RMS says Creative Commons Unacceptable

Mr A Coward writes "Richard Stallman has stated in an interview that he no longer supports Creative Commons licenses. In the interview carried on LinuxP2P.com, and which is largely about the P2P and DRM issues, Stallman ends by saying: 'I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.' He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works." The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all. What's your take? Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?

Comments

What bunk!

[Mrs. Grundy]

I'm sure this won't make me a lot of new friends on /. but there is some serious bunk here and the creative commons complaints is the least of it. Mr. Stallman seems to be metaphor-challenged. While he minces words about the difference between intellectual property and copyright in one sentence, in another he says:

RMS: People have a right to share copies of published works; P2P programs are simply a means to do it more usefully, and that is a good thing.

If we are going to mince words maybe we should start with an honest appraisal of the difference between sharing (as in borrowing a book) and copying. All of us who make a living being creative understand the shortcomings of current copyright legislation and know that we need people to think about creative work in new ways if we are going to take IP law into the 21st century; we know tilting in favor of multi-national corporations at the expense of individuals is a mistake, but we are not going to get anywhere with the type of lazy thinking which asserts things like, "If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong." I'll take Lawrence Lessig's ideas over Mr. Stallman's any day.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

So, I would say that in the final analysis Lessig's ideas reduce to Stallman's. They are just more palatable to you because they seem to say something different, and you hold out some forlorn hope that there is a reasonable way to restrict digital copies.

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

I'll be your buddy.

RMS has made a cottage industry out of passing his opinions off as fact. He believes that copyright laws are unethical, therefore it is a fact that copyright laws are unethical.

Now maybe in a reality-free zone where everybody works for the common good and nobody takes more than his* fair share, that would be a reasonable thing to pass off as a fact. But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.

The guy is an idealogue. More power to him for practicing what he preaches, but his "my way or the highway" philosophy really marginalizes any arguments that he presents.

-h-

* the "gender-neutral" "his"

Re:What bunk!

[sholden]

It's not lazy thinking. It's what he believes, and he is up front and honest about it.

Re:What bunk!

[FortKnox]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy. You are not 'sharing' your copy, you are creating and giving me a copy.
This isn't rocket science, people!

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

I suspect that the answer to your question is quite apparent to you, but you're really looking to generate a theoretical debate about what form "information" must take to be considered infringing. We don't live in a digital world, we live in a practical world - think practically.

-h-

Re:What bunk!

[stormcoder]

All of us who make a living being creative understand the shortcomings of current copyright legislation and know that we need people to think about creative work in new ways if we are going to take IP law into the 21st century;

You must mean all the greedy bastards out there. Not all copyrighted works shared on P2P networks are illegally shared. There are quite a few artists out there that only distribute on P2P networks.
IP law? There's no such thing.

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

Good point. I always say the problem with P2P is that it 'copies' instead of shares. The difference being that if I borrow a book from the library, the library no longer has that book. P2P systems are not 'file sharing' systems but are 'file copying and distribution' systems.

I agree that artists do need to be compensated but at the same time, users should have the right to share. And even furthermore, perhaps even copy A LITTLE (for instance copying for my personal computer, my IPOD, my TIVO, my wifes computer, etc). But unlimited copying of files is perhaps a bit overboard.

The problem is that no one has come up with a solution to solve this universally and so the problem persists.

Lawsuits won't solve this problem. You have to intriduce a new paradigm and model that allows limited copying but unlimited sharing (and zero copying of copies).

Re:What bunk!

[Syberghost]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

I could use DRM to give you a time-limited copy. Assuming the hardware and OS support DRM.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy

So is the case with the book. When it is over, you have a copy, albait mangled and compressed, in your brain.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

He believes that copyright laws are unethical, therefore it is a fact that copyright laws are unethical.

Well yeah, when I believe somethihg I consider it to be a fact. That's what I mean when I say I believe it. When I'm unsure of the truth of something I haven't reached the point of believing it.

But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.

You believe that so you state it as a fact. Everyone does this. Your point, that he presents things he believes to be true as if they are true, is silly. Yes, I state that as a fact... because I believe it.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to practice what you preach when you can also live off academic grants.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

Uh, huh. So, you have to copy a program from disk into memory in order for it to run. Is that illegal? How about if you have a huge cluster?

Also, tell me how you restrict making a copy without breaking into people's computers or putting police chips in everything? Which is worse, a world in which people can freely copy stuff, or a world in which every single move you make with anything digital is carefully monitored so you can't? There isn't much of an in-between here you know. I you don't have the careful monitoring, people will make copies. They already do, and all the enforcement efforts of RIAA have not made even the tiniest dent in filesharing.

Personally, I don't want the police state.

Giving incentive to the creators of stuff via copyright is growing more and more pointless every day. So, be brave and give up the stupid idea. It won't work. It can't work. Think of something better.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

We don't live in a digital world, we live in a practical world - think practically.

In both cases the thing being "shared" is information. The difference is that in the case of the book, the information is coupled with a physical object and thus causes the confusion in the form of some people's physical-world-coupled simian brains being unable to realize what it is they are sharing. Any "practical" measures to restrict sharing of information (which is what this is all about) will and must lead to totalitarian measures in regards to digital communication equipment i.e. computers and internet. It is not only "practical" but the only way.

Re:What bunk!

[baadger]

So I suppose to port the idea of lending or sharing a book or movie to a friend you would have to have it so your copy is disabled for a period of time whilst their copy in unlocked. Sort of like giving your friends access to a user/pass restricted website which is restricted to the visitors IP address for a fixed period of time after you login.

If such a DRM scheme was possible without tamper we would indeed have the perfect 'sharing' mechanism.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

DRM is essentially a tiny policeman in my computer, watching me to prevent me from breaking the rules, or at least detect when I have. That isn't an acceptable solution. My computer is MY computer, not some random artist/programmer/musician's computer. I paid for it. It's sitting on my desk. Would you destroy the concept of physical property to prop up your failing scheme for 'intellectual property'?

Re:What bunk!

[c_forq]

Except you can't sell your mangled copy, and the owner of the book can still sell the book. That is the real issue.

Re:What bunk!

[jacksonj04]

*applauds*

Transferable ownership keys. Now there's an idea.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

we are not going to get anywhere with the type of lazy thinking which asserts things like, "If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong." I'll take Lawrence Lessig's ideas over Mr. Stallman's any day.

One thing Stallman is not is a lazy thinker. In fact, I charge you with being a lazy thinker. You who are too lazy to see your way past the status quo. Who, in endorsing Lessig over Stallman seem to think a simple modification of the principles of copyright are enough to reconcile the creator's need for compensation with the internet's inherent zero-marginal cost nature.

You are wrong and Stallman is right. Jack Valenti unknowingly said it best -- "You can't compete with free." What Valenti did not understand, you do not understand and Stallman does understand is that basic axiom - if you can't beat them, join them.

One such method of "joining them" is a modern version of comissioned art. The internet makes it easy to share copies with a billion of your best friends, it also has the potential to easily aggregate funding from a billion "patrons."

Take the defunct TV show "Farscape" as an example. Production costs per episode were on the order of $2-3M each. If the production company is able to guarantee $3.3M in revenue per episode that means a ROI of at least 10% which is decent in the TV world were 90% of the shows aren't profitable until they reach syndication.

So, how could the production company have earned that kind of revenue? Without copyright. Yep, you read that right. Here's the details:

As a SWAG, lets say there was a fanbase of 10M worldwide. If just one third could be convinced to pony up $1 per episode - that's $3.3M right there. By using the internet and some sort of paypal like system (pay attention to what google is doing in this area, they seem to be thinking right along these lines) they could collect that $1 per episode and put it into an escrow account. When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins. When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

Such a system benefits all parties - the production company is guaranteed a profit before they invest a single dime, something completely unheard of in the world of entertainment business. In return for that guarantee, the end result is made freely available to one and all so that the people who funded the creation can share it with anyone they want without legal or moral issues. Ultimately the free distribution of previous episodes acts as advertising for future episodes.

Furthermore it is 100% free-market, no government intervention required, no dollars wasted on the FBI tracking down pirates because piracy is meaningless in such a system. And if the show sucks? People are only out a buck, not a big a loss and the chances of the next episode being funded goes down - it is survival of the fittest with no middlemen like advertisers and "programming execs" to muddle up the difference between good shows and crappy shows.

So - that's one idea demonstrating why copyright is indeed obsolete. How about you come up with one yourself instead of hiding behind the status quo?

Re:What bunk!

[ummit]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

There has to be a middle ground between the rabid filesharers' "we can do anything we want with any digital copy we can get our hands on and nobody has any right to say otherwise", and the (equally rabid) RIAA position of "if you do anything with our media other than consume it in the ways we condone you are a thief and a pirate and a lawbreaker".

There are all sorts of restrictions other than laws, and there are all sorts of ranges of acceptable behavior which can simultaneously and unhypocritically embrace both the sharing of library books and the legitimate wishes of the holders of copyrights on various forms of media, including digital ones.

Re:What bunk!

[Valdrax]

The guy is an idealogue. More power to him for practicing what he preaches, but his "my way or the highway" philosophy really marginalizes any arguments that he presents.

Exactly. One of my major reasons for disliking RMS is that he has a very black-and-white "you're all with us or you're all against us" philosophy. Since he has problems with a few of the Creative Commons compatible licenses, they must all be rejected in his mindset. It's just so him. Of course, he naturally suggests that the GPL be used instead because it's his solution and thus it's correct for everything.

This is the same sort of uncompromising attitude that fuels religious conflicts everywhere. "If you're not just like me, then you're evil." RMS is a dogmatist. It doesn't matter if you think he's right in his stance, his arrogant, dismissive attitude is inexcusable.

Re:What bunk!

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I think that probably "could" be acceptable sharing, but then you'd have to look at what is the time limit? If its 999 years, this limit is pretty meaningless. So that just makes things more arbitrary. 5 days is OK but 6 is illegal type stuff.

Of course RMS is against DRM so I doubt he'd agree with it anyway.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I could use DRM to give you a time-limited copy. Assuming the hardware and OS support DRM.

So you propose to do away with the fig leaf of the supposed purpose of copyright, "to grant artists a limited monopoly on their works in order to increase the body of art and knowledge of humanity"? Because you know, copyright was supposed to aid (monetarily) the artists in exchange for a set time limit after which the work enters public domain, for all to enjoy. Instead what you propose is feudal lordships of information and knowledge, each with a vault of data, sending self-destruct DRM enforced scraps to whomever is able to pay, and making sure that all future generations pay those feudal dynasties for the same information over and over and over, forever. This is the essential implication of your suggestion.

Re:What bunk!

[dirty]

And it's attitudes like yours that are the reason why media companies are trying to shove DRM down our throats. "They can't stop me from illegally copying digital works, so I will do it." What response do you expect to that attitude? Do you really expect companies that are making money from the sale of music and movies to just sit back and accept it? Sharing copyrighted material is illegal, and is really no different than books. With a book when you lend it to a friend you no longer posses a copy of it, you are not producing a copy, you are transfering possesion of an existing copy. When you share mp3s, unless you delete the original, you are creating a copy. That's the difference. A better analog to the book metaphor would be giving an mp3 to a friend and then deleting the original from your computer.

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

You believe that so you state it as a fact. Everyone does this. Your point, that he presents things he believes to be true as if they are true, is silly. Yes, I state that as a fact... because I believe it.

I sort of figured that a reasonable person would view what I said as my opinion. The difference between what I say and what Stallman says is that Stallman is doing more than expressing an opinion - he is presenting his belief as the stone cold, iron clad gospel of absolute truth and using his position within the Free Software movement to bolster his authority. Me? I'm nobody, but I still think that he's wrong.

By being pedantic, you're avoiding the real issue, you know.

-h-

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Except you can't sell your mangled copy, and the owner of the book can still sell the book.

Sure you can, if you write from memory a new book, with whatever mangled data you have. That is why copyright applies to "derrived work".

That is the real issue.

The real issue is that due to being under the spell of their incessent propaganda, you have done what all of these swindlers of "intellectual property" always try to induce: to try to deny the properties of information and talk about "selling" it, as a part of a system for rewarding artists. Information cannot be sold, it lacks the fundamental characteristics for it to be so. Also, the two are completely different and separate. There are many possible methods to reward artists, which do not involve the concept of "copyright" or "intelectual property". Patronage is one of them.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

How the hell can someone take more information than their fair share? I really don't understand how that works. It's not like anyone needs to go without.

Re:What bunk!

[Richard_at_work]

While you have my book, I cant lend it to anyone else and I cant read it myself. I can make 10,000 copies of an electronic version with little to no effort and give them to 10,000 people who can do the same, ad infinitum. And I would still have my copy, as pristine as it ever was. Theres the difference.

Re:What bunk!

[Shakrai]

So is the case with the book. When it is over, you have a copy, albait mangled and compressed, in your brain.

Not if my test scores mean anything.... oh, wait, he said mangled too. Darn!

Re:What bunk!

[podperson]

How is any argument about ethics not simply an assertion of someone's beliefs as facts?

RMS argues that "if copyright prevents sharing then copyright is wrong". From this you can infer that he believes sharing is good therefore anything preventing sharing is bad. This is a simple, consistent point of view. It's also unworkable. To (roughly) quote H. L. Mencken -- "For every complex problem there's a simple solution. And it's wrong."

The problem with actual workable laws of pretty much any kind is that they tend to be nuanced. E.g. killing people is illegal, but there are all kinds of cases where you are allowed to kill, e.g. in war, by genuine accident, in self-defense, or if you're a surgeon who performs a procedure known to be dangerous. Similarly, copyright was constructed as a necessary evil -- give people a temporary monopoly over the fruits of their intellectual labors so that, in the long term, a free public good is created.

All the interesting and useful arguments about copyright (or any law) are about nuances. In the case of copyright law we have on the one hand folks who decry all copyright and on the other people who want to extend copyright in perpetuity. The compromise we used to have: copyright lasts for a fixed period and does not provide total protection (e.g. you can quote for purposes of criticism and parody) seems to work well ... it would be nice to preserve it.

Re:What bunk!

[advocate_one]

if you want to see something stupid... my university has an electronic library stuffed to the gills with etexts... I can only browse a title for 15 minutes... and if I want to read it at leisure online... I have to "check it out"" for a maximum period of 3 days...

The Open University NetLibrary collection includes over 60 general and reference e-books on all subjects and more than 3,500 freely available e-books. Browse online for up to 15 minutes per title, or use your account to "borrow" books online for 3 days at a time.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

IgnoramusMaximus: Your nickname doesn't suit you. In your post, you've grasped one of the fundimental concepts in this debate.

Re:What bunk!

[iggy_mon]

in his mindset. It's just so him.

why is that, do you suppose? did something happen in his professional career?

