Authorship
Out of context: Reply #44
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@fresnobob;
Sorry for the slightly sanctimonious tone of that last post. The idea of a larger company profiting hugely off the work of a someone who's developed an idea in the public domain, riled me. I think it might be as simple as that. Maybe my notion of 'fair play' is a bit naive.
Definitely agree with you that working for free can be a great way of gaining benefits in unexpected ways, and also agree the director could have approached the situation is much more constructive way.
@ukit;
"So how do you resolve that difference in approach between people who expect others to play by the (moral) rules and those who don't really give a shit about them? Maybe this whole "name and shame" process on the internet that we're engaging in now is the antidote to that - although, it's far from guaranteed to work given that a Vimeo thread isn't really going to reach that many people."
Perhaps the author could have put (precautionary) steps in place to deal with this in a way that was acceptable to him? It might be unrealistic to just hope that no one will pluck the idea up and use it.
If this is the case, maybe author education is part of a solution; allowing artists / designers to better use the law to ensure that derivative works are dealt with in a way that's acceptable to them. There's actually a huge spectrum of open-source licenses available, some of which deal with the possibility of work entering a commercial domain.
It seems that the balance of power is always skewed so severely towards corporations and large companies. They have the benefit of patent-law, and they have the opportunity to dip into the public domain and exploit it for their own gain. I think this is part of my main concern.
At least we're able to debate this kind of thing - and I think debate is the most useful response. Name and shame seems like a logical solution - but ultimately, I suppose it can be non-constructive. Brings pitchforks to mind ...
P.S. Apologises for the continued theorising (I guess I really can't help myself...)