I see literally thousands of mazes generated on the site, and (unless I"m mistaken) they are all simply generated output from a computer program. Its cool, but is it even possible to copyright something like this?
A number of people have attempted to claim copyright on the output of programs. One of the most infamous examples is how Wolfram claims copyright over the output of Wolfram Alpha.
This is interesting because a similar thought experiment that immediately occurred to me would be to consider a program that calculates digits of pi, sqrt(2), or some other transcendental number, given some user input --- basically, a calculator.
The program itself is almost certainly copyrightable, but what about its output?
These mazes feel like a similar idea to me - he even mentioned that this particular one is generated by a "fibonacci spiral", so there is likely a compact mathematical description of its vertices, and a PRNG (further thought experiment: what if the "randomness" was generated by a true RNG?) along with its seed that was used to determine where the lines appeared. It's an artistic work, but the majority of the "work" was done by an algorithm - he didn't manually draw all the lines.
Remember, copyright is about "provenance", or how you arrive at the result. If you get the same maze but you didn't copy from the original, it can't be a copyright violation. It's the copying that creates the problem. That said, there is a "minimum of creativity" that limits what you can copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
It's evident to me that the current notions of the "Threshold of originality" lag far behind the capabilities of today's media. Just because something is mechanically produced shouldn't mean that it can't be copyrightable. That said, it's pretty foolish to copyright something like that. I just don't think I can determine that it would always be foolish to copyright such information, so the conservative choice would be to leave the copyright in the hands of the meta-creator.
In the US, copyright automatically applies to "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression". (There are some exceptions, like for US government works.)
"original" boils down to "more creative than alphabetical ordering", and "tangible media" includes pictorial/graphic displays.
So yes, the maze is likely subject to copyright.
However, there's very little "creative expression" in the individual maze, as an algorithmic result, the creative expression is in the inputs, resulting in a "thin" copyright - only applying to virtually identical copies.
In the specific case, Kraft's maze is a significantly better maze - also evidence of the lack of individual creative analysis in the original.
There's definite copying - the styling and layout are too close for there to be otherwise, but the creative expression in the original is so minimal that it likely balances the fair use criteria (nature of the work, effect on the negligible original market suggest it is fair use, commercial use counts against fair use.)
Not sure which way a judge would rule. Kraft is probably very unhappy with their illustrator for not just creating an original maze...
Yes. While the computer program itself is a creative work, the important factor is that it is being used as a tool in an overall creative process. There are most likely aesthetic concerns which are contained in the program which are reflected in the output, meaning that it is not just a purely mathematical exercise. There may also have been some manual selection process in which the mazes were assessed for aesthetic quality - which counts as creative from a copyright standpoint, though this applies primarily to an overall work which is a compilation.
However, if the maze is entirely the product of a random process then the online compilation could be protected as a 'selective' creative work, but individual mazes would not.
Note that even if each individual maze is eligible for protection that the author doesn't end up with copyright over Fibonacci mazes, it's only the creative parts, whatever aesthetic tweaks (or manual selection in the case of a compilation) were made that is covered. So you could produce a very similar maze with your own program using your own creative decisions without infringing.
Given that he wrote the program, exercising creativity there, and (I presume) exercised additional creative activity manually selecting which outputs to post from the space of generated mazes, it seems likely that it's possible to copyright something like this. IANAL, though.
That is not the law. The actual work must demonstrate creativity, and a mechanically generated works of this sort do not.
"The U.S. Copyright Office has taken the position that "in order to be entitled to copyright registration, a work must be the product of human authorship. Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable."
The actual work must demonstrate creativity, and a mechanically generated works of this sort do not.
The law here lags behind the technology. By procedurally generating something like a landscape, a programmer can creatively define a whole set of possible landscapes. It's fallacious to say that this can't involve artistic awareness and creativity. Here, the law is trying to apply 19th century models to 21st century media.
The program used to generated the landscapes is copyrightable, the landscapes themself are not.
> It's fallacious to say that this can't involve artistic awareness and creativity. Here, the law is trying to apply 19th century models to 21st century media.
A problem with copyrighting mechanically generated works is there is no end to them. What awareness and creativity is shown by letting a computer make 1 million slightly different images?
All the creativity is in the programming, not in the result.
The program used to generated the landscapes is copyrightable, the landscapes themself are not.
But this is problematic. Procedurally generated landscapes can still have a definite "feel" or "look." These attributes can be protected as "trade dress." But there is no way to preclude other attributes we haven't thought of yet.
A problem with copyrighting mechanically generated works is there is no end to them. What awareness and creativity is shown by letting a computer make 1 million slightly different images?
Yes, you're right, there are algorithms that actually don't show much creativity. But this is actually already covered in the "Threshold of creativity" laws -- if the declaration that the output of an algorithms cannot be protected is removed. If you apply most of the same "Threshold of creativity" laws to a notion of meta-creativity, you still arrive at a usable and coherent law.
All the creativity is in the programming, not in the result.
Clearly, the truth is that creativity can manifest in the result.
Also understand that modern technology makes the current formulation of the law problematic. What if I simply used cheap data storage to slurp the output of a program so that I could use the output of someone's copyrighted code without permission? I could imagine doing this to a procedurally generated MMO world. This would seem to make the practical effect of the law quite divergent from its intended effect. Introduce a notion of algorithmic meta-creativity, and the law would protect against that kind of infringement nicely.
That said, in many cases, it would be advisable for the copyright holder to not reserve copyrights for such media. But in that case, I think the providing the option is the wiser choice.
> These attributes can be protected as "trade dress."
That's trademark, not copyright.
If you carefully tuned your program to create a single result you found best that might be copyrightable.
On the other hand if you wrote a generic program that randomly adjusts the variables to make lots of nice looking landscapes then the landscapes are not copyrightable, even if you did a great job on the program so all the results were beautiful.
> Clearly, the truth is that creativity can manifest in the result.
That doesn't make it copyrightable. I could plant trees in a beautiful pattern, but I can not claim copyright on photographs taken of the result.
> What if I simply used cheap data storage to slurp the output of a program so that I could use the output of someone's copyrighted code without permission?
Not following. Does "cheap data storage" make a difference? How are you "slurping" the output? What sort of program is it?
> I could imagine doing this to a procedurally generated MMO world. This would seem to make the practical effect of the law quite divergent from its intended effect.
And what's the problem? The procedurally generated MMO world is not copyrightable. That's the intended effect - to only copyright what a person actually does.
You might be able to claim a dress trademark on the MMO world if it was distinct, but not copyright.
I never said it was copyright. Please readjust your mental model of who you're speaking to accordingly.
If you carefully tuned your program to create a single result you found best that might be copyrightable.
How is this different than carefully tuning your program to create a range of results with specific attributes? Example: All of the generated landscapes are aesthetically pleasing, but have enough open area next to obstacles to enable ambushes and also manage to look creepy at night... Such a result might indeed take
That doesn't make it copyrightable.
I'm saying that it should. IP laws date from a time where the kind of automation that makes the above possible was unthinkable. The assumption that an act of creation would result in a particular set of data is no longer warranted. Neither is the assumption that the automatic production of art is either not possible or would result in uninteresting and stereotypical output.
Not following. Does "cheap data storage" make a difference? How are you "slurping" the output? What sort of program is it?
Specifics aren't needed, but "cheap data storage" makes it possible to store the entire content of certain procedurally generated algorithms from earlier computer systems as files of ordinary size on today's typical machines. (Example: The entire Elite universe.)
And what's the problem? The procedurally generated MMO world is not copyrightable. That's the intended effect - to only copyright what a person actually does.
I'm saying that this very notion dates from a time when procedurally generated output was unimaginable to most people, and that to only copyright what a person actually does is trying to apply 19th century notions to 21st century technology. It's just like the early 20th century arguments for airlines having to pay farmers to overfly their land.
You still hit the problem that it's possible to make a program that can output every possible permutation of every possible song. Saved as midi files you could actually realistically do that for short songs.
How can you extend copyright to include such a thing? Presumably you don't want to - but it on you to somehow distinguish between them.
Also, pre-computer automation was not as impossible as you might think, some examples: A double pendulum with a pen, a spirograph, a sand bucket on a rope, a spinning top with paint.
I have not completely decided if I would agree with your proposal or not, you would need to be much more specific about the limits of where copyright would not apply. Because as broad as you make it sound I would not agree, but if more limited then maybe.
You still hit the problem that it's possible to make a program that can output every possible permutation of every possible song. Saved as midi files you could actually realistically do that for short songs.
How can you extend copyright to include such a thing?
