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Post by Vermin King on Feb 28, 2012 19:36:05 GMT -9
As you all are probably aware, I take a lot of enjoyment in 'finding things' on the internet. I actually can remember how to get back to something I have found when I think it is useful. Part of my searches involves using the Wayback Machine to find models that are no longer posted. It has been mentioned to me in another forum that doing so 'is like stealing and putting pretty flowers on it. If the designer still wanted it available, he would have it available.' Opinions?
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Post by old squirmydad on Feb 28, 2012 20:09:39 GMT -9
Depends...is it from a dead forum or blog? If the designer put it out there in the beginning, but didn't retract it (remove it?) and didn't issue any statements like, "Hands off my stuff", then I think it should be fine.
However, there was a designer who made chunky little Godzilla papercraft, really neat ones! He had said "don't repost my stuff" and there was a forum site that wouldn't listen to him and disseminated his work far and wide. So he took down his site and never posted again.
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Post by cowboyleland on Feb 28, 2012 20:18:32 GMT -9
I'm guessing the story usually goes something like this: Someone decides to share his work with the world and posts their stuff on the internet. Real life happens, whoever hosted the site gets too busy, whatever. Guy moves on to other projects. Re-posting old projects is not a priority so there is no current site for it. Not out of a decision to take it down, just from inertia. That is what the wayback machine is for.
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Post by Rhannon on Feb 28, 2012 23:47:46 GMT -9
If there isn't an express further decision usually I consider them as a kind of abandonware.
Echoes from the net.
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Post by gilius on Feb 29, 2012 3:11:38 GMT -9
I'm guessing the story usually goes something like this: Someone decides to share his work with the world and posts their stuff on the internet. Real life happens, whoever hosted the site gets too busy, whatever. Guy moves on to other projects. Re-posting old projects is not a priority so there is no current site for it. Not out of a decision to take it down, just from inertia. That is what the wayback machine is for. I'm with cowboyleland on this one. The only situation I think would be more complicated is using the wayback machine to grab models that have been removed because they were free but turned into commercial products. Still, the terms of use of the wayback machine state that site owners may request that files be removed from their database (I guess it's even a requirement of any content host after the DMCA, anyway.)
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Post by Vermin King on Feb 29, 2012 5:28:59 GMT -9
That pretty much echoes my feelings. Like all the old freebees from papertigerarmaments. His site is excluded. Other projects seem to have just dropped by the wayside. Ghostofman is still open, but the last few posts on his homepage are along the lines of 'another empty promise to try to be more active and post more stuff'. When his site goes down, I think that it would be more than fair game. There are other sites where the original owner died and a son or daughter kept it up for a while and let it go.
And then there are the sites that pulled stuff because no one picked it up, like the fiddlersgreen greeting cards. I don't have a problem with that, but to pick up other models crosses the line.
I think the other guy was over reacting.
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Post by Rhannon on Feb 29, 2012 5:53:47 GMT -9
I'm guessing the story usually goes something like this: Someone decides to share his work with the world and posts their stuff on the internet. Real life happens, whoever hosted the site gets too busy, whatever. Guy moves on to other projects. Re-posting old projects is not a priority so there is no current site for it. Not out of a decision to take it down, just from inertia. That is what the wayback machine is for. I'm with cowboyleland on this one. The only situation I think would be more complicated is using the wayback machine to grab models that have been removed because they were free but turned into commercial products. Still, the terms of use of the wayback machine state that site owners may request that files be removed from their database (I guess it's even a requirement of any content host after the DMCA, anyway.) Idem. this is my only exception.
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Post by aviphysics on Feb 29, 2012 11:29:31 GMT -9
If there isn't an express further decision usually I consider them as a kind of abandonware. Echoes from the net. This I believe. I also believe (ethically if not legally) that if someone posts their own work online without any request or stated copyright they are basically putting it into the public domain. I did have to laugh when I found some hobbiest selling paper craft dolls that she designed, not only put a big Disney logo on them with the character's name and an accompaniment of their familiars from the movie along, but her own copyright along the bottom of the card. There is just no way that is not a violation of Disney's copyright trademark and whatever else.
