Can you show me my signature on any of these contracts I allegedly signed? ;)Umm... what part of
You don't have to sign a contract to enter it.do you need further elaboration on?
Edit: Darn. Ninja'ed by the grab bag.
The part where I consented in any way to something other than an exchange of property. Little thing really. On a related note, I got a contract here that says you own me a bridge in Brooklyn. I can haz?
Technically, all those PDF's you have are still Paizo property. You have purchased the right to use them, but personal use only.
More than technically. The file is not yours to do with as you will. It's not yours (whether you wish it were or not).
Creative Director
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When you make a copy of an electronic product, you're no longer a customer of that product. You are a distributor.
It's the same as if you bought a print copy of a book and then used a printer setup to create duplicate, identical copies of that book. Whether or not you then gave away copies of those books or sold them for your profit or whatever... that's not cool. And it's basically the same thing you're doing when you duplicate a PDF by giving it to someone else.
The fact that the PDF makes it MUCH easier and MUCH faster and MUCH less expensive to do this than if you have a print copy of a product doesn't make it any less wrong.
Some day, we may live in a nice utopian society where content creators like me don't have to pay money for a place to live or water to drink or for food to eat or for entertainment or whatever, and once we're there, I and other content creators can create content for the world to enjoy and don't need to worry about getting paid for that content.
We don't live in that society. I'm not sure such a society could even ever exist with humans being the way they are.
Whether or not you agree is your right, just as it's Paizo's (or other publishers') right to do their best to enforce and protect their intellectual property (and thus the livelihoods of their employees). The extent to which any company goes to protect that property is something each company needs to decide upon. There certainly is a fine line between protecting your IP and making things onerous for your legitimate customers in the unreachable goal of defeating all piracy.
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Creative Director
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As for the pepper analogy... that's a flawed analogy.
If you buy a pepper and like it and salvage the seeds and then plant your own pepper... that's more like you're buying a book and once you're done with it recycling the book into a blank book and then making a new book of your own design.
It's also a flawed analogy since peppers are food and thus a necessity, whereas an RPG book is a luxury/entertainment and not a necessity.
So lemme see if I got this straight... I can bound to contractual obligations I didn't sign or otherwise explicitly consent to?Is that really a surprise to you? I mean I get that you dont agree with it, but I'm surprised you didnt know that was how things are.
Is/ought? P-shaw sir! I'll have none of your Hume-ery!
*grabs dueling foil*
I'm painfully aware of 'how things are' just as I'm painfully aware of it's genetic origins in shenanigans.
Technically, all those PDF's you have are still Paizo property. You have purchased the right to use them, but personal use only.More than technically. The file is not yours to do with as you will. It's not yours (whether you wish it were or not).
Great! When can I expect my refund? I got a contract right here...
Edit:
Though it does raise an interesting point with the EU's recent decision that digital property is property and subject to first sale doctrine.Link please, if you have one to hand. I missed this and its important that I try and stay on top of these things as I work with both 'free' and commercial software.
And in a slightly more entertaining format http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/digital-resale
So lemme see if I got this straight... I can bound to contractual obligations I didn't sign or otherwise explicitly consent to?Is that really a surprise to you? I mean I get that you dont agree with it, but I'm surprised you didnt know that was how things are.Is/ought? P-shaw sir! I'll have none of your Hume-ery!
*grabs dueling foil*
I'm painfully aware of 'how things are' just as I'm painfully aware of it's genetic origins in shenanigans.
Great! When can I expect my refund? I got a contract right here...Technically, all those PDF's you have are still Paizo property. You have purchased the right to use them, but personal use only.More than technically. The file is not yours to do with as you will. It's not yours (whether you wish it were or not).
Mike if you were an author, and this was your source of income would you be ok with it? Those laws are in place to protect people's livlihood to a very large extent.
