There is no question that your carpet in your house is your property. The same may be true of a picture hanging on your wall in your house, but not once you give that picture to someone else and insist that you can still tell them what to do with it.
I realize it’s pacifying for you to keep going back to that thread from last September, but please, try to stay on topic. Read the OP, go have a cup of tea, and read the OP again. Maybe sleep on it. Eventually you will be able to address this:
I’d say no. No one has a right not to be offended, and the people who are more emotional and easily offended should try to be more like the other folks. Level headed thinking, rather than outraged wailing, is more likely to create policies that benefit everyone.
Unfortunately, what you descibe seems to be the way our government works in practice. 
We’re talking about someone casting their eyes upon the painting in someone else’s house.
I realize that it is uncomfortable for you to be confronted with the issue that exposes a (apparently) rather radical opinion of yours, but the primary reason this thread is even in existance is because of the one that preceded it.
And the question you posed was answered already. It’s an understood moral expectation: neither to shit on someone else’s carpet, or to photograph and disseminate copies of the photograph of a private creative thing in their own home. Not without permission.
If you really doubt this moral expectation, start a poll in IMHO and ask if anyone feels differently. I could be wrong. Or, anyone else here on the thread—feel free to contradict me on this: Is it not a reasonable expectation to not have a guest in your own home copy something that you created (a painting, manuscript) and publish it without your permission and knowledge?
So, with that question answered, I’ll go back to repeating the one I asked a while ago (and you declined to answer): Would someone who had printed a portrait of their dead dad on a memorial service booklet have to have a logical, non-emotional reason to expect that this artwork not be used by someone else (in a supposedly offensive manner to the artist)? Or, once that drawing is seen by others (on the memorial service booklet) is it open season for anyone else to do anything else they want to do with it?
Should the grieving artists’ emotions about the artwork and the circumstances under which they created it have any bearing on the situation, or are they shit out of luck because they were foolish enough to allow others to see the drawing?
This is a loaded question (getting emotional, are you?), because you pre-define the groups answering it. A more “logical” question (I understand you all love logic so much) would be, “Should people who are offended by an act be protected from it?”
Your implied statement could easily be used to demonstrate, for example, that verbal sexual and emotional abuse is perfectly OK, so long as the only things hurt are those pesky non-existant emotions.
So when the businessman calls his secretary a hot piece of ass and asks her to blow him, she has no right to be offended and seek legal protection? When an adult stalks and verbally assaults and abuses another person (say, a kid), that adult is breaking absolutely no guidelines, because, after all, it is just emotional. If the woman or kid in the above situations were less “easily offended” and more “level headed,” they should know that the verbal abuse has no effect on them, and shake it off, right?
Why don’t you head into your local hospital’s psych ward and see what emotional and psychological abuse can do to people before you piss all over people’s emotions, hm? Some people are as worse than dead from nothing more than a chemical imbalance and some harsh words at the wrong time? Have you ANY idea how devastating emotional abuse can be? And you have the audacity to call everyone who gets offended by something names?
But that’s their problem, they should be more “level-headed,” right?
I assume you also see nothing wrong with someone lighting the flag on fire and urinating on it while shouting that negro US soldiers raped his daughter and killed his brother? After all, no logical crime is broken, and any response to the acts would be a purely emotional one.
As you may guess, my answer to your question is yes, I do believe that there are lines you can cross with emotion - lines that are no less real than physically assaulting someone. After all, a punch to the face hurts for 20 minutes, then you’re generally OK. Emotional abuse (even emotional abuse from being punched!) can take far, far longer to heal, and even be more deadly.
Are all of those lawsuits for emotional damage justified? No, of course not. Not all lawsuits for physical damage are justified. Does that make emotional damage irrelevant?
If I may try.
I think we owe a moral debt to anyone who creates an original work. Part of that debt is to respect her feelings concerning the publishing of that work. To wit, you certainly do not have the right to publish a privately held work without the owners permision. That’s pretty clearly in the copyright laws. However, at the same time, the owner does not have an absolute dictatorial power to determine what you will do with a legitimately obtained copy of the work. He may have some say in whether or not you can copy it for distrubution, but it is silly to think that he can give you a copy and then demand that you only look at it while you are in the bathtub.
