Liberal Attitude to Piracy
Privacy Policy. To all intents, constructions, and purposes the owner of this blog adheres to a liberal attitude toward piracy. Not that the Bat welcomes acts of piracy, but the Fledermaus does not mind them as long as the said piracy is not of a physical nature. That is, no animals, especially other mammals, or decent human beings, especially those of better breeding, are harmed in piratical endeavors. Certain limitations apply.
That’s it. Or to put it differently, the Fledermaus would of course appreciate an occasional kind word from a cyber pirate but would not lose any sleep (lest imaginary sheep or ship) in case if none is forthcoming.
Piracy as A Plague
Therefore, from the Bat’s standpoint, the Piracy Policy is essentially a non-issue issue. I mean cyberpiracy, of course. And piracy is hardly a plague. It is a relatively benign activity, see limitations, that involves the expropriation of imaginary property for personal enjoyment, amusement, or self-education. The Fledermaus does not believe that copyright laws, regulations, rules, threats, threats of threats, trolls, and so on, regardless of their origin, either enhance human creativity in any way or serve to advance the cause of human freedom anywhere.
If that were the case, then individuals like Homer, Mozart, Beethoven, Dante or Voltaire would not have composed a single note or written a word in the course of their lifetimes. After all, they lived in a world without any copyright “protection.” Poor bastards. They lived in a world where even the thought of corporate ownership of some human being’s creative spirit would either be seen as a perverted aberration or a monstrous joke.
Limitations.
But there are certain limitations. The principal one being the so-called fair use. To put it simply, one should not take someone else’s work and present it as his or her own. No one should take somebody else’s work for granted. Or, for that matter, take anything for granted. That’s a commonsensical limitation. I am unsure if it applies to creative concepts because artists have freely (or liberally) borrowed from each other in the past. But I’d leave it to your discretion.
Why did I write all this? Because I saw that I somehow have a privacy policy (You see… I can’t have any policy. I am not a sovereign or potentate, I don’t run a state or an insurance company). And I thought it’s hilarious that all those little virtual mice and cyber microorganisms have their own privacy policies. As well as other sorts of policies.
So, if we can have a privacy policy, then why not a far more relevant piracy policy? A sound policy for cyber pirates, freebooters, buccaneers, privateers, corsairs, rovers, picaroons, filibusters… did I forget anyone? – regardless of their age, sex (or rather now creatures have gender or even genders? Even if they, poor wretches, don’t have any sex), weight, shape, race, color, intellect or a lack thereof, and other factors.
To post a poem (even if you’d appropriated one, as long as you publish it under the actual author’s name and have the author permission to do unless the piece is out of copyright. No one expects you to to obtain permission from Shakespeare or Milton), so to submit a poem, go to the Poetry Monster. You can also write to the Fledermaus or post any kind of personal or impersonal ad or announcement, for free, at this place.
- Le capitaine Jean Baert de Dunquerque” (1650-1702) by/par Robert Bonnart[↩]