Simple, you wouldn't. Yes, but this is already covered in the concept of sufficient creativity.
Also, pre-computer automation was not as impossible as you might think, some examples: A double pendulum with a pen, a spirograph, a sand bucket on a rope, a spinning top with paint.
Also covered by "sufficient creativity" for trivial combinations of such machines. Now, if it was a system which balanced the spirographs and double pendulums in a tangible and describable way as to produce a finely balanced effect.
And see this reply from someone else... generated artwork has existed before computers, and it is not copyrightable.
Yes, but the degree of automation we have today completely changes the technological landscape in such a profound way, that anyone should be skeptical if such laws still apply.
I have not completely decided if I would agree with your proposal or not, you would need to be much more specific about the limits of where copyright would not apply.
Common sense and the market could resolve a lot of the potential problems you see. What use is a tool like a spirograph if you can't use the output freely? Tools with restrictive stipulations will eliminate themselves from the marketplace.
Things like a program that simply enumerates all 32x32 pixel images are transparent enough that a judge should be able to adjudicate properly. I can see, however, that there would be more complex cases, and the cost to society may not be worth the potential damage IP meta-squatters would incur.
Photography is a creative work, mechanically produced by manual selection of particular views of something you did not necessarily create. This doesn't seem a tremendously far cry - in a sense, he is taking photographs of maze-space.
The result of a surveillance camera is not copyrightable. Only if a person controlled the camera. Even if the person carefully selected a site but then just left it there to record whatever would come, it's not clear that would be copyrightable.
If you fed in specific tuning parameters to the procedure and fine tuned them until you liked the output that might have a claim. But if you just let it work randomly and picked the ones you liked best that would not.
It's not enough to simply like the result, you have to actually do something to create that specific result.
How is "if a person controlled the camera" terribly semantically different from "picked the ones you liked best".
"Even if the person carefully selected a site but then just left it there to record whatever would come, it's not clear that would be copyrightable."
But in this case he selected a site (wrote the code), recorded a pile of footage, and then went through and selected particular shots based on his own personal criteria.
He has a compilation copyright, but not copyright on the individual images.
If you leave a camera in public for a few days, then come back and edit the result into a movie you have copyright for the movie, but not for the individual stills that make it up.
To have copyright on the stills (rather than the compilation) you have to have some creativity into making them, not merely selecting them.
Selecting which outputs to post is not sufficient to establish copyright. See the copyright office's example of a piece of driftwood selected, polished, and mounted by a human:
503.03(a) Works-not originated by a human author.
In order to be entitled to copyright registration, a work must be the product of human authorship. Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable. Thus, a linoleum floor covering featuring a multicolored pebble design which was produced by a mechanical process in unrepeatable, random patterns, is not registrable. Similarly, a work owing its form to the forces of nature and lacking human authorship is not registrable; thus, for example, a piece of driftwood even if polished and mounted is not registrable.
Interesting, and probably somewhat closer, though I reiterate that here it is neither that he simply set up the process nor that he simply selected outputs. He did both, and both were creative portions of a single creative act.
There was a project in the early days of the internet boom, a website was put up (in australia IIRC) with every possible melody combination (using discrete scales) along with a copyright notice for each one, so nobody would be able to write a song in the future without infringing.
even if there was no creativity involved and thus the copyright would fail, it seems (IANAL) that it might put the melodies into the public domain, since how could somebody claim you had no right to use a melody that you had already published?
Copyright is not ownership of a particular composition, its ownership of the right to copy a particular work. While similar composition often is relevant evidence in a copyright case, the actual critical fact is, for ownership, the act of creation, and for infringement, whether the creation was copied/derived from a particular other work in which copyright ownership existed due to the act of creation.
The project you describe seems to be based on a patent-like idea of copyright, where infringement is independent of whether or not the work is an actual derivative of the protected work.
I don't think (as I said) the guy was intending to chase around the world protecting his copyrights, he was trying to show the absurdity of the definitions that copyright law depends on, and in that sense what he did refuted a priori your comment.
You use the term "act of creation" as if he didn't engage in it. Not sure how you can claim that he didn't create the melodies, he did, doesn't matter that he didn't ever hear them, neither did Beethoven (you get my point). If he had any musical training he could credibly state that he was creating a Philip Glass style composition exploring the space of melodies blah blah blah. You don't think a skilled musician could characterize and categorize the different elements of this work? If he was serious about it, he could call it his ring cycle and start playing it, all the way through, a one hour performance a week.
