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gwern comments on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You - Less Wrong
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Comments (574)
It wasn't behind a paywall for me or many LWers.
It wasn't? Why was it not behind a paywall for you and your privileged fellows? My (extensive 4.6 second long) search just showed me a page with a download link that asked for paypal login.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/86m/fiction_hamlet_and_the_philosophers_stone/
Anubhav has 50+ karma, incidentally.
Still strikes me as wrong. IMO, you do not create something based on public domain works and then lock it up and demand people pay for it. The social norm isn't there because fanfiction is illegal, the social norm is there to prevent a tragedy of the commons. *
... But clearly, not everyone feels that way.
*(not quite; the original work is still there for anyone to partake of, but they're left with hardly any derivative ones to build upon. It's like starting with the wheel every time you want to build a car.)
So... it'd be fine for authors to create something based on still-copyrighted material, which they need to license, and then they can sell their new work? (And what did those authors base their works on, and hence forth to infinity...)
I'd say the only works that deserve to be paywalled are ones that sprang from a vacuum with no inspiration whatsoever.
Of course, such works do not exist. Therefore, nothing deserves to be paywalled.
But there are different shades of gray. Consciously basing your work on two works of free literature and then paywalling it is wronger IMO than paywalling a work that was created by means of unconscious 'inspiration' from your general cultural ecosystem.
Shakespare based "Hamlet" on the (public domain) legends of Amleth. And yet, I'm sure he "paywalled" it too.
Your argument seems completely topsy-turvy to me. Common sense and common practice is that it's the things that are copyrighted by other that you must not demand money for -- because it's then that you're making oney by piggybacking on the work of others that they could still (and should still be able to) profit from.
But the public domain you can profit from, because anyone could have used the same idea as you, so it's your own contributions that makes it valuable to others.
And 'Shakespeare did it!' demonstrates... what, exactly? Is 'Newton was a Christian!' an argument for Christianity?
Oversimplification. Walt Disney can't profit off Mickey Mouse, yet I'm still prohibited from profiting off that particular character.
Uh.... I don't get it. Imagine that somehow all laws regarding copyright were abolished overnight. (Probably via a hostile takeover of the Illuminati or something.) Wouldn't the exact same principle apply to all those suddenly-out-of-copyright works? Anyone could use the ideas (or the characters or the settings) I'm using, and therefore if people find any value in my works, that value must come from the artistic contributions I've made.
Now imagine copyright suddenly comes back into force. Of course, I can't sell my works anymore, but does that mean that their value evaporates? (Monetary value for the author, yes, but what of its entertainment/artistic value for the readers?) Why should the copyright status of the original work have any effect on the value of the derivative work?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you drastically, but your argument seems to be 'it ain't wrong 'coz it's legal; it'd be wrong if it weren't'.
You effectively argued that "Hamlet and Philosopher's stone" should be public domain because Shakespeare's Hamlet was public domain. I'm telling you that Shakespeare Hamlet wasn't public domain at the era it was written, even though it was based on works that were public domain.
This IMO destroys the seeming argument from symmetry and obligation that you were using. If you were not using that argument, then I don't understand you why you consider it "more wrong" to put something behind a paywall if it's based on public domain or free works.
We're not discussing value. We're discussing rightness and wrongness of charging money. And it was you who were initially arguing that the copyright status of the original work has an effect on the "wrongness" of putting a derivative work behind a paywall.
In truth I'm all in favour of piracy and the piracy party position, but your position seems even further away from mine in the opposite direction than the current corporate-capitalist position of treating copyright-violations as of they were theft.
what is this I don't even
I sense that there is a severe illusion of transparency on both sides here. I have no idea what your argument is, but whatever you're arguing against, it's not something I said. Which just goes to show I haven't been speaking very clearly, but anyway...
No it doesn't. If any of my arguments have been based on obligation, they certainly haven't been based on obligation to Shakespeare; more like a general obligation to free culture. I don't see how something Shakespeare did back in his time destroys any of that, because, in the present, (which is where HonoreDB wrote his play) the works are firmly established as a part of the public domain and HonoreDB can access them for free.
More like whether the work is available for free. HPMoR definitely isn't a public domain work.
Also, my comment was
Bit of an oversimplification to turn 'specific free works vs amorphous mass of cultural inspirations' to 'public domain vs copyright', isn't it?
Irrelevant. You seem to be replying to
but 'I actually support the opposing ideology', isn't a very enlightening reply. I still don't know what point you're trying to make.
Ahh, I see - a previous mention. It is of course behind a paywall for me given that I do, in fact, have a bank account but I'll be sure to buy it at some stage. Just as soon as the trivial inconvenience stops getting in the way.
I'll buy it when I can figure out how to make an international payment with my account... Knowing banks, there will probably be a very elaborate set of hoops to jump through.
Or you could, like me, just ask the author for a copy, as I already pointed out. If you are feeling guilty, you can contribute a review back (also like me).
My mind responds to that with 'That is dishonourable!'
I have no idea why it says that; probably some sort of bizarre clash between my identities as a Pirate Party supporter and an LWer. No rational reason, at any rate.
Anyhow, seeing as reading the book isn't a high-priority action for me, I'll let this cognitive dissonance slide for a while.