
Fighting With Teenagers: A Copyright Story - soundsop
http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php
======
noonespecial
The author's "screwdriver" example fairly clearly shows that he's still a
little foggy on the distinction between physical property and "intellectual
property". He goes on to cement that notion with examples about a show and a
book. All of which argue from a base of scarcity which doesn't exist in the
venue he's suddenly found himself. Its easy to see how the girl could
continually miss his point.

This is likely his first encounter with a gift economy, its logic and its
denizens (who are mostly, but not exclusively) teenagers. It would seem that
the qualities he wants to attribute to the "teenage mind" are really traits of
the gift economy that sprung up around trading digital sheet music.

Its easy to sympathize with him however. It may turn out that only a handful
of generations found themselves in the peculiar circumstances that allowed
them to cast elements of culture into items of physical property that could be
mass produced but were not easily duplicated. It must be quite disorienting to
find oneself at either edge of that transition.

~~~
pmccool
As I understood his argument, it had nothing to do with ease of duplication.
Instead, it was about ownership. His contention that the creators (who are by
implication the owners) of intangible things have rights too is not
invalidated by technology.

~~~
mkramlich
And I agree with his contention. It seems pretty clear cut to me. For the pro-
Eleanor folks, I want to break down here what are the elements in my pro-Jason
stance, just to be real clear:

1\. just because you _can_ do a thing, doesn't mean you _should_ do a thing
[this nulls out the whole "b-b-but technology makes this possible now!"
argument; for bonus points think of the implications of your stance regarding
the availability of nuclear weapons]

2\. you don't have a right to other people's work, automatically, by default,
for free

3\. if they make it available for free and/or say copy all you want -- that's
fine, do it

4\. ... but if they do _not_ , you should _honor_ their wishes regarding
_their own_ creation

5\. ... if despite that, you do not, then you are _unethical_

~~~
pyre
I tend to think that a lot of the loss of respect that people have to
copyright/IP/etc breaks down to:

1\. The abuse of these rights by corporations. [e.g. 'patent-mills' that just
crank out patents on any idea that pops into the heads of their engineers,
even if it's just falls into the formula: "everyday object +
{computers,internet} = brand new idea" or "patented idea 1 +
{internet,computers} = patented idea 2" ]

2\. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the
duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity that boggle the mind. Do people
_really_ believe that NBC would have had no reason to create a radio, and then
television network if they were not guaranteed to still have copyrights on all
of their content in the year 2010? Do you think that the person that wrote the
"Happy Birthday" song, wouldn't have written it if they weren't guaranteed to
hold a copyright until the year 2030 (not to mention that they took the melody
from an earlier song, probably without licensing it... the horror)? From
Wikipedia:

    
    
      > The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting
      > authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman. In 1990, Warner
      > Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for U.S. $15
      > million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at U.S. $5
      > million.[5] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims
      > that U.S. copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized
      > public performances of the song are technically illegal unless
      > royalties are paid to it.
    

This is not an example of creating something of value. They are leeches that
are sucking money out of the economy on the back of maybe a weeks worth of
work (I hope that you're not going to claim that "Happy Birthday To You" was
the result of millions of dollars of investment...) prior to 1935. It's rather
an example of someone creating something 'trivial' and expecting to 'hit it
big,' never creating something of value again.

~~~
nailer
> 1\. The abuse of these rights by corporations.

> 2\. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the
> duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity

I agree, but I've never seen anyone take a stand against that abuse. Eg: TPB
steals from everyone, including independent artists, Open Source contributors,
and people who support copyright reform.

------
russellallen
You know if we all stopped pirating stuff and obeyed the very letter of
copyright law, open source and free entertainment, software, etc would have a
huge renaissance.

You know those bands that make their money from touring that are always put
forward as the future? Their mp3s compete for mindshare with pirated Lady Gaga
stuff.

Maybe if we all obeyed copyright then Elanor would have looked around for some
other composer who gives their stuff away for free. Win-win. Composers who
want money get money, composers who want fame get it instead.

The biggest competitor to Gimp is pirated Photoshop.