And then I pointed out, and you ignored, that even if he didn't go out and claim copyright infringement, there is still the point that he insulated himself in a certain way from infringement claims from others.
I think he made an interesting philosophical point, I think you should chew on it in a more interesting way. In a case of an actual claim of infringement, he created lawyer fodder that could drag through courts for years, had he been a musician.
No, I don't think he overturned copyright law. To a large extent, judges make decisions based on practicalities more than they do on the letter of the law. The letter of the law comes up when there are colliding practicalities, and ambiguity in the law. Still, I think it's a more interesting thought exercise than you are giving it credit for.
Moreover, it ignores that the creative act, when you are viewing things from a perspective of "there is a space of every possible ...", is locating interesting locations within that space, which an enumeration is not doing.
If I write a website and put thousands of mazes up, what difference does it make if I created them with a tool I wrote? Does the number of mazes created make a difference? Why?
I can copyright a computer program that is the binary output of a compiler...
> is it even possible to copyright something like this
No, I don't believe so:
"The U.S. Copyright Office has taken the position that "in order to be entitled to copyright registration, a work must be the product of human authorship. Works produced by mechanical processes or random selection without any contribution by a human author are not registrable."
It's where IP is a proxy for rewarding the original creator for the effort gone to. Clearly Kraft's designer just found the first maze that was circular-ish that came up in Google images and plonked it down and moved onto the next rush job.
Kraft clearly nicked it, or where careless as to wither it was copyrighted, but we have now wondered into output of program territory instead of the much clearer area of did kraft just grab the first thing that they could find?
You won't succeed in suing them - so this is probably the best option he has.
Not the PowerPoint, but likely the copyright over parts of it. Presentations may be self-running, embed fonts, contain graphics, or simply use templates whose copyright Microsoft owns.
If you look closely, the path isn't exactly the same. There was some work involved. Perhaps they even attempted to re-implemented the algorithm? Are algorithms copyrightable?
My understanding of copyright law [1] is that the maze itself, not the maze-generation process, is the issue here. The author accrues a copyright over the maze by virtue of having published it. Kraft's republication of the maze is potential infringement of the copyright over the maze. The algorithm is almost irrelevant in that determination. The copyright is over the work itself, not the process of creating the work. [2]
The test for determining infringement is, more or less, the classic smell test: does it look like a duck, walk like a duck, and quack like a duck? Would a reasonable individual conclude, from visual inspection, that Kraft's maze is strikingly similar to the original maze? Even if there are some small changes here and there, it could still be found to be sufficiently similar.
For instance, if I tried to put out a version of a popular song that was ever so slightly different from that song, I'd be infringing if a reasonable listener found my version sufficiently close to identical. If I put out a book called "Jimmy Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and my work was more or less identical to "Harry Potter," with some character names and minor sequences changed, I'd probably be found to be infringing upon the original work.
[1] IANAL, but I've dealt with copyright issues, to a certain tangential extent, in a professional capacity.
[2] Note that we're talking about copyrights here, not patents, which are different animals altogether.
Copyright cares about provenance, though. If you put out a book called "Jimmy Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and your work was more or less identical to "Harry Potter" and you had never encountered Harry Potter, directly or indirectly, then you wouldn't be guilty of copyright infringement. Of course, proving that would be difficult, given the spectacularly low odds of just happening to write the same tens of thousands of words.
In this case, if the algorithm is one of a narrow range of obvious algorithms, "just happened to..." might be more believable.
> "So often we read of very large companies riding rough-shod over small businesses or individuals," said David Bradley, director of Pentaplex. "But when it comes to the population of Great Britain being invited by a multi-national to wipe their bottoms on what appears to be the work of a Knight of the Realm without his permission, then a last stand must be made."
[This is Jim Bumgardner - author of the maze that Kraft copied]. Amusingly, this comes full circle. One of the puzzle varieties on my site is based on Penrose tilings.
Heh,that poor miserable employee who probably thought nothing of copying a cool maze off the Internet.(Not to imply that makes it any less illegal)
That's certainly got to be interesting/validating for the op though (albeit simultaneously violating/annoying).
Definitely curious to hear how Kraft responds; if op is willing to share even more about something he shouldn't have had to deal with in the first place that is.
