Hey, that's not your comic!

[naruki_oni]

Every once in a while when I am reading my daily bunch of comics, I get the deja vu feeling that I've already read one before. At times like those, I wonder to myself if the authors are deliberately plagiarizing or if they, like me, just have bad memories and forget that they didn't come up with the idea themselves.

Since most of the comics I read are pretty indistinguishable from each other, I also wonder if I am not just suffering from deja vu instead of actually remembering a different comic. I can certainly never remember the name of the supposed original, and searching my stack for the past few days invariably turns up no proof.

Until today, that is.

Oddly enough, the thief is someone who probably gets more circulation than his victim. Well, that seems odd to me, since you'd expect the funnier, more remarkable comic to be less likely to steal. But perhaps the rest of you are more cynical and experienced in these things than I am (I'm looking at you, BB2).

Without further ado, I present Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur and Dave Blazek's Loose Parts.





In case you were wondering, the Non Sequitur came out June 29, and the Loose Parts came out June 25.

Comments

Re: Not to worry.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

It's the principle of the thing, Naruki-san. I don't think they have a right to require me to enter personal information.

And it's people like you [dramatic pointing finger gesture here] that cause people like me to get ads for wart-clearing nose creams with added wart growth formula. And ads for "enlargement pills to shrink your size". And for "the perfect running shoes for a sedentary lifestyle.". It's all you.

Though I don't think they have invented any product yet for intellectual republicans.

Eh...

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they don't have a right to require personal information (in essence your payment), but then again you don't have a right to free access to the comic. It's a classic, 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' trade-off, that rightly is left up to you to decide what to do.

Re: Eh...

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly why I did not try Naruki's solution, and did not write a false date and gender. I'd rather not have the comic, than submit to this.

No prob.

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

Just responding to the "they don't have the right" part. Which obviously they do, whether it's a good idea on their part or not.

Re: No prob.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

No, they don't have the right. They may do by brute force - that is, by not having any agency to which I could complain. But in principle, they don't have a right. They can demand money for their product, they have no right to ask for personal info.

Basically, I think if more people did it my way - and did not go into the archives - they'd see a sinking in their popularity and in their ad exposure, and then they might just do the right thing - which is to make that details form optional rather than mandatory.

Of course they do.

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

It's their property. They have the right to set the price of sale or lease, including setting it at you providing personal data. You have the right to refuse to buy. That you don't like the price set doesn't remove their right.

As to right in an ethical sense, you're right. It's a sucky policy and if enough people refused to trade data for access, they might opt to do something different... most probably either remove access to the archives completely or make them accessible only by credit card purchase, in which case they have your personal data anyway.

I beg to differ

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

They don't have the right, in the same sense that employers don't have the right to ask me to sleep with them in order to get a job.

The proper price for a job should be named in work hours, professional behavior or so. Some coins are not appropriate in this exchange.

Robbers don't have the right to collect my money in exchange for my life.

Is there a law against people requesting personal info?

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

In Israel, that is. In most places I know of, there is no law preventing that in exchange for services.

Note that services are different from employment.

Employers are legally barred from asking for sex, but they are certainly allowed to ask your age/gender - depending on circumstances (have to show lack of unfair discrimination).

In fact, asking for age might be a legal requirement in this kind of situation. Certainly the US is heading more towards a totalitarian model where getting all your private details removes you from having to worry about privacy.

Robbers are breaking a law. What law is this company breaking?

Re: Is there a law against people requesting personal info?

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised at you. Since when is the law an exact reflection of people's rights. In the time before slavery was abolished, did people have a right to own other people? Somebody knowingly misleads you about his personal intentions and you suffer heartbreak. Does he have a right to do that? Hardly. But there's no actual law about it.

Rights.

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

Rights exist only so far as a community has defined them and is willing to defend them. Otherwise, you are speaking of ideals and are living in Plato's cave.

As far as the comics go, they are published in the US and governed by the rights as defined there.

Re: Rights.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

That's a whole other issue, and runs much deeper than comics: If they are governed by US concepts, what happens to their consumers outside of the US? The way I define my rights here and their rights may be different than in the US. This problem runs through the whole issue of globalization, especially in the era of the Internet.

It's actually THE issue concerning rights.

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

A lot of people mistakenly believe that "rights" are tangible, non-made up things. Somehow inherent or inalienable.

They are simply what the governing authority determines to provide and protect.

You have a right to life insofar as your government offers to support that right. If they don't, then you're screwed. Obviously, you can still be killed. In that case, the government promises to exact some sort of penalty on the person who violated your right.

If you think you have a right, then you should be able to point to the governing authority who provides that right to you. If not, you are simply making up ideas and declaring they are rights - that doesn't work.

And don't forget the governing authority has to control both you and those who may try to violate your rights. If they don't have the jurisdiction, then you don't have the right.

Re: It's actually THE issue concerning rights.

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Rights are intangible. If they were up to the governing body, new rights would never be recognized, and things like slavery would never have been abolished.

I could agree that a right may only exist if there is some group of people that agree that it is, in fact, a right. But to say that it's the governing body that decides what's a right and what isn't would leave you without any rights at all. In fact, political bodies only give you rights because they have to, because they want to be re-elected and maintain the balance of power. They don't decide what's right and what's not. They decide what you'll be punished for or not. It's not the same thing.

It's not just that they agree.

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

They have to also guarantee it somehow.

The mistake you are making is confusing "what is right" with "what is a right". The first is a moral judgement, and is strictly in the mind of the judger. The second is the one that says what you can and cannot do, and is guaranteed by some governing body.

By governing body, I do not mean a government. I mean some powerful figure or group that can enforce your rights. This could be a government, but it could just as easily be the head of a household.

I have the right to free speech, but only because that is written down on an important piece of paper (that is now stained with Bush's poop). Actually, I may not have that right anymore, as I am not in the same jurisdiction and I can't read the local laws. ;-)

The rights that are "intangible" are the ones that are figments of your imagination. You (and many others) make them up, but never take the time or make the effort to formalize them. Those "rights" are what many religious folk refer to as morals.

Slavery hasn't been abolished. It still exists in parts of the world, and it is still legal. It's not right, but it's their right to do it. Until a bigger government takes that away from them.

Since the law created and guaranteed those rights.

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

You cannot just make up anything you want to call a right. It has to have some power behind it to back it up.

Re: Is there a law against people requesting personal info?

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

There's one here, but it has a pretty strict definition of 'personal information'.

Of course it's me.

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

Who do you think gave them your email address?

Darn!

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

I was blaming my cats for that!