for 23 May 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Pirate Flags You're a cynical dumbass. Here's why - I just read volumes of documentation as part of a paper, "Case Studies of Hacker Resistance," where I interrogate the cases of Gnutella (often called a Napster clone, though it's not), DeCSS, and such wacky pirates as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Richard M. Stallman, Eric S. Raymond, Atty. Garbus, etc. etc. etc. warez d00dz one and all. You flat-out get things wrong in your article, like the crack about Richard M. Stallman enforcing the GPL - RMS enforces a license which is the *opposite* of copyright, "copyleft," for god sakes. How is deriding A and enforcing Z hypocritical? Oh, I forgot, you didn't get that far in your research. For that reason, your article dissolves into FUD and half-witted rhetoric to anyone who scours to dig your argument out of it's sad abyss. I suggest you read a couple of the following before attempting to comment on the mechanics of digital dissemination these days — The Economy of Ideas A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age. (Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong.) http://www.eff.org/cafe/barlow.html Understanding You Rights Online: Copyright Protection on the Internet http://www.eff.org/cafe/gross2.html If you understand how the concepts of "idea" and "product" change and become inextricably linked in a networked, digital marketplace/community, you realize why Prof. Fisher may have had a point. Oh, and tell Polly she's da bomb. <creon@brown.edu> Polly, you're the bomb. Now: If I'm a cynical dumbass, then you're an ivory-tower pansy. Ever tried to make a living in your idealized, Barlow-fueled world, boy-o? You can't eat rhetoric. Stallman enforces his ownership rights over the GNU code, no matter what cute little name he gives those rights. He gets to do this because he created the software. A leads to B — simple as that. But bits is bits, and the music industry gets to do exactly the same thing, no matter how much high-falutin' language Stallman manages to wrap around his opinions or how much good-for- the-world charity he claims. And as for "how the concepts of 'idea' and 'product' change and become inextricably linked in a networked, digital marketplace/community," you might want to back away from the faculty lounge, Bill, because the crack fumes are apparently pretty heavy. If I create something, I own it, and nobody — Harvard professor or not, EFF deep thinker or not — gets to walk off with it. You can pump all the New Economy cant you want into the conversation, but that does not change the extremely simple fact that it's mine, dammit, not his, not yours, not anybody else's. Greg Knauss  Are you kidding? What IP leg do you have to stand on with your long-winded, crying tale of being heisted by the evil Harvard professor? Dear God, I hope you are being sarcastic. Besides giving you free ad time to the 100 or so people (many of whom are or will soon be rather wealthy and can afford all the offerings of your advertising clients) in his class by posting your name and link to your website (not to mention the rest of the world who might stumble on the site), what is wrong with his including your websites on his page? He is neither trying to profit from your article nor get around having to pay you royalties - as you do not get any - by unfairly copying a publication for his students that one should buy. Fair use, my friend, and helpful to you to boot. I'm not going to run off and research this on Westlaw but my gut feeling is you have no legitimate claim, and the practical implications are so one-sided for you and Suck that the arguments from Napster proponents resonate in your hollow logic. So, I might very well be wrong, legally, but practically you are being a tad ridiculous. Stick to the tech side of the arguments. Crying out just to try to be like the big boys on the block who are really getting screwed sounds even more pathetic when you have not been harmed. <jrw220@is2.nyu.edu> Here, I'll speak slowly so you can follow my lips: It's not a question of being harmed. It's not a question of being helped. It's not a question of royalties or advertising or illegality or practicality. It's a question of ownership. Suck owns "Project Zapster." Professor Fisher does not. If you've been paying attention for the last two sentences, then it shouldn't be such a leap to the fact that Professor Fisher has no right — zero, nada, zilch — to reproduce the whole damned article on his website. Of course, Suck (and its corporate master) doesn't give a damn that some Harvard egghead has gotten a little confused by the whole concept of off-site linkage, and isn't going to do anything about the appropriation other than make that point. But — again slowly — if you missed that, then you might want to up your coffee dosage. Oooooownership. Ooooownership. Greg Knauss Greg Knauss, Several people have alerted me to your recent denunciation of the copies I made of your essay on "Zapster" . Mistakenly thinking that one of the people who contacted me was the author of suck.com, I sent him the following email message — which I'm now sending to you (hoping that this time I have the right person). I want to reiterate my willingness to delete from my website the copies