RasterWeb!

After I made the Friday Night Drawbot I told the folks at Sharpie about it, and they posted it on their blog.

The only problem was, I read their Terms and Conditions, and was unable to agree to all of them…

I figured I had a few options, either submit my post, and just ignore the wording of the Terms and Conditions, not submit my post at all (and I have done this in the past, given up on things due to the ToS, etc.) or I could submit it, but add a disclaimer… I opted for the disclaimer.

I built a Drawbot that uses Sharpie Markers. (A Drawbot is a robot that can draw pictures)

Please note that in your Terms and Conditions I cannot agree to 3. B. (“each and every element of the Submission is an original work created by you” I used ideas that others have had, and code others have written. Drawbots have been around for many, many years. Open source hardware, and software, were used which were not created by me. I did however, write the post, and take all the photos. That work is all of my own.)

There was no way I could accept “every element of the Submission is an original work created by me” when I used other people’s code, other people’s ideas, and hardware that other people designed and built. Sharpie’s Terms and Conditions are not bad in any way, they just make it harder to take into account the culture of sharing that exists nowadays. I mean, lawyers like to see things in black and white, but there’s a whole lot of gray being created lately.

So the next time you’re confronted with an agreement, and a text box, let them know what you can and cannot agree with.

Also, I’d like to thank Sharpie for posting submission, even with the “disclaimer” I added to the description. I’m assuming most people don’t have an issue with the Terms and Conditions. I am not most people, obviously.