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

While you have my book, I cant lend it to anyone else and I cant read it myself. I can make 10,000 copies of an electronic version with little to no effort and give them to 10,000 people who can do the same, ad infinitum. And I would still have my copy, as pristine as it ever was. Theres the difference.

The difference is that one is coupled to an archaic medium of paper and ink and the other in the modern format of magnetic fields on revolving platters or puffs of electrons in wires. The fundamental properties of both are however identical. Both are information. For example I could simply convert the book you lent me, via scanning and OCR to about 100 kilo bytes of text and transmit away. They are both identical, except for their medium.

The physical properties of the books, vinyl records and CDs have been used to confuse people about the nature of these things quite effectively. The fact remains that the information has no properties which would allow it to be "sold" or "bought" and can only be shared (i.e. transmitted) or otherwise processed during that transmission.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

Unfortunately, data files aren't physical objects. Expecting them to work like physical objects won't make it that way. What you suggest is both unethical (because there's no reasonable reason to limit digital copies) and impossible (because if it's possible to see or hear digital content then it's possible to make a perfect unrestricted copy of it at the quality experienced.)

Re:What bunk!

[qwijibo]

I would differentiate between copy for use and copy for distribution.

I copied your post when I opened this web page. When I close it, I will destroy the in-memory copy. When I clear my cache or it expires, the unused, on disk copy will be destroyed. This is like sharing a book - when you're done, you have nothing but the impression it left in your mind.

I have copies of my own (purchased, real tangible product) CD's on my computer. They are there for my own convenience. As much as the RIAA would like to claim otherwise, I think a jury would agree that this constitutes fair use of something I own.

Illegal distribution is the problem that so much effort is going into. Trying to solve a people problem with technology never works. However, it seems to keep an awful lot of people employed trying the hopeless.

Re:What bunk!

[Errandboy of Doom]

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy.

Yeah, when we share a sandwich, there's only ever one sandwich.

But when someone shares their thoughts with me, I get to keep those ideas, I'm not obliged to forget them after I've heard them.

So is music more like a collection of ideas, or like a sandwich?

Perhaps your definition of sharing is arbitrarily narrow.

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

But it's not as rarified and theoretical as all that. Common sense tells you what is copying and what is sharing. Look, if you copy a homework problem from your college roommate, is that the same thing as looking at his homework, having an "aha" moment and then doing the problem yourself? Or, a step away, having your roommate explain how he solved the problem? To me, one case is copying and the other two are sharing.

We intuitively know what is copying and what is sharing. When we start bandying about definitions, that's when I start thinking that we're trying to rationalize behavior that is either wrong or illegal. I guess that it's like the old saying that it's not wrong unless I get caught.

Oh, and for the benefit of the guy who replied to me earlier, this is all just my opinion - it's not fact.

-h-

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

They have no legitimate wishes. The only reason copyright exists is because of a clause in the constitution that grants congress the power to create it expressly for the purpose of encouraging more stuff to be created. So, it's not there for the benefit of the creators at all, it's for the benefit of everybody else.

There is no 'natural' ownership right over your writing or music or software. The only right you naturally have is the right not to give it to anybody else.

Re:What bunk!

[Planesdragon]

Would you destroy the concept of physical property to prop up your failing scheme for 'intellectual property'?

[StrawMan] So, what you're saying is, your collection of child porn should be all right and no one should be able to tell you otherwise? [/StrawMan]

The case for DRM is very simple. There are copyrighted works that folk won't give away for free. Some would like a copy of said works on their computer. Many authors/publishers won't give a naked electronic copy of anything valuable, due to fear of a Napster-effect rendering their sales useless.

DRM is a way that YOU can have your PC created something that the author can trust won't break the terms of the contract. Another, less secure, fashion is embedding a watermark or other metadata into the file, so that they know who to sue if YOUR copy winds up on Gnutella.

If you don't want DRM--well, then you don't want DRM, and you're then either willing to go without or pay a higher premium for an electronic copy. Some of us would rather pay a fair price and live with the (amazingly easy) restrictions.

Re:What bunk!

[dwandy]

"to grant artists a limited monopoly on their works in order to increase the body of art and knowledge of humanity"? Because you know, copyright was supposed to aid (monetarily) the artists in exchange for a set time limit after which the work enters public domain, for all to enjoy.

I know some will argue that I'm nitpicking, but it's important to note that there is no mention of monetary compensation indicated or implied in your (very correct) original wording of the copyright deal.

To me, this point is at least as important as the distinction between 'copyright violation' and 'theft', and I'm sure may bring out the same people to argue the same semantics.
The point is, that granting the limited monopoly is not to grant the artist monetary aid specifically, but rather to allow the artist control over their work, while at the same time sharing it with the public, for the purpose of adding and enriching culture in society.

Unfortunately we are in a capitalistic society and corporations have taken over copyright from the artists, and now the monetary rewards are the only end-result of that protection. The next step is what we are witnessing in the RIAA, which is that this monetary reward is an entitlement - sorry guys, but guaranteed money was never the deal. If it was, we would have set up some kind of blanket tax or levy system where all artists get paid...

Re:What bunk!

[baadger]

Movies for example...

Copying a DVD someone lent to you still takes some modest effort (time to rip and re-encode and/or burn, cost in media/hard drive space) and after you've watched it on a TV (which is something you'll most likely be doing) the thought of copying it usually goes out of mind or doesn't occur.

An encrypted video file that becomes useless after X hours on the other hand is going to annoy you because the 'cost' of having it (hard disk space and the time and bandwidth it took you to download) has already been 'paid'.

IMO it comes down to whether the annoyances of copying a digital format come before or after the enjoyment of watching the movie whether you're likely to copy a movie illegally. Most household piracy is casual in nature and just a result of wanting to hoard things not screw someone out of royalties because you're too cheap or lazy to actually buy your own copy.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

I think laws trying to prevent people from doing things that everybody will do anyway are very bad. They open the door for selective enforcement and any number of other evil consequences.

I think a law restricting your right to copy things is as helpful as a law stating that you may not place your hand on your head, or that you're not allowed to masturbate because it constitutes restraint of trade for prositutes.

Re:What bunk!

[poptones]

So, how could the production company have earned that kind of revenue? Without copyright. Yep, you read that right. Here's the details:

Blah blah blah. Copyright is not something one is forced to enforce. There is nothign stopping saomeone from dumping millions of dollars into something pof value and then giving it away (see: ubuntu). There is nothing stopping the producers from doing this now, because no one is forcing anyone to enforce their rights of copy.

So put up the website and get crackin'. No one's stopping you from trying.

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

How the hell can someone take more information than their fair share? I really don't understand how that works. It's not like anyone needs to go without.

Indeed, but in this perfect world, there needs to be production. Without the production of information, there will be damn little consumption. And under Stallman's system, it'll be pretty hard to be compensated for the work of information production - after all, why pay for it when you can get it for free? Sure, there will be people who will produce that information because "it wants to be free", but free information doesn't pay the bills.

So, I suspect that there would be a whole lot more takers than givers. And that's what I implied.

-h-

Re:What bunk!

[DaveV1.0]

When you share a book with a friend, only one of you can have the book at a time, therefore you do not have the book and your friend does.

When you share some thing over P2P, you both have a copy of that same thing. You both have the thing. A new and separate copy of the thing has been created. And, the law give the creator/author, or who ever commissioned the thing the right to say how and when copies are created.

Sharing over P2P is the equivelent of photocoping an entire book, for free, and giving that copy to a friend.

Many people claim that it is not the same thing because a book is a physical object. However, what is embuing the physical object with value is the information contained within. Would you pay US$60.00 for a blank 500 pg book, as you would for a reference book?

Re:What bunk!

[Richard W.M. Jones]

But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.

Last time I checked, copyright goes completely against the laws of physics. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable. In the words of Bruce Schneier, it's akin to trying to make water not wet.

Now maybe in a reality-free zone where everybody works for the common good and nobody takes more than his* fair share, that would be a reasonable thing to pass off as a fact.

Well, no. What you do, as with free software, is accept -- indeed welcome -- the fact that bits can be copied. You then charge people for your time. Sure - you won't be the next Microsoft doing this. But the good old capitalist economy will be better off if the Microsoft tax on basic business goes away. There's no communism here. This is the free market at work. Without artificial monopolies.

Rich.

Re:What bunk!

[SydShamino]

As a SWAG, lets say there was a fanbase of 10M worldwide. If just one third could be convinced to pony up $1 per episode - that's $3.3M right there. By using the internet and some sort of paypal like system (pay attention to what google is doing in this area, they seem to be thinking right along these lines) they could collect that $1 per episode and put it into an escrow account. When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins. When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

Public domain means no copyright, which means all things are possible - even derivative works. If the development company does this for even one episode, then someone else - Spielberg, Warner, Fox, etc. - can take the Farscape line and produce their own episodes, or their own feature films.

Sure, to the public that paid for this one episode, that might be a benefit. But, for the production company, they have just lost all control over the future of one of their creative products, in return for a measly $300k.

I don't think any television or movie production company would go for such a deal. Now, if you allowed them to release under a creative commons license, such as one that allowed for free distribution but restricted derivative works, for-pay distribution, and public performances, then I bet you might find a company willing to take a shot at it. (And I'd be one person donating $1. Heck, make it $2 - I pay that for shows on iTunes anyway.)

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Common sense tells you what is copying and what is sharing. Look, if you copy a homework problem from your college roommate, is that the same thing as looking at his homework, having an "aha" moment and then doing the problem yourself? Or, a step away, having your roommate explain how he solved the problem? To me, one case is copying and the other two are sharing.

They are both cases of "sharing" or "copying" (i.e. transmission of information). Our language simply does not deal well with the underlying processes for it was developed for dealing with physical objects and actions of people, not abstract theoretical things such as information. When we say "copy" we usually mean "to transmit a block of information with as little loss as possible". When we say "share" we mean this in a less strict manner as in "transmitt in any degree of fidelity". There are many words which we use to describe the underlying process, poorly and in most cases inaccurately. They are however all instances of the same process simply varying in conditions and methods of processing of that information.

We intuitively know what is copying and what is sharing. When we start bandying about definitions, that's when I start thinking that we're trying to rationalize behavior that is either wrong or illegal. I guess that it's like the old saying that it's not wrong unless I get caught.

See above. Our "intuition" is based on our simian brains evolved to deal with bannanas in the jungle. To deal with properties of information, like those of quantum phenomena, we need to make a serious effort to separate ourselves from our built-in macroscopic, physical world biases.

Re:What bunk!

[DaveV1.0]

Not so. You have an idea of the information in the book. You have excerpts of the information in the book. But, you do not have the information in the book. Rather you only have a small subset of the information in the book consisting of the information that is relevent to you that you have retained. Also, the information you have retained will degrade with time without use and refresh.

Proof: Write down the entire contents of a book you read one year ago, verbatum. Go read a book then write down all the information in the book, verbatum. I am will to bet good money you can do neither, without a copy of the book to referrence.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Despite your opinion, something that Jack Valenti and co. do understand and RMS apparently doesn't is how to make a worthwhile amount of money from knowledge works. Ironically, you have demonstrated the difference between their realistic approach and your wishful thinking quite clearly with your own example. Two efforts to do pretty much what you describe, one for Firefly and one for Enterprise, have recently failed to get anywhere near the scale of popular support they would require to achieve their goals. And both had relatively high-profile on-line campaigns among the geek community, and even TV coverage when the series were running in at least one case. If that can't achieve even one success, it's hard to see how your model can support the entire industry.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some things to consider:

1) In your model a large percentage of the 10M viewers now have a first-run copy of the show. It is likely that this will adversely affect the ROI on syndication (which by your own admission is a money-tree), and indeed may lower the overall revenue derived from a show by what I will call "a lot".

2) You could prevent the above from happening if you used some sort of DRM that allowed for a larger lifetime ROI based on a shorter show lifetime. But to enforce this in any meaningful way you will probably have to rely on laws at some point. Right now that means making the offense punishable as being a terrorist, or (gasp) copyright infringement.

Your supposition of "benefits all parties" is likely false. It does not benefit the party who is faced with a smaller show ROI under the current model than your model. Your method is great if you're an upstart who has never known a better business model, but those who make more now would be highly reticent to adopt this approach.

The thing you are forgetting is that the status quo can be HUGELY profittable.

Money talks, and your approach is really only whispering.

--Coward

Re:What bunk!

[Znork]

"Information cannot be sold, it lacks the fundamental characteristics for it to be so."

Reproduction, copies of information, cannot be usefully sold as it lacks scarcity. That essentially puts it outside of the functional realm of property; any scarcity is purely artificial, and introducing artificial scarcity in an economy basically undermines and damages the economy as a whole. Creating artificial scarcity is more or less the economic equal of wholesale destruction of wealth and property.

We could put a huge glass bubble over a country, bottle all the air and force people to buy it. That would undoubtedly employ a lot of people, even increase the GDP, but for any sane definition of wealth, one would have to be truly warped to claim that would benefit the wealth of the society, or the economy, as a whole. And as an aside, in comparison with countries where the citizens were not forced to pay for bottled air, workers would cost more, with predictable effects...

You're right, of course, the propaganda blanket attempts to throughly confuse the issues. Artificial scarcity is unacceptable, and extra incentive systems must build on methods compatible with a free market. It's not like it's hard to do, there are any number of incentive systems that governments around the world use for various purposes. The monopoly systems of copyright and patents are grotesque abberations, not the common standard.

Re:What bunk!

[dwandy]

I agree that artists do need to be compensated but at the same time, users should have the right to share. And even furthermore, perhaps even copy A LITTLE (for instance copying for my personal computer, my IPOD, my TIVO, my wifes computer, etc). But unlimited copying of files is perhaps a bit overboard.

Is it? Or have you just been convinced by those who make money from the current system that it is?
One question is what does the artists really "own"? In the case of a musician, do they own a (very long) number that when parsed by a particular set of rules can be converted to a wave form that sounds very similar (to the human ear; exactly?) to their original performance?
What if we realise that musicians (even today with all copyright protection in place) make almost no money (to the point of actually being no money) from the sales and distribution of the recorded version of their music. Musicians make their money by giving a live show.
Painters make money selling the original painting.
Sculpters make money selling sculptures.
Actors make money selling tickets to a live performance.

What dissapears when you remove copyright from all these equations is not the artist, but the middleman who profits simply by connecting a buyer and seller. The internet can do this today for less money, and more efficiently.

It's not the musicians that argue for copyright protection. I can't count the number of times I've seen interviews where one member makes a comment about how they don't care if they get downloaded ... then there's this pause as the other members remember that they made a deal with the devil, and one of them says that of course people should buy the record... oops.

Copyright and patent 'fixed' a problem that didn't exist, and now people make a lot of money off of others and they don't want to have to get a real job...

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

I'm not saying I will do it. I'm saying it will be done, and it will be done by lots and lots of people. There is a distinct difference between those two.

The more DRM they try, the more illegal copying there will be.

Re:What bunk!

