Creators' Rights Question Didn't Make the Cut, eh?
on
Neil Gaiman Responds
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It was first and +5 in the original solicitation for interview questions. Was this Gaiman's decision? Can't say as I blame him for opting to pass on that one... "Hmmm, let's see, do I alienate my Slashdot audience, or my friends, family, and everyone else in my industry...? Decisions, decisions..."
(1) "I get *paid* to write for a *living*, Sunshine! Copy my stuff illegally and my lawyer, Knuckles of The Endless, will be paying you a visit, and *not* in your dreams!"
or
(2) "Yeah, I'm kind of all high-tech and new-agey that way, I think one or two people should buy my books, OCR them, then dump them on the 'Net to disseminate freely. I've had my NYT bestseller, so I'm all done with that making-money thing now. I think it would be really cool if a bunch of you would download American Gods and write your own fan-fic sequel. I'll even help you get it published and talk about you in my blog."
It's alive and well. It does not, however, allow someone to accuse somone else of a serious crime in print. That's libel. That bloggers, whose amateur globally-distributed ramblings would eventually be held to the same degree of accountability as the professional work of a reporter working at a newspaper in suburban Topeka should come as a relief, not a surprise.
Umm, we've had the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet since the coining of the term "nuclear arsenal." Aren't intercontinentally delivered nukes WMD-ish enough for you?
Or doesn't it matter because they're the "good guys"?
We tend not to use them, favoring their value as a deterrent. Does that make us "good guys?" Meh. Depends upon your idealogy. Makes me feel safer, being a white Christian father of four in New York and all, so I'm thinking that's a "good" thing. The mileage for a Wahabi jihadist in Yemen is sure to vary.
No one has removed this guy's constitutional right. From what I understand, he's still blogging away like the happy idiot he is.
MS fired him because he took photos of their gear and facilities and posted them on the Worldwide Web framed within some snarky wiseass commentary that made sport of his employer. MS had no obligation to keep him employed. In fact, I applaud their restraint in not throwing him down a flight of steps on his way out.
May I ask where it is that you work that you think such behavior as this blogger showed is permissable?
Joe Blow cannot infringe upon your right to free speech. He need not be the Government... The issue in this case would seem to be the blogger's right.. and that is a constitutionally-guaranteed right. It would be a sad state of affaires, indeed, if for example every company could restrict what any or all employees might wish to say on any matter at all...
Um, dude, nobody forced him to alter or take down his blog. It's still there, and he's even added to it. Where is the restriction of free speech?
The guy violated the terms of his employment. His employer fired him. This was a non-story 300 posts ago. It only has legs here on Slashdot cuz it involves MS hard-lining, Mac advocacy, and, God help us, blogs.
Excuse me, fellas, not meaning to troll or offend or anything, but, really, what's the point of "sigs" in any kind of business communication? They're even less professional than emoticons (but fortunately the latter seem to finally be dying out).
Seriously, can anything *good* actually come out of that little injection of snarky personality into some permanently archived business memo? You want to show me how clever and wry you are, keep a blog fer chrissake (this decade's trendy digital paen to the 20-something Ego), but keep it all separate and apart from the workplace.
Common sense, no?
Translated for the America-Impaired
on
Who Needs Radio?
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· Score: 4, Informative
For those Slashdotters from foreign lands just tuning in:
NPR is a good way to stay abreast of the latest news during my daily commute and provides some sanity, compared to TV news stations like FoxNews.
NPR is left wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to liberals). Fox News is right wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to conservatives.) NPR is commercial-free, being underwritten by corporations, donations, and tax dollars (to the great dismay of conservatives). Fox is a commercial enterprise owned by Murdoch and the top-rated newschannel on cable/satellite (to the great dismay of liberals).
Most blogs, my own included, do not have the necessary audience.
Colin, I just visited your blog, and have just been treated to the textual equivalent of the Goatse guy, i.e., your description of yourself taking a shower.
The Shower
I walked into the small closet in my flat that contained the shower.
A string hung from the ceiling. It connected it a small box with a little button that said 'on'.
I pulled the string.
etc.
