Edvard Eriksen Estate Goes After Another Danish City For Having A Mermaid Statue
from the under-the-C dept
Who knew that a bronze statue of a mermaid could cause so much trouble. If you’re not aware, there is a statue of the Little Mermaid on the shores of the Danish capital Copenhagen. It was created by Edvard Eriksen, who died decades ago. Eriksen’s estate, however, is well known to try to claim copyright infringement on any other statues of mermaids that pop up in cities around the world, including in Michigan. Notably in that case, the estate ran away when a public backlash began to emerge. This is also, by the way, the same statue that Facebook has previously removed images of for showing too much “skin”, or bronze in this case, as the mermaid is topless, because… mermaids.
Notably, Eriksen based his own artwork on the famous Little Mermaid created by Hans Christian Anderson. Despite that, it seems that any remotely similar mermaid statues find their way into the estate’s crosshairs, such as the statue that resides in Asaa, Denmark.
The mermaid that has been watching the harbor in the village of Asaa, in northern Denmark, since 2016 is not an exact replica of the monument in the Danish capital. But for the heirs of Edvard Eriksen, the artist who sculpted the Copenhagen statue, the mermaid Asaa bears too much resemblance. They took legal action, demanding not only financial compensation, but also the demolition of Asaa’s sculpture.
“When I first received the email, I laughed,” said Mikael Klitgaard, the mayor of Broenderslev, the municipality that includes Asaa. “I thought it was a joke.”
The only joke here is the stance of the estate, which doesn’t appear to understand the idea/expression dichotomy in copyright laws. Now, to be clear, I’m not 100% clear on whether Danish law differs significantly from American law on the idea/expression dichotomy, though this Thomson Reuters Q&A on the topic appears quite familiar.
Copyright infringement is generally assessed by comparing the works in question and determining whether the allegedly infringing work brings on the same aesthetic experience as the original work. This determination is based on the general impression of the works, as opposed to assessing each detail on its own. When assessing copyright infringement, the courts must take into consideration the general notion that ideas, motifs, information and the like are not protected in Danish copyright law.
Assuming that’s accurate, any threat from the estate should be a nonstarter. If you are wondering how similar these works of art are, the answer is: very! But that is because they are bronze statues of mermaids sitting on a rock. Both kneel, both are topless, both are mermaids, and both have the mermaid’s tail splayed slightly to one side. But, and this is important, they are not identical. In other words, the statue is not a replica of the Copenhagen statue, but rather a replica of the idea, or inspiration, of Hans Christian Anderson’s mermaid. According to the source post, the lawyers on both sides are now talking, with much of the conversation coming down to how similar the statues are. And, it seems, a ton of that relies on the mermaid’s posture. Which, as Klitgaard goes on to note, presents a problem.
Carved from granite and weighing three tons, the mermaid Asaa is more plump and her facial features coarser. His posture, however, is the same.
“How else is she going to sit down?” asked Klitgaard, the mayor. “It’s a mermaid. You can’t put her on a chair.
Exactly. Meanwhile, the artist that created the Asaa mermaid, Palle Moerk, is quite confused as to why any of this is a problem for the estate.
The mermaid Asaa was created by Palle Moerk, a local artist and stonemason who carves both tombstones and figurative sculptures; among these, pigs, owls and human hands making gestures (both obscene and not) are favored themes. He had sculpted the mermaid four years before it was purchased by a group of Asaa citizens and donated to the organization that runs the port to commemorate its 140th anniversary.
In an interview, the artist said he resented the accusation of copying Eriksen’s mermaid. “As an artist you understand all kinds of things – and of course I had seen pictures of the mermaid Langelinie,” Moerk explained. “But it was my own inspiration.”
Idea vs. expression. The idea of a mermaid resting on a rock is not protectable by copyright. Exact replicas of the Copenhagen statue are. If this statue is not a replica, nor an attempt at a replica, then the estate is suing over idea and not expression.
In other words, the song from the film is “Under the Sea”, not “Under the ©”.
Filed Under: asaa, copenhagen, edvard eriksen, han christian anderson, little mermaid, mermaid, mermaid statue, palle moerk
Companies: edvard eriksen estate
Comments on “Edvard Eriksen Estate Goes After Another Danish City For Having A Mermaid Statue”
Another shining example of why it’s so incredibly stupid for copyright to not only last so long but last post death as the only ‘creativity’ on display here is the parasitic estate’s legal arguments, something most certainly not benefiting the public.
Re: Re:
While I entirely agree that the copyright term today is too long, your reasoning here fails to take into account the fact that in continental Europe (ie excluding the UK and Ireland) the rationale behind copyright (or droit d’auteur) is based on the honour of the author or artist, not the economic bargin which underpins the US concept. That’s why moral rights are big in Europe. For instance, in France they are perpetual, on the basis that no-one should infringe the honour of the author, even after death.
That is the mindset which motivates Edvard Eriksen estate, which afterall makes no financial gain from the statue in Copenhagen.
Re: Re: Re:
For instance, in France they are perpetual, on the basis that no-one should infringe the honour of the author, even after death.
Ah France, is there anything that country can not screw up… If someone making a similar or even identical work is enough to besmirch a person’s( never mind a corpse’s) honor then I’d say they never had any honor worth protecting in the first place.
Yeah, I just cannot buy into the idea of ‘moral rights’ as the justification of copyright as it seems to ignore a huge factor of creativity, namely that no-one creates in isolation but rather everything is built upon what came before it, so the idea that once you create something that’s built upon something else you get to lock that down and prevent others from doing the same with your work seems to strike at a core aspect of creativity and how it works.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Given that they and Germany also spearheaded Article 13/17, the Berne Convention and its unamendable author-suck-up-ery, and in France’s case, the paying public domain concept that still gets used in Africa and South America…
France is cool nonetheless.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Borrowing from large number of (previous) authors is ok, but taking your inspiration from just one author isn’t. I.e. if they had made mermaid statue standing in a sunken city surrounded by fish and canned tomatoes, then there would not be any copyright issues with it. But given that they had just the mermaid with certain exactly same pose than a well known statue and photographs displaying the statue shown to the tourists would have trouble figuring out which one is the original, there is clear copyright issues involved.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
There is a multitude of prior art of mermaids sitting on a stone by the sea. The statue in question is just Eriksen’s expression of said prior art, and the sheer dishonesty in shutting down other artists variants of the subject matter is just sickening.
If this was about an exact replica, then it would have been a different matter but evidently Eriksen’s estate thinks that statues of mermaids is something they have a monopoly on.
Imagine if for example Monet’s estate going after anyone doing impressionist paintings of comparable subject matter, any normal person would be up in arms about such actions.
Copyright impoverishes the ability to create new art if it’s used to lock up culture for generations.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Copyright is artist’s biggest friend and biggest enemy. The enemy part is about artist need to filter out works that someone else have already reserved for themselves. You’re not going to get good art, if you copy macdonald’s famous yellow m-sign. And you cannot get good art if you carbon-copy someone elses design. Especially cloning existing popular works is guaranteed to get into copyright-trouble.
They receive copyright monopoly when they purchase copyright ownership by creating copyrighted work or by buying ownership rights. When they spend significant amount of resources to do this, they receive stronger copyrights. It’s as simple as that. Investment is rewarded.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Which Eriksen then evidently didn’t do with all the available prior art.
On that specific statue, not every statue of a mermaid. And you still think copyright is about money instead of its stated objective: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. It’s quite telling.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
This isn’t true. Copyright on statues would be completely useless if it worked like that. To avoid making copyright useless, we need to protect also the shape of the statue, photos and other replications of the statue need to pay author of the statue some money. I.e. the copyright on statue extends beyond specific statue, to the shape of the statue. If this wasn’t the case, all photographs and replicas and 3d printed models would be free-to-use in commercial setting, and this isn’t the case. For statues, copyright mainly covers the shape.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
It’s amazing how you don’t actually understand copyright while singing its praises at every given moment.
My statement is true for the simple reason that if you have copyright on a specific statue, that also cover most types of reproductions but not different statues of the same subject matter.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
But there’s only very fine line between "different statues" and "reproduction of existing statue"… The reproduction can also take the form of "statue"…
Re: Re: Re:
Then no-one should be able to claim the rights of the author: Their estate, some company which somehow got the rights, etc.
That, or the legal ghost of Hans Christian Anderson should take a giant dump on the estate of Eriksen, because too similar and same name. Who cares if one is words and one is bronze? Stolen!
Whatever. The problem with all this stuff is arbitrary selective "enforcement". But we’ll see where this one goes. However it is already problematic with a city having to waste important money in a struggle with people who seem to have enough supply and no problem in pissing it away over nothing.
Re: Re: Re:
"the rationale behind copyright (or droit d’auteur) is based on the honour of the author or artist,"
Except, apparently, if you are borrowing from literature and folk legends, in which case you’re allowed to do that no problem, your estate can just harass anyone who took from the same stories you did later on.
That would seem to be a sticking point here – if Eriksen’s statue was an original work, that would be one thing. But, because it was based on someone else’s work and there’s limitation on how anyone basing something on the same work could realise it in a different way, it’s no longer about honour or morality, because they’re utter hypocrites.
