Copyright Law is Ridiculous. How to better cope to it?

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, steve_v said:

Those were part of my childhood also. Amazingly (with liberal helping of sarcasm), they neither turned me into a psychopath nor got anyone sued.

I was never sued.

[StrandedonEarth]

16 hours ago, steve_v said:

Those were part of my childhood also. Amazingly (with liberal helping of sarcasm), they neither turned me into a psychopath nor got anyone sued.

One thing from MAD that stuck in my brain these last forty years was a background billboard for “SOSUME MOTORS”

[Guest]

On 2/4/2020 at 10:49 AM, steve_v said:

That is another thing I don't like about this forum TBH. IRL I swear like a pirate. I tone it down to levels I would normally reserve for nuns and small children, yet the filters still mange my meaning regularly. But I digress.

Ngl, but if you're old enough to be able to play KSP and have a forum account you're undoubtedly old enough to swear

[Vanamonde]

This thread is wandering somewhat far afield. Please get back to the subject at hand. 

[Lisias]

On 2/3/2020 at 7:44 AM, Deddly said:

Republishing in a separate thread is usually the best way. People do that all the time. The original maintainer may well view that as a hostile takeover, but there are no rules against it (license permitting) - this is an example of the compromise that was necessary.

I beg to differ. See the thread on the spoiler.

Spoiler

 

If creating a separated thread is the best way, could you please openly and clearly state that on Forum Guidelines?

The current Modus Operandi here is incredibly "Made Man" style. You need to ask for permission to do anything already granted by the license (or risking being harassed even outside this Forum).  Until you get such a permission, any attempt to help a user can face open hostility.

But if that guy were reachable, there would not be a need for someone to provide such a help, right?

So, back to creating a new thread for ... may we call it "alternative releases"?  Assuming this is really the best way to proceed, may I suggest a new Forum Topic called "Voluntary and/or Unofficial Support for Stalled Add'Ons" or something? Perhaps on the "GAMEPLAY AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT" chapter, to make it clear it is not a properly "adopted" Add'On?

Mainly because this site is not attended only by kids - there're also CTOs, Seniors in many fields, Journalists, people with connections on governments, you name it, and the treatment given to R.T.B. (a retired journalist, by the way) reflects badly not only on Forum , but also on TTI as they are now the owners of this thing. As far as I know, Elon Musk can have an anonymous login here, he's was known to play this game in the past (and he's hiring, by the way).

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lisias
Tyops, Kraken damnit!

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I beg to differ. See the thread on the spoiler.

 

The only thing he didn't do is ask for permission. Which is a reasonable thing to desire in polite society. Laws keep you from being a total jerk to everybody but you can still choose to be extra cordial in order to not be a jerk to anybody. For the record, I agree that if your license says your work can be copied then you have no grounds to complain when someone copies your work. In fact, you should LIKE that the people are following the license you chose. But still how does it hurt to mention to someone whose work you like so much to copy it, if they'd mind if you copy it? With that in mind, remember that the moderators in this forum are not here to enforce copyright laws. They're here to make sure we're not all jerks to each other (among other things of course).

I don't recall R-T-B's situation in particular so don't know what was copied, why, how, or who got mad and why, or what happened afterward. I do know though that one particular forum member has copied DOZENS if not over a hundred mods from people and to my knowledge has never had to take one down due to some violation. I also know that when he offered to take my mod, he was polite and when I said no, accepted that no and moved on. When later I realized that yes, I would like someone who knows what they're doing to make my mod better I went back to him with a yes and he graciously accepted that as well. It was a pleasant experience and nobody had to get mad at anybody else.

I also know for a fact that (at least the last time I did it, some time before Ap info was available in flight) finding the latest KER has been a pain for YEARS because the newest one was always somewhere on the last 5 pages of a quickly moving thread, as if that's better than someone stepping forward and actually taking over the code base officially. I mean, it's obviously okay to re-do it as the R stands for "redux." Just name it KERR and make everybody's life easier.

</soapbox>

Oh and to make sure I'm on topic... Yes copyright law is ridiculous. But most laws are ridiculous when you get right down to it. The only thing you can shoot legally from a moving car in California is a whale, for Jool's sake.

Edited February 6, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[Deddly]

6 hours ago, Lisias said:

I beg to differ. See the thread on the spoiler.

  Hide contents

 

 

That's why I said the maintainer might view it as a hostile takeover, so it would be a good idea to check with the person first.

As @R-T-B found out, a culture has developed in this community where forks are often, but not always, viewed as a bad thing. That is absolutely shocking to much of the wider open-source community. For better or worse, though, that is the culture that has developed here. It's not that way because of the add-on posting rules, it's just the way things have developed. Cultures are like that; for example, if we lived in Iran and you came into my house and said "I like your curtains", I should start taking them down and offer to give them to you, but you are supposed to refuse. That feels ever so strange to people who are not familiar with that culture, and it can actually land you in a lot of trouble (an example from a friend of mine whose parents are Iranian but he grew up in another country: as a young boy, he goes into a shop to buy something, brings the item to the checkout, and the cashier - an Iranian - says "Don't pay me for that, please just take it." My friend shrugs, says thanks, and starts walking out without paying until the owner grabs him by the collar and brings him back to the checkout).

