4 ms·

I understand where the author is coming from; people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that, the first pers

I understand where the author is coming from; people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that, the first person should share in that. Plus, there's definitely a desire for a creator--of any stripe--to want to have their creation viewed in the way that they originally created it. On the other hand, and maybe this misses the point entirely, I absolutely loathe Twitter threads. I wish every time someone felt compelled to write "Here's a deep and insightful look at that thing you read me to find out about. /thread," the word "thread" would be replaced with a link to a long form post even if it had the same words. Part of it is Twitter's UI ("oops, page reloaded, back to the top you go") and part is that it is a little maddening to read thoughts br oken up into smaller chunks and not paragraphs. That said, I agree more with my first paragraph than my second so I get it, and perhaps if I can't follow or respect the creator's wishes in how to consume the content that he or she created in the manner it was created, maybe I shouldn't consume it at all?

ariabuckles 8y ago
There is definitely a use case here, but there is a difference between making threads readable for sharing outside of twitter, and adding ads or reselling content. (And in the original case, I think it's still reasonable for content creators to dislike their work being taken outside where they have less control of it.) In some of the follow-ups there are some more ethical compilers: https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/ https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/ stores nothing and uses twitter's embed functionality to link them together, and https://threader.app/ https://threader.app/ doesn't monetize content and is working to get better at supporting creators.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> I understand where the author is coming from; people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that, the first person should share in that. Plus, there's definitely a desire for a creator--of any stripe--to want to have their creation viewed in the way that they originally created it. Does Twitter's terms-of-service mean that you've given away those rights to control how they're viewed or whether you're paid, though? (Not a rhetorical question.)
- Scaevolus 8y ago
  It looks like you retain the copyright, but you grant twitter and others (!) the right to display your work without compensation. I'm not a lawyer, though! "By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same... Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services." https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos
  - deogeo 8y ago
    > you grant us a worldwide So if we were to colonize Mars, Twitter wouldn't have rights to the content there? What about Earth orbit?
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      This is actually an interesting legal question. I suspect courts will interpret "worldwide" to mean "universal" if it comes up, as the intent seems clear.
deogeo 8y ago
> perhaps if I can't follow or respect the creator's wishes in how to consume the content that he or she created in the manner it was created, maybe I shouldn't consume it at all? I strongly disagree. While I also think that creators should be compensated for their works (for a limited time), after they get said compensation, they should get no say in how you consume the content, or what you do with it (with the obvious exception of making it available to others).
- rexpop 8y ago
  > after they get said compensation, they should get no say in how you consume the content We need universal basic income alongside the abolition of intellectual property law.
  - rocqua 8y ago
    One part of IP law that needs to remain is attribution. We don't want people copying others work and claiming they made it. Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. However, most of Patent law, and a lot of Copyright law should be scrapped.
    - klez 8y ago
      > Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. I'm pretty sure that falls more under fraud than it falls under trademark violation.
      - uiri 8y ago
        Trademark law functions as an extension of laws against fraud. It really doesn't have much to do with copyrights nor patents.
    - msla 8y ago
      > One part of IP law that needs to remain is attribution. We don't want people copying others work and claiming they made it. The social norm against plagiarism is plenty strong. It's so strong, in fact, plenty of people think copyright law prohibits it. https://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/ https://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/ > Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. And this is why trademark law shouldn't have been swept up under the illusory banner of "Intellectual Property" to begin with: Rightfully considered, it's a consumer protection law, not a property law.
EvanAnderson 8y ago
I'm all for having social contracts granting those who make (or synthesize from the ideas of others) new "creative content" time-limited monopolies, but I've never understood the idea that compensation for "creative work" is somehow a natural, inalienable right. It's a good bargain for society to have a construct that creates compensation for "creators", to be sure, but I just can't buy the idea that there's some quasi-moral component it. (I do strongly get behind the idea that falsely claiming credit for the creative work of others is immoral, but that's a different thing than being somehow "entitled" to compensation. That's a completely different animal to me.)
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  I don't think the author is saying that she's entitled to compensation for her content. She's saying that if someone is to make money from it she should maybe be first in line, rather than someone who copies it verbatim onto their site filled with ads.
  - EvanAnderson 8y ago
    I was commenting on the sentiment expressed in my comment's parent. Specifically: "...people absolutely should be paid for their labors..."
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
md224 8y ago
> I absolutely loathe Twitter threads I love Twitter threads because if they’re done right (which is a big if, admittedly) then they’re equivalent to an annotatable essay: each fragment of the thread can be replied to individually. The difference between this and a traditional annotation platform is that Twitter forces the author to choose the granularity of the annotations, rather than leaving it up to the annotators. (Unfortunately, a lot of people do a bad job choosing this granularity, probably because they don’t realize this is what they’re doing.) Also, since the replies are themselves tweets, the system has a fractal form, with the annotations themselves being annotatable. The number one rule of writing Twitter threads: do not split sentences between Tweets. Hopefully one day this rule will be widely known and followed.
- intertextuality 8y ago
  The number one rule of writing twitter threads should be to never do it in the first place. Reading fragmented thoughts (and composing in terms of fragmentable thoughts) is ridiculous and then you have people replying to different parts of it, all in different chains that you have to follow down manually. If you want to write longform, just write longform. If you want annotations, use software that actually has good annotating features and history tracking, such as google docs or maybe a paid alternative. Not twitter.
kokokokoko 8y ago
> people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that We're talking about twitter posts. This stuff has incredibly low value on its own. Viral content really only exists because it is all free and very easy to consume. Unfortunately, twitter and others(Facebook, instagram etc) do a lot of tricks to fool people into believing the content they post is valuable. So people start to think their post that received X amount of like or views is actually valuable. This is why people get so upset about seeing their content used elsewhere. Because they've been foolded into believing it has significant value. The reality is that it does not.

