Excelsior the book

WITH A FOURTEEN CENT PROFIT!

Nick: Sorry, Kinko's was the only chain name I could think of; a photocopy shop, in other words.

Tep: So your friends are paying Kinko's for the copies, then?

x-post

let's hire a hitman to kill jon williams:
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=4756047
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=4773376

..and redefining 'enormous' on
How are they going to end ILX?

I will match every dollar raised with one towards a hitman.

-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), June 22nd, 2004 3:57 PM. (afarrell) (tracklink) (later)

Remember that pot we have for collecting money for a hit man? Can I contribute about £1000, please?
-- People love Gravity and Evolution! (masonicboo...), June 23rd, 2004 9:26 AM. (kate) (later)

Well a ferry ride to Rochester is $55, we could outfit Sean in a trenchcoat for another $50...
-- Mr Noodles (infinitecow...), June 23rd, 2004 11:22 AM. (Mr Noodles) (later)

This is cutting and pasting, though; the "phone conversation" here takes place in full view of a tape recorder kept in a public place so everyone who wants to listen to it has access to it.

Tep: So your friends are paying Kinko's for the copies, then?

It would be okay if Mark did this for free, but not if he asks people to pay cost?

(That isn't what it sounds like people are saying.)

As an aside, at what point in the conversation did I give the impression that I was completely unaware that Kinko's charges you for making copies? I would really like to avoid appearing like a complete and total moron in the future.

(AKA FOR FUCK'S SAKE)

I think a few people are severely overreacting. This is like "Pump Up the Volume" almost.

"Talk hard, Momus!"

-- VengaDan Perry (webmail), June 23rd, 2004 4:13 PM. (Dan Perry) (later)

AND MADE A FOURTEEN CENT PROFIT?

May I provide links to other sites on my Web Page?

This topic is debated often and no clear resolution has emerged. Unless you are given express permission to link to a site, you should contact the owner of the other site and obtain their permission before you do so.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I'm giving Mark the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he did this out of cluelessness and a general ignorance of online tact, rather than out of some impulse to cause harm and hurt people. Maybe I'm wrong, in which case all the ire is justified.

I don't think you're a moron -- I addressed you, but I was talking to the thread, too, or I would've just emailed you. Not everyone knew what Kinko's was; I was trying to make the comparison clear, that CafePress is just a high-end photocopying service. So many of the complaints upthread are incredibly vague that it doesn't seem at all clear that people object for the same reason, or even agree with each others' objections.

also, what about people who link to ilx in their blogs?

ILX Mods plot Jon Williams death via hitman! [aka Bored Of The Flies 2004]

'Although it is illegal and an infringement of your copyright for someone to copy your work without your permission, the reality is that it is very easy for someone to do. It is possible to limit the systems that can access your site, for example, only UC computers could gain access; or set up a password system to allow only certain users to the site. You should place a copyright notice on the work and advise browsers what they may and may not do with your work. None of these approaches will prevent someone from copying your works off your site. In short, if you have something very valuable that you don't want people to use, don't put it on your web page.'

© Copyright 2001 The Regents of the University of California, All Rights Reserved.

I mean, sure, I can understand the general idea that things posted here are being willingly thrown out into the ether to be viewed by whoever happens to come across them; most of us use handles anyway and aren’t writing anything that’s particularly dear to us. But ILX has attracted a whole lot of people whose names and reputations are directly tied to the work they do. Which has always made me really happy --- that someone like John or the countless working-critics on ILM could join freely into the discussions without worrying that they were engaging in anything other than some casual in-house banter. Everyone’s always respected that on here; this whole book idea, whether anyone looks at it or not, basically knifes the idea that even the most explicit of our protections on here --- the clearly-stated copyright --- will mean anything to anyone. You may not care what happens to the stuff you post, but some people do, period.

Beyond which c’mon: it’s just illegal! You can't do this; you can't search up everything John ever wrote and publish “First Pl4ne to J4karta: The Collected Works of J0hn D4rneille”; you can't just wholesale print and bind Simon Reynolds’ blog, either. You write content here; it stays here. If people want to read it on the toilet, all they need are printers and heavy-duty staplers.

But it isn't a Jay-Z album. I don't want to dismiss your analogy, because I agree with part of it, but there's an important difference between "words by people who sell words" and "sellable words by people who sell words, written with the intent of making money from them."

The other difference -- regardless of that part of the analogy -- is that you can also make CafePress pages semi-private, so they're not listed in the directory or their internal search engines; no one finds them unless they're given the link. (I don't know if they're googleproofed; what would people google in this case?) Mark hasn't gone around "advertising" this. Even if he had, the page tells you virtually nothing about what's involved; no one who isn't familiar with ILX would have any reason or incentive to buy it.

I'm not arguing Mark had the right to put this together, although I don't think any harm has been done; I just think the response is completely disproportionate, and possibly in places not very considered.

yanc3y will then photocopy it onto microfiche, and sell the original on ebay.

To use an analogy, sure, you can't expect any conversation you ever have not to be monitored or recorded or listened-to by strangers, but you don't expect a lover or a friend or a band-member to tattle about your sex life to a gossip columnist.

(This may all be redundant now, since I haven't looked at the last twenty or so posts, but whatever...)

There's nothing at all "disproportionate" about the fact that J0hn left; my guess is that up until now, he had some vague trust that ILXors weren't about to do something dumb like this, and now --- in whatever tiny, doesn't-make-a-difference way --- he's been reminded that he can't trust that at all.

One final thing: this argument about exactly how much harm it does is ridiculous and beside the point. Each of us has copyright on what we write here. It's up to each of us to decide how we feel about what happens to our words, and we don't have to defend our reactions to anyone else.

Well yeah, obviously (that's part of what makes the analogy). No one's denying Mark didn't have copyright here, and I pointed out on the Moderator Request Forum that CafePress is known to respond quickly to "X doesn't have copyright to Y" complaints. But that doesn't actually sound like the substance of peoples' complaints.

Also, Tep, your Jay-Z analogy refutation, if I understand it, is off; copyright protection isn't just about sellable works you originally intended to sell -- it's about anything you created that happens to be sellable.

Chris, you're confusing an argument about legality, which I have no interest in, with the argument I'm actually participating in.

J0hn D, don't flee...the book won't happen now, it's all good...