So lemme see if I got this straight... I can bound to contractual obligations I didn't sign or otherwise explicitly consent to?Is that really a surprise to you? I mean I get that you dont agree with it, but I'm surprised you didnt know that was how things are.Is/ought? P-shaw sir! I'll have none of your Hume-ery!
*grabs dueling foil*
I'm painfully aware of 'how things are' just as I'm painfully aware of it's genetic origins in shenanigans.
Great! When can I expect my refund? I got a contract right here...Technically, all those PDF's you have are still Paizo property. You have purchased the right to use them, but personal use only.More than technically. The file is not yours to do with as you will. It's not yours (whether you wish it were or not).
*shrug* you can't?
Oh cruelest of ironies!
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So lemme see if I got this straight... I can bound to contractual obligations I didn't sign or otherwise explicitly consent to? What other contracts am I signing without my knowledge and moreover why should I be bound to them if I feel as those the terms of this contract are unfair or have been violated in some way? I am confuse.
You gave your explicit consent the moment you clicked "Complete My Order". That's the moment the contract is entered in online commerce, usually.
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As for the pepper analogy... that's a flawed analogy.
Actually, if the OP (original pepper) was grown from Monsanto licensed seed, then the OP (original poster) could indeed be in for a whole world of legal hurt.
Regarding the PDFs, I've been searching for the website terms and conditions where all this is spelt out, but I'm failed utterly. Is it something we only see when we sign up for an account?
Estergum : thanks, I'm off to read
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As for the pepper analogy... that's a flawed analogy.
Actually, if the OP (original pepper) was grown from Monsanto licensed seed, then the OP (original poster) could indeed be in for a whole world of legal hurt.
Regarding the PDFs, I've been searching for the website terms and conditions where all this is spelt out, but I'm failed utterly. Is it something we only see when we sign up for an account?
Estergum : thanks, I'm off to read
Retailers in the US are, AFAIK, not obligated to provide terms and conditions (and any reminders of customer rights and *cough* entitlements *cough*), so it's usually per request only. Days like this one remind me why EU is a good idea after all, with all those pro-consumer regulations floating around.
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You gave your explicit consent the moment you clicked "Complete My Order". That's the moment the contract is entered in online commerce, usually.
So lemme see if I got this straight... I can bound to contractual obligations I didn't sign or otherwise explicitly consent to? What other contracts am I signing without my knowledge and moreover why should I be bound to them if I feel as those the terms of this contract are unfair or have been violated in some way? I am confuse.
It is customary law that as soon as you pay for something, you have entered a contract. It is not necessary for it to be written down. In Germany, anything other than real estate can be bought and sold with a handshake and handing over the money - in principle. The digital version of this handshake is the click. Most companies these days have long explanations of their terms and conditions to make it easier in case of a conflict. EULAs, anybody?
In Germany, anything other than real estate can be bought and sold with a handshake and handing over the money - in principle.
Actually, I don't even need the handshake. Exchanging goods and money is enough.
Oh cruelest of ironies!
Not really.
Several years ago, I downloaded a popular file-sharing program and installed it in order to download a patch for an MMO that was in torrent form (official patch servers were down). I started the download and went to bed. When I woke up, I discovered that over the course of the night I had uploaded about 10gb of files because the software automatically searched my hard drive for sharable media and allowed other users to download it. It wasn't just .mp3s. Lots of .pdfs, .docs, .xls, and the like were taken. Fortunately there was no banking or significant personal information stored on the computer, but I had a heart attack nonetheless.
A word of advice: If you are doing file sharing, it might be a good idea to dedicate another machine (a cheap netbook, a NAS or the like) to the task. Preferably one which runs with a completely different user name / password combination than your primary machine.
I am 99% sure Mike is trolling at this point. He surely would not agree to his ideas were he on the other end.
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When dealing with issues such as copying a pattern of 1s and 0s with intent to retain said copy, instead of deleting after a quick but arbitrary time on a digital storage device, so that Party B may view it on Party B's digital reading device, instead of just viewing it on Party A's digital reading deice I also, often, look to Ancient Rome for answers.There's no "innocent until proven guilty" rule here, that's a criminal law thing. We're talking private law here, contracts between equal (in legal terms) parties.