Brought to you by the Siren’s call of greed and copyright.
Term of copyright
In case anyone is wondering, like me, when the statue falls out of copyright, the two key facts: The statue was made in 1913 — except that doesn’t matter under Danish law; the sculptor died in 1959. Danish copyright is life+70, so the statue enters public domain in 2029. Which means we have 8 more years of this nonsense to look forward to.
Re: Term of copyright
If Edvard Eriksen died in 1959, and the Danish terms of copyright are life+70, then the statue’s © should enter the public domain in 2030, not 2029. I know this for a fact because F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was copyrighted in 1925 for 95 years and it expired on New Year’s Day at the beginning of this year, which means that the F. Scott Fitzgerald estate enjoyed the final year of © before the rest of us Americans could enjoy it (Fitzegerald died in 1940, so it was available free of copyright in most of the rest of the world since 2011).
Re: Re: Term of copyright
Either way, that year can’t come soon enough.
Re: Re: Re: Term of copyright
I am in total agreement.
Re: Term of copyright
Ah, but it’s life of the statue rather than the sculptor. To avoid confusion, a similar statue may only be built 70 years after the previous one has been wrecked.
Just kidding. For now. Let’s hope that no lawmaker gets to read this.
Re: Re: Term of copyright
What happens if the original statue gets destroyed in an "accident"? Can someone then create a replica, or is that illegal?
How about if it gets damaged? Can someone repair it?
Re: Re: Re: Term of copyright
Damn. A lawmaker got to read it.
Re: Re: Re: Term of copyright
It has been damaged and repaired many times over the last century. The current statue is not even the original. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid_(statue)#Vandalism
They are not both of bronze, one is stone.
Also images of both:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/arts/design/little-mermaid-denmark-dispute.html
Not quite sure, but I think to remember that in some areas the type of scultpure is called bronze even if the sculpture isn’t made out of bronze.
But take this with a truckload of salt since I couldn’t find anything in that regard on the quick.
Why would the estate get compensation for the Asaa statue if they earn nothing from their own? All I know is Disney better get ready. Just wait until the estate finds out about this:
https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/09/disneys-art-of-animation-resort-celebrates-completion/
Re: Re:
The copyright isn’t dependent on how much money you can extract from your customers. Money is important, but only when considering the investment level, and it is considered when copyright law considers "proof of copyright ownership", i.e. money spent to strengthen the copyright is considered. It does not consider "how much copyright owners are earning".
BUT IF WE DON’T PAY THE ESTATE WHAT REASON DO THEY HAVE TO REANIMATE HIM TO SCULPT AGAIN!?!?
This is why copyright originally applied only to maps, charts and books. And a perfect illustration of why expanding it to cover non-mass produced media was an effin horrible idea.
Re: Re:
If anything, copyright for buildings is ridiculous. Why not just use patent law?
Re: Re: Re:
Patent law makes little sense for things that aren’t functional. Yes, I know the U.S. has design patents, thank you very much.
No estate owns the concept of a statue of a mermaid , unless the 2 statues are identical I can see no grounds for legal auction , a mermaid is a myth its not like batman which is intellectual property owned by dc eg if you make a statue
of batman you would need permission to sell it or use it in an advertisement
Re: Re:
How about this one?
There are, or have been, a number of statues around the world which pay/paid homage to Eriksen’s. The Mermaids of Earth site doesn’t say if any of them have since been demolished.
https://mermaidsofearth.com/mermaid-statues-mermaid-sculptures/public/
Isn’t imitation said to be the sincerest form of flattery?
Re: Re:
And here’s a good writeup on the situation:
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/canada/vancouver/articles/how-vancouvers-girl-in-a-wetsuit-sculpture-got-away-with-copying-denmarks-little-mermaid/
Including a mention of "Girl in a wetsuit" which is a direct riff on The Little Mermaid, but is protected.
The Eriksen’s are related to Devin Nunes by any chance?
Re: Re:
They are related to someone who seems to have left them enough money to be jackasses with all their free time.
Everyone's discussing copyright
…. but my question is: Do these guys think their (grand)father invented the way mermaids look or something?
There is actual case around this topics...
The real problem isn’t the similarity or the statue.
The city of copenhagen and their travel agencies have spent millions on money making the mermaid statue popular destination among tourists. This money needs to have a value. And only way to make that money valuable is to assign the money amount to the shape of the statue in question. Tourists are attaching fafourable views and effort of the whole city’s travel industry to the shape of a mermaid statue.
Now the infringing statues are trying to use goodwill of that millions of money amount to advance their own travel industry, by diluting the original copyright, and trying to confuse random tourists that which city or area is the original source of the mermaid statue. The infringing statues are basically scams that try to ride on someone else’s popularity. This is always dangerous in copyright circles. Basically it’s clear case of copyright infringement.
In situations like this, we need to only look if ordinary tourists are being scammed to think that the infringing copy is the original source of mermaid statue. The statues do not need to look exactly the same to infringe on copyright, but instead its enough that ordinary tourists cannot distinguish them.
Re: There is actual case around this topics...
I am sure you could negotiate quite a bit of money if you managed to tell all that to a judge while keeping a straight face.
Sometimes I get the feeling that keeping a straight face is essentially what the legal profession is all about.
Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
Copyright infringement only requires two elements to be proven:
1) ownership of the copyrighted work
2) copying of the material
The money aspect deals with the (1) part, i.e. how much effort and money you spent to create the material, and how that resulted in you owning the copyrighted work. Then it’s just matter of proving the copying, i.e. that tourists cannot recognize the two copyrighted works from each other and given that copyright owner haven’t given permission for the infringing copy, one of the statues must be infringing. Then it’s just causality, and infringers access to the photos of the original statue.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Copyright law has no bearing on how much effort you spent to make something. Absolutely none. It gives you some degree of protection so people don’t try to sell your stuff as their own. The fact that effort and quality do not have any distinction in copyright is important because it means people can sue over copyright infringement over even inane garbage, but that has never had anything to do with how much effort went in.
Yeah, about that… so far the Eriksen estate hasn’t managed to prove that, have they?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
This isn’t true. The copyright lawsuit involving star wars is completely different thing than copyright lawsuit involving some random poem. Star wars authors spent significantly more money and effort to make it popular, and this gives them stronger copyright protection.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"The copyright lawsuit involving star wars is completely different thing than copyright lawsuit involving some random poem"
The differences having nothing to do with anything that was spent before the lawsuits were filed. Disney having a lot of money for lawyers means nothing as to the actual copyright or the money spent in marketing. You really need to stop fantasising and deal with the real world, it would help you come up with a product that’s actually marketable rather than remaining bitter about the hilarious amount of money you burned on bus adverts that would never have worked in this reality no matter how much you spent.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
It’s a long term project. Current problems include stuff like it eats too much memory, or that the graphics wasn’t implemented by graphics designers.
Because of low investment amount, my project’s copyright is very weak, and if I need to sue people for copyright infringements, I wouldn’t get more than 10k damage awards, even though google vs oracle are getting 2billions. This is the difference between low investments like our bus ads, and what large companies can do.
It doesn’t matter if the effort actually pays off. Some products are just not meant to be successful. But when it fails, the authors just need to find a reason why it failed, and if part of the reason was that the market was eaten by pirates, then some legal actions can recover part of the investment. If the reason is something else, then some refocus or rebranding operations can fix the issue.
You shouldn’t expect that technology folks are marketing geniuses. That’s where you fail, you assume that popularity is somehow important property for pure technology module. We haven’t even shown the product to marketing folks, and that wont happen until it has been integrated to larger products.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
"It’s a long term project"
As is every software project. Nothing’s ever feature complete and bug free. If you think it is, you are either ignoring your customers needs and desires, or you’re fooling yourself about the bug count.
"Because of low investment amount, my project’s copyright is very weak"
No, the copyright is identical to every other project that’s had more or less investment. I’m not sure what magical extra protections you think you have as a result of money spent, but they don’t exist in the real world, unless you count the cost of lawyers, and you’re a very bad project manager if you’re including that in your development costs.
"I wouldn’t get more than 10k damage awards, even though google vs oracle are getting 2billions"
No you wouldn’t, because your product is hilariously worthless in comparison to the products in that lawsuit.
"It doesn’t matter if the effort actually pays off"
Very philosophical of you, and surprisingly honest of you to admit that you’re wasting your time.
"But when it fails, the authors just need to find a reason why it failed"
Yes, and despite their own beliefs, often it’s because they created a pile of shit that nobody wanted to buy.
"You shouldn’t expect that technology folks are marketing geniuses"
No, but most of them understand that paying thousands to have an incomprehensible advert on a commuter bus targeting people who would have no use for the product even if they could understand the ad is not the right way to go.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
This might not be true. I have actually experience with the phone area. Android’s technology is not too different to what we’re building. It’s just that google invested tons more money to make it popular and they have large marketing organisation that will sell it globally. I have nothing like that, even though the technologically the products are comparable. Technologically my product is equal or better than what google is selling in their android product. I simply haven’t invested millions to make it available all around the world.
