Ssil's Corner

The place where I dump pictures, post thoughts and generally sit about doing nothing.

[bantaro-bird]

It's important to remember that the labels you define yourself by are, for the most part, not set in stone. It may be useful to describe yourself as bad at something, impatient, strong, loud, outgoing. You must be willing to stop and analyze something you’ve used to define yourself for years and ask, “Does this still apply?”

[ssilmath]

I want to add onto this wisdom.

Be careful of a label constraining or defining your behavior.

Being bad at drawing does not mean you cannot draw.

Being good at singing does not mean you have to sing.

Being strong doesn't mean you cannot have moments of weakness, being weak doesn't mean you cannot have moments of strength.

Being part of <group> does not mean you need to assume the stereotypical actions of <group>.

Let your labels be a description of traits, not a prescription of behavior.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Having a weird pseudo-existential crisis realizing that my mom and stepdad just celebrated their 20th anniversary, which means 20 years ago my stepdad married my mom when he was 28 which is how old I am now and I'm no where even close to my first marriage, let alone my second one and Jesus Christ.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

False alarm, I am literally just dumb. I'm not even 28 yet, I'm 27. I still got a few months to meet the love of my life and get hitched so we're so back, boys.

[ssilmath]

Hey, I don't know if this'll make you feel better, but I hope it does. After a few failed attempts at relationships, I didn't meet my first genuine, long term boyfriend until I was 29. I'd been desperate to find somebody, and jumped at the first real chance at a relationship. It had it's ups and downs, but due to mistakes we both made it ended and I felt lonelier than ever. To try to recover from that relationship, I started looking inward and tried improving things in myself that I didn't like. But I still kept searching for a partner, sometimes strenuously and sometimes just keeping an eye out. And wouldn't you know it, at 39 I met somebody who had an energy I really liked and was friendly and kind and really cute. And now I have a great girlfriend who I am gently exploring a relationship with and I am trying to not repeat the mistakes I made before. So I know that saying "Just be patient" doesn't alleviate the current frustration you feel. But you can certainly hope, and in the meantime try focusing inwards a bit so that you feel happier with yourself.

[feedy0urmind-blog]

Reblog if your mom is beautiful.

[ssilmath]

So what?

The duct tape still shines like purest silver in the right light, and good wishes will never come undone.

[moveslikekeithrichards]

everyone has dreams about being lost at school, late to work, cant find bathroom etc but whats yalls most common Uncommon stress dream. ill always have dreams about having various problems with my fish tank

[livingandthriving]

Does being in an ever-extending house/building with bizarre architecture (ie. stairs myteriously only work one way, can only go either up or down but not both, if you try they're suddenly inaccessible) count as unusual?

[greater-than-the-sword]

Oh frick I thought only I had that dream. Except for me it's being trapped in a shopping mall or other maze-like building and the halls go on forever and the doors disappear if you turn around

[tinfoilstork]

Teeth falling out in a big bloody mess. No pain, but boy howdy does it freak me out every time.

[ssilmath]

Trying to find a place to live.  The dreams even have a set of 4 or 5 buildings that continuously show up, which adds an uncomfortable sense of familiarity to the search.  I don’t think I’ve lived in the same place for more than three years at a time in the last twenty years, so that makes sense.

[butchspace]

We need like “unclench your jaw” posts but for eye strain. Like

Go look at something 20ft away for 20 seconds.

[dontbeanassbutt]

take off your glasses if you wear them for 20 seconds

[bluelakeandsky]

Recommended by my optometrist

Look at something 20 feet away, then 10, then 5, then one, then if you can your nose.

Repeat twice, then again without glasses.

Face forward look out of the corner of your eye. As far as you can look. Slowly move to the other corner. Repeat twice.

Look down as far as you can. Slowly look up. Repeat twice.

Roll eyes twice.

Close eyes for five minutes.

I do this every day usually at my halfway point. My migraines went away. My vision go better. Honestly stretching my eyes as she put it feels great too.

[gsirvitor]

You are presented with two options.

A) The Universe you live in is one where no one dies, everyone exists forever in eternal bliss, but every so often one person will be torn from this bliss and sent to a dimension of eternal suffering from which they cannot escape.

