Talk:Thought Thieves

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 THOUGHT THEIVE$ Counter Competition 2 POV 3 thought thieves nomination 4 Please add the true statements to this article that you feel it lacks 5 Use of links 6 Thought Fill-In-The-Blank 7 Worth an article? 8 Will VfD absent objections 9 Placing this here for now (was in previous version) 9.1 1984 9.2 Copyright concerns when making a film 9.3 See also 9.4 External links 10 Background (maybe add some of this to article???) 11 NPoV 12 All hail Hoary

[edit] THOUGHT THEIVE$ Counter Competition

There is now a counter competition at http://www.thought-thieves.org. Here's the call for work:

Call for Work: THOUGHT THIEVE$ short film showcase

• please forward widely*

WWW.THOUGHT-THIEVES.ORG

THOUGHT THIEVE$ is a short film showcase about corporate appropriation of knowledge, culture, and creativity. It is a grassroots response to the Micro$oft propaganda competition of the same name [see http://www.msn.co.uk/thoughtthieves/Default.asp].

Our version of THOUGHT THIEVE$ is about big companies stealing and profiting from the knowledge commons. Think about it: how would you feel if you saw your cultural traditions, collective creativity, thousands-year-old seed strains, indigenous medicinal knowledge, or even your very genetic code being passed off as the property of some multinational corporation? What would you do?

We want to know!

Send us your short film on corporate piracy by Friday, 16th September, 2005 for your chance to be included in an international distribution and screening series. To be confirmed: the makers of the most creative films, as decided by popular vote, may be invited to attend a special premier screening of their film in Tunis, Geneva, or London.

Also, we could all win a limitless supply of cutting-edge Free Software; tons of Public Domain, Fair Use, Creative Commons, and Copyleft content to use as source material; non-Genetically Modified food; affordable generic medicines ... and lots of other cool stuff TBA.

DEADLINE: Submissions are due by 16th September, 2005.

MORE INFO: HTTP://WWW.THOUGHT-THIEVES.ORG

THOUGHT THIEVE$ affiliates as of August 1, 2005:

   * Electronic Frontier Foundation: www.eff.org
   * Downhill Battle: www.downhillbattle.org
   * Creative Commons South Africa: za.creativecommons.org
   * IP Justice: www.ipjustice.org
   * LOCA records: www.locarecords.com
   * Media Innovation Unit - Firenze Tecnologia: www.miu-ft.org
   * Alternative Law Forum: www.altlawforum.org
   * IPleft: www.ipleft.or.kr
   * Chamsaesang (The People's Media): www.newscham.net
   * Jinbonet: www.jinbo.net
   * KIFV (The Association of Korean Indepedent Film & Video): www.kifv.org
   * MEDIACT: www.mediact.org
   * World-Information.Org: world-information.org
   * Communication Rights in the Information Society: www.crisinfo.org

QUICK LINKS:

   * SUBMIT your short film: http://thought-thieves.org/bm/publish.php
   * TRANSLATE this message using Indymedia Translations Tool: http://tinyurl.com/93rqb
   * BECOME an affiliate: http://tinyurl.com/apm4v
   * SUBSCRIBE to our mailing list: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/thought.thieves

CONTACT THOUGHT THIEVE$:

   Sasha Costanza-Chock
   (+USA) 607.351.5559
   info AT thought-thieves.org
   http://www.thought-thieves.org

[edit] POV

I am no fan of Microsoft, but this is not an article about Microsoft's "Thought Thieves" program; this is a POV essay on "here's what hypocritical scumbags Microsoft are" with Thought Thieves being mentioned as part of that diatribe. Judgements like "this richly ironic competition" and "a typical stolen thought" are quite enough reason for the POV check template, not to mention linking to and liberally quoting a Slashdot comment of no particular notability just because it heavily expresses the article's creator's POV on the matter. The creator really seems to be misunderstanding the difference between a Wikipedia article and a Slashdot comment to begin with. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:45, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. As it stands, this article is awful. I've made what I think is a necessary but utterly insufficient step toward rectifying it. -- Hoary 10:13, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

It is true that it is the irony and hypocrisy of MS that makes the article worth having at all. The problem is, you can't just state that without being POV. The remedy here, IMO, would be to find some quotes from other sources that showed outside people drawing connections similar to those that the article wrongly states as facts (wrong because POV, not because I disagree). If you have a quote of Stallman, or Lessig, or _The Register_, or someone, saying "thought theft is MS business practice..." (or whatever), use that. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:05, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

[edit] thought thieves nomination

I agree, while this may be a bias i share with the author of the article, it's still not neutral by any means. i think it's funny that i came to this particular article researching about newspeak and how language is intended to coach one into a particular mode of thinking. i also find it funny that me, the previous nominator and the nominee share this opinion about microsoft. but nevertheless, if there is a neutrality policy in place, the articles should follow it.