Etc.

~~~
kiba
That's why some entrepreneurs in the "free entertainment and open source
business" are just begging for the copyright people to do what they wanted in
secret, while trying to convince everyone that a post-copyright world is a
good idea.

Some of us are just convinced that it's good money, but some of us can't help
but trying to tell people about the truth while being happy that they don't
believe it. It's a weird situation.

------
nkurz
It's a good exchange, and worth reading particularly if you are one of those
"extraordinarily hostile young men" who are likely disagree to with him. I
left the article feeling that Eleanor (the defiant teenager) was particularly
well-spoken, and that Jason Robert Brown would love for me to get off his
lawn. I don't know him, but now I'm prejudiced against him and his works. But
he does a great job of explaining his thought process, whether one agrees with
it or not. And better understanding those with whom one disagrees is a good
thing.

I thought the weakest part was his attempt to make it a clear-cut case of
right and wrong, and then go on to give some very muddy examples that really
haven't been clearly decided: "I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I
can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should
have to buy two copies? No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that
allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use."

Logical, I'd agree, but he might want to discuss this with the RIAA, who argue
that it's not fair-use, and merely an example of their forbearance not to sue
for such petty infringement: 'there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted
music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or
transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music
player, won’t usually raise concerns...'
([http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira...](http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law))

But his moral argument seems almost reasonable: I created this music, so I get
to control who uses it. He trades fair-use under copyright for exclusive
rights to distribution. Inevitability aside, 'hostile young men' of HN, what's
the flaw with this reasoning? Does one need to resort to the fairly weak
position that 'sharing' with strangers falls under fair-use, or is there
something stronger that can be said?

~~~
peterwwillis
I thought his moral argument was "please pay me for the sheet music so my kids
won't starve." Which I agree is ridiculous; he'd just quit writing music and
find another job before they died of starvation. I mean, hellooo, soup
kitchens are free...

~~~
scotty79
I think "please pay me for the sheet music so my kids won't starve" argument
is much better than "pay me because it's immoral not to pay me and you'll go
to jail"

Begging better reflects position in which technology puts artists today. It is
same situation that was throughout all history but last hundred years. You
quickly get used to good things so now people think that they are morally
entitled to being paid for what they created. As a programmer who had bad
experiences with salespeople it's hard for me to say this but creating stuff
does not bring money, selling does, and selling became much harder if the only
thing you know how to sell is service of providing copy of some (your) work
and value of such service to your potential consumer thanks to recent
developments dropped to zero.

~~~
jfarmer
You won't go to jail. Copyright infringement isn't a criminal matter, as a
rule.

~~~
scotty79
In my country (at least in case of computer software) it may lead to 5 years
of jail time.

------
frossie
I realise I wasn't meant to, and it doesn't say anything about my position on
the issue, but from reading the exchange I formed an immediate liking for the
girl.

If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally
would feel better about the world.

 _cough_ I now return you to your "Illegal downloading bad, m'kay?"
programming

~~~
gwern
> If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally
> would feel better about the world.

She's not your usual girl, it seems to me - how many collect and use sheet
music? Just following her musical/theatrical passion that far is unusual
enough, and I was a little impressed that she understood copyright law enough
to think she was getting around it by emailing stuff off-site. (She's wrong,
of course; contributory infringement could be used to nail her.)

------
iamdave
for the tl;dr crowd- The author writes about an incident in which he
discovered a teenager was trading his sheet music, without his permission and
approaches her about it, said teenager actually makes several very good
points, which get ignored by the author on various occasions in their
conversation in lieu of a "lecture" on copyright.

Further tl;dr - the comment section by and large are all pats on the back to
the writer. Few worthy of reading, but not many.

While I certainly see the perspective of the author here, wanting to preserve
the integrity of his work, invariably he faces the same crisis the mainstream
music industry faces: refusal to accept the change in mentality about content
distribution and consumption, and an ardent unwillingness to entertain the
idea that maybe in order to attract new audiences you have to tickle their
senses and find out what they want, and how to give it to them. "Build it and
they will come", thing.

~~~
jws
You let the kid off too easily.

He is already selling artists sheet music that they absolutely need for their
profession via instant download for the cost of a coffee and the teenager in
question still believes it is her right to misappropriate a copy instead
because she doesn't want to pay.

The author isn't trying to preserve his work's integrity, whatever that is, he
is trying to preserve his income.

He is a song writer. He genre is not a big recording industry item, mechanical
royalties will be minimal. There are no concert tee shirts ,to assuage
anyone's guilt here.

~~~
mquander
Yes, but the author is couching his rhetoric in claims to "fairness" and moral
righteousness. I think his stories are most revealing of his position:

 _I am an author, I tend to believe that I should be able to get paid for
doing that work (and it is work, Eleanor, it's really hard work)...You think
you're entitled to deny all of those people their rightful share of the work
they do. I don't understand why you think that._

That's the core of his argument. He thinks that since he has been making a
living this way for a long time, and it has worked out all right for everyone,
his way is the right way and anything else is of dubious morals, because why
would you want to deprive a good man of good work?