You know your time is finite in this blissful realm, but it could happen to you tomorrow or millions perhaps trillions of years from now.

B) The universe you live in is one where no one dies, everyone exists forever in eternal suffering and torment, but every so often one person is torn from the suffering and sent to a dimension of eternal bliss and happiness, from which they cannot escape.

You know your time in this hellish realm is finite, you could escape tomorrow or perhaps millions if not trillions of years from now.

Which existence would you choose?

A

B

Voting ended onJul 27, 2023

Please remember to reblog to give the poll a good sample size, and perhaps explain your choice in the tags.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

A almost sounds like The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas story.

The gist is: perfect utopia where all but one child is happy, and that one child has to sit by themselves in an empty dark room being sad their entire life for the happiness to continue.

Though I realize that story is more of a philosophical tale of utilitarianism, whereas yours is...kind of utilitarian, I guess, though it might be a stretch to fit B in there.

Anyways, I figure myself to be utilitarian so I'm going to choose A. The happiness of the many outweighs the happiness of the few.

[ssilmath]

Option B is a basic tenant of Christianity, just stretched out over a longer time period. In option A, the long period of bliss is marred by the constant fear that one day it will all end, and the longer eternity of suffering awaits. Option B, the long period of suffering is bearable due to the hope, nay the knowledge, that one day it will all end and the longer eternity of bliss awaits.

[anonymousdandelion]

How are other people most likely to mess up your first name/the name you go by?

My name is often mispronounced

My name is often misspelled

My name is mispronounced and misspelled about equally often

My name is rarely mispronounced or misspelled

Voting ended onJul 20, 2023

Reblog to help find out how many of us share in the Struggle.

Feel free to elaborate on your name situation in the notes, should you care to do so!

(Companion poll about surnames coming soon.)

[ssilmath]

I have about the whitest white bread name in existence, and I live in America. The only time my name has even been mispronounced is when I was hanging out with some Japanese friends.

[ssilmath]

Belakor WIP

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[landysbear]

No. No that’s not what it says, and doesn’t address the legal complexities or proven bad faith arguments already made by GW legal.

It’s not that simple, never will be, and statements like that just reduce a complicated legal and ethical. Having quite a bit of experience in the legal world, I can confidently say that they were pretty on point.

If fan content such as painting or hobby videos fall under an expanded copyright definition, then it creates a massively bad and easily exploitable precedent.

I mean are you really going to call people who make how to hobby videos thieves? You really think TTS in its satire was theft?

[ssilmath]

I think Alfabusa got tired of making TTS and tossed GW under the bus with this departure video.  And yes, I very much consider making fan movies based off of the IP, for profit and without a license, to be theft.  Same as I’d consider somebody making a Mickey Mouse animation for profit to be stealing from Disney.  Since painting videos are not fan-films or animations, I see no reason why they would fall under the umbrella.

You can’t write and sell books using characters from Lord of the Rings, you can’t draw and sell merchandise based off of Calvin and Hobbes.  And you know, I doubt anybody would be defending a big corporation taking the IP of a small creator and making money off it.  Let’s see that, the same people saying GW has no right to their IP trying to say it’s okay for Netflix making a series off of a small webcomic without licensing, paying or asking the artist for permission.

[landysbear]

It’s like you didn’t read about “Fair Use” or know of any of the legal caveats to IP law. That was mostly a large strawman argument.

What GW does is use its considerable resources to change copyrights and then monetize them to strangle out competition or smaller fans. It’s a very clever takeover strategy to pin a market down, but absolutely wretched. They have shown a long history of this activity and are bad actors, in the legal sense. This goes back to them trying to copyright the Omega-like symbol of the ultramarines (itself a copy) or the very term Space Marine. Luckily they were shot down, but their history is chocked full of this. Now strangling out fan content that shows no actual damage to their IP (actually, in many ways aids it) just continues the trend of attacking their own customer base to monetize as much as they can.

Like, this isn’t “the fans being whiny”, because lord knows I hate fandoms, but this is a long history of weaponizing legality to corner a market at the expense of the wider consumer (which is defined as what, class…?), and they use lawyers and IP laws to do it. They’re grifters.

[ssilmath]

So, as long as people infringing on IP aren’t considered by outside actors to be harming the IP owners, you’re cool with them doing what they like?  I get that GW is trying to pin down a corner of the market, and they’ve attempted to claim ownership to things they had no business doing.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their established legal IP for money.

I’ll ask again, are you okay with Netflix making a series based off of a small webcomic?  They don’t pay the creator, they don’t have a license or permission, but since it drives some traffic to the webcomic then it’s fine?

[landysbear]

To your first question: yes, and that is one of the pieces of proving fair use under law. I say yes, legal system says yes. In civil court damages must be proven to make a case (which can be both good and bad but that’s a topic for another time).

To your second question: no. I mean, I never said that. Also direct damages can EASILY be shown in that case. But comparing that to the GW issue is an apples to oranges comparison. It is easy to prove that the small webcomic loses money by a larger company stealing their work, but I think anyone would find it difficult to prove that TTS (as a specific example) harms GW. A strong argument can be made that it HELPS GW.

Also the more disturbing part of this is that the new GW legal framework also goes after painting their products or media that does so. This is a very dangerous trend for artists.

[ssilmath]

I’m not seeing anywhere that would go after model painting videos.  So I’m not sure why that’s considered a point of contention.

As far as direct damages go, did you ever hear about Battletech and the Eridani Light Horse?  They were a prominent Mercenary unit that featured heavily in the Twilight of the Clans novels.  Then somebody wrote a fan fic involving the Light Horse, which was accidentally made canon when an official novel had information that matched up with the fan fic.  The fan author sued, and a court found that he had published that information first and FASA couldn’t prove that they hadn’t stolen it from him.  As such, the Eridani Light Horse were wiped out in the next novel and never used again.  So fan works can absolutely cause harm to the IP.

So sure, GW might be behaving like bullies.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their copyrighted and trademarked IP to make a profit.  If it’s morally wrong for a big company to do that to a small creator, it’s morally wrong for a small creator to do it to a big company.  Especially when GW’s been approaching the small creators and offering them licenses and jobs rather than just squashing them.

[landysbear]

1. (Numbered for ease of typing and organization) GW is not only making painting videos on warhammer plus, but the models themselves are copyrighted, which shows a very direct legal argument that could be made and places those in jeopardy.

2. I’m familiar with this story (I was pretty sad when they wiped them out, but luckily they brought them back). However, the argument here doesn’t… exactly… make sense as you made it. So the IP copied a fan’s work, then the fan successfully sued, and you say this shows how fan works damage IP? Sounds like the fan was damaged here, not the IP.

3. I see where you’re getting at, but I still disagree due to the existing legal framework of defining damages and fair uses clauses. This also still does not address the proven court trend of GW monetizing many fair use concepts to use to attack others (either successfully or unsuccessfully).

This all being said, I disagree with you on this point. But it is also much, much more complicated that “it’s IP theft”. This is something that would have to be argued in court. But that takes resources. Resources that GE has and others don’t, which means you have the problem of people simply being unable to put of a fight.

[ssilmath]

1. That’s an extrapolation that has no basis in their IP explanation page, and they’ve shown no sign thus far that they intend to pursue painting channels.

2.  My understanding is that the overlap between fan fic and published was entirely coincidental, and the only reason FASA got dinged for it was that they were assumed guilty and could not prove their innocence.  For further example, I had a friend a few years back who sent a letter with his suggestions for how to fix Fantasy Empire to GW.  They sent him back a letter saying that they had destroyed it without reading, because if they read it before rejecting it then any and all overlap between his suggestions and their next army book would belong to said friend.

3.  Regardless of whether GW is using greater resources to have an unfair advantage (Which they do), you’re still arguing that it’s fine to enrich yourself using somebody else’s property without their permission.

[landysbear]

1. Not an extrapolation: intent is not necessary and subject to change, and the legal framework already exists.

2. Interesting… but in US civil court that’s not at all how it works. Civil court functions by preponderance of evidence (50.1% of proof) which apparently the judge thought was in the favor of the fan. This also doesn’t address the shift of damages against the IP. That’s like shifting blame.

3. No. That’s not what I’m arguing. Nowhere did I say that, and that’s not just a bad faith argument, that’s a strawman. Again, that’s simplifying the concept and argument that you disagree with into something that I’m not saying. It’s actually a complex legal matter, and using my knowledge of copyright and civil law, I have to side against GW on this.

[ssilmath]

1. Until GW starts going after said channels, I see this as a non issue.  Feel free to disagree.

2. If you don’t consider writing one of the more popular sets of characters out of existence to be damaging to the IP, I’m not sure what would be.  Note that this wasn’t even somebody enriching themselves off of the IP, it was a fanfic author who convinced a judge that they’d been wronged.

3. It is exactly what you are arguing.  As long as a person meets the criteria considered by a court to be fair use, then a person can make money off of somebody else’s IP.  According to public opinion, as long as a work brings new fans to the IP then it’s fine, right?  So I can make a videogame called “Tales of Drizzt” and have him fighting Illithid, and as long as I can argue that I brought a net gain to WOTC they have no legal or moral grounds to tell me to stop?

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[landysbear]

No. No that’s not what it says, and doesn’t address the legal complexities or proven bad faith arguments already made by GW legal.

It’s not that simple, never will be, and statements like that just reduce a complicated legal and ethical. Having quite a bit of experience in the legal world, I can confidently say that they were pretty on point.

If fan content such as painting or hobby videos fall under an expanded copyright definition, then it creates a massively bad and easily exploitable precedent.

I mean are you really going to call people who make how to hobby videos thieves? You really think TTS in its satire was theft?

[ssilmath]

I think Alfabusa got tired of making TTS and tossed GW under the bus with this departure video.  And yes, I very much consider making fan movies based off of the IP, for profit and without a license, to be theft.  Same as I’d consider somebody making a Mickey Mouse animation for profit to be stealing from Disney.  Since painting videos are not fan-films or animations, I see no reason why they would fall under the umbrella.

You can’t write and sell books using characters from Lord of the Rings, you can’t draw and sell merchandise based off of Calvin and Hobbes.  And you know, I doubt anybody would be defending a big corporation taking the IP of a small creator and making money off it.  Let’s see that, the same people saying GW has no right to their IP trying to say it’s okay for Netflix making a series off of a small webcomic without licensing, paying or asking the artist for permission.

[landysbear]

It’s like you didn’t read about “Fair Use” or know of any of the legal caveats to IP law. That was mostly a large strawman argument.

What GW does is use its considerable resources to change copyrights and then monetize them to strangle out competition or smaller fans. It’s a very clever takeover strategy to pin a market down, but absolutely wretched. They have shown a long history of this activity and are bad actors, in the legal sense. This goes back to them trying to copyright the Omega-like symbol of the ultramarines (itself a copy) or the very term Space Marine. Luckily they were shot down, but their history is chocked full of this. Now strangling out fan content that shows no actual damage to their IP (actually, in many ways aids it) just continues the trend of attacking their own customer base to monetize as much as they can.

Like, this isn’t “the fans being whiny”, because lord knows I hate fandoms, but this is a long history of weaponizing legality to corner a market at the expense of the wider consumer (which is defined as what, class…?), and they use lawyers and IP laws to do it. They’re grifters.

[ssilmath]

So, as long as people infringing on IP aren’t considered by outside actors to be harming the IP owners, you’re cool with them doing what they like?  I get that GW is trying to pin down a corner of the market, and they’ve attempted to claim ownership to things they had no business doing.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their established legal IP for money.

I’ll ask again, are you okay with Netflix making a series based off of a small webcomic?  They don’t pay the creator, they don’t have a license or permission, but since it drives some traffic to the webcomic then it’s fine?

[landysbear]

To your first question: yes, and that is one of the pieces of proving fair use under law. I say yes, legal system says yes. In civil court damages must be proven to make a case (which can be both good and bad but that’s a topic for another time).

To your second question: no. I mean, I never said that. Also direct damages can EASILY be shown in that case. But comparing that to the GW issue is an apples to oranges comparison. It is easy to prove that the small webcomic loses money by a larger company stealing their work, but I think anyone would find it difficult to prove that TTS (as a specific example) harms GW. A strong argument can be made that it HELPS GW.

Also the more disturbing part of this is that the new GW legal framework also goes after painting their products or media that does so. This is a very dangerous trend for artists.

[ssilmath]

I’m not seeing anywhere that would go after model painting videos.  So I’m not sure why that’s considered a point of contention.

As far as direct damages go, did you ever hear about Battletech and the Eridani Light Horse?  They were a prominent Mercenary unit that featured heavily in the Twilight of the Clans novels.  Then somebody wrote a fan fic involving the Light Horse, which was accidentally made canon when an official novel had information that matched up with the fan fic.  The fan author sued, and a court found that he had published that information first and FASA couldn’t prove that they hadn’t stolen it from him.  As such, the Eridani Light Horse were wiped out in the next novel and never used again.  So fan works can absolutely cause harm to the IP.

So sure, GW might be behaving like bullies.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their copyrighted and trademarked IP to make a profit.  If it’s morally wrong for a big company to do that to a small creator, it’s morally wrong for a small creator to do it to a big company.  Especially when GW’s been approaching the small creators and offering them licenses and jobs rather than just squashing them.

[landysbear]

1. (Numbered for ease of typing and organization) GW is not only making painting videos on warhammer plus, but the models themselves are copyrighted, which shows a very direct legal argument that could be made and places those in jeopardy.

2. I’m familiar with this story (I was pretty sad when they wiped them out, but luckily they brought them back). However, the argument here doesn’t… exactly… make sense as you made it. So the IP copied a fan’s work, then the fan successfully sued, and you say this shows how fan works damage IP? Sounds like the fan was damaged here, not the IP.

3. I see where you’re getting at, but I still disagree due to the existing legal framework of defining damages and fair uses clauses. This also still does not address the proven court trend of GW monetizing many fair use concepts to use to attack others (either successfully or unsuccessfully).

This all being said, I disagree with you on this point. But it is also much, much more complicated that “it’s IP theft”. This is something that would have to be argued in court. But that takes resources. Resources that GE has and others don’t, which means you have the problem of people simply being unable to put of a fight.

[ssilmath]

1. That’s an extrapolation that has no basis in their IP explanation page, and they’ve shown no sign thus far that they intend to pursue painting channels.

2.  My understanding is that the overlap between fan fic and published was entirely coincidental, and the only reason FASA got dinged for it was that they were assumed guilty and could not prove their innocence.  For further example, I had a friend a few years back who sent a letter with his suggestions for how to fix Fantasy Empire to GW.  They sent him back a letter saying that they had destroyed it without reading, because if they read it before rejecting it then any and all overlap between his suggestions and their next army book would belong to said friend.

3.  Regardless of whether GW is using greater resources to have an unfair advantage (Which they do), you’re still arguing that it’s fine to enrich yourself using somebody else’s property without their permission.

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[landysbear]

No. No that’s not what it says, and doesn’t address the legal complexities or proven bad faith arguments already made by GW legal.

It’s not that simple, never will be, and statements like that just reduce a complicated legal and ethical. Having quite a bit of experience in the legal world, I can confidently say that they were pretty on point.

If fan content such as painting or hobby videos fall under an expanded copyright definition, then it creates a massively bad and easily exploitable precedent.

I mean are you really going to call people who make how to hobby videos thieves? You really think TTS in its satire was theft?

[ssilmath]

I think Alfabusa got tired of making TTS and tossed GW under the bus with this departure video.  And yes, I very much consider making fan movies based off of the IP, for profit and without a license, to be theft.  Same as I’d consider somebody making a Mickey Mouse animation for profit to be stealing from Disney.  Since painting videos are not fan-films or animations, I see no reason why they would fall under the umbrella.

You can’t write and sell books using characters from Lord of the Rings, you can’t draw and sell merchandise based off of Calvin and Hobbes.  And you know, I doubt anybody would be defending a big corporation taking the IP of a small creator and making money off it.  Let’s see that, the same people saying GW has no right to their IP trying to say it’s okay for Netflix making a series off of a small webcomic without licensing, paying or asking the artist for permission.

