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Whatever happen to copyright … .

by d2wa 7y ago

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
As someone who is probably more supportive of intellectual property rights and copyright in particular than the median HN user, "how dare someone nostalgically resize and make available a handful of background wallpapers that were distributed with obsolete versions of an operating system" strikes me as one of the tiniest, most pedantic hills to die on I can imagine.
- grecy 7y ago
  I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your photographs. I don't know the copyright story of the photos included with the macOS releases, but I don't think it's wrong for the parent comment to at least ask the question.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    I appreciate you getting huffy at me in the ostensible defense of photographers and art creators (seriously, I do), but the only way these creators could possibly be losing potential income from this site is if retained the rights to sell these images digitally. I can't swear under oath that they didn't, but under this particular circumstance, that would be awfully unusual. (It would be almost unheard of these works to have been licensed to Apple on a per-unit royalty basis rather than a flat fee, but in either case the creator would have made all the money they ever would have from Apple by now anyway. And, it's quite likely these were done either under a work-for-hire contract, in which Apple retained all the rights, or -- like "Bliss," the iconic green hill/blue sky image in Windows 95 -- they bought all the rights to the image for a flat fee.)
    - rconti 7y ago
      It's also worth noting that OS X has been free as in beer since at least 10.9, and it looks like 10.1 was also free if you had 10.0. For all intents and purposes, these wallpapers are free to the end user. Additionally, resold versions of the OS also have a cost approaching 0. Finally, the marketplace for resold wallpapers that were effectively free to the end user is nonexistent. Though there may still be interesting legal questions here, as you point out, the creators of the wallpapers almost certainly retain no rights anyway.
    - grecy 7y ago
      The point isn't that the photographers don't have rights to these particular photos. The point is you criticize a person for even asking the question. Not everyone has the same insight into the licensing and legal ramifications of images being distributed with OSes, and there's never a reason to be condescending and demeaning to someone asking a simple question. You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you didn't.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - diffeomorphism 7y ago
        > You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you didn't. > I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your photographs. Are you talking about yourself being unfriendly and throwing accusations?
        grecy 7y ago
        You're absolutely right that my reply wasn't the friendlies way to go about things. I bit back to the original comment, and I shouldn't have done that.
        chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        The original comment I was responding to was, in its entirety: "Whatever happened to copyright..." And I'm gonna be honest: to me, that is not just asking an innocent question in a friendly and non-confrontational way. It's implicitly pretty accusatory.
liamwestray 7y ago
I have already paid for all of the original that were part of paid OS updates and the rest were distributed for free. I promise I will plead no contest in court when Apple sues me for downloading them to my MacBook Pro.

Whatever happen to copyright … .

by d2wa 7y ago

Whatever happen to copyright … .

As someone who is probably more supportive of intellectual property rights and copyright in particular than the median HN user, "how dare someone nostalgically resize and make available a handful of background wallpapers that were distributed with obsolete versions of an operating system" strikes me as one of the tiniest, most pedantic hills to die on I can imagine.

grecy 7y ago
I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your photographs. I don't know the copyright story of the photos included with the macOS releases, but I don't think it's wrong for the parent comment to at least ask the question.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  I appreciate you getting huffy at me in the ostensible defense of photographers and art creators (seriously, I do), but the only way these creators could possibly be losing potential income from this site is if retained the rights to sell these images digitally. I can't swear under oath that they didn't, but under this particular circumstance, that would be awfully unusual. (It would be almost unheard of these works to have been licensed to Apple on a per-unit royalty basis rather than a flat fee, but in either case the creator would have made all the money they ever would have from Apple by now anyway. And, it's quite likely these were done either under a work-for-hire contract, in which Apple retained all the rights, or -- like "Bliss," the iconic green hill/blue sky image in Windows 95 -- they bought all the rights to the image for a flat fee.)
  - rconti 7y ago
    It's also worth noting that OS X has been free as in beer since at least 10.9, and it looks like 10.1 was also free if you had 10.0. For all intents and purposes, these wallpapers are free to the end user. Additionally, resold versions of the OS also have a cost approaching 0. Finally, the marketplace for resold wallpapers that were effectively free to the end user is nonexistent. Though there may still be interesting legal questions here, as you point out, the creators of the wallpapers almost certainly retain no rights anyway.
  - grecy 7y ago
    The point isn't that the photographers don't have rights to these particular photos. The point is you criticize a person for even asking the question. Not everyone has the same insight into the licensing and legal ramifications of images being distributed with OSes, and there's never a reason to be condescending and demeaning to someone asking a simple question. You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you didn't.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - diffeomorphism 7y ago
      > You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you didn't. > I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your photographs. Are you talking about yourself being unfriendly and throwing accusations?
      - grecy 7y ago
        You're absolutely right that my reply wasn't the friendlies way to go about things. I bit back to the original comment, and I shouldn't have done that.
        chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        The original comment I was responding to was, in its entirety: "Whatever happened to copyright..." And I'm gonna be honest: to me, that is not just asking an innocent question in a friendly and non-confrontational way. It's implicitly pretty accusatory.

liamwestray 7y ago

I have already paid for all of the original that were part of paid OS updates and the rest were distributed for free. I promise I will plead no contest in court when Apple sues me for downloading them to my MacBook Pro.