Dude, I nearly Elvis'd my monitor. It's like the poster child for all that is cliche and pedantic and self-absorbed about blogging. Keep this up and you won't have the "necessary audience" for a game of bridge, let alone a valid user moderation system.
And you're accepting paypal donations?!? I sit in mute awe and fascination.
Is this what blogging is about? Really? Online personal diaries about one's daily minutiae? There's got to be more effective therapies available. A weekly pint at the corner pub with friends, popping bubble-wrap, I dunno, something...
Because, after all, taking the root servers away from bright, educated comp-sci longbeards who have nothing better to do than to make them run well, and putting them in the hands of MBA bean-counters who don't know what TCP/IP is, is a sure-fire way to improve reliability.
Who doesn't Michael insult in that l'il editorial blip? Wow...
What's funny, or perhaps expected, is that tall people are, as a rule, blissfully unaware of the advantages their height affords them. They bitch about trivialities like fitting into movie seats while attractice girls fling themselves at them and they command undue attention in a conference room.
...And then there are the people whose height is not immediately apparent because they are disabled and ride around in wheelchairs. Sneaky, undue-attention-commanding bastards!
(Your glass is half-full, son, not half-empty. Drink up!)
a complete breakdown of civil rights like it is happening now.
Yipes! Where?
Here in NY, nothing's changed. Seriously, dude, if things are that bad where you live consider moving here to the Northeast. Even though, geographically, we got hit hardest by "the events of 9/11," I have been unable to detect that breakdown of civil rights you mention.
...unless you're referring to Mayor Bloomberg's recent smoking ban. In that case, yeah, you're right. Total abuse of power.
If there wasn't a Hollywood "Matrix," then there wouldn't be an "independent fan-produced version of the matrix."
the story keeps the same feeling and theme...
Boy, that's a relief! I just hate it when independent film-makers not beholden to Hollywood and with lots of time on their hands use the Internet to distribute something new and original, don't you?
Maybe cuz I grew up in the 60's I can't help but view all these cute Slashdotters falling over themselves to praise China's space 'initiatives' with the same patronizing bemusement I normally reserve for the 14-year-olds just discovering Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and carrying on like someone has just invented a brand new musical note.
"Putting a Man in Space?" Great. Super. Wake me when he lands on Mars...
Um, OK, so that puts China about 40 years behind the West space-tech-wise and about 350 years behind Human Rights-wise. As for 'Fashion-wise,' well let's just say there's nothing going on that a two-episode Queer-Eye makeover and a small series of violent revolutions couldn't fix...
Except that, back in the days of the $20K consoles, music creators were known as "composers" and focused on rad concepts like composition and melody. Like a creative writer who spends too much time selecting the "right" word processor and focusing on page layout, I can't help but wonder whether some "music creators" (and their listeners) would be better served if they concentrated more on the muse of music and less on the toolset of the recording engineer.
Clark is a great man and will be a great President.
President?! He won't be able to keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to win the Democratic nomination. Or the Republican nomination. Or whatever party he's a member of, I forget. Do you know?
Do you believe that it is impossible, or even highly improbable, that a government would hush-up something like a terrorist attack?
Hush-up? I was pretty certain the government was going to accredit the recent US NorthEast blackout to terrorism REGARDLESS of the "real" reason. I think they think we could use a little bloodless terror attack to shock us out of complacency and re-focus pre-election attention onto terror threats and homeland security and away from economic issues.
I am also virtually certain that a number of scarey major terror plots have been thwarted in the past two years and gone un-reported, but the recent blackout was not one of them.
4) the Grey Men's Mothership, buried for centuries beneath the antarctic ice cap, is powering up to send its invasion beacon back to the Home World. The ship's ion-magneto drive crystals are sucking electrical energy through and across the planetary leylines, and as foretold through the bible codes and Atlantean runes kept in that Bilderberg safe and passed down by centuries of Illuminati, even our tin-foil hats won't save us now, Sparky!
Slashdot Mirror
It was first and +5 in the original solicitation for interview questions. Was this Gaiman's decision? Can't say as I blame him for opting to pass on that one... "Hmmm, let's see, do I alienate my Slashdot audience, or my friends, family, and everyone else in my industry...? Decisions, decisions..."
