Nobody Reads This

So I read just now in a BBC article that at some point an American court ruled that using licenses like CC commons and presumably the GNU by extension to release open source software gives you no rights to copyright infringement when someone then takes your work and uses or alters it in a way your license would not allow.

The decision has of course been overturned by the US Federal Appeals court, but one must consider how exactly the first decision was originally passed. The first court deemed that if you release materials on to the net for free – then there can be no copyright theft.

To make that decision the judge has to basically say that there is no value in being the person who created the software but only in the monetary gains that would reward you with. Would this same judge deem that copying off of someone’s test isn’t cheating if they weren’t covering their answers up?

Perhaps the most shocking thing about this is that the person accused of copyright theft took open source software (with the standard – credit me, update me and tell others where to find the original license) which was then taken, modified and sold on.

The key here is the fact that someone took another persons work broke the lisensing agreement and distributed it for profit – that isn’t just one copyright theft, that’s effectively software piracy.

I’m sure you’re all aware of how media distributors try to get people – By accusing them not of having pirated software (as the penalties are fairly marginal and it’s hard to make a good charge stick) but distributing pirated software which is a far worse crime.

Most open source licenses ask a few things in return for you using their materials:

• You credit the original author
• You keep the same license
• You don’t sell it on

It’s simple, the CC license puts it nicely with “Share and Share alike” because it’s only with this thinking that the arts and sciences can share information without the worry that their good deed will be stolen and marketed by someone else.

In the software world I can think of nothing worse than taking someone’s code that they through good intentions have released to you and selling it on. If you do it, you’re a Judas.

Rant complete.

We (I) have decided that i’m going to let another team join us in our next GTA shoot, there is one guy who has sent us some suggestions via YouTube and I will probably get back to him and tell him to bring a friend.

If you have a better suggestion, i’m all ears.

Regards,
JamesR.

So we bought a Belkin router to be stop gap between getting one from Virgin … And nobody told me that Belkin Wireless G Routers don’t work with Virgin Media Cable modems.

Fuck. Going back into Comet will be a laugh