[HardCase]

The only reason copyright exists is because of a clause in the constitution that grants congress the power to create it expressly for the purpose of encouraging more stuff to be created. So, it's not there for the benefit of the creators at all, it's for the benefit of everybody else.

Copyright does not just cause "more stuff to be created". Its effect was intended to be similar to patents (as envisioned at the time) - it gives the creator a time limited monopoly to enjoy the fruits of his work - thus encouraging others to be creative and enjoy the fruits of their labor. At the end of the copyright period, everybody else gets a crack at it.

In that regard, copyright does imply ownership - for a limited time, for, just as a patent is owned, a copyright is owned. The real problem is that "limited" has been stretched very nearly into "unlimited".

The only right you naturally have is the right not to give it to anybody else.

So if I say that you may not have my creative work if you are going to copy it, does that mean that you've violated my right? Or are you saying that if I give my creative work to one person, then I have to give it to everyone?

-h-

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Not so. You have an idea of the information in the book. You have excerpts of the information in the book. But, you do not have the information in the book. Rather you only have a small subset of the information in the book consisting of the information that is relevent to you that you have retained. Also, the information you have retained will degrade with time without use and refresh. Proof: Write down the entire contents of a book you read one year ago, verbatum. Go read a book then write down all the information in the book, verbatum. I am will to bet good money you can do neither, without a copy of the book to referrence.

You are merely arguing about the degree of fidelity with which people's brains can retain the data and the durability of the medium. Which does not alter my basic premise in any way. One can easily write large portions of the original text minutes after reading it. Is it a violation then? How about 10 minutes later? 5 hours? 5 months? What about writing a new text which retains all the characters and plot lines from the original, which most people can remember for a long time? What about a savant who can remember verbatim hundreds of pages of text?

None of this changes the fundamental fact that the information contained in the paper/ink medium has entered neural-cell medium and large portions of thereof can be retained and reused. Ergo low fidelity, but very useable copy has been made.

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

Actually, it is a bit more ethical and along the lines of 'analog sharing'. What producers of contents are concerned with is that electronic media is far easier to copy and distribute. Unfortunately they go overboard and want to smash out ALL sharing; THIS is unethical. A certain amount of sharing needs to be acceptible but unlimited sharing should not.

What you suggest (unlimited copying and distributing) is FAR MORE unethical. I suggest limited copying and sharing which is a bit more like the 'analog' version of sharing that we currently have.

But you are right, I doubt that this would happen for at least another 20 years if at all.

Re:What bunk!

[inertialmatrix]

With regard to the topic of RMS and the points he makes concerning copyright law and fair use, I have this to say:

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

I fear that the Great Sith War may be upon us... j/k

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

[StrawMan] So, what you're saying is, your collection of child porn should be all right and no one should be able to tell you otherwise? [/StrawMan]

Well, there are already mechanisms for dealing with that problem. They are called search warrants. I'm perfectly fine with search warrants.

State mandated DRM effectively constitutes both a violation of the 3rd and 4th ammendments as it requires me to support an agent of the state in my own home to enforce the laws of the state, and it requires me to subject my computer to what amounts to a continuous search warrant without any finding of probable cause.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Creating artificial scarcity is more or less the economic equal of wholesale destruction of wealth and property.

Yes indeed, you picked up on yet another facet of this travesty. I was focusing mainly on the theoretical properties of information for I found them to be most easily deployed to devastate any pretense of logic in the so called "intellectual property" scheme. But you are very right, of course, that the artificial scarcity is the main aspect of this whole charade from the economic, free-market point of view.

The monopoly systems of copyright and patents are grotesque abberations, not the common standard.

Right on.

Re:What bunk!

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Anonymous Coward, you are sort of right. In the case of _Enterprise_, as soon as word got out that fans were going to try to fund it, Paramount began to hint that it wouldn't allow this. Granted there never was enough money to pay for it and may never have been, but there was at least one big contribution and when it looked like there was an outside chance it might succeed, Paramount publicly stated that under no circumstances would they allow this to happen and _Enterprise_ was finished no matter what, case closed. _Enterprise_ was finished because it was more important to Paramount to kill off the show than to let in continue, even if it would make money. I have no idea why, but that is how they felt. Then again, I don't have a real high opinion of Paramount anyway.

In the case of _Firefly_, I am still unconvinced that the show has as many fans as its supporters want to think. The sad truth is that while many people truly love the show, there just aren't enough of them. There probably really weren't enough fans to save _Enterprise_ either, even if Paramount had not put an end to that.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

If I sign a negotiated contract with you in which both parties are free to change terms and ask the other party if the changed terms are acceptable, then handing me information on the condition that I not give it to anybody else is fine. I'm perfectly happy with trade secrets.

If I do give it to someone else, your only recourse should be the ability to sue me for damages. The damage is my action that destroyed the secret nature of your former trade secret.

Contracts that are blanketly assumed to be agreed to by everybody who buys something are allowing private entitites to tread into the territory of the legislature. It gives them the unchecked ability to create new law. Just read your average EULA. Such contracts are not really contracts, and should be void.

Re:What bunk!

[CarpetShark]

If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong.

There's no "lazy thinking" involved in that. If you have a functioning moral compass, you'll quickly see that sharing is a good thing, and that those against it are wrong. Not every answer that's achieved quickly is wrong; some quick answers are based on many previous years of thought, developing an ethical worldview. When that's done, some things are plainly and visibly wrong. Not sharing with those less well-off is one of those things.

Re:What bunk!

[EZLeeAmused]

You seem to be blending several definitions of sharing. If I share my opinion with you, does that mean that you now share my opinion? Or do you just know what my opinion is? If it is the former, let me share my opinion about the act of giving money to me...

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Public domain would not ncessarily put the Farscape Trademark up for grabs.

Re:What bunk!

[GalacticCmdr]

As a SWAG, lets say there was a fanbase of 10M worldwide. If just one third could be convinced to pony up $1 per episode - that's $3.3M right there. By using the internet and some sort of paypal like system (pay attention to what google is doing in this area, they seem to be thinking right along these lines) they could collect that $1 per episode and put it into an escrow account. When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins. When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

That might work except for the fact that you cannot just reach into the magic shelf and pull things together in zero time. People and bits of kit move on. You cannot just hold all of the aspects of a movie in stasis until people come up with enough cash and then suddenly make movie magic.

You would also have to support a method for people to pull their money out - plus some supporting legal structure over who holds that money and gains its work value (read: interest, etc.).

This system still has the advantage of allowing advertisement - say Pepsi Co. drops in 100K per episode created as long as the main character develops a taste for Dr. Pepper. If this value goes high enough (or the production values are low enough) we end up with a return to the Golden Days of Radio and TV when shows were sponsored (when smoking was relaxing on the throat - as the actors told us).

In fact, there is nothing stopping you from building your own production company using this system right now. If really have any convictions for this system then there is little to stop you from implementing it. The cost of entry is quite low now and with internet distribution it would be minor to deploy.

Personally, I think that this system will fail because of human nature. I can withhold my money and still get the same thing assuming others are putting in their money - thus I am ahead of the game. Maybe instead turn the show into Private Stock Company. Then every dollar invested becomes so much stock - the people that put in money are investing into the franchise. Each movie is released into the public domain (as per your original intention), but licence fees from movie related materials (merchandise, etc.) get returned as profit to the stakeholders.

Re:What bunk!

[FortKnox]

Great idea if it was secure and very tamper resilient.

Re:What bunk!

[jupiter_ganymede]

Creating artificial scarcity is more or less the economic equal of wholesale destruction of wealth and property.

You obviously have never heard of the diamond industry! They and others do quite well without destroying the economy. Not that I agree with their tactics...

Re:What bunk!

[GIL_Dude]

Scientists have tested this one over and over. It has been called many things, but the bottom line is that if people co-operate (give their $1 in your idea) they can get something. But if they are greedy, they have a chance for much more. It always works out that people DON'T co-operate. Why pay my $1 when I can hope that a bunch of "suckers" will pay and I get it free?

Re:What bunk!

[Syberghost]

Actually, I didn't propose anything. I merely gave an answer to a technical question.

Re:What bunk!

[Ingolfke]

So you are against copyrights entirely? All copyrights create scarcity by placing demands on the owner of a copy. Even physical copies can't be reproduced in whole w/o permission. The only thing that has changed is the barriers related to reproduction of copyrighted material have been significantly reduced, in some cases almost to zero. Would you support me if I took a complete copy of something you created, distributed it and took credit for creating it?

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Actually, I didn't propose anything. I merely gave an answer to a technical question.

I took the wording of your "I could use DRM to give you a time-limited copy." as a proposal of a possible "solution" and so I elaborated on its consequences.

Re:What bunk!

[greenagain]

Yeah, so your memory of the book isn't actually a copy, is it?

Re:What bunk!

[AndersOSU]

The problem is that the RIAA and MPAA want to continue to be stagnant, creatively devoid institutions and remain profitable.

If I were a musician and I had to pick the ideal world in which to ply my trade I would pick one in which I was able to distribute my work at no cost to the consumer. I would make my money putting on concerts, and wouldn't have sold my soul and future income to an archaic distributing entity.

If I were a film maker and I had to pick the ideal world in which to ply my trade I would pick one in which I was able to distribute my work widely at little cost to the consumer. I would make my money by selling a theatre experience, one which televisions and computer monitors cannot duplicate. I wouldn't have to rely on affording a big name actor who commands a salary greater than most movies will ever see to become profitable.

I believe that what is holding copyright back is that both the music and movie industries have built up a massive institution that aided everyone at a less perfect time for artists. Both industies have utilized "tricks" to make their artists profitable. In the days of significant distribution cost the RIAA got into bed with radio and concert producers, necessitating being an RIAA member if you want to be on the radio, or have a successful tour. In the days of limited distribution the MPAA set up actors for hero worship, made films with ever increasing budgets, and bet the farm on advertising. Because this institution doing what institutions do and holding on for dear life it is difficult for the artists to "make it" without getting into bed with the artist associations of the world. This has quickly become a self-perpetuating death spiral.

Re:What bunk!

[AndersOSU]

Sounds good, but how do you get a new show made? Someone has to pony up the dollars for the pilot, and that someone is going to what copyright protection so they can recover their investment. Otherwise it's going to be 32 episodes before a show is truely profitable, and thats only if the first couple episodes are solid enough to hold the publics interest.

Under such a model I'd suspect we'd see a lot more Survivors, and a lot fewer Farscapes.

Re:What bunk!

[drzhivago]

Seriously, do you tell yourself this every night in order to justify stealing?

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Yeah, so your memory of the book isn't actually a copy, is it?

It is a low fidelity copy. Think a poor recording of a concert on a gummed up tape recorder. Is it still a copy or do you need a 44kHz sampling frequency digital recorder for it to be a "copy"?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you and say that it should a "copyleft" license. Say BY-SA if you are willing to use a CC license. IF we are talking about a world with copyright laws.

However, I think the poster was talking a world where copyrights did not exist. Therefore, so what if one of the big boys use your PD stuff. Their stuff will be PD too and you can use theirs in return.

If the poster was talking a world with copyright still existing, then my vote, were I to give the $1 support would be for a "copyleft" license and not the public domain.

all the best,

drew

(zotz posting as AC)

Re:What bunk!

[Kadin2048]

Doesn't matter -- it still runs into the fundamental flaw of DRM, in that you can't give an untrusted individual both the ciphertext and the decryption keys, and not give them access to the plaintext. It just doesn't work.

You can't give someone a safe with a bar of gold in it, and the combination to the safe, and then let them take that safe home and expect them not to be able to take the bar of gold out. They have all the information necessary to do it, and eventually somebody will.

When you start going down that road, where you end up is in an 'arms race' between the people who make DRM, and the people who unlock content and redistribute it. There's no end, and eventually everyone just ends up with computers, the cases of which are totally filled with epoxy, and wired with self-destruct mechanisms.

DRM isn't a winnable fight, but the battle could really be obnoxious in the mean time.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS has made a cottage industry out of passing his opinions off as fact. He believes that copyright laws are unethical, therefore it is a fact that copyright laws are unethical. Now maybe in a reality-free zone ...

Er... aren't you passing off your opinions as fact, too?

My high school history teacher gave us hell if we ever said "I think" in an essay. Obviously it's what I think -- that's why I wrote it. Don't water down your writing with that crap.

Now maybe in a reality-free zone where everybody works for the common good and nobody takes more than his* fair share, that would be a reasonable thing to pass off as a fact.

What meaning does "fair share" have in a world where we can make exact duplicates for free? If my public library had a replicator, and could make enough copies of "Oh the Places You'll Go" for everybody who wanted to borrow one, would we accuse them of taking "more than their fair share"?

Usually "more than his fair share" means taking many of something, when there's a limited supply. In this case, nobody takes many of something (how many copies of something do you need on your hard disk?), and the supply isn't finite.

But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.

Many facts we take for granted were criticized as "impractical in the real world" at one time.

Re:What bunk!

[Knuckles]

Not so easy when you live in a container on the MIT campus.

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

Well this is more a cancer of the creators agreements than of copying. The two are not one and the same. HOWEVER... file sharing may be a cure for that cancer. Once creativce content distribution is centralised, the online distribution center becomes your distributor. And since they do not care about ownership or marketing, the artist becomes owner of their work again.

Still, what happens then? What happens when music companies are crushed and artists actually own their work again? Would it be fair to say unlimited file copying and distributing is fair to the artists?

I'll admit that I use P2P networks and I don't pay for files I nab, and I'll also admit that it has introduced me to new artists that I never would have heard elsewhere. But I'll also admit that unlimited file sharing when left untethered would become another cancer as well.

All I'm saying is that a solution between free and 'pay for everything a million times' is needed. I would have no problem paying $1 for a song that I can put anywhere I want and even share with my friends by making up to 50 copies (all of which I own imperpetuity). This is NOT to say these files expire. I hate that crap. No, instead, copy the analog system that currently exists (or has existed in the past). Don't rip off consumers... give them what they already have or more.

I worked at Amazon in the early days and I remember a convo I had with Jeff Bezos. I asked him why we weren't going to just remove a service and he said' You can't give consumers something for free and then just take it away without them getting pissed. You have to give them something of similarly equal or greater value. One hand gives while the other hand takes.'

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Seriously, do you tell yourself this every night in order to justify stealing?

You've assumed, as you have been conditioned to do, that I am in any way in need of the "products" of the modern enterntainment industry. In fact I do not even own a TV. Furthermore, you used the word "steal" in respect to information, again as you have been conditioned to do, without putting any thought whatsoever into what you are saying. I came to this debate from the direction of computer and information science as well as political economics, not from the perspective of a file sharer. I look at these matters from a perspective of logic and phillosophy, because such pursuits intellectually stimulate me. That is my enterntainment. Far more worthy to me then the latest cladly dressed teenager shaking her butt on TV. In fact I am seriously considering starting a foundation/think-tank where I could combine forces with others like me, with the purpose of initiating a legal challenge to the copyright system here in Canada, based on these phillosophical and theoretical premises.