(1) "I get *paid* to write for a *living*, Sunshine! Copy my stuff illegally and my lawyer, Knuckles of The Endless, will be paying you a visit, and *not* in your dreams!"
or
(2) "Yeah, I'm kind of all high-tech and new-agey that way, I think one or two people should buy my books, OCR them, then dump them on the 'Net to disseminate freely. I've had my NYT bestseller, so I'm all done with that making-money thing now. I think it would be really cool if a bunch of you would download American Gods and write your own fan-fic sequel. I'll even help you get it published and talk about you in my blog."
Talk about your basic No-Win scenario:
ever been to Japan?
Yeah. What's your point? That we should not have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
What ever happened to free speech?
It's alive and well. It does not, however, allow someone to accuse somone else of a serious crime in print. That's libel. That bloggers, whose amateur globally-distributed ramblings would eventually be held to the same degree of accountability as the professional work of a reporter working at a newspaper in suburban Topeka should come as a relief, not a surprise.
Is it a sign of the times that those who dissent seem to be attacked by those in power, or has that always been the case?
No, it's a sign that the courts and libel laws are at last catching up with the amateur journalists who thought they were somehow above them.
WMDs in the US, anybody?
Umm, we've had the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet since the coining of the term "nuclear arsenal." Aren't intercontinentally delivered nukes WMD-ish enough for you?
Or doesn't it matter because they're the "good guys"?
We tend not to use them, favoring their value as a deterrent. Does that make us "good guys?" Meh. Depends upon your idealogy. Makes me feel safer, being a white Christian father of four in New York and all, so I'm thinking that's a "good" thing. The mileage for a Wahabi jihadist in Yemen is sure to vary.
No one has removed this guy's constitutional right. From what I understand, he's still blogging away like the happy idiot he is.
MS fired him because he took photos of their gear and facilities and posted them on the Worldwide Web framed within some snarky wiseass commentary that made sport of his employer. MS had no obligation to keep him employed. In fact, I applaud their restraint in not throwing him down a flight of steps on his way out.
May I ask where it is that you work that you think such behavior as this blogger showed is permissable?
Joe Blow cannot infringe upon your right to free speech. He need not be the Government ... The issue in this case would seem to be the blogger's right .. and that is a constitutionally-guaranteed right. It would be a sad state of affaires, indeed, if for example every company could restrict what any or all employees might wish to say on any matter at all...
Um, dude, nobody forced him to alter or take down his blog. It's still there, and he's even added to it. Where is the restriction of free speech?
The guy violated the terms of his employment. His employer fired him. This was a non-story 300 posts ago. It only has legs here on Slashdot cuz it involves MS hard-lining, Mac advocacy, and, God help us, blogs.
(I hate when that happens...)
Excuse me, fellas, not meaning to troll or offend or anything, but, really, what's the point of "sigs" in any kind of business communication? They're even less professional than emoticons (but fortunately the latter seem to finally be dying out).
Seriously, can anything *good* actually come out of that little injection of snarky personality into some permanently archived business memo? You want to show me how clever and wry you are, keep a blog fer chrissake (this decade's trendy digital paen to the 20-something Ego), but keep it all separate and apart from the workplace.
Common sense, no?
For those Slashdotters from foreign lands just tuning in:
NPR is a good way to stay abreast of the latest news during my daily commute and provides some sanity, compared to TV news stations like FoxNews.
NPR is left wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to liberals). Fox News is right wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to conservatives.) NPR is commercial-free, being underwritten by corporations, donations, and tax dollars (to the great dismay of conservatives). Fox is a commercial enterprise owned by Murdoch and the top-rated newschannel on cable/satellite (to the great dismay of liberals).
Now, draw up sides, and... engage!
Colin, I just visited your blog, and have just been treated to the textual equivalent of the Goatse guy, i.e., your description of yourself taking a shower.
etc.
Dude, I nearly Elvis'd my monitor. It's like the poster child for all that is cliche and pedantic and self-absorbed about blogging. Keep this up and you won't have the "necessary audience" for a game of bridge, let alone a valid user moderation system.