Working for a media related company or similar he will have been told not to do that sort of thing, officially at least (it'll be in the company handbook which he'll have signed a document stating he has read and understood) - so yes if he is still there he'll get some of the fallout.
The company should have checks and balances on such things though, so they can't blame a sole individual and wash their hands of it without recall of the item and/or recompense to the creator they've copied.
Yes. More than one person's hands at the company are almost assuredly dirty here. Maybe not directly, but indirectly.
No consumer packaged goods company, least of all a giant like Kraft, puts anything onto a box without many layers of approval and rounds of creative review. In this case, the buck presumably stops with the brand manager for the Mac & Cheese product. I doubt he or she would have even thought to ask about the IP origins of the maze when conducting creative review. Nevertheless, he or she bears some responsibility as the owner of the review process.
Most likely this maze was lifted and passed off as original by someone a bit lower down the food chain: an agency staffer, a freelance designer, or an artist at the company. But there is virtually no scenario in which that person's contribution wasn't reviewed a half-dozen times by people with managerial authority. At CPG companies, the package is an incredibly important and borderline sacred thing. Nothing gets onto the package by accident, and as such, it would be incredibly difficult for Kraft to argue its way out of responsibility.
Another possibility is that Nickelodeon (the owner of Spongebob) provided the artwork, including the maze, to Kraft. This makes identifying the proximately responsible party a bit trickier, but Kraft still bears a burden. It would also mean that two companies, and possibly two brand managers, had eyes on this.
As you say, it could be some freelance designer or artist whom they commissioned make the maze, and that artist committed fraud against both their customer and the real producer by passing KrazyDad's work off as his own. The company can't really double-check against out-and-out fraud. (I still think they should have financial responsibility, paying the real artist what they paid the supposed artist, even if they are morally off the hook.)
IANAL, and I can't really say whether a court would hold them to have been reasonably responsible for vetting this in their review process. But I do know their review process exists, and that it's very extensive, and that a court would probably not be inclined to give them a pass for ignorance -- even if they had no idea. Even if a freelancer committed fraud against them in passing this off as his own, they are economic beneficiaries of the artwork. So I don't think (?) they'd get a pass. (Would actually welcome a lawyer's input on this thread w/r/t that scenario. EDIT: A lawyer has joined in.)
Whatever the case may be, Kraft should do the right thing here. That probably means paying KrazyDad a fee or royalty of some kind, commensurate with the standard that they'd pay a typical artist whose original work graced their package. They should also issue a formal apology and pledge to improve their review process.
If Nickelodeon / MTV Networks was also involved, things get messier, and maybe there's a he-said, she-said dynamic that plays out. In any event, none of these folks are dummies. I sincerely hope, and would even expect, that they'll contact KrazyDad to make remedy.
In these circumstances, the company will have committed the copyright infringement also by virtue of reproducing the maze on the packs, and will therefore be exposed to a potential suit (assuming the other requirements of copyright infringement are able to be shown).
At the same time, the company will have taken an indemnity from the freelancer which means they can go against the freelancer for costs arising from a third party claim of infringement (as is the case here). This would give the company the ability to settle with the third party and then go against the freelancer for the sums.
The principal problem with this is that the freelancer is unlikely to have assets to back the indemnity (unless as a condition of their provision of work they were required to have in place insurance). Even with insurance of course, it may not be available if the freelancer has behaved fraudulently...
It is your responsibility to know the license (or lack of) for materials you publish.
In a case as described there may be some sort of indemnity clause between the publisher (kraft) and the freelancer which passes the costs on to the freelancer under these circumstances.
Hypothetical question: is it possible that they did not copy it? The author here indicates that the original maze was generated by software, maybe Kraft stumbled upon the same algorithm, or a close variation of it (considering the minor differences between the two)?
Obviously, this is very out-of-left-field and I don't believe it either, but it's not impossible that Kraft didn't plagiarise anything.
Highly unlikely. The grid design contains about 900 edges which can be set or clear. Their maze differs by 7 edges. Here's a statistics problem for you: What is the likelihood of generating a random 900 bit binary number that differs from another random 900 bit binary number by only 7 bits?
Then there is the choice of grid design (identical), entry and exit holes (identical).
That's not a valid comparison for generated mazes, is it? Unless the algorithm was really just choosing randomly, some edges are far more likely to occur than others.
You are indeed correct. Nonetheless, the choice of the exact same fibonacci tile grid, exit, entry holes, and about 98% of the interior walls being identical...