If you enter a legally binding contract (of purchasing Paizo PDFs), you must be aware of all ramifications of that, including the fact that if those files with your watermark turn out anywhere in the Intardwebz (regardless if you uploaded them, or you got hacked, or you misclicked something in a torrent application) you are in trouble.
On the business side of things, you can't expect a company to carry out private investigations in every case to check how did those files turn up on the 'net. Paizo is a book publisher, not an insurance company. If things were otherwise, every such situation would end with a stalemate, because the person in question would claim that their super-intelligent welsh corgi uploaded the files while he/she was sleeping (true story, happened in one case of breaching NDA and company secrecy) and Paizo would be unable to verify that in any way.
You honestly expect that people actually liable for uploading files would respond to query from Paizo with "yeah, I did it, totally my fault, thanks for asking, here are backlogs of my torrent app and no hard feelings about locking out my PDFs here"? Gee, there's so much hope and trust in humanity out there after all...
And no, the "but I didn't know the rules said so" defense doesn't work since ancient Rome.
Deliberately misrepresenting what someone says is rude.
Please, don't be rude. Paizo is usually such a lovely site to visit.
Plus arguing the law with a lawyer is just silly.
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I am 99% sure Mike is trolling at this point. He surely would not agree to his ideas were he on the other end.
The irony is that he describes himself in his profile as a starving artist...
Imagine the artist who gets a little success and, from his studio and a few galleries, sells prints of some of his paintings. Then he finds out that someone else has got access to the originals and is giving away prints of his work.
I wonder how Russel would feel about that?
I am 99% sure Mike is trolling at this point. He surely would not agree to his ideas were he on the other end.
*shrugs* Maybe, maybe not.
I must admit, I do not partake in the 'file sharing is eeevil' hype.
I do not mislabel copyright infringement as theft.
On the other hand, I believe in fairness.
If something is worth its price, and I am able to buy it, I will.
On the other hand, if I think something is not worth it, or I am unable to buy it legally for any reason (included the oh so popular 'not available in your part of the world shenanigans), I have zero compunction with just copying it for my use.
Reasoning: Whether I abstain from getting a product (thus creating no revenue for the publisher) or illegally get myself a copy (thus, again, creating no revenue) results in exactly zero difference for that publisher.
Unlike stealing, my actions do not leave the other side poorer than before.
However, like I wrote above, this does not mean I grab everything I can for free, never paying for anything.
Because not buying something I would have bought otherwise, but now just download for free does have an impact on the publisher's profits.
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Plus arguing the law with a lawyer is just silly.
Hey, I do that for living... ;-)
I don't profess to be an expert on US civil and consumer law, for sure, but I suspect many basics work the same. Such as foundations of contract law (although I'm sure that there's some obscure common law rule that says things along the lines of "if you stare at a cow for longer than an hour, you are considered to have offered to purchase her"... common law. Trips over a continental lawyer every time!)
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Mike if you were an author, and this was your source of income would you be ok with it? Those laws are in place to protect people's livlihood to a very large extent.
I'm not unsympathetic to their making money for their hard work....at all. In fact, I'd want to put more money in their hands so they could make more awesome stuff. In all of capitalism the gaming industry is my favoritest of favorites.
They're going about it the wrong way though and are shooting themselves right in the foot. The idea is that people who download a "bootleg" .pdf would be spending money on that product otherwise, but that's shenanigans. They were never going to make that purchase in the first place and without the "bootleg" they'd, in all likelihood, just go without and lose -or never cultivate- an interest in the product. Those laws don't protect the authors from anything but free, user-generated, advertising and in the meantime nail anyone who can't afford a good defense attorney right to the wall.
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When giving out pieces of a product what is the limit?
