Tuesday 28 July 2020

CiH? Daily Strip #90 & 91

From the Head Office in Kitchener, Ontario, it's TODAY'S Cerebus in Hell?!!!:

22 comments:

Dan E. said...

Hey, I got 3 quotes in a strip! I'm famous!
Or would have been if I hadn't hit the Anonymous button...

Anonymous said...

I must say, there is a slight amusement in knowing that I'm living rent-free in Dave's head. (Even if it involves having my work stolen without permission. Creator's rights, eh Dave?) Nothing provides Dave with more joy than crying and complaining about his (self-inflicted) ostracization from society because of his obnoxious behaviour. I mean, what other attention does he get these days?!

Anonymous said...

You got it wrong dummy. Dave Sim occupies space in YOUR head, not the other way around as is obvious by the fact you commented just minutes after this strip appeared.

Anonymous said...

Yes he is a dummy. It isn't stealing to quote someone. Anonymous is like those idiots that think they own their tweets. As if they would be worth anything.

Anonymous said...

I think my comment is the funniest. "Cock-eyed" -- heh heh.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Dummy @ 10:23 hasn't read copyright law (which limits how much you can quote) or Twitter's ToS (you do own your Tweets).

-- Damian

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Oh, hey, something just occurred to me: Wasn't the deal that any anonymous comment would be excerpted for use as a review quote? "I am altering the deal ... pray I do not alter it any further." I'm egotistical enough to enjoy being quoted, but I think the joke is funnier if it's just quote after quote by anonymous.

-- Damian

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Well Damian,

I (Manly Matt Dow) said that anonymous quotes would be used in the AMOC ads that run in the back of issues of Cerebus in Hell?.

I didn't make this, or have any part in it's creation, so my original "deal" is still what it was.

Now, if somebody else on the CiH? Team were to take quotes and use them to produce a strip (like this one), that would be there ballywig...

Manly Matt Dow

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

"Manly" Matt D.: Ah! Thanks for clearing that up. The idea of quote after quote, all by "Anonymous" tickled me more.

-- D.

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Damian,

Especially if they're arguing with each other...

MMD

Brian West said...

Damian, you DO own your own tweets, however your rights to control how they might be used by Twitter and its users are limited in scope.

Refer to this paragraph under "Your Rights and Grant of Rights in the Content" in Twitter Terms of Service.

"Twitter has an evolving set of rules for how ecosystem partners can interact with your Content on the Services. These rules exist to enable an open ecosystem with your rights in mind. You understand that we may modify or adapt your Content as it is distributed, syndicated, published, or broadcast by us and our partners and/or make changes to your Content in order to adapt the Content to different media. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content that you submit."

When a user agrees to these terms of service they are agreeing not only to Twitter's use of the user's tweets but those ecosystem partners, namely other users of Twitter.

Here's an article which gets into more detail about it. A minor point to this thread, but still an important point to make here. https://www.howtogeek.com/310158/are-other-people-allowed-to-use-my-tweets/

Brian West said...

“ . . “ use of those tweets by Twitter’s ecosystem partners, namely other Twitter users,” I should have typed.

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Brian W.: Aha! So you have read the Twitter ToS, and confirm that Anon @ 10:23 was incorrect. However, Users are not Ecosystem Partners. So "Manly" Matt D. couldn't copy all your Tweets and publish a book titled The Collected Tweets of Brian W.. But Twitter itself could!

-- D.

Brian West said...

Yes, I can confirm that Anon is incorrect on that point, Damian. However anon IS correct on the point your comments can be quoted here without your permission. You chose to post comments on a third party site. Your comments are yours, however there are few restrictions on how those comments can be used for creative material. That falls under fair use, I think. 1/2

Brian West said...



I concede though that I used the term ecosystem partners incorrectly. 2/2

Brian West said...

You’re also right, Damian, that Twitter could publish my tweets though Matt could potentially publish a book of my tweets too. Matt doing so would not, I have found, be illegal. But from what little I have read it could be deemed as unethical. Still such would be legal. Ok, now I am gonna delete all of my tweets.

