the Microsoft mockeries on the website, and now blatant stealing of someone else's work. The sad thing, is that there are those out there who will start to think that open source software is about stealing other's source, and that that would be the only reason to keep it open. Sad, but probably true. It's companys like these that we don't need bringing a bad name to linux. I think it is time for the Lindash/Lindows/Linspire, whatever people to mature up a little bit.

Hmmm. Not only that...

[wcrowe]

But they're still using "LindowsOS" in much of the presentation. Good grief.

Re:Copyright on Prior Art

[happyfrogcow]

What's your point about Calvin & Hobbes? Is it the "pissing Calvin" stickers that seem to adorn every pickup truck in the U.S.A.? That is a violation as far as I understand, and as far as the creator of C&H is concerned, but he doesn't give a rats ass aparently. Imagine a sticker of Mickey Mouse pissing on things. Disney would be up in arms over that. Disney wouldn't let me make an exact duplicate or a derivitive work of Mickey. Why is this any different?

Re:not surprised

[m1a1]

* cheesy, stupid names
These abound within the opensource community. GNU anyone? How about K-everything or G-everything? Gnometris... Same Gnome. My god, you can't really single out Linspire here.

* raping debian's bandwidth
How? They have their own Click'n Run Repository. If users choose to use a Debian repository that's their perogative. You know, just like every other Linux user. I guess if you buy Linspire you can't play with the other Linux kids?

* taking much, not giving back anything
Let's see, they fund kde-look.org they've written several opensource apps, they pay everaldo. Yup, those lazy bastards. Just remember, Michael Roberts may be an ass, but he has already contributed more to Linux than you ever will.

* uninspired, copycat mentality So? Ever used Evolution or Kontact? How about rhythmbox or juk? Lots of copycatting happens. And you know what? It's necessary. There really is sometimes a best way to do things. You can't innovate every day. I don't see you bitching that KDE and Gnome use the desktop analogy. That was invented a Xerox-PARC! That's old shit! It just works.

* loudmouth
You got me there.

* no attention to security (everyone runs as root)
And there.

So only 2/6 or your points were really valid. Nice work though. Have you considered getting job writing FUD for MS or some other major corporation?

Difficult Position

[ickoonite]

Another day, another example of the cavalier attitude that Robertson has regarding IP, the community, everything...

Michael Robertson is a strange creature, bucking the trend like Steve Jobs, but only in very, very bad ways. The funny thing is (funny in a really perverse kind of way), Jobs is generally the guy Linux zealots love to hate (he was the cool kid in school). Robertson is the Linux-popularising martyr for FOSS, the almost untouchable.

Back in the day, MP3.com was lauded as visionary, a chance for the music companies to make something of online distribution, and so on. When the RIAA poo-pooed this and went after MP3.com, he played the prima donna and we all boohooed together - Michael tried so hard, he really cared about us, he identified with us, he wanted to free intellectual property. He was on our side. When MP3.com died, defeat reverberated around the geek/FOSS world...

So then this thing Lindows appears on the horizon, with talk of full Windows application compatibility, something that was later dropped when the WINE team realised what a prick Robertson was. When any other company makes crazy claims like that, someone will get on the case. In this case, the Lindows team rewrote history to erase this little hiccup from their PR. There are murmurs on the Internet about how source is not posted and so on, but somehow Lindows carries on.

Then Robertson takes on Microsoft. Robertson is the Man again, the Good Guy fighting against every true geek's arch nemesis. When he loses, Microsoft are evil bastards beyond reproach (I am not suggesting that this isn't the case, but bear with me...).

I think perhaps this could be put a clearer way - ask yourself only "Is my enemy's enemy always my friend, no matter what?" Personally, my answer to that would be no, but I suppose YMMV. Put it this way, I have no desire to ally myself with a person whose sole motivation to free the world from the shackles of IP (which would of course undermine the GPL) serves only to allow him to continue to profit off the unpaid labour of others.

Robertson is not a visionary. He's the asshole who was never tough enough to beat all us Slashdot-reading geeks up, but never missed the opportunity to hurl abuse from just round the corner. And he strikes me as being from the same sort of management school as McBride - his ethics are about as loose.

iqu :s

Re:Linspire are Lassholes

[tommasz]

Regardless of whether Mark derives income from sales of his graphics, it's clearly marked that his permission is required prior to use of the images. Not "if used in commercial work" or "free for individual use". They clearly didn't get his permission (or even ask for it) even though it was for use in a Flash movie.

If they have such a cavalier attitude towards ownership of something visible, what might they have done with something not quite as obvious?

Honestly, it could have been much better, too.

Re:not surprised

[One Louder]

Actually, he bought the mp3.com domain from somebody else explicitly for the purpose of building a music portal.

A squatter is someone who buys a domain containing somebody else's trademark - who had the trademark on "mp3"? Hint: nobody.

BFD

[caldroun]

So what. I made Icons that are all over the place, and I dont care. If he didn't have a CC license on it before, they were probably used then. Besides, Lindows sponsers the kde-look.org. He ought to be happy that they give him and others a place to display their work.

Also who is this guy that made the webpage? Is he speaking for the author? Where is the Authors response?

BTW: Did anyone contact Linspiredows a call before flipping out about it?

Re:lassholes?? Maybe Not!

[lcsjk]

I am copying this here because I don't think its fair to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts!!!!!
ananicon writes (this is further down in the replies):
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...
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:"Small" misuse? Maybe not to the artist...

[GreyPoopon]

It does however make it difficult to collect damages in case of infringment since the defendant can claim that he was unaware that the images were copyrighted.

Now that really doesn't make sense. If the Berne Convention makes copyright notices unnecessary, then it should be assumed that any image you find is copyrighted unless other notice is given. I don't think you can use cluelessness as a defence.

No longer in the Flash...

[ShinyBrowncoat]

It appears the offending images (and the section/chapter of the flash they were in) have been removed. No apology or recompense for Klowner though, I guess?