And you're accepting paypal donations?!? I sit in mute awe and fascination.
Is this what blogging is about? Really? Online personal diaries about one's daily minutiae? There's got to be more effective therapies available. A weekly pint at the corner pub with friends, popping bubble-wrap, I dunno, something...
Because, after all, taking the root servers away from bright, educated comp-sci longbeards who have nothing better to do than to make them run well, and putting them in the hands of MBA bean-counters who don't know what TCP/IP is, is a sure-fire way to improve reliability.
Who doesn't Michael insult in that l'il editorial blip? Wow...
(Your glass is half-full, son, not half-empty. Drink up!)
Yipes! Where?
Here in NY, nothing's changed. Seriously, dude, if things are that bad where you live consider moving here to the Northeast. Even though, geographically, we got hit hardest by "the events of 9/11," I have been unable to detect that breakdown of civil rights you mention.
but we should be supporting the little guys here
Why?
I mean... Why?
I want to see a movie, not make a statement.
If there wasn't a Hollywood "Matrix," then there wouldn't be an "independent fan-produced version of the matrix."
the story keeps the same feeling and theme...
Boy, that's a relief! I just hate it when independent film-makers not beholden to Hollywood and with lots of time on their hands use the Internet to distribute something new and original, don't you?
So if it's so easy to put a man in space, how's your X prize entry going? Or are you too busy being smug?
Although I'm pretty damn busy being smug, I will take a little time to point out that I'm a *PERSON*, Andrew, and not a friggin' *NATION*.
You're not really confusing the X-prize competition with a national space program, are you?
Maybe cuz I grew up in the 60's I can't help but view all these cute Slashdotters falling over themselves to praise China's space 'initiatives' with the same patronizing bemusement I normally reserve for the 14-year-olds just discovering Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and carrying on like someone has just invented a brand new musical note.
"Putting a Man in Space?" Great. Super. Wake me when he lands on Mars...
Um, OK, so that puts China about 40 years behind the West space-tech-wise and about 350 years behind Human Rights-wise. As for 'Fashion-wise,' well let's just say there's nothing going on that a two-episode Queer-Eye makeover and a small series of violent revolutions couldn't fix...
It's a pretty good time to be a music creator
Except that, back in the days of the $20K consoles, music creators were known as "composers" and focused on rad concepts like composition and melody. Like a creative writer who spends too much time selecting the "right" word processor and focusing on page layout, I can't help but wonder whether some "music creators" (and their listeners) would be better served if they concentrated more on the muse of music and less on the toolset of the recording engineer.
Watch Fox News much?
No. Do you? Should I? What's your point?
Clark is a great man and will be a great President.
President?! He won't be able to keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to win the Democratic nomination. Or the Republican nomination. Or whatever party he's a member of, I forget. Do you know?
It does beg the question--will a Dean presidency be geek friendly?
We'll never know.
Do you believe that it is impossible, or even highly improbable, that a government would hush-up something like a terrorist attack?
Hush-up? I was pretty certain the government was going to accredit the recent US NorthEast blackout to terrorism REGARDLESS of the "real" reason. I think they think we could use a little bloodless terror attack to shock us out of complacency and re-focus pre-election attention onto terror threats and homeland security and away from economic issues.
I am also virtually certain that a number of scarey major terror plots have been thwarted in the past two years and gone un-reported, but the recent blackout was not one of them.
You left out
4) the Grey Men's Mothership, buried for centuries beneath the antarctic ice cap, is powering up to send its invasion beacon back to the Home World. The ship's ion-magneto drive crystals are sucking electrical energy through and across the planetary leylines, and as foretold through the bible codes and Atlantean runes kept in that Bilderberg safe and passed down by centuries of Illuminati, even our tin-foil hats won't save us now, Sparky!
Hey, could happen, right?
is this an artist we should be getting all upset about 'losing'
What do you mean "we," paleface/punk/old-timer/hive-minder ?
Do you think for a heartbeat that any five people posting to this board have remotely similar musical tastes?