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Post by glennwilliams on Feb 29, 2012 14:30:16 GMT -9
If there isn't an express further decision usually I consider them as a kind of abandonware. Echoes from the net. This I believe. I also believe (ethically if not legally) that if someone posts their own work online without any request or stated copyright they are basically putting it into the public domain. I did have to laugh when I found some hobbiest selling paper craft dolls that she designed, not only put a big Disney logo on them with the character's name and an accompaniment of their familiars from the movie along, but her own copyright along the bottom of the card. There is just no way that is not a violation of Disney's copyright trademark and whatever else. I helped write my college's IP policy. The college was attempting to assert ownership of anything on the faculty and staff hard drives created by any of us. US law, we discovered, was that copyright existed when the intellectual property was reduced to a permanent form (ie saved to hard drive) by the creator. Thus, we convinced them that anything not work for hire was owned by the creator. (a dean storing child porn on his hard drive kinda helped when we sweetly asked if the college were asserting ownership of that.) I would assume as a courtesy that anything you find is copyrighted and respect it, much as you might respect a friend's tools you borrow. Consequently, I'd probably use the item for myself if I could determine it was no longer being sold, but not disseminate it. (although I don't see anything wrong with pointing somebody in the right direction.) Theft is a constant issue for content creators, and it's why I put a copyright notice on anything I post.
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Post by hackbarth on Mar 1, 2012 6:29:55 GMT -9
If the original owner put the work online with the purpose of sharing it, I consider it available for sharing even if the original place where he put them wasn't available anymore. If he changed his mind he needs to inform that the work isn't available anymore. I would look for permission of the original artist only if I was modifying or resharing the work on my own place, but links for where the work can be reached are a fair game.
For my personal use I consider that anything that I can get my hands on is fair game (save if the content is explicit pirated, and even them with some exceptions (fansubs for example)). I didn't delete my Terra Force from Jim that I got for free (I even paid for at least half of them, originally) after Sanity put them on sale again. But I wouldn't share them because they where once free, even tough I see that we are on shady ground when someone asks for a figure that Jim did, that they need for this weekend game and wasn't made available again... Tough luck...
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Post by aviphysics on Mar 1, 2012 10:40:31 GMT -9
At what point does a piece of work enter public domain if a copy-write is never claimed. Surely if someone freely disseminates their own work without claiming some right of ownership at some point it must be considered fair to redistribute their work.
I see it as preferable that the work of someone who has not expressed a desire to the contrary be preserved through sharing rather then buried in the sands of time.
Interestingly enough regarding university copyright. Any work that was paid for by the government is public domain. I just recently published a paper and though the journal holds a copyright on the formatted document, the work that I did had to be published to a national data base for free distribution.
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Post by aviphysics on Mar 1, 2012 10:41:32 GMT -9
I found this regarding publishing without notice copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfmIt basically says that anywork is indeed copyrighted at the moment of creation. In practical terms I don't see how this is enforceable. How can anyone besides the creator possibly know when a work was created. Further, if the work is not published with a copy right how can we know who created it and if we don't know who created it how can we know when the copyright expires. Legality aside, I stand by my original moral belief.
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Post by glennwilliams on Mar 1, 2012 18:11:46 GMT -9
Since I only know about (and not deeply beyond what faculty needed to know) US copyright, Berne Convention et al is foreign territory--don' know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no furrin copyrights. That said, Congress extended the US copyright limits by an ungodly amount thanks to Disney (75 yrs?). It was 50 yrs. That means pretty much any work we encounter is potentially copyrighted. If you're building for personal use there probably isn't a problem, but since the question began as an ethics question, that's somewhat different.
Enforceability really isn't relevant to the ethical issue of innocent use versus theft, as ethics is about what you ought do when no one is watching.
