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04-16-09, 09:00 PM   #553
Vyper
A Rage Talon Dragon Guard
 
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Originally Posted by guice View Post
Teeechnically GPL gave them right to modify as well, but I won't go there.

Point 4, the most important one, is due to the nature of how things were setup. I don't why people wanted to opt-out of WM's list. It's how I found and installed add-ons. If WM didn't have it, I request "support" for it, and generally didn't install it. Heck, I've actually intentionally removed add-ons WM didn't "support" in favor of ones they did.
For opting out, this is two sided. One side on WM, naturally. They should have had a way, through their contact form, to opt-out of support. Did you try that route? Did it go on deaf ears with WoWI's attempt to contact them?

Issue 2 and 3 are related. I'll grasp them together; modifying add-ons to change content is bad, with the exception of *user initiated* requests. The only TOC update I knew WM did was "update all my add-ons." This is user initiated request. This isn't WM's fault. Maybe their fault for buggy code, but in those cases you can easily just blame WM for improperly editing your files.
The best part of this here; You can completely drop support yourself! The moment you find a bug that is definite WM related, you could immediately pass the buck, "Sorry, WM edited those files. I can't fix it or support it." Pass the buck. I do it all the time at work. ^_^
I actually have little problem with anything you said here (wow, agreement on something), So I'll just point out a couple things. One is that I'm well aware that the GPL allowed them to modify and redistribute my work in any way they saw fit. Once they started attributing authors (they didn't initially), I have no problem whatsoever with how any of my work was handled. All my problems with them come from the fact that I chose to gave them those rights, others did not get that choice.
I'll also point out that if you browse around the forums here, there are (now defunct) posts about authors contacting WoWM asking that their work be removed, and WoWM ignoring them or refusing. It seems however, we are in agreement that there should at least have been an opt-out option.
I do feel, at least for the non-OSI compatible addons they should have asked first, or at the very least sent a notification the author's way saying it had been added, with instructions on how to opt-out, but an opt-out by itself would have been acceptable (to me).

Originally Posted by guice View Post
Sorry, then. I misspoke and meant newspapers attempts at online. They claim Google should be paying them. They claim people should pay for the news. One news CEO even said all newspapers should go offline for 1 week just to prove to everybody how much they are needed. A bit overboard isn't it? It's what WoWI just did. ^_^

I've seen these arguments over and over again. The end result has always been the technology side winning. You can't block people. You can't force them to pay. The only thing you have control over are your own files/sites.
At this point, knowing only what's included in your description, I'm inclined to side with NYT on this one. If Google is taking content that NYT produced, and did not release under the CC or something similar, reproducing it elsewhere is a clear violation of copyright, and the problem lies solely with Google. (If I've screwed up a basic detail here, feel free to correct me)
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