Re:What bunk!

[Knuckles]

Since he has problems with a few of the Creative Commons compatible licenses, they must all be rejected in his mindset.

Did you RTFA? He explicitly says that some CC licenses are free and he agrees with them, and some are not and he doesn't. He also says that it makes no sense to talk about "the CC licenses" because they are more different than alike.

He makes this clear distinction, so your insinuation that he lumps them together is incorrect.

Then he goes on to explain that because people lump them together, he can't get this differentiation across, and thus feels himself "constrained" to reject them all.

This is a purely tactical maneuver, and is not a rejection of the free CC licenses as such.

Re:What bunk!

[John Nowak]

. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable. In the words of Bruce Schneier, it's akin to trying to make water not wet.

Money is a human construct designed to make paper worth an arbitrary amount. In the words of Gomer McGee, it's akin to trying to sell the hay for as much as the horse.

Re:What bunk!

[greenagain]

Or maybe more like your memory of a concert or a cd you heard in someone's car? A memory of an event is not a copy. Your argument ignores simple distinctions fundamental to property law.

Re:What bunk!

[afedaken]

It's not lazy thinking. It's what he believes, and he is up front and ARROGANT about it.

Corrected for accuracy. :-)

Re:What bunk!

[baadger]

This doesn't necessarily hold water. You can't stop someone from filming the big screen while at the cinema if they happen to have super high resolution covert cameras embedded in their skull either. People still get away with filming in the cinema (with popcorn box camcorders) even though they're supposed to be being watched by cinema staff. How is this different from circumventing hardware or even just software enforced DRM watchguards?

Two differences:
1) The chance you'll get caught and punished (e.g. fined for stealing cable tv, banned from the cinema), i.e. some alarm system that calls the cops on you.
2) As I said in sibling post, DRM makes people want to keep the file because they've already put in the 'effort' to get it and feel subtley cheated that such a blatant slap on the wrist has been brought down upon them.

Re:What bunk!

[Errandboy of Doom]

You seem to be blending several definitions of sharing.

Sharing tangible goods and sharing information are distinctly different activities, you can't reliably draw an analogy from one to the other.

If I'm equivocating, maybe it's because I learned it from watching you.

Re:What bunk!

[baadger]

Part of the solution to this of course IMO is getting good DRM _content_ out there in the mainstream, and eventually people will get used to, and accept it. Sure it'll make piracy somewhat easier but i don't think, personally, it'd increase the volumne of pirated material.

Re:What bunk!

[Kjella]

Information is not a scarce resource, but creators of information is. Your position is as absurd as to sell physical goods at cost and not pay the producer a dime in salaries. Your analogy lacks any logic because noone needs to produce air.

Yes, there are other incentives. everything from rich sponsors to plan economy. Over time, we've found that the free market with working competition is the best solution for almost every form of good. There's competition in IP because there's money in IP (and yes, I mean IP as a whole).

It isn't perfect because Metallica is the one and only Metallica, even though you have many bands that sound sort of like Metallica. But you have the same in physical goods, an iPod is the one and only iPod, even though there's many music players that sort of work like iPod.

You're telling me there's so many other great incentive systems, well present them. Product placement? Content is ad, ad is content? Government subsidies to artists? The band who plays at the local club? People don't spend that kind of money on nobodies, particularly in your case where they'd have a world of music to take freely from.

Copyrights and patent are not the common standard? Whatever you're smoking must be good, it might not be the only incentive but they are in effect everywhere. Find me a country that doesn't have copyright laws if you can, enforcement can be more dicy...

Re:What bunk!

[Risen888]

You obviously either have no idea what you're talking about, or you have an entirely different definition than me of what a healthy economy looks like. Are you aware that we're talking about Africa here? The poorest continent on Earth? That Africa?

Re:What bunk!

[cyclop]

I wouldn't like you taking credit: this would be lying. That is an entirely different issue than copyright. Moreover, my credit does not place any significant scarcity, and it costs zero. For anything else, yes, I'd love if you copy and distribute things I create.

Re:What bunk!

[cyclop]

If I hear music, and I play it again by memory, and I record it, is it copy? Copyright people tend to say "yes": if you're a musician, you have to pay when playing covers. But all information to do the cover has just been in my head at least in a moment of the copying process.

Re:What bunk!

[Bogtha]

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy. You are not 'sharing' your copy, you are creating and giving me a copy.

Yes, but being able to make limitless copies of things is a wonderful advance, not a terrible curse!

If somebody invented a way to feed everybody in the world for no cost, would you argue that the rights of farmers need to be protected? Would farmers try and sue the inventor? Since when is abundance a bad thing?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

We could put a huge glass bubble over a country

Sir, she's gone from suck to blow.

Re:What bunk!

[Knuckles]

Two efforts to do pretty much what you describe, one for Firefly and one for Enterprise, have recently failed to get anywhere near the scale of popular support

So, in this world RMS envisions, there might be no Enterprise and Firefly. Big loss.
See, I'm a rather big Enterprise fan, but I didn't care. It's TV, I have no real connection to it - if they feed it to me, I'm likely to be a good citizen and watch it, but if not, then not.

Instead, I have spent my entertainment money mostly locally.
Yes, the world would be very different without copyrights, but there's no proof it would be worse.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

A memory of an event is not a copy.

Event? You are confusing seprarate concepts. Memory is of the information which was transmitted as the result of the event's occurence.

Your argument ignores simple distinctions fundamental to property law.

And the law ignores the information theory and logic. Tell me which takes precedence, science and logic or make-believe rules set up by various greed mongers and their politicians?

Re:What bunk!

[cyclop]

Do you really expect companies that are making money from the sale of music and movies to just sit back and accept it?

Problem is, such companies should not exist.

Re:What bunk!

[jasongetsdown]

"I'll take Lawrence Lessig's [lessig.org] ideas over Mr. Stallman's any day."

Here here. Stallman seems to be living in a dream world. His heart is in the right place, but everything he says has an extremist slant that I can't get behind. Its important to remember that the "content industry" is not evil and the people who run it are not demons. They are a product of a particular legal/regulatory environment. By all means act to change the landscape, but don't villify people who see an oportunity and grab it. They act exactly as they should be expected to act.

By the same token, free software != divine salvation. It is not necessary to duck and cover every time someone cues up an mp3 ("its a copyrighted technology! Don't you get it!! You ignorant heretic!!!"). Ogg is great; use it because it creates high quality recordings and maybe because you support its development model, but don't pretend you're some kind of moral crusader.

RMS's statement that people have the right to share copies of published media is at best indefensible. "Share copies" is just as missleading as "intellectual property." You don't "share copies," you "make copies" and then give them away. This may or may not be acceptable to you; the point is that Stallman is playing the same game as the "content producers," just on the opposite side of the field.

I do agree, however, that "content producers" is a bad term. Record labels do not produce any of the material they sell, they act on behalf of those that do. They have insinuated themselves into the process. On the other hand I could see movie studios wearing that label without being blatantly hypocritical.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So you are against copyrights entirely?

I for one would like to see it abolished as it tenets contradict directly both logic and science, information theory in particular.

Would you support me if I took a complete copy of something you created, distributed it and took credit for creating it?

Distribution and "taking credit for" are separate issues. One deals with transmission of information and the other with attribution of its source.

Re:What bunk!

[DerekLyons]

So, how could the production company have earned that kind of revenue? Without copyright. Yep, you read that right. Here's the details:

As a SWAG, lets say there was a fanbase of 10M worldwide. If just one third could be convinced to pony up $1 per episode - that's $3.3M right there. By using the internet and some sort of paypal like system (pay attention to what google is doing in this area, they seem to be thinking right along these lines) they could collect that $1 per episode and put it into an escrow account. When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins. When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

The scheme works equally well with copyright. Raise the production costs a little, and mail out a DVD in an as vanilla as possible sleeve. That way the people who paid for the content get the content. Freeloaders can go over to their buddies house, or wait for the pirates to post it. (Magazines work this way - and magazines, even without advertisements, can be quite profitable.[1])

Your scheme is designed around the business model so often touted on Slashdot: "give me everything I want, for free, without limits, without string, now now,now, NOW ". It has nothing whatsover to do with with copyright.

Such a system benefits all parties - the production company is guaranteed a profit before they invest a single dime, something completely unheard of in the world of entertainment business. In return for that guarantee, the end result is made freely available to one and all so that the people who funded the creation can share it with anyone they want without legal or moral issues.

It also hurts the distributor/creator - as it allows anyone to become a distributor. The bulk of the profits in a TV series come not from the first showing, but from the residuals. (As you point out, most TV shows don't show a profit until they syndicate.)

So - that's one idea demonstrating why copyright is indeed obsolete.

No, it's not. It's a model designed from the outset to 'prove' a particular point - by carefully avoiding examination of the model and it's relationship to the system being modeled. If scientist proposed something like (and it got on Slashdot) it would be rightfully reviled - not modded +5.

[1] And magazines of this nature are slowly entering the mainstream - mostly from the food & cooking world. The absence of advertisers is seen as an absence of bias.

Re:What bunk!

[Risen888]

Oh, come on! Don't give the guy a -1, give him an answer!

For instance, I have a friend who is a musical savant. (I am not making this up.) If you play a song for him, any song, 2-3 times, he can sing every word in perfect pitch, and play all the instrumental parts. Again let me stress that this is a no-bullshit story, I am making none of this up. The guy's amazing to watch.

Is that a copy?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also easy when people pay for your flights and accommodation around the world so you can tell them why they should live according to your rules.

Re:What bunk!

[torokun]

Um, it's done every day, and a very large portion of US GDP depends on it.

Regarding air, ever heard of pollution rights trading?

Re:What bunk!

[markhb]

They have no legitimate wishes.

Of course they do. "legitimate" is a synonym for "lawful." In the USA, Congress has exercised their preogative under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" According to Analysis and Interpretation of the Constitution
Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States
Senate Document No. 108-17
2002 Edition: Cases Decided to June 28, 2002, found online at

The exclusive right which
Congress is authorized to secure to authors and inventors owes its
existence solely to the acts of Congress securing it, from which
it follows that the rights granted by a patent or copyright are subject
to such qualifications and limitations as Congress, in its unhampered
consultation of the public interest, sees fit to impose.

(Pg. 316 of the original, 262 of the PDF)

So, according to that source, Congress has the power under the law to grant whatever rights it sees fit to grant, subject to the "limited times" test. There is other interesting discussion at that URL as well. My point being, you may not consider the rights of a creator "natural," but they are "legitimate" within the meaning of that word.

Re:What bunk!

[s20451]

I love these RMS flamewars for the bizarre reasoning that always comes out of the woodwork.

Last time I checked, copyright goes completely against the laws of physics. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable.

For one thing, the laws of physics say nothing about copyright.

For another thing, this same argument applies to anything artificial. You may as well say that the criminal code goes against the laws of physics, and it's just a human construct to make people un-killable. The fact that something is a "human construct" does not automatically make it a bad idea.

Re:What bunk!

[geekee]

"Last time I checked, copyright goes completely against the laws of physics. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable. In the words of Bruce Schneier [businessweek.com], it's akin to trying to make water not wet."

Last time I checked the concept of property was against the laws of physics. You're saying stealing physical property should be allowed then too, if I generalize your idea further? Might makes right, correct?

Re:What bunk!

[Kazoo the Clown]

As a SWAG, lets say there was a fanbase of 10M worldwide. If just one third could be convinced to pony up $1 per episode - that's $3.3M right there. By using the internet and some sort of paypal like system (pay attention to what google is doing in this area, they seem to be thinking right along these lines) they could collect that $1 per episode and put it into an escrow account. When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins. When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

So how do you keep an ad agency from ponying up ALL the money to have the program made, inserting product and/or advertising into it, and then claiming they own the result since they paid for it?

Re:What bunk!

[xMilkmanDanx]

Well said. What the previous person seems to not be capable of seeing music or writing or invention as anything but property or that by artificially restricting said information you lessen the benefit for everyone. Aside from the artists and inventors and there can be a reward system for them that doesn't require artificial restrictions.

An alternate reward system is plausible if you stop to think about how much reward the inventors are actually getting currently (it's not that much).

What has occurred, information copying and distribution costs used to be relatively high and now they are relatively low. Unfortunately the middle men still want to charge the same prices as when the costs were high so they can keep their jobs which are no longer necessary or at least no longer needed to the same degree. The actual producers of information (the artists and inventors) have not received a higher portion of the money from the lowered costs. Thus they don't make that much per album/song.

As for possibilities for alternate rewards, one is already there for a creative person/group: branding. Selling of merchandise with the band name/slogan, box sets, dvds of concerts are all viable ways to make money even with allowing the music to be traded freely. Donations/endorsement deals/ad revenue from website, concerts could be others.

Personally, I think there are a multitude of NEW ways for people to make money off producing content without having to have an artificial shortage of said content.

Re:What bunk!

[Pentavirate]

You have a point but fidelity does seem to have relevance in this debate. In the 80s when dual tape decks came out, copying of tapes was common and the law looked the other way basically because each copy degenerated the copy so there was still the incentive for people to purchase a copy from the artist.

Personally I don't know where I fall on this issue. I think watching some of the Creative Commons licensed material and how it fares will help me decide whether copyright-free is a viable alternative that still encourages creativity and allow artists to live off their work. I just wanted to point out that fidelity wasn't an aspect of the debate that can be summarily dismissed.

Re:What bunk!

[MadJo]

The only thing that is keeping them from doing it, is that you have to have an existing fanbase already.. New ideas cannot get this treatment, because they don't have that 10M figure behind them.

But you are right...If you can't beat them, join them. There just needs to be another way of doing it.

Oh and your idea works only if the show (in your example) is of decent quality. But there is nothing against better quality programming.

Re:What bunk!

[greenagain]

That's a completely separate issue. No, I do not believe that constitutes a "copy", because it is not exactly the same as the source material. Furthermore, I'm not really addressing the issue of so-called "derivative" work here; that's a part of the thread that I did not respond to.

Re:What bunk!

[westlake]

any scarcity is purely artificial, and introducing artificial scarcity in an economy basically undermines and damages the economy as a whole. Creating artificial scarcity is more or less the economic equal of wholesale destruction of wealth and property

What is always scarce is talent and production at the highest level.

If writing fantasy for children were easy, than every author would be a C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, or Lemony Snicket.

Geeks never get it. Anything created outside their own culture simply has no value.

there are any number of incentive systems that governments around the world use for various purposes.

Of course there are, but they come at a price.

Have you ever wondered why the West is so amazingly successful as a net exporter of culture?

I'll give you a hint. It isn't because The Voice of America and The Council of Churches defines what can be produced and how it will be financed.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

You have a point but fidelity does seem to have relevance in this debate. In the 80s when dual tape decks came out, copying of tapes was common and the law looked the other way basically because each copy degenerated the copy so there was still the incentive for people to purchase a copy from the artist.