Unless the author shows on the work that he/she is placing it in the public domain, I would assume US works are copyrighted and try to act courteously, respecting the author's property. I know in past discussions, artists have mentioned here that they had discovered their works were pirated, a polite way of saying someone stole from them. I'm probably sensitive to this because I create content, and because I had a run-in with my college which was trying to assert ownership of original works my colleagues had created.
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Post by cowboyleland on Mar 1, 2012 19:18:39 GMT -9
Doesn't seem like your college was being very collegial to your colleagues. I really hope somewhere on the hard drives there was a collage. But seriously I haven't bothered doing anything with my stuff because I assumed posting it without a copyright mark meant it wasn't copyrighted. I guess I'll have to go back and stick some kind of "creative commons" stuff on it to put everyone who uses my stuff (all three of them!) at ease.
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Post by glennwilliams on Mar 1, 2012 21:20:43 GMT -9
Doesn't seem like your college was being very collegial to your colleagues. I really hope somewhere on the hard drives there was a collage. But seriously I haven't bothered doing anything with my stuff because I assumed posting it without a copyright mark meant it wasn't copyrighted. I guess I'll have to go back and stick some kind of "creative commons" stuff on it to put everyone who uses my stuff (all three of them!) at ease. Only quote I know by Henry Kissinger sums it up: "Academic disputes are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
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Post by aviphysics on Mar 2, 2012 12:27:58 GMT -9
Doesn't seem like your college was being very collegial to your colleagues. I really hope somewhere on the hard drives there was a collage. But seriously I haven't bothered doing anything with my stuff because I assumed posting it without a copyright mark meant it wasn't copyrighted. I guess I'll have to go back and stick some kind of "creative commons" stuff on it to put everyone who uses my stuff (all three of them!) at ease. Only quote I know by Henry Kissinger sums it up: "Academic disputes are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." What a fantastic quote. ... ... ... I assume you got permission to use it . Given that anything said after 1977 is copyrighted for quite a long time I wonder if you are only allowed to quote someone when given permission or under fair use. Unless of course they are an agent of the government. I suppose a forum member could send cease and desist orders to everyone who quotes their posts and prosecute those that don't comply.
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Post by aviphysics on Mar 2, 2012 12:39:44 GMT -9
A quick web search later... from www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.htmlWhich I suppose means that it is legally acceptable to post someone's work as long as you are only posting a portion of it for commentary. I wonder how far this has been legally tested. Seems like a show such as MST3K could basically show a whole movie as long as they commented on the entirety of it.
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Post by Vermin King on Mar 2, 2012 14:51:36 GMT -9
Actually at another forum, there was a big blow-up regarding the image of a small section of a model to help someone figure out how the pieces go together. Some folk go to extremes, or as the saying goes, It takes all kinds ...
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Post by Christopher Roe on Mar 2, 2012 15:06:45 GMT -9
For me it's pretty simple: can I call ownsies on the content? If it's not something I created myself, then it's not mine to decide what to do with. If something I wanted to download is gone because whoever created it fell off the face of the Internet or whatever, the fact that the person took no deliberate measures to ensure future availability of that content is answer enough. If he/she really wanted to ensure that future generations of Internet visitors can still download and enjoy dancing_hamsters_in_viking_helmets.avi, he/she would have mirrored it or posted it on Youtube or something before closing down their little Geocities site about dancing Viking hamsters and moving on with their life. Sure, that might be seen as unnecessarily simplistic in this day and age of complicated shades of gray, but I like keeping life nice and simple.
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Post by cowboyleland on Mar 2, 2012 16:13:48 GMT -9
Quoting is not the same as kit bashing or re-posting. To come back to the beginning of the topic, I think the wayback machine is like finding an out of print book at the library. Posting a link to the wayback machine is like telling people that book is at the library. Even if a book is out of print, you are not allowed to photocopy it and hand it out to your friends, but others can borrow it from the library, read it and use the information to make the world a better place.
