Revolutionary SketchUp Library
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Hi everyone!!!
Yesterday I was sitting in my architecture college library reading a book on low cost housing. There are a lot of costly books in our library which students can’t afford. They ‘ve got awesome illustrations, inspiration, knowledge to help us become a better architect. They only problem is that they are costly and no one can afford to buy them. That’s why the library is there. Be it rich or poor. Knowledge should be available to all the sections of society. Money and finance should never come in between gaining knowledge and excellence.So this idea of software library struck me. We’ll upload all the SketchUp knowledge …software, eBooks, plugins we have on this forum that are costly and not everyone can afford them. All these files will be compressed and password protected. The password would be revealed on exchange basis only. On exchange basis this knowledge would be spread to everyone. In this way poor students getting meager pocket money would really benefit from this library. They’ll gain advanced SketchUp knowledge and techniques that would other wise have been impossible.
Regarding the money, Sketchucation would be paying royalty to all those people who have worked hard in compiling that knowledge. This innovation is based on the same concept on which general libraries around the world are based. Libraries which are providing oceans of knowledge to rich and poor alike.
I strongly believe that every single person on this planet should be technically advanced and tech – savvy. That’s how a particular section of society or let’s say a generation progresses in terms of economy, intelligence, creativity and human resource development. If this doesn’t happen then the poor will always remain technologically backward as compared to the rich.
What are your opinions guys??!!!
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So very true!
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That's definitely illegal
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EDIT: Removed my task list at work that I accidentally pasted in here
I've drafted up a long response, but I'll skip it for now.
I think he's attempting to circumvent the illegalities with the line "Regarding the money, Sketchucation would be paying royalty to all those people who have worked hard in compiling that knowledge". I guess Arjun means the people who wrote the knowledge, not the people who MERELY collected it.
So SCF paying royalties would make it legal.
Just like in college teachers put together "Readers" or packets of professional published articles. The copy house pays the original publisher of the article a royalty. So a packet that consists of 10 to 20 articles gets photocopied legally, bound and distributed to students who only have to pay the costs of the royalties, the paper it is printed on, and a small labor cost to the copy house. It is an excellent way for a professor to put together their own type of textbook that covers relevant articles that they are specifically interested in.
EXCEPT that often the royalties are absurd. The royalty to reprint an article often is more than the price of the entire magazine the article was originally printed in. I had to purchase one of these packets on New Media and one on Landscape Architecture Theory. Each one cost about $200 for about 20 articles. That is an average of $10 per article. My understanding is that articles range anywhere from free to $20.00 on average for the royalties for a single article.
So unfortunately the idea of SCF gathering all these articles and publishing them legally by paying the royalties is great, except that it is not nearly as affordable as one would hope. There is no way SCF could cover the royalties on dozens of articles, for thousands of people who want something for free.
And skipping out on paying the royalty would of course be completely illegal.
Chris
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I was talking more about sharing the 'costly ebooks, software, and plugins'
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Of all the things that have tumbled out of your keyboard arjunmax09... this one is up there. Do you not read what you type before you hit the "Submit" button or something?
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@dkendig said:
Of all the things that have tumbled out of your keyboard arjunmax09... this one is up there. Do you not read what you type before you hit the "Submit" button or something?
I dunno, it's an awesome idea. It's just that it's not going to happen in our monetary based society.
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I agree, I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here, hoping he was not trying to suggest anything illegal. Just impossibly costly.
Essentially a library of expensive goods that SCF covers the cost of. So SCF packages V-ray, every SU book out there, all the smustard plugins, etc into a nice downloadable file for anyone who wants it. And SCF pays the $1,000's each time it gets downloaded so that it all stays legal.
It obviously will never like that.
Chris
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@dkendig said:
Of all the things that have tumbled out of your keyboard arjunmax09... this one is up there. Do you not read what you type before you hit the "Submit" button or something?
to true!
i think some people's typing skills are better than their thinking skills. (present company excluded, just a thought out loud
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SCF already is a global library of SU knowledge and resourses!??!?
WTF more do you want? look on rapidshare if you want bootlegged software. -
A "student friendly" public digital library will come in time, but there needs to be better management of intellectual properties. Many digital things are already free, or free as demo. I believe that you can even download single user versions of MS programming languages without commercial limitations on its use. In some ways, the Internet is the first step in that library, and "google", it's index system.
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My confused reading is a little different: I assumed he meant made electronically available, that is, as this forum is available. So since it already is, for free, what is the change, some sort of simplified delivery, bundling of available knowledge? Seems like the hard part may be the hardware provisioning to allow access to the web, but perhaps he means something more academically technical than is proffered here? I missed the point.
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@dkendig said:
Of all the things that have tumbled out of your keyboard arjunmax09... this one is up there. Do you not read what you type before you hit the "Submit" button or something?
I do read my post...but i was in a hurry..what's wrong??
