Sometimes Snopes is Not the Answer
Apr. 12th, 2008 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puppetmakerThere has been a link to an article about a bill that has died twice in committee about art that is considered orphaned. The creator of the article is coming off as frothing at the mouth without checking all of his facts and a great disliker of Bill Gates and the big Microsoft evil corporation which is trying to steal all intellectual property and make it their own.
Now I do so understand the need to protect one's creative rights. I also understand that the copyright office has the dubious task of dealing with who owns what in terms of intellectual property. It is a tightrope. I am also a firm believer in artist's rights considering how they have been not treated well in the past.
However, this one article with its misinformation has been spreading through the various art communities like wildfire. In one case the poster, who kept linking to the same article any time anyone asked a question, was asked whether they had checked other sources. Their response was that they had checked Snopes and hadn't seen that it was there as either true or false so it must be true because Snopes hadn't said that it wasn't.
I hate to break the Internet's rose color glasses, but Snopes is not the be all and end all of information on the Internet. In fact the Wikipedia is not the best source of information on the 'net either. A little additional research wouldn't hurt anyone before they cry that the sky is falling. This also goes for other things that Snopes hasn't done articles on yet which are racing around the Internet like a chicken with its head cut off.
I am grateful for people who do take the time to find out what is really going on rather than just pointing to the same piece of misinformation over and over again.
Now I do so understand the need to protect one's creative rights. I also understand that the copyright office has the dubious task of dealing with who owns what in terms of intellectual property. It is a tightrope. I am also a firm believer in artist's rights considering how they have been not treated well in the past.
However, this one article with its misinformation has been spreading through the various art communities like wildfire. In one case the poster, who kept linking to the same article any time anyone asked a question, was asked whether they had checked other sources. Their response was that they had checked Snopes and hadn't seen that it was there as either true or false so it must be true because Snopes hadn't said that it wasn't.
I hate to break the Internet's rose color glasses, but Snopes is not the be all and end all of information on the Internet. In fact the Wikipedia is not the best source of information on the 'net either. A little additional research wouldn't hurt anyone before they cry that the sky is falling. This also goes for other things that Snopes hasn't done articles on yet which are racing around the Internet like a chicken with its head cut off.
I am grateful for people who do take the time to find out what is really going on rather than just pointing to the same piece of misinformation over and over again.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 08:28 pm (UTC)I am waiting for the next one about Harlan to come out.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:26 pm (UTC)