ariabuckles 8y ago

There is definitely a use case here, but there is a difference between making threads readable for sharing outside of twitter, and adding ads or reselling content. (And in the original case, I think it's still reasonable for content creators to dislike their work being taken outside where they have less control of it.) In some of the follow-ups there are some more ethical compilers: https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/ https://bobbin.herokuapp.com/ stores nothing and uses twitter's embed functionality to link them together, and https://threader.app/ https://threader.app/ doesn't monetize content and is working to get better at supporting creators.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> I understand where the author is coming from; people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that, the first person should share in that. Plus, there's definitely a desire for a creator--of any stripe--to want to have their creation viewed in the way that they originally created it. Does Twitter's terms-of-service mean that you've given away those rights to control how they're viewed or whether you're paid, though? (Not a rhetorical question.)

Scaevolus 8y ago
It looks like you retain the copyright, but you grant twitter and others (!) the right to display your work without compensation. I'm not a lawyer, though! "By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same... Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services." https://twitter.com/en/tos https://twitter.com/en/tos
- deogeo 8y ago
  > you grant us a worldwide So if we were to colonize Mars, Twitter wouldn't have rights to the content there? What about Earth orbit?
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    This is actually an interesting legal question. I suspect courts will interpret "worldwide" to mean "universal" if it comes up, as the intent seems clear.

deogeo 8y ago

> perhaps if I can't follow or respect the creator's wishes in how to consume the content that he or she created in the manner it was created, maybe I shouldn't consume it at all? I strongly disagree. While I also think that creators should be compensated for their works (for a limited time), after they get said compensation, they should get no say in how you consume the content, or what you do with it (with the obvious exception of making it available to others).

rexpop 8y ago
> after they get said compensation, they should get no say in how you consume the content We need universal basic income alongside the abolition of intellectual property law.
- rocqua 8y ago
  One part of IP law that needs to remain is attribution. We don't want people copying others work and claiming they made it. Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. However, most of Patent law, and a lot of Copyright law should be scrapped.
  - klez 8y ago
    > Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. I'm pretty sure that falls more under fraud than it falls under trademark violation.
    - uiri 8y ago
      Trademark law functions as an extension of laws against fraud. It really doesn't have much to do with copyrights nor patents.
  - msla 8y ago
    > One part of IP law that needs to remain is attribution. We don't want people copying others work and claiming they made it. The social norm against plagiarism is plenty strong. It's so strong, in fact, plenty of people think copyright law prohibits it. https://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/ https://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/ > Another part is trademark law. It should not be possible for e.g. coca cola to make Pepsi cans with horrible tasting drinks inside. And this is why trademark law shouldn't have been swept up under the illusory banner of "Intellectual Property" to begin with: Rightfully considered, it's a consumer protection law, not a property law.

EvanAnderson 8y ago

I'm all for having social contracts granting those who make (or synthesize from the ideas of others) new "creative content" time-limited monopolies, but I've never understood the idea that compensation for "creative work" is somehow a natural, inalienable right. It's a good bargain for society to have a construct that creates compensation for "creators", to be sure, but I just can't buy the idea that there's some quasi-moral component it. (I do strongly get behind the idea that falsely claiming credit for the creative work of others is immoral, but that's a different thing than being somehow "entitled" to compensation. That's a completely different animal to me.)

jakelazaroff 8y ago
I don't think the author is saying that she's entitled to compensation for her content. She's saying that if someone is to make money from it she should maybe be first in line, rather than someone who copies it verbatim onto their site filled with ads.
- EvanAnderson 8y ago
  I was commenting on the sentiment expressed in my comment's parent. Specifically: "...people absolutely should be paid for their labors..."

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

md224 8y ago

> I absolutely loathe Twitter threads I love Twitter threads because if they’re done right (which is a big if, admittedly) then they’re equivalent to an annotatable essay: each fragment of the thread can be replied to individually. The difference between this and a traditional annotation platform is that Twitter forces the author to choose the granularity of the annotations, rather than leaving it up to the annotators. (Unfortunately, a lot of people do a bad job choosing this granularity, probably because they don’t realize this is what they’re doing.) Also, since the replies are themselves tweets, the system has a fractal form, with the annotations themselves being annotatable. The number one rule of writing Twitter threads: do not split sentences between Tweets. Hopefully one day this rule will be widely known and followed.

intertextuality 8y ago
The number one rule of writing twitter threads should be to never do it in the first place. Reading fragmented thoughts (and composing in terms of fragmentable thoughts) is ridiculous and then you have people replying to different parts of it, all in different chains that you have to follow down manually. If you want to write longform, just write longform. If you want annotations, use software that actually has good annotating features and history tracking, such as google docs or maybe a paid alternative. Not twitter.

kokokokoko 8y ago

> people absolutely should be paid for their labors and if other people are making money off of that We're talking about twitter posts. This stuff has incredibly low value on its own. Viral content really only exists because it is all free and very easy to consume. Unfortunately, twitter and others(Facebook, instagram etc) do a lot of tricks to fool people into believing the content they post is valuable. So people start to think their post that received X amount of like or views is actually valuable. This is why people get so upset about seeing their content used elsewhere. Because they've been foolded into believing it has significant value. The reality is that it does not.