a bunch of stuff which is sensible and well-reasoned, even if I may
not agree with 100% of it, but then he goes on to say:
>I've found people using my media on their pages
>without even a "can I use this?" email sent to me. ... a factor made all the
>worse by Netscape's "right-click-to-rip-the-artist-off" image save feature.
Bogosity alert. The fact that Netscape (and Microsoft Internet Explorer) allow
you to save a graphic is completely irrelevant to this argument. In fact, the
HTTP protocol allows my computer to go and *get* that graphic, with no
information provided about what I plan to do with it: display, save, edit,
whatever. If NS and MSIE didn't do this, you could always save & paste, and
there'd be million freeware URL-grabbers... hmm, there *are* a million
freeware URL-grabbers.
It is correct that this is a problem, and even though I think that conventional
copyright law will eventually prove to Do The Right Thing given a certain
amount of sensible caselaw and perhaps a bit of legislative tinkering, the fact
is, this will have to deal with the pervasive usage of a protocol & practice
whereby information providers send stuff off with no information as to where
it's going and what it's going to be used for. Stated that way it sounds kind
of weird, because it is kind of weird.
Cheers, Tim Bray
tbray@textuality.com http://www.textuality.com/ +1-604-488-1167