Re: New twist on Re: SigZag

Well, this is getting a _bit_ boring, so you won't hear
me no more after this last (but useless) try:

Donovan wrote:
> Here's something that I'm sure wasn't said before. 
It was, but never mind.

[snip]
> Just because I did it from scratch doesn't mean someone
> didn't make it exactly like that once before.

That is indeed a problem. This happens all the time in science.
'Blabla was independendly suggested by ... and ...' etc.
That has to be decided in every case seperately. Sometimes
it's damn obvious that something is stolen, sometimes not.
But until there's that case you may claim your snail as
being original.

> My point is how can we be sure we are taking credit for an original
> ASCII pic, when there is no way to prove that it is the original to
> begin with.

There's no way to prove anything if you start like that. Especially
you cannot prove that someone did NOT do some _digital_ thing ages
ago (but just comes up with it after you presented your stuff...)

> So one step deeper how can we copyright them if we can't
> prove that.

I guess the luck would be with that person who can prove that
he/she have had it published first. (eg Dejanews, a webpage, etc)

> The odds that someone did the Mona Lisa exactly the same,
> every brush stroke, is as close to impossible as you can get. But this
> pic...
>    __o
>  _`\<,_     --- Dave
> (*)/ (*)
> 
> who's to say I didn't draw this exactly the same way ten years ago. I
> mean it's a total of 28 characters square, it's a popular sport, and
> it's easy to make.

Well, I admit that a certain quality is needed to make 'art' out of
a bunch of ascii codes. If there were any money in ascii-art I bet we
would have funny court plays about that. :)

But that comparison with Mona L. just shows the difference between 
analog and digital stuff. The subject is fairly old, since every 
computer code faces exactely that problem.

> Not to say that what he wants to do is right, but is it legally wrong? I
> have not done many ASCII drawings, but I know for a fact all the small
> ones that I have done...like most of you...the odds that someone did
> them before me is VERY GREAT!

So what? Even IF someone did it already, then you'd probably share a
copyright. It would not by public domain in that case either.

And Jorn wrote :

> Another way to say this is that a _compression program_ could compress
> an ascii drawing down a lot smaller than the same screen area full of
> words.  Full-screen art usually has tons more whitespace, for example.
> 
> So a 2k artwork might have only as much complexity as 0.5k of words.
 
*Yawn* That's also true for eg C-code. So what? Does it allow you to
copy C-code?

Can we _please_ agree on the fact that not the amount of bits but the 
idea behind it makes the whole.

Damn, I could compress a Mondrian to -say- 50 bytes. 

Basta.
:)
Andreas

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