The discussion seems to be about whether the girl has a "right" to download or
share his sheet music. In my opinion, she can do it, and that's that; should
he have a "right" to stop her? He has not convinced me that there's any reason
he should have that right.

~~~
sliverstorm
> In my opinion, she can do it, and that's that; should he have a "right" to
> stop her?

I certainly _can_ brutally kill puppies. Do you have the right to stop me if I
own them?

Stop trying to twist the argument. There's a helluva lot of things you _can_
do, but whether somebody else has the right to intervene and stop you is
irrelevant.

~~~
mquander
And most of those things that you can do, you should be able to do. The
exceptions are what need to be justified.

I don't see a lot of justification for claiming that piracy is wrong or bad.
It's directly helping someone and not directly hurting anyone, and I haven't
even seen someone claim credibly that it's hurting artists' pocketbooks.
Certainly this girl's actions were a totally victimless crime.

I certainly don't see evidence that piracy is resulting in a lower quality of
art, and it's obviously great in the short-term for consumers (especially ones
like teenagers who have a hard time buying music and movies and books.)

------
zaphar
I'm actually genuinely curious how the whole "art industry" will turn out
eventually. On the one hand I sympathize with an artists desire to eat and
provide for their family. On the other hand I don't quite buy into the idea
that intellectual property is entitled to the same protections as physical
property.

In some ways the medieval and renaissance periods had a more valid model with
patronage for the arts. That limited the market to a much smaller pool of
career artists though. I wonder what will replace the current state of affairs
since a lot of signs point to it being unsustainable. And I do enjoy the
results of having a larger pool of artists.

~~~
billswift
The reason it limited the pool of artists was the _much_ higher cost of doing
art back then. Not just the cost of materials either; most people spent their
entire lives doing backbreaking labor effectively all the time they were
awake. They couldn't have created art even if they had been gifted with the
materials. Artists had to be supported by "gifts" of food and shelter and all
the other basics we almost take for granted today.

------
Anechoic
Well it seems that many (if not most) of the posters here side with the girl's
explanation. So be it, but don't get pissed at me when I take your GPL
product, incorporate it into my closed-source set top box and refuse to
release the source. After all, it's not like I've stolen anything or deprived
you of revenue.

~~~
kiba
Some people do BSD because they actually want corporations to actively use
their instead of "shitty version that corporations wrote from scratch".

Some people, like me, just don't feel like we have anything to lose, but we
also accept the fact that somebody might make a million bucks off my work and
be totally fine with it.

In fact, I mostly evolved a sort of indifference as I diverge from the BSD and
GPL hardliner positions to "hey, let just share!"

I live most of my formative years immersed in open source software. It just
feel icky not to give anything back for so much of the free education that
they enabled and provided for me in addition to all the great tools that I
have the privilege to use.

The author obviously come from a very different culture, a culture that
doesn't automatically share its capitals and works, that of which is clearly
alien to me, if not to hackers in general.

For me, money and sharing isn't something that belong to the exclusively of
one side or another, like charity and jobs. Money and sharing isn't in
conflict at all. In fact, I like to think more sharing lead to more cash.

It's a clash of cultures really, but it doesn't mean each culture is equally
good, just with a different perspective. What's really happening is a conquest
and battle of ideologies, heart and minds, and which make more money. If one
culture is clearly better than the other at this, then they are truly the
superior culture.

~~~
Anechoic
_Some people do BSD because they actually want corporations to actively use
their instead of "shitty version that corporations wrote from scratch"._

Yes, and some people make their artistic works available via Creative Commons
or public domain. But others enforce their copyrights, just like some software
authors provide their works under the GPL. The BSD license or a "clash of
cultures" isn't an excuse to ignore the GPL.

~~~
kiba
Nobody is saying that it's an excuse to not respect the GPL.

------
kiba
From the author's final post update.

 _I have also heard from a continuing stream of extraordinarily hostile young
men (always men) who insist on "educating" me on the ins and outs of
cybermorality, the definition of "stealing," and why I deserve to choke on my
own obsolescence._

What he interpret as hostility is a bunch of young men who can't help but try
tell you the truth as they see it.

It's about watching people oblivious to the fact of life getting chop to bits
by pirates and free markets because they refuse to recognize something
crucial.

