Me and my life parter are on the way to establish a research group, which at least at the beginning, will be focused on the development of computational models for civil and environmental engineering. We pursue that because we believe that the main problem in our young society is the lack of interest; i.e., several enroll to universities, but most of them may not be committed to play an active role. On that way, my main concern are the copyrights.
In the place where we are living now, copyright laws are quite (very) relaxed (see the picture that accompanies my entry), despite all the efforts made by artists, principally. Nevertheless, instead of complaining and doing nothing, I am browsing on the web looking for a way to protect our rights as authors. Next I am posting some of the WEB links I am visiting. There you may find some information if you are in a position similar than mine.
My philosophy behind copyrights
I think copyrights are important because they force individuals to become developers and entrepreneurs; to think forward and beyond, not only sideways. In the academy this is very important, and at most cases, it is no related with the ego of the developer.
Some claim that rich economies have become rich at the expense of us, the developing economies, because of which, what they produce has to be shared at no price. That reasoning may be true, but it does not solve the problem, because we may get used to always wait for the answers to come from an external source, and we forget that we may eventually need to create. That may be the difference between developed and developing.
Now I give you the links I am visiting.
1. Creative Commons.
This is the source I first visited when I created this blog. Again, I did not include it because I think I have invented the wheel. I did it because I would like to force a reader to create beyond what I have done, and share it alike to further incentive its advance. Otherwise it is not fun.
Back to the link, you can set up this license under different schemes, depending on your needs and your objectives. It is very simple, it is free and the procedure takes only few minutes.
2. International copyright law.
In developing economies such as US, there are well established institutions that regulate copyright laws (The US copyright office). However, I was surprised when I read this article on the Photosecrets site, where they explain that the sole creation of your art grants you the copyrights. But, are your rights valid worldwide? According to the same site, yes, as long as your country has agreed to sign to the Berne Convention. Good news!!! my country has signed several international copyright treaties (see this Wikipedia link for the list of countries), so theoretically my work would be protected.
3. Copyrights in Latin America and the world.
I have cited my country as a place where copyright laws are not so strict, but I have not said that this is a big issue in the developing world, not only in Latin America. An article recently published at the BBC´s site, has uncovered how big the copyright issue is. In summary, the article outlines an investigation carried by the US Congress, where they have found out that most of the articles claimed as authentic (not only software and hardware, but also weapons), have some non-authentic component inside that is made in China. Read it here (in Spanish; in English), laugh, and later get concerned on the size of this issue.
4. 10 articles on protecting your art and copyrights by Kate Harper. For those who want more information.
5. GNU General Public Licenses (suggested by our friend Vladimir Moya), under the philosophy of the Free Software, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. A good initiative, as long as it is directed to the right user. Otherwise...
In the place where we are living now, copyright laws are quite (very) relaxed (see the picture that accompanies my entry), despite all the efforts made by artists, principally. Nevertheless, instead of complaining and doing nothing, I am browsing on the web looking for a way to protect our rights as authors. Next I am posting some of the WEB links I am visiting. There you may find some information if you are in a position similar than mine.
My philosophy behind copyrights
I think copyrights are important because they force individuals to become developers and entrepreneurs; to think forward and beyond, not only sideways. In the academy this is very important, and at most cases, it is no related with the ego of the developer.
Some claim that rich economies have become rich at the expense of us, the developing economies, because of which, what they produce has to be shared at no price. That reasoning may be true, but it does not solve the problem, because we may get used to always wait for the answers to come from an external source, and we forget that we may eventually need to create. That may be the difference between developed and developing.
Now I give you the links I am visiting.
1. Creative Commons.
This is the source I first visited when I created this blog. Again, I did not include it because I think I have invented the wheel. I did it because I would like to force a reader to create beyond what I have done, and share it alike to further incentive its advance. Otherwise it is not fun.
Back to the link, you can set up this license under different schemes, depending on your needs and your objectives. It is very simple, it is free and the procedure takes only few minutes.
2. International copyright law.
In developing economies such as US, there are well established institutions that regulate copyright laws (The US copyright office). However, I was surprised when I read this article on the Photosecrets site, where they explain that the sole creation of your art grants you the copyrights. But, are your rights valid worldwide? According to the same site, yes, as long as your country has agreed to sign to the Berne Convention. Good news!!! my country has signed several international copyright treaties (see this Wikipedia link for the list of countries), so theoretically my work would be protected.
3. Copyrights in Latin America and the world.
I have cited my country as a place where copyright laws are not so strict, but I have not said that this is a big issue in the developing world, not only in Latin America. An article recently published at the BBC´s site, has uncovered how big the copyright issue is. In summary, the article outlines an investigation carried by the US Congress, where they have found out that most of the articles claimed as authentic (not only software and hardware, but also weapons), have some non-authentic component inside that is made in China. Read it here (in Spanish; in English), laugh, and later get concerned on the size of this issue.
4. 10 articles on protecting your art and copyrights by Kate Harper. For those who want more information.
5. GNU General Public Licenses (suggested by our friend Vladimir Moya), under the philosophy of the Free Software, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. A good initiative, as long as it is directed to the right user. Otherwise...
don't forget that there are many freeware and open source tools with same capabilities, some not have a nice GUI, but we can improve them. Would be nice to use our "viveza criolla" to create and improve, instead of just finding ways to breake rules or codes
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Vlady. Create and improve are the key!!!
ReplyDelete