Linus pirating XKCD-comics on WAN

[betalars]

33 minutes ago, Caroline said:

what's the reasoning -if there's any- behind becoming a copyright knight?

It's simple: I rely on and contribute to Creative Commons. That's why I care about Creative Commons Artists being treated fairly.

 

And XKCD is not a huge company, but a small independent creator.

 

And although using "lying" was admittedly inappropriate (sorry), I don't consider me calling out Linus for an obvious mistake in a matter, where he has strong opinions of his own to be some sort of personal vendetta. He done goofed really hard and It's on a matter, where a lot of people seem to not get it, because boi are there many misconceptions when it comes to how to use creative commons works and licenses.

 

And I totally agree with the sentiment, that  a lot of copyright and especially trademark Law is awful and heavily biased towards big media monopolists. Get me started on the big mouse, if you want to see me actually having a personal vendetta.

 

[sub68]

[betalars]

Just now, sub68 said:

I really need to edit my Post, because you are right, xkcd would probably not mind in this case, but Linus couldn't have assumed this.

[Needfuldoer]

23 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Sure he did. Are you trying to imply any second he doesn't actively talk about his sponsors is one where he doesn't make money off of?

He makes money off WAN show whether it includes an xkcd or not.

 

WAN show is a commercial entity. That's fine, xkcd doesn't use a Creative Commons Share-Alike license, it doesn't have to be "NonCommercial" itself.

 

The wording in the license polices specific use cases, not the collective or derivative work as a whole. Only that specific use case of that xkcd comic appearing on-screen on the Friday, March 11 episode of WAN Show has to be "NonCommercial". I believe it is, because they didn't specifically promote or monetize it. It just happened to be referenced because it was relevant to the discussion they were having. (After all, there's always a relevant xkcd.)

 

I highly doubt the show generated additional revenue just because there was an xkcd comic in it.

[betalars]

Genuine Question, especially to @Needfuldoer

 

I don't think you're right about the spirit of what non-commercial means. For instance: I currently help organize a FOSS conference. Nobody from the organisers is getting paid. But we're providing merch to our speakers and to help offset that cost, this merch is also being sold to attendees by the independent small print business, that is making the shirts.

 

So ... if I were to use a CC-BY-NC tileset in the 2D-browser-adventure-hangout thingy we're also providing for free on our conference ... that'd probably be okay.

 

But using a non-comerciall asset in our logo, that will be printed as merch? I don't know. That merch is not really intended to make money, but people are still being paid money, so ... grey area?

 

But the WAN show has a huge commercial interest behind it and it moves a ton of merch. Even if that comic is not being used as a direct call for action (as in "buy LTT-Store Merch, if you agree with this comic") it still feels commercial, because it is being used as content improving a commercial project.

 

And if it wasn't: what's the difference between that and some big Hollywood Studio using NC Creative Commons 3D models in the background of a movie?

Like how and where do you draw the line if something contributes to making money?

[betalars]

(Ooof: is a humanitarian effort, that is helping out in improving a companies public perception a commercial use?)

[betalars]

We should really add a new standard for creative Commons Works to cover these nuances and provide more options for what artists consider to be commercial uses or appropriate derivations /irony

[Avocado Diaboli]

14 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

He makes money off WAN show whether it includes an xkcd or not.

 

I highly doubt the show generated additional revenue just because there was an xkcd comic in it.

That's a tenuous distinction to make. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" using Yello's song "Oh Yeah" also probably didn't generate additional revenue for that film. If anything Yello probably profited from the increased popularity in the US as a result. But the creators of the film still used the song to make money. The same way how Linus used the comic to make money. He makes money with his content. Because it's his content that allows him to generate enough of an audience that advertisers take notice. Therefore, if he uses material other than what he himself creates, he is making money off of somebody else's creation. This is why I took issue with @Middcore's claim that nobody made money off of Linus' use of the comic. Linus did. That's just an objective fact, not a moral judgment. 

 

In this case it's probably fine because Randall Munroe is fine with it. Copyright is always only ever as much worth as the copyright holder's will to enforce it. If I create something, publish it and don't bother enforcing my copyright or actively putting it into the public domain or releasing it under Creative Commons, the law doesn't care if someone else uses my work. Sure I could litigate. But if I don't bother to, nothing would change.

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, betalars said:

We should really add a new standard for creative Commons Works to cover these nuances and provide more options for what artists consider to be commercial uses or appropriate derivations /irony

Wouldn't this be covered by the use of a blog or presentation? 

[Needfuldoer]

18 minutes ago, betalars said:

But using a non-comerciall asset in our logo, that will be printed as merch? I don't know. That merch is not really intended to make money, but people are still being paid money, so ... grey area?

Grey area. You're not out to make money with the content, only cover expenses.

 

18 minutes ago, betalars said:

And if it wasn't: what's the difference between that and some big Hollywood Studio using NC Creative Commons 3D models in the background of a movie?

That would be a bad-faith decision to rip assets off and create derivative works using them. (I'm sure it happens all the time, unfortunately.) That's using someone else's NC licensed content as part of another creative effort, which gets considerable time and effort put into it. A lot of people would have to be oblivious or ambivalent to the work's license if it gets that far.

 

There's also the fact that if the hypothetical studio didn't rip the asset off, they would have to make their own. That takes time, and costs money. They made material gains by ripping off CC BY-NC content. Linus didn't save anything or make extra money by showing the comic.

 

I think this is exactly why CC's guidelines around what counts as "commercial" are so vague, because the way it's interpreted in one instance could make it unhelpful or completely blown out of proportion in another one. I think the core of it is that the spirit of the license is "use it, share it, tell everyone I made it, don't make money using it". How that applies in practice depends on context and changes with the situation.

