Malkidian Geometry - This paragraph shows up on a ton of Tumblr blogs...

This paragraph shows up on a ton of Tumblr blogs and other photo-sharing sites:

Disclaimer: All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain. In the event that there is still a problem or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial. The material in question will be removed immediately upon request and presented proof.

Some human being was the first person to write this — to think about the issue, mull over the various options, and come to the conclusion that “yes, this seems like a reasonable thing to assert.”

It’s not.

Now, perhaps the person who wrote this had an inaccurate understanding of the nature of copyright?

Perhaps they understood copyright correctly — and understood that it is totally unreasonable to blithely assume that anything created in the past 88 years is in the public domain — and so wanted to erect a shield, an advance declaration of innocence, to avoid being charged with deliberate infringement?

Perhaps they wanted to justify posting any ol’ thing they wanted without having to rationalize it each time.

I get it. The internet is a thing that allows anything to be copied, everywhere, forever, et cetera. It’s impossible to control how stuff spreads, and there are now people and systems and industries built entirely around the idea of reposting cool stuff from elsewhere on the internet. I don’t think it’s always a bad thing. It’s handled in a tacky way sometimes, and every now and then it’s legitimately damaging, but emailing your mom a lolcat never hurt anyone. It’s become a big part of our culture.

But for crying out loud…don’t be so self-righteous as to JUSTIFY it. People hate hypocrisy worse than theft. Theft is an action; hypocrisy is a mindset.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: I found a discussion on a Flickr forum about this exact issue. Flickr members are usually very careful about copyright, and concerned with cases of infringement, so I was pleased to see the issue being taken seriously.

The discussion also featured…

DRUMROLL PLEASE

…a completely uncredited Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic, rehosted on Imageshack.

“THE INTERNET: WELL, WHADDAYA GONNA DO”

4 months ago