Under some jurisdictions (eg Germany), I'm not sure whether the output of a program is copyrightable at all.
Your software, yes, but probably not the output.
What about if the program takes a variety of inputs which influence the output? (At some point there has to be a transition, since e.g. books are "just" the output of some program.)
For any book, there exists some program which generates it, but most books are not created that way (so we consider those books to be products of human creativity).
I was talking about the word processor/text editor, since the things created by them are still just the output of some program (with heavy human influence along the way).
OTOH one could argue that the maze itself does not fall under the scope of the Urheberrechtsgesetz because its threshold of originality is too low (no offense, it is after all auto-generated). But I'm no lawyer and this is just a spooky idea.
I assume it would also depend on whether there were other steps in the process, such as if he selects the mazes for his books, etc., from a larger number of randomly-generated mazes based on aesthetic appeal, difficulty, or other criteria.
That depends on the complexity of possible inputs and the complexity of possible outputs - if your text editor would only allow for single-character documents, I imagine its output might not be copyrightable ;)
Mind elaborating why? I'm not versed in maze generation, but I am a software dev, and reinventing an existing algorithm does happen. It might be very unlikely in this case, but I'd just like to know why.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert in maze generation either, but I would agree that it would be nearly impossible for the following reasons:
1.) The specific maze style used, with the semi-random angled lines within a circle shape, isn't the most mathematically simple form of a maze. If it was a grid pattern in a rectangle, there might be a tiny chance of two people making the same maze, but to create a maze of that style would require more creative programming, with more tune-able parameters, and more decisions left to the implementer.
2.) In order to choose from the vast number of possible mazes that fit a certain pattern, the algorithm is almost certainly going use some random number generation. Even if two people were using the exact same maze algorithm, they would have to also have to use the same randomization process, and start with the same seed in order to arrive at the same maze. I guess it wouldn't be impossible for both people to explicitly choose the same initial seed, (or arrive at it randomly) but that would be very unlikely.
With maze generation, you need some way of deciding which subset of the possible walls you're going to keep. Usually you rely on some random or pseudorandom numbers to feed into the algorithm or use internally.
Having the maze verts in the same positions is possible and not too unlikely. Having the same walls is astronomically unlikely. Even if you had exactly the same algorithm (possible, but unlikely) and the implementations used the random values in exactly the same order, you'd also need exactly the same random seed. There are a lot of possibilities for that seed.
you'd also need exactly the same random seed. There are a lot of possibilities for that seed.
I've seen a lot of code that either forgot to srand(), or misused it in some way so the output was pretty determinate. There are also a limited number of PRNGs in use, and they're most definitely not understood well by the majority of programmers; the crypto community knows this quite well. A collision may not be so unlikely after all.
(Try Googling "41, 18467, 6334" for example. "41184676334" also brings up some interesting results.)
Thanks for the explanation. what would the impact be if they had a different seed, would the maze be really drastically different? Or could it look more like the 2 mazes in the original post, with only a few walls different and mostly identical?
It depends on the pseudorandom number generator that you're using, but you'd be hard pressed to find a standard library prng where similar seeds produced similar random numbers. That would be pretty bad design.
For example, here is some code I wrote to test my own prng:
srand(1000000);
for( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
printf( "%d\n", rand() );
printf("====\n");
srand(1000001);
for( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
printf( "%d\n", rand() );
I'm aware of how prngs work, and of how often they are misused. What I was mostly wondering was how big an effect that would give in the final product. Do typical maze generation algorithms use it extensively, or sparingly so the differences are minor? How different would the maze look if the seed was different, and is it likely that you could get very similar mazes from completely different seeds?
I think the short answer is that the maze will look very different. It's very possible that the verts of the maze would be in exactly the same position, since that's a regular pattern. But the maze walls will be extremely random.
At what point do a series of angled lines become copywritable? After two lines? Three? Can I copywrite two lines meeting at 67 degrees, and then claim angles 65-69 as like works? Can I then claim that your maze contains my intellectual property in several places? (And would you still feel your rights were violated had kraft taken two of your mazes and glued them together?)
It's a matter of arriving at the result. In other words, what matters is whether you used the original (and with what intent), not whether you arrived at the same result. Unfortunately, both of these are hard to prove.