[edit] Please add the true statements to this article that you feel it lacks

Do we add "Pol Pot's friends liked him" to soften that article? No. This "Thought Thieves" brainwashing attempt by Microsoft is most notable for its unbelievable hypocracy and irony. The level of duplicity and similarity to 1984 is mindboggling. That IS what makes this whole thing worth mentioning at all in the first place. Turning the article into an ad for the competition would remove the elements that make it worth noting in the first place. That said, please, please, add FACTS that you think belong here. The ironic and hypocritical aspects DEFINITLY also belong in the article. Cheers. 4.250.33.91 16:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

You're embarassing yourself with that straw man. No one has suggested that we turn the article into "an ad for the competition". Are you really so incapable of balanced thought that you cannot conceive of the article being anything other than a rabid attack on Microsoft or a rabid ad for Microsoft? Please read WP:NPOV and you will understand that we at Wikipedia have a different standard. A Wikipedia article is not your place to broadcast your judgements such as:

• "Big brother indoctrinates the "14-17 year olds", also."

• ""Thought thief" is also a reference to the book 1984 and the Orwellian notion of thought police "stolen" by Microsoft from Orwell for this richly ironic competition."

• "Anyone wishing to create a short film against thought crime without creating a thought crime may learn a different lesson than the one intended."

You may believe that these judgements are so blatant to you that they are actually facts. This says more about your own inability to distinguish your opinion from facts than it does about what the article should contain. You're trying to tell us that Wikipedia should be taking the side you've slathered the article with, and you're interpreting the "No" you're getting as "how can you choose to take the other side?!" please try to comprehend that the actual goal is for Wikipedia not to take sides. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:49, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

1."Thought thieves" is a competition. An ad for that, not an ad for or against Microsoft. That's no straw man. 2. "Big brother" in 1984 did indoctrinate children as the quote shows. Have you READ 1984? Microsoft is COMMONLY compared to the 1984 big brother. So much so that one of the most famous ads of all time (by Apple during a Superbowl) compared Apple's competitor (Microsoft) to big brother. The comparison is part of the culture. I'm not making this stuff up. It's not MY judgement. Microsoft is indoctrinating children with this competion. Look up the word "indoctrination". Its a fact, not an opinion. Check the web for opinions about this competition. It is WIDELY if not universally believed to be ironic, hypocritical, and so amazingly ironic that many thought maybe it was a hoax because "even Microsoft couldn't be THIS dumb". 3. "Anyone wishing to create a short film against thought crime without creating a thought crime may learn a different lesson than the one intended." is indeed a fact. You dispute this is a fact with what evidence? YOUR assertion? I back up this fact with evidence and a reference. And I'm not the one who is calling copyright infringement "thought thievery" - Microsoft is the one doing that. Microsoft is the one creating the 1984 connection, not me. THAT IS THE IRONY That most people see this and you don't says something about you not me. (What it says about you, who knows? To quick to pounce? stereotyping anons? Too young to have seen the Apple ad or to have read 1984? Something else? Don't know, Don't care. The article is what matters here.) Cheers. (P.S. Neutral does not mean mealy-mouthed.) 4.250.198.126 09:50, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, I didn't see the Apple ad as I wasn't living in a nation where it was shown. I don't use MS products and I believe the company has in general had a baleful influence. (I loathe MS Word, and find that open-source "alternatives" are Word wannabes and thus just as loathesome.) But I'm willing to praise it for what it does well: use of Unicode, Cinemania, and, er, well, maybe something else, though I can't think of it.... But whether MS are white hats or black hats is beside the point in an encyclopedia article about one of its sales promotions. -- Hoary 10:23, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Hoary, I agree. Also, I just added the following to your disscussion page: The fact of accusatons and convictions of IP theft by Microsoft is important in understanding the irony. But you are right that the itemized list is better refered to rather than relisted in thought thieves. Thank you for helping to improve the article. 4.250.198.126 10:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Good, I'm glad we're making progress. (A long way to go, however.) -- Hoary 10:34, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

