[mythtv-users] A new theme on the way...

[Christopher Meredith]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 2:25 PM, David Brodbeck <gull at gull.us> wrote:
> Christopher Meredith wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Michael Lynch <lynchmv at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> /me takes the book, rewrites the end because I don't think the villain
>>> should have died (despite it making the book awesome) and
>>> redistributes the book, in a less than awesome state.
>>
>> That's a significantly different scenario than modifying free (as in
>> beer) software for your own personal use. Nevertheless, I think that
>> should be a viable option. Let the market decide what is awesome and
>> what is not.
>
> The problem is an artist's reputation is on the line when their work is
> distributed.  If someone makes something of theirs look lousy, then
> distributes it, that artist's reputation is injured.  This is especially
> problematic for visual artists and recording artists, where their original
> style is usually identifiable even if the work has no attribution.

If we assume that's true, we also have to assume the converse; it's
equally possible that someone could improve the work and make it
better, thus enhancing the original artist's reputation. The Aeon skin
for XBMC is a good example of this. There is a legion of Aeon mods
available, some of them are good, an equal number are lousy. Overall,
the interest in and third-party development of the skin has given it a
reach and appeal beyond what the original author was capable of, yet
the original author's reputation has been enhanced by the positive
developments. On a similar note, even restrictive, anti-collaborative
copyright protection can't entirely guard against derivative works
soiling an author's reputation (See the "Sword of Truth" series by
Terry Goodkind versus "Legend of the Seeker"). Overall, "artistic
reputation" is not a very convincing argument. If the derivative work
is so different that it could injure the original artists' reputation,
it should be equally possible to delineate between the original and
the modifications along those same lines.