Carlos Solis 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (61) comment rss

  • On the post: Why Using Creative Commons Licensed Materials Is Not As Easy As It Looks

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2013 @ 08:43pm

    Re:

    The Free Cultural Works Definition declared non-commercial licenses as non-free for a good reason.

  • On the post: Ahimsa: Sita Sings The Blues Now CC-0 'Public Domain'

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2013 @ 11:40am

    Re: Re:

    At least the licensing conflict between the copyrighted songs and your former license has been lifted. But, the film as a whole is still fully copyrighted. I remember that there was a plan to crowdfund the purchase of the worldwide license of the songs; is that still on the works?

  • On the post: Beatles' First Single Enters Public Domain — In Europe

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2013 @ 05:23pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Exactly. And for the lyrics and tune to be in the worldwide public domain, we must wait not 70, but 100 years after the death of the last among McCartney, Starr and all other authors. Which means that, unless the average lifespan increases dramatically, we won't be able to live the day when the aforementioned song enters the true public domain.

  • On the post: Why Copyright Shouldn't Be Considered Property… And Why A Return To 1790 Copyright May Be Desirable

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2012 @ 12:33pm

    Incongruence?

    "Jerry Brito [...] was publishing a book about the "free market case for copyright reform," called Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess. [...] They also have a free chapter available on the site."

    Wait... do you mean that a book about the excesses of copyright is itself copyrighted?

  • On the post: HBO Has A Distribution Problem, But Just 'Going Without' Does Nothing To Push Them To Solve It

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2012 @ 08:11am

    "Fortitude to cope"?

    The entertainment industry is, perhaps, the only economic field where their leaders expect a large portion of their potential clients to not "consume their content" if they're unable to meet their demands. Heck, they even routinely blame them for not having the "fortitude to cope" with the unavailability of their favorite show, instead of, you know, actually expanding their market and making their productions more readily available.

  • On the post: Kenyan Filmmaker Looking To Cuts Costs By Using 'Pirates' As His Distributors

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2012 @ 06:25pm

    Street sellers: the best way to purchase... copyleft art?

    If I ever make a copyleft music album or movie, the first thing I'll do is to burn a few hundred copies, wrap them in the simplest covers I can find, place some contact information, and sell them cheap to some street sellers so they can resell them. Best. Self-promotion. Ever.

  • On the post: Chris Dodd: Bogus Facebook 'Copyright' Declaration Proves Everyone Loves Copyright

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2012 @ 06:21pm

    In a way, this does show a point...

    The comment from Chris Dodd might have been completely biased, but at least it did show a good point: most people on the internet wouldn't fear to be "stolen" of their ideas if there were no copyright laws. In the not-so-ancient times of about 250 years ago, retransmission and derivation of works were seen as completely normal within the artistic circles. Shakespeare, to put a famous example, would have done little without drawing ideas from the works of other artists and writers, both contemporary and ancient. And nobody treated him like a thief, more like a very creative writer of what we would name today as fan-fiction.

    But now, just check any online gallery. DeviantArt, YouTube, SoundCloud to give just a few examples. A sizeable quantity of artists decide to slap a copyright notice that explicitly prevents anybody else to copy, reupload, sell or remix any part of the work in any shape of form (sometimes with almost those literal words). Why do they do that? Fear of having their work plagiarized? Fear of not being able to earn money out of their works (even though most of such artists never profit from them anyway)? Whatever the reason, they wouldn't fear if the artistic circle promoted derivation and sharing instead of repressing it as vehemently as possible.

  • On the post: Newly Independent Band To Fans: Don't Just Remix Our Music, Please Try To Make Money From It Too

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 20 Nov, 2012 @ 08:30pm

    And why didn't they choose CC-BY-SA to begin with? Was it some whim from their managers? It's always the managers.

  • On the post: The 'Hey Jude' Replacement Ref Protest Plan: Turning Copyright Maximalism Against Itself

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 02:39pm

    In case of failure...

    In case the fans face imminent imprisonment because of singing the aforementioned song, they can always switch their chanting to "Hey-ey-ey-ey-ey, I'm Good to Go".

  • On the post: DHS Boss, In Charge Of Cybersecurity, Doesn't Use Email Or Any Online Services

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2012 @ 12:56pm

    Or she's a Stallmanite!

    Or perhaps she's a member of the Free Software Foundation. You know how vehement they get with non-free technologies.

  • On the post: Once Again: Just Because You Can Go Indie, Doesn't Mean You Need To

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2012 @ 09:05pm

    Just because you don't have to go copyleft doesn't mean that you shouldn't.