[edit] Use of links

The article now starts: Thought Thieves is the name of a 2005 competition sponsored by Microsoft for short films on the theme of "How intellectual property theft affects both individuals and society." [1] That link at the end goes to a short boingboing piece, which clearly says the content comes from a longer bink.nu piece, which both gives the Microsoft link and says that he story comes from pcpro.co.uk, which again gives the Microsoft link.

This is absurd. Let's instead have links that are as informative and authoritative (credible) as possible, never what's at second or third hand. Sorry, I am now too tired and hungry to want to make the needed changes myself. (I'm going home for supper.) Over to somebody else. -- Hoary 10:42, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

My intent was that anyone following the links would find more data than if I only linked Microsoft and futher would see that this was being noticed in the community and what the community response was. I do see your point though. 4.250.198.126 12:11, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thought Fill-In-The-Blank

The article currently asserts that Microsoft took the term "thought thief" from Orwell. I doubt that this is true. Nineteen Eighty-Four introduces the terms "thought crime" and "thought police", but I very much doubt that "thought thief" appears in the book. We should therefore rephrase it to keep the true information that people associated the construction "thought <crime-related-word>" with Orwell, without making the false impression that Microsoft "took this from Orwell". -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

AF's doubts are well founded. None of the phrases thought thief, thought thieves and thought theft appears even once in 1984, as presented here. -- Hoary 02:59, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

I'm ashamed I did such a poor job communicating. I apologize. Let me try again : Intellectual theft is not just about taking an idea from someone but also about independently coming up with an idea and not being able to use it because someone else owns it. Get it now? If not say so and I'll try again. The fact that some forms of IP are like this and some aren't is another reason that Stallman's arguements against using the term IP have validity (even if "property" IS actually a correct useage as property only actually means a package of rights whose contents vary). 4.250.198.126 12:19, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

You would do a whole lot better if you would, instead of getting even more patronizing and more condescending in your attempts to "communicate" your position on the matter, you made more of an effort to understand the communication being made to you. Namely, that even those of us who are firmly against Microsoft (I am disappointed that your list of Microsoft's wrongdoings was both a) misplaced in this article and b) missing Microsoft's conviction of software piracy in a French court of law) nevertheless find this article to be counter to the standards of Wikipedia -- and not even terribly helpful to the anti-Microsoft cause.

Have you really ever given any thought to who you are trying to convince? Have you ever asked yourself whether the way to convince an undecided person of your side of an issue is to hysterically insist "You must see things my way!!! Despite it being a matter of opinion whether something is 'ironic' or not, it's not an opinion, it's FACT!! Here, let me shove lots of boldface at you, because I don't trust your ability to look at a neutral statement of facts and come to the right conclusion -- which is my conclusion!!!"

There are times and places for heatedly -- sometimes even heavy-handedly -- making a forceful case for your point of view. But Wikipedia isn't one of them. We're not here to take sides -- not even for the 5,705th person who comes along and protests "but my case is different, because my side is correct and therefore I should be allowed to promote it via Wikipedia!" Your side does not look more right because it's represented so forcefully and partisanly -- it looks worse because it's represented by someone who is sure-damn doing a good job of looking like a wild-eyed fanatic. You know, the kind that Microsoft and SCO and Lyons and O'Gara and DiDio are already trying to paint us as? I'm sure they quite appreciate your eagerness to sink your rabid teeth into people on your own side, because you can't grasp the concept that anyone who wasn't a Microsoft shill could be asking you to tone down the shrillness. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Worth an article?

The more I thought about this while dozing off last night, the less WP-worthy it seemed. MS likes to push the line that it is the victim of crime (and quasi-socialistic open software, which may itself be a crime against America, capitalism, etc.). Yes, right (yawn). It then arranges a competition via which it hopes to promote this idea. Well, that's MS for you.

