Stuart Blog 2: September 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Martin campaign's appropriation of a photo by Jeff

Jeff (Yellow Dog Sammy) accuses the Martin campaign of misusing one of Jeff's photographs.

I'm still not sure that this is a misuse according to the terms of the license. I browsed through the (semi-official?) wiki for Creative Commons. It didn't settle the matter for me but it did address another lingering question that I've always had about Creative Commons: the licenses are irrevocable. Once you've thrown it into the commons, you can't yank it back. It may turn out that this is relevant here.

It's been said, more than once as I recall, that this episode is indicative of the deplorable, unworkable state of politics in the United States. I may agree but I think I have a different perspective. Lefty bloggers are leveling harsh accusations and doing so in broad generalizations. The stated or unstated attitude is that Republican politicians, Righty bloggers or even conservatives are scoundrels and not amenable to rational discourse. The Righty blogosphere may be a minefield of vitriol (I wouldn't know) but no individual of any ideology should let that debase their thinking. The real danger to civil society is when more and more people feel such contempt for those that they disagree with that they disengage from the dialogue.

I think that the effort expended here (by all of us) in defending his intelectual property would be better spent addressing the substance of the ad in question. The ad lies? Then explain how and tell the truth. I'm aware that this has already been done but frankly it's been completely overwhelmed by the copyright issue. As I said before, while it's clearly an author's right (which may have been abdicated in this case, but...) I think there's something unsavory about enforcing a Creative Commons license this way.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Testing more random nonsense.

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