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@xrok1 said:
@dkendig said:
Of all the things that have tumbled out of your keyboard arjunmax09... this one is up there. Do you not read what you type before you hit the "Submit" button or something?
to true!
i think some people's typing skills are better than their thinking skills. (present company excluded, just a thought out loud )
SCF already is a global library of SU knowledge and resourses!??!? WTF more do you want? look on rapidshare if you want bootlegged software. Dude..books are more superadvanced than SCF and can be read if one doesn't always have an internet connection..for...e.g. sketchup for dummies makes you a hero from zero in sketchup...not everyone has an internet connection..many use cybercafes..and talking about piracy? Google has given ads in newspapers in every country announcing that they're going to put digitized copies of all the books in the world on their site...if anyone has an objection..he may go to the court or contact google...meaning... a person is saying "hey i'm stealing your car and giving it to someone..if you have any issues just tell me, or go to the court!!"
check these 2 cases...Case I
There's a book in our library titled "Alvar Aalto - Between Humanism and materialism". Let's suppose it costs 30$. It's been written by Peter Reed and 5 other authors.
Assumption - 500 students read that book in a a span of 10 years. They don't spend a single penny buying that book but gain useful knowledge, and inspiration that helps them to become a better architect. So according to the theory "It's illegal to pass on intellectual property to others". .. the library has made the authors and publishers of that book poorer by 30x500 = 15000$. If library wasn't there... every single person of that 500 strength group would have bought the book and the money would have reached its rightful owner..
Case-II
Millions of people around the world listen to the song "Whenever Wherever" by Shakira on Internet Radio simultaneously and some of them let's say record that song on their computer by using Audacity and get a free copy of it. The same song costs 1$ on any legal music downloading site say... iTunes. If radio wasn't there then those people would have bought that track from iTunes and the money would have reached its rightful composer, lyricist, music publishing company and lot of others who have worked hard making that song.According to the calculation that particular 3 minutes on the radio have made all those people involved in making that music poorer by
1$millions...= millions of dollars...
Software companies across the world have persuaded the judiciaries across the worlds in making such copyright laws in their favour. That's why they are getting richer faster than authors, filmmakers, singers, architects, engineers, doctors and persons from various fields other than software and information technology. Suppose you have an old pc having windows xp installed on it and the software copyright law says you can't pass on that pc to any of your friend or relative.. That friend or relative will have to buy a separate windows xp for himself..!!!
Just a thought on the copyright issue.
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Hi Guys,
I have read the suggestions here and can see what is being put on the table. If I understand correctly, the suggestion is for SCF to operate a library of sorts. This would be a 'download' library. It would seem to be suggested that this would be okay, but only under normal library conditions, one book at a time in loaned and then returned for the next library member to borrow, read and return, so on and on.
Then again, if there was a way for the PDf (or other format) books to self destruct after the loan period, say a week or so, this might be achievable as it would be a based on the same system as a normal library.
Mike
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@unknownuser said:
Google has given ads in newspapers in every country announcing that they're going to put digitized copies of all the books in the world on their site...
guess we can just wait for this right?
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Arjun, If industry listen to your arguments, they would work to close libraries, and prohibit radio stations from playing their music. But I don't think that would happen, because libraries and radio stations help them sell.
Computers, and programs, are like "copy as type" on pages, you can't have one without the other. If I buy a computer and put software on it, I am allowed to let anyone use it. That's kind of like what happens with a library. I think that I can even put the system on line, and have anyone access it from a remote workstation as long as it is a networked version of the program.
Still, a logical argument can be made for any position. However, there is "no free lunch", so how does anyone decide fairly, who gets it free, and who pays for it?
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Arjun,
I like you arguments, but I think you missed a very important concept that is ownership. When you go to a library you don't have the sole right to a book. You have to share it with a thousand other users and mostly have to wait if another person is reading it. When you are in a library you are actually in a 'socialist' environment where everybody has access but not exclusive right to every book.
But the Shakira song is another matter. Songs were copied from the time of FM radios and cassettes. In some time you even have to give your girlfriend a mixed tape as a gift... as long as she doesn't pay for it.
What you are suggesting is truly revolutionary if not anti-capitalist. Without proper compensation you'll get the ire of authors, moreso the entrepreneurs. It is just sad that 'sharing' is frowned upon by our consumerist society. In real life there can never be a level playing field. On the contrary the Internet offers equal chances. A guy in Manila shantytown can download the same binary as a guy in a Manhattan loft. Thank God the Web is free. Actually thank Tim Berners-Lee.
Keith
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Arjun,
Have you heard of Project Guttenburg? If not, here is the link, http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page The site has 30,000 copyright free books there. I imagine there must be quite a few that would be of interest / use to the design community.
Let us know if you find anything of interest.
Mike
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Did a quick search! Check this out http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Architecture_(Bookshelf Loads to be going on with
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