Basically my meshpage product has one alternative use case, which would be using it in phone user interface for displaying "icons". With hardware acceleration it becomes feasible once screen resolutions start to become high enough that hardware acceleration for graphics is required. Current android solutions for the problem are all based on ordinary bitmaps, which have well known issues with memory consumption and flexibility and performance when screen resolutions become higher.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
"I have actually experience with the phone area"
Yes, you have a lot of experience in areas unrelated to your Meshpage failure, but that’s not under discussion here. You might well be a talented creator of embedded software that requires zero collaboration, we can’t confirm that one way or another. The fact that you haven’t understood why what you’re trying to create with Meshpage requires a completely different set of skills, none of which you have, just makes your grandiose claims here even more pathetic and hilarious.
"Basically my meshpage product has one alternative use case, which would be using it in phone user interface for displaying "icons"
How far the mighty have fallen, huh? You’ve spent years here arguing that your product would replace Blender and Pixar software in all professional capacities if only they weren’t illegally misusing copyright and that it would be used by children everywhere to learn their skills. Now, it’s to display icons.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You know, I have to hand it to you. You keep coming here like a whimpering dog, angry and grumpy that the government of Finland isn’t using your software – and then you keep listing all these problems that prevent your software from working. Why would anyone in the Finnish government pay you money for your work when even you admit your software can’t even deliver on the basic functions required of its purpose? Why should anyone damage their own computers trying to make mansion plans with your software when you admit that the software will use excess memory?
Fortunately for you that’s not how copyright works. A piece of work that has less money put into it isn’t going to magically become "less copyrighted". I suspect what you’re angry about is "copyright damages" and the assumption you wouldn’t get a lot of money if you chose to sue someone in court for it. But that assumes anyone wants to pirate Meshpage, and… look, you explained yourself in the first part. Nobody’s going to claim ownership of graphics software that even graphic designers aren’t implementing graphics on.
Because Oracle is a company populated entirely by shitweasels trying to leverage anti-Google sentiment to make up for their own detrimental, self-destructive legal arguments. They chose to make a ridiculous legal assertion with an equally ridiculous demand for money, and the judge called them out on their courtroom gambit and denied it to them.
To be fair, if you wanted to sue someone for Meshpage infringement for two billion, nothing is stopping you. You’d have to pay even more money to get lawyers that are either skilled or unscrupulous (or both) to make that argument for you in court, and pray that the judge doesn’t laugh at you like the one did in the Oracle v Google case.
Maybe a few years ago this would have been a strong legal tactic. Sadly enough for you, judges have realized that the likes of Uwe Boll, Elf-Man and other two-bit porn productions have all tried to make money off copyright infringement claims for shitty films that nobody would pay to watch, and thus made it harder for you to have windfalls. Your problem here is judges accurately and correctly refer to your plan as taking illegal advantage of the court system. So… yeah, once again Tero Pulkinnen advocates breaking the law. What a fucking surprise.
And short of making your website not look like basic dogshit you’ve done none of the above.
Nobody here thinks you’re dumb for not being a marketing genius. People here think you’re dumb because you demand to be rewarded for one London bus ad, as if you’ve thrown out a six-month ad campaign the likes of Coca Cola.
People assume that the technology is the important property for the technology module. Which you’ve said still has problems. Why would I pay for graphics software that has problems?
Hahahaha don’t fucking lie to me. Everybody here knows you don’t have a team of marketing folks.
So the claim you made years ago that the graphics tech you worked on that is used in all major smartphone brands was a lie, then. I mean, it was obvious from the get go it was nothing more than a pathetic, unsubstantiated boast, but at least you admitted it. It only took four years of Tero Pulkinnen-branded bullshit and accusations of piracy but at least you finally managed to eke out a single fragment of honesty. Purely unintentionally, I’m guessing, but baby steps.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
You just purchase more RAM to the computer? If govt has all the money (coming from taxpayers), they have no problems purchasing a $3000 computer that has enough ram to run my software.
That’s why it’s called "significant problem" for my software module.
The bastards forgot to use my software first. The copyright infringement claim actually requires proof of copying. Otherwise it flies off from legal eagle’s desk in a motion to dismiss. And if that happens, the whole lawsuit is just waste of money and lawyer time.
I rebranded my website from "teleporting" to "3d web development framework"… It’s as simple as changing one text label in my web page.
You simply assume that the team that built symbian phones just disappeared and the people do not any longer know their old co-workers after the project disbanded? Maybe we have better plan, to actually build the software without nasa’s help, and once it’s finished, try to integrate the software to larger more cunning product. Then it just needs marketing folks to extract the money from the market.
Basically I’ve told you the whole plan, but you need to read between the lines to understand it. It’s such a complex plan that mere techdirt regulars have trouble understanding it.
I never said it’s "all major smartphone brands"… It’s just symbian.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
lol. You’ve already been given countless explanations as to why the Finnish government isn’t bending over backwards to spend its citizens’ money just to masturbate one lonely 50-year-old hack. They’ve got better shit to do.
Hearing you tell it, it doesn’t sound like a problem. You’ve got comments boasting that the fact that you have zero actual users means you have zero counts of copyright infringement.
If someone is actually committing copyright infringement with your software it means they’re using it. But I believe your anger is not so much that someone "forgot to use your software" as opposed to you knowing that if you try to pull off a Malibu Media strategy, the judge would throw your case out of court because you have a shitty legal case. Again… not anyone’s problem.
Oh, who would have fucking thought, you actually need proof of copyright infringement happening in order to sue for it. What a goddamn mind-blower, it’s almost like the law is structured in such a way to prevent grifters and conmen like you from abusing the law.
You’re literally angry that you can’t cheat other people out of their money. Textbook copyright fan, angry that his scam was ruined before it even got off the ground. Your tears are delicious.
Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Lawyers have sued for copyright infringement on works that didn’t have their copyrights registered.
I mean, that’s also illegal, and those cases fell apart as soon as the judges started paying close attention, and those cases became spectacularly expensive failures. But nobody’s stopping you. The fact that you spent money on one bus advert in London is proof that you’re no stranger to making stupid, costly mistakes.
And how many users have you gathered since then? How many projects has the Finnish government awarded you? None? Yeah, that’s what I figured.
I simply assume that you’ve complained countless times about your previous experience working with teams, and getting angry because nobody agreed with your genius. You’ve made your disdain on working with other people known more than several times over.
NASA has bigger fish to fry than some Finnish reprobate’s vanity project.
You’ve had four years of angry complaints on Techdirt to show for your efforts. All you have is a non-disclosure agreement from some unnamed game publisher who you can’t even stand because they publish videogames which you consider to be a waste of time. Forgive me if I’m not falling to my knees in awe of your fantasy, oops I mean genius marketing strategy.
You keep telling yourself that to hide your record of lies, champ.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Small hint. Sueing for copyright infringement even if your copyrights are not registered is possible and very good practice. You just cannot get statutory damages, but instead need to show actual damages. Showing actual damages is significantly more difficult, and many of the lawsuits are failing because they can obtain $27 from the infringer. (and lawyers take $200k)
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
Oh, we agree that it’s possible. Where the judges disagree with you is your claim that it’s "very good practice".
Yeah, actually getting a lawsuit to take off is much harder when you’re shit at showing any damages. Who would have thought?
You fucknuggets can’t even show $2.70 worth of damages most of the time. If the lawyers charge you this much maybe your solution is to find a different lawyer who isn’t trying to scam you? Just a thought.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Well, I currently do not have such proof available, for the following reasons:’
1) the copy-protection in my web site is so good that pirates have not yet figured out how to crack the protection.
2) The marketing activities are low enough, that pirates probably do not know it exists. Finding my web site from 2 billion other websites on the planet isn’t as easy as we thought.
3) There is no real users of the system, so network effects are not boosting demand for the piracy ecosystem
4) I have actually login system in the web page, so all supposedly pirates need to register their whereabouts to my gdpr compliant user database
5) Volume of downloads is small enough that manual checking of everyone who downloaded the material is possible and easy enough to find the bad apples
6) The technology has builtin protection against copyright problems.
7) There are no licenses available for the software, so users who care about licenses are avoiding the software like plague
8) I actually published the software in the internet myself, i.e. seeding it to pirates. Suing pirates after giving away the software is well known failure for your ability to sue pirates — this means they can claim implicit license
9) and finally, noone wants the software because internet is full of software and they can just choose something else
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
In other words nobody pirated your software and any attempt to claim copyright infringement of your software would fall flat, then. Why are then angry at the fact that your attempt to fight a copyright infringement lawsuit would fail because your tech is so good? Do you want your shit pirated?
Yeah, that’s already been covered endlessly. Nobody wants your shit. The Finnish government doesn’t want your shit. You yelling at everyone and calling them lazy isn’t making them want your shit. Accept your failures and move the fuck on already.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
I thought you want the truth. The sad truth is that you’re lazy. Getting the lazy people on internet try the technology is like pulling your teeth. I would understand if they decided against my tech after trying the features, but no, they didn’t even bother to try it enough to get a triangle to the screen, i.e. the most basic hello world style example is still not available to them.
