Slashdot Mirror
Gilmore On Hardware-Restricted Content
An unnamed reader links to John Gilmore's explanation of just why it's a bad idea to let companies (Intel in particular) cave to industry demands for so-called content protection in hardware. The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.
The idea of patent and copyright law is that if you allow someone a limited-time monopoly on inventions/publications then they will be able to make money on it. This encourages people to come up with wacky new ideas and thereby helps society in general.
:)
This makes sense to some extent. However, I don't buy that preventing anyone from copying this comment for 99 years after my death is going to help society a whole lot. (Especially since I don't plan on dying for a long time.)
To prove my dedication, I hearby release this comment into the public domain.
and all new hardware required, and implemented horrifically draconian anti-copy-anything protection which both took away the ability to copy for reasonable use, or took away nick the l337 h4X0r's ability to copy 'stuff', ancient second hand hardware, free hardware, is going to become rather desirable.
You're not the first to think of "pre-ban computers" along the lines of "pre-ban assault rifles." If you're interested in this line of thought, read more: Google pre-ban cbdtpa
Will I retire or break 10K?
The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'.
From A History of Copyright in The U.S.:
1790: US Constitution Copyright law in the US is derived from English copyright law (Statute of Anne) and common law. The framers of the U.S. Constitution made copyright law purely federal: "The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts . . . by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." Congress subsequently enacted the Copyright Act of 1790 and major revisions to it in 1831, 1870, 1909, and 1976.
After 1976, of course, revisions started piling up to accomodate technologies. But in essence it seems to me that it was there to protect ideas so others would innovate. Innovation in regards to mass media is not something we're seeing a whole lot of (I would go so far to say that it's discouraged by the mainstream). I agree that there's nothing gained by copyright now in mass media cases because all we're subjected to is the same ol rehashed junk. Why does Britney Spears even need a copyright on her songs when Christina Aguilera is just singing basically the same things?
But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right.
Definitely not a moral or natural right, but it is a protected right. Copyright doesn't exist completely without backing. Besides, I'd say if you look outside of the scope of movies and music, you could find some justification for copyrights (at least in the fields of science and technology).
Another distortion of the basic idea came when they started granting copyrights to people who performed the works. Actors are not authors, singers are not authors. They are just doing a job, and should be paid - just once - for doing it, like all other workers. Why should Britney Spears or any other singer be paid millions for singing a song that someone else, probably a 9-to-5 office worker, wrote?
Because there's quite a lot of effort that goes into crafting a style--easily as much effort goes into RECORDING a song as does WRITING it. Plus, a performer's copyright only applies to their performance. Remember: the constitution was written before timeshifting music was possible at all.
If the intent of the Constitution were to be applied, only people who wrote something, be it books, plays, screen scripts, music, watever, would be entitled to own copyrights.
No, that'd be the letter. The Constitution's copyright / patent powers are there so Congress can protect the right of "creative people" to their work for a "limited time." The fact that both of these definitions has been extended to a much longer period of time is neither unexpected (we live longer, and people are creating new ways to create things) nor, in itself, a problem.
(The problem, btw, lies in distorting the IP rules to apply to something else [copyrighting what should be patented, patenting what should be trademarked] and continually pressing the "limited time" part of copyright.)
The ironic thing is that none of these measures will prevent piracy. If anything, they will anger previously law-abiding citizens to the point where they will purchase pirated copies of things that they would otherwise have purchased legitimately.
BTW, if you want to talk about years of losing money to users pirating games, music, videos, and anything else that can possibly be pirated you might talk to the artists, authers, composers and performers about auditing practises at these poor suffering corporations. They have been cheating on royalties for years and using various illegal strongarm tactics. They are the last companies on Earth that have any moral claim to our sympathy.
Annandale pledge: