On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 02:49:25PM -0400, D. Jay Newman wrote:
> > But really, that's true of almost anything. I could show you a photo of
> > any number of famous sculptures, and if you were a talented sculpture,
> > you could bang out a copy. Nothing unusual about that.
> 
> Yes, but most of those famous sculptures aren't under copyright any
> longer.

Actually I'm thinking of modern works too, like Cauldors mobiles and
Christo's wrappings. Especially in that much of their work is
manufactured by people other than them.

> And I believe that I could see a description of a modern artwork and
> "bang out" something similar (given the talent/skill) without infringing.
> I assume this is how genres of art are created.

Well... Good luck to you if you want to make a large scale wrapping and
claim it as your own. Christo's well known for being very litigative.

Genres of art I think are more simply people working with related ideas.
For example, Christo is the *only* respected artist that does wrappings
of in the scale he works in. But he gets lumped in the genra of Land art
along with Robert Smithson (the Spiral Jetty) and many others.

> > Well, my understanding of copyright law is that first of all if you
> > independently come up with an idea, you are not infringing, completely
> > unlike a patent. However if it can be shown that you didn't come up with
> > the idea independently, there is pretty broad scope for damages. Witness
> 
> The trouble is that copyright protects a specific expression of an idea.
> Fair use also includes paradies. :)

I'd be greatly honored to see someone make a LED covered cube that when
rotated displays the standard 3d graphics test teapot for one... :)

If they do it with a pic chip too... I'd love to see their code! Doing
3d programming on PICs really teaches you how slow they are when
compared to modern PC's.

> In the US, at least, copyright protects derived works. For example, I
> can't publish a continuation of a Roger Zelazny series even though he
> died in the middle of a couple. At least, without the permission of the
> copyright owner(s).
> 
> However I could write a novel containing many of the ideas in his books
> without infringing on his copyright if the result didn't look like
> a continuation of his books.

Well I'll give a specific example. When I proposed my cube idea to my
electronics teacher he listened, said it was brillient, I should totally
make it, and then said he did something very similar a good 10 years
ago... Essentially he got the guts of a gyroscope and mounted a computer
monitor on it. The gyroscope was retrofitted with stepper motors for
each axis and you could command the computer controlling the whole thing
to move around. Like my work, it displayed a 3d cube that rotated
exactly opposite of the direction so it remained fixed in space.

While it's now a big running joke that my teacher only teaches so he can
hop in his time machine and steal his students ideas... Seriously
speaking I wouldn't consider my idea infringing on his and vice-versa.
The ideas are similar, but the expressions of the idea are not. A
computer monitor on a gimble is a very different experience than a
handheld cube, and also importantly, it looks totally different.

Now if someone were to make a 12 inch wide cube (mine is 4inches)
otherwise identicle to mine in function... Then I'd get pissed.

> > all the suits against movie studios for stealing plots... You'd think
> > that's pretty nebulous, but they win.
> 
> Some of them that I've seen are *very* nebulous. Of course, some of the
> movies made from books seem like they aren't violated copyright. :)

So very true... Heck when you read where some of the scripts came
from... Minority Report comes to mind for one.

> > Of course, in the art market and the gallery system all of this doesn't
> > matters. Your buyers enforce originality already, so long as you can get
> > your work widely known you'll never have to worry about any sort of
> 
> I think getting work widely known is the problem. :)

Definetely. Perhaps I should do more exploding art or something... Then
again, my friend Adam's been using so many electrolytic and tantylum
capacitors in his work...

> > I think it has to be basically what someone interacting with it
> > experiences, in a gallery setting for example. Heck, the technical stuff
> > could be defined as "anything that could be replaced, without the user
> > noticing a difference"
> 
> I like the definition of technical stuff. I use it myself sometimes, though
> I call it the "black box" theory.

Hmm... Sounds like the way to go then, I'll just have to figure out how
to make it into better legalese.

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
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