We’re trying to build real software, but the lazy internet folks cannot get hello world to work…
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
"Getting the lazy people on internet try the technology is like pulling your teeth"
Sound like a marketing failure to me, or that you have a product that nobody wants to begin with.
"We’re trying to build real software, but the lazy internet folks cannot get hello world to work"
You do realise that you’re one of the internet folk, right – and that "hello world" is a programming thing that absolutely nobody in the market you claim to be targeting would ever have to do for themselves?
No wonder you’re so bitter that your software is such a failure compared to your competitors – you’re trying to force your customer base to do things that you’re meant to be doing.
Re: Re: Re:12 Re:
opengl’s hello world is completely different thing than gameapi builder’s hello world. I spent enough time to implement opengl’s hello world at the beginning of the project. Now it’s customer’s time to show us what they can do with gameapi builder’s hello world. The technology is available and ready for customers to use it, we just need to get them try to get something useful done with the available system. We cannot really know their dream technology or what they want the software to do, but we can only offer them all possibilities that are technically possible with current technology level. It’s about time opengl based 3d graphics becomes available to ordinary customers. We can offer helping hand, but the customer will need to run with it. Take the ball and run, get their dream technology done.
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
"opengl’s hello world is completely different thing than gameapi builder’s hello world"
…and saying bonjour instead of hola or buenos dias are different things. Neither indicates anything else about the usefulness of what you do in either language afterwards.
"I spent enough time to implement opengl’s hello world at the beginning of the project"
Good for you. Now, the real question – how bad of a coder are you that you think that a basic exercise intended to teach you how to use the most basic function of a language is something to boast about and that needs compensation?
"we can only offer them all possibilities"
…and people being offered possibilities can reject them and go for a better solution to their needs.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
Well, you’re missing layering from your picture. Basically there’s abstraction level problems, i.e. for opengl you need to give 100Mb of data to get it working properly. My builder’s scripts are just 120 lines long, which is significantly less specification needed to get it working.
typing 100Mb of data with your text editor is going to take forever.
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
You do realise you answered a criticism of you boasting about "hello world" with a claim about 100Mb of data? You’re not even remotely keeping your argument straight.
"My builder’s scripts are just 120 lines long, which is significantly less specification needed to get it working."
Hence the fact that they don’t really work. Or, they do, but your documentation on how to actually use the end product is buried in responses to people here mocking you instead on your UI. Hence the mocking.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
noone wants to read a novel or a wall of text just to find the information needed to use some software product. My experience is that those explanations are not worth the letters they’re written on. Basically noone reads extended instruction manuals. Burying the manual to techdirt pages doesn’t make it significantly worse. Basically the user interfaces need to be clear enough that users will find it pleasant to use the software.
We are using visual cues in the user interface to steer users to the right direction. No manual is needed.
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
When they’re written by you and the garbled mess you call an attempt at typing in English.
Re: There is actual case around this topics...
I’d ask for your citation about Copenhagen getting millions of dollars specifically because of this statue and nothing else, especially since it’s in the open air in a public place for which no direct revenue is paid to the city to go and see it. Doubly so if you’re also trying to imply that said tourists will all of a sudden not go to Copenhagen at all and visit the other statues instead.
Sadly, since I know that any attempt as a citation will be both pulled from your ass and from an alternate reality that the rest of us don’t occupy, I won’t push the issue.
"Basically it’s clear case of copyright infringement."
No, it’s not, but since your insane and toxic idea of copyright doesn’t allow for the same fair use rights and public domain that the original artist depended on when making the original statue, I doubt that you have anything more of value to say on this matter than you usually do.
Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
They don’t need to receive millions of dollars for it. It’s enough that their travel agencies invested millions of dollars to make the statue popular. Large chunk of copyrighted works on the planet are never getting their invested money back, and still those works have valid copyright claims available, so receiving money from customers isn’t significant or important issue. The ownership of the copyright gets stronger if you invest money to obtain copyright ownership. This means investment to the area is enough, even if there never was plans to receive money from customers.
This isn’t required.
Re: Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
Finally, you said something intelligent! Nice to know that you acknowledge that your works have valid © claims but are never going to make their money back…
Copyright didn’t save the RIAA and MPAA from file sharing. What saved them were new business models that helped them adapt to the internet. (To be fair, some of my works are copyrighted with an attribution-noncommercial creative commons license but if people reject my work it’s because they didn’t like it or I wasn’t good enough, not because my work lacked © protection.)
Re: Re: Re:2 There is actual case around this topics...
"if you invest money to obtain copyright ownership."
Bear in mind that our delusion resident fool said the above. Copyright is automatic, whether you paid millions to create the product or you knocked up a barely coherent site with no money and no audience like he did. Money invested doesn’t affect the level of copyright you have one bit.
Re: Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
"t’s enough that their travel agencies invested millions of dollars to make the statue popular"
Again, citation needed. Not that it matters because they weren’t involved in this lawsuit, and I don’t expect facts and reality to enter your usual discourse. But, you need to provide proof for your claims, else we’ll just assume that they’re the typical ranting of a failure who can’t compete if others are allowed to create superior works to his.
"This isn’t required."
What isn’t required? Your bullshit depends on the idea of lost revenue (even though that’s not what the lawsuit is about). How is there lost revenue when nobody pays to visit the statue? I don’t expect a coherent answer, but if you’re claiming lost revenue then people paying revenue in the first place is very much required, unless you can present evidence that the statue is the only tourist attraction in Copenhagen and nobody visits for other reasons. Which is as likely as someone visiting your incompetent site and deciding to use it instead of Pixar and Blender software
Re: Re: Re:2 There is actual case around this topics...
This isn’t true. The strength of the copyright depends only on amount of money invested to the marketing and popularizing the copyrighted work. It does not depend on any lost revenue or speculative revenue or any money already gathered from the marketplace.
Basically, how it works that people who invest money to make their copyrighted work popular are considered to be in "money gap", i.e. their stack of money is smaller because they invested their money to developing products and marketing them to the public. This gap in the money stack needs to have replacement, and copyright provides that replacement when the money was spent for creation and marketing of copyrighted works. This is why copyright lawsuits are always mentioning how much money the copyright owner spent in product development and marketing activities. It actually determines the strength of the copyright. And this is why larger companies who invested billions to develop copyrighted works (like android in google vs oracle) gets copyright damage awards nearing billions of dollars.
But it’s not lost revenue that determines this.
Re: Re: Re:3 There is actual case around this topics...
"The strength of the copyright depends only on amount of money invested to the marketing"
Which, again, is irrelevant. If I write a book and put it on Amazon with zero marketing, I have exactly the same strength of copyright as Stephen King does for Billy Summers, which I couldn’t avoid for several weeks being pushed to me. Your bullshit fantasies have nothing to do with the real world. The one and only difference is that if I choose to enforce my copyright in some way, I can’t afford the same lawyers as he can. That discrepancy, by the way, is one of the reasons why the current copyright regime is broken and desperately needs to be fixed.
Re: Re: Re:4 There is actual case around this topics.
Larger companies can use stricter version of copyright to implement their technology. So when their software/copyrighted work isn’t filled with pirated libraries and copy-pasted images of madonna, they automatically get stronger copyright. It basically depends on how strict copyright rules their programmers can use while writing the software. At some point, the development becomes impossible when strict copyright rules are closing all alternative implementations. But large companies that have good lawyers and large marketing organisations, can provide elevator for programmers to go from blatant pirated products to the most strictest copyright implementation available where even information flow between people are carefully controlled to avoid breaking clean room practices. This means that proper copyright practices that are only available once you’ve invested millions to study copyrights will help with bringing their software to stable area where copyright liability can be minimized.
Basically just hiring better lawyers isn’t the only change that can happen. The copyrighted works can be created by following onerous copyright rules to the letter using the strictest practices available.
Re: Re: Re:5 There is actual case around this top
"Larger companies can use stricter version of copyright to implement their technology."
No, they don’t. They might enforce their rights in a stricter way, or be able to afford lawyers that can bully targets into submission, but their legal rights are the same as everybody else’s.
"he copyrighted works can be created by following onerous copyright rules to the letter using the strictest practices available."
Which is why so many of them use open source software, sometimes in violation of their licences. Wait…
Re: Re: Re:6 There is actual case around this
We already know he violated those very policies by using a Friday Nights at Freddy’s character model. By his own rules, he should have been hauled to court, fined out of house and home, and have all his code and project completely destroyed.
But what did you expect from a copyright cocksucker? They can’t help but be complete, utter, thoroughly hypocritical douchebags.
Re: Re: Re:7 There is actual case around
Yeah, but the alternative that you’re offering is to not even try to do it properly. Trying and failing is always significantly better solution than "not tryinig or explicitly committing copyright infringement"… Basically you don’t have alternative that actually works, and all your hot air is just trying to avoid doing the right thing.
Re: Re: Re:8 There is actual case aro
The alternative that I offered is I don’t make claims I can’t back up.
If this was a case of a grandmother getting sued for downloading porn she didn’t even hear of, like in the Malibu Media cases, you’d be here demanding that she be locked up with no further explanation. Hell, you didn’t even try to do it properly. What you did do is make vague claims as to why you shouldn’t be punished, and argue that since you took it down any claims that you damaged the original creator don’t apply. You personally hold double standards when it comes to copyright enforcement purely because of selfish personal interest since you’d actually be implicated this time. You explicitly committed copyright infringement. You don’t have a single moral ground to stand on.