that have offended you. However, I'm guessing that you would prefer that I leave them in place - in other words, to leave the target of your attack intact. If so, I'm happy to do that as well. You will notice that I have added to the page a brief note referring readers who arrive at the page through my site rather than yours to the nature of the controversy. William Fisher Your message came as something of a shock. I had not expected or intended to "steal" your creations. To be sure, as your note seems to recognize, my behavior would almost certainly be privileged under the "fair use" doctrine. The copying was for educational purposes, I make no money from my essay, I included a link to your original site (and thus gave you credit for your fine work), and it's hard to imagine that my copying of your material would result in any injury to the potential market for your creations (quite the contrary). Those circumstances, in combination, would, as you suggest, almost certainly make my behavior a "fair use." However, all this is largely beside the point. The law ought not be the exclusive guide to conduct on the Internet. Customary standards of fair dealing are important as well. I thought (evidently erroneously) that I was adhering to those standards. It did not occur to me that you would resent the copying - provided that it was accompanied by a link to your site. Rather, I thought you might appreciate the few extra viewers I might send your way. (That, anyway, is how I react when people link to or copy my own stuff - provided, of course, that they give me credit.) Plainly, I made a mistake, and I apologize. I would be happy to do either of the following: (a) delete the copied files, leaving the link to suck.com in place. (The only reason I reproduced the files, by the way, was that I feared that they would not be available indefinitely; again, I may have been mistaken.) (b) delete all reference to suck.com. Just let me know which you would prefer. William Fisher Hauser Hall 410 Harvard Law School Cambridge MA 02138 homepage: http://www.law.harvard.edu/ Academic_Affairs/ coursepages/tfisher/ Dear Professor Fisher, Firstly, I appreciate your willingness to leave the copy in place, for exactly the reason you suggest: it allows the new article to make sense. (Though, you may be interested in pointing your links to the bit's permanent home, at http://www.suck.com/ daily/2000/05/16/.) Secondly, far from being offended, I'm thrilled that you found the original "Zapster" article amusing enough to reference to your readers. I consider it a compliment, and if I appear, ah, overly vehement about the subject in today's article, please chalk it up to someone taking advantage of the only time in his life when he'll get to use his second-tier- UC -school verbiage on a Harvard Law professor. I had written an intellectual property article that was in the initial editing stages when someone pointed out your copy of "Project Zapster" to me and it seemed too appropriate not to take full advantage of. It's a wrong place, wrong time thing. Thirdly, though I can't speak for my masters at Suck.com, Lycos.com, Terra.com or whoever else owns me when you happen to read this message, I personally don't have a problem with things staying just as they are, even if I do personally think that "fair use" is stretched pretty far in this particular case. I'm happy to debate the point if you want, but I expect you'd end up grinding me into paste, what with that whole research-doing thing you professors have got going. Finally, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your temperate response. Thank you. Greg Knauss Dear Professor Fisher, I am the editor of Suck.com. I concur with Greg Knaus's comments in his separate response to you. Although I too question whether reprinting the article in its entirety falls under the rubric of fair use, we prefer, as always, to deal with events through satirical comment rather than through an unpleasant hubbub. I suspect that our articles are frequently copied in toto into emails, usenet posts, etc. Since Suck.com's message is an important one that we believe should be distributed to the peoples of all nations, we have never pursued these matters, and we don't intend to start with your citation. In any event, as Greg noted, the situation was irresistibly apt to our current article. The one thing that did get my nose slightly out of joint was your reference to the article's being "derived from and available — for the time being — from [Suck]," since this invites the inference that Suck, the longest-running daily publication on the Web, is some kind of fly-by-night operation. And of course, since my own education consists of some correspondence drawing classes and a few course hours at the Barbizon School, I'm always happy to tweak the Ivy League. I hope this hasn't caused you any aggravation (beyond a few emails from our more vehement readers). I hope you'll continue to enjoy our articles, and on behalf of Suck.com, I wish you the very best. Big Tim Cavanaugh Editor, Suck.com Excellent piece today! Would you mind if I passed the text of this piece (an awful lot of folks in this building wouldn't be caught dead going to suck.com!) around to a few of the other librarians here in the building? <reitene@okstate.edu> Sure. But I want to