Copyright Copyleft

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Comment by Heleen de Vaan on July 24, 2014 at 9:58am

Thanks to an interesting question by Lady von Halbach, Val wrote his statement on copyright and he allowed me to publish his statement also here:

 

*****

This message is from the one and only Valentine Mark Herman, aka 'Dotty' (to his friends – nb plural – and cats).

Valentine Mark Herman asserts his moral and immoral rights for this message.

The right and left, as well as the top and bottom, and the middle, too, of Valentine Mark Herman to be identified as the author of this message has also been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Copyleft, Copycat and Copywrong and Patents Act, 2014, and associated EU legislative measures, especially those concerning Mental Health and the Safety of Mail Art (Sending & Receiving Directive, EU 57/2012).

All rights and Dots reserved. No part of this message may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, microwave, existential, astrological, mechanical, Marxist-Leninist-Troskyist-Maoist, photocopying, recording, extra-terrestial, under-water, fracking or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Valentine Mark Herman – which will only be given if a request is submitted with a suitable amount of $100 or €500 bills accompanying it. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this message may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims to damages for crimes against Mail Art and/or Valentine Mark Herman.. Furthermore, their hair will fall out, their cars won't start, their cats will scratch their furniture, their make-up will run, their glue-sticks will dry up, they will be Dotted with non-removable paint, AND their Mail Art will get lost in the post..

Details of all other matters concerning this copyright notice can be found in the small print below...(Sorry, it's so small that you probably can''t read it, but if you get a magnifying glass...)

 

*****

 

I hope that his permission for me to publish it here indeed is the right one, and that no 'black-on'white', on paper written permission is needed.

He had written his consent in a digital personal message to me, and since today I wonder why my car didn't start, why 10 more hairs turned white this morning and why so many ticks have been biting me (we have no cats at home, there are cavia's (guinea pigs) instead, who are the most peaceful creatures. Ouch! Why do they think my thumb a carrot?).

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on February 10, 2014 at 9:37am

Ruud, nice variations with the 'C'! Never thought of using it for the Olympic rings, nor I associated it with the European flag. Great created designs!

Gabriele, thanks for your comments. I once took a cauliflower, of which I  removed all 'bulbs' (don't know the English word: the upper rond/curled parts and their stems). When doing this, a kind of rocky island remains. I've made several drawings/paintings of this at that time. I should start do so again, could make a serie of it!  
The romanesco also is a very nice vegetable, but I'll first start to use the cauliflower again :-)  I wouldn't associate the romanesco with a wigwam, because I associate wigwams with 'hollowness'. But it's a nice idea, and an interesting vegetable of course.

Regarding pinterest, it is a nice place to share and to collect inspiring pictures. I know some artists who use it as a kind of 'library'. Like I've kept maps with cut-outs-of-magazines to have a collection of examples on 'how to draw again ... (violoncellos, elephants etcetera).
So these would be the reason for me to use pinterest, on non-commercial base: as a kind of digital photoalbum / library of self-collected items, to watch and enjoy every now and then, and to search when I'm in need of inspiration/examples-on-how-to-draw.
Other people use pinterest for for instance recipes, fashion, and many subjects more. Most of all, I see enthousiasm of sharing beautiful pictures.
Searching in google with 'pinterest' and my name, I see that my work has been 'pinned', too, and that's okay for me, it flattered, and above all, I see it among other nice pictures of similar subjects (and usually there are links to the source, too) which causes joy.

Concerning starting a Pinterest account, on one hand I am afraid it will take too much time (which is scarce for me, and which I'd better use for creating mail art - I am much behind because of sitting at the internet too long!...). On the other hand those terms of use seem to me a good reason to wait a while, too. As does the whole facebook/pinterest 'big brother watching you' idea, but that's a different story.

 

 

Comment by Ruud Janssen on February 9, 2014 at 5:13pm

also a nice variation......

Comment by Ruud Janssen on February 9, 2014 at 5:12pm

I thought the olympic copyright collection would be a nice symbol for the time being.

Comment by Ruud Janssen on February 9, 2014 at 10:25am

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on February 9, 2014 at 1:30am

The Broccoli Hut and the Copyright/Copyleft question.

To everyone who thinks it interesting to discuss about!


I was very enthousiast when I saw a  photo of a tree hut, created in a... Broccoli!