It’s frankly astounding (though not surprising) the lengths copyright fanboys will go to twist their own legs into knots.
Re: Re: Re:9 There is actual case
Your current claim is that instead of stricter copyright enforcement, you should ignore copyright and go with the idiots who are lazy and follow sloppy practices.
But your claim doesn’t hold because sloppy practices are just going taking more copyright risks and entering area where your liability will be higher.
So you’re actually making claims that you can’t back up, simply because you reject proper handling of copyrights.
Re: Re: Re:10 There is actual
My current claim is to not follow Tero Pulkinnen’s legal advice, and to avoid suing grandmothers for porn they didn’t download. You’re the one insisting that the public domain should be destroyed. You’re the one insisting that Malibu Media should be allowed to destroy the life savings of war veterans because they broke their own finances paying for expensive mansions.
I’m not the one claiming that all photographs of the moon count as a copyright law offense, broski. That’s you. Your shitty legal advice.
A proper handling of copyright would be to not go after innocent people.
You regularly go after innocent people. You regularly cheer on those trying to harass settlement money out of innocent people. You support demanding fines for content that doesn’t even have a copyright registration. You support shitty standards of proof in IP addresses. You support lawyers who attempted to abuse copyright law and are now rotting in prison for their crimes. You support lawyers when their copyright cases fail and they run away before the judges can question them further.
You wouldn’t know “proper handling of copyrights” if they fucked you up the asshole, Pukeface.
Re: Re: Re:11 There is act
This is why you’re actually violating copyright all the time because you can’t see the purpose of strict copyright rules. Avoiding strict rules means that you’ll be in on pirates side and violating the actual rules that exists. The whole purpose of strict copyright rules is that by following those rules, you avoid violating the actual rules that exist. The followed rules always need to be stricter than what the actual rules that legal eagles are handling really says.
Anyone who doesn’t follow strict copyright rules are violators of copyright, and we despise them very badly since they cannot follow the law. Anyone but criminals are able to follow the law, but you need the attitude that the law is actually important enough, even if you don’t fully understand why it is like it is.
Re: Re: Re:12 There is
On top of your own overly grandiose claims, trash arguments like these are why nobody takes you seriously. It’s like claiming that "if you don’t agree with the death penalty for serial killers it means you’re actually murdering people". Utter, damned rot.
Wait, so the strict rule isn’t even the rule that exists? Why the fuck do you think you get to be angry at other people for not following a rule that only exists in your own imagination?
And this won’t matter a jot, because as soon as your imagination changes or some asshole decides your rules are magically not strict enough, you’ll still be filing nuisance lawsuits on grandmothers. This is why your "strict" rules don’t apply. Because actual enforcement and actual courts won’t waste their time trying to entertain your imaginary utopia.
What do you think a "stricter rule" than "murder is bad" is going to look like, genius? If someone dies in a city, everyone else is guilty of his murder because "they didn’t murder him" is not good enough anymore? Holy fucking shit you’re a demented pile of garbage…
Nah, "you" despise them very badly, not "we". There is no "we", just one Finnish fucktard who’s angry that his welfare government doesn’t suck his cock hard enough.
Mate, the law’s "importance" has been dashed and ruined so many times it’s not even funny. Readers here have been fed a diet of pure bullshit from copyright fanboys since the early 2000s. We’ve read all your pathetic arguments about why the public domain should be destroyed. There’s nothing to understand. Your demands of an Internet shutdown are noted, determined to be terrible, and the world goes on functioning without you. My guess is that you’ll still be here years from now, whining about copyright lawyers getting arrested, still angry that nobody is using your software.
Re: Re: Re:13 Ther
You just need to trust that when you see "copyright is limiting our options when we cannot freely copy this material" the other side of the coin is that "there’s something important in this legal rule that prevents you from copying the material — i.e. authors won’t need to riot to get their expenses covered when copyright protects the income streams from unsculpturous freeriding criminals"
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
What people see when they see copyright law is that it’s been used so often to harass innocent people, that lawyers abusing copyright law have gone to jail for their actions.
Up until they sign away their copyrights to large corporations who then cut off all their payment. At that point no amount of copyright will save you.
Re: Re: Re:9 There is actual case
If copyright problems are found or when new information is coming about real owners of some material that you use, the correct course of action is to take down the material. Once you do this quickly once the new information is available, the time slot where you’re liable for further copyright problems will be non-existent. Basically legal eagles are always recommending to take down the material, if you find copyright problems. Restoring the material can be done once legal issues have been resolved / licensing arrangements have been made with the correct parties.
The situation that you’re referring is a case where internet knew that the author of the material wasn’t actually the original author of the material, and he should have license from some tv show or something to create 3d model based on the characters displayed in the tv show. Given that such licensing proof has not been available, once the information about true owners of the material was passed forward, the correct way to handle the situation is to take down the material.
Basically taking down material is correct way to handle copyright problems.
Re: Re: Re:10 There is actual
Not the question here. The point stands that until you took down that content, you are still liable for the damages that the original content creator suffered while you were using his content illegally.
Of course, those damages would not be easy to prove. It is unlikely that Scott Cawthon suffered any significant damages in my opinion. But based on your claims made in this very thread, and countless threads before, Cawthon would not need to prove actual damages. Cawthon should be entitled to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars for your copyright infringement. By your own rules the judge should have destroyed Meshpage off the face of the Internet. The fact that you won’t admit this is proof that you don’t believe in “proper handling of copyrights” by your terms, because you refuse to implicate yourself. Because just like every copyright fanboy, you’re hypocritical scum.
Re: Re: Re:11 There is act
It doesn’t work like that. There is no willful violation, if people are taking down content once any problems are found. Only the more eregious behaviour will be closed down. For example RomUniverse had completely commercial material in their servers for several years. That was closed down, when nintendo called the bluff. They didn’t even remove the material when nintendo sued them.
Meshpage has nothing like that. I’m not using other people’s trademarks to market it. I don’t even take money for the pleasure. And I definitely don’t have copyrighted roms in my servers. And when I don’t have pirated material available, the user count is less than 100 people. Those pirate sites are attracting millions of people. I have nothing like that.
Basically the only way to get internet to notice is to violate the law. I just refuse to do it.
Instead, I actually created the 3d engine myself. The core of the web site is all my work. It only displays material that I have created myself, or where I have license available for publishing the material. and it only relies on DISPLAY property of the copyright laws, there never was any DISTRIBUTE. Basically the designed features of the site is preventing downloading of the material, end users can just watch nice 3d models, but not download it.
Further features of the site are that the script files size has been limited to 400 lines of script file, to avoid use case where copyright infringers encode their pirated material as cubes and display it via huge scripts. Then all url download features have been copyright-checked via domain restriction. Manual checking of the copyrights is being done all the time with the site, and if problems are found, the admins have tools to remove material from the front page, block the material completely, or change the copyright notice displayed with the material.
Basically the defense for any copyright claims will be that 1) I’m the author, 2) I have a license, 3) I worked hard to prevent copyright problems with sites design 4) and if all hell breaks loose, our admins can remove and block the material and we do it very quickly 5) and the site is still very small and doesn’t rely on automated bots that do stupid things with their decisions
Basically we haven’t even bothered with the 6) dmca saves our ass when we violate copyright laws, or 7) fair use makes all internet’s material free to use by the whole internet
Basically those (6) and (7) defenses that I hear all the time from pirates are completely crazy stuff.
Re: Re: Re:12 There is
Copyright law doesn’t care. Lawyers and copyright fanboys like you have consistently argued countless times that even in the event of accidental violation, copyright holders must have their pound of flesh. Hell, the fact that you violated means that you’ve failed the "stricter law" requirements that you yourself put on top of the "actual law".
No, what you have is a sad bunch of loops that wouldn’t even pass for the engine proof in a game coding degree course for university.
You mean the networks that look suspiciously similar to Unreal’s Kismet engine? Now, you could argue that you independently created that layout, and I’d have to agree. Except that based on "stricter rules", the argument of whether you independently created that work isn’t worth a damn. The creators of Unreal would still be able to haul you to court and sue you based on "stricter rules".
So it’s not due to any groundbreaking element of your tech like you’ve claimed in an attempt to prove why your work is superior to existing 3D engines, it’s because your stuff is so small, so insignificant that manual checking by one user (who’s already been caught accidentally violating on at least one count, I might add) is considered enough. I suppose if you can’t have low standards you can’t have any standards…
Once again, with feeling: Stricter rules don’t give a fuck.
DMCA doesn’t do jack shit when someone violates copyright laws. Techdirt has chronicled hundreds, thousands of instances where the DMCA was used to remove discussions critical of video games. But you’d be familiar with abusing copyright law to shut down critique of your work, wouldn’t you?
Nobody’s ever made this argument, not in the way you claim. I will however note that you have previously supported lawyers like Richard Liebowitz, who filed copyright lawsuits on works that weren’t even copyrighted at the time of alleged infringement.
