[TAG] A case of copyright violation / plagiarism?

[Benjamin A. Okopnik]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 03:24:57PM +0100, Neil Youngman wrote:
> On or around Monday 09 October 2006 14:20, Benjamin A. Okopnik reorganised a 
> bunch of electrons to form the message:
> > Neil Youngman wrote:
> >
> > > As I recall, theft is "taking of property with intent to permanently
> > > deprive the owner of that property". The author is not being deprived of
> > > his IP when it is copied, although in this case he may be deprived of the
> > > credit for it.
> >
> > Yes - and that credit *IS* the property under discussion. Thus, my
> > entire point.
> 
> Well if we're talking about credit being taken, theft is not an unreasonable 
> term, it's just that too many people will read it as "copyright violation is 
> theft". I only bother making the distinction because people are abusing the 
> language to get politicians to agree to stupid laws.

Ah... I get your meaning. My apologies - even without looking over my
recent posts, I have a feeling that I have not made that distinction
clear enough, so let me restate it here:

The violation that I've been talking about is _not_ the citation of
someone else's material; it is the citation of that material *without
credit*.

I've discussed, in many places and in many ways, the "coin of the realm"
of Open Source - which, according to my philosophy, is the respect
granted by the Open Source community to someone who has contributed to
it. That recognition, however, depends on that person receiving the
credit for their work... and I feel much more strongly about that credit
than I do about money; I'm pretty sure I've talked about the time when
I "made good" on a promise to a client even though doing so cost me more
than the job was worth (I've learned to be cautious about that kind of
promises, but the point remains.)
 
> I realise that this is hair splitting, but when the head of the RIAA claims 
> that "watching TV without watching the ads is theft", then it's time to take 
> a stand on how the word is used.  I don't have the exact quote to hand and 
> may not have it right. 

Erm... there are people out there who claim that the Earth is flat, and
they're serious about it.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
 
I find little distinction between the quote you cite and the claims of
the people at the above site, and don't see that taking a stand is
useful - although clarifying it in cases of doubt is probably a good
idea. I hope I've done so, above.

> Of course I'm not accusing you of supporting the RIAA and I wouldn't normally 
> bother with such hair splitting but under current circumstances, I feel 
> justified in asking, nicely, if we could use other terms, at least if we're 
> publishing this exchange.

RIAA's main issue appears to be their continual desire to tax every use
of artistic expression - a ridiculous attempt to sweep back the tide
that's doomed to failure (as I'm sure they know - but every day that
they can stave off the inevitable is that much more cash in their
pockets.) The issue that we're discussing is completely unrelated to it,
at least as far as I can see. If the unqualified term "theft" used
anywhere near "intellectual property" is an issue, I'll happily redefine
it here - for the purposes of this discussion - as "theft of credit".


* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *