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In lugnet.market.auction, Ken Godawa writes:
> Bram said:
> > To me, it looks like he tried to copy my design as close as he could,
> > and just changed a few things to make his choice of wheels fit and
> > remove the motors.
> > I never got an email from him about it or anything.
> > Does anyone have any advice for me? I don't know what to do...
> > --Bram
> What exactly do you want? He has every right to do what he is doing.
Let's be careful to distinguish between what one *has* the right to do, and
what *is* the right thing to do.
Others have posted some great analysis of the legal side of things. I'll
leave that to them, (after giving my hearty thanks, I learned some things!)
and just say this:
While this seller *has* every right to do what he is doing, to present
someone else's design as your own, with no, or only trivial modifications,
and further, to do so for profit... that's *not* right.
It's not community enabling and it's not respectful.
People borrow from each other all the time. People even copy or modify works
that others are selling for their own use. Heck, people copy my stuff, and I
consider it quite flattering when credit is given. We all benefit when ideas
flow back and forth and improvements are made and the hobby advances (who
would deny that the overall model quality in every genre you care to name
has greatly improved from say, 5 years ago?). It would be terrible if
everyone felt they had to work in a complete vacuum, never getting ideas
from others, never showing their work off...
But what's considered polite by most is to acknowledge that copying or
inspiration happened, and not present it (even if done so by omission) as
one's own work. The winner of that auction got a neat model. But he was
deceived as to how it came about, and the seller traded on Bram's work and
effort unfairly.
I'm glad to see that the seller did eventually apologise to Bram and
indicated it would not happen again. I'd be happier if he indicated that he
would correct any misconceptions the buyer might have had about how the
model came to be created.
If you are (or anyone else is) still not clear on why copying without credit
is anti-community, you might want to do some reading on open source
communities and how they grow and prosper. Try Eric Raymond's "Homesteading
the Noosphere" for starters. In particular this section: "Ownership Rights
and Reputation Incentives" is quite pertinent.
This is not the definitive source for it, but I was having trouble getting
to tuxedo.org (which is):
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_10/raymond/ ...
Hope that helps. I've found this an interesting discussion.
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