You know what happened to him? He’s no longer allowed to practice law. This is why nobody practices your "stricter rules" of copyright law because that shit just gets your people arrested.
It’d be crazy… assuming those are the arguments they’re making. Meanwhile nobody is using Meshpage, and no amount of copyright law is going to start making people use it.
Re: Re: Re:13 Ther
We can always make strict rule that everyone must use it. If they don’t, we’ll just scream bloody murder and get them arrested for using inferior tools that are dangerous to human health. And we can use "save the children" -card for forcing people to purchase the software. Then "animal cruelty -folks" and "green hippies" will be hired to demonstrate against the people who reject newest technologies. Then there will be enough mansions for everyone.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
Again with the lying about the "we"! There IS no "we". There IS no "Team Tero Pulkinnen". All that exists is an angry nobody furious that he’s got zero users wasting their time like he did on a 3D modeling software ripoff.
Bold of you to assume that you command that much authority that the government will activate law enforcement to arrest people en masse on non-existent charges. For fuck’s sake, you can’t even get the government to pay you for your wasted time, you think you have the ability to command their police forces too?
You realize that the whole reason why "save the children" hasn’t been an effective excuse for years is precisely because it’s been overused to death, right?
Bro please you can’t even afford an actual marketing team to market your software in Finland. You couldn’t hire an animal cruelty-folk or green hippie to help you blow your nose.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
"We can always make strict rule that everyone must use it"
Yes, but the rest of us don’t want to live in your dystopian hellscape and like the ability to choose.
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
You need to blame the guy who invented computers. One of the important design decisions when implementing first computers was its ability to make decisions. So computers are taking decisions away from actual humans, and replacing them with boilerplate solutions designed to maximize the profit of the software vendors. It has happened for last 80 years now, ever since the first computers become available. Choices are simply taken away from us, and our lives are being filled with scams and spam emails which try to trick you to opening your wallet and criminals will take the money whenever protections against criminal activity are not high enough level.
Basically the hellscape dysopian future is already here, and you can’t do anythng but watch your decisions taken away from you.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
You first, then. Take Meshpage out of your computer and destroy it.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
Nah, intelligent, competent people are doing OK. I’mll blame the incompetent fool who has decided everyone else is to blame for his failures, not the people who invented the tool that’s allowing me to laugh at your failure and incompetence right now.
"Choices are simply taken away from us"
Not true. For example, I take the occasional break away from my lucrative career to talk online with people all over the world about important subjects, occasionally mocking self-important idiots who have failed in life but think they haven’t. That choice is totally mine.
You have chosen to be the incompetent idiot everyone laughs at online. unable due to your own hubris to accept any criticism and instead do things that make people mock you and your horrifically made software even further. That is also your choice.
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
Too bad for you, but your choice lead you to bad places. Basically we’re laughing at your inability to handle even simplest math problems or complex logic. You’ve decided to be a fool because you didn’t spend your time learning complex math theorems and curry-howard isomorphism/logic systems. We already did that years ago, and it’s just now starting to give ability to untangle the most complex software problems available to human kind. It’s your lack of dicipline that causes these problems, properly learning the material actually takes more patience than what is provided for most humans.
Our choice always was to develop techniques that will allow our new future with computers. Our parents couldn’t do it since they didn’t have computers available, so it’s our responsibility to make computers work for everyone on the planet. And that simply does not happen without investing significant amount time for studying the fine details around math, logic and complex software systems.
But no, your choice is to ignore our future and spend the time inefficiently.
Re: Re: Re:18 Re:
So what choice led you to spend your time here instead of actually working at software development?
Re: Re: Re:13 Ther
If strict rule following gives this kind of result, think how bad the situation is if you don’t even try to follow the rules but instead go with the sloppy route? It is known that following copyrights is difficult operation, but I don’t really see how you can make it easier simply by ignoring the rules? Basically you’re like small children who wants more candy even after stomach is already hurting by too much of candy.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
The point here being that your imaginary "strict rule following" is too difficult for even you to follow. If you can’t even follow your own rules, how do you expect everyone else to? Why do you get to demand penalties from everyone to follow standards that even you can’t meet?
You make it easier by not being a complete asshole. That means not chasing after every alleged instance of infringement and demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from old grandmothers, for a start. You copyright fanatics have been insisting on statutory damages because you’re too damned lazy to calculate actual damages, and too damned dishonest to admit that you’re not as damaged as you claim. The fact that judges have realized that you don’t deserve $2 billion in settlement money is your own fault and your own doing. Getting angry at me isn’t going to change this trend.
Or, here’s a hot take – everyone else is a well-behaved child who knows the basic concepts of guilt and innocence, hasn’t taken any candy, and isn’t going to let a whiny fucknugget like you accuse them of eating candy that they haven’t eaten.
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
I never said that getting your project pass the strict copyright checks is easy feat. Authors have spent their whole life studying how to create copyrighted works and studying fine details of copyright law to be able to fulfil their responsibilities when publishing copyright works in the market. The product safety concerns, market dynamics, potential product misuse, copyright issues etc. are all aspects that anyone who creates products for ordinary user’s consumption need to address before releasing the product to the market. Creating products to the market requires experts that spent their whole life studying these aspects, and you shouldn’t underestimate the traps that need to be untangled to get it done.
Yes, it might be too difficult task to follow strict copyright even for myself. But there’s good reason for the difficulty and sloppy practices are simply not acceptable.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
It’s not a matter whether it’s easy or difficult. The issue here is what you demand is impossible, the same way that most RIAA wishlists are fundamentally impossible to fulfill, and it’s not from a lack of trying. They’ve tried suing people into oblivion. They’ve tried charging people every time a ringtone vaguely resembles a popular chord progression. None of that has ever worked, because there exists no effective way to enforce the RIAA demands on a global scale while ensuring that innocent people don’t get affected. (Which I’ll also add you don’t seem to care either, because the world really needed another reminder why you’re a complete douchenozzle.)
No, they genuinely don’t. Recurring elements of stories like "The Hero’s Journey" regularly appear through cultural works spanning centuries of human civilization. If authors did any reasonable amount of research into actual copyright law they’d know not to do dumb shit like suing Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed using the idea of ancestral memories. I know you didn’t do any sort of meaningful research because you keep hawking that $2 billion request by Oracle as some damning point that copyright needs to be expensive for some reason.
Which Meshpage has failed on all counts, because
1) You’ve already been caught implementing someone else’s work in a Meshpage demonstration, so you’ve already violated the potential product misuse and preemptive copyright infringement prevention that stricter rules demand
2) You’ve only marketed your product on one London bus so you’ve failed the market dynamics, or any understanding of what your market actually is
3) Safety concerns have failed because your software causes machines to unnecessarily overheat
Realistically, a proper audit and legal dissection of your stuff would present even more problems, should Autodesk ever decide to take you to task.
If you can’t even meet your personal standards, you have no right, no entitlement to demand that others follow it. You’ve already personally demonstrated its impossibility, why does anyone need to suffer your criticism for failing where you haven’t succeeded?
If the Olympics argued that people must grow four legs to qualify for the hundred meter dash, because four legs run faster than two legs do, they’d be technically right – but no one would care because it’s fucking impossible. A "good reason by technicality" is not a reason to enforce impossible standards. As for the sloppy practices, nobody is going to use 3D modeling software that doesn’t allow publishing. The fact that your software infringed on copyright until someone pointed it out to you is proof that by your standards, your practices are sloppy. Therefore Meshpage is unacceptable.
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
It’s not absolutely impossible. It might be impossible for one person to do it, but it’s not absolutely impossible. Basically elon musk’s rockets are impossible for one person and walking in moon is impossible without nasa’s help, but generally copyright rules need to work from any kind of teams. Copyrights are working with small 1-2 person teams, up to teams with thousands of people. And stuff that is impossible for 1 person team might be very easy task for 1000 person teams. Copyright needs to work with all those different kinds of teams.
Basically you just need to hire those copyright experts from RIAA and ask them how to do it properly, and you’ll get a bulleted list of requirements and after getting your software to implement all those requirements, you will have the stuff working like how RIAA wants it to work. Then you’ll just enter the market and watch pirates bash it to the ground.
Re: Re: Re:18 Re:
You’re not building a NASA rocket here. You’re trying to mathematically prove that 2 + 2 = 37. No "team" is going to help you do this. Asking copyright to work across these different teams won’t help you do this, especially because the definition of copyright is different across different teams.
Which is not going to work because even the RIAA has been caught using copyrighted material without permission, such as unlicensed photos in their websites. Again, if the expert can’t avoid breaking his own rules, maybe the rules aren’t enforceable to begin with.
Re: Re: Re:19 Re:
The biggest difference between your average pirate and RIAA’s copyright experts is actually what happens after they get notified of copyrighted works being published on RIAA web site. Proper copyright owners are quickly closing their web sites, until legal review has been done, and then those broken photographs have tendency to disappear from the site.
Your ordinary pirates will just give middle finger to all this, and move the material to different site or try to hide their tracks.
Re: Re: Re:20 Re:
Name a single RIAA website that was closed while illegal photograph usage details were being fleshed out, which would have been necessary under stricter copyright law, or "notice and staydown".