[betalars]

But LMG is a quite large media group, they make graphics that they use on WAN and the show is a creative Work, where lots of effort and money is being put into.

[betalars]

2 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Grey area. You're not out to make money with the content, only cover expenses.

it even get's a lot greyer, because I am not getting paid and I am pretty much just contributing a design, that is then being allowing to be printed the merch ...

[Needfuldoer]

14 minutes ago, betalars said:

But LMG is a quite large media group, they make graphics that they use on WAN and the show is a creative Work, where lots of effort and money is being put into.

 

They didn't use the xkcd as a substitute for creating their own graphic, and they didn't make any graphics out of art ripped off of xkcd.

 

It probably just popped into Linus's head as something funny and relevant to throw up on screen in an off-the-cuff decision. That's entirely different from remixing it into the video.

 

12 minutes ago, betalars said:

it even get's a lot greyer, because I am not getting paid and I am pretty much just contributing a design, that is then being allowing to be printed the merch ...

Covering the cost of the venue and having the merch manufactured.

 

I think that's another one of their "less commercial" situations.

 

[Arika]

Holy shit, everyone want to be the one to start the drama with anything Linus does these days that is even as far as 10 degrees removed from the original piracy debate...

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

That's a tenuous distinction to make. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" using Yello's song "Oh Yeah" also probably didn't generate additional revenue for that film.

Music rights in film has a century of legal precedent (not to mention extremely powerful industry groups) to back it up.

 

That's also the difference between a non-permissive license ("you may not use this without permission") and a permissive one with stipulations ("you may use this without permission, but..."). What those stipulations are and how they're interpreted is almost down to individual preference.

[Blue4130]

6 hours ago, betalars said:

.

 

And since Linus is a journalist, reading a Line of Text in it's entirety to avoid misquotations should be an automatic thing for him.
 

 

Linus is not a journalist. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

6 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Music rights in film has a century of legal precedent (not to mention extremely powerful industry groups) to back it up.

 

That's also the difference between a non-permissive license ("you may not use this without permission") and a permissive one with stipulations ("you may use this without permission, but..."). What those stipulations are and how they're interpreted is almost down to individual preference.

That doesn't change the fact that Linus is making profit off of the comic by using it in his video, regardless of whatever permission he has or hasn't. 

[betalars]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

It probably just popped into Linus's head as something funny and relevant to throw up on screen in an off-the-cuff decision. That's entirely different from remixing it into the video.

I think we will probably disagree on this.

 

What remains undisputed however is: Linus did not give appropriate credit by misquoting the License and he should correct himself. And he should have bothered checking.

[danomicar]

12 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Genuine question: if someone embeds an unmodified xkcd in a blog entry and they include full attribution, are they violating the "non-commercial" aspect of the license if they also run ads on their blog?

I think with enough legal grease, it could be argued both ways. But practically speaking, no. In my view, copyright striking in this situation would kind of violate "the spirit" of XKCD comics.

[wanderingfool2]

The full way I look at this

 

He started off by saying that it's copyrighted stuff; (acknowledged it was copyrighted); told people to effectively try supporting them (tried finding a donate button)...all things considered it's not that bad, especially when considering that it was more of trying to use it because it explains/fits perfectly into a point he was trying to make.  *Even with it being copyright infringement, the actual damage done and any potential award would be puny*

 

It was then people saying he was okay since it was CC - Attributions (so likely didn't look to see if it was Attributions without commercial).  So at that point he likely didn't care as much to verify (after all, what's the point given he already said it would be copyright infringement...and people telling him it's okay just was a reassuring kind of thing).  The other thing is, he could potentially have scrolled down and seen the part on the website where it says that effectively it means you can do what you like just don't sell it (which he wasn't).

[YellowJersey]

Oh FFS. You people could bitch about anything. Lotta mountains out of molehills 'round these parts.

[Moonzy]

Lmao another one of these threads

 

Society if Linus didn't call adblocking "literally the same" as piracy:

[betalars]

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

literally the same as piracy

The thing is I don't even disagree with Linus here.

 

But then he still fell into that cliché of paying with exposure (so a call out to his fans to buy xkcd books) witch is just ... taking what he wants and not paying the price.

Because if you want to license a web-comic, you need to check out the licenses artists offer and fulfill the terms - Linus did neither, because misquoting the license obviously violates the license.

 

And I likely would have made this thread regardless of the whole piracy thing, because stuff like this really bothers me ... it just gave me a very clickable phrasing for the issue.

[MSSgent]

I think the CC-NC license ambiguity combined with the modifications by XKCD put Linus completely in the clear in this case. 

 

That said, having gotten interested in it, the CC-NC license is complete crap when it comes to US law and depending on the Judge will either be found to be a CC-AB or no license at all.  It doesn't define or provide any definition of commercial, but helpfully there is a 136 page + 5 appendix study available at Defining_Noncommercial_fullreport.pdf to help you define what the hell it means.  According to that study almost every single author and user of copyrighted works has a different working definition of CC-NC, so it is meaningless.

[SansVarnic]

I fail to see the OP argument here.

• Linus shows comic for use in example [fairly obvious this wasn't used premeditated]
• Comic is under fair use... as stated on the site.
• Linus shows the web address, and the links people can use.
• Linus wants to donate but can't via the website.
• Linus tells people to go to the site, quite actually promoting and giving free advertisement to the comic creator.

So where is the issue here?

Did Linus use this to make money ... I watched it and I saw nothing to prove this.

 

OP I get your position [I do] but I just broke it down and there nothing there to support your argument. He helped the creator on an offshoot example to his opining.

 

IMHO, this thread has overly dragged this out beyond necessity.