Attribution

[Captain Utopia]

In the pre-internet era, attribution to works as a license condition was a career and livelihood requirement. This persisted through the early period of the world wide web when it was extremely difficult to pinpoint original sources of data. In addition, the one-many communication model before things like blogs, youtube, forums and comments became both technically feasible and popular, meant that unless you owned or had access to a broadcast platform like a popular website or old media, then your voice would never be heard.

So where are we now? We're in a many-to-many communication environment where anything which is a good story will quickly bubble up. Example - the Obama "HOPE" poster - remember the kerfuffle about whether it was taken from an actual photograph or not and who owned the copyright? The story broke on blogspot! This means that we're in a situation where someone else can profit from your work without attribution for a short period of time before it's discovered and becomes news, generating greater publicity for the original author. Even it it's just a fight between two internet forums, it's a simple matter to prove and document plagiarism and influence.

I bring this up because quite often I see people ask to reuse content, and are given the go-ahead with the restriction of attribution or non-modification. I'd like to argue the case that this is unnecessary and may even be detrimental to the spread of good ideas.

In a general case, is it better to have one person creating a derivative of your work with full attribution - or a dozen people working without attribution, but with the ability to gain the limelight should they strike gold? It's also a question of practicality - the effectiveness of a leaflet or poster may be diminished with attribution taking up valuable space.

Another upside - if someone creates a total piece of crap, without attributing you, then you can just sweep that under the rug and let it quietly die in obscurity.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's one opinion, and I'm sure that it has validity.

However, if I catch someone using my content without attribution, I will do everything in my power to make their fucking lives a living nightmare, in a manner that will border on the psychotic.

Why?  Because it's fucking MINE.  I sweated the fucking blood staring at a blank goddamn screen while trying to think of the exact right way to word what I was thinking, and it came out of my filthy fucking frontal lobes, and it's the one upside to having a worldview that makes Philip K Dick look like Mr Rogers.

So I don't give a fuck if you think this will inhibit the spread of good ideas, because I will say this much...in addition to the aforementioned psychotic revenge drive, I'll simply stop writing content anywhere the guilty party would have a chance of seeing it.  Why should I do this shit, if someone will either post it without my name, or worse, put their name on it? 

And that's nothing compared to my feelings about changing my text without my permission.

There.  Now you've had the gentle answer.  Cain will be along shortly with an apple-corer for your asshole, to give you the less subtle response.

[Cramulus]

It really depends on the form of media.



In addition to for-profit reasons, authors put their names on work so they can be credited & recognized. Credibility has a large influence on the piece's power. For example, I am more likely to read an article by Stephen Hawking than John Doe.

The author's name becomes a sort of territorial piss marker. I hesitate to remix something with someone else's name on it. It's clearly somebody else's words. So attribution does influence retransmission, but who knows how much.

The most fluid memes are the ones which can be modified as they're transmitted. Think about how a joke changes form every time it's told, or a song changes every time somebody covers it. This shows that the idea never did "belong" to the originator. It belongs to anyone that communicates it.

I really do think that as soon as an idea is "out there" in the public sphere, meaning it's been communicated, you have lost control over it. If you really care about the idea, and accept that others might be able to make use of that idea more effectively, you increase the piece's survival chances by not being too territorial about it. (if your goal is to make a buck, however, it's best to slap a (c) on that thing)

I think it's whack that I'm not allowed to write a song or story about my childhood trip to Disney world without getting Disney's express permission. I guess they have legal ownership of some of my memories and experiences.



I do a lot of cut-ups, remixes and remastering both text an image. I've got an entire book of content which I've mangled and re-mangled. In some cases they barely resemble the author's original work. I found this to be a somewhat liberating process - you create this hybrid piece which is not exactly original but not exactly plagiarism. It's made me detach from the notion of ever owning an idea.





We had a lonnnnnnnnng and heated discussion here a while back about (c) and (k) and profit and attribution. It was a thread lysergic started about whether or not he was allowed to sell Intermittens in Melbourne. I can't remember what it was called though - anybody?

ah -- found it! http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20615.0

[LMNO]

Attribution is also a form of respect.