You can’t. The truth is that the RIAA doesn’t hold itself accountable to the rules they demand for everyone else. The RIAA is the equivalent of a PETA "vegetarian" who demands that everyone else stops eating meat while consuming a wagyu beefsteak. You’re hypocrites who can’t even muster up the threadbare effort to conceal your lies. The good news is that this makes it much easier for the average layman to see through your falsehoods.
Re: Re: Re:21 Re:
I think you’re very mistaken. RIAA is actually working hard to create music for ordinary people’s consumption. Their money finds its way to the songwriters and band member’s wallets, and the work amount enabled by those money releases are giving RIAA significantly more "rule following points" than what an ordinary techdirt regulars have. Basically to create copyrighted works for a living, they need to follow copyright to the letter (or else their lawsuits will fail for lack of effort).. Basically pressing a record button on a recorder isn’t significant enough effort to qualify for a copyright registration, but RIAA actually made the recorder happen, i.e. they built the actual record button too. That must count for something.
RIAA’s rule following position is significantly better than you expect.
Basically the whole copyright system is based on fact that it’s only possible to force other people follow rules that you yourself follow twice the pressure. This happens so that government is giving small test tasks for copyright owners, and when completing those tasks, you always get small item that allows you to force other people to do things. Completing these test tasks requires work, since the tasks are hidden in such way that only significant effort in copyright area can uncover those practices. And the practices are changed regularly, so that practices from 1800 does not contribute to today’s copyright enforcement practices.
Under this system, only people who create significant amount of copyrighted works can use strict copyright practices and everyone else will need to pay license fees.
Re: Re: Re:22 Re:
Nah, fam, they don’t. The RIAA is the enforcement arm that works on behalf of record labels. What you’re saying is like claiming that a security guard for an office building works hard to make sure the stock market stays up, which is patent nonsense.
The money that the RIAA has taken from its lawsuits and settlement letters has never made its way to the actual bands and songwriters. This isn’t news. The RIAA has specified on multiple occasions that the money from such trials goes back into their system for antipiracy enforcement. On top of paying their own salaries, of course.
Copyright is automatic. Pressing the record button is enough to qualify for that. Which is why photographers get their photos copyrighted even if they did absolutely nothing but press a button.
The RIAA did not build the "actual record button". They did nothing that directly contributed to the audio recording technology such as the vinyl disc, the CD or the computer. If anything they’ve spent decades getting angry that the tech was getting developed.
Which both you and the RIAA have comprehensively failed to follow. Your denial does not change this fact.
Re: Re: Re:13 Ther
The networks/graphs in this case have both elements in them:
1) they were created independently
2) and they’re sharing too much content that copyright’s laws similarity problems are activating
The situation is solved by recognizing that the space where the innovation is being done is intentionally limited in intel’s cpu design, and everyone who explores that area will get similar looking graph/network diagrams as a result.
But yes, intel could sue programmers for using their design for all software development.
Or I could sue them for damages… But sadly neither I, or unreal engine is the owner of intel’s cpu design which governs the graph design in question. So there’s serious doubts whether the unreal actually owns the design and whether they’re the original author of the material. Basically mapping a maze designed by other people do not make you owner of the maze design.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
Not an acceptable defense under "stricter copyright laws". In fact, you yourself claimed that a map of a subway system independently created by someone else does not protect them from a copyright lawsuit.
Again… not a defense under your stricter copyright rules. That someone else created the conditions for copyright infringement to occur is not a defense against copyright infringement penalties. This is something the RIAA – and you – regularly claim.
Why? Intel created the hardware, not the software.
Intel designed the CPU, not the graphical interface of Unreal or Meshpage. But watching you destroy your own finances in a misguided lawsuit would be a treat to see.
Re: There is actual case around this topics...
Ah, so it’s not about copyright then – it’s all about cultural rent-seeking. Why am I not surprised you think this is a good argument in favor of draconian copyright enforcement and the entitlement of getting paid for something that was build on publicly available prior art.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
Of course it’s about copyright. You get copyright ownership whenever you create copyrighted work. When you spend money to market and popularize your work, the copyright gets stronger. Stong copyright allows you to reject other people’s works by claiming they did copyright infringement.
Re: Re: Re: There is actual case around this topics...
Well, that rings true how the copyright maximalists reason. Copyright something derived from prior art, then use your monetary clout to shut down other artists that have no or little financial means to defend themselves when they produce art that are similar or of the same subject matter.
Re: Re: Re:2 There is actual case around this topics...
The copyright isn’t dependent on prior art. Prior art is patent-law concept, not related to copyrights.
Note that this wouldn’t work at all, unless copyright owner spent significant amount of money to strengten copyrights. This is why google-vs-oracle is fighting for billions of money, because their copyrights are very strong and has been strengtened by significant investments in technology. Ordinary people wont get billions from courts even if they created significant copyrighted works.
This is because statue copyright extends to the shape of the statue. It’s not just the physical item that gets copyright protection, but also the general shape. The reason why this is so, is because 3d space where we live is giving significant freedom to design art pieces, and without copying happening, it’s unlikely that two artists manage to create shapes that are near identical. While some people would think "mermaid sitting on a rock" as unprotectable idea, it’s not those words that gets copyright protection. It’s the artist’s output, i.e. the shape of the statue that gets copyright protection.
Re: Re: Re:3 There is actual case around this topics...
As I said above, you don’t understand copyright and prior art is something that actually exist even for copyrights: If your invention or creation already exists in some earlier and very similar form, you may not be able to bring it to market based on the fact that someone else already owns it in the form of holding copyright protection or a patent.
There are paintings and sculptures of mermaids sitting on a stone that are centuries old, what gives Eriksen’s estate the right to completely own the subject matter of a mermaid sitting on a stone?
Yes, and when a different artist creates a different looking sculpture of the same subject matter why can the first artist then use copyright to shut him down? Taking your previous excursions into this argument you’d argue it’s because they spent money which somehow give them the right to expand their copyright to different looking statues, which essentially means that those with money will dictate what is copyrightable or not – ie cultural rent-seeking.
Re: Re: Re:4 There is actual case around this topics.
They spent the effort to make it popular destination among tourists. That takes tons of money and effort. That effort must not go to waste, so copyright protects it.
The other artists failed to do that, so they lost ability to control their copyrights when Eriksen spent "more" money and effort popularizing their statue.
Re: Re: Re:4 There is actual case around this topics.
Copyright avoids "cultural rent-seeking" by insisting that there must be some "copyrighted work" which embodies that invested money amount. I.e. the effort and money needs to be spent to make the statue more popular, your restaurant visits and booze might not be making the copyrighted work more popular(because it makes booze more popular), so they are not protected. Basically there needs to be some link from the spent money to the copyrighted work/statue. I.e. if a broshure displays the statue and you create 500 units of the broshure, that money spent for making broshures can be used to strenghten your copyright. Basically users need to be able to recognize the statue from the broshure material. If you hide the statue behind tons of other material and it does not stand out from the broshure, the copyright protection for that money will be weaker. Prominent placement of the statue in the broshure is a necessary element for copyrights.
This is the reason why it’s bad idea to fill your broshure with someone elses copyrighted works and then include your own work among the other high quality works. The money is divided between all the works in the broshure, so your own work would get less protection.
Re: Re: Re:5 There is actual case around this top
Consider that these statues are public domain:
-The Statue of Liberty
-Michelangelo’s David
-Manneken Pis
They also draw tourists, but anybody can make a replica. Why do they draw tourists despite replicas being legal? BECAUSE PEOPLE WANT TO SEE THE ORIGINAL!!! Jesus, you’re dense.
Re: Re: Re:6 There is actual case around this
This is only because the copyrights were expired…
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
So they belong in the public domain, and therefore based on your previous claims, need to be destroyed.
Thanks again for confirming to everyone else that you’re a public domain-hating, monument-destruction-seeking lunatic angry at the rest of the world for not sucking his cock hard enough.
Re: Re: Re:5 There is actual case around this top
You are loon, you either have a copyright on something or you don’t regardless of any money invested. The only time money matters in this context is when someone who has a lot of it can use it to beat other artists into submission by threatening or actually dragging them through costly lawsuits. It doesn’t matter one bit if someone has invested millions, that doesn’t in any way entitle them to go after different art of the same subject matter – and those who do it anyway are just cultural rent-seekers aka assholes.
Re: Re: Re:6 There is actual case around this
They can do this, because they actually invested money to make the product more popular.
I.e. they should have more money than they currently have, because part of the money stack was spent improving the product. This kind of investments are heavily protected by governments, and thus copyright law also protects investments.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
In other words you’re angry that they’re not rich enough. Not my problem.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Yes. If they keep losing money because pirates pilfered their copyrighted works, at some point the activity becomes impossible to keep up and running. When that happens, we might see large changes in the marketplace, like all vinyls or cd-rom’s just disappear from the market when the vendor who manufactured 80% of the material available in the market simply decides it’s not worth the effort.
While some might welcome changes where MPAA or RIAA simply shut down their doors and go hiding, the impact on the market might be too large. There simply isn’t enough vendors manufacturing old vinyl records to keep up with the demand, if RIAA decides to stop the whole activity.
