Oh, come now. Defending a suit this frivolous isn't a 50 grand proposition. In fact, the inclusion of assault may be a favor to PZ- it flags the guy as a kook.
This may be me being naive here, but I thought the reason no one made money off of fanfic was because if you wanted to make money, you had to get permission from the rights holder, and if you have permission from the rights holder, you aren't writing a fanfic- you're official now.
I am actually curious about Making Light's views on the business model of http://www.battlecorps.com/BC2/index.html
They seem profitable. They've been in business for some time, and they've been acquiring new properties. They seem to be kind of a merging of battletech novels with the battletech fanfic world, posted on the internet on a subscription basis.
I know few people are going to be up to date on the politics of the battletech fanfic publishing world, but I'm not a subscriber to their site and I've always been curious about it from the business point of view, and how they fit into the wide world of publishing.
Clifton wrote, "To cut short a much longer and less focused post... when a plaintiff can afford to sustain a big lawsuit and legal effort - for whatever reason, including deeper pockets - and a defendant can't, that allows real abuse of the legal system."
For the record, it works both ways. If the defendant can afford to sustain a big defense and legal effort, for whatever reasons, and the plaintiff cannot, the plaintiff is screwed. Usually you don't hear about those cases though, because the would-be plaintiff goes to a plaintiff's lawyer, asks about contingency fee litigation, is told that it would be economically infeasible to pursue the lawsuit, and to just go home.
I don't know how else to refute the multitudes of people who spouted off weird answers to my post other than to repeat the following:
"The question of whether you have the ultimate right to use something is separate from the question of whether someone else has the right to place an impediment in your path."
This is a true statement. It was not intended as a blanket defence of DRM, but rather as a counter to a particular argument that is awfully silly.
Also, to the guy at #54, because I can't resist flaming people who say dumb things. Your first quote is a a pathetic attempt at making someone sound bad by excerpting without context. The actual statement had the EXACT OPPOSITE MEANING that you attributed to it. The full paragraph reads:
Preserving the framework does not require, however, a dramatic increase in authors' rights, such as *more limited or no further applicability of the fair use doctrine* in the NII environment. *Some have argued* that because it may now be technically feasible to "meter" each use of a copyrighted work, and to charge a user a fee for the use, the concept of fair use has no place in the NII environment. They argue equally that other limitations on rights should be abolished or narrowed for similar reasons. The Working Group believes that weakening copyright owners' rights in the NII is not in the public interest; *nor would a dramatic increase in their rights be justified.*
He is clearing describing what "some" have argued, and stating that his organization disagrees with that position.
The argument that the public has the right to fair use and that the DMCA somehow locks them out of what is righfully theirs is, well, lame.
In some states there is a right to use the waterfront. This does not *automatically* create the right to travel through private property which stands between you and the waterfront. Such a right of way could be created by law, but it doesn't automatically spring into being once the right to use the waterfront is acknowledged.
The question of whether you have the ultimate right to use something is separate from the question of whether someone else has the right to place an impediment in your path.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 1 |
| 2007 | 6 |
Total: 7 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Patrick:
Show all comments by Patrick.