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Post by hackbarth on Mar 2, 2012 16:29:35 GMT -9
For me it's pretty simple: can I call ownsies on the content? If it's not something I created myself, then it's not mine to decide what to do with. If something I wanted to download is gone because whoever created it fell off the face of the Internet or whatever, the fact that the person took no deliberate measures to ensure future availability of that content is answer enough. If he/she really wanted to ensure that future generations of Internet visitors can still download and enjoy dancing_hamsters_in_viking_helmets.avi, he/she would have mirrored it or posted it on Youtube or something before closing down their little Geocities site about dancing Viking hamsters and moving on with their life. Sure, that might be seen as unnecessarily simplistic in this day and age of complicated shades of gray, but I like keeping life nice and simple. I disagree, I think that if someone made some form of content available somehow, his intent to make the content available persists, until the contrary is expressed by him, even if the original form of availability of the content is gone. Doing otherwise would condemn much of the Internet and general exchange of information to obsolescence and constant overhead of monitoring. Copyright isn't a right, it's a reward for producing interesting content, it is in the interest of the society to reward innovation and progress.
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Post by kiladecus on Mar 2, 2012 17:43:36 GMT -9
I am not a credible source, and am NOT educated to give an intelligent answer... but in my normal fashion, I will make my comments anyways. I think that if the content were posted as "free" to the public, then it should remain that way until it is removed by the originator. If I post a figure or model on ABCpapercraft.com, and it is a free download, then in my opinion, it is there to be downloaded, and if someone like MagPiesTear, or VerminKing were to place a link to it as a free download, then how is that wrong? If I submitted something to the Horde (or "Hoard") here, and later sold it in a set of figures, and someone said, "Why BUY it when you can download it free from here..." then, that is "my bad." Furthermore, if I have something that I submitted to the Hoard, and someone wanted to modify it (like RevGunn did with my PSI-BORGS), I didn't have a problem with that, because he asked my permission first. I still own whatever copyright is on them, he just changed them. I think this is very simple stuff... unless I am missing something here. Sometimes I DO miss the point, and ramble on only to make myself look like an idiot. (I am sure this is the case again). But I think if it is there, and the multitude share a link to it, then so be it. If the author wanted it removed, then only THEY are to blame. For what it's worth...
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Post by Christopher Roe on Mar 2, 2012 22:22:26 GMT -9
I disagree, I think that if someone made some form of content available somehow, his intent to make the content available persists, until the contrary is expressed by him, even if the original form of availability of the content is gone. I bolded the relevant section in your statement because it illustrates exactly my point. If someone allows their website to disappear (by not paying the bills or canceling their hosting, for example), or does not actively try to re-post the content elsewhere if their website disappears from external causes (for example, Geocities closing down), that in itself is an implicit expression that the creator is no longer interested in ensuring the availability of his/her content.Granted, most of the time the creator probably doesn't actually care if their stuff is reposted elsewhere because they've moved on to other things or whatever, but unless you actually contacted the creator to find out if it's OK for you to repost their content, it's still copyright infringement in the eyes of the law.
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Post by gilius on Mar 3, 2012 4:46:54 GMT -9
... Granted, most of the time the creator probably doesn't actually care if their stuff is reposted elsewhere because they've moved on to other things or whatever, but unless you actually contacted the creator to find out if it's OK for you to repost their content, it's still copyright infringement in the eyes of the law. I think that's exactly the point: find something on the internet without a clear license, know that you're taking chances if you use it. No matter if it's on a "live" site or on Wayback Machine. Copyright comes "automatically" with publishing and the default is that all rights are reserved to the author. I know a lot of people disagree with how that works and that might change with time (maybe it's already changing) but disliking the law doesn't make it less valid. If nothing else, having to bother chosing a license or writing your own terms, as well as looking for such information on others' works, helps to raise awareness on the subject, which is an important step for making things change. Using licenses like the GPL, FDL and Creative Commons (Share-Alike versions) also helps by "contaminating" the marketplace with material that must be kept free (as in free speech.)