We really don't. I hope you don't sincerely believe your fellow HNers are stupid enough to think that copying an artistic artifact somehow removes it from the possession of the original creator. We aren't and we don't. Which means this is just a matter of word choice. I can't think of much I'm less interested in reading than "You used this word in a way I don't agree with."
Besides, this usage of "theft" is not dissimilar from the already well established usage of "stole" as in "he stole my idea." If an idea can be stolen, it can certainly be theft to take the product of an idea, at least colloquially.
Of course it's a common usage, but that alone shouldn't make it acceptable usage. Lots of disparaging language is common usage. When you use a word with a certain intent, it's the usage of that word with that specific intent that should be questioned.
I think we should all be grownup enough to recognise that ideas can't really be stolen either. We also recognise the value of copying ideas. If we recognise these things, then we should use corresponding language to reflect our intent.
It is important to repeat "copying is not theft" because it's at the heart of the arguments that e.g. the MPAA make to the public in order to convince them of the evils of copyright infringement ("you wouldn't steal a car," etc). TFA seems to be trying to appeal to the evil of Kraft's deeds by suggesting that something has been stolen from him.
It seems clear to me that nothing of the sort of theft has happened, and at least some people would instead be flattered to have their work reproduced large scale instead of slinging accusations of theft. If it were me, I would use this to promote the value of my own work. Maybe I would try to talk to someone at Kraft before firing the lawyer cannons, perhaps just work out a deal where they give me some sort of recognition. Even recognising the copyright infringement, it seems to be on such small scale (one maze out of hundreds?) that it might be difficult to argue for damages incurred.
This person isn't flattered, but the language of "theft" indicates a graver damage than what actually has happened.
Honestly: I don't think the term "identity theft" is a good one. It's not clear at all what exactly that even means unless people have had it explained to them; and even then it's pretty vague and encompasses lots of things.
Identify theft is a kind of fraud or perhaps libel, but it's certainly not conventional theft.
Nevertheless, the term has taken on a life of its own, and that's just the way language works. The problem arises when people say inane things like "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?". That analogy is sort of like saying you shouldn't go on strike, after all, you wouldn't want somebody to strike you, right?
So, is it theft? Well, from a linguistic perspective: it's called whatever it's called. But it's simply deceptive to pretend that merely because the same word is used that the meaning must be equivalent too. It's particularly unfortunately that the manipulation of language is probably intentionally deceptive; the notion of intellectual property didn't arise amongst the average English speaker, but amongst a special interest group that stands to gain by causing this particular confusion.
> Identify theft is a kind of fraud or perhaps libel, but it's certainly not conventional theft.
there is some argument that it is conventional theft. It does, essentially, render the original unfit for use until considerable time is spent repairing it.
Sure, if you squint just the right way, and ignore the fact that your identity isn't actually gone only partially vandalized. It's theft the same way your neighbor steals your house when he builds an ugly shed that blocks your view.
It really isn't the same thing. It's vaguely related, and that's fine, but pretending the two meanings are identical in an analogy (you wouldn't steal a car?) is still disingenuous.
If someone "steals" your identity, it isn't really theft sure. Really, you both have a pointer to that identity. The problem, which makes it a good idea for it to be illegal, is that you both have a pointer to the EXACT SAME identity. Thus, any destructive(or benevolent) changes they make affect your identity as well.
Contrast this with most forms of "copyright theft", where the original owner still has the original AND any changes you make to your copy have no effect on the original.
However, "copyright theft" does have an effect on the value of the original.
Suppose you write a book report for school and another student copies yours and passes their copy in first. You still have your original but it is significantly devalued. Passing it in may actually have negative value as you maybe accused of cheating.
It may not be theft but I think it hard to argue that it is not taking something of value without permission.
First if all: merely finding some instances of copyright violation that reduce a copyrights value does not validate calling it theft. By that line of reasoning half of the English language is approximately theft. This very answer is stealing your copyrighted answer by undermining its validity, thereby reducing its value, therefore it's equivalent the theft.
That's a preposterously loose requirement. Secondly, even in your example, the damage isn't primarily caused by the copying, it's primarily caused by the misrepresentation. If the copier had been truthful about the source, it's doubtful the original would have been much devalued.
In any case, clearly copyright violation can devalue the copyright. It's certainly not always the case (it may even increase the value of the copyright), but it's a serious risk. However, that still doesn't make it equivalent to theft, any more than vandalism, fraud, competition, criticism, libel, etc. are theft. Some of those are even considered virtuous - as a society we supposedly encourage criticism and competition (even if many sectors manage to pay only lip service to that notion).