I wanted to share that picture digitally with some friends, but I was considering copyright already then, too (it was in 2011, it's not because of the recent discussions).

So I decided to draw and  paint it, and to add the name of the original (in two meanings) photographer. 

Here it is, 'my' drawn/painted broccoli hut:

And here you can see the original photo by Brock Davis.

You can see that my drawing is very much alike the photo (? I hope so!) on one hand. On the other hand, it is a drawing, a drawn copy, not a photo copy.

In 2011 I used this drawing for personal (of course noncommercial) purpose - just shared it on small scale with friends as a smile, 'did you see that', and I think there's nothing wrong with that.

However, it is published on the internet now in a group with over 3000 members (here)!
I still don't think it wrong, as I am very enthousiast about the photographer, and love to advertise meanwhild (here: check his website! for more interesting and funny designs!).

But regarding the latter, views and opinions might differ.

So what about this subject: does one infringe copyright of a photo, when one draws/paints it and publishes the drawing of this photo (mentioning the photographer of the original)? Or is it a drawing and a drawing is not a photo so the two of them have to be regarded separately?

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on December 11, 2013 at 11:14am

A question: is anyone familiar with Pinterest?

I'm thinking of creating a Pinterest account, so I was reading the 'Terms of services/users'.

I was wondering what they're meaning  with the following text:

 They also have a Copyright Policy (shown in these Terms and via this link).

I was wondering if the first text - if I understand well, you can use and even modify content published by pinterest-people - isn't in contradiction with their adopted/implemented Copyright Policy - which,  if I understand well, means that you can report infringement when someone else uses of modifies your works :-)

More questions: Who knows more about this (maybe a native English speaker can explain me if I've understood it well or incorrectly?)?

And who has a Pinterest account and can share his/her experiences with this? And finally: what do you think of these terms, concerning copyright, with what would you agree or what would you change, and why? 

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on November 20, 2013 at 2:34pm

Thank you Ruud and Gabriele Astrid, for your comments.

The Creative Commons idea I always think a very nice, friendly principle.

Concerning the comment Gabriele Astrid on my page yesterday, of course copyright is important to guarantee income for the artist. But I think the spirit of Mail Art also includes a certain freedom and flexibility of the use of art. That's why many mail artists don't have problems when others use their work to create something new, to pass on to the next receiver (see for instance the new mail art which has been made from the Brain Cell forms of Ryosuke Cohen - which in itself already is a spreading of original works of art, stamp designs etcetera.  Several mail artists (including me) have an other paid job besides the art job, to be able to feed themselves and their family (speaking for myself, I'm breadwinner, and for the money I earn a year by my illustrations I could feed my family for one week or so).

In contrary to your words, Gabriele, you wrote on my page that you "hope also that Mail Art will become a real market like other art & design. Otherwise you can also say it is only a hobby", I think this statement misses the spirit of a big part of mail art. 'Only a hobby' sounds as an insult to the ones for whom (mail) art is their life, and who choose not to be dependent of galleries and other commercial organisations (by seeking an other paid job outside of art) and even were and are so kind to have other people use their works. It sounds as a condemnation to unpaid art, as if only paid (and copyrighted) art would be Real art. 

Comment by Ruud Janssen on November 20, 2013 at 6:05am

I've added a link. Copyleft is described quite well. How it feels that someone copies you is an interesting question. Will cause some disussions for sure...

Comment by Ruud Janssen on November 20, 2013 at 6:03am

Copyleft (a play on the word copyright) is the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work. In other words, copyleft is a general method for marking a creative work as freely available to be modified, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.^[1]

Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works such as computer software, documents, and art. In general, copyright law is used by an author to prohibit recipients from reproducing, adapting, or distributing copies of the work. In contrast, under copyleft, an author may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement.

Copyleft licenses (for software) require that information necessary for reproducing and modifying the work must be made available to recipients of the executable. The source code files will usually contain a copy of the license terms and acknowledge the author(s).

Copyleft type licenses are a novel use of existing copyright law to ensure a work remains freely available. The GNU General Public License, originally written by Richard Stallman, was the first copyleft license to see extensive use, and continues to dominate the licensing of copylefted software. Creative Commons, a non-profit organization founded by Lawrence Lessig, provides a similar license provision condition called ShareAlike.

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