Of course, fidelity, being one if the parameters of the process has input into all considerations. However, because information in general is governed by rules very inconvenient to various greedy people, fidelity is not alone in this consideration. For example, it is posible to have an increase in amount of sampling data and its fidelity, after it has originally decreased. Imagine a skilled musician listening to a bad tape and then replaying and recording what he heard in high quality. I think the cornerstone point of the debate is that the present system designed to promote arts and to financially renumerate artists is a relic of times where the understanding of the processes invovled was non-existant and when the apex of information technology involved hand-operated Gutenberg press. What I call for is a close re-examination of the very principles behind these laws to hopefully arrive at much more just, logical and egalitarian system.

Furthermore, what really spurs me on is the realisation that the long-term logical implications of the present system are truly horrific and will, if unopposed, lead to various new forms of totalitarian societies.

Re:What bunk!

[greenagain]

Do you sometimes walk into mountains thinking that the black paint is a tunnel?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Money is a human construct designed to make paper worth an arbitrary amount.

No. The primary function of money is to act as a medium of exchange -- so that instead of directly trading a half-hour of coding for two sacks full of groceries (an arrangement that may or may not suit you and the grocer at the time), you can trade work for money, and the grocer can trade goods for money. Result: much less time spent on figuring out apples-and-oranges bartering, and much less "friction" in the economy.

Re:What bunk!

[cunamara]

So, please explain to me how you can have a sane system of laws that restrict things like sharing over P2p and don't restrict things like letting a friend read a book. In a digital world, I do not believe this is possible.

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy. You are not 'sharing' your copy, you are creating and giving me a copy.

Well, my reading of Stallman and Lessig is that creative works (e.g., art) and practical works (e.g., software) must be treated differently. Practical works have the potential to advance technology and the quality of human life. Artistic works may also improve the quality of human life, but in a less tangible way.

When you buy software from Apple or Microsoft or any other proprietary vendor, you don't in fact buy the software. You buy a license to use the software- and the vendor still actually owns the software. This is a fundamental shift in the concept of purchasing goods- when you buy a toaster or a bicycle, the vendor retains no ownership at all. Your purchase has transferred ownership to you. You are free to improve the toaster or bicycle to suit your needs, and to share those modifications with others so they can use them too. But not when you buy software. The rules have been tilted 100% in favor of the vendor and 100% against the consumer.

The current situation prevents you from doing these things with software that you buy. If the software is broken in some way, it is illegal to fix it. It is illegal to try to decompile the software and figure out the source code, and it is illegal to modify that code and to share the modifications with other. It is illegal to "buy" software and install it on your computer, and then to install it on your neighbor's computer (who is on a fixed income and can't afford to buy it herself)- being a nice person and sharing with your neighborhood has been criminalized. That's fundamentally to what Stallman objects, from reading his book. In his opinion, being able to read the source code, repair bugs or improve the operation of the software, is part of fair use. Being able to give a copy to his neighbor is a public good and a benefit to society that in his opinion outweighs the small loss of private good that Steve Jobs or Bill Gates might suffer.

The truth that Stallman and Lessig both point to is that "intellectual property" is a myth. An intellectual property is an idea- it cannot be anything else- and as soon as that idea is shared then exclusive ownership is surrendured. By restructuring the nature of the purchase transaction, the defenders of "intellectual property" have tried to have their cake and eat it too. The sheer mass of Bill Gates's and Steve Jobs's wealth shows how effectivce that strategy has been- and also shows the magnitude of the detriment to ordinary consumers who should probably still have a couple of those billions of dollars in their own pockets.

The point of copyrights and patents is to strike a balance- to allow a time-limited monopoly to derive monetary gain. What has happened is that copyrights and patents have been weighted with too much power (copyright especially at the behest of Disney and others) to the detriment of the public domain. And ultimately to the detriment of copyright holders- Disney hasn't had to work up a sweat in decades to be profitable, thanks to retaining control over old works that should have passed into the public domain decades ago. Their movies have sucked for years because they don't have the motivation of having to come up with new good ideas. The development of science in general and especially computer science is being bogged down due to the dragging weight of "intellectual property" which has done little but enrich trial lawyers. The defense of "intellectual property" ultimately hurts everyone.

Re:What bunk!

[Thomas Miconi]

The difference is that in the case of the book, the information is coupled with a physical object and thus causes the confusion in the form of some people's physical-world-coupled simian brains being unable to realize what it is they are sharing.

The difference is that in one case you share it with one person while in the other you share it with fscking millions. Is that so hard to understand ?

Any "practical" measures to restrict sharing of information (which is what this is all about) will and must lead to totalitarian measures in regards to digital communication equipment

Uh, no. Companies will eventually come up with some working public-key based DRM system. Media will only be playable on machines which follow the rules. Sure you still have the analog hole, but it kind of sucks for movies and doesn't work for apps.

Thomas-

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Do you sometimes walk into mountains thinking that the black paint is a tunnel?

At a danger of troll feeding, I shall inquire: what the heck are you on about?

Re:What bunk!

[JulesLt]

Which would be difficult to then pass onto a 3rd person, without writing it out yourself, unlike a digital copy.

I accept the point that there is no way to prevent copying, without actually preventing users from being able to run software of their choice, but I'm really really really bored with the technolibertarian stance that the whole world needs to adjust to do what technology ALLOWS - there are plenty of things that technology can do, from weaponry to spying, that we want to restrict our governments and companies from being able to do - but when it comes to our own usage, we want to live in the land of do-as-you-please.

I'd also add that every proposed alternative compensation scheme I've seen has flaws - either putting funding into the hands of gatekeepers (tax subsidised artists) or flat-fee systems which will require users to give up privacy, or gibberish like 'making money from T-shirts and live sales'. Yep, that will work for books.

Not that you mentioned either, I'm not trying to construct a straw man, so this isn't specifically about your post, but . . . I just don't read anything that makes sense, yet - just a desire to apply business models that work in software (support contracts and consultancy was always where the money was at) to places where they make no sense. It's like there is some intellectual inability to see a difference between software and art, because it's all just binary information.

Personally, I think a system that lets people buy and sell information at a price of the seller's choice (a la Landau's 'Xanadu') is the goal we should be aiming for - cutting out the distribution middle men as far as possible, which would reduce costs drastically - but still allowing economic value. Unfortunately, I don't think it will happen, because a significant number of people will always consider that a threat to their liberty.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The difference is that in one case you share it with one person while in the other you share it with fscking millions. Is that so hard to understand ?

No difference at all from the point of view of information theory and transition from one case to the other is seamless.

Uh, no. Companies will eventually come up with some working public-key based DRM system. Media will only be playable on machines which follow the rules. Sure you still have the analog hole, but it kind of sucks for movies and doesn't work for apps. (emphasis mine)

All public key schemes involve public encryption keys and private decryption ones. So, no luck there as one has to store one unique set of decryption keys on each digital device and thus transmit uniquely encrypted streams to each and every one (and one crack renders the whole scheme moot). And the other question of course is whose rules. The only way anyone has been able to come up so far is a system whereby all computing equipment is completely controlled by a conglomerate of "rights holders". Do enlighten me if you know of any other. In short, the only practical way anyone has been come up so far involves a total lockdown of all computing equipment and in essence transferring control of it to the "rights holders".

Re:What bunk!

[cyclop]

No, I do not believe that constitutes a "copy", because it is not exactly the same as the source material.

Silly-but-not-so-much example. I hear an odd version of "Fur Elise" made with MIDI. I recognize the sounds used. I redo it back. It wouldn't be exactly the same, but it would be really close.

In your opinion, translations are not copies, since they're not exactly the same as the source.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Which would be difficult to then pass onto a 3rd person, without writing it out yourself, unlike a digital copy

Oration? Story telling?

I accept the point that there is no way to prevent copying, without actually preventing users from being able to run software of their choice, but I'm really really really bored with the technolibertarian stance that the whole world needs to adjust to do what technology ALLOWS - there are plenty of things that technology can do, from weaponry to spying, that we want to restrict our governments and companies from being able to do - but when it comes to our own usage, we want to live in the land of do-as-you-please.

This is not a "technolibertarian" stance (and in fact I could be more accurately described as a "socialist" then a libertarian). It is merely a scientific stance. That is if you are going to claim that Witches are the foremost crime problem and then proceed to set up laws, complete with regulations of how to go about burning them on the stake, we would be in the same realm where the copyright debate is. The premise of copyright contradicts both science and logic (and that is in addition to violating free-market principles and contribution-reward schemes of capitalism). So unless you consider logic and science both dispensable and superfluous in the face of greed, the debate is not about technology uses but about fundamental principles governing the society. The technology aspect, which confuses you so badly, is merely a catalyst which exposed deep faults within the law and the whole present approach to this problem.

I'd also add that every proposed alternative compensation scheme I've seen has flaws - either putting funding into the hands of gatekeepers (tax subsidised artists) or flat-fee systems which will require users to give up privacy, or gibberish like 'making money from T-shirts and live sales'. Yep, that will work for books.

No system is flawless but few contradict science and logic as the present one does. A system I advocate is a combination of private and public patronage for arts and academia, direct donations, traditional admission fees at performances and corporate sponsorship. While not perfect, it produces art which is immediately in the public domain, it encourages art as opposed to commerce (which art is not) and allows artists to build immediately on other artists' work. And it does not need to go head to head with science and logic to operate (never you mind common decency). No need for totalitarian police states neither, although some would consider this a major flaw.

Personally, I think a system that lets people buy and sell information at a price of the seller's choice (a la Landau's 'Xanadu') is the goal we should be aiming for - cutting out the distribution middle men as far as possible, which would reduce costs drastically - but still allowing economic value. Unfortunately, I don't think it will happen, because a significant number of people will always consider that a threat to their liberty.

Not a threat liberty, but a threat to logic. Information cannot be "bought", "sold" nor "owned". It simply lacks the necessary attributes to allow for such a treatment. You can only transmit it. This illogical, science-contradicting notion, of being able to "own" information is what lies at the root of this whole fiasco.

Re:What bunk!

[Rinikusu]

The scarcity of Intellectual Property lies within the creator: The ability to create works of art, literature, music, etc is what is scarce. Not everyone can write and/or perform a song that can move people, or paint a picture that speaks to a person's soul, or write a novel that challenges a person's notion of ethics or whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of hacks out there, but let's face it: Genius is scarce. Look around your office. Unless you work at Google or something, chances are you think 90% of the people you work with are fucking idiots who will never create something useful in their lives. Our brains and our ability to create music, art, software, etc shouldn't be penalized just because a medium is easily copyable. We should still enjoy the profits of our abilities and our labor. Writing music is one of the most demanding tasks I've ever done. Practicing over and over, rearranging, listening, thinking, rearranging, recording. Just because you can copy my music with a press of the button doesn't mean I shouldn't have the right to determine who can distribute my work. Because it is work. Even though I can't reach and grab my product. A lot of folks are hung up on the whole notion that property can only be owned if you can actually steal it or take it. As an artist (and a software developer), I say you're wrong.

Re:What bunk!

[greenagain]

I'm sure if the example were some shitty pop song and the target market for an illegal copy were some case in which a midi would have some value (like cell phone ringtones) then whoever owned the rights to the shitty pop song would raise suit. However, no, I don't consider it a copy pertinent to this dicussion. Why? Because nobody wants a crappy midi. People want wave recordings. Recordings or duplicates that sound "like the real thing." Some asshole at work telling me what they saw on Friends last night does not count as a re-broadcast of the show. It doesn't even come close. An encoded screen-capture of the show, however, is close enough that it could be substituted for the show. Not to mention that it isn't ephemeral, like a tv or radio broadcast. Would anybody, in this day and age, accept a midi as a viable alternative to an CD-quality recording? Does that spell it out any clearer?

Re:What bunk!

[Richard_at_work]

Copying and distribution costs may have gone down (although I wouldnt bet that distirbution has decreased all that much, people still demand CDs, inlays etc - its only a small proportion that use itunes), but initial production costs havent decreased dramatically, and marketing costs have probably increased as alternatives have entered the market. If the artists want more, they should take the entire burden on themselves.

Copyright is as artificial as the laws are that are stopping me from taking your car when you 'abandon' it in a carpark. Just because you can easily copy it doesnt mean you automatically should be allowed to, just the same as all the other types of possession law out there are technically easy to break.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like can be done with iTunes?

You can share your copy of a track locally with up to *5* others at a time. And if a 6th wants to 'borrow' it, all you have to do is 'unshare' one of the other users.

It's just like sharing books amongst friends, but *5 times better*!

(And, with a bit of creative tunneling, they don't even have to be 'local')

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

See "copyright law"...

See also Personal Responsiblity.

Conservatives are really hot for that sort of thing, except when it comes to kids swapping digital data... then it's an issue that requires massive corporate intervention, special laws, special spy chips in PCs and the FBI diverted into busting file swappers.

Re:What bunk!

[Da_Weasel]

Are you guys still arguing about this? It's been at least 550 (possibly 1000+) plus years, shouldn't we have settled this by now?

The cost of repoducing information has been dropping by leaps and bounds since 1440. The only difference between then and now is that it has finally reached the virtual zero mark. Everytime information repoduction makes a significant jump downward creators get nervous and try to stymy these new innovation. After years of fighting they eventually give up and focus their efforts on how they can use this system to their benifit. And each time they find themselves making even more money than before. Video tapes were going to be the end of the movie theather according the big movie executives. They fought tooth and nail to stop it. In the end they benifited from it immensely. It created an entirly new revenue stream that the big movie executive could have never imagined previously. An entire industry sprung up around it, a (as of 2000) 7.3 Biiiiiiillion dollar industry. *removes his pinky from the corner of his mouth*

bah!

P2P File Sharing = Printing Press

You can't stop this tidal wave, but you can surf it all the way to the bank...

Re:What bunk!

[Tiger4]

"introducing artificial scarcity in an economy basically undermines and damages the economy as a whole."

Which pretty much explains why the diamond market collapsed so long ago, and people today consider them worthless pieces of rock.

And I've noticed the oil market teetering on the edge for some time now. Those cartels just never learn. When will they see that they'd make more money by opening the spigots and letting the oil gush freely ?

Re:What bunk!

[cyclop]

We are not talking about what do people listen today. We are talking about what is a copy, in absolute sense, or not.

And your cell ringtone example proves my point. A cell ringtone is clonable with high fidelity with just memory and some skills. Therefore it shows my point: listening a tune can be copying. The fact that in most cases it is practically not is irrelevant here. What is relevant is that, at least potentially, the brain is an information copy device.

Re:What bunk!

[NoMaster]

If the production company is able to guarantee $3.3M in revenue per episode that means a ROI of at least 10% ... When the episode is completed, it is released to the public domain and the money is released to the production company.

