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tres3 writes "Wired magazine has an excellent four page article discussing Brazil's new approach to Intellectual Property rights. It discusses everything from battling with the international pharmaceutical industries, to song sampling, to the national adoption of Linux. Richard Stallman
stated that India's political commitment to free software is second only to Brazil's after attending a weeklong free software teach-in for members of the Brazilian national congress, where 161 out of 594 members of congress, from a broad range of parties, had signed up with the free software caucus - making it one of the largest caucuses in the Brazilian government."
There's also a Brazillian company that sells a Linux distribution that's reasonably popular in the area. So Linux is also providing income to locals, which tends to earn political support.
Uhh... you didn't mean this Milton Friedman, did you? The one who helped Pinochet double the poverty rate in Chile? Unlike Free/Open Source Software, which extends the purchasing power of government dollars, stimulates local industry, and builds local knowledgebases, Friedman's neoliberalism kills local industry and impoverishes local people. Cardoso's administration of Friedman's poison left his country a Switzerland inside an India, with the widest disparity between rich and poor in the world. I am equally excited that Lula is championing FOSS and calling for trade that is both free and reciprocal (as well as noting in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos that free and secure citizens are one of the main prerequisites for a free market). Friedman just doesn't relate.
-- "Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep voting? Do you think you're voting for something?"
The project that started it all is called FUST, a nationwide initiative to connect schools to the Internet. The project, in its first release, required Microsoft Windows in all servers and clients (such preferences are irregular in Brazil, by the way; one should only specify features and technical specs, not brand names).
Microsoft, of course, was OK with being named the sole participant in the project and saw nothing wrong with it.
But the project was changed under the new government and now it requires open source (any open source software, not just Linux).
And now you see Microsoft going around saying how wrong it is for the government to leave them out of the party. It's rich!
However, they misrepresent the situation. They were not left out of the party. All they have to do is open (really open, not "share") the source of their OS (yes, they can continue to charge for it; free as in freedom, not price). FUST is not a Linux-only project.
Microsoft IS invited to join in. They won't, of course, because they can't meet the technical requirements, but that's their choice.
There are, of course, countries that deliberately disregard IP to get for free what's too expensive. But I wouldn't say that's because these places don't produce IP. Brazil (and India) are particularly bad examples, if you're looking for examples of "pirate because they don't produce" countries.
Both Brazil and India create massive amounts of IP. Aside from the software produced in India, both countries have massive music industries. You yourself mentioned the large Indian movie industry.
So the thing isn't that these particular countries don't produce IP--on the contrary, they produce a lot. They just don't *export* a lot of creative IP.
In order to export something as taste-driven as movies and music, there needs to be a demand for it. That demand can only be created through exposure. If you don't know what bossa nova sounds like, how would you ever think to buy it? The US film and music industries have so much money, and the US itself has so much cultural influence already in place, that whatever's hot in the US will have a demand somewhere overseas. If we kept as close an eye on the Brazilian music market (or if the Brazilian music market had the marketing channels that the US already has in place), we'd probably be importing Brazilian IP like crazy.
And it's often the IP producers themselves that want permissiveness. The Wired article focuses on Gilberto Gil, who is not only the Brazilian minister of culture, but a musical institution. He donated a track to Wired's CD under a creative commons license. He wanted to release a a different one originally, but Time Warner had the copyright on that song, and wouldn't let him. Time Warner, of course, doesn't create music; they publish and publicize it. They have a massive bargaining power with musicians (especially those beginning their careers) because the musicians are desperate for exposure, and would mostly be unable to compete for shelf space against a marketing machine like a major lable. So they are willing to sell their IP cheap, because they lack any other way to create demand for their stuff.
If you want to say that strict IP regimes exist in order to encourage the progress of marketing and distribution methods, then that's fine. But I think that most people would agree that that's not what copyright was created to do. The artists want their music to be heard, not just for the sake of art, but because that's how demand for more of their music is created. Gil (and Byrne, and Chuck D, and the Beastie Boys)all gave this stuff away because it in their interests--the creators' interests.
Democratizing knowledge so that anyone/everyone can benefit.
That's got to be the most asinine comment I've heard it a while.
Democracy is not about giving intellectual property rights of an (insert here: idea, song, book, etc.) to everyone.
Democracy is about giving everyone the chance to VOTE on how they will be RULED.
As for intellectual property, the idea is that A PERSON who DEVELOPS an IDEA can give it to EVERYONE.
Or THAT PERSON can RESTRICT IT to WHOMEVER they choose, be it a friend or a CUSTOMER.
That's the whole idea of PROPERTY in general.
If Brazil wants to create a means (or adopt a means) of allowing people TO GIVE away IDEAS, no problem.
But if Brazil wants to create a means (or adopt a means) TO SEIZE the IDEAS of UNWILLING PERSONS and give them to EVERYONE, then there's a big problem, and that's called CONFISCATION.
If you begin to confiscate IP and give it away without the approval of the originator of the IP, then you remove the monetary incentive for them to create. And you'll decrease the overall total creativity in a society. (see COMMUNISM, EFFECTS OF in Wickipedia or Google. Or read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand).
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Unfortunately this article, while interesting does not show the context of the series of articles in which this one appeared. The series was talking about Gilberto Gil and how he (and Brazil) have embraced the Creative Commons copyright licenses.
Creative Commons is based on a few simple principles, one of which being that new things are built from the past. Copying/stealing ideas and modifying or improving them is how we get new and better technology, art, and other things. Very little of what you see today is truely innovative and not based on anything prior.
The Linux pricetag isn't a marketing scheme (or at least wasn't Linus' intent originally). It's free because Linus (and others) wanted to share what a collective of people worked together to build, and invited others to help improve it. As mentioned by others, Apple does some innovation, but mostly they innovate by taking what exists and modifying it to look cool and be hip.
Apple didn't create the GUI interface, Xerox did - Apple stole it and MS stole it from Apple. Apple didn't create it's OS X core, they took the BSD kernel, tweaked it, and then slapped on a shiny UI. Don't get me wrong, I really like OS X and what Apple's done with a BSD kernel (especially after my own attempts at running FreeBSD) and a nicer UI than X. But I would not say I ever thought twice about owning a Mac prior to OS X - I didn't. They were ugly and underpowered without the ability to do true multitasking (much like Windows 3.1).
Finally, your analogy is weak in that WalMart is a large (multi?)national chain owned by a single, small group of people/stakeholders. Linux is an open, community-owned system that cannot easily be contributed to one person anymore. Yes, Linus is still in charge of what gets into the kernel, but he's not developing it all. He's not writing all the kernel modules for new devices and hardware.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
America, if you dont know, its a continent. There is South America, NORTH AMERICA and Central America. So, if you say that the Bush page cant be visited by people outside America then you are referring to the entire continent! We live in Argentina, and i cant visit the Bush's page. Argentina its in America Continent!!! how could be that people who reads slashdot cant understand the difference bettwen A CONTINENT and a COUNTRY!!! The worlds go bads if the people of the most powerful country of the earth are so ignorant. Sorry my english. Here in Argentina we have subway, internet, cars, directv. For those that thinks that we lives like the indians (in old times!).
I support open source/free software and have voted for and support the current government, but the article is about all that's wrong about free software becoming more or less mainstream. Government-sponsored open source events are full of feminists, anti-globalization activists and rappers. The average Brazilian nerd is not that different from the average Slashdot nerd, and I suppose you can understand what our reaction was when these kinds of people started coming to our events and pretending they know more about free software than ourselves.
Please do not judge us from what you learn from this mediocre article.