Asking doesn't necessarily have to cost money. But the law says you've got to ask, because you need permission.
Personally, I think whenever you take something that belongs to someone else you should always ask. It's the family value we all grew up with - right? And if you can't find the person it belongs to, you leave it where you found it and go searching for the owner. You don't take it and then ask - right?
And until that owner gives or sells the something to someone else, it's still hers/his - right?
Family values.
Just because some companies abuse that value doesn't mean there's something wrong with the value. It means there's something about the company's behavior that's devaluing.
Even in academia, where plagiarism is on the rise and HS seniors come in to college without a clue about footnotes, there's still the basic value if letting people know where you got the info you're using or quoting. It's just that there it's gotten down to only having to acknowledge, not having to risk asking. Risking asking is a problem because then you might have to open up your checkbook.
If all creators had full time jobs creating (with health insurance and IRAs and retirement plans and paid vacation and sick days) and most didn't need to make a living from their creations, we'd all be footnoting.
Instead we spend bandwidth and time trying to figure out that Disney is a bogeyman for forcing us to ask.
Come on now. Get real.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