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Post by hackbarth on Mar 3, 2012 17:12:29 GMT -9
I disagree, I think that if someone made some form of content available somehow, his intent to make the content available persists, until the contrary is expressed by him, even if the original form of availability of the content is gone. I bolded the relevant section in your statement because it illustrates exactly my point. If someone allows their website to disappear (by not paying the bills or canceling their hosting, for example), or does not actively try to re-post the content elsewhere if their website disappears from external causes (for example, Geocities closing down), that in itself is an implicit expression that the creator is no longer interested in ensuring the availability of his/her content.Granted, most of the time the creator probably doesn't actually care if their stuff is reposted elsewhere because they've moved on to other things or whatever, but unless you actually contacted the creator to find out if it's OK for you to repost their content, it's still copyright infringement in the eyes of the law. Thanks for elaborating on my ideas, I still think that the ethical thing to do is to keep content available. Implicit expression is a contradiction. I think that to change your posture about your desire to keep available your work it is needed action. If you don't act about it, your last stand on this matter must be still assumed. Also, the question is about ethics, not law. Ethics is the a way to behave that benefit society the most. I believe that uploading content that has been orphanated by the author is more ethical than keeping distance from it simple because you can no longer contact the author. Of course it remains to be tested if this is legal, but that is another topic entirely.
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Post by Christopher Roe on Mar 4, 2012 0:42:58 GMT -9
Thanks for elaborating on my ideas, I still think that the ethical thing to do is to keep content available. I don't think it's a matter of ethics, just convenience. I don't seriously expect some random guy who starts a hobby site on My Little Pony to hold himself to some sort of lofty ethical standard to keep his site going forever. It's just a hobby site and people get bored with stuff and move on with things. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to cut the guy some slack if he wakes up one morning and decides he's had enough of talking ponies and moves on to collecting Hummel figurines or something. It's not the end of the world. All things in proportion, and all things in perspective. For me, ethics come into it only when allowing your site to die and your content to disappear screws other people out of money or trust. I don't hold random free paper model sites to the same standard as a commercial site, and that matter of ethics is why even though Ebbles Miniatures has not been a thing for a year, people can still download their stuff. It costs me money, but I justified it a long time ago by moving it under the same roof as my personal website/blog and setting it up so that it would be easier to keep going. It's not a contradiction. The analogy I use for that sort of thing is an apple tree. Let's say you have an apple tree in your backyard and you've told your neighbors that they're welcome to take an apple anytime they like. So, you're the dude with free apples, and every day passing neighbors help themselves to an apple on their way past, and it's all happiness and sunshine. One day, your apple tree dies because it got zapped by a lightning bolt. Suddenly, no more free apples for your neighbors. Let's say you decide you're not going to replant that apple tree for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons--the smoldering stump and concomitant absence of apples in your backyard is the implicit expression that the days of you being Mr. Free Apples are over. By your logic, Mr. Free Apples would have to knock on every neighbor's door and act like the Soup Nazi, which seems unnecessary to me. For me, the stump and lack of apples is evidence enough that I'm probably gonna have to find another source of apples. In Internet terms, the stump is the 404 page where my favorite hobby website used to be, and the free apples are the articles or whatever it used to provide for my consumption as a visitor. I can't speak for anybody else, but I like to live my life by a set of rules that I can explain to a small child without feeling like a hypocrite. "Don't steal other people's s**t" applies just as much to me as it would to my grandson, and it applies just as much to digital content as it would to another kid's toys. The law says the right to legally disseminate content belongs to the creator for some specified term of time, and that suits me just fine because I wouldn't like it if other people took it upon themselves to arbitrarily decide what to do with stuff I created without any input from me. At any rate, before this gets too far along: I don't really care about winning arguments or believe in forcing my opinions onto others. This is all just my own personal view of things, and if people disagree with it, that's fine with me.