It seemed even less notable when I realized that the MS link was to MS Youkay, and that it's only open to residents of the Youkay, one small nation near the edge of Europe.

And no, thought thieves is not a term used in 1984 (see above), so the whole affair loses a certain unintended humor. So why not just add a sentence about this contest within Microsoft, and convert this article into a redirect?

Still, here we do have something interesting: MS is not going alone in this but instead has EdCred (?) via Film Education and the UK Film Council. Somebody with more time and energy than I could, I think, make an interesting and informative article about this, something beyond an article bemoaning just another in a thousand sales promotions dreamt up by MS worldwide. -- Hoary 03:20, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Despite the work done, I'm still not quite seeing an article here. I guess the first paragraph is OK, but it's pretty thin. I mean, I dislike MS as much as anyone; for gosh sake, I'm a freelancer, and I turn down any work that would involve me touching an MS product. But my feelings aren't encyclopedic. Among the cognoscendi, the irony is worth a guffaw; but the irony that I see in a particular ad compaign just isn't NPOV. Is it time to VfD this (or merge it into Microsoft's entry?). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:50, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Though I've done some work on the article before and after posting the penultimate message, I wouldn't be at all offended if you put it up for VfD. Still, a redirect to Microsoft would be easier for all concerned. I suggest doing neither for a couple of days, and seeing whether somebody (even you or me) can make something worthwhile out of it in the meantime. -- Hoary 05:59, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

Will do. Maybe I can find something quotational that makes some of the point w/o being POV. If we have someone famous commenting on it... well, fair use quotations can be NPOV. Certainly I won't unilaterally VfD or merge. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:09, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

I tried to find something quotable that made some of the MS hypocricy point, but could not locate anything. I found comments and quips in blogs and the like, but those are too transient to use IMO. No luck finding a mainstream media source or famous person to quote. That doesn't mean there is not something out there I missed, just that I did not find it. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:25, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

The systematic eroding of our freedoms and the constant attempt to manipulate our minds is worth more than a hearty laugh. Each individual battle in a war, each word in an article, eact act in a pattern of behavior can be derided as unworthy of mention, yet they add up. Lose a battle at a time, a word at a time, an act at a time and a war, an article, and a goal can be lost. An item is not insignificant when what it is a part of is significant. Just as Wikipedia REPORTS on the war in Iraq and the battle between Republicans and Democrats, so too Wikipedia's place is to REPORT on various entities efforts to benefit themselves whenever it is large, systematic, influencial or otherwise noteworthy. I'm trying to do that here, but as noted, since I feel strongly about this, some POV (bias) inevitably slips though my attempt to be NPOV. 4.250.201.173 13:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Will VfD absent objections

I actually think this article would be OK with just the first paragraph factual blurb. But the digressions 4.250.201.173 keeps adding about everything that's wrong with MS, IP law, corporate propoganda, media bias, corporate personhood, and whatever else he feels ails the world, makes the whole entirely unencyclopedic. Certainly none of it relates to this article.

Maybe a more focused article on "Political Opposition to Microsoft" or something could incorporate some of these ideas. It would still need to be much more NPOV than the manifestos this page has been seeing. Or maybe 4.250.201.173 should think of just writing a manifesto, but publishing it somewhere other than an encyclopedia. There's nothing wrong with the advocacy genre, it's just not what WP is for. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:20, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

[edit] Placing this here for now (was in previous version)

4.250.201.173 12:46, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1984

"Thought thief" is also a reference to the George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and its notion of a thought police. That Microsoft, which has at various times itself been accused of IP theft, took this from Orwell has itself been criticized. (See Microsoft for details of these IP accusations and convictions.)

In Orwell's dystopian novel, the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects, labelling unapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or, in Newspeak, "crimethink". Quoting from the book:

All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

Big brother indoctrinates the "14-17 year olds", also.

[edit] Copyright concerns when making a film

In the process of making a film, a director must clear rights. ... If any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody then you have to clear the rights of that and pay to use the work. Almost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it. ... The film Twelve Monkeys was stopped by a court twenty-eight days after its release because an artist claimed a chair in the movie resembled a sketch of a piece of furniture that he had designed. The movie Batman Forever was threatened because the Batmobile drove through an allegedly copyrighted courtyard and the original architect demanded money before the film could be released. In 1998, a judge stopped the release of The Devil’s Advocate for two days because a sculptor claimed his art was used in the background. [1]

Anyone wishing to create a short film against thought crime without creating a thought crime may learn a different lesson than the one intended.

