
Code theft: Asciimo: Where have I seen this before? - RBerenguel
http://patorjk.com/blog/2010/06/21/asciimo/
======
almost
Wow, what a dick this Marak guys seems to be. He steals someone's code
(possibly laboring under a mistaken idea of how copyright law works) makes
snarky comments about the original and then when he's called on it instead of
just admitting his mistake he is rude and nasty about it (and still doesn't
bother to check what the actual law is, which just makes him look like a total
idiot).

~~~
bnoordhuis
> Wow, what a dick this Marak guys seems to be.

He is a regular on the nodejs mailing list. An example of his, ha-hum,
somewhat difficult disposition (break-down starts from the third post down):

[http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c...](http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c332756b714d692e/f207a05f505cab2b)

~~~
sh1mmer
Also a regular in the Node irc room (JimBastard). I just connected the dots.
He won a ticket to JSConf by winning the pre-conference talk in a bar about
JavaScript competition.

He seemed ok in person, and I know he hacks a lot of his own code, but I'm
surprised what a dick he seems to be being. He definitely wasn't this much of
a jerk face to face. Oh the Internet, this is why we can't have nice things.

~~~
tlrobinson
Also a HN member, though apparently only to promote his projects:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=JimBastard>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=marak>

~~~
judofyr
Which at least I find perfectly acceptable (as long as the projects are Hacker
News worthy).

------
alextingle
Taking a step back, I think this is an excellent example of how most people
are woefully ignorant about copyright. The vast majority of people think
nothing of infringing copyright - they use images from Flickr without
bothering to check the license, they forward e-mails, they post & repost
videos to Youtube, they download & share music & video & software with their
friends without a care in the world.

Why? Because that's the natural way to use the Internet, and (despite the
recorded music industry's best efforts) nobody has ever pointed out to them
that it's illegal. They copy on the Internet like fish swim in the sea.

What Marak did is wrong, and I feel for the guy who had his code nicked. It's
happened to me - Wordpress today contains my code in blatant violation of the
license under which I published it. When that happened it annoyed me at first,
but ultimately I decided to let it go because any complaint would be met by
blank incomprehension. When your stuff is taken by "kids on the Internet", you
can't just call them out on it, you have to educate them into a whole new way
of thinking. And life's too short for that.

~~~
kmfrk
Using pictures unlawfully is sadly the trend on internet forums and to a large
degree on big blogs. This is particularly prevalent when it comes to videogame
magazines which are scanned and uploaded and is either showed on the
videogame-related site or referenced by a link. _Everyone_ basically does it.
It's ridiculous and appalling.

Add to this sites like reddit who, willy-nilly, deep-link to images on other
sites with few if any moral qualms. Hotlink/Deep-link protection is something
you ought to make sure you implement. The comic artist The Oatmeal chose to
split up his images so they couldn't be exploited effectively.

~~~
alextingle
What about e-mail forwarding? That's just as illegal as copying a picture, and
everybody BAR NONE does it without a second thought.

~~~
lutorm
Can you expound on that? I was under the impression (from some discussion
about electronic search-and-seizure laws) that mail, once delivered to the
recipient, is no longer considered your property. I guess I've never reflected
on exactly what property rights are transfered to me when you mail me
something. Certainly if you send me something in a physical envelope, I can
forward that to anyone, copyright law has nothing to do with that. So the
question is whether electronic mail shares that feature with physical mail,
since mail service is something that's explicitly talked about in the law.

~~~
anamax
> I was under the impression (from some discussion about electronic search-
> and-seizure laws) that mail, once delivered to the recipient, is no longer
> considered your property.

While true, owning a piece of mail does not imply that you own the relevant
copyright.

Consider a book that you own. You own that copy. You can destroy it, you can
sell/give/lend/show it to someone else, you can keep it. That physical thing
is yours do do with as you will.

However, you can't (legally) copy it if its copyright is still active. (Yes,
fair use comes in here too.)

Physical and electronic mail is exactly the same.

------
cduan
If it really is the case that this is copyright infringement, the easiest step
may be to send a DMCA complaint to GitHub. The purpose of the DMCA complaint
mechanism was to make it cheap and easy to deal with online copyright
infringement without resorting to the courts. I know we're used to hearing
about silly and illegitimate DMCA complaints, but this would seem like a
reasonable use of it.

(This isn't legal advice, of course; I don't know enough of the facts to be
sure what applies.)

------
Aegean
if this code was licensed with an open source license and he adhered to terms,
this would be perfectly valid. You _can_ indeed copy such code and write
whatever snarky comments you want about it.

But in this case this code is copyrighted and has no open source license
clause:

"His response to my comments was that because I didn’t explicitly put a
copyright notice in my code that he could use it however he wanted (which I’m
pretty sure isn’t true)."

AFAIK copyright law says its not obligatory whether there is a copyright
header or not, the work would be copyrighted either ways. Copyright is there
the moment you create the work. So what he did was clearly illegal (and
unethical).

~~~
steveklabnik
Just picking some nits, but "But in this case this code is copyrighted" is
wrong. In _all_ cases, code is copyrighted, even open source code. It's just
that with F/OSS, someone has given you a license to use something they've
created.

Other than that, carry on.

~~~
lutorm
Actually no, you can put code in the public domain, thereby explicitly waiving
your copyright. I believe, for example, that all code written by the US
government is in the public domain.

~~~
steveklabnik
I knew someone was going to mention this...

I'm not a lawyer, but in some places, isn't it hard or next to impossible to
get your work into the public domain? You're 100% right about government
works, but I was under the impression that the WTFPL was the closest thing you
could really get to putting something of your own into the public domain...

I could also be totally wrong. Then again, anyone who does this isn't going to
face the problem that the OP did, and it doesn't really invalidate my earlier
statement either. Only part of it.

~~~
cperciva
_I'm not a lawyer, but in some places, isn't it hard or next to impossible to
get your work into the public domain?_

I'm also not a lawyer, but I've asked this question of some law professors,
and the consensus appears to be that at least in common law states, while
there is usually no _de jure_ mechanism for placing work into the public
domain, if such a case ever went to trial you can be 99% certain that the
judge would wave a magic common law wand to fix that.

That said, wikipedia's "I place this in the public domain, or if that isn't
possible, I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without
any conditions" is probably the safest approach.

------
RBerenguel
I submitted here yesterday the original asciimo link, now you can read here
where the code cames from and the opinion from the real author.

~~~
papertiger
Thanks for posting this update.

------
jqueryin
Personally, I'd be more okay with the fact this dude was posting some code on
github had he properly credited the original author and posted a link to the
original project. IMO he probably should have also asked for permission to
post the author's code in the first place.

I can't say whether or not he made changes to the codebase, but it's just
plain wrong that he goes about crediting himself as the author when the truth
is he probably contributed a very small amount to an already functional
program.

------
0wned
This is why I stopped releasing source code. Idiots who want 15 mins of fame
and constant attention but cannot create, so they consume what others create.

You own the copyright. The declaration is an option. If you have been
financially damaged by this, then you have legal recourse, but you must be
able to prove damages with a dollar figure.

------
qeorge
Great to see Patrick Gillespie is still around, I remember him from the AOL
programming community (1999!), nice guy and very sharp.

His API spy is still the best I've ever used:
<http://patorjk.com/downloads/patorjkapispy51.zip>

~~~
jeremymcanally
Wow I totally did not put 2 and 2 together until now. Now we just need someone
to release "gothic nightmarez" for IRC and revive KnK and it'll be like it's
1995 again.

~~~
qeorge
Wow, KnK! That takes me back. What a great site.

As corny as AOL programming may have been, I learned so much from it, and it
definitely got me hooked on writing software. Good memories.

~~~
txt
Hahaha this is exactly why I clicked this article..I saw the name patandjk and
thought holy crap I haven't heard that since the beautiful days of AOL.. I
remember using there API generator while learning to code in vb6...I think
everybody had a copy back then..Boy does that bring back memories....