To attribute something, or to ask permission to reproduce it, it a way of saying to the author, "I really like your work, and I'd like more poeple to know about it."

And because you showed respect, the author that created something you admire will probably be willing to create and share more because of that.

If you don't respect the work I put into something, chances are I won't like you very much.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I fail to see any reason whatsoever that simply attributing the author would interfere with distributing an idea.

I agree that simply REFERENCING work or intellectual property is okay...that's just fair use.  But I utterly reject the idea that putting an idea out means that anyone can claim credit for it, either by putting their name on it, or by implying the same by putting nobody's name on it.

Also, it's a slap in the face.  While I don't give a fuck if someone uses a one sentence meme-bomb I added without putting my name on it, a carefully thought out rant is another thing entirely.  I put the work into it, and I don't require any other compensation than attribution (unless it's going into a for-profit publication), and I really don't see that as being too much to ask for.

[Cramulus]

If I'm remixing something, I'm usually very respectful of the author's wishes.

But just to illustrate the other side of the coin ----

some of my work,
for example the Strange Times, and the Parable of the Gong
(which incidentally are my two favorite pieces)
I really just want to be spread to as many people as possible.

I don't care if you modify it.

I don't care if you attribute me.

I don't care if you cut it up, use part of it out of context, or make visual artwork out of it.


It would irk me if you took credit for it.


But if you want to put these things in a magazine and you're having trouble locating me, don't waste your time begging for permission. That's why they're released into the public domain, rather than licensed somehow.



Back during the Cyberspace Masquerade, we had this interesting problem where we couldn't figure out what (c) or (k) license to release work under, and many of the authors had been posting with anonymous handles. It was impossible to contact them. In that case, is it important to get permission? If we can't find the guy, can we not publish the piece?

I know there's a number of Robert Anton Wilson's words inside the Principia Discordia, but they didn't bother to litter it up with attribution. That whole book is a collage - can you imagine what it'd look like if they cited every image they cut up, every piece of text they borrowed?


I don't do a lot of visual art, but when I do, I prefer collage. I rip a lot of my images from flickr. Many of them were copyrighted. I think what I am doing is technically illegal. But if I'm making a collage of 10 different images, and I have to credit every source with author and URL, it's a lot of distracting garbage. Every time I e-mail the piece to someone, I have to attach this little disclaimer with works cited? fuck that. it's not like I'm selling it or hanging it in a gallery, it's like, my desktop wallpaper.

Another example is Intermittens 6, which is all one liners and poop jokes. I stole 80% of it from this forum. I didn't credit everybody individually, I just credited the forum. With a piece like 101 Ways to Make Everybody's Day Weirder, crediting everybody would be totally distracting.

[LMNO]

some of my work,
for example the Strange Times, and the Parable of the Gong
(which incidentally are my two favorite pieces)
I really just want to be spread to as many people as possible.

I don't care if you modify it.

I don't care if you attribute me.

I don't care if you cut it up, use part of it out of context, or make visual artwork out of it.


It would irk me if you took credit for it.

Yeah, but that's your choice.


It looks to me like FP's premise is that you shouldn't have that choice in the first place.

[Cramulus]

It looks to me like FP's premise is that you shouldn't have that choice in the first place.

I read the question as

"As an author, is it important to demand attribution / no remix?"


my answer is, if you care about getting credit, yeah, demand attribution.


It pokes at the underlying problem of "ideas as property".

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It looks to me like FP's premise is that you shouldn't have that choice in the first place.

I read the question as

"As an author, is it important to demand attribution / no remix?"


my answer is, if you care about getting credit, yeah, demand attribution.


It pokes at the underlying problem of "ideas as property".

There are nations that do not have intellectual property as a matter of law.

Take a look at them some time.

Seriously...I fail to see any advantage in NOT attributing an author.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Hey, where did FP go?   

