Look out!
The Copyright
Police are in town!
(foreword: I am not explaining laws and rules etc here, merely
pointing out a few things that I feel are important for all in this
Uploading/Downloading/Designing tornado of crap flying around, just addressing
some of the points that I have read/heard)
For a long time now I have
read, witnessed and listened to complaints about the copyright police, for
those of you not familiar with this, it's a widely used term for people who
rattle on for hours about copyright. These guys (you know who you are) spend hours
every week, sifting through page upon page of uploaded charts, looking to see
how many have been downloaded and then spend more time telling how the
"Copyright laws" work and how they are being infringed etc.
Do you find this annoying?
They float from page to page,
look here, post there, pick people out and name them or ban them, based on the
"Proof" they have.
They like to use words like
"Infringer", "downloader", "Uploader".... and so
on.... personally I don't like these terms, these names given to those they
point at.
The problem is, these
designers and friends spend an awful lot of time designing a chart, picking
colours, fabric etc, then charting it, then stitching it, then recharting it
with amendments and then writing out instructions , then compiling it, then
printing it, then sorting and packaging it and finally boxing it up and mailing
it out.
It's funny how you can
compress hundreds of hours of work into one paragraph isn't it.
Once this is all
accomplished, the charts sell, now we take into account the cost of the
materials for the model, the cost of paper, ink, packaging, boxing, mailing....
then remove the distributors fees and the retail shops cut.... suddenly that
$20 chart just earned you maybe $3-$5... so you sell 100 of them (and for many
designers this is a high number in the first few months of release), and lets
put the higher price of $5, so that's $500 profit... for approximately 200-400
hours sometimes more ... of work, lets go with the lower.... 200 hours for a
$500 return..... wait... isn't that like $2.50 per hour?... wow, that's pretty
harsh, so it evens out when they have sold more right?.... so providing the
chart continues to sell (which often drops off by huge amounts as time goes
on), over the course of time, lets say they sell 400 charts, well now we're
talking, that's $2000, not bad.... so that hourly rate is $10... wait, isn't
that a little lower than the average Canadian MacDonalds worker.
Yet these guys are talented,
talented enough to sell their artwork, to have it handed around the internet...
the problem is when they are desperately trying to sell those 400 charts, it
usually only reaches a quarter of that before it drops off and goes cold... why
does it go cold?... well a chart comes out and sells 50 in the first week... 50
in the second week (these numbers are very high for most)... then it gets
uploaded to a sharing site or pintrest or similar... once it's out there for
free... it stops selling.
The amount of time and effort
put into creating these works of art is huge, it's not something you can
seriously attempt as a business and still hold a normal job, we are talking
about 12-18 hour days, 6-7 days per week... EVERY week... and when it's
uploaded, it's heartbreaking, and not only that but it's seriously detrimental
to their income and more over, their ability to continue supplying the public
with the products they crave. This leads to the supporting husband needing to
work more hours to cover off the lack of income so the bills can be paid, oh
I'm sure they have lots of money though and their bills are high because they
have big houses and ferrari's... right?... could not BE more wrong, how about a
POS 15 year old car and a 900sq foot house?... rented, get by paying the bills
and eating and once per year maybe buying something nice, like a TV or
microwave or sofa... THIS is the reality for many needlework designers, they
are just like you and I, trying to make enough money to pay the bills from week
to week, the only difference is they are brave enough to follow a very unstable
source of income, but if nobody did this, we would have no art, no books, no
music. It would be a sad world would it not?
Then there's the good old
argument of what is legal and what is not, many of you think you know the laws
as far as copyright, I'm not going into detail because you've already been
told... but I will outline a couple of things that may sink into some thick
skulls out there.
If you buy a DVD movie....
you own the disc, the case and any booklets etc that may come with it.... you
DO NOT own the movie, you are paying for the right to watch the movie
repeatedly. If you owned the movie, you would be entitled to a share of the
profits it made.
When you buy a Music CD...
again, you own the disc, the case and any paper materials... but do you own the
songs?... Of course not.
When you buy software... you
own the disc, the case and the manual... you do NOT own the software,
you just
own a license
to use it as laid out in the small print.
If you dispute this, I
suggest you talk to a lawyer and contact some companies legal departments, like
Disney, Virgin and Microsoft.
Then you will argue that if
it's on the internet then it's legal, or not illegal.
You all know it's illegal to
upload and download and copy movies and music and software right?... come on,
you all know when you download the latest photoshop that you have to crack it
or find a serial key bypass etc... if you were allowed to get it free then why
do you need these things?... surely it would just install and open?
No, you have to crack it
because you have obtained it through unofficial sources... and you know
it.
What on Earth makes you think
a chart is any different? ... it's been compared to shoplifting... and that
comparison often leads to outcry's about how it's not.
Well lets break this down...
You obtained a product that
is currently for sale, from a company that sells it... but you obtained it for
free, when the company is most certainly not giving it away. You obtained it
through unorthodox methods and you obtained it without the companies knowledge
and really do not want the companies knowing you have it... why?
