(no subject)

[cimorene]

The terrible secret of livejournal.

Here's an intelligent and thoughtful response to what's been going on between fandom and livejournal lately that doesn't contain any hysteria at all and pretty much articulates, I think, anything I could have wanted to say about it.

Comments

[bibliotech.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was just brilliant.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Get out of here with that being sensible shit!

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

WTF my journal is linked there?!?!?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

It's a script that puts in the username of whoever's viewing it. Scared the life out of me.

script

[devon.livejournal.com]

I think it's kind of rude, myself. Cim - you can change the url to remove the "r=na" from the end.

Re: script

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that because I didn't follow a link from my own friendspage, apparently.

Re: script

[devon.livejournal.com]

also, I didn't think it was rude of *you*, just so we're clear. I think it's tricksy web coding, and I don't like it at all.

Re: script

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, is it logging or tracking referers or something?

Re: script

[devon.livejournal.com]

just the referrer, as far as I can tell. I didn't see any cookie-browsing. They're counting on most links being on LJ, I think.

Re: script

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Did it actually namecheck you, like pretend to be addressed to you in some way? People seem seriously freaked about it.

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's darn creepy ://

[perhael.livejournal.com]

I love whoever wrote that article so fucking much. I'm going to repost this to my lj, because the word needs to be spread. Preach!

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that it was pretty well-written from a rhetorical point of view, in that he comes across as quite clever (in a condescending kind of way). But, as several people have already noted in response, he makes more than a few claims about the law that are unsupported within his essay. And given that we've got more than a few smart lawyers in fandom who've spent some time looking at fandom and the law, I don't have much confidence that he could support his interpretation of the law, should he be pressed to do so.

Most of the things he calls "against the law" in fandom have not actually been established as such in test cases, and therefore no decision has actually been made about them. That's part of why Six Apart only makes vague references to the law while clearly invoking a number of other muddy arguments, including "artistic merit" and assorted other fuzziness that suggests they are erring on the side of corporate taste and using the law as a rhetorical tool to support their position.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

He comes across as clever because, I think, of the clarity and the rhetorical structure. I really don't see anything condescending in the tone, though.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I would say he's condescending from the first paragraph, when he writes, "Because of this one big issue, I think that fandom is making unreasonable demands of Livejournal. This is a sort of open letter or reality check for the fandom community: you can't expect Six Apart to give you what you're demanding, and you need to recognize why."

He then goes on to using a number of "airquotes" which set up straw arguments without actually considering that people (including fannish lawyers) have offered pretty good legal evidence to support them.

And again, this?:
"I anticipate that I'll hear a lot of whining from fandom people in the comment section of this page, and that it'll mostly consist of flimsy attempts to deny the terrible secret above."
Condescending. And sort of obnoxious. He anticipates a rebuttal, but he calls it "whining" and labels it "flimsy" without acknowledging that he's entering into a legal discussion which others have made before him, and which argue that his own logic is "flimsy."

I'm not saying he's entirely wrong. But I think he's done a pretty good trick in terms of persuasion without legal evidence, and without actually joining into the conversation about fandom and the law which has been going on without him thus far.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

I wanted to say a lot of it, too. And yet... Still don't want to give money to LJ anymore; and still don't think that LJ not taking a pro-active stance to perhaps enact social change is something that I should think is beneficial, natural, or anything to admire or cheer them on for. :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if they would, I suppose, but it's not something I would ever expect of a corporation that can't afford to be the test case, and I certainly am not surprised that they wouldn't. Nobody wants to be the test case. You'd have to look long and hard if that was the standard for corporations you were willing to give money to. Now, being pissed off and taking the money elsewhere because of their customer service (lack thereof) is something that makes perfect sense.

[mirabella]

Um, who the fuck is this bitch and why is she namechecking me?

[mirabella]

Never mind, I see it's a script. Well, I would read what she has to say, but that pissed me off so much that I'm not really interested.