I'm terrified by the suggestions to block sharing the projects.
Imagine, program, share isn´t just like a 'jingle': is an attitude indispensable today like in all human history! If we don´t share our solutions to problems, could we call ourselves 'human beings'?
I wonder about if who doesn´t like see his 'loved sprites' handled, remixed, stripped, remaked by others, could make games, stories or anything else if the pioneer computer scientists didn´t share his ideas and works with many people.
It´s an absurd! There is not anything true about 'theft of ideas'. Human communication and mind in our era can´t be like in middle ages of oscurantism: privilege of a few initiated in misteries; we should be, with internet and free software, able to understand the superior virtues of cooperation and sharing of code.
Another problem is the spiritual decadence of many people who steal the credit from others when they show works, arguing they are original authors whereas they stealth the work of others. This is a attitude 'antropological', i mean, i´ve seen it in many people from almost every country and social condition, even ideology. It can´t be defeated with prohibitions, laws, edicts, even tech procedures like blocking, etc.
Like others has argued: even 'not downladable' content (i.e. youtube & other sites flash videos) can remain like that. Share an idea, it´s show the world a new idea. Anyone else could 'reimplement' it, using our tools or something different.
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My whole philosophy is that if someone's stealing your idea, then it must have been pretty darn good.
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True, but you sound like your running the GNU project lol
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It reminds me about discussion: Is it act of theft downloading music illegally? Because I don't think so. WHY?
1. The digital music is digital, and it's not real, it has no physical body, so it can be copied infinite times. That means, this is not stealing because it doesn't exist! You don't take the notes and/or sources without owner's permission, you download an illegal copy of the music. THIS IS NOT STEALING, THIS IS ILLEGAL COPYING (for USA). More, in Poland, there is a law that you _can_ download music album, if you alredy have one obtained legally and it has broken or you can't have this music on your MP3 player.
2. Court cases of illegal music downloaders or sharers are just like court cases of thieves or financial frauders. Remember The Pirate Bay? Judge was actually one of the sides, because he had connection with copyright management and protection groups. It's not fair.
So, if you use something from Scratch without giving a credit to it's creator/owner, YOU DON'T STEAL IT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST!
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