For example if one of my players want to make a Divine hunter but he don't posses the Ultimate Combat hardbound, giving him a printout of the relevant section of the book is allowed?
A digital copy of the Archetype chapter?
How about Hero Lab? It can print a complete description of the spells available to a character, so that can be a large section of several books.
How much of the OGL books can be shared?
While in a perfect world every gamer will buy every book related to their characters there are situations where that is not possible or even advisable.
As a GM I can give access to a specific prestige class or magic item printed in one of the Companion books but at the same time I can want to restrict the knowledge of what is in the relevant book, so that some plot twist or the city layout stay a secret until the characters get there.
Paizo has extremely valid reasons to want to restrict duplication of their material but the way our hobby work some sharing of it is unavoidable.
Edit: Yes, I am aware of the difference between sharing and duplicating.
OscarMike, I am absolutely with you when you say that the current legal basis for copyright and distribution issues is pretty much borked up, a quite considerable part of which can be accredited to the neverending greed some of the heavyweight publishing companies exhibit. Karzoug would be proud of them.
There is a reason why (at least in Germany) there is an acronym floating around, dubbing the Music And Film Industry Associations as M.A.F.I.A.
However, I don't think that steering the kind of discussion this way is well placed in a 'Paizo Publishing' thread.
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Plus arguing the law with a lawyer is just silly.Hey, I do that for living... ;-)
See? They're always picking you up on minutiae..
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The idea is that people who download a "bootleg" .pdf would be spending money on that product otherwise, but that's shenanigans. They were never going to make that purchase in the first place and without the "bootleg" they'd, in all likelihood, just go without and lose -or never cultivate- an interest in the product.
Going without for a while might increase the perceived value of the product to them or result in a sale coming along at which point the value of the product might decrease to a point it was acceptable to them.
On the other hand, if I think something is not worth it, or I am unable to buy it legally for any reason (included the oh so popular 'not available in your part of the world shenanigans), I have zero compunction in just copying it for my use.
Region encoding and different terms for different regions infuriate me too.
Collecting a large collection of stuff that wasn't worth paying for means that you are less likely to feel the need to go and buy something that you do feel is worth it - you have plenty to read.
I do get the points made. There is an element of free publicity there and some people do go on to be paying customers after being exposed to a product illegally. However, there is a potential loss to the copyright holder. There are people out there who give out free stuff (Paizo included) as an incentive and there are people who allow the buyer to choose the price they pay for a product, within a set range. Those are both much better ways for a publisher to attract people than condoning copyright infringement and hoping that it acts as 'free' publicity.
Mike if you were an author, and this was your source of income would you be ok with it? Those laws are in place to protect people's livlihood to a very large extent.
I'm not unsympathetic to their making money for their hard work....at all. In fact, I'd want to put more money in their hands so they could make more awesome stuff. In all of capitalism the gaming industry is my favoritest of favorites.
They're going about it the wrong way though and are shooting themselves right in the foot. The idea is that people who download a "bootleg" .pdf would be spending money on that product otherwise, but that's shenanigans. They were never going to make that purchase in the first place and without the "bootleg" they'd, in all likelihood, just go without and lose -or never cultivate- an interest in the product. Those laws don't protect the authors from anything but free, user-generated, advertising and in the meantime nail anyone who can't afford a good defense attorney right to the wall.
I would not say they don't protect them from "anything"....
I do agree that "most" people who would download for free would not pay anyway, but some people do not have the ability or know how to get it for free so they do pay for it, even if they are not doing so because they are honest.
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When giving out pieces of a product what is the limit?
I'm not sure if this depends on local jurisdiction or American law including 'fair use' provisions, but I think the answers are:
For example if one of my players want to make a Divine hunter but he don't posses the Ultimate Combat hardbound, giving him a printout of the relevant section of the book is allowed?
No, as it is not for personal use. Yes if you print it from the PRD.
A digital copy of the Archetype chapter?
As above - a screen-scrape of the OGL stuff in the PRD would be ok, but extracting the pages from the PDF not.
