My first thought upon looking at the link when I got there from the other comment thread was “there are so many formatting changes that would improve this for readability and printing as an actual poster in 2014.”
My new thought upon seeing it again an hour later is, “isn’t this a violation of copyright?” After all, the book is still protected by an extension of its original copyright, and transfering a passage from the book into a different medium without any attribution whatsoever seems to be a direct violation, and isn’t necessarily even covered by “Fair Use.”
And, for that reason, I no longer feel comfortable pursuing any additional formatting changes or even downloading the file to my computer.
Well, given the length of the book, it’s a pretty tiny extract.
Not to appear to be starting an argument, but I don’t know that there is a “length of excerpt – to – length of original – ratio” clause in the world of Copyright Law, even in light of how arbitrarily and capriciously some laws seem to be written/enforced these days.
Neither do I. I was sort of joking.
Only thing that came to my mind was ‘too long did not read’. But then again that was my reaction to Atlas Shrugged as well. One of the worst books I’ve had the displeasure of attempting to read together with Das Kapital. If I wanted to read a novel about humanity I would be better off reading some Tolstoy instead. Best of all the copyrights lapsed.
Even better. Just skip War and Peace and read something by Dostoyevsky.
Thus my comment about how it could be formatted much better for posterized consumption, likely with theme breaks/highlights, bold quotes, etc.
I think I’ve just spent too much time on The Oatmeal, honestly…
To reach the people who could benefit from it, shouldn’t it be formatted as a comic book or graphic novel, or perhaps be put in a Youtube video by Big Bird and Cookie Monster?
Your points are all perfectly valid, Johnny B. I originally made it to print out and put up on the wall where I work. Putting it online was an afterthought.
This is my favorite passage from the novel, and I think it neatly sums up some of the most important themes of the book. Our society desperately needs these ideas to be disseminated far and wide. “Our time is running out.” That was my intention in putting it online.
I don’t pretend to know the copyright laws. I do know that they keep getting extended for longer and longer periods, largely thanks to lobbying efforts by entities such as the Disney Corporation. It’s reached the point of absurdity. Ayn Rand died over 30 years ago. I’m not infringing on her intellectual property. I would not have done it if the author was still alive. Or I would have written her and asked her permission.
Not giving an attribution is problematic, and I won’t try to defend it. My thinking was that many people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the name Ayn Rand and the title Atlas Shrugged, especially those who haven’t read her writings. I thought that maybe some people would read the speech if they didn’t know where it came from, and might refuse to read it if they did know. Those would be people who might actually learn something if they had a more open mind. I could be completely wrong about that; I have no idea.
If the copyright holder contacts me and asks me to remove it, I will do so without hesitation. And Scribd can also remove it themselves if they believe it to be in violation.
The overall message can be boiled down to this: money has no intrinsic value. It is a representation of value, but not a thing of value. If you want something of value, someone first has to put out the effort to produce it.
Can anyone see Ayn Rand arguing that copyright should extend three decades after the author’s death?
Legally Ayn Rand’s opinion isn’t the issue. Its her heirs who would decide whether or not to charge copyright infringement.
My first thought upon looking at the link when I got there from the other comment thread was “there are so many formatting changes that would improve this for readability and printing as an actual poster in 2014.”
My new thought upon seeing it again an hour later is, “isn’t this a violation of copyright?” After all, the book is still protected by an extension of its original copyright, and transfering a passage from the book into a different medium without any attribution whatsoever seems to be a direct violation, and isn’t necessarily even covered by “Fair Use.”
And, for that reason, I no longer feel comfortable pursuing any additional formatting changes or even downloading the file to my computer.
Well, given the length of the book, it’s a pretty tiny extract.
Not to appear to be starting an argument, but I don’t know that there is a “length of excerpt – to – length of original – ratio” clause in the world of Copyright Law, even in light of how arbitrarily and capriciously some laws seem to be written/enforced these days.
Neither do I. I was sort of joking.
Only thing that came to my mind was ‘too long did not read’. But then again that was my reaction to Atlas Shrugged as well. One of the worst books I’ve had the displeasure of attempting to read together with Das Kapital. If I wanted to read a novel about humanity I would be better off reading some Tolstoy instead. Best of all the copyrights lapsed.
Even better. Just skip War and Peace and read something by Dostoyevsky.
Thus my comment about how it could be formatted much better for posterized consumption, likely with theme breaks/highlights, bold quotes, etc.
I think I’ve just spent too much time on The Oatmeal, honestly…
To reach the people who could benefit from it, shouldn’t it be formatted as a comic book or graphic novel, or perhaps be put in a Youtube video by Big Bird and Cookie Monster?
Your points are all perfectly valid, Johnny B. I originally made it to print out and put up on the wall where I work. Putting it online was an afterthought.
This is my favorite passage from the novel, and I think it neatly sums up some of the most important themes of the book. Our society desperately needs these ideas to be disseminated far and wide. “Our time is running out.” That was my intention in putting it online.
I don’t pretend to know the copyright laws. I do know that they keep getting extended for longer and longer periods, largely thanks to lobbying efforts by entities such as the Disney Corporation. It’s reached the point of absurdity. Ayn Rand died over 30 years ago. I’m not infringing on her intellectual property. I would not have done it if the author was still alive. Or I would have written her and asked her permission.
Not giving an attribution is problematic, and I won’t try to defend it. My thinking was that many people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the name Ayn Rand and the title Atlas Shrugged, especially those who haven’t read her writings. I thought that maybe some people would read the speech if they didn’t know where it came from, and might refuse to read it if they did know. Those would be people who might actually learn something if they had a more open mind. I could be completely wrong about that; I have no idea.
If the copyright holder contacts me and asks me to remove it, I will do so without hesitation. And Scribd can also remove it themselves if they believe it to be in violation.
The overall message can be boiled down to this: money has no intrinsic value. It is a representation of value, but not a thing of value. If you want something of value, someone first has to put out the effort to produce it.
Can anyone see Ayn Rand arguing that copyright should extend three decades after the author’s death?
Legally Ayn Rand’s opinion isn’t the issue. Its her heirs who would decide whether or not to charge copyright infringement.