Tim

Get off your high horse. While many of us may be concerned about the
rights of copyright holders, the situation not only in Uganda but many
other African Countries outside South Africa is similar. Many times
members on this list who are in business can vouch for this, people have
come up with proposals, ideas, innovations e.t.c and they are 'stolen'
from them unashamedly and in most instances by corporates that originate
from the so called purist countries you are trying to talk about. I
recall a very famous case of one Lugger whose company tussled it out
with a giant over infringement of copyright on some software. This big
company thought it would frustrate the guy through the court process but
luckily enough, he was able to push on till the big elephant sought an
out of court settlement. However, how many people have been lucky enough
to achieve such justice here in Uganda? Few, very few. That is why you
find the laissez faire attitude among the list members because we have
more pressing problems and needs than pretending that copyright will
change our lives. Many times we submit proposals for jobs and they are
'copy n pasted' by competitors who have insiders in the organisations we
are approaching. It is a dog eat dog world for now and I will
unashamedly tell you that as for now, copyright issues are at the bottom
of our list of problems to think about. I would rather see Badru's
project go on if its aim has a more positive impact on this nation
eventually than guarding worthless songs that have nothing to copyright
about. Many of these musicians would not even earn a dime if copyright
was to be observed to the letter in this country. I remember 4 years ago
a musician I helped to get paid US$ 1500 for a 3 hour show all because I
came across his music on a website that he even didnt know about. Like
someone said, it is a skewed market. Just understand it the way it is.

Wire


On Mon, 2010-08-09 at 14:26 +0300, Tim Schofield wrote:

> On 09/08/2010, Joseph Abdi <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Tim,
> >
> >  It's because 90% of the list members have not faced copy-right issues ..
> >  Also, since almost 90% of our website materials in Uganda don't use
> > original materials one does not
> >  yet see the need or importance of copy-right ...
> >
> >  And again, remember this is a LUG list (Open-Source) where FREE, COPY,
> > RE-USE
> >  is Legal ...with the OS mentality and mind-set, you can hardly have support
> > or understanding of it here ..
> 
> No no no no. Open source is only about free re-use if you keep within
> the narrow confines of the license that the software is issued under,
> for example the GPL. It in no way condones the abuse of copyright.
> Copyright is at the very heart of the GPL. Anyone on this list who is
> using a kernel more recent than 2.6.13 is using some of my copyrighted
> code which I allow them to do providing they stick to the letter of
> the license that the code is released under (GPL v2.0).
> 
> Every open source developer, and those who benefit from the use of
> open source should be active in the protection of the rights of
> copyright holders. I have spoken at LUG meetings around the world, and
> never before found a group who consider that copyright holders rights
> should be abused.
> 
> You clearly believe the rest of the world will throw off its
> fluffiness and join Uganda in this. Trust me you will be disappointed.
> 
> 
> >
> 
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