Origami and Copyright

General discussion about Origami, Papers, Diagramming, ...
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Ponadr
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Origami and Copyright

Post by Ponadr »

I would like to discuss copyright infringement in the origami community—specifically, how we should be addressing it. I know many people, if not most, have probably used illegal content online while getting into origami. It is astonishing how easy it is to access published origami works on the internet, especially that of Satoshi Kamiya. At the same time, without them, many people would not have been able to learn origami (including me). I confess I folded a lot of Satoshi Kamiya's designs online... but I bought all three of his books afterwards.

Illegal origami content can be easily found throughout the internet on sites like scribd, google drive, and youtube just to name a few. There is a lot of illegally uploaded content, as well as lack of credit (especially on flickr). There is also Mariano Zavala B.'s controversial youtube channel—I doubt he gets permission from all those authors. So obviously, there is a copyright issue.

How should we address this problem?

Well first, I think we should identify the reasons why copyright infringes happen. By copyright infringement, I mean both sides: people uploading diagrams/books and people folding from illegal sources. I'm guessing the reasons are:
1. Some people don't care about the designers
2. Lack of access to books in local libraries
3. Buying books from overseas can be extremely inconvenient
4. Out of print books
5. People are desperate to make money
6. It is difficult to get author's permission
7. People don't want to purchase origami books
8. Laziness + easy access to illegal stuff online
9. Not enough enforcing

My solution: I don't want to get into too much detail, but I think the community should protect the designers by helping to enforce copyrights when people encounter them. I believe the community should do this because no author wants to spend all their time searching the internet to catch copyright infringers; they would rather spend their time designing. However, designers should also work to discourage copyright infringing by possibly offering a few free diagrams to circulate or keeping book prices as low as possible. Also, we should work to make books more accessible and desirable to the community.

What are your opinions?
roodborst
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by roodborst »

How many people here actually make diagrams of their designs? I did it once. It takes an incredible amount of time and is boring as hell. After I finished them (40 hours or so) only 4 people folded the model. Two of them testfolders. I did recieve a request from a guy who actually made a youtube tutorial and I entered the christmasbook so that was fun. It is only after you made diagrams yourself you know the time someone put in, and you might be more inclined too pay for diagrams you could get for free in other ways. You als stop asking for diagrams when you see a cool model. One problem with buying a book I have. Is that I do not know how many of the models in the book I might be able or want too fold. If I pay 60 euro for a book with twenty models a couple are not my interest. Some others are too difficult so I end up folding only 4 models or so from an entire book.
Still it is appropraite to give credit and ask for permission always.

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steingar
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by steingar »

You all worry too much. My books have been pirated almost from the moment they were published. I really don't give it much thought. I tend to think of pirated copies as sample pages, folks see what its about and decide if they want to purchase a book. If they didn't buy the book, odds are they weren't my customers to begin with.

Not everyone has access to good postal services, good monetary exchange and other benefits of our society that we take for granted. Live in a third world country for awhile and you'll see what I mean. Lots of people just don't have the cash for the books.

I'd rather they were folding. I certainly won't stop diagramming just because of this sort of nonsense.
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Gerardo
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by Gerardo »

Ponadr wrote:I think the community should protect the designers by helping to enforce copyrights when people encounter them.
Sounds good to me but I'm not sure about how.
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Origasm
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by Origasm »

But the fact worst part is, when big origami homepages are hqving origami books free to download. Origami-art.us have a free copy of Langs Origami Insects II. I really doubt Lang has given his permission to download one of his books for free.

That said, I am not truly inocent myself. My first book Genuine Origami was downloaded for free. This book learned my origami, and afterwards I have bought all of my books. Somtimes, they can be found really cheap if used.
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ahudson
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by ahudson »

This is a nice thought, but under US law, only the copyright holder (or someone authorized to act on their behalf) can file a DMCA complaint to get a website taken down. If you run across infringing content, you can send a message to the Origami Authors and Creators, and they will do their best to notify the authors: http://digitalorigami.com/oac/

I agree with steingar's general philosophy; I used a lot of pirated content when I was a teenager and didn't have any money. Now I have a job.
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Re: Origami and Copyright

Post by phillipcurl »

steingar and ahudson have a very good point. You won't ever be able to stop pirating, obviously those "you wouldn't download a car" commercials from the early 2000's didn't work that well. A couple years ago when I didn't have much money, mainly what I had was pirated copies of books or free to use diagrams. I own almost every single one of those books that I had pirated back then today. And what about books that are out of publication or extremely hard to find? Are they just to be lost forever?

There are a lot of moral questions that come into play when you talk about pirating. I don't know about books but I'm sure most people on this forum have downloaded a song or a movie illegally. What needs to happen with origami books is what happened with movies and Netflix - make it so easy to not have to pirate material, that you don't. I just don't know how much of a market there is for it in this community.
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