And when they can't help you, they will buy other people stuff just to spite
you. If they're in the same business, they will manically laugh at you. Then
they will try to help you, knowing that you will just dismiss them like last
time.

Admittedly, they describe me. I am one of those young men who would do this on
and off. I wanna crush them, and then tell them the good news.

~~~
ErrantX
Unfortunately I suspect I know the type he is referring too; I've had my fair
share of attacks from them over the years.

And they (you?) are not doing very well at "educating" us. Mostly it verges
from amusingly incoherent to downright disturbing :)

~~~
kiba
_Unfortunately I suspect I know the type he is referring too;

I've had my fair share of attacks from them over the years. And they (you?)
are not doing very well at "educating" +us. Mostly it verges from amusingly
incoherent to downright disturbing :)_

You can call these people "amusingly incoherent" to "downright disturbing" if
you want. It doesn't mean anything about the truth that these people try to
explain to you, with everything and anything they have.

Every single examples, and every business models big, small, and in between,
they will throw out at you. Every single moral, ethical, and economic
arguments they employ in their arsenal, thrown out at you. Every single
historical evidences, they will dig up.

Meanwhile, musicians and record labels and criticize and rationalize away
anything and everything. They rather not give out anything and earn a million
dollars in return.

What these people have for you, is good news. It's very frustrating to see
people not take it. These young men might have been your biggest fans, fellow
musicians and artists, successful entrepreneurs or just a person well versed
in economics dealing with non-scarcity.

~~~
ErrantX
_It doesn't mean anything about the truth that these people try to explain to
you, with everything and anything they have._

If they represent the truth I feel very worried for our future :(

Taking a random recent (verbatim) example I recieved:

 _fuk u and ur fucking fancy words why do u hav the right to tell me what I
cant do fuk u_

edit: for context it was after I posted this ->
[http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/06/that-piracy-thing-
again...](http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/06/that-piracy-thing-again/)

I suspect (from your last post) that we are talking about two vastly different
sort of people :) certainly I don't see you sending that sort of message (I
could be wrong, if you do - please stop it's boring)

These people don't really have good news; they, for the most part, don't have
a new business model to offer. Mostly they just have insults and a "god given"
right to whatever they want (almost on a level with "music co.s" god given
right to demand money).

I find both sides puerile, inconsistent and useless.

On the other hand for the rest of us there are new revenue models that are
slowly gaining popularity. When we can distract the media corps from replying
to obnoxious emails and pursuing frivolous lawsuits it will probably all start
to fall into place

But there is no god given right for anyone to expect something of mine, yours
or anyone else's for free. No matter how much or how eloquently it is argued
:)

------
drewcrawford
I have a tiny bit of domain knowledge that I'd like to impart:

1) To be fair, _real_ scores are hard to find. Most of the published stuff is
simplified, has parts removed, or is otherwise substantively altered from what
is actually performed by professionals (code for this: "Vocal selections
from..." "Adapted from..." etc.) I can't speak to this particularly to JRB,
who may very well publish real scores, but there is a perception in the
industry that in general the good stuff is unavailable.

2) There is no iTunes for sheet music. If you click through his links, get
ready to install ActiveX DRMey plugins to preview the music. On mac? Too bad.
So there's no way to confirm, i.e., that this is the "real stuff" as opposed
to simplified sheet music.

3) If you study the industry in any detail, you'll discover that it's set up
like a "Good ol' Boys" system. You can't get a part until you join the union,
but you can't join the union until you get a part. New actors are placed on
secret lists that are passed around to other directors either to promote or
defame them. This may be totally valid and even necessary for Broadway to
function--but it does breed resentment among those trying to "break in" to the
system.

These three factors spell the perfect storm for piracy. There are multiple
roadblocks to acquiring the music legally, and there's a huge resentment
factor on the part of the consumers.

------
noibl
The author links to his wife's blog post of a year ago in which she says a
major part of the problem is the lack of an easy, legal way to access the
material in question. He later links to a site where he says his work is
available for instant purchase.

When you visit that site, the first thing you see in Chrome is a giant
'missing plugin' block and an invitation to download the 'Scorch' sheet music
plugin, which it turns out is available for IE, Firefox or (on Macs) Safari.
JOY.

Further down, you get the following message: "We advise you to check your
printer setup now before you buy. You will only get one chance to print your
music after you have purchased it. If you have difficulty printing, please see
our print problems help page."

WTF? OK...let's have a look at the print problems help page:

"=== It says Printing To File Not Allowed ===

"Copyright law prohibits us from allowing customers to store image files of
the scores on their computers. Therefore, when you buy from us, we only allow
printing to paper."

No. Seriously?

The takeaway for me: not only do these people not get filesharing, they don't
get computers and their attitude to those who do is one of xenophobia.