[landysbear]

It’s like you didn’t read about “Fair Use” or know of any of the legal caveats to IP law. That was mostly a large strawman argument.

What GW does is use its considerable resources to change copyrights and then monetize them to strangle out competition or smaller fans. It’s a very clever takeover strategy to pin a market down, but absolutely wretched. They have shown a long history of this activity and are bad actors, in the legal sense. This goes back to them trying to copyright the Omega-like symbol of the ultramarines (itself a copy) or the very term Space Marine. Luckily they were shot down, but their history is chocked full of this. Now strangling out fan content that shows no actual damage to their IP (actually, in many ways aids it) just continues the trend of attacking their own customer base to monetize as much as they can.

Like, this isn’t “the fans being whiny”, because lord knows I hate fandoms, but this is a long history of weaponizing legality to corner a market at the expense of the wider consumer (which is defined as what, class…?), and they use lawyers and IP laws to do it. They’re grifters.

[ssilmath]

So, as long as people infringing on IP aren’t considered by outside actors to be harming the IP owners, you’re cool with them doing what they like?  I get that GW is trying to pin down a corner of the market, and they’ve attempted to claim ownership to things they had no business doing.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their established legal IP for money.

I’ll ask again, are you okay with Netflix making a series based off of a small webcomic?  They don’t pay the creator, they don’t have a license or permission, but since it drives some traffic to the webcomic then it’s fine?

[landysbear]

To your first question: yes, and that is one of the pieces of proving fair use under law. I say yes, legal system says yes. In civil court damages must be proven to make a case (which can be both good and bad but that’s a topic for another time).

To your second question: no. I mean, I never said that. Also direct damages can EASILY be shown in that case. But comparing that to the GW issue is an apples to oranges comparison. It is easy to prove that the small webcomic loses money by a larger company stealing their work, but I think anyone would find it difficult to prove that TTS (as a specific example) harms GW. A strong argument can be made that it HELPS GW.

Also the more disturbing part of this is that the new GW legal framework also goes after painting their products or media that does so. This is a very dangerous trend for artists.

[ssilmath]

I’m not seeing anywhere that would go after model painting videos.  So I’m not sure why that’s considered a point of contention.

As far as direct damages go, did you ever hear about Battletech and the Eridani Light Horse?  They were a prominent Mercenary unit that featured heavily in the Twilight of the Clans novels.  Then somebody wrote a fan fic involving the Light Horse, which was accidentally made canon when an official novel had information that matched up with the fan fic.  The fan author sued, and a court found that he had published that information first and FASA couldn’t prove that they hadn’t stolen it from him.  As such, the Eridani Light Horse were wiped out in the next novel and never used again.  So fan works can absolutely cause harm to the IP.

So sure, GW might be behaving like bullies.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their copyrighted and trademarked IP to make a profit.  If it’s morally wrong for a big company to do that to a small creator, it’s morally wrong for a small creator to do it to a big company.  Especially when GW’s been approaching the small creators and offering them licenses and jobs rather than just squashing them.

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[landysbear]

No. No that’s not what it says, and doesn’t address the legal complexities or proven bad faith arguments already made by GW legal.

It’s not that simple, never will be, and statements like that just reduce a complicated legal and ethical. Having quite a bit of experience in the legal world, I can confidently say that they were pretty on point.

If fan content such as painting or hobby videos fall under an expanded copyright definition, then it creates a massively bad and easily exploitable precedent.

I mean are you really going to call people who make how to hobby videos thieves? You really think TTS in its satire was theft?

[ssilmath]

I think Alfabusa got tired of making TTS and tossed GW under the bus with this departure video.  And yes, I very much consider making fan movies based off of the IP, for profit and without a license, to be theft.  Same as I’d consider somebody making a Mickey Mouse animation for profit to be stealing from Disney.  Since painting videos are not fan-films or animations, I see no reason why they would fall under the umbrella.

You can’t write and sell books using characters from Lord of the Rings, you can’t draw and sell merchandise based off of Calvin and Hobbes.  And you know, I doubt anybody would be defending a big corporation taking the IP of a small creator and making money off it.  Let’s see that, the same people saying GW has no right to their IP trying to say it’s okay for Netflix making a series off of a small webcomic without licensing, paying or asking the artist for permission.

