As a designer, who owns your portfolio?
As a designer, who owns your portfolio?. I’ve never had any problems with this, but I’ve heard some pretty bad stories about other people’s troubles.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about copyright
I generally don’t feed the trolls, but
I generally don’t feed the trolls, but this John Dvorak column on Creative Commons is laughably bad. It is summer…maybe the interns whipped this one up for him.
An unauthorized electronic version of the new
An unauthorized electronic version of the new Harry Potter book is now available online. Rowling won’t do an e-book version of the Potter books, but one made its way onto the web about 12 hours after the hardcover was released in stores.
“Lord of the Bings” cherry advertisement in supermarket
“Lord of the Bings” cherry advertisement in supermarket. “One bing to rule them all” and in the parfait bind them?
Jason Scott on why his BBS documentary
Jason Scott on why his BBS documentary will never make it onto TV.
Theft or homage?
Nike is catching some shit for appropriating some imagery for one of their skateboarding events from a 1984 album cover by Dischord Records’ Minor Threat. Dischord is alledging that Nike stole the image:
No, they stole it and we’re not happy about it. Nike is a giant corporation which is attempting to manipulate the alternative skate culture to create an even wider demand for their already ubiquitous brand. Nike represents just about the antithesis of what Dischord stands for and it makes me sick to my stomach to think they are using this explicit imagery to fool kids into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike’s mission. It’s disgusting.
Here are the images (original on the left):
Setting aside the difference in philosophy between the two parties, this is obviously an homage on Nike’s part (or rather, on the part of the designers working on this campaign for Nike…they probably love skating and that album and are paying their respects). Graphic design, filmmaking, pop culture, and music is full of stuff like this…sampling and ripping and riffing and homages are all part of the deal. Seems like a punk label like Dischord should be aware of that but in the above quote they sound more like a big company afraid of losing their intellectual property. Isn’t punk all about taking without permission? Or does that not apply when you don’t like the folks doing the taking? Lighten up, Dischord.
Update: Nike has apologized for producing the poster. Lame.
Update #2: I’m getting a ton of mail about this, the most about a single post in quite awhile. Without exception, you all disagree with me.
Depressing article on how much hassle it
Depressing article on how much hassle it was for the makers of Mad Hot Ballroom to clear all copyrighted music in the film. “If I had known all that I had to go through, I’m not sure I would have done it.”
Cory Doctorow’s new book, Someone Comes to
Cory Doctorow’s new book, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, is out today. As usual, the book is available for download under a Creative Commons license.
A man’s letter to the music industry
A man’s letter to the music industry detailing what he’s stolen from them and why. “I refuse to pay you to play these pointless games with arbitrary dates and obsolete borders.”
Jason Scott on why he decided to
Jason Scott on why he decided to license his straight-to-DVD documentary under a Creative Commons license. “It was in some ways a tough decision, because you want to ‘protect’ yourself, but then you realize you’re not really ‘protecting’ anything; all you’re doing is being a paranoid twitch-bag. And once you realize this, then it becomes a little easier.”
Microsoft is sponsoring a short film contest
Microsoft is sponsoring a short film contest called Thought Thieves about intellectual property theft. And the entry form states: “I will formally license on terms acceptable to Microsoft, all intellectual property rights in my film and agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do so”. Heh.
Audio from the Who Owns Culture? talk
Audio from the Who Owns Culture? talk by Lessig, Tweedy, and Johnson now online. Streaming audio or mp3.
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai at a fake restaurant. That reminds me, I should write up my Beijing CD-ROM shopping experience sometime.
The Binary Bonsai Approach to Copyright
The Binary Bonsai Approach to Copyright. Right on, brother. Preach it.
Stay Connected