------
fsniper
I don't get it. If every change is tracked by github and he gives links and
attribution to TAAG what is the problem? Is there any license issues involed
that i can't grasp? What is the original codes license? In what license the
new library is distributed?

~~~
almost
The original code was not open source. It just happened to be JavaScript so it
was possible to steal it.

Just for anyone who doesn't know: when no explicit license or copyright
information is given this means all rights are with the author. Code is only
ever public domain when it is explicitly put there by the author.

~~~
_delirium
If you want to take a hardline attitude towards it, then TAAG itself is in
iffy territory, because many of the fonts it uses were just thrown on BBSs or
the internet with no explicit open licenses. He seems to have just assumed
(probably correctly) that if they were put online, or as part of "figlet font
packs", then a BSD-style license was intended, but there isn't an explicit one
on most of them.

~~~
jcl
Less iffy than you'd think. Fonts are not copyrightable (within the US, at
least, and for fonts that do not contain executable code).

<http://nwalsh.com/comp.fonts/FAQ/cf_13.htm>

~~~
apgwoz
Since they are not copyrightable, why do people pay lots of money to the
foundries to use them? Seems like we'd be able to freely distribute things
like Gotham, and anything from Veer.

~~~
_delirium
Things like TrueType font files are considered computer code and
copyrightable, because they have some embedded scaling and kerning logic,
which makes it a bit harder to just use them free. The designs themselves (in
the U.S.) aren't copyrightable though, so anyone can legally rip off the font
by e.g. tracing it. There are quite a few of those floating around, but they
have a reputation for being poor quality, esp. with kerning and such,
depending on how quick the tracing/repackaging job was. That, and there's a
risk that if you used one of the "ripped off" fonts and it was different in a
way that was noticeable, your publishing house / design firm / etc. would get
a bad reputation in the trade.

------
tbrownaw
So is this a good place to be slightly pedantic and point out that "theft" as
a concept doesn't apply to non-rivalrous goods?

I suppose plagiarism could be seen as "theft of attention/credit" or such, but
copyright infringement is only what it sounds like -- not respecting someone's
government-granted monopoly rights.

~~~
chc
It is always a good time to point that out. Big content owners try to twist
the meanings to their benefit, but while both are illegal, they are not the
same thing, and it's not to society's benefit to confuse them.

------
drewcrawford
While IANAL, I read copyright law books for fun.

I've thought about writing a series of articles / FAQ on A Hacker's Guide to
Copyright Law.

The thing that's been stopping me is:

* The sort of people who really need to know it won't read it

* The sort of people who want to know how copyright works can find out from other sources

~~~
chopsueyar
Write it and we will read it!

------
patio11
I have a brilliant PR move for the content industries: we will wrap all their
stuff with four lines of Javascript and then suddenly the Internets will
rediscover copyright.

------
gojomo
The creator's path should be clear:

(1) Add an explicit copyright/license/reuse statement to the code to avoid
similar misunderstandings in the future. While not _required_ , it's wise for
people who care about the copying of their work.

(2) If he cares enough to enforce his preference against reuse, he should then
send a DMCA notice to github/etc.

From what I can see, both people are a little naive about copyright. The
mature resolution isn't fuming back-and-forth, but to just learn and implement
what the law already provides.

On the other hand, if the real goal is to instead have an attention- and
inlink- and traffic-grabbing web feud, they can each boost their fame/infamy
by a few more rounds of mutual criticism in every forum that will have them
and their supporters. For this goal, the more emotion/insults/ad-hominem, the
better.

------
Groxx
Since apparently nobody has yet posted here about it, the current state of all
this is that Patorjk sent an email to Github, and they've taken the project
down.

<http://github.com/marak/asciimo/>

~~~
Groxx
OK, they... brought it back?

* shrug __* not interested enough to investigate deeply.

------
fictorial
FYI the Node.js IRC channel is logged.