And this works - up to the point where the principles of the production company start thinking "hey, if there was just some way I could make money from syndication and residuals, that'd be all profit!"

Then they get to work trying to warp the system - change the production agreements, gang together with other production companies, lobby the government to change the rules, etc.

Such a system benefits all parties

Well, yes - but, for the inevitable greedy few, it doesn't benefit them enough.

How else do you think things got the way they are now?

Furthermore it is 100% free-market, no government intervention required, no dollars wasted on the FBI tracking down pirates because piracy is meaningless in such a system.

Bullshit. You'd need government to maintain the free (as in libre) utopia - laws to prevent the greedy taking advantage of the 'freedom', and the dollars saved on the FBI not tracking down copyright infringers would go to the FBI to pay for tracking down libre-infringers. Until, after a bit of creative lobbying, the government turned 'round and said "well, they took all risk - it's only right that they have the opportunity to make a little more..."

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's attitudes like yours that are the reason why media companies are trying to shove DRM down our throats. "They can't stop me from illegally copying digital works, so I will do it."

Bullshit. DRM is about control... it's not about piracy, since there has never been (and will never be) a DRM scheme that stops piracy. These companies are not stupid, they know this. The whining about copyright infringement is a cover for more and more control over distribution and, increasingly, the technological infrastructure.

DRM will encourage piracy because it's the only way to get non-crippled stuff... but they don't care about that because they will have extended their fingers of control into every electronic device.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you support me if I took a complete copy of something you created, distributed it and took credit for creating it?
-- by Znork (31774)

Re:What bunk!

[shutdown -p now]

Over time, we've found that the free market with working competition is the best solution for almost every form of good.

Have we? Or have we just been told that it is the best way by those whose profits depend on it being so?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

As another poster said, you're confusing trademark and copyright.

The "Farscape" name could be protected solely by trademark, while the series is released without copyright protection. People could make derivative works, but to market or distribute them under the "Farscape" brand would be trademark infringement.

Thus fans of the series might or might not buy derivative shows from other producers, but they would be aware of the fact. They'd know whether they were supporting the actual "Farscape" producer or not with their payments.

Re:What bunk!

[anthony_dipierro]

Such a system benefits all parties - the production company is guaranteed a profit before they invest a single dime, something completely unheard of in the world of entertainment business. In return for that guarantee, the end result is made freely available to one and all so that the people who funded the creation can share it with anyone they want without legal or moral issues. Ultimately the free distribution of previous episodes acts as advertising for future episodes.

Furthermore it is 100% free-market, no government intervention required, no dollars wasted on the FBI tracking down pirates because piracy is meaningless in such a system. And if the show sucks? People are only out a buck, not a big a loss and the chances of the next episode being funded goes down - it is survival of the fittest with no middlemen like advertisers and "programming execs" to muddle up the difference between good shows and crappy shows.

So - that's one idea demonstrating why copyright is indeed obsolete.

I tend to agree with this, but at the same time, it's perfectly to do all of this within the confines of copyright law. And since this is true, then it can't really be true that such a system benefits all parties, because if it benefitted all parties, then all parties would agree to it (there's no law, at least in the US, which says that you *must* use copyright).

I think something closer to the truth of the matter is that for now, in most situations, copyright does indeed benefit some parties. Namely, it benefits the large corporations which have the capital to invest in producing copyrighted works, by increasing their profits *beyond* what they'd achieve using your payment scheme. This is starting to shift though, partly because of technology such as the Internet, and partly because consumers are beginning to demand more freedoms. Copyleft is a great invention, and personally I believe it will one day surpass standard copyright even without any government intervention.

Re:What bunk!

[jZnat]

That's all done via DRM; some magic hocus-pocus to arbitrarily enforce an artificial scarcity to an unlimited resource. That's both the beauty and somehow flawed aspect of digitalisation: everything can be copied limitlessly, and no amount of artificial protection can prevent that. Pandora's Box has been open, and the copyright owners are pissed.

Re:What bunk!

[CRCulver]

Free As In Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software , Sam William's biography of RMS, has a good explanation of RMS' philosophy that free copying is in the public good.

Re:What bunk!

[Van Vleck]

When I read a book, there is a kind of copy of that book in my brain. It is not digital. It is not accurate. I recently read "Babel Tower" by A.S. Byatt. I remember the story of that book, much to the chagrin, I suppose, of Ms. Byatt. The Imperfections of my memory-copy do not mitigate the fact that I have stolen the book. I am an IP Pirate. I could get on the phone with my friend Nate, and retell to him sections of "Babel Tower". This is called Peer-To-Peer Network Evildoing. Thank goodness there is a profound moral difference between copies that are Analog (nice) and copies that are digital (evil).

Were I to memorize passages of the book, those passages would be effectively exact. I have memorize some poems, and I can type them out word-for-word and comma-for-comma, years after I memorized.

I have memorized the poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens. It's one of my favorite poems. Sadly, Mr. Stevens has not been dead long enough, nor written his poem early enough, so his copyright is still in effect. It is too bad that Wallace Stevens didn't get all his poems written before 1923. He had the bad grace to write poems AFTER Walt Disney arrived, which means that Wallace Stevens' immortal legacy will never, ever enter the public domain. At present, "The Emperor of Ice-Cream," published in 1923, is set to enter public domain in the year 2017. The likelihood if this happening is, I fear, meagre. The ministrations of The Walt Disney Corporation will see to it that we never get the benefit of this poem. Because if we DID get it into the public domain, that would mean that other Obviously Important Proprietary Things (Mickey Mouse) would also pass into the public domain. And we can't have that. It is interesting, at least to me, that "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" was published in 1923. This is the magic cut-off date as the law now stands. Before 1923 - belongs to the world. After January 1, 1923 - belongs to "The Right Noble Estate of Whomever is Willing to Sell it to Disney." Were I to dig up some biography history of Stevens, and discover that he had published the "Ice-Cream" poem in some literary magazine BEFORE it appeared in "Harmonium" (1923) then... voila. The wide world (the public domain) would own "The Emperor of Ice Cream." Indeed, it is likely (though I haven't dug it up) that most of Stevens' famous poems were published in magazines prior to 1923.

How sad for the estate of Wallace Stevens that he did so much of his well-known work at the beginning of his career. If only Stevens had known how copyright law would unfold, he could have jealously guarded his art, and released it in the safer regions of the post-1923 universe.

Let us imagine that tomorrow I start writing a short story. Let us say that my story is influenced, dominated by the cadences, rhythms and ideas in "Emperor of Ice-Cream." Let us say, more scandalously, that my story is similarly influenced by "Babel Tower." (O come swiftly year 2081, where I should be released from my Copyright Bondage to Ms. Byatt!) When I have finished my new story, it will be a Derivative Work. Unless I pay royalties to Ms. Byatt (and to every other influence on my literary style) I am a Pirate. I have stolen their Intellectual Property, made copies of it in my head, and then created Derivative Works based on their hard-won Authorship.

The only Legitimate authors and musicians in America are those who have never seen, read, nor heard anything except pre-1923 material. Show me those people. They are not pirates.

Ahh. I just discovered that "The Emperor of Ice Cream" was published in "The Dial," uly 1922. So ignore everything I said about its copyright. That poem belongs to everybody.

Re:What bunk!

[Planesdragon]

State mandated DRM...

Yes, it does. Or, rather, DRM mandated to be installed on all computers and all copyrightable files, does.

DRM mandated by the record company, including DRM for mandatory licensing (wherein the government forces the publisher to sell you a copy), is something else altogether.

RMS is against BOTH forms of DRM -- both the totalitarian mandated DRM straw man and the reasonable "commerical balance" DRM.

Re:What bunk!

[Rakishi]

And Africa's situation has very little to do with diamonds or their value.

Re:What bunk!

[Infernal Device]

The one thing left out of your method is a system of refunding unsatisfied consumers. If I spend that buck on a show and I'm seriously dissatisfied, I want my money back (the same as with any other good or service). It's not the buck that's important, per se, it's the idea that unsatisfactory effort remains rewarded and unpunished.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

It's not like there's any lack of information production that isn't compensated directly. Additionally, there's no lack of business models that fund information production without government-imposed artifical scarcity.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

A global, digital information network exists. Writable optical media that can store gigabytes of data that can then be perfectly reproduced exist. Arbitrarily saying that using these things is unethical makes absolutely no sense - it's like saying that it's unethical to go to a public beach and swim without paying.

Re:What bunk!

[roadkill-maker]

The problem isn't that it takes work, the problem is that people want to get paid to do something thats free, ie, distribute music. Yes, artists should get paid for the hard work they do, but only for the work thats done. I see no reason why an artist can create a work, and get paid for distrubiting copies of it for the next 20 years. A miner (who, by the way, probably works much harder then a musician) only gets paid for the hours they put in. And if you say anyone can be a miner, you probably have never worked in a mine. Also, it has nothing to do with it being intellectual because a physicist also only gets paid for the time he's working, and that is intellectual work as well.

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

You are taking it out of context. Relax. I pirate music too. All I am saying is I as a consumer do not expect to get everything for free but I sure as hell don't want the MPAA or RIAA to tell me that I can't use my music how I want to use it.

I don't expect artists to put out albums for nothing but I should have the right to use something I bought the way I want to. I just think there should be a good medium ground that can be met.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If the development company does this for even one episode, then someone else - Spielberg, Warner, Fox, etc. - can take the Farscape line and produce their own episodes, or their own feature films.

So what? That does not stop the original creators from continuing to produce their own shows. Furthermore, the real value is not in the characters - it is in the creators - the writers, the actors, the fx guys, the set designers. They are what make a show good or bad - the characters are just one piece of creation.

And just maybe, if someone else comes along and "re-interprets" the story, the result would be better. Kind of like Battlestar Galactica, but without all the lawyers.

Now if you want to talk about commercial licensing for ancilliary markets like happy-meals and such, then that is the domain of trademarks, not copyrights.

I don't think any television or movie production company would go for such a deal.

What you underestimate is the value of guaranteed 10%+ returns over a couple of months. There are people buying bonds with abysmal rates of return just for the guarantee. A guarantee of 10% over 3 months is HUGE. Maybe current production companies won't play the game - but others are likely to because that kind of ROI with zero risk is huge compared to most investments opportunities.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Two efforts to do pretty much what you describe, one for Firefly and one for Enterprise, have recently failed to get anywhere near the scale of popular support they would require to achieve their goals.

Ignoring the issues with Paramount there are two key hurdles to be overcome:

1) There is currently no mechanism in place to collect and handle such escrow accounts with low overhead. That's why I said to watch what google is doing, when they say they don't intend to compete with paypal that leaves the door wide open for a global escrow system - and a whole lot of other options too.

2) Neither of the campaigns were anything close to the terms that I propose - the people paying for the production didn't get to own squat. They take all the financial risk of a crappy show, but they don't even get to own what they paid for. That is a bad deal, I'm not surprised response was tepid.

3) Yeah, I know I said two. The first few productions to take such a route have lots of inertia to overcome. Going back to a comissioned model requires people on all sides to get out of the mental rut that the copyright industry has been working as hard as possible to squeeze us into. There will inevitably be a lot of mistarts and failures before someone can pull it off.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial scarcity is unacceptable, and extra incentive systems must build on methods compatible with a free market. It's not like it's hard to do, there are any number of incentive systems that governments around the world use for various purposes.

Such as?

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Sounds good, but how do you get a new show made?

There are a variety of ways. Mostly I think a reputation-based model would help. Right now the reputation of directors and actors, and sometimes producers is what sells movies. That sort of idea can be used to sell new shows that make use of "old" talent. Get a big name on board and his fans will pony up the escrow bucks.

That does not address the issue of brand new players. They've got two options - go totally indy and give it away. Like most unsigned bands do today. It is a loss, but the productions are much smaller and can be offset by selling "shares" of future productions to investors. For example, someone might put up $100K to fund the pilot episode in exchange for $200K out of the funding for the 2nd episode. That $200k just becomes another piece of the production cost.

The other approach is to tag along. New guys cut their teeth in small parts and jobs on productions with big names. Play a mid-level part (actor, director, etc) in a successful production and you can leverage that to become a big name "headliner" for a brand new production.

Both approaches are pretty similar to the way hollywood deals with personal fame today under the current copyright regime so it isn't much of a stretch to see it working similarly without copyrights too.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

In real life, an AC Production house will produce a crappy esipode with the lowest budget possible, boost "management fees" and other expense to friendly vendors, and thus rip off your 10M fans.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Your scheme is designed around the business model so often touted on Slashdot: "give me everything I want, for free, without limits, without string, now now,now, NOW ".

You are correct sir. Do you know why it is designed that way? Because that is HUMAN NATURE we all want the most for the least. To argue otherwise is pure naivete. The thing is that before the internet "every I want for free" was not feasible. But now it is.

And whether you like it or not, people will always take advantage of free stuff. Furthermore, it is human nature to want to share good stuff, so there will always be people looking to share songs, shows, etc that they think are cool.

No, it's not. It's a model designed from the outset to 'prove' a particular point

Far from it. It is a model designed to deal with the simple fact of life that the internet has made zero marginal cost copying easily available to just about everyone. You can't stop it without dismantling the internet, so you might as well find a profitable business model that fits the new environment.

By the way, the idea is hardly recent, nor hardly my own. If you google for the "street performer protocol" you should find a paper and discussion of such a system dating back at least to 1998.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So how do you keep an ad agency from ponying up ALL the money to have the program made, inserting product and/or advertising into it, and then claiming they own the result since they paid for it?

You don't let them? The production company has complete control of the product until it is released. If somebody wants to edit the end result to insert commercials, let them. Nobody will watch it as long as the original is available and being in the public domain it will always be around. If somebody does watch it, so what? It was the watchers choice to do so.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy. You are not 'sharing' your copy, you are creating and giving me a copy.
This isn't rocket science, people!

Not really. After you've read a book, a copy of it remains in your mind. It may not be a perfect copy, but if you compare yourself with your friend after you both have read the book, your knowledge about the book will be equivalent, on average. So what's the real difference between two people reading the same book and two people reading two copies of the same book, aside from how many cents the author gets? Furthermore, libraries completely remove the need for any more than two or three copies of any given book, in the long term. Electronic libraries could be ultimately more efficient, consider that Google could probably afford to buy ten copies of every book printed on earth right now, and loan them out legally to most of the world's population. Does that mean that artists should only be paid for 10 copies of a book they write, or that libraries are evil, or that the entire concept of paying for individual copies of a work is a really silly idea invented and enforced by publishing companies, the one party who finds the current situation advantageous?

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I tend to agree with this, but at the same time, it's perfectly to do all of this within the confines of copyright law. And since this is true, then it can't really be true that such a system benefits all parties, because if it benefitted all parties, then all parties would agree to it

Do not underestimate the power of inertia. There is a lot of investment in the current copyright regime. These people don't see any upside to changing, and they think they can avoid having change forced upon them. These are the same types who are trying to introduce artificial scarcity via DRM and the DMCA.