[landysbear]

It’s like you didn’t read about “Fair Use” or know of any of the legal caveats to IP law. That was mostly a large strawman argument.

What GW does is use its considerable resources to change copyrights and then monetize them to strangle out competition or smaller fans. It’s a very clever takeover strategy to pin a market down, but absolutely wretched. They have shown a long history of this activity and are bad actors, in the legal sense. This goes back to them trying to copyright the Omega-like symbol of the ultramarines (itself a copy) or the very term Space Marine. Luckily they were shot down, but their history is chocked full of this. Now strangling out fan content that shows no actual damage to their IP (actually, in many ways aids it) just continues the trend of attacking their own customer base to monetize as much as they can.

Like, this isn’t “the fans being whiny”, because lord knows I hate fandoms, but this is a long history of weaponizing legality to corner a market at the expense of the wider consumer (which is defined as what, class…?), and they use lawyers and IP laws to do it. They’re grifters.

[ssilmath]

So, as long as people infringing on IP aren’t considered by outside actors to be harming the IP owners, you’re cool with them doing what they like?  I get that GW is trying to pin down a corner of the market, and they’ve attempted to claim ownership to things they had no business doing.  That doesn’t change the fact that people are using their established legal IP for money.

I’ll ask again, are you okay with Netflix making a series based off of a small webcomic?  They don’t pay the creator, they don’t have a license or permission, but since it drives some traffic to the webcomic then it’s fine?

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[landysbear]

No. No that’s not what it says, and doesn’t address the legal complexities or proven bad faith arguments already made by GW legal.

It’s not that simple, never will be, and statements like that just reduce a complicated legal and ethical. Having quite a bit of experience in the legal world, I can confidently say that they were pretty on point.

If fan content such as painting or hobby videos fall under an expanded copyright definition, then it creates a massively bad and easily exploitable precedent.

I mean are you really going to call people who make how to hobby videos thieves? You really think TTS in its satire was theft?

[ssilmath]

I think Alfabusa got tired of making TTS and tossed GW under the bus with this departure video.  And yes, I very much consider making fan movies based off of the IP, for profit and without a license, to be theft.  Same as I’d consider somebody making a Mickey Mouse animation for profit to be stealing from Disney.  Since painting videos are not fan-films or animations, I see no reason why they would fall under the umbrella.

You can’t write and sell books using characters from Lord of the Rings, you can’t draw and sell merchandise based off of Calvin and Hobbes.  And you know, I doubt anybody would be defending a big corporation taking the IP of a small creator and making money off it.  Let’s see that, the same people saying GW has no right to their IP trying to say it’s okay for Netflix making a series off of a small webcomic without licensing, paying or asking the artist for permission.

[landysbear]

This is a pretty good article for the whole GW IP thing. Especially the part about what “grifters” are. But the legalese is pretty good and on point.

Pluralistic: 30 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

[ssilmath]

That’s a very long winded way of saying “Theft is okay, because reasons.”

[ssilmath]

Honestly, this whole backlash against GW has been rather infuriating.  People seem to have this idea that stealing another persons IP and profiting off of it is not just morally right but some sort of entitlement for the fans.  Never mind that most of the outrage is based entirely on speculation or outright lies.  Seriously, people need to grow up.

[ssilmath]

People sure are upset that GW reminded everybody that you aren’t allowed to profit off of their IP without a license, aren’t they?

[kouratdrhuii]

A new group of blood angels is here!!! love to paint red, easy and nice. with what kind of colors do you work currently ???

I'll probably post some close-ups later 🤔🤔

Commission work

[ssilmath]

Looks nice! I'm working most with black, blue and grey at the moment, prepping for the Legion of Shadow.

[kourat-s-tea-time]

Sweet ! I find that working with blue and gey is often difficult, especially for the contrast. Do you add warmer ou cooler tones ??

[ssilmath]

Cooler in general, though it's a struggle to not have everything have the same value. I decided to challenge myself on this project and not do my typical base, wash, drybrush pattern.