In some cultures, you can make a woman happy by telling her she's fat; in others, if you don't belch after eating, it means you didn't enjoy the food. In England, you can bring children into a pub and have a meal together whilst the adults take a beer, in Sweden, people would be horrified at the idea.

My point is, who am I to say that my culture makes sense but someone else's is stupid? The modding culture here is what it is, but the add-on posting rules neither discourage nor enforce this culture. I, personally, would encourage mod makers to choose a license that represents what they actually want others to do with mod, but that's my opinion and it seems to go against the general add-on culture here.

What the rules do attempt to do, though, is to at least keep a mod maker's thread free of recompiles and all the problems that can bring about (like in the Kopernicus thread), as well as keeping everyone free of potential legal issues.

5 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

The only thing you can shoot legally from a moving car in California is a whale

For real? I do like a lawyer with a sense of humour

[Superfluous J]

6 minutes ago, Deddly said:

For real? I do like a lawyer with a sense of humour

It's not as crazy as it first sounds. They wanted to ban all hunting with firearms from moving vehicle but accidentally banned hunting whales from motorized boats with harpoons (which is fine by me, ban that all day long IMO) so they just made an exception "except whales."

But yes it means you can shoot whales from your car legally.

Edited February 6, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[WinkAllKerb'']

if we should drop a copyright each time we mix stuff together .... we soon be unable to speak and use words

 

[Lisias]

14 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

The only thing he didn't do is ask for permission. Which is a reasonable thing to desire in polite society. Laws keep you from being a total jerk to everybody but you can still choose to be extra cordial in order to not be a jerk to anybody.

You missed the point. On both cases (R.T.B. and now steve_v) the maintainers were (temporarily or not) unreachable. These guys were trying to help users with problems when the current maintainers weren't able to do so.

And being impolite is not grounds to be unlawfully treated. We live in a way bigger society than this Forum, and this forum's notion of politeness would render you fired or even under litigation where I work.

What we do here affect our reputations.

 

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

That's why I said the maintainer might view it as a hostile takeover, so it would be a good idea to check with the person first.

The whole point is that if that guy was reachable, users would not be asking someone else for help.

We need to reach some compromise not only to the Add'On maintainers and authors, but also to the users - they are KSP source of incoming, after all. Someone has to pay for this party.

 

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

As @R-T-B found out, a culture has developed in this community where forks are often, but not always, viewed as a bad thing. That is absolutely shocking to much of the wider open-source community. 

And as I'm afraid KSP is risking to find out, this reputation spreads and have real consequences on people's lives. Failing to fully comply with FOSS licenses is the best way to be vetted while applying for jobs on some companies.

You don't like FOSS culture? It's ok. But then don't use their licenses.

 

9 hours ago, Deddly said:

Cultures are like that; for example, if we lived in Iran and you came into my house and said "I like your curtains", I should start taking them down and offer to give them to you, but you are supposed to refuse. That feels ever so strange to people who are not familiar with that culture, and it can actually land you in a lot of trouble (an example from a friend of mine whose parents are Iranian but he grew up in another country: as a young boy, he goes into a shop to buy something, brings the item to the checkout, and the cashier - an Iranian - says "Don't pay me for that, please just take it." My friend shrugs, says thanks, and starts walking out without paying until the owner grabs him by the collar and brings him back to the checkout).

Great. Now tell me how many people is moving to Iran in order to make a living and develop that beautiful country.  (I recommend avoid airplanes there, by the way).

If Forum is willing to keep and indulge such "culture", be prepared to clash with bigger cultures that see this as an offense, some of them a legal offense. I remember a company that on late 90's also developed an internal culture on the use of FOSS IP. Their name is TiVo. I would recommend to avoid following their steps.

If the FOSS culture is not suitable for KSP culture, a suggest stating that clearly to avoid future conflicts. As well a official recommendation for avoid FOSS licenses for KSP Add'Ons.

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lisias
Couldn't resist.

[Deddly]

There is nothing in the rules that says you have to abide by this culture, @Lisias, and therefore no legal problems. The culture is not enforced. The only rule that applies here is that we require a proper release, along with the relevant licence and source code. 

[Lisias]

21 minutes ago, Deddly said:

There is nothing in the rules that says you have to abide by this culture, @Lisias, and therefore no legal problems. The culture is not enforced. The only rule that applies here is that we require a proper release, along with the relevant licence and source code. 

it's not exactly how things works on real World. Google for Misprision of Felony.

Copyright Infringement can be a misdemeanour but also a felony, by the way.

But it's good to know such a culture is not enforced, besides implying that the harassment that people got due this is tolerated.

I will take this statement as an Official Forum statement.

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lisias
Kraken damned tyops.

[Deddly]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I will take this statement as an Official Forum statement.

 

The only official forum statement is what the rules say

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, Deddly said:

The only official forum statement is what the rules say

What the rules say about publicly harassment of people that follows Forum rules, but failed to comply to a culture not enforced by the Forum?

