FSF General Counsel Eben Moglen Talks On Upside

ContinuousPark writes, "From an Upside article based on conversations with Eben Moglen, FSF general counsel and author of Anarchism Triumphant: 'In such a context, Moglen says, distribution of a software tool that lets European movie watchers watch American films on DVD before they hit the local theaters or lets Web surfers break through their employer's site censorship policies are about as politically expressive as dumping a boatload of tea into Boston Harbor. Granted, it may not be legal under the current framework. But legal frameworks change. How long before today's encryption crackers become the next generation's heroes? In the face of such potential changes, Moglen says the only mistake for an attorney in his position is standing idly by while new history is in the making.' "

Comments

Re:My thoughts

[crush]

As an "anarchist", he is obviously going to be anti-regulations, and so his stance that today's DeCSS authors are tomorrow's heroes is little short of ridiculous.

So if a "vegetarian" were to enter a debate over whether or not to eat meat and praised people that had found a way to avoid eating meat as heroes, that would be ridiculous? You seem to misunderstand that the classification of anyone as a hero is a subjective thing and he is merely expressing the opinion that these are people that he admires

They're not heroes, they're just in way over their heads after having done something before thinking of the consequences.

A little patronizing that. How do you know that they haven't made a principled and thoughtful decision to do this?

And look at Matthew Skala. Yeah sure he broke Cyberpatrol's encrypted site list, but he's certainly no "hero" - he caved in as soon as Mattel threatened him with a lawsuit.

That would seem to indicate a rational, thoughtful desire on his part not to become a martyr. He's already done a lot to admire, he's raised the issue, made it public and shown us the threat.

And the point is that even if these people were to become tomorrow's heroes, at the moment they are still breaking the law, and as such should expect to face the consequences. Sure the law isn't perfect, but breaking it to point this out is just childish and immature. Change in the law itself needs to be enacted within the law, otherwise it is little more than throwing tantrums, something which /.ers seem to be quite good at recently.

Tell it to the people that founded this country on the basis of a tax-revolt, tell it to Gandhi, tell it to Martin Luther King, tell it to Nelson Mandela, tell it to the German underground resistance during WW2, tell it to anyone that's ever done anything to bring about change.

Your diatribe about Stallman descends into the merely personal. No one is really evaluating him as a hero or otherwise on the basis of his arrogance or the colour of his socks or anything other than the fact that he had a idea that involved change to the way things are and tried to implement it.

Intellectual property isn't like Physical Property

[redelm]

The ability to rapidly and cheaply copy, transmit and store information brought on by the Internet and computers has put alot of pressure Intellectual property laws.

Originally, Intellectual property law was modelled after the highly successful and largely settled physical property laws. But from the outset, it was recognized that intellectual property was differenent. That's why copyrights and patents are of limited duration.

The holders of IP, some of whom are large, powerful corporations naturally want to protect and enhance their existing assets. This is to the detrement of the citizenry, because no new creation can retroactively occur. At the very least, new IP protections should apply _only_ to new works.

We need people like Eben who know the law to help ensure the IP corps don't run roughshod over the rights of the people.