If I may offer a suggestion, I think that you are both arguing from the far extreme sides of this issue. yosemitebabe, I don’t think that Mr2001 is arguing for a universal right to do anything in any way to every work that you create. Unless I am much mistaken, (in this particular thread at least) he is simply addressing the subject of wether or not the artists feelings about a work are sufficient to dictate its uses.
Mr2001, I’m not sure that yosemitebabe is arguing that the artists feelings are the only reason why you should not violate that artists wishes. For instance, I think she has conceded that the artist gives up some control over the use of her work when whe publishes it.
In short I don’t think you guys are really as far apart on this issue as you may think. yosemitebabe is not arguing that some universal power be granted to artists whereby their merest whims are catered to regardless of others wishes. Merely that if the artist chooses not to make the work publicly available then she should not be forced to do so. Meanwhile, Mr2001 is not arguing that some gestapo like search and seizure power be granted to everyone whereby we can all seek out and take possesion of every work of art that is created. Merely that if a work is available, then the artist should not be able to dictate how it is enjoyed by the afficianado.
I hope I have not mistated your positions too gravely. I appologize in advance if I have.
No, he isn’t. But like any good debator, he will take a partial admittance of acceptance and turn it into a knife of absolute and undeniable proof that he is right when he says:
neverminding the points I made in the post above. From my point of view, people like Mr2001 are no better than people who say they should be able to beat up anyone as long as they don’t kill them, because if they knew how to fight, after all…
I’m going to have to disagree on this one. When I argue in favour of SSM it is on the basis that legal marriage brings with it a number of (non-religious) advantages. To deny these benefits to gay couples purely on the basis that both partners are the same gender is discriminatory.
To the best of my knowledge all of the countries currently debating SSM consider discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation to be wrong. Therefore it is logical that SSM should be allowed. (Or, I suppose, that the state ceases to recognise any marriages.)
Ah, but (and I may be mistaken), I do not see any evidence that Mr2001 feels that we owe creators of original works any great consideration regarding publishing.
Once again (if I may be so bold), I don’t think that Mr2001 believes that the existence of a copyright law should any bearing over what he views as a moral or ethical “right” (to publish somone else’s work against their wishes, for the good of humankind). He will contradict me if I am mistaken in this, I am sure.
Exactly. What someone does to a copy of a single, legally obtained copy of someone’s creative work is one thing. If they want to line the birdcage with the creative work, I personally would not find a way to legally stop them. (However, some country’s copyright laws now have a “moral rights” section which can prohibit such an action.) I would never presume to tell someone what they can do with the physical entity (piece of paper, piece of canvas) of the work that they own. My main bone of contention is the publishing or sharing a jillion copies of this work, without the permission of the creator. And most emphatically when this work is unpublished, and is in the owner’s possession.
I believe it would be easy enough to find multiple quotes to indicate that Mr2001 believes that once someone else sees a creative work, unless it can be proven that the work is of a highly personal or sensitive nature (private financial information, etc.) then yes, anyone who casts their eyes upon the work is free to publish or share that work.
Yes, I think we are.
And “available,” as defined by Mr2001, can mean that they saw it in someone else’s house.
The question I posed wasn’t about private creative things in people’s homes, it was about all works. Sorry, I do remember what I posted a few hours ago.
If you aren’t going to answer, please, quit wasting my time and go find another thread.
You can stop repeating it. I’m not going to answer your questions while you refuse to answer mine.