Edited February 6, 2020 by Lisias
Of cuorse, tyops!

[steve_v]

12 hours ago, Deddly said:

The culture is not enforced.

It's tolerated though, and even quietly endorsed.
I don't see the moderators stepping in to say "please DBAD" when a mod author kicks up a massive fuss over someone exercising the rights granted to them by the licence.
I do see moderators making comments along the lines of "don't upset the modders, it's just the culture here" and repeatedly appealing to people to ask nicely or wait months for an AWOL author to okay their legal and perfectly reasonable interim release or fork.
Anywhere else FOSS development takes place, an author who kicked up such a fuss about someone forking their code (or threatened to change the licence to spite people) would be immediately dogpiled by most of the forum, and find many of their users moving to the forked version just to show their disapproval of such a petty, possessive and backwards attitude.

Yes, having multiple versions floating about can create support problems, but if you want to play the open-source game that's just what you have to deal with.
Anything else is the proverbial having your cake and eating it too.

In the case of the @R-T-B saga, at least one of the mods he forked was released under the GPL, a licence specifically designed to encourage forks and modifications.
In this weird place it seems that certain people, mods included, are so keen to keep their army of unpaid developers on-task that they'll back them up even when they go entirely against both the letter and the spirit of the licence they chose.

Sure, it's polite to ask. It's also polite to reply with "of course, that's why I licenced it GPL" (or any of the other open licences people are using). There seems to be a bit of a disconnect as to which part of that you are backing here... In fact it's almost as if you are granting certain users of the platform special being-impolite privileges.

Edited February 7, 2020 by steve_v

[Deddly]

Point taken, @steve_vand @Lisias. We try to balance on a fine line that's as fair as possible to everyone. I make no claim that we always get it right. Harassment is, of course, against the rules too but can be somewhat subjective. People are allowed to object and argue with each other politely and respectfully, but if a lot of people object strongly at the same time and pile on top of one member, it might feel like harassment to that person. Sometimes it needs moderator intervention, other times, the users work matters out between them before we are able to have a look. Please do report it if you see that sort of thing happening, though, we will always look into it. 

But I digress. Yes, copyright laws are convoluted and crazy. Even most of the open source licences are difficult to interpret. 

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, steve_v said:

I don't see the moderators stepping in to say "please DBAD" when a mod author kicks up a massive fuss over someone exercising the rights granted to them by the licence.

<..cut by Lisias...>

In fact it's almost as if you are granting certain users of the platform special being-impolite privileges.

Impolite it's an understatement. And shoving likes into a harassment (including from moderators, damnit!) doesn't make it less of a harassment.

And a close look on GPL and CC licenses will reveal the conditions in which the licence can be terminated for the current licensor and all of them lead to serious copyright infringement - with Forum having active role on the infringement (even that unintentionally).

(unless the dude is the owner of the IP, not a licensee himself - what, really, it's far from the most common use case here - and no, "blessings" are not recognised by a Court of Law as a proper cession of IP rights, it's essentially placebo wording).

Copyright Trolls are a thing. They work hard and effectively to earn they money, Forum doesn't needs to help them on making their living.

 

12 hours ago, Deddly said:

but if a lot of people object strongly at the same time and pile on top of one member, it might feel like harassment to that person

@R-T-B had already warned, more than once, and I warn too: it's not what the moderators think is harassment or infringement that matters. What really matters is what a lawyer (and, ultimately a Court of Law) think it's a problem. In special, I think this is a pretty good signal of what I'm saying:

Quote

But I'm not mean.  Some day, you'll figure that out.  I may be liquided off, and that's probably because rather than playing kerbal, I've been responding to attacks on my person all day. 

Please.  Just.  Stop.

Source.

 

 

[Deddly]

Maybe you should change the title of this thread, @Lisias? I feel like we're derailing it, but it's your thread, so...

I obviously can't comment on the details of any individual case, but for those of you who think moderators don't step in to prevent harassment of "forkers", you might notice that we don't do this behind closed doors - you can't see the removed posts, but you can see how many moderators have stepped in in that thread and others, because they post to say what they did, with a request to the community on how to continue from there. 

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Deddly said:

Maybe you should change the title of this thread, @Lisias? I feel like we're derailing it, but it's your thread, so...

Well, Copyright Laws are, indeed, terribly ridiculous. And most (if not all) of the problems we discussed here were triggered by such laws.

I think we pushed the limits a bit, but the problems are deeply related, IMHO. But the tittle can be improved, indeed.

Unfortunately, there is no real solution to these problems, but at least we can mitigate them by exposing as little surface as possible to possible attacks.

 

6 hours ago, Deddly said:

I obviously can't comment on the details of any individual case, but for those of you who think moderators don't step in to prevent harassment of "forkers", you might notice that we don't do this behind closed doors - you can't see the removed posts, but you can see how many moderators have stepped in in that thread and others, because they post to say what they did, with a request to the community on how to continue from there. 

I understand. However, we are not talking about the things moderators do right. The arguments are about what we think it's being done... in a legally unadequate way..