Remember that the carrot is guaranteed return on investment, practially zero risk. But there are people who want to hold out for bigger potential returns under the system of copyright.

So the stick is piracy. People are going to copy their shit no matter what kind measures are taken. When "old hollywood" dies off and "new hollywood" accepts this, then we will see changes. Until then, the changes will only be around the edges and in other countries where copyright is not so strongly worshipped.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The one thing left out of your method is a system of refunding unsatisfied consumers. If I spend that buck on a show and I'm seriously dissatisfied, I want my money back (the same as with any other good or service).

There is no mechanism for refund. The reason you get to own the result, not just own a single copy, but own it outright to do with as you please because it is in the public domain, is that you are shouldering the risk that the end result will suck.

You want the option to get your money back? You have to give up ownership of the end result. Just like real investors who currently shoulder the financial risk of production.

Besides, your analogy is broken anyway. You don't get a refund if you sit through a crappy movie at the theater, and you will have a hell of a time getting your money back after watching a DVD of a crappy movie.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's not the buck that's important, per se, it's the idea that unsatisfactory effort remains rewarded and unpunished.

Sorry, I forgot to address that part.

The punishment for crappy work is that you - and everyone else who thinks it sucked - won't put up a buck for the next episode/movie/song/whatever from the same guys. Either they have to do better with less money next time around, or they go out of business.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In real life, an AC Production house will produce a crappy esipode with the lowest budget possible, boost "management fees" and other expense to friendly vendors, and thus rip off your 10M fans.

In real life, a production house that does that will not be able to get buyers for a second episode and will go bankrupt.

Re:What bunk!

[MacWiz]

When the balance reaches $3.3M production begins.

What if the balance only ever reaches $2.9M? What happens to the money?

Re:What bunk!

[CyricZ]

I don't doubt that you have problems comprehending the material you're covering during your academic studies. After all, you were unable to notice that Republicans and Democrats are the very same these days. So it doesn't strike me as odd that you lack basic analytical skills, in addition to your inability to read.

Re:What bunk!

[asb]

Last time I checked, copyright goes completely against the laws of physics. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable.

Last time I checked copyright is a human construct designed to make certain kind of duplicating of bits illegal.

Re:What bunk!

[lasindi]

We could put a huge glass bubble over a country, bottle all the air and force people to buy it. That would undoubtedly employ a lot of people, even increase the GDP, but for any sane definition of wealth, one would have to be truly warped to claim that would benefit the wealth of the society, or the economy, as a whole.

There is a simple reason why this analogy is completely ridiculous. People do not create air; they can only consume it. People do create intellectual works, like books, music and software. If every person on the planet disappeared, there would be plenty of new "air" (I presume by "air" you mean oxygen) produced by plants. If every person disappeared, even an infinite number of plants would not produce a single new book, song or program.

Oxygen is almost every where we live, within easy reach of our eager mouths to inhale. It doesn't take a refinery to get it ready for us. On the other hand, creating a song or program takes hours and hours of hard, patient work, as anyone who has done either knows. It's not like Metallica's music (used as an example because of their actions against Napster) had been out in the open before Metallica came along, ready for anybody to "inhale" into their ears, when they rudely came and put a bubble over it, called it "theirs," and started selling it. They put lots of work into the music, and put an artificial restriction on it. They did this because it's impossible to sell access to intellectual works without such restriciton (at best you can make money from donations).

Yes, right now you could remove the restriction and Metallica's music would be like oxygen in the sense that anyone with an Internet connection could access it. But the danger is that in the future, Metallica and other artists will be less able (they have mouths to feed) or less motivated to produce music. Will music disappear completely? Certainly not. That's why open source software can survive; people simply enjoy making music and software. But will there be less music? Probably. Bands that are less successful and get fewer donations will probably have to find second jobs to support themselves, which means less time doing what they do best. Musicians like making music, but they also like having money (and at least a little money is always necessary). If they can do both, they will; and because they are the reason we get to even have their creative works in the first place, they have the right to restrict it so that they get compensation for their work. Don't like it? Go make your own music and share it with the world freely; no one is stopping you.

Re:What bunk!

[lasindi]

Last time I checked, copyright goes completely against the laws of physics. It's a human construct designed to make bits uncopyable.

Last time I checked, prohibiting homicide goes completely against the laws of biology. It's a human construct designed to make humans unkillable.

Come on, this is insightful? Legal laws don't make things physically impossible. If something was physically impossible, there would be no point in banning it; by your logic, every law "violates" scientific laws.

What you do, as with free software, is accept -- indeed welcome -- the fact that bits can be copied. You then charge people for your time.

Charge people for what time? For my time spent programming? This is exactly not what happens with free software. If I'm a free software "customer," and I want an operating system, here's what I do. I go on the Internet and google "free operating system". I find a GNU/Linux distribution, I download it, and I install it. Through this process, I have paid the authors of the software in the distribution not a single penny for their many hours writing the programs I get to use. Yes, I can choose to pay for the programs, but optionally giving money is effectively a donation, not a purchase. The programmers aren't charging me for their time; they're merely asking for donations for their time.

Now, you may mean "charge for supporting the software," as Stallman recommends. People other than the programmers can and do support free software, and therefore the people spending the most time (the programmers) don't get to charge any money for their time. Even if the authors are bundling the support with the software, there's a semi-conflict of interest. The worse your program is, the more support your customers need, and the more money you make. You have a financial incentive to do a bad job, which isn't a good thing.

For "packaged" software (software that goes is used widely in essentially unmodified form; i.e. the opposite of in-house or contracted software projects), the only way to "charge for your time" as a programmer is to restrict the redistribution of the software. If you know of a different way that does, I'd love to hear about it.

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

If writing fantasy for children were easy, than every author would be a C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, or Lemony Snicket.

My sister (4 years older then me) used to make goodnight stories for me when I was kid. They were good. Not much centuries ago, most parents or grandparents were authors of fantasy for children. Only a little part of it was compiled into "folk tales" books. Oh, yes, and... those authors you have mentioned are SO heavilly plundering the common folk herritage...

Finders keepers!

Re:What bunk!

[Znork]

Personally, my point of view over the last decade and a half has gone from being fairly pro-copyright, to being against the monopoly form of copyrights, yes. I find the economic and freedom related arguments far too compelling.

However, I support attribution rights, and I would probably support a non-monopoly attribution based incentive system for promoting creative endeavors.

"The only thing that has changed is the barriers related to reproduction of copyrighted material have been significantly reduced, in some cases almost to zero."

So, if the barriers related to reproducing, say, hammers, were dropped to zero, should we forbid the reproduction of hammers?

As long as the the economic overhead caused by the artificial scarcity is small in comparison the the optimal situation, there hasnt been that much damage caused. The real problem arises from a variety of issues that have come together over the last decade. The fall of reproduction costs, combined with the fall of distribution, the rise available capital for spending in that area, etc, have conspired to create a situation where consumers are paying many, many, many times what it would optimally cost to produce and distribute the information.

In a free market, prices would fall to adjust, releasing that extra capital to finance other production. In a monopoly market, prices instead rise to follow available capital which controls the optimum revenue level. Then costs tend to follow the revenue level, as there is little competetive pressure to hold them down.

The larger that difference grows, between optimum and actual resource usage, the larger the amount of wealth _that could otherwise have been produced_ is now lost to the economy.

And now I havent even gotten into the economic aspects of the combinatory nature of information, and the wealth not created because of currently restricted and slowed cross-seeding.

Re:What bunk!

[Ingolfke]

I support you AC.

Re:What bunk!

[Znork]

"Your analogy lacks any logic because noone needs to produce air."

Noone currently needs to produce air because the production and distribution of air isnt restricted and there's no scarcity. That does not change the fact that we _could_ restrict it, for example, by artificially limiting its availability, or by assigning air rights to owners of plants, etc.

Do you, or do you not, think that would actually create an economic benefit, and increase wealth as a whole, wether or not it creates extra employment in a whole new air industry?

"Over time, we've found that the free market with working competition is the best solution for almost every form of good."

Without a doubt. In a free market, prices tend to fall to follow the cost of production, and create an incentive to enter the market if there is a large difference between cost of production and price, thus creating higher supply, and falling prices.

Unfortunately, and you're on the right trail there, the free market requires that the products be interchangeable. As the whole point of IP legislation is to prevent that interchangability, and the whole foundation for the extra cost of IP, is to prevent the free market from working, you dont get those effects. Supply does not increase to fill demand; prices instead rise to curtail demand (and as an aside, a black market economy gets formed to partially fill the void). You have the artificial scarcity.

It's not a free market. It's the opposite.

"Government subsidies to artists?"

Copyright and IP in general is essentially a subsidy. The exception from competing in the free market is comparable to a taxation right; the money comes from what is in its essense a 'monopoly tax' imposed on the consumers of such goods. That the government isnt the go-between is what is the exception.

"Copyrights and patent are not the common standard?"

Monopoly grants is not the common standard as far as government subsidies go. Most such government incentives in democracies take the form where the government imposes taxes, has mandatory social systems, or offers tax breaks, and then the division of resources is done by the government. This offers several advantages such as some form of democratic control over the budget, a political pressure not to increase the incentive levels beyond reason, some forms of controls over the effects on the economy and the level of resource diversion, etc.

The monopoly grant systems have their birth in far less democratic systems, tracing their heritage to medieval guilds and aristocracy, when those criteria were not at all interesting, and in fact, the more circumspect the crown could be in obtaining its kickbacks and asserting its control, the better.

"You're telling me there's so many other great incentive systems, well present them."

Ok, here's a quick one. Exchange copyright for attribution rights. Prices for IP heavy material should fall to a fraction of what it is today, near their cost of production and distribution. Impose a blanket percentage tax over all IP heavy material, similar to a VAT, and distribute dividends over attribution owners, according to some optimum scheme.

Suddenly, the incentive for distribution and production becomes to do it as efficiently as possible, or the free market will ensure someone else does it better. The incentive for the original creator becomes to see their work distributed as widely as possible, as that should increase their dividends. They also have an incentive for others to include their material, as that would also give them attribution rights, and others would have an incentive to add as much of their own as possible, as that would give them more.

Tada, a few short lines, and you have a system much better geared towards creating an actual incentive compatible with a free market.

Re:What bunk!

[Znork]

Take a look on wikipedia for "parable of the broken window", and "opportunity costs"/"hidden cost".

As a quick and dirty explanation; imagine that the cost of oil in the US was optimal, ie, no cartel, the cost falling towards the cost of production plus free-market profit.

Now imagine that the money people spend on gas was that much less, that they had the difference to spend on other things.

Now imagine they spent that money on other things instead.

That money would finance the creation of other things in the US economy.

That difference of things as a representation of wealth, available after the transaction, in the US economy represents the total damage caused to the US economy by the cartel. Instead of having the gas _and_ the other things, which free market efficiency would have allowed, we now only have the gas.

Re:What bunk!

[Grab]

Information cannot be "bought", "sold" nor "owned". It simply lacks the necessary attributes to allow for such a treatment

Certainly it can be "bought" and "sold". Suppose I'm engaged in industrial (or other) espionage, I'd be very likely to say "I can tell you what your competitors are doing, if you pay me $20K for that information". I can give you as many other examples as you like. Hence "bought" and "sold".

"Owned" is a more difficult issue, as it implies sole possession. Which is where copyright comes in, imposing an arbitrary rule to create the concept of ownership. It doesn't stop people gaining access to the information, it just imposes penalties against those who violate that rule. In rather the same way, arbitrary national borders don't stop people crossing them without completing the required formalities, but they do impose penalties if you cross them without it.

There's no reason why your system of patronage wouldn't work. It worked for a long time, before copyright came around. However, the result was *less* freedom of expression. Since you couldn't do anything once the information had escaped, the result was that books and music were carefully controlled to ensure no-one else could share it. For example, sheet music for all the classical music we know today was simply not available. That was possible to beat for a few people with rare talents (Bach famously attended a performance of music which was not available in sheet form and then transcribed it afterwards), but this was rare enough that it wouldn't happen often. And the people who'd had the information shared with them (and even those who'd beaten the system) would hoard it, because there was value in them possessing information that no-one else had - if you're the only person who knows the score to the 1812 Overture, you're the only person who can perform it.

Copyright OTOH allows people to share information freely and still gain value from it. Now any number of people can get the sheet music to the 1812 Overture and study it or make derived works - the flipside is that they have to pay a small amount for doing so. In fact, it's in the author's interest to make it available, because they can then get paid. So more works get shared than would ever have happened under a system of patronage. In other words, copyright is a legislative implementation of micropayments.

You might quote open-source here as a counter-argument. But open-source only works through copyright. Because anyone can read it but it can only be reused under certain conditions, you're using copyright to ensure a better outcome in the future. In other words, you're passing up a small profit today in order to get a larger profit (technical not monetary) in the future.

Also note that contrary to your assertion, there is no requirement for works to be in the public domain in order for other art to be created - "The Incredibles" and other Pixar films can still take the piss out of comics, cartoons and other films, without those other films being out of copyright. The only thing they can't do is directly imitate other works - but that would not be creating new art, and so we don't have any loss.

So I disagree. Copyright *is* logical. The particular implementation we may have (duration, etc) is flawed, and it's also prone to technological issues, but it's preferable to most alternatives - in particular, to the alternative you describe.

Grab.

Re:What bunk!

[Infernal Device]

Any system that rewards also needs to include a system of punishments as well, though. Under the described system, it is entirely possible to perpertrate a fraud and reward the effort. In the long term, withholding of funds is an effective solution. However, there needs to be a short-term solution as well. As a example, consider the case of Limp Bizkit, who got sued for presenting a 17-minute concert. Certainly, we shouldn't expect consumers to suffer through more episodes like that.

Word-of-mouth can have an effect, as in the case of Ben Afflect and Jennifer Lopez's movie Gigli, but the first wave of movie-goers was stuck with having paid some amount of money for an unsatisfactory product. The primary lesson was learned by Hollywood, which was to clamp down even further on pre-show publicity, etc.

What it comes down to is that donating X amount of dollars toward a project is a "pay for performance" system, and in that case, one expects performance, not half-hearted effort. If the effort presented fails to satisfy, then the consumer needs a method of recouping their loss. We should not be rewarding half-assed attempts.

Re:What bunk!

[Knuckles]

It's also easy when people pay for your flights and accommodation around the world so you can tell them why they should live according to your rules.

Hey AC, I think you didn't understand. The thing is, RMS lived by his principles when it meant giving up a good job at MIT and living in a container on the campus, embarking on the project of writing a free Unix replacement. Therefore, accusing him of "it's easy when" is incorrect.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What if the balance only ever reaches $2.9M? What happens to the money?

The production company must either decide to lower their asking price, or the money is eventually returned from escrow.