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Post by cowboyleland on Mar 4, 2012 6:23:28 GMT -9
I would now like to start a debate about the difference between arguments and debates. The point of an argument is to convince your opponent, or those listening, that you are right. The point of a debate is to look at issues from all sides so everyone is confident they have enough information to make a good decision. I think this is (has been?) a good debate. It seems to me what it is boiling down to are those who want to follow the law, and many points about that have been made clearer through the debate, and others who are asking "Despite what the law says, I can't find anyone being hurt in this situation, so what is the problem?" I can take Glen's apple tree analogy a bit farther: What if, along with free apples you allowed a neighbour or two to take grafts of you apple tree and plant them in their own yards. They would be giving away clones of your apples, but would that be a problem for you? Or even someone managed to put several bushels of your free apples into cold storage and they now want to be Mr Free Apples for your street and put a basket out for neighbours to help themselves. Does that do harm to the original tree owner? Again, I know this isn't how the law sees internet content, but I don't think it is an unethical stance.
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Post by nikloveland on Mar 4, 2012 7:29:10 GMT -9
If I submitted something to the Horde (or "Hoard") here, and later sold it in a set of figures, and someone said, "Why BUY it when you can download it free from here..." then, that is "my bad." Furthermore, if I have something that I submitted to the Hoard, and someone wanted to modify it (like RevGunn did with my PSI-BORGS), I didn't have a problem with that, because he asked my permission first. I still own whatever copyright is on them, he just changed them. Ehmm... I thought I better chime in on this just so there is no confusion with the license that governs all HOARD Forum Submissions. The HOARD Forum Submissions are under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License (mentioned by gilius). Anything found in the HOARD can be modified and re-posted by anyone as long as it is not for sale and credit is given to the original author. This is why all submissions must be OK'd by all artist involved since it is a very liberal license. Now, the original creators can choose to resale their own stuff if they choose (since they created it, they have a 'different license' [officially termed a 'right' I believe]) but there is still a copy of their work under the CC license. I still think it is common courtesy to notify a HOARD author of your intend if just to thank them. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away. I'm just trying to clarify a point. Now as for the discussion at hand, I tend to agree with Chris. It's very difficult to notify everyone that you don't want your material re-posted. Even if your site, before it went dark, stated "Please don't repost my stuff" others may come along after who missed that message and started re-posting without permission. By asking for permission, the author at least gets to know his stuff was useful to someone. And if enough people ask that the material be re-posted, it may change his mind (or annoy him enough to change his mind). It's really not that hard to set up an archive if it is what the author wanted (Blogger + Dropbox or any number of free options). Re-posting without permission is taking something (distribution control) away from the author. Re-posting with permission is helpful. P.S. It is, and will continue to be, spelled 'Hoard' if for the very fact it's tradition. ;D
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Post by Christopher Roe on Mar 4, 2012 7:39:29 GMT -9
I would now like to start a debate about the difference between arguments and debates. The point of an argument is to convince your opponent, or those listening, that you are right. The point of a debate is to look at issues from all sides so everyone is confident they have enough information to make a good decision. I think this is (has been?) a good debate. It seems to me what it is boiling down to are those who want to follow the law, and many points about that have been made clearer through the debate, and others who are asking "Despite what the law says, I can't find anyone being hurt in this situation, so what is the problem?" The fact it doesn't cause any actual harm and frequently isn't worth enforcing, especially for noncommercial content, is probably what complicates the issue. That would be the purpose of a Creative Commons license or one of the other licensing models out there that explicitly encourages or allows free copying of content. Content licensed accordingly is fair game because it comes with a set of conditions that spell out what you can/can't do with it.
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Post by gilius on Mar 4, 2012 8:04:05 GMT -9
... P.S. It is, and will continue to be, spelled 'Hoard' if for the very fact it's tradition. ;D Sorry for the quick off-topic but I always thought it was the "forum hoard" as an allusion to a treasure hoard, a cache of valuable and endeared things created and maintained by the community... not a misspelling for a horde of miniatures. Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker.
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