Re: [-empyre-] a copyright incident

["Patrick Lichty" <voyd@voyd.com>]

> i feel like the black hatter when i do postings
> as the emails i send come from the
> p.o.v of set copyright rules, rather then what i would
> personally think of/ do in a given situation.

> re- the moral rights.... of course Melinda,...
> there are those who transgress the rules - from
> right and left, ... those who generously contribute
> research and ideas and are not worried if
> someone quotes them without acccreditation as
> they believe in freedom of information, etc
> and...those who regard it and infringement of
> moral right if they have not been
> credited....

Well, I had an interesting occurrence in which a student from Canada and I
were having a marvelous conversation (about what I forget at the moment) and
that student informed me that they wanted to use quotations in a case study.

WHat ensued was ridiculous.  The student informed me that her instructor, in
order to avoid copyright entanglements, required her to have me sign a two
page copyright disclosure for the three lines or so she was going to use.

I certainly complied, but added additional clauses in the contract like:

Item 6: The Quoted feels that this strict adherence is merely the
inscription of corporate intellectual slavery upon the Student, and although
the Quoted is doing this for the benefit of the Student, the Quoted feels
that this agreement is oppressive and sets a very bad precedent.

I think I have made it clear that my view of copyright law is that it is so
skewed in the favor of corporate interests to be ludicrous.  Therefore, my
only requirement is to not take my work and repackage it as one's own.  I
have done derivative work and appropriative work in the extreme with no
approach for copyright clearance (part of the point!), and I do not expect
the same as long as the work is derivative, even slightly.

Also, what artist is goign to be able to defend copyright?  And, who is the
person under accusation?  A multinational corporation (too much money, hard
to win), a college student or beginning artist (possibly more attainable,
but stakes are circumspect), or a hobbyist (not worth it at all)?

> perhaps we live in an over conservative and over
> regulated times? why is that?

How about - money and intellectual control, both of which are interrelated.
Once the material exchange of symbols takes hold, the economic ecology must
tighten its control of every possible avenue of exchange until EVERY item of
trade that can be traded  is accounted for.

This is also the nature of infoculture, which is related to capital.
Everything and everyone MUST be accounted for in order to control the
society.  The actual result is akin to a very cracked wall.

> recently, i had to duplicate slides of an artist's work
> i'm curating for a project. the slides where labled
> with the artist's name.

> upon collection, i was asked to fill in an A4
> document with 7 variables on the copyright status
> of the slides (including one that said 'i don't have
> permission to use this slides), give a proof of
> identity and sign the document!!!

> I though that was a taking the issue to an extreme
> but had to sign the paper otherwise, no duplicates.

> protocol, paranoia,politics or protection?

All of the above.
I'm almost ready to go copyleft.