<http://nodejs.debuggable.com/2010-06-21.txt>

------
Semiapies
I _love_ that there are people trying to conflate an blog's image use that
falls under a lot of concepts of "fair use" with a particularly obnoxious act
of code plagiarism.

~~~
alextingle
What on earth makes you think it's fair use? It's not commentary about the
image. It's not educational. He reproduced the whole image, not a part of it.
I suspect that you need to go and read up about copyright law.

~~~
Semiapies
I suspect you need to read up on fair use and will leave it at that.

------
thecircusb0y
If I'm reading this right he took messy javascript someone wrote, and ported
it to a php library... If he didn't give original credit to the OP, then yeah
thats rude, but don't we all end up porting old code at sometime or another?

~~~
almost
He took (possibly messy, although that doesn't have much to do with it)
JavaScript code which he didn't own and had no rights to without asking and
made changes to it. No PHP here.

~~~
thecircusb0y
Okay.. but Javascript is free to view through the client machine no matter
what. It brings up that question "if its easy to cheat, will people do it?"
and the answer is, usually yes. Sure theft really sucks, but was there a way
to prevent this other then trusting someone not to steal?

~~~
almost
I'm not sure what your point is.

~~~
thecircusb0y
In other words I'm not sure why we should be surprised and caring that someone
stole javascript.

~~~
almost
For the same reason I'd care if someone stole any other piece of work.

~~~
thecircusb0y
Well is there a way to hide your javascript, or compile it to hinder the
ability to steal it so easily? I'd like to know cause as far as I knew you had
to be extra careful on what you do with javascript to protect the security of
your site. I always have my controllers verifying my input from
javascript/ajax, cause I know my js is easily viewable.

------
madair
Ah yes, Mob justice, bring the pitchforks plz.

I start hearing Smeagol's _my preccccciiooosssss_ when some artists and coders
talk about their work.

[Edit] Ownership of goods is a social construction, not a universal truth nor
is there some universal morality to consider. We can consider his feelings,
but I'll tell you what, the peeps getting snippy here about justice for
someone's ASCII generator, while simultaneously accepting the near universal
oppression of poor people by their own consumption habits protected by
intellectual property laws have somewhat questionable priorities, it would
seem.

~~~
houseabsolute
> nor is there some universal morality to consider

It's a social construction most of us agree on, though. In fact, I have no
doubt that some on here consider it fundamental to the advancement of the
species. You're free to be here and disagree with us about it, but don't
expect us to couch all our conversations in hypotheticals because you differ
with us on our "undebatable subjects" -- those subjects we have pondered over
enough that we need not debate them again and again every time someone raises
an objection.

> near universal oppression of poor people by their own consumption habits . .
> .

The theory is that if the content isn't protected it won't be generated _at
all_ at the margin. You can debate that theory if you like, but if it is true
then the mere removal of the laws won't do a lick of good for poor people.
Similarly, if wealth accumulation is disallowed, it's not that poor people
will magically become wealthier. Instead what will happen is those who had
previously worked hard to accumulate wealth will stop working as hard, and
less wealth overall will be created.

~~~
madair
1\. Agreeing on it doesn't make it moral. [Edit: although it does create a
moral majority, aka, the tyranny of the majority]

2\. Trickle down economics at its finest. Where's the evidence?

I'll give you some counter-evidence: music after vs music before MP3 pirating.
Seems like this vibrant cultural explosion happened despite all that lack of
trickle down, huh.

By your logic the colonialists and imperialists did a favor for all those
tragic natives. I mean, where would all those Indians and Indonesians be
without all that wealth creation by the East India Company?!?? [Edit: or
Apple]

The point is this system of IP is predicated on acceptance of not just winners
but losers (at life), and justified with a generous self-serving of trickle-
down economics.

[Edit, to insert an LOL at people who think IP wouldn't be created without
necessarily oppressing foreigners and people born without silver spoons. Note,
I am aware that I have to construct the connection, and I haven't done that
here, but there's no point in this forum, abstractions like this remain
couched as a conveniently theoretical debate, despite the very real lives that
poor people lead]

[Edit, to insert another LOL at people who think that we must support our
wealthy people's desire to create more wealth]

~~~
houseabsolute
> 1\. Agreeing on it doesn't make it moral. [Edit: although it does create a
> moral majority, aka, the tyranny of the majority]

Yeah, but it does mean that we may unapologetically assume it when we talk
about economic issues.