How about Hero Lab? It can print a complete description of the spells available to a character, so that can be a large section of several books.
Hopefully all compiled from OGL material that they are cleared to reproduce by the license attached to that material.
How much of the OGL books can be shared?
All of the parts actually declared as OGL.
I agree that it is a flawed argument for publishers to think that every illegal download or case of copyright infringement is a lost sale. There are certainly people who are collectors who will download any rpg pdf just to be complete, or any other number of reasons.
By the same token it's also flawed to believe that it is just free advertising, and people will become paying customers after checking out the material. There are plenty of people, who will never pay for something they can get for free, no matter how much they love the product.
The problem is that we don't have good numbers on the conversion rate of people who download the torrent, like the product and then become paying customers, and the people who download the product, like it, and continue to pay nothing. I'm sure if there were good numbers, and it made some sense we would see a different stance or different business models for this. Remember companies want to make money and if it made sense they may feel different about it.
Also remember the rpg industry is a small niche industry. It takes a much smaller amount of lost sale to effect them.
So we can make arguments for each side, but we don't have the numbers to really say one way or the other.
It's just as likely that they'd become paying customers as not. Enough to break even in terms of sales. In the meantime these businesses could be saving themselves a gigantic legal headache by not sweating the small stuff (and probably saving themselves a big wad of cash in the process).
Also I miss beholders and mind flayers.
In the meantime I miss beholders and mind flayers.
What about the Mind Witness? *ducks for cover*
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There are plenty of people, who will never pay for something they can get for free, no matter how much they love the product.
Well, that's the question. Last time I read about this topic, the claim was made that a significant chunk of the filesharing lot spends much more money on their hobby than non-filesharers. But as they can't afford all the stuff they'd like to have, they use filesharing to complete their collection.
Now I don't want to condone this behavior in any way, but being in the same boat (While I would love to, I simply cannot afford to buy all the stuff Paizo cranks out), I certainly understand the temptation leading to this behavior. And I guess I'm not the only one knowing this temptation.
On the other hand I'm not into movies or popular music too much, so the rare jewel I need to have I gladly pay for and the rest I simply ignore. It would make no sense to download anything I do not really care about so I'm not even tempted to do it. And I guess I'm not the only one.
Meaning that I don't believe that there are many people out there who would spend more money, if they had no other chance to get the products they want. That doesn't suddenly make filesharing right but the industry losing money because of filesharing? Well let's say that I'm quite sure that's a non-problem.
People who value something are willing to spend money on it. People who don't have no reason to download it. Probably apart from some people who do it just because they can but I guess those people would certainly not buy anything.
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I like to hope that if somehow one of my files ended up on a torrent Paizo would take my history with them into account and realize it wasnt intentional without burning bridges at the first instance. Pirating books is mostly irrelevant with no closed rules conteny anyway.
That said, those books are out there and Paizo is a roaring success so the evidence that it hurts business is pretty thin. They should not encourage it, nor should they be draconian. The story above of the person who was cut off without getting a chance to defend himself bothers me, but I have only heard one side.
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I agree with Coridan.
The savvy thing to do in such a case is to assess whether your customer is a pirate or a bystander.
You lock the pirate away and you forgive the bystander. Because you want him to keep on buying your products.
Easy enough to make the difference between the two as the bystander will have a very few watermarked pdfs on the net compared to what he bought from Paizo.
While the reports of the way that Paizo has treated some customers are quite disturbing, let's keep the perspective that Paizo is pretty much as benevolent as they come when it comes to content creators. I am willing to give them a little benefit of the doubt as to treating their paying costomers like criminals.
Thank you Paizo for not being completely out of strp with the rest of reality like so many content companies. It is a not insignificant reason why I actually buy the books to play, as opposed to using the SRD.
I like to hope that if somehow one of my files ended up on a torrent Paizo would take my history with them into account and realize it wasnt intentional without burning bridges at the first instance. Pirating books is mostly irrelevant with no closed rules conteny anyway.