It is funny you should say that. I was going to let sqweels respond to you, but since you directed your ire at me, I’ll give it a try. Please note ther phrase “easily offended”. It implies a tendency to become offended with too little provocation. Notice that in your first example, you suggested that sqweels might be talking about a secratary who is propositioned by her boss in a derogatory way (“Your implied statement could easily be used to demonstrate, for example, that verbal sexual and emotional abuse is perfectly OK, so long as the only things hurt are those pesky non-existant emotions.”). I’m certain that you can see how this takes his question far out of the context in which it was asked. It would be far better to suggest that his implied statement could be used to demonstrate that some complaints of sexual harasments (notice I said some, not all) might not rise to the level that most of us think of as sexual harassment. For instance, if that same boss merely asked the secratary out to lunch politely once, would you still recomend that sqweels visit a psychiatric hospital to witness first hand the damage emotional trauma can inflict?
K
Ignoring the personal nature of this statement (it does not seem to address teh argument, but rather the argurer), I’d say that this takes Mr2001’s statements so far out of context as to render them in another language. Possibly one not of this earth.
Imagine for a moment that physically hitting someone could not in any way leave any physical trace of the contact. That is, you could not break any bones, you could not bruise flesh inside or out, nor could you physically damage the vicitm in any way whatsoever. Now, further imagine that the pain we now associate with violence was still felt by such a victim. However, without witnessing the attack, we have no way at all of determining the extent of the damage caused. No way, that is, except the word of the victim. In such a situation, we might indeed have a discussion on how much weight to put on the feelings (sensorial inputs that is, not emotions) the victim has after such an attack. Some might even suggest that merely touching another person is not grounds to put the toucher in jail. Even if the touchee screams his head off.
Clearly, our world does not work this way. We have very good ways to determine the physical damage caused by a physical attack. We certainly listen to the victims story, but we also seek corroberating evidence to the extent of the attack before we determine punishment. The areana of emotional stress, however, is not so clear cut. We engage in psycological exams, but they are less reliable than X-rays and photographs of bruises. I’m sure that all of us can imagine an extreme cases in which we can agree that psycological damage was done. No one is denying that emotions are not important, or that they do not exist. However, it is certainly fair to question how much they should determine public policy. It is certainly fair to question how much they can be relied on as a barameter of right an wrong. Especially in the context of the OP where he is asking how much emotions should be used wihtout any corroborating reasoning. That is, neither of your examples applies to the discussion at hand.
But, you see, you are not as reactionary as you appear at first glance. Take this from your earlier post :
I don’t think there are many people here who would disagree with this statement. The question is whether or not any standards beyond the emotion of the victim should be applied. If you were in charge of the world, a person came to see you and claimed emotional damage due to an inappropriate comment from that person’s boss, would you immediately arrest the offender? Or might you question the victim a little further to see if there is a reasonable chance that the comment was really offensive.
When did I ever direct it at you?
Actually, my comment in that way was directed at Mr2001 as well as sqweels, who both strongly implied that offended people are not level-headed ubermensch like themselves.
If he keeps phrasing his questions in hostile ways, then yes. In other news, you are taking the example to the opposite extreme.
I thought we were talking about you… I mean…sqweels… OK, now I’m just confused.
We have people who do this for a living, and they can generally tell when someone is BSing.
BTW, you don’t need to be so hypothetical. There are attacks every day that cause no physical damage, but do cause psychological damage.
Gee, thanks. You want to go on harping about imagined personal attacks against you?
And I do see how you wish to evade this rather embarassing concept that you have repeatedly embraced: that a person who visits someone else’s house should be free to spread copies of the work they see in someone else’s house.
But let’s go back to earlier in this thread, to the question about unpublished works:
So you want to know why a person’s feelings about somebody else not publishing their unpublished work? It is a moral expectation. They feel that it is inappropriate for someone else to copy and disseminate their unpublished works. Just like they feel it is inappropriate for someone else to shit on their carpet, or a million of other morally objectionable things.
One detail that was discussed was, how did they get access to this work? One place that you concede is an acceptable place to get access to the work is in the person’s private residence. You apparently cannot fathom why it is unacceptable for a person to have a moral expectation for somebody else to not publish their unpublished work. Whether they cast their eyes upon it in their home, or are shown it at the office, or whatever.