~~~
madair
You can unapologetically assume that only for as long as you do not accept
culpability for the outcome. Or rather, you may accept culpability
unapologetically, it just says a lot about you, even if you don't realize it.

[Edit: people can't stand when you only debate on the actual terms of an
artificially constructed reality, rather than the make-believe terms that only
exist within that reality. It's human, it keeps us from having to think about
consequences. But why is that reasonable, it is just convenient.]

~~~
houseabsolute
You can talk about artificially constructed realities all you want, but the
idea that other people matter is also artificially constructed. It's not the
"source" of the reality that matters. What matters is whether we generally
agree on it.

~~~
madair
>>> _You can talk about artificially constructed realities all you want, but
the idea that other people matter is also artificially constructed._

Yes, we can choose to believe that other moral matters relating to people
driven in herds to create profit for far wealthier people matters more than
say moralizing about IP regimes which have a large net negative affect on
those same people. As I said earlier, it's a matter of priorities. Nicely put
;)

There's a handy quotation from random famous person that nails this one
nicely, but I can't think of it right now.

[Edit, but we can break it down more in so many directions, and all of them
end up very badly for the true believers in advancing civilization with
schemes that necessarily require there to be vast numbers of losers for the
small numbers of winners. Goddamn that whole conscience thing gets in the way,
put a cork in it fast!!!]

>>> _It's not the "source" of the reality that matters. What matters is
whether we generally agree on it._

Actually, I think that only matters to the winners under that scheme.

~~~
houseabsolute
> Yes, we can choose to believe that other moral matters relating to people
> driven in herds to create profit for far wealthier people matters more than
> say moralizing about IP regimes which have a large net negative affect on
> those same people.

You've yet to establish the net negative effect, so I think this is putting
the cart before the horse just a little. Also: "other moral matters relating
to people driven in" -- what?

> Goddamn that whole conscience thing gets in the way

I disagree with you on how best to advance the lot of people in the world.
That's not the same as not having a conscience.

> Actually, I think that only matters to the winners under that scheme.

That's typically how it goes, yes.

~~~
madair
>>> You've yet to establish the net negative effect, so I think this is
putting the cart before the horse just a little.

I'm not the one claiming that trickle down economics is a morally justified
way to rationalize the goodness of IP regimes. Why do I have to disprove
conjecture which is not generally proven as a net benefit? Proponents of this
dogma are the ones who want to justify IP regimes, and not only that they
(i.e. you) insist this is the way to progress. You've got to prove that the
inequalities created are better than the inequalities averted. That basic
first step (proof of net positive) has not been done. I am not suggesting
action (i.e. IP enforcement), I am suggesting inaction. As in, don't fuck with
people unless your theory is proven.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that whole line is thinking is utilitarian.
Are you truly utilitarian? I doubt it. So some consistency would be nice too.

~~~
houseabsolute
> I'm not the one claiming that trickle down economics is a morally justified
> way to rationalize the goodness of IP regimes.

Yes, but that is the broadly accepted view. It's not incumbent on me to prove
it.

~~~
madair
Trickle down is most certainly not the broadly accepted view, FYI.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics>

~~~
houseabsolute
Oh, well, this is something entirely different than copyright, since copyright
is not specifically for businesses at all. It certainly doesn't fall in the
broadly understood definition of "trickle-down economics."

What you're doing would be kind of like if I called the policy you're
endorsing "socialism" and pointed out that that rarely works and is widely
discredited among economists and everybody else. Makes for good reading I
guess, but it wouldn't be very honest.

The widely accepted view on copyright is that it's needed to protect creators'
ability to profit from their work and encourage the production of more such
work. That's why it's written into the legal codes and sometimes constitutions
of almost every major political entity in the world. Most economists similarly
embrace its efficacy -- with caveats, in many cases, but the overall consensus
is for. Misnaming it "trickle-down economics" changes that not a whit.