~~~
nikz
Try getting a refund when their crappy plugin crashes your browser...

How about the printed copy that's now unusable (because it's, you know, paper,
and paper has a habit of getting crumpled or ripped or wet or binned...)

Even iTunes doesn't make me pay for an mp3 again if my HDD dies...

------
loewenskind
I think he made a mistake posting this on his site. He was technically in the
right but he came off as a total asshole. The girl was offering to basically
advertise his work. Plus she stopped trading his music when he asked. She
could have put it all on torrent to spite him (and something like that is very
likely to happen if certain groups like 4chan see this).

Hell, if his site wasn't so miserable I would just pay the $4 or whatever for
her (i.e. I would but it doesn't look like there _is a way_ for me to pay it
for her). Sheesh.

------
kiba
Let Jason Robert Brown feel mighty and righteous about his sheet musics being
copied.....I mean...err..stolen.

For the rest of everybody else who actually have some common sense about
business, this is a dream come true. It's market inefficiencies ripe for
exploitation. Exploit it and don't let the illegal pirates take it away from
you, especially when your competitors decide to stick his head into the sand
and give you a free lunch. The more Jason Robert Brown type people, the
better.

------
lena
In one of the comments someone asks the author if he himself never infringes
on copyright. I thought his response to that was disappointing: _while the
majority of the imagery on my site is co-owned by me I can't vouch for all of
it nor can I promise that it's all legally sound; none of that should prevent
me from asking people not to trade my music illegally_

------
kuahyeow
Somehow, the more I read it, the more it seems like a case of "Sorry, I don't
want you [the entire tech-literate demographic] as a customer". These guy
makes a good point :
[http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with...](http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php#comment-9345)

------
sliverstorm
Frankly, I'm kind of shocked by HN's collective opinion on this subject- and I
am not a conservative.

In my opinion, it is really very simple. I don't care so much about the
nebulous question of whether it's right or wrong to infringe on IP, and all
these other new questions that come about when you remove the physical aspect
and introduce CTRL+C/CTRL+V. What matters to me, is that books and music and
movies continue to exist.

That won't happen if we insist we deserve it all for free. Who the fuck will
spend their life writing music or books or movies if we don't leave them a way
to monetize it? Artists are rarely driven by greed (and if they are,
disillusioned quickly) but in nearly every human being, the desire to _NOT
DIE_ usurps the desire to express yourself creatively, so artists will be
forced to abandon their works to continue living.

~~~
jexe
You know what else is interesting - the means to produce music and movies is
moving down market, fast. My friggin phone records HD, and my Mac comes with
some basic music production software, I can self-publish my own books on
amazon or just host them electronically myself.. and this trend is only
accelerating.

So will we see less art in the future? Absolutely not - we'll be seeing huge
amounts more, and from people who may not have had access to, say, a recording
studio in the past. The economics are changing on both ends of the "business,"
which I think is a net positive.

~~~
chokma
I think it is great that one can take an off-the-shelf video camera and make a
movie. And this sparks a whole world of creativity. Each day a 100 years of
video are uploaded to Youtube.

What we need is a way to compensate professional artists and performers in a
world where the cost to distribute is effectively zero. Some stuff (for
example a "Michael Moore"-style documentary on the oil spill) is complex
enough that it is difficult to produce it without having a way to cover your
costs. Does Cory Doctorow's way of doing this scale to movie production?

Oh, and we need camcorders and the like to integrate free codecs - the ones
currently available by default often produce H.264-movies which need a license
if you want to profit from your work in any way...

~~~
loup-vaillant
> Does Cory Doctorow's way of doing this scale to movie production?

It may: <http://www.ironsky.net/>

------
ErrantX
They both fall for the common fallacies and null arguments common to this sort
of dispute.

It is still an interesting read though; and I think they both come off well
(less so the "obnoxious young men" :)).

Who is right though? It's a morally difficult question because this is not
like, say, a big film producer or an indie game developer (representing the
two main extremes). This is a girl who (supposedly) wants sheet music for her
school production. On the other hand Jason arranges music exactly for those
sorts of scenarios; and at what point do you say "this person is now deserving
of having the music for free".

Thinking this through there is a fairly easy solution; Jason should offer his
music through schools and other youth organisations for free (or free loan).
Thus allowing teenagers such as this to put on their shows and practice their
art. Then there will be no need for such people to trade the music.

Solution, no?