If this moral expectation is some radical new revalation to you (not to publish someone else’s unpublished work against their wishes), start a thread in IMHO and ask the Teeming Millions about it. Do it. Seriously. Do the poll if you are truly unaware that this is pretty much a universally understood moral expectation.
Dodge, dodge dodge.
I’ve answered the question. If the answer is unacceptable to you, START A POLL IN IMHO AND PROVE ME WRONG.
Now that I’ve quoted your question above and answered it, please answer the question I posed previously.
And that should be: So you want to know why a person’s feelings about somebody else publishing their unpublished work? (Take the “not” out of there.)
What’s interesting is that people think that “logic” is so much better than emotion, or is even that separate. Real logic is. But when people talk about logic here, even with so many bright and educated posters as we have here, they don’t really mean real logic. They mean sort of something that sounds like logic, but is still just basically an emotional appeal.
I’ve seen a lot of threads here. I’ve been around here for many a year. And before that I’ve seen plenty of Usenet threads. And before that plenty of BBS threads. The only truly logical arguments I’ve seen anywhere are in math threads. In political or moral debates, it is way too difficult to logically prove something, in fact proving something through language is way too difficult, because language has so much wiggle room built in.
Not that we are doing anything wrong here. The debates here are worthwhile. but don’t get confused, everything we do here is emotional.
As an aside, this reminds me of certain Star Wars fans who were very upset at the changes George Lucas made with the Special Edition. They felt he had no right (their words) to monkey with such things as Greedo shooting first - once he released his works, they belonged to everyone, not just him. (This argument has also been used by a smaller subset as part of their reasoning why copyright should be dismantled entirely.)
So it seems that the whole notion of “artistic property” is a matter of debate - though not necessarily the debate for this thread. Still, I wonder what logic, or the law, says on this particular subject…
So it’s an axiom?
Ah well, that’s a fair answer. Not one that influences me, but it’s the only one so far, so kudos.
She may have, I’m not really sure, but I’m not sure either how that relates to her reliance on the artist’s feelings. I haven’t seen her give any other reasons; I asked a few times in the OP-linked thread if she had more than an appeal to emotion, and was met with nothing but “You don’t understand what it feels like to be an artist! You just don’t get it. Whoooooooosh.”
And kudos to you too, sir: You called me a good debator, chastised me for not taking into account the points you made in a later post, and out of nowhere, compared me to a violent thug. That has to be the most bizarre post that’s ever been written about me!
For the record, I don’t think emotional abuse is OK. I’d go so far as to say that hurting someone’s feelings, unprovoked, for the sole purpose of hurting their feelings is immoral. But that wasn’t sqweels’s question.
I think the division between easily offended people and level-headed people is real, on any given subject, though of course everyone is more easily offended on some subjects and more level-headed on others. I would still pay more attention to people who can keep their cool than people who become shocked and outraged when debating a topic. Someone with that much personal interest in a subject is unlikely to be objective about it.
Which brings me back to something in the thread title: “You won’t understand until you’re in my shoes!” (Also known as “You don’t understand what it feels like to be an artist!”, “You don’t know what it’s like to be a parent!”, “You’ll thank me when you’re older!”…)
If someone can’t present their argument in a way that makes sense to me, in the situation I’m in now, then I’m likely to disregard it offhand. I’m not going to become an artist, or have kids, or wait till I’m my mother’s age just to settle a debate. That leaves two options: (1) assume that they must be right, based only on the strength of their feelings, or (2) disregard the point, because either they don’t have a leg to stand on and they’re just stalling, or their reasoning is being clouded by their personal interest in the subject. IMO the line “You won’t understand until you’re in my shoes!” is as meaningless when spoken by an artist about copyright as it is when spoken by a billionaire about the dividend tax.
And I must say, with my dark hair and green eyes, I’m not much of an Uebermensch.
Whoooooosh indeed.
It’s sort of like telling a tone deaf (and slightly hearing impaired) personal that the loud, atonal horror that they are screeching out is awful and offensive and would they please shut the hell up or leave the room. The tone deaf person might say, “What? What? It sounds perfectly fine to me and I’ve never felt offense or discomfort from loud sounds, therefore, your feelings about it and your deep offense at hearing the sounds I am making are meaningless to me and I will feel free to disregard!”