That said, those books are out there and Paizo is a roaring success so the evidence that it hurts business is pretty thin. They should not encourage it, nor should they be draconian. The story above of the person who was cut off without getting a chance to defend himself bothers me, but I have only heard one side.
Well, paizo makes a point with the SRD regarding Open Content. The books are partially open content at best, some (like the APs) have minimal open content. However, art is never open content. This is one point why pirating is not okay with any book.
If everybody thinks "naah, my pirating won´t hurt them", soon we will see paizo having real trouble.
Regarding someone being the original downloader of the content: There is a violated contract, and if one side does not hold true, the other is entitled to do whatever they deem necessary to rectify the situation (within the terms of the contract). This is entirely different situation than having a lawsuit. While it is bad for the person in question, in the end, it is somehow his fault, perhaps unless he can prove that he did everything reasonably in his power to prevent that.
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The savvy thing to do in such a case is to assess whether your customer is a pirate or a bystander.
You lock the pirate away and you forgive the bystander. Because you want him to keep on buying your products.
Easy enough to make the difference between the two as the bystander will have a very few watermarked pdfs on the net compared to what he bought from Paizo.
Someone 'lends' a friend a PDF and that rotten person then uploads it. Only one PDF in the wild, but the owner did commit knowing infringement.
Someone actually is hacked and the hacker just torrents a disk image of their whole drive. All PDFs are in the wild but that person is the one who should be forgiven.
It's sadly not that simple.
I'm not sure such a society could even ever exist with humans being the way they are.
The dinosaurs tried it. See how that worked out? If they couldn't do it, how could we expect humans to?
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wutisthisidonteven...
I didn't sign no stinking contract. I purchased a product. When I spend my money on someone's product it becomes my property. If not, I should be given my money back as no exchange has taken place.
If my computer gets hacked and Paizo thinks they can take me to court when MY property resurfaces on the net they better have a *real* good lawyer... and I mean Jack McCoy tier. Anything less is only going to cost them their (and my) litigation fees.
I find this disconcerting. Not but a few months ago I purchased some peppers from a large farming company. I enjoyed the peppers quite thoroughly, so I saved the seeds and germinated then planted them. I currently have a plant full of peppers growing in my backyard. I assumed this was legal, but what if buy buying the peppers I had unknowingly entered into a contract with the farmer that was legally binding? I might be okay though because I did not do anything as legally binding as clicking a button on a website... but pretty close.
Cayden Cailean help me for I have become a pepper pirate.
Peppers, like most items of produce, are not intellectual property, and thus are not protected by copyright laws. Germinate all you like.
Now, if you take a cutting without permission of a unique patented rose hybrid, you might get in trouble, so I'd just stick to vegetables to be safe. :)
I like to hope that if somehow one of my files ended up on a torrent Paizo would take my history with them into account and realize it wasnt intentional without burning bridges at the first instance. Pirating books is mostly irrelevant with no closed rules conteny anyway.
That said, those books are out there and Paizo is a roaring success so the evidence that it hurts business is pretty thin. They should not encourage it, nor should they be draconian. The story above of the person who was cut off without getting a chance to defend himself bothers me, but I have only heard one side.
Just because someone is willing to buy the books that does not mean they are not willing to share them. I am sure that if someone can prove they were hacked someone that Paizo would not hold it against them, but without proof the accused really has nothing to back them up. I don't think the story about no chance to defend themselves is accurate. More than likely Paizo was not accepting anything less than absolute proof, and going back and forth with a customer was not going to bring proof.
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All of this tells me one thing. If I ever have a suspicion I've been hacked, the first thing I'll do is notify Paizo.
Second, I'll notify my credit card companies. Gotta have priorites :)
Edit: I can't even remember how many times people have asked me for PDFs of things I have. Frankly, it really annoys me. I paid for all this stuff - why should I give out a copy? *shrug*
The same goes for books I have PDFs of. If I own a book and have a PDF of it, why should I give a copy to someone who doesn't even own a copy of the book? Buy the book yourself, dammit.