Mouse Skull Entertainment said...

Uh-uh Brian,

You have to leave them up forever 😃

It's not like you can go back and, oh I don't know, edit them and switch stuff around whenever you want...

(Not that I've done that more than twice...)

Manly Matt Dow

Damian T. Lloyd, Esq. said...

Brian W.: I fear you have received bad legal advice. "Manly" Matt D., as a Twitter User, doing what I described would be violating both Twitter's ToS and copyright law. He might claim "fair use", but if he'd copied and printed your every Tweet that wouldn't hold up. And alas, fair use, like parody, is one of those defences where you never know how the axe will fall until your neck is already on the chopping block. Matt D. could ask Twitter's permission to publish a book of your Tweets, and Twitter could grant him permission without consulting you.

These ToS agreements we all agree to when we sign up for Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or LinkedIn or Mastodon or ... I don't know; is Ello still going? -- are potentially very draconian!

-- D.

Brian West said...

Matt: Ok. I will leave them up. However, if Jack ever does allow us Twitterites to have an edit function on the platform that it might cause the entire platform to crash. Hard.

Damian: No legal advice was received. Just did what many other non-experts do, goggled the subject online. Here’s the “proof” I had used for my penultimate comment: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100412/1844038986.shtml. It’s dated around 2011.

I didn’t consider though that since Twitter has increased the character count per tweet from 140 to 280 if that change has had any effect on the terms of copyright of a user’s tweets. I honestly don’t know if it does.

As far as I am aware Twitter does punt the ball on the subject of fair use in its TOS. If I recall the tos states that such issues are left best to the courts to decide, though the company reserves the right to deem what is suitable or unsuitable use of a tweet. That being said agree that the axe does not always cut in one specific direction across the threshold of fair use with copyright infringement.

In light of recent actions by Twitter over a tweets of a political nature it seems that it’s TOS agreements could be potentially draconian. But I think that in light of the broad interpretation the courts have established so far of section 230 Of the Communications Decency Act that said TOS might not be so draconian.

Twitter is not a government entity, it is considered a third party aggregator of published content. As such the company could argue in a dispute over a removed tweet that it can remove tweets which it deems violates its TOS if it is acting in “good faith.” Alas, as the recent furor from the right over the company’s removal of Donnie J’s hydroxychloroquine tweet by “Frontline Doctors” demonstrates the debate over what constitutes as good faith in this context might be open to interpretation.

My own personal view is that Twitter is a guest house for my content but as the proprietor of said house it can remove my material at anytime for virtually any reason. They are not censoring me Per se if by doing that. I am free to post or disseminate my thoughts elsewhere. It’s just that I can’t disseminate every given thought on Twitter if the company deems a tweet I create violates its TOS. That might seem draconian but under the protections of section 230 I think Twitter is well within their rights to kick a particular tweet of mine to the proverbial curb.

Tony Dunlop said...

It's not a cameo if you're, you know...credited.
But at least I can reprint these strips whenever I want.

Jeff said...

Okay.

I read all of the above, and understood about 3/4 of it.

My take on this is:

If you post something, be honest. Tell the truth. And own it. Do not not be anonymous or "Anonymous".

Tell people who you are. If you get something wrong (as I recently did [heh], own it.

Damian, my dear friend, calls me out almost daily, but owns his words (except for when he doesn't).

Manly *always* owns his own words, except when he takes on the female persona of Ron. The fuck?

And, I ALWAYS own my words, even when it pisses off ... um, let's see ... Um ... Dave (of course); Ger; Matt (of course); Damian (OF COURSE); and various and sundry others.

BUT. A guy has to own his words, the things he utters. As Dave does. As I learned to do from reading Dave's essays.

If you say it (or write it), you own it.

For better or worse.

Own your words.

Jeff said...

Not not. Gotta love my bad writing. I have a Pulitzer Prize (it's true), and, sometimes, I can't write myself out of a paper bag!