~~~
cschwarm
> It's a morally difficult question...

Hardly, in my opinion.

Just use the rather common approach of the Golden Rule: 'Treat others like you
want to be treated'. If you want others to keep their promises to you, you
should keep your promise to others. Likewise, if you want others to fulfill
the contracts they agreed to, you should fulfill the contracts you agreed to.

The author offered a contract: "Pay 4 dollars and promise not to copy and
redistribute the media, and I promise to give you a copy". Nobody who accepted
this contract, has the moral right to violate it. Otherwise, everybody would
have the right to violate contracts, in general.

Everything else is just a matter of organization: If teenagers need sheet
music for school production, their parents should pay for it. Or the parents
can create a club, hire somebody to write music, and share the resulting work.

~~~
ErrantX
Sorry yes, you are dead right. There is no moral obligation for Elanor to
_expect_ to get the music for free. Or feel she has a right to distribute
music etc.

I mean't in the larger sense.

------
timinman
I'm impressed with the length of dialogue between the two, and disappointed
that it got condescending on both accounts. As far as I can tell, Mr. Brown is
legally correct and yet Elanor had some wisdom to offer him. I still haven't
heard his work, but I'm thinking about it on her recommendation.

------
kuahyeow
I'm mildly surprised to see the classic FSF lend-a-book argument in there:

 _"Would it be wrong for me to make a copy of some sheet music and give it to
a close friend of mine for an audition? Of course not. In fact, it would be
considered nasty of me to refuse. But to trade sheet music online is bad? "_

------
TerminalDummy
Art. Only for people with money.

------
mkramlich
he was classy and accurate. I couldn't believe the attitude of that girl.
unbelievable sense of entitlement to the fruits of someone else's labor.

------
mkramlich
this is the type of story that's going to bring out in clear distinction the
line between the HN readers who are in their teens or college and the HN
readers who are working adults, especially those with families of their own to
feed, and/or pre-Internet memories

------
grrr56
Well, hopefully there are people in this world that write free and open
software so people can build startups and earn money. If these open source
people had his mentality, a lot of recent startups wouldn't even have been
born.

Greedy, disgusting artist.

~~~
russellallen
He's greedy and disgusting because he's not giving his work away for free so
that other people can build startups and earn money?

Huh?

~~~
john_45
I think you clearly misunderstood.

The guy is a selfish and greedy person, trying to get these $4 out of this
poor girl. Read the comment mentioning the creative common license potential
usage, that's the right way to share to people and earn a decent living.

~~~
russellallen
Seriously? $4? Would he still be selfish and greedy if it was $1? $0.10?

~~~
john_45
Requesting money when the derivative representation/usage of the work is in
return given for free (as in free theater show, free movie, free mixtape,
other free software) is IMHO selfish and greedy.

------
alextingle
Absolutely hilarious that he blithely violates Eleanor's copyright as part of
his programme to "educate" her about copyright law.

(He has reproduced her copyrighted e-mails, against her clear wishes. She
should educate him back by slapping a DMCA notice on him.)

~~~
mkramlich
I'm pretty sure it was mentioned a couple times in there that he asked her and
she gave permission. The fact that you would criticize that element and not on
her attitude about not paying for his work frankly blows my mind a little.

~~~
alextingle
She clearly stipulated that he only had permission to reproduce some parts of
her work, and he goes out of his way to mention that he breached that license.
Why on earth do you think that copyright law should protect him and not her?

~~~
Anechoic
_She clearly stipulated that he only had permission to reproduce some parts of
her work_

Where?

From the article -

JB: "I'll answer your question, but I'd like your permission to post the
exchange on my website. Deal?"

Eleanor: "absolutely!"

From the update: "For those of you who were concerned, I did eventually hear
from Eleanor. She said she didn't feel annoyed or offended that I had posted
her remarks, she did understand where I was "coming from," and she appreciated
that I took the time to deal with her."

I'm not seeing where she "clearly stipulated that he only had permission to
reproduce some parts of her work."

~~~
alextingle
That quotation in full:

JB: "I'd like your permission to post the exchange on my website. Deal?"

E: "absolutely! that would actually be kind of cool. but if you wouldn't mind
changing my name in it to 'Eleanor.' I'm not sure why my iPod put it as
'Brenna' but that's not what I go by and I don't like that name."

