James The Least

This is like second century Christianity on the web.

1. Christian preacher makes extraordinary claims
2. Non-Christian responds by lampooning both the claims and the preacher
3. Christian preacher damns non-Christian for daring to criticize him, rewrites what he originally wrote, lies by saying it was written that way originally, attempts to have criticism censored and burned

How little things have changed since the Celsus-Origen debate.

stephan huller

I still say this goes back to the attempts of the Biblioblogging community to dehumanize certain bloggers to 'not worthy' status. They facilitated this abuse. If Joel thought of Neil as a peer (which is true by any objective standard) none of this would have gotten carried away to this level. There is just something strange in human beings where ideas and 'higher ideals' (= protecting Jesus from mythicists) take over and displaces a basic sense of decency which believe is in each one of us.

I know on some level Joel is a decent person. After all, he went to a school which reinforced altruistic ideals into his brain. I bet you that if Neil was on the street robbed and shot Joel would help him. On that level his altruistic impulses 'work.' But its in the realm of ideas and the depersonalized world of the internet and 'words on a page' that he no longer sees the person in Neil. Very unusual phenomenon.

I remember when I 'met him' on the internet. He used to go around calling himself 'Polycarp.' I think I said something like 'Hi Polycarp, meet Marcion!' I guess this whole 'Polycarp' moniker was so juvenile that even he stopped using it especially now that he is trying to take himself to be a 'serious scholar.' But I think that goes to the core of Joel's self-identity. He thinks himself to be a modern version of Polycarp. Remember the movie 'Jesus of Montreal' (probably not because most of you aren't Canadian). It was about a young man who thought he was Jesus. Jesus at least is a sympathetic character. Who on earth would dream of being Polycarp in the modern world? A bully, which is why I always bring up his weight.

He must be a very complicated - even twisted - individual. There is all this hate inside of him but he pretends to himself that he is 'full of love.' Maybe he really is loving to those he loves. But there is all this irrational aggression which he needs to direct at people he deems insult and demean his Lord. It's absurd but it is quite fascinating at the same time. Maybe that is why I was drawn to him. He's quite a character - almost deserving of a movie script.

Bingo the Clown-O

Where’s Edward Snowden when we need him?

Your blog rawks.

Thank you very much for blogging.

Keep it up!

- Bingo

Bingo the Clown-O

Well then there ya go. That’s all that is needed. If it can be shown that Watts published his stuff under a Creative Commons license then the rest is all legalese and academic.

Maybe Neil should set aside pursuing Watts – and instead focus directly on pursing Wordpress – for violating their own terms.

Forget about the emails. What difference would the emails have made EVEN IF NEIL DID GET THEM?

Watts isn’t allowed to unilaterally change the terms of content that he already published - if the new terms are more restrictive. (and they are)

hjalti

Yup, I hope Neil pointed out to WP that the great scholar posted it under a cc. That should settle it.

aspronot

This begs the question of course. If he truly believed that his "all rights reserved" trumped the CC, then why the panicked and furtive removal of CC from every page on his blog? There would be no need of any action unless he was being less than truthful in the above post.

His use of the word "refused" is worrisome too. If Neil did not receive any emails as he claims then, at worst, there was only a lack of response on his part. That's a very different animal to refusal.

Grog

Whether or not Godfrey received a notice, we can be fairly certain that Automattic's protocol was not followed. For one thing, Watts never posted on Neil's site requesting that the post be amended or taken down.

Automattic DMCA Policy

It does not appear that Watts followed that protocol.

I would like to know from Tom Verenna, as Watts' main defender here, if he approves of Watts' change of his CC license to regular Copyright after filing his DMCA claim?

Here are some more questions:

--What part of his short post does Watts thinks needs protection? His compilation of websites? His use of the word "egg-cept?" What exactly did Neil "steal" from Joel that was worth anything?

--Don't you think that if Joel did not intend for Neil's blog to be taken down, he would have pursued other avenues to get his grievance met? Like, for instance, contacting Neil or following the Automattic policy on filing DMCAs?

--Doesn't the change of licence after the fact suggest dishonesty and attempt to retroactively cover some tracks?

--In light of his reply to Neil on his own blog (describing Vridar as "worthless"), doesn't it seem to be a vindictive act?

--Are you not at all bothered by Watts' exploitation of legitimate intellectual property right protections in order to pursue a vendetta against Neil who had criticized him? Basically, using the law in an illegitimate and dishonest way to silence his critic?

Grog

No, it doesn't but it is a much looser protection. If this had been, for example, a work of fiction, or digital art, and Neil took it and copied it without attribution that would be a legitimate claim (however, transformative copying would be protected and I would argue that Neil's use was transformative because it was framed by critique). However, Neil took it and criticized it. The attribution was clear in Neil's post as was the purpose, a critique of the substance of the post. Copying it in its entirety is questionable and he probably should be careful about it, but considering that the number of actual words that were original (very short post), that it was on a blog under a CC license, that Watts tried to hide the CC license retroactively, that there was no market share affected, that it was non-commercial use...all these things work in Neil's favor. Also, Watts didn't make an attempt to contact Neil publicly through his blog as Automattic's policy suggests. There's a lot going against Watt here.

Zwaarddijk

What strikes me here is whether Joel Watts is aware that his god commanded people not to witness falsely, as it is quite obvious he is doing. OTOH, maybe that Christ-fellow abrogated that particular commandment, it's not like it's one of the ten big ones - I bet it's just a Jewish Ritual Commandment.

JoeWallack

JW:
Ironically Jesus actually returned but was so disgusted by Joel Watt's behaviour that he went back to Heaven for a cheek implant. DH, does this mean I now have to take aa off Ignore?


Joseph

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