you to scratch out my name at the bottom of the page and write yours just beneath it. Just to see if anybody's paying attention. Greg Well done. I wonder if the napster/gnutella /mIRC/hotline debate had been along the lines you point out in your article, would napster still have the overwhelming popular vote among the digerati? Probably, but not by such a wide margin I'm sure. "What a tangled web we weave...". It all seems to be about control, and there is no better place to lose control of everything from your ideas to your money (wanna invest in boo.com?) than the wild frontiers of the net. Unfortunately we see in the history of our own continent the relative ease and speed with which wild frontiers can be tamed. That was with the entire support of white society behind the effort. Is there enough division on this issue to prevent the total domestication of the web, or is napster our Edward Teach? I guess I'll just keep reading to find out. <mjean@fitt.ca> I hope that the Web never ends up domesticated, but, Lordy, can't the people who are trying to keep it wild do something a little more interesting than ripping off tedious heavy metal? They could at least confuse the law, rather than just move petty theft to a new medium. Sheesh. Greg Fatherhood: The New Motherhood Damn, woman. You said it. My own Dad was a 'Disneyland Dad', though this was back in the 70's, before my parents got divorced (and we later learned just why Daddy never came home during the week, and believe me, it's just as sordid as you'd imagine), and I've got to say that your column hit the nail on the head as far as the current 'fashion' for fatherhood. Since my wife and I will be having kids someday soon (not imminently, but it's a lot closer), I have to make sure that I'm just as ready as she will be, because I do not want to be either the stereotypical 50's remote father figure, nor the stereotypical 'my kid's best Pal'. The true role of fatherhood sits between the extremes. Keep up the good work. MikeC <MCzaplinski@npr.org> Disneyland Dads were ultra prominent in the '70s. My own da was the epitome of that name — he played Captain Hook for three years at Disneyland, trying to "find himself." I think he was in it for the chicks — he ended up with Snow White. Good luck fathering your own offspring. I'm sure by that time great-grand-uncling will be the fad, so fatherhood should be a snap. Gooding up the keep work, Ginger I thought your commentary of May 15th made excellent use of generalities and assumptions. I honestly had no idea that the kid-happy behavior of male celebrities dictated the attitudes of a nation of men. I have been told this for years, and now -thanks to Suck- I know it to be true: men are bad. The work of fathers to raise their children is merely a "help" to their wives- and not nearly enough help as it is. Fatherhood is not even an actual job description in such a family design, just an auxiliary unit for the blessed mother figure- whether or not she happens to live with the children. Thanks, Suck. It's the kind of biting honesty you can only find written by an anonymous columnist. <marenz@bennettinnovations.com> Thank God you got it, Mark. Suck's message has first and foremost been "men are bad." We've been trying to spread the word for five long years, and are thrilled that someone finally figured it out. Kudos to you. Anonymously, Ginger my womb shudders everytime a man details a weekend jaunt to see elmo at madison square garden with his wet and sticky gene deposits as if he is deserving of most thoughtful parental figure. screw that. my theory is that it all started with lamaze. suddenly, men were under the misinformed impression that they were actually "going through" the experience of child bearing with women. the day they pass a walnut sized kidney stone is the day they will finally understand. kbunch <KBunch@cmp.com> kbunch, You are absolutely right. Lamaze ruined everything. Also, when men "rediscovered" that they could write poetry and organize big festivals in cow country to share such verse — well, that really ruined everything. Elmo didn't help either. best, Ginger Dear Ginger, I'm a second time dad to be. Here are some personal observations. Becoming a father is a simple, painless process and requires little or no skill. Carrying the real thing in your tummy is as vomit inducing and painful as Warren Beatty's Oscar acceptance speech. And it takes just as much time. shloo thululu <slatbartifast@yahoo.com> Dear shloo, I would like to thank the Academy, and my fans, for the opportunity to serve a 7 to 10 pound humanoid through my vaginal passage, replete with bloody excrement and beefy placentage. Though I worked hard, I truly enjoyed nine months of obesity and 5 to 30 hours of excruciating, non-stop pain. It has made me a stronger person. Oh, I'd also like to thank my darling significant other, Lovey, and God for giving me this opportunity... Ginger Dear "Ginger", Although your article was well written and well referenced to pop and literary culture, it seems a little unfair and short-sighted. I'm a verifiable subject of your article. My son was born in 1996, and I have had the uncomfortable role-identity crisis to handle: should I be the remote authority figure like my fathers (both of them), or should I be the modern dad, struggling to be