Origami Piracy

[JeossMayhem]

Even so, once any document is open, all anyone has to do is take screenshots and save them and as a collection of jpegs or pdfs that anyone can read...

[eric_son]

Yeah, you're right. I didn't think of that.

Worse, if they have acrobat distiller, they can print to PDF, thereby nullifying the copy protection.

[Fishgoth]

That would require a tiny bit of work and effort.

Work and effort are concepts almost alien to the miserable nematodes that steal other peoples work and sell it on ebay, so I don't think too many people would be worried by that concept.

The net is full of impatient brats; whining loud-mouths who want the instant gratification of free information without being prepared to make any form of sacrifice on their own behalf, save for a few pennies on ebay. A lot of us provide diagrams for free on various websites. Be grateful for that. If you want more complex stuff, then either buy our books or design it yourself.

Fishgoth aka Stephen O'Hanlon
http://www.fishgoth.com

[origami_8]

buy our books

Where can I buy your book Stephen?

[bethnor]

i think many ppl are underestimating the generosity of the paying origami clientele. proof positive of this should be kamiya's book. i have no hard statistics--but i would be willing to bet the farm that most of the ppl who bought that book ALREADY had 90% of the material inside through legal means. the cruel truth about complex origami is that the only real consistent source is through the tanteidan convention books (the other international collections being more hit and miss).

to make life simple... for each state-side individual, each book is ~ $40. kamiya's book was published in 2004. i have every book except #1--so 5 * $40 is ~ $200 for the kamiya models published before 2004. on top of that, the kamiya book is ~ $60. so basically many of you paid $60 for the diagrams of the ancient dragon, the only unpublished piece, in addition to the $200 you'd already paid for the convention books.

i am not even subscribed to the tanteidan, as many of you are. that's another $100 A YEAR.

this is NOT EVEN counting the fact that MANY of you probably FIGURED out the ancient dragon on your own from the cp... so you basically paid another $60 for a book of diagrams that you had already folded yourself!

this post is NOT to put a price tag on diagrams or how much an author is worth. i am merely pointing out that, even if a folder already has diagrams to models, we are willing to pan out SO LONG AS WE ARE ALLOWED TO DO SO. the same will ABSOLUTELY be true of hideo komatsu's book (if and) when it finally comes out. i have ~ %75-80 of what will be in there from tanteidan collections. but i will happily pay whatever else gallery origami house decides to charge when (and if) they finally release it, if for nothing else than to have it all in one place.

and i simply don't buy the whole cost of publications bit. i am also willing to bet that if a komatsu/hoyjo book were released with spiral binding, ragged covers with no photoes, that many posters here would pay an arm and a leg for it. some of you may notice that montroll's fantasy origami book is now out of print (it appears), and some USED copies are going for upwards of $100 on amazon (the clever shopper can buy from OUSA for the regular price, assuming their website is up to date). how much could is possibly cost to release that book? no photoes, nothing except the diagrams.

[araknoid]

all this money talk is really depressing.

makes me feel so unhappy.

all this yes i own, no i don't, you're better than me because you have the book paid with in-god-we-trust coloured paper obtained stealing it from your family income for your little egoistical pleasure, yes i'm so skilled that i was around to buy the ryu-zin cp or whatever and no sorry you can't have it...

all this is horrible.

and yes sir, after months of joyous downloading (and study: how the hell am i supposed to learn the damn thing if i do not compare, read, elaborate? yes sir, i will bow down and follow diagrams like a brain-dead monkey at the rate of a quiet and content consumer, so maybe in 60 years i'll get to die finally.) i finally stole 300 euro circa of my son's needs to have a shiny new shelf.

but i don't feel saved at all.

maybe i should post my monthly income scanned on flickr, so everybody will know what level of goodness there's in me.

i wish i had anna or chris wise soul in me.

gonna get back to the fold.
ciao

[Joseph Wu]

You know, piracy discussions always degenerate into discussions about money. I think respect is more important. As an artist, I want creative control over my work. I did it, and I get to choose how (and if) to share it. People who don't respect that, even if they claim to be fans wanting to learn from me, simply aren't giving me the respect I desire, so I don't have any respect for them. If that means that I publish less and less, so be it. My income (see, back to money again) doesn't depend on publishing, so I can just drop it.

[Joseph Wu]

Before the Internet, if you saw something published and you wanted it, you had to buy it. If you just took the publication from the store, library, wherever, you were stealing.

Now, with the Internet, it feels less like stealing. But it still is. Plain and simple.

Take a look at this news story to see just how stupid we've become due to the Internet:
http://www.examiner.com/a-1297785~Hoax_ ... _loss.html

[araknoid]

even after a good sleep this bad feeling won't go away.
i'm honoured to read your reply and feel obliged to write again, but still don't get it.

i suppose i could link one of those old wacky prometheus stories, but i'm more thinking about a generation of poor brain-washed girls giving a lot of respect to the pedo-glam take that ensemble, wasting their daddies filthy money on exclusive deluxe cds

i would even have an old funny-spicy italian love story (ending in delicate sentimental tragedy) involving me as a robbie williams wannabe (blond hair didn't suit me for sure but i thought whatever etc. etc.) and a girl from milano.

but then again, these are degenerations.
and so would be talks about production, what is art, the role of the artist, the nature of ideas, "art borrows genius steals" etc. etc.

what can i say then? if that's how you feel about your production and ideas, fine, it's perfectly ok for me.

on a rational level, i think that's silly to ask forumists to solve this big let's share problem that our awful western cultural empire degenerated into. and i'm not sure i like being asked to become a policeman for anybody's image of himself.

on an emotional level, i'm really excited to enjoy this new feeling of not being able to look into another origamist's eyes without feeling a streaming rush of suspect, nakedness, fragility.

ok time for coffe.
i don't know if i "got" your respect and frankly i think that giving is much more appealing than taking.
sun's shining outside today here...
thanks again for the answer
s.