It was T.S. Eliot. and the real quote is "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."
Notice how he pointed out that it is copied in clear violation of copyright law. Then he did NOT follow this up with a cease-and-desist letter, or a threat of legal action. Classy.
Now I hope that Craft is classy in return, by contacting him and negotiating in good faith a reasonable fee for the use of the maze.
If he didn't contact Kraft how would they ever be made aware of it? It's not like there was a giant company meeting where the CEO said "This guy. I want you to steal his maze design and put it on our mac and cheese."
It was 1 designer tasked with putting a maze on it that did a google image search and came up with that result.
That by no means exonerates Kraft, but it can be helpful to put things in perspective sometimes. I would be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, that if someone in a position to actually do something about it was made aware that they had mass produced copyrighted materials, they would be willing to offer a reasonable fee. However actually getting in touch with that person may be challenging without legal action.
Oh, I'm not knocking Kraft for being unaware of the problem before the blog post, I'm just hoping they'll be classy about how they handle it AFTER it has been discovered.
Without making a judgement on weather or not it is or should be legal, it's sadly common to plagiarize or outright copy without conscience amongst marketeers, especially the smaller firms.
I have conversations with (often the same) marketeers that they need to purchase the $9-99 font they've used in their design on almost every project. They send me copy often verbatim copied from the website they are "taking inspiration from". There is unsurprisingly little integrity in the industry. Bigger firms is sometimes slightly better since they have lawyers cracking down on this kind of behavior.
Source: I work for a software consultancy that primarily work with marketing firms.
I tried looking on the linked mazes page for a license, the closest thing (in my opinon) was a statement to feel free to reproduce for personal, school, and church use. I figure if I couldn't find the copyright notice, it's probably hard for someone at Kraft to find it too (unless that statement IS the copyright notice).
Does this necessarily exclude a for-profit use, or does that have to be explicitly declared? IANAL, so I'd like to know.
This seems a good example of the actual original meaning of "the exception proves the rule". The fact that he specifically states an intent for it to be free in those cases implies that he does not intend for it to be free more generally.
Coupled with the fact that you automatically have copyright on copyrightable works, and that by default you need license to copy copyrighted works outside fair use and similar exceptions, I think it's clear that if these mazes are copyrightable and if the maze wasn't independently generated (both of which seem more probable than not), then Kraft owes him some money here.
The copyright notice is on every single page of the linked PDF, and every page at krazydad.com has a copyright notice at the bottom. What trouble are you having, exactly?
Additionally, you don't have to provide a copyright notice or any licensing terms for your copyright to be valid an enforceable (with some very special exceptions blah blah).
The maze becomes copyright once it is fixed in tangible form. The license does not include commercial use (which this clearly is), so it is unlicensed.
Pick up the phone and call around until you find out what their limits are before some approval is needed, you can probably even explain what happened, and that you just want to invoice in an amount that can be approved, then just submit an invoice for under that amount, with a note that upon payment you will give a one-time license for the already-printed kraft boxes.
I'm not sure which you mean by "original", but in the KrazyDad version you can go in a nearly straight line from the start point to the end point, but in the Kraft version, you have to take a spiral path through more than 360 degrees around the circle. Even if they started with the KrazyDad version, that's a pretty interesting change.
You can save yourself the trouble of finding out the address of their lawyers by simply putting a Kraft and/or Spongebob logo on your website... They'll come to you quick smart!
It's not that simple. It's not clear that the maze is copyrightable in the first place.
I doubt he has the resources to fight it if they choose to fight. He would basically be hoping they would give him a settlement just to make him go away.
Filing a lawsuit just to get a settlement when you can't actually fight on the merits is not considered positive behavior (although it can be lucrative).
"Filing a lawsuit just to get a settlement when you can't actually fight on the merits is not considered positive behavior (although it can be lucrative)."
If you can't actually fight it on its merits because the facts and law don't back you up, I whole heartedly agree. If you can't actually fight it on its merits only because you don't have the resources to do so, it's more questionable.
> If you’re gonna steal a maze, you might want to try stealing from maze book #47, and do a horizontal swap on it before you rotate it 90 degrees. That’ll slow me down some…
And now the next maze to be copied by someone will be that one, and they'll argue that this statement is permission!