Or, it’s like telling a person with no sense of smell that the offensive and rank jacket they are wearing (soaked in cat piss or something) is upsetting everyone with a sense of smell, therefore could they get it washed or leave the room? The person with no sense of smell could simply say, “Well, I don’t smell anything and don’t understand the feeling of being offended by a horrible smell since I’ve never smelled anything. Therefore, your feelings of offense are incomprehensible to me and I have no intention of honoring your request based on your mere feelings.”
My question was about all works, published or not, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant to answer the question as posed.
So, if I understand you correctly, your answer is the same as pervert’s: It’s an axiom. You either believe there’s an obligation to respect the artist’s wishes about publishing his work or you don’t, and there’s no way to convince someone that there’s an obligation unless he already believes it.
Now if only you had said this at the beginning, instead of whining “You don’t understand what it’s like!”, we could have come to this impasse much sooner.
How would a poll be relevant? I already know that many people think we must respect an artist’s wishes about his work. I don’t need a poll to tell me that.
I’d treat it the same as any other portrait on any other booklet: You can be compensated for the use of the portrait, but your emotional attachment still doesn’t give you the privilege to control who can use it and how.
To answer otherwise would mean granting that privilege to everyone. Who am I to judge whether the artist who painted Colonel Sanders is any less attached to his picture than you are to yours, if he comes into my copyright office in tears because someone used the Colonel’s image in finger-lickin’ porn? The only person who can judge his emotional state is him, and as a hypothetical government official, I can’t just give someone special treatment based on his own testimony.
Or maybe it’s like telling someone who likes chocolate ice cream, “Pistachio is totally hella tastier, dude. You’ve never been a pistachio lover so you don’t understand what it’s like. You can’t even write a statement about how much you love pistachios, can you? You poor sod. I know like a hundred people who all agree pistachio is way better than chocolate. Just accept it.”
You can’t convince someone to believe something that they don’t believe. However, you can expect them to honor what is almost universally considered a moral obligation to others. And one of those moral obligations is to not publish their work without their permission, particularly unpublished work. And particularly unpublished work in their own HOME.
It’s the same moral obligation we place upon the hearing-impaired-tone-deaf to not screech atonally, or for those who have no sense of smell to not go around wearing cat piss-soaked garments. Because even though the offense is lost on them, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t very real to others.
Do you know that they consider it a moral obligation or expectation, akin to a moral obligation to not shit on someone’s carpet? Yes or no?
If no, please start the poll.
Ah, I see. So my previous assertion (that I couldn’t find a quote to) has now been officially confirmed. I have no need to look for that needle in a haystack. 
So, in essence, you’re saying that you don’t give a damn if the grieving artist’s portrait of their dead dad is used in a (what might be called an offensive manner) against their wishes. Because once that portrait is out there, it’s open season for anyone to do whatever.
But let’s talk about “compensated” again. How much can the grieving artist charge? Would you expect a price control so that the artist cannot charge what you might consider a high price for the publication of the dead dad’s portrait? Would you take that choice away from them (to choose how much the work is worth)?
The artist would invariably not need to complain: they signed over rights for the artwork over to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Kentucky Friend Chicken would probably sue anyone who used the Colonel’s image in such a way.
That’s the reason why artists feel comfortable releasing their work at all: if they knew that they had no legal protection when someone turned their portrait into porn, they’d think more than once about releasing the work at all. Since society has apparently decided that they want to encourage artists to release the work, they allow them these “feelings” about their work. Even though some people don’t comprehend the feelings or their validity (just like those with no sense of smell don’t comprehend the offensiveness of cat piss).
Way to dodge, dude.
Unless they are forcing someone else to eat pistachio, who cares? But atonal screeching assaults others’ ears, and cat piss-soaked garments assault others’ noses. Even if some people can’t comprehend it, it doesn’t make the assault on noses or ears less real.