[origami_8]

Before the Internet, if you saw something published and you wanted it, you had to buy it. If you just took the publication from the store, library, wherever, you were stealing.

Before I had Internet (and that's not so long ago), I made a lot of photocopies from library books. It wasn't stealing, there even was a photocopy machine at the library only for that one reason that people can make copies out of the books.
Once I wanted to buy one of the books I had known from the library, but guess what? It was out of print, so I copied the whole book. Is that stealing? Not in my opinion.
(Two or three month ago I bought the very same book antiquarian, had to email the seller if he would make an exception and ship to Austria...)

If a friend would like to borrow a book from me, I would lend it to him. But what if a friend from another country wants to borrow the instructions of a model from me? Is he any less allowed to get them just because he doesn't live next door? Am I not allowed to give him a copy for his own use? If I send him a digital copy its illegal, but why? My next door friend is allowed to fold from my instructions but he isn't? Sometimes the world isn't fair.

[nonkelgans]

all this money talk is really depressing.

Why should it be depressing?? People need money to live. Some artist make stuff to generate extra income. After all, they spend their precious time to create unique things and then painstakingly diagram it, why shouldn't they be rewarded for the effort they put into this?? I'm photographing a lot and while it's just for my own fun I would be glad if I could sell a print once in a while, even if it's not my goal to set up a business. Sure, they won't become millionaires by selling the books but it creates a welcomed extra income and a motivation to go on because the artists also have bills to pay.

Origami gave me already so much joy and pleasure that I'm glad that I have the opportunity to buy books. I honestly won't know where I would be without it, I met many people trough Origami since I have the habit to give away an Origami folding when I go to parties, I really enjoy the looks on a girls face when she receives a folding like a dragon, flower or butterfly. And without the book "Origami for the connoisseur" I would never have been able to fold the beautiful Kawasaki Rose which I only rarely give away since roses have a special meaning for me.

While there are so much things to be found on the net I always grab back to the books on my shelf, I always feel that the best models are in those books and not on the internet.

[Ondrej.Cibulka]

Joseph is talking about respect to artists. I would like to shift his words a little bit. Current quick era and quick life leads to less informedness, less communication among people contrary to huge possibilities for communication (mobile phones, internet) and overall less respect among people. I am a teacher and a researcher and especially absolutely common man, who like to watch around, how people respect other people, for example on the international airport to Indonesian woman.

Young people wants everything immediately, in the case of origami not five or more years fold easy folds (frog, lilly, crane, or other type of practising) to acquire great ability for work with the paper, no, they need to fold ancient dragon at first. It is also connected to respect of the author.

For not so long time I am "teaching" that origami is an art and their authors are artists. Try for instance ask Goya to teach you how to paint Spanish queen. It is absurd. If the author release diagram or CP of his piece of art, I can copy his procedure, but not his point of view, his feelings, his personality (this greatly mirrors Román Díaz's book - each man, who follows the author, is an interpreter). So I have not ambition to do it, I am just looking on his work and wondering.

And if the author do not would like to release any type of instructions (due to different reasons - time, apprehension about bad folds and disreputableness his models, authors law) I respects that and do not force him to make instructions.

I am sorry, my English knowledge do not allow to me express exactly, what I mean and feel.

[Ondrej.Cibulka]

One important note: I am talking about origami art. Booklets for children and full color easy fold books etc. are different class of origami.

[aesthetistician]

Even so, once any document is open, all anyone has to do is take screenshots and save them and as a collection of jpegs or pdfs that anyone can read...

That's hardly a new situation. With a scanner you can make a pdf of the ink-and-paper book. Even without a computer, you can still make photocopies and flog them in alleyways...(And that's a fairly weird mental image, I admit).

I don't think that the solution will be to make copying diagrams illegal - that was never practicable. It might even be the case that making it really hard will only be taken as a challenge by some!

Here's a thought - if the artists decide that diagramming their work is more grief than it's worth, we'll all lose out. Let's try to find a way to avoid that - to have the greatest number of people doing the best folding they can, whether they're the most famous artist or the newest newbie. Isn't that really why we're all here?

[Dave Brill]

I do download a lot stuff,
In my personal definition, I'm not doing it wrong

Well, be in no doubt... you ARE doing wrong. In fact you are breaking the law.

I'm sad that a moderator of this forum takes this stance, and by implication encourages others to follow his bad example.

Can I ask politely?

1. PLEASE DON'T DOWNLOAD COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

2. PLEASE TAKE SOME TIME TO NOTIFY COPYRIGHT OWNERS OF WEB SITES OFFERING DOWNLOADS OF THEIR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL .

Many thanks!

Dave Brill
http://www.brilliantorigami.com/Home.html