You spin word salad and plead
this and that when you know damn well that you have obtained it by
circumventing the need for paying for the product... now if you apply this to a
shop and obtained a product they are selling from someone who "Has it
free" when you know full well they have copied it from an original they
bought, then you have received stolen goods from a shoplifter... please explain
the difference... is it because one is physical and one is digital?... well
yeah... so in that case, you should be ok with sneaking into a theatre to see
the latest movie without paying, after all you're not getting anything physical
are you... so I'm assuming many of you "Downloaders" do this no?...
didn't think so.
Now the argument of
"Well I didn't upload it", that's true in some cases, but by
downloading it you are supporting the the uploaders, with no downloaders, the
uploaders wouldn't bother, in the same way that
if you don't buy stolen goods,
then there would be no thieves.
If you are uploading it, you
are breaching a host of copyright laws that cross borders across the globe, you
buy it and race to upload it because you want to be the one to upload it
first.... yay, you're awesome!... ... ...
What you are doing is the
exact same thing as buying a DVD, copying it and uploading it... while you
likely do this... you know that is wrong and you KNOW you are breaking the
law... why do you insist charts are any different at all?
What is hilariously ironic is
you uploaders actually get mad at someone who reuploads your upload and claims
they upload it... all the time bitching about these designers who are bitching
about you taking their 200 hours of works and giving it away while claiming
some sort of credit... am I really the only person that thinks that borders on
delusion?
What many of you don't seem
to understand is pages like Pintrest/facebook are constantly breaching
copyright, you seem to think that because you can upload and share charts...
that's it's ok, it's not, it simply boils down to these websites not being able
to keep up with what people post... that's why there's a "Report"
button. Don't believe me?... ask them, or better still, copy a movie and put it
on Youtube... you will quickly find out you are not allowed to take a work of
art or product and share it online without permission and agreements from the
owner of said artwork
Then I see the "My
pintrest/facebook account was hacked!" ... Oh my god you are so full of
shit, I'm a PC/Internet/Network technician, these accounts actually being
hacked is very rare, hacking in North America and most of Europe is classed as
terrorism and carries a very heavy sentence, the term hacking does NOT cover
you leaving your account logged in on someone elses computer... would your car
insurance pay up if you told them you left your car unlocked when it was
stolen?.. No! why?.. because it was your own bloody fault!... If someone actually
hacked your account, then they would have had to hack the password system of
these sites, in which case it's an attack on the site itself and this is not
easy to do, the only other way is by searching your account, linking through
information on it and hijacking your email, again, pretty tricky and on the
whole, very rare... but you stitcher downloaders and uploaders seem to be
running into this problem often, but then there's the psychology of it...
why
in the name of all that is green would anyone bother to hack an account to
upload or download a stitching chart?...
if you have enough knowledge to do
this then you have more than enough knowledge to just obtain the files or share
the files anyway... or is it to make you look bad?... why?... what did you do
to these people to make them risk heavy fines and prison sentences that makes
them so mad they get back at you by... sharing needlework charts.
How freaking lame is that?
What really happens?... you
get caught and try to blame it on a virtual mythical excuse of your account
being hacked.... does it happen?... yeah sure... how often?... about 1 in every
2 million... kind of eliminates most of the stitching world, and yet you guys
are always being hacked, scary huh... once again, your eyes are turning brown
as you fill with yet more bullshit.
I also hear "I can't
afford them though, I'm poor".... wait right there, I'll go get the worlds
smallest violin and play you a sad song... I'm poor, I really really really
want a Mustang, can't afford one... do I have the right to obtain one in a
similar manner to the way you obtain charts?... really?
So uploaders and
downloaders... both as bad as each other and cannot survive doing this without
each other.
Then there's the great
comment I see/hear often... "This sharing is forcing designers to quit
because they can't afford to do it"
The response is often ..
"Oh well, one designer quits, another one will come along.
This is where the line has
not only been crossed, but been crossed with such flippancy it angers me.
The above statement about
"one quits and another comes along"... if you've ever said, posted or
thought anything close to that then you are a piece of garbage, you are the
lowest of the human race in the civilized world, you have no care that what you
are doing is directly causing financial and psychological issues for these guys
who pour their heart and soul into making something you clearly think is
beautiful, and then you just take it and say you don't care if that person that
created something that brought you happiness loses their business and watch you
pouring their dreams down the drain... you are scum, you are not worthy of the
title of "Human Being"...
At the start of this word
block I mentioned I don't like the term "Downloader", "Uploader"
or "Infringer" or the like... I would like to briefly explain why I
don't like them, the reason is very very simple and very short and to the
point, while you can gloss it up to being an "Infringer", much the
same way we gloss up a "Sanitation technician" and want to just say
"You're a Janitor FFS!"... the term "Infringer:" and the
like are just a glossed up way of describing what you really are.... you are
nothing more than a dirty, common thief.
Have some compassion for
these guys who are simply trying to make a living and the husbands and
supporters who are picking up the slack, these families are just trying to
survive in this world the same as you and your family, they offer you a product
that makes you happy, for a nominal fee,
they bring you a small piece of
happiness... in return you offer them deceit, lies, theft and heartache.