[edit] See also

• Happy Birthday to You a typical stolen thought
• Property

[edit] External links

• Thought Thieves Poster
• Thought Thieves homepage
• Comments If (IP Infringer) = (thought thief) Then (IP Enforcer) = (thought police)
• Comments "I tried to think of some witty comments here but there is nothing I can say funnier, darker, or more ironic than the story itself. This is even richer than when the MS Front Page license including a clause forbidding the use of Front Page to make web pages critical of Microsoft. The gall of these people! This is a new low, though, even for them. "Thought thieves"?! Someone up at MS is having a huge laugh over this."
• Microsoft, Apple and Xerox Microsoft stole Apple's Graphical User Interface

[edit] Background (maybe add some of this to article???)

Microsoft is a corporation, a legal fiction, created by law for the benefit of society and subject to whatever laws the people's representatives pass. The right to copy a creation of the mind (copyright), sometimes misleadingly lumped together with other legal creations (such as trademark laws) and called Intellectual Property, is here called "thought" and it's copying called "thievery".

While using DRM to control the use of medically embedded devices may someday (next year?) make the term and its 1984ish aspects reality, today calling it thought thievery is at best poetic and ironic and at worst a deliberately hypocritical attempt to mislead and indoctrinate.

Endless extensions of copyright terms, obfuscation using the term IP, law breaking by convicted monopolist Microsoft, confusion between property and sovereignty, confusion beween civil rights and consumer rights (military personnel called American interests in the military's behavior in Iraq "consumer rights"), DRM, DMCA, and draconian laws to help the record companies all make the worse interpretation come readily to mind. 4.250.201.173 13:03, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPoV

I think there's an article in this subject, but I don't think what's written so far warrants an article and I don't know how to proceed. I am fairly confident, though, that the article as it now stands, whatever other faults it may have, is neutral, so I think that the PoV tag can be removed. However, since I'm the person who has done much of the rewriting since the PoV tag was attached, I don't think it's proper for me to remove it. Over to somebody else. -- Hoary 03:38, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Whereupon somebody kindly did just that.

Whereupon a second person reinserted material that's blatantly unencyclopedic and roundly deserved the readdition of the NPoV tag. But instead of putting that back in, I simply reverted the page to its previous state.

Let's look at one example. Anyone who refers to Microsoft as "convicted monopolist Microsoft" (a phrase that appears in material that I have removed) must do two things: (i) indicate (perhaps via a link) precisely when and where Microsoft was convicted of being a monopolist, and (ii) indicate that this is directly relevant to Microsoft UK's trivial (if unintentionally amusing) competition "Thought Thieves". That it's relevant to the indignation and/or hilarity experienced by a significant number of people (including myself) is not a sufficient reason.

Unless of course you're simply keen to have this article nominated for VfD. -- Hoary 13:16, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

[edit] All hail Hoary

I really think you've done a great job shaping this into a real content article, minus the POV stuff, Hoary. At this point, I would not vote for a VfD, let alone start one. The problem is that 4.250.132.8 keeps reinserting long, non-encyclopedic, POV content. While your version is great, the other stuff is not.

So let me implore upon 4.250.132.8: Please leave off on inserting a manifesto into this article. It just doesn't belong here. I'm not saying you're wrong in any of the anti-MS schtick, this just isn't the place for it. Create a blog, or publish your manifesto in some Free Software opinion journal; or even try creating an article on "Political opposition to Microsoft" on WP (with a much more NPOV if so; but much of the content would still work there). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:35, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

I hate revert wars and I know I have an axe to grind on this issue and either reason alone would prevent me (4.250.xxx.xxx) from endless reverting. On the other hand, if someone else makes a change and they are mindlessly reverted, I MIGHT choose to support them. But here is where my choice to be an anon gets in the way. The other person would have to be making some other point or the same point in a dramaticly different way to avoid the suspicion of sockpuppet, which while it can be suspected of anyone, as an anon I feel a special responsibility to avoid that suspicion. 4.250.198.9 16:13, 24 May 2005 (UTC)