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I am 99% sure Mike is trolling at this point. He surely would not agree to his ideas were he on the other end.The irony is that he describes himself in his profile as a starving artist...
Imagine the artist who gets a little success and, from his studio and a few galleries, sells prints of some of his paintings. Then he finds out that someone else has got access to the originals and is giving away prints of his work.
I wonder how Russel would feel about that?
That'd be irony if I was complaining about it and I'm not. I'd be ecstatic if people started sharing my work en masse though are you kidding? I even have a public photo album of all the pictures I take from around town. As it is no one wants them even at the reasonable price of free... hence my day job. Were they to start circulating around (even for a profit) I've still suffered no financial injury because I wasn't making any money from my work anyway and only stand to gain recognition. I'd take fame and poverty over obscurity and poverty in a heartbeat.
For crying out loud, if this mentality existed in the stone age we'd still be there since only the guy who first rubbed two sticks together would be allowed to make fire.
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For crying out loud, if this mentality existed in the stone age we'd still be there since only the guy who first rubbed two sticks together would be allowed to make fire.
No, it's an invention so he would have patented it. He'd have licensed the patent for a fee of cooked mammoth steaks and would have become fabulously wealth and well-fed. He'd have then been the first person to die of congestive heart failure.
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ou say to them. I think it's better not to waste the time.)[/ooc]
Edit: I can't even remember how many times people have asked me for PDFs of things I have. Frankly, it really annoys me. I paid for all this stuff - why should I give out a copy? *shrug*
The same goes for books I have PDFs of. If I own a book and have a PDF of it, why should I give a copy to someone who doesn't even own a copy of the book? Buy the book yourself, dammit.
Tell me about it...i buy lots of pdfs and my friends constantly ask me to give them those. Why should i? I paid for this.
Peppers, like most items of produce, are not intellectual property, and thus are not protected by copyright laws. Germinate all you like.
Now, if you take a cutting without permission of a unique patented rose hybrid, you might get in trouble, so I'd just stick to vegetables to be safe. :)
QFT. I remember watching a documentary about how a major chemical company was suing farmers for allegedly collecting part of their crop of it's patented genetically modified corn (that they had lawfully purchased nonetheless) for sowing the following year (I guess there was some kind of contract forbidding that and requiring that they had to purchase seed again from the company).
EDIT: Therefore, being a food and a necessity as James said has nothing to do with it. If it is considered IP of some sort, that's the end of the story.
I am 99% sure Mike is trolling at this point. He surely would not agree to his ideas were he on the other end.The irony is that he describes himself in his profile as a starving artist...
Imagine the artist who gets a little success and, from his studio and a few galleries, sells prints of some of his paintings. Then he finds out that someone else has got access to the originals and is giving away prints of his work.
I wonder how Russel would feel about that?
That'd be irony if I was complaining about it and I'm not. I'd be ecstatic if people started sharing my work en masse though are you kidding? I even have a public photo album of all the pictures I take from around town. As it is no one wants them even at the reasonable price of free... hence my day job. Were they to start circulating around (even for a profit) I've still suffered no financial injury because I wasn't making any money from my work anyway and only stand to gain recognition. I'd take fame and poverty over obscurity and poverty in a heartbeat.
For crying out loud, if this mentality existed in the stone age we'd still be there since only the guy who first rubbed two sticks together would be allowed to make fire.
The fire analogy is wildly out of place. I know it is hyperbole, but still...
As for the studio artist, how upset he might be would depend on how much he loses from what he is not selling because it is being given away. If the art work is not supporting him then it is free advertising, and he is actually better off. If he is losing money from his sole source or revenue I am don't think he would be that happy about it. Yeah the advertising is still free, but he has no guarantee that it will benefit him in any way, while the loss money is hurting him right now.