Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Maturity is realizing that in the film Titanic, Rose decides to throw away a $250 million pendant in memory of an unemployed man she slept with exactly once—a man who never even owned the necklace. She completely disregards the fact that the explorer who brought her to the wreck had built his entire career around finding that necklace. Yet, she held onto it for decades, on the off chance she’d end up at the wreck site again, just to chuck it into the ocean for no good reason… and croaks in his bed. Then goes and waltzes passed her husband in the afterlife to meet up with her 3 day fling!

This feels like a low-key indictment of her otherwise anonymous husband.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Speaking seriously for a change, I have seen people who misunderstand copyright, who nuke their own post histories because, say, they posted some worldbuilding they were doing and wanted to maintain copyright in case they published. Which I understand, even if I think it's unfair -- you're basically posting on a private forum for people to comment; presumably, even if you don't use the ideas people reply with, they are at least informing your decisions. It seems grossly unfair to use that mental labor and then wipe it out so that they can't go back and refer to the original.

On the orther hand, your ideas are the only things you actually truly own, in the sense that people can't take them from you -- except in the sense of taking ideas you post, in a private forum or elsewhere. So, in that sense it makes total sense to burn your bridges when you leave.

On the other other hand, the whole, "the Internet never forgets" thing is complete BS. While it is a cultural monolith that has been created by the labor of millions of people and is therefore a thing to marvel at, it is also being chipped away by these sorts of actions -- cease-and-desist letters, nuking posts in forums, bankruptcies of websites, etc. The loss to RPGs when Yahoo! Groups and Google Plus went away is huge.

Also, perhaps most importantly, IMO, ideas are the easy part. Getting off your butt and making something of them is the hard part.

Glances at my two-thirds finished DMs Guild product and long list of partly finished DriveThruRPG projects.

The odds that someone with the get up and go to make stuff is going to just swoop in and steal your (otherwise unused) idea and make it, rather than make something with one of their own ideas, is incredibly small.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Also, perhaps most importantly, IMO, ideas are the easy part. Getting off your butt and making something of them is the hard part.

Glances at my two-thirds finished DMs Guild product and long list of partly finished DriveThruRPG projects.

The odds that someone with the get up and go to make stuff is going to just swoop in and steal your (otherwise unused) idea and make it, rather than make something with one of their own ideas, is incredibly small.

And yet, it keeps me up at night! I couldn't sleep if someone made even a single illicit penny off of even one of my (extremely tenuous, barely coherent, questionably creative) ideas!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am friends with a now very famous comic book writer, who got their start doing shared world fanfic with me and our friends. They have now written hundreds, maybe thousands of published comic book stories and not a single one of them has taken anything from our shared message board beginnings.

 

[trappedslider]

I am friends with a now very famous comic book writer, who got their start doing shared world fanfic with me and my friends. They have now written hundreds, maybe thousands of published comic book stories and not a single one of them has taken anything from our shared message board beginnings.

well that's a lie...we all know you don't have friends otherwise why would you be here?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

well that's a lie...we all know you don't have friends otherwise why would you be here?

The ankle monitor keeps me close to home.

 

[Scribe]

--

Your emotions are clouding your otherwise (it seems) decent judgement.

 

[Ryujin]

I understand, I did band photography, stopped mostly with digital; seemed to lose it's glamour. Last I did was photograph Vans Warped Tour for someone writing an article in Rolling Stone, neat to get in there, take pictures, talk to people. Money was comparable to busking on a subway platform.

Though looking at how much money plug into motorcycles or cars as their hobby, is another order of magnitude.

A $10K motorcycle can run more like $40K, when prepped for racing even at a club level, but people are cheap. "it took you a second to take that picture" is something I heard way more than just once.

If I'd wanted to make money, I'd have shot equestrian events. A hundred bucks for a single good pic wouldn't be out of line. I did it for the love of the sport and to support it, as much as anything else.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"it took you a second to take that picture" is something I heard way more than just once.

And decades to learn how to take a photo worth paying for.

Anyone who thinks amateurs consistently take photos comparable to experts doesn't look at enough photos.

 

[prabe]

And decades to learn how to take a photo worth paying for.

Anyone who thinks amateurs consistently take photos comparable to experts doesn't look at enough photos.

Among other things, the amateurs generally don't take enough photos.