an equal partner in the parenting role with my wife. I chose the latter, and it also chose me. My wife and I are like most couples, our roles are not clearly separated. We both work (we were both students then), we both parent. It's the only way that approaches fair. It's also what I wanted to do. It is not a fad for fathers' roles to approach equality in parenting with women. Since women began entering the workforce as supplementary breadwinners or as single mother/workers, there has been a trend toward destruction of the barriers standing between women and the breadwinner role, and men and the caregiver role. Women's participation in the work-force has grown from 49% in 1970 to 72% in 1995. See Blau, F. 1998. "Trends in the Well-Being of American Women, 1970-1995," Journal of Economic Literature 36: 112-165 (the subject was part of my undergraduate thesis, which was sitting on the shelf next to my computer, I didn't research this for this e-mail, which would have been a little crazy). The industrial-era nuclear family is becoming rare. For every family in which the parents are both working, at the best there is trouble fitting parenting into the schedules of both of the parents, worse is that the burden will fall solely on the overburdened mother. Research on "work-family conflict" has found that the incompatibility of "role pressures" (the demands on one's time and energy that result from duties arising from one's role) result in decreased marital satisfaction, stress, and general discontent. See Kopelman, R., J. Greenhaus, T. Connolly. 1983. "A Model of Work, Family, and Interrole Conflict: A Constrcut Validation Study." Organizational Behavior and Human Performance. 32: 198-215. It is true that mothers often bear the lions share, even when the father is trying to take on (at least the appearance of) the role of caregiver. But commentators on the subject have pointed out that the inequality between women and men in work and family arenas are, in part, attributable to differences in social gender identity. See Wiley, M. 1991. "Gender, Work, and Stress: The Potential Impact of Role-Identity Salience and Commitment." The Sociological Quarterly. 32 (4): 495-510. That is, men often feel guilty and inadequate when they are unable to be the breadwinner, like their fathers were. Or they feel that they are being too soft when they have to change the poopy diaper in the men's room, or they feel that the older generation is frowning on their decisions. Likewise, women feel guilty that they are either not the mothers that their mothers were, or they feel inadequate and cheated at having chosen to stay at home instead of pursue a career. My wife and I have dealt with these problems. It isn't easy. Social mores of different age groups and backgrounds collide. There is no turning back to the Cleaver family era. The finances of the family oftentimes won't allow it, and if they do, there is still the career aspirations of the parents. This will not reverse. I suggest that the "fad" of the importance of fatherhood is a necessary and reasonable compensation that the American family is undergoing. Social mores are changing. We men don't have to be the cool and distant nuclear family dad. We can say things like "poopy diaper" and still be a man, and we may even begin to change the damn things. It's a positive thing. If Warren Beatty were here I would shake his hand, despite "Dick Tracy" (but I though "Ishtar" was great). I'm all for the cleansing, compensating power of derision. I just think you made a poor decision when you suggested that the effort to incorporate being a caregiving daddy into the popular masculine role is a farce. Social roles define behavior define social roles etc. Thank you for your time. Ryan Wallis <rwallis@law.tulane.edu> Dear "Ryan," As you so eloquently stated, it is a necessity in these modern times for fathers to "approach equality." And, it seems that dads are trying their progressive little hearts out. But, when it comes down to getting dirty, moms are still the ones who leap into the mud first. According to Jessica Jones, in a January 27, 2000 article in The Staten Island Advance entitled 'They're both doing it all,' "Moms are still more likely to be primary caretakers, but dads are getting much more involved with the details." Looking at the child-blessed couples in my own wannabe-progressive circle, dads definitely ARE helping with changing diapers, getting food ready, holding the kid, but it's still the moms who jump up when the babe lets out a whimper, the moms who stay home while dads go grab a quick beer with their buddies, the moms who more strictly adhere to eating/sleeping/pooping schedules. Regards, Ginger Dear Ms. Snapps, I just wanted to tell you that I found your article on fatherhood amazingly insightful and big-picture-oriented, which is rare when it comes to touchy subjects. I myself have a father, so this article was particularly interesting to me. Rebecca Rustin <r.rustin@sympatico.ca> Dear Rebecca, It's amazing that so many of us have fathers. I guess it's one of those "common bond" things that never fails to humble us now and again. Cheers, Ginger |
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![[Tim Cavanaugh]](/fish/staff/images/tim.gif)
![[Phillip Bailey]](/fish/staff/images/phil.gif){kind=small}