    (This is a message sponsored by the Free Software Foundation and the Free Cultural Works Movement)

  • On the post: 10 Lessons That Made Dimeword's Kickstarter Campaign A Success

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2012 @ 01:08pm

    Re:

    And translate, and build upon!

  • On the post: Wikitravel And Wikimedia Are In A Legal Battle… But Not Over Creative Commons

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 06:43pm

    Re: Re: We need a Librepedia

    Not that much. Most of the text would be kept intact. It would be very lacking on media and images, though.

  • On the post: Wikitravel And Wikimedia Are In A Legal Battle… But Not Over Creative Commons

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 11:59am

    We need a Librepedia

    And things like these make me seriously consider making a definite fork of Wikipedia that:

    - contains no nonfree content, not even quotes
    - only contains public domain works if the status can be applied worldwide (I'm looking at you, Mexico!)
    - contains no trademarks, not even Wikipedia's just in case; it would be renamed to "Librepedia: the truly free encyclopedia" and thus can be truly be used freely by anyone

  • On the post: Big Banks Finally Punishing Employees For Fraud… Like The Call Center Guy Who Used A Fake Dime 50 Years Ago

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 05 Sep, 2012 @ 11:40am

    Disproportionate Retribution

    Disproportionate Retribution, anyone?

  • On the post: Should Creative Commons Drop Its NonCommercial & NoDerivatives License Options?

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 06:27pm

    Re: Couple of objections...

    Where an original indie artist will create a work - it gets picked up free by a corporate, who release a movie or song -- then 3 months later the original artist is receiving DMCA takedowns and cease & desist orders for using the work which they actually own!


    If the artist chooses Share-Alike, then its a fault of the corporation, not of the artist. Now, if we talk about CC-BY-only artwork, the situation grows grimmer.

    Furthermore there is the argument that by offering ND-NC you are keeping the possibility of widespread adoption of Creative Commons vs (C)opyright. If more people default to specifying (CC) rather than a (C), Creative Commons actually wins more legitimacy and presents creators with a choice when specifying copyright rather than going with the typical restriction (many creators are still not even aware of CC).


    I've heard about this argument. Promoting half-freed licenses is a short-lived solution. Educating artists about the benefits of permitting commercial use and derivative works, on the other side, is better in the long run for the free culture community and the world as a whole.

    What they seem to advocating is the equivalent of BSD/Apache license for creative works - maybe they should be looking to the GPL and be advocating that the work can be put to commercial use, but that any derivative should release the derivative 'elements' back to the community for remixing.


    Exactly! Copyleft licenses are better than permissive licenses in that regard, because they require all derivatives to be free-as-in-freedom as well.

  • On the post: Should Creative Commons Drop Its NonCommercial & NoDerivatives License Options?

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 11:15am

    Why NC/ND are unneeded (my own crosspost from the Reddit topic)

    NC and ND are unneeded if proper education is taken to promote proper copyleft. Here are the main reasons to remove them, from my perspective:

    - Non-commercial restrictions come from the confussion between copyrighted usage and commercial usage. There are plenty of non-copyrighted but commercial usages: playing a song in an event with entry fee, placing it in an ad-driven blog, etcetera. Share-alike licenses deal with the copyrighted usages, and the artist is free to cash with their work even if others do.
    - Non-derivative restrictions come from the fear of having a person's opinion distorted. Attribution and moral rights deal with that; derivatives must be clearly labeled as such.

  • On the post: Should Creative Commons Drop Its NonCommercial & NoDerivatives License Options?

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2012 @ 10:07am

    Re:

    As a matter of fact, I'm writing an article on why the artists should stop fearing commercial use and derivatives. Yes, Lessig and Stallman, I'm talking about you both.

  • On the post: Award-Winning Manga Author Opens Up His Work To Be Used By 'Anyone, Anywhere, For Anything,' Royalty-Free

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2012 @ 09:15am

    What about CC-BY?

    Somebody who speaks Japanese should tell him about Creative Commons. It seems that Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) is what he's wanting in this case. Also, it would be much safer to use in copyleft works. In other news, I would have never thought that Black Jack would be free-as-in-freedom in this century.

  • On the post: Dear Permission Culture: This Is Why No One Wants To Ask For Your OK

    Carlos Solis ( profile ), 30 Jul, 2012 @ 02:54pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Which means that, given the longest copyright terms in the world (currently Mexico, 100 years after death), we'll have to wait *73 more years* until Sita Sings the Blues is truly free-as-in-freedom.

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