Basically I don’t really care if they’re rich or not, but money supply needs to be "balanced". I.e. if you invest a lot of money to get products to customers, then the investments need to be balanced by a money flow from customers to the company. This balancing doesn’t seem to be understood in techdirt properly, when techdirt regulars are blinded by their hatred of the established vendors of copyrighted works.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
No pirates have "pilfered" the statue. The original statue is still there. The original creator is long dead. He’s not producing anything anymore. What the Eriksen estate is trying to punish is not the infringement of a copyrighted work; they’re trying to punish the general implementation of an idea, which copyright law does not protect.
Yeah, technology goes out of date. This isn’t surprising at all. In fact, you yourself claimed that older products need to be removed from the market because consumers of older products will keep demanding tech support, which you feel companies should not be obliged to provide – therefore the solution is to kill the public domain, and all outdated tech and software. So which is it? Do you want market changes and disappearances or not?
Unlikely to happen. Best case scenario, they stop acting like trigger-happy assholes like they were in the early 2000s, but nobody is holding their breath.
And? Vinyl records are a niche market for audiophiles willing to splurge on expensive gramophones. The vendors who want to serve that market will serve that market. Nothing the RIAA does will suddenly make vinyl records illegal.
Nah, you do. You’ve been using Oracle’s $2 billion claim as a benchmark for how much money you think you’re entitled to.
And in order for that money flow to happen, you need customers using your product. Which you don’t have. Which happened independently of copyright law. Copyright law gives you the right to sue anyone you think infringed on your intellectual property. Copyright law does not guarantee customers will use your product. Copyright law does not give you the right to demand the government force everyone else to be your customers. No amount of angry ranting from Tero Pulkinnen will change that.
Why should I pay you money for a product I don’t use, pirate, promote, or encourage? Why does your effort require my attention when I’m not even your target audience? I think it’s funny that you’d rather sit here and complain about people not buying the hardware to support your bloated, data-leaking tech, instead of marketing your "kid-friendly" modeling software to actual kids.
I mean, do or don’t. Your success or failure is no skin off my nose aside from being mildly entertaining that Finland’s welfare system created a piece of work like you. When people search for "Tero Pulkinnen" or "Meshpage" on Google or Bing, they’ll find out that Tero is a nobody from Finland who had his brief moment of fame by his tangential relationship with Nokia and is desperately trying to recapture the fleeting moments of his glory days by begging the RIAA to let him suck them off.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
not yet. But there’s still plenty of time left to find the market. It’s 70 years after my death, so I’m not even here to see the full glory of my work. This is the reason why copyright term needs to be long, the markets are evolving and products that were developed by programming wizards will be useful to ordinary humans much later than when wizards managed to invent the technology. The waiting time when your technology matures enough to get a following is just very ancious time.
I will probably forget the technology exists, when ordinary users will find it useful.
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
And when you pass on, good luck finding the market without a team of marketing experts. Odds are they’ll also have passed on, in which case you bloated software can fade into obscurity like it deserves.
Copyright’s original intention was to benefit the author so more works could be created, up until corporations started campaigning for longer lengths so they could make more money after the original author was dead through licensing, not content creation. This idea that copyright longer than an author’s natural lifespan is necessary to incentivize living authors has never been substantiated.
Not my problem. If you can’t patiently wait to die before your corpse gets a mansion from the Finnish government it’s not my responsibility to help fund your pathetic pipe dream.
Re: Re: Re:12 Re:
"And when you pass on, good luck finding the market without a team of marketing experts."
Lol… His entire problem today stems from the fact that instead of actually hiring marketing experts and people who could design a usable interface, he blew a fortune on bus adverts and rejected any collaboration on how his software operates.
If, in life, he refuses to create a marketable product, why would you think he’d do something about that after death?
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
I don’t think this is true. The software was developed while listening feedback from irc from real end users who tried the product for the first time. It actually implements already all the requirements that were found during the evaluations.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
"I don’t think this is true"
Aren’t you the guy who used to have a GitHub repo but threw a tantrum and made it private after people familiar with basic FOSS concepts questioned you?
"The software was developed while listening feedback from irc from real end users"
Aren’t you also the guy who variably claims that his software is for children and displaying icons on mobile devices? How many of those end users even know what IRC is?
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
Aren’t you in the camp where all misuses of the provided facilities are allowed? If github provides valuable service, but you decide to use the repo for some other purpose than actually compiling the source code and spreading the message, it’s ALL OK.
Aren’t you the guy who still haven’t managed to get hello world done?
If nerds can use the horror, children will have no problems with it.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
"Aren’t you in the camp where all misuses of the provided facilities are allowed?"
No, that’s the strawman you attack when reality gets difficult.
"If github provides valuable service, but you decide to use the repo for some other purpose than actually compiling the source code and spreading the message, it’s ALL OK."
Within the terms of the licence provided? Yes…
"Aren’t you the guy who still haven’t managed to get hello world done?"
No, I’m the guy mocking the idiot who invented that strawman to attack when he was boasting about being able to compile basic code as if it should automatically return a profit.
"If nerds can use the horror, children will have no problems with it."
They can also use an abacus or a carrier pigeon, but most won’t.
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
I still have problems compiling my code to different architectures. For example android with their gradle support is completely impossible environment when they cannot get their dependencies working properly and their full recompile triggering wants to compile all of sdl2, even though I haven’t changed anything anywhere near sdl2. I really should check some day if there exists working gnu compiler that can create android apps, when google’s own sdk’s are not workng for me.
Basically getting your code compile is more difficult operation than you think. Definitely difficult enough that you can expect some money reward for it.
Re: Re: Re:18 Re:
This is assuming that you get your compilation to work. If you release a broken product across platforms, nobody is morally compelled to fund your prostitute money.
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
You laugh, but I’ve long suspected that randos like Tero Pulkinnen turn themselves into walking simps for copyright because they see organizations fall over themselves to shill for harsher copyright penalties and longer copyright terms for content creators that are long dead. They think that by continuing to spout the cult rhetoric they’ll eventually be rewarded for their steadfast faith and dedication… somehow.
I’ve also long joked that these knuckle-draggers value copyright over human life because copyright will always last longer than the human lifespan by at least 70 years, but it’s entirely possible that these useful idiots for copyright actively do believe in dehumanizing others so long as it prolongs the glory of the IP empire.
Re: There is actual case around this topics...
The problem with your argument is that the fame of the statue comes from it’s relationship with Hans Christian Anderson, unless those other cities somehow manage to fake that relationship, then they’re doing it wrong.
Re:
> the copy-protection in my web site is so good that pirates have not yet figured out how to crack the protection
In other words nobody pirated your software and any attempt to claim copyright infringement of your software would fall flat, then. Why are then angry at the fact that your attempt to fight a copyright infringement lawsuit would fail because your tech is so good? Do you _want_ your shit pirated?
> and finally, noone wants the software because internet is full of software and they can just choose something else
Yeah, that’s already been covered endlessly. Nobody wants your shit. The Finnish government doesn’t want your shit. You yelling at everyone and calling them lazy isn’t making them want your shit. Accept your failures and move the fuck on already.
There is actual
> Your current claim is that instead of stricter copyright enforcement, you should ignore copyright and go with the idiots who are lazy and follow sloppy practices.
My current claim is to not follow Tero Pulkinnen’s legal advice, and to avoid suing grandmothers for porn they didn’t download. _You’re_ the one insisting that the public domain should be destroyed. _You’re_ the one insisting that Malibu Media should be allowed to destroy the life savings of war veterans because they broke their own finances paying for expensive mansions.
> sloppy practices are just going taking more copyright risks and entering area where your liability will be higher
I’m not the one claiming that all photographs of the moon count as a copyright law offense, broski. That’s _you_. _Your_ shitty legal advice.
> you reject proper handling of copyrights.
A proper handling of copyright would be to not go after innocent people.
_You_ regularly go after innocent people. _You_ regularly cheer on those trying to harass settlement money out of innocent people. _You_ support demanding fines for content that doesn’t even have a copyright registration. _You_ support shitty standards of proof in IP addresses. _You_ support lawyers who attempted to abuse copyright law and are now rotting in prison for their crimes. _You_ support lawyers when their copyright cases fail and they run away before the judges can question them further.
You wouldn’t know “proper handling of copyrights” if they fucked you up the asshole, Pukeface.
There is actual
> the time slot where you’re liable for further copyright problems will be non-existent
Not the question here. The point stands that until you took down that content, _you are still liable for the damages that the original content creator suffered while you were using his content illegally_.
Of course, those damages would not be easy to prove. It is unlikely that Scott Cawthon suffered any significant damages in my opinion. But based on your claims made in this very thread, and _countless threads before_, Cawthon would not need to prove actual damages. Cawthon should be entitled to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars for _your_ copyright infringement. By your own rules the judge should have destroyed Meshpage off the face of the Internet. The fact that you won’t admit this is proof that you don’t believe in “proper handling of copyrights” by your terms, because you refuse to implicate yourself. Because just like every copyright fanboy, you’re hypocritical scum.