[Captain Utopia]

It looks to me like FP's premise is that you shouldn't have that choice in the first place.

Not at all. Rather that we've reached a point where it may be beneficial for an author to sometimes loosen the requirement of attribution in order to increase the potential scope of reuse a piece can have, given that we have the technology to advertise and claim credit for the rare derivative work which makes it big. Perhaps a better model would be "attribution and acknowledgement upon request".

I don't fully understand the sweating of blood and intense feeling of acknowledged ownership over a created work, but that may be linked to the fact that I'm not creating anything of value.

There are nations that do not have intellectual property as a matter of law.

Take a look at them some time.

That's correlation rather than causation, surely?

Seriously...I fail to see any advantage in NOT attributing an author.

There is little to no advantage in attributing an author when the derivative work is awful and will just be forgotten anyway. But at the opposite end of the spectrum, if the lack of an attribution requirement is a factor in someone deciding to derive something else from your work.. you will still get credit for it if it becomes successful.

This has only become true sometime within the last five years.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It looks to me like FP's premise is that you shouldn't have that choice in the first place.

Not at all. Rather that we've reached a point where it may be beneficial for an author to sometimes loosen the requirement of attribution in order to increase the potential scope of reuse a piece can have, given that we have the technology to advertise and claim credit for the rare derivative work which makes it big. Perhaps a better model would be "attribution and acknowledgement upon request".

I don't fully understand the sweating of blood and intense feeling of acknowledged ownership over a created work, but that may be linked to the fact that I'm not creating anything of value.

There are nations that do not have intellectual property as a matter of law.

Take a look at them some time.

That's correlation rather than causation, surely?

Seriously...I fail to see any advantage in NOT attributing an author.

There is little to no advantage in attributing an author when the derivative work is awful and will just be forgotten anyway. But at the opposite end of the spectrum, if the lack of an attribution requirement is a factor in someone deciding to derive something else from your work.. you will still get credit for it if it becomes successful.

This has only become true sometime within the last five years.

Considered it, and don't care, for a couple of reasons.

1.  I don't want my work "derived" ("improved") by anyone who doesn't consider attribution a fair and easy (hell, it's FREE) solution, so that won't be an issue, and

2.  How would I get "credit" for it, if it's "derived" without attribution?

So, no, I don't think I'll be loosening my requirements.  My work can be reproduced upon request, and my conditions are always the same if it's not for profit:

1.  Attribution.
2.  No changes.
3.  Do I like you?

[Cain]

I fail to see any reason whatsoever that simply attributing the author would interfere with distributing an idea.

Well that's the whole fallacious premise the OP seems to based around.  How exactly does having to put a name to a text, or a link, or whatever, stop more people from responding to or riffing off a piece of work?  Hell, the entire blogosphere is one huge circle-jerk of shared links and discussions, 99.9% of it attributed.  I entirely fail to see why this would have any effect whatsoever on it's own.

[Roaring Biscuit!]

i think what he's trying to say is that there may be ways of playing the "system" a bit?

Like, say someone's nicked off with one of TGRR's rants, he posts it up on his blog, or on another far flung discordian forum.  Everyone there applauds.  Then one day, someone else waltzes past and recognises it as TGRR's, unattributed.  They point this out.  Thief is shamed, but TGRR's rants in general might become subject of interest within that community, hypothetically increasing the "reader base".

I'm not saying that you shouldn't want works to be attributed, its your work you should protect it however you want.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I fail to see any reason whatsoever that simply attributing the author would interfere with distributing an idea.

Well that's the whole fallacious premise the OP seems to based around.  How exactly does having to put a name to a text, or a link, or whatever, stop more people from responding to or riffing off a piece of work?  Hell, the entire blogosphere is one huge circle-jerk of shared links and discussions, 99.9% of it attributed.  I entirely fail to see why this would have any effect whatsoever on it's own.

As far as I can tell, the only reason for NOT attributing the use of a piece is to steal the credit for someone else's work.

If I am wrong, I am willing to hear an alternate explanation.