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

As a example, consider the case of Limp Bizkit, who got sued for presenting a 17-minute concert. Certainly, we shouldn't expect consumers to suffer through more episodes like that.

Objective measurements like length can easily be written into a contract, as can requirements to follow standard accounting practices. However, it is impossible to reasonably enforce any kind of subjective measure of 'quality.' Poor quality is a risk the investors take -- be they financiers under the current system or the end-buyer under the proposed comission system -- in exchange for actual ownership of the results.

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

I actually generally don't download music.

On the other hand, I don't see any reason why sharing data files like music or downloading a data file that someone else is sharing could possibly be unethical.

I see this whole thing as being a lot like the time of day. If you ask someone on the street for the time of day and they have a watch, they'll generally tell you. If someone choses to post a clock on the side of their building, then everyone can see what time it is. The time, like any other data, is wealth that can be shared freely - it seems more likely that hoarding would be unethical rather than sharing.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Certainly it can be "bought" and "sold". Suppose I'm engaged in industrial (or other) espionage, I'd be very likely to say "I can tell you what your competitors are doing, if you pay me $20K for that information". I can give you as many other examples as you like. Hence "bought" and "sold".

An illusion. You are paying for a transmission (one of the few activities possible with information) to you, not for the information itself.

"Owned" is a more difficult issue, as it implies sole possession.

Try impossible as it also implies scarcity and a whole lot of other things.

Which is where copyright comes in, imposing an arbitrary rule to create the concept of ownership.

I have news for you, declaring gravity illegal will not make you float.

It doesn't stop people gaining access to the information, it just imposes penalties against those who violate that rule.

Which "violations", due to being written by greed mongers instead of scientists, are impossible to ascertain my any means other than subjective, arbitrary and anti-scientific ones. You might as well get witch doctors and shamans involved.

In rather the same way, arbitrary national borders don't stop people crossing them without completing the required formalities, but they do impose penalties if you cross them without it.

Except that arbitrary national borders follow the long established rules which govern physical private property, i.e. land in this case.

However, the result was *less* freedom of expression. Since you couldn't do anything once the information had escaped, the result was that books and music were carefully controlled to ensure no-one else could share it. For example, sheet music for all the classical music we know today was simply not available.

That is because the apex of the technology then was the Gutenberg press. Today it would result in a near impossibility to distribute and to hide things simultenously. Open Source development would suffer changes, as essentially all software would become public domain. That means that companies could modify and then distribute Linux but since there is no way for them to "sell" software (as all software would be immediately freely copyable), this would be counter-productive in most cases. Only true art and Open Source, collaborative efforts would likely survive this process. Would there be secret-sauce solutions based on secrecy? Certainly, as they are now, everywhere. As it is one of fundamental properties of information to remain "unknown" or "secret" to one party.

Copyright OTOH allows people to share information freely and still gain value from it.

No it does not. 90-years past author's death? Perpetual copyright for corporations? What are you talking about?

Now any number of people can get the sheet music to the 1812 Overture and study it or make derived works - the flipside is that they have to pay a small amount for doing so.

I see now. Your definition of "freely" was written, strike that, purchased from Bill Gates.

In fact, it's in the author's interest to make it available, because they can then get paid.

They get also paid under patronage system. Also, you are confusing the services of duplication and distribution and an act of creation.

But open-source only works through copyright.

GPL was written as a defense against copyright and anti-reverse-engineering laws. Remove those and no GPL will be needed.

Also note that contrary to your assertion, there is no requirement for works to be in the public domain in order for other art to be created - "The Incredibles" and other Pixar films can still take the piss out of comics, cartoons and other films, without those other films being out of copyright. The only thing they can't do is directly imitate other works - but that would not be creating new art, and so we don't have any loss.

Yes we do, all of that requires expense

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

It's not like you're Jesus Christ copying bread and fish and distributing them to the hungry. Think about it. I'm sure you will see something of questionable ethical behaviour in there.

Re:What bunk!

[Ingolfke]

Attribution of copyright/authorship is tied directly to copyright. Without copyright laws I can copy anything I would like to and claim it as my own or chose not to cite the original author without any legal fears. As for lying, not only is that common practice, but I could easily skirt the ethical issues by making modifications to the original work and claiming it as my own, even though it is highly derivative.

Here are some thoughts

* Any constraint creates a false scarcity.
* Atribution of creation is legally enforced through copyright.
* Copyrights by definition create a constraint, even if they only require attribution (see /. post about clause in GPLv3 requiring text in the binary... thereby making GPLv3 code unusable for embedded projects fighting for each byte of space).
* Attribution creates a false scarcity, even if it is minor, and sense you are against all false scarcity (all constraints) you are against attribution and the copyrights that enforce it?

Oh I'm absurd... of course what did you really mean? Explain it in more detail.

Re:What bunk!

[Ingolfke]

Elimination of copyright laws would destroy innovation and would collect intellectual properties into large corporations and would gaurantee the move to strong DRM.

If we eliminated copyright laws, yes, you'd get all of the existing books, software, movies, and music for virtually nothing... and there would be a short term spike in amount of new products that were created as derivatives of these products. But... there would be no money, initially, in continuing to invest in these products. Publishing houses would lose money on books, because anyone who could print it cheaper could undercut them... meaning their marketing and initial investments in the author are lost. Software development houses would fall into the same boat... once they produce an innovative idea, that idea would be immediately copied and reproduced and the profits from the use of the idea (specifically the implementation code) would be redirected to others. And their software itself could be resold by anyone... so...

the big corporations with big distribution would thrive. The bigger your distribution network the more powerful you become. All you have to do is identify new products, get a copy, and then sell access to those products. Bittorrent and other P2P may level the field some, until...

everyone realizes there is a MASSIVE financial incentive to ultra strong DRM in everything. If you can create this technology and deploy it, you can then avoid copyrights entirely, and deal exclusively with licenses which are legal constructs you can fashion into just about anything that benefits you. No more fair use. You licensed the product and if they can manage to make a copy fine... of course the owners of the DRM solution are going to take a cut per license and maybe at the behest of their biggest customer will require you to pay an upfront licensing or setup fee (maybe $100... maybe $10000). So small time content producers either make a big investment (which may not be returned) or release their products without any protections. Of course the big time shops will snatch up the content, bundle it with their existing content and make a profit, while the small time guy makes $0.

The current copyright model isn't perfect... the copyright extensions need to be reduced. But without legal support for restricting the ability to copy someones work you will usher in the new age of slow innovation, big corporations, and DRM so strong that DVD Jon will die before it's cracked (or cracked on not successfully prosecuted as theft).

Although there is a group of people who create meaningful content purely for the personal enjoyment of it, the underlying assumption is that they have a means by which they can pursue this hobby. This means they're either independantly wealthy, spend only their spare time on the project while they use their other time to earn money to live, or they are taking a risk with the expectation that they'll be paid. That's on an individual level. Group efforts, corporate efforts, are almost always expecting a return and those non-profits that aren't are independantly funded. The point... if you take away a opportunity to make a return from content that you have created that other people are willing to pay for then you drastically reduce the pool of content producers and thereby reduce the pools of available new content.

Of course I'm wrong... and everyone will keep working their day jobs writing code... and authors will keep writing books for nothing... and we'll all just sit around and create high quality new and innovative content with a virtual certainity that we'll recieve no compensation for it.

Re:What bunk!

[Kadin2048]

I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me or not.

I think -- if I understand you correctly -- that I agree with you. People pirate movies with camcorders in movie theaters. This shows that even physical, analog content can't be protected, in what ought to be a "secure location."

Now, what DRM attempts to do, is let people take that movie home with them, where they'll have all the time and resources they want to try and throw at the problem of breaking into it. And in order to be useful to people who actually want to pay to use it, the key has to be available somewhere.

So people have the encrypted content (the DRMed file or whatever) and they have access to the key (through whatever way you're supposed to view the file, in the DRM scheme), therefore, a person with enough time on their hands is going to get their hands on the decrypted content.

All you can do is make that obnoxiously difficult, by degrading the analog outputs, etc. However -- as your point about movie theaters substantiates -- people will still find ways to copy the analog output, AND they will do it, even if the quality is substantially impaired by doing so.

It becomes even more of a losing proposition, because as you make the DRM more and more restrictive, you create an incentive for otherwise-legitimate users to get pirated content, instead of legitimate ones. So it creates not only the means for people to "steal" content (giving them the keys and the encrypted content) but in trying to make it difficult for them to copy it, creates an incentive for them to do so. I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to put together what happens when you combine means and motive.

Re:What bunk!

[Shakrai]

Ouch! I make a wiseass remark and you use it to slam me for an opinion I stated (that I still stand by) in a discussion weeks ago.

Dunno if I should be mad or amused. I'm opting for amused right now ;)

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

It's not like you're Jesus Christ copying bread and fish and distributing them to the hungry.

It actually is a little bit like that.

- If you deny a baby access to food for their first five years of life, they will never develop into a functional human being because they will die.
- If you deny a baby access to human culture for their first five years of life, they will never develop into a functional human being because their brain wasn't properly stimulated during that crucial development phase.

Obviously food is of more immediate importance than knowledge, but that doesn't mean that witholding zero cost knowledge is somehow ethical. Even books, movies, videogames and music are important elements of our culture. There's no really good reason why reading Shakespeare is valuable but watching the Harry Potter movies wouldn't be.

Re:What bunk!

[Omnifarious]

Yes, you've gotten me on that point of semantics. I'll have to be more careful next time. :-)

Re:What bunk!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Why pay my $1 when I can hope that a bunch of "suckers" will pay and I get it free?

Because if too few pay the $1, the freeloaders get nothing. Plus, putting your $1 in is low-risk, it is an escrow account so you get your money back if nothing happens. That ought to be enough to convince the freeloaders who

1) Have expendable cash, it is only a buck or two
2) Like the show

to pony up.

But if it isn't enough, consider SWAG - a mechanism like the public radio/tv fundraisers use - instead of a buck or two, you pay $10 and you get a doodad worth $8 immediately. The other $2 goes into the escrow account just as like normal. Swag has been exceptionally effective in boosting charitable donations, often credited with increasing the net (after the cost of the swag) by 2x-3x.

Re:What bunk!

[Grab]

An illusion. You are paying for a transmission (one of the few activities possible with information) to you, not for the information itself.

That's correct - the transmission is simply how the information is passed, otherwise I could argue "I'm not buying a meal, I'm buying a quantity of food delivered in front of me by another person". Before, I did not have the information. After, I do have the information. Therefore, I have gained the information.

I have news for you, declaring gravity illegal will not make you float.

I have news for you too - declaring that it's illegal to kill people won't magically stop knives and bullets either. The law doesn't stop it happening, it simply says "We don't want this to happen, and you won't like the consequences if you do it."

Your definition of "freely" was written, strike that, purchased from Bill Gates.

"Freely" has too much garbage associated with it. Let's just say that now it's possible to distribute information created by you and not suffer a financial penalty.

There is a regular assertion that when information is shared, the original person still possesses the information and so doesn't lose. That's incorrect, because there is also value in scarcity (being the only person with the score of the 1812 Overture, for example). Look up the later years of Charles Dickens for reference - the guy died in poverty, ironically due to lack of US copyright laws.

GPL was written as a defense against copyright and anti-reverse-engineering laws. Remove those and no GPL will be needed.

That's incorrect, and shows you don't know the content of the GPL or its history. Under your scenario, everything becomes public domain. But PD already exists, so the GPL is superfluous by your argument.

The GPL was conceived as a reaction to a printer manufacturer who closed the source of their driver, when RMS wanted to be able to fix bugs himself and couldn't. RMS's idea in setting up the GPL was that items produced under the GPL could *not* be hidden.

Unless you fancy setting up a new law that you *must* release to the world all information you ever create, then your argument fails here. I could take PD software, modify it slightly, and sell it as my own software without making those mods available to anyone. I don't even have to say that my software was based off some PD software.

This is a situation predicted by my argument on adding value by refusing to release your work - if you can't stop people copying what you've done, the only way is to hide your work so no-one else can benefit. Copyright allows people to prevent direct reuse - but it also allows the GPL to say "you may only use this software in your product if you release the full code of your product to the world".

Yes we do, all of that requires expense on the part of the artist, to look at other art.

So art galleries never charged for entry in your country...?

Your argument is now self-contradictory. On the one hand, one of your major sources of payments for artists is performance, and the only way other artists can learn is by attending performances. But then on the other hand, you say that for an artist to be subjected to expense in learning from other artists by attending these performances is unacceptable. Sorry, you can't have both. As for the level of expense, that's an issue with a specific implementation of copyright law - and if journals *do* get too expensive, then another journal will come out to undercut them. You also forget the existence of libraries... ...any attempt to actually enforce copyright in a digital world...

Excuse me? I didn't say it was *easy* to implement! Nor are laws against theft, rape and murder easy to implement, as shown by the number of unsolved cases. If we can only impose laws that are easy to enforce, then you'll have no laws against anything except jumping red lights and speeding.

I don't consider it to be "assembly line"

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I have news for you too - declaring that it's illegal to kill people won't magically stop knives and bullets either. The law doesn't stop it happening, it simply says "We don't want this to happen, and you won't like the consequences if you do it."

The difference of course being that one deals with denying the scientific properties of the universe (or in the specific case of information, of its relationship with minds and sentience) in hopes of making profit on ignorance of others, and the other with stopping apes from murdering each other.

"Freely" has too much garbage associated with it. Let's just say that now it's possible to distribute information created by you and not suffer a financial penalty.

That of course assumes (what a surprise!), that you have any right whatsoever to "profit" -- and I love how you used the words "financial penalty" to describe it, a sure sign of a mindset of greed, as all the money you did not manage to con out of others is always a "loss" to a con-man -- on transmission of information by others between themselves. That is you assume, that because you happened to acquire some information, that means that you have now a right to impose your rules of transmission of the knowledge they acquire on everyone else, including various totalitarian measures to enforce your will (as everyone's natural ability to freely communicate is most undesirable in your scheme), because otherwise you will not make money. That is, everyone else's freedom to communicate is supposed to be subservient to your greed. Am I missing something?

That's incorrect, because there is also value in scarcity (being the only person with the score of the 1812 Overture, for example).

Then as soon as you transmit it to another person, the "scarcity" diminishes. Information simply does not behave in the same way as physical objects and thus is not subject to mercantile trade. When you have a rare physical object, it does not become less rare when you show it to someone!

But it is precisely the case with information. If you were to apply your own logic of "scarcity" to information (which is a stretch in the first place as information exists independently of observers) then the first transmission wound be worth much more then the second, the third far less then the first etc.

Look up the later years of Charles Dickens for reference - the guy died in poverty, ironically due to lack of US copyright laws.

Charles Dickens was a Briton living in Victorian England, incidentally a place ruled by supreme greed and with next to no social conscience (you would have loved it, assuming you were born a noble). And he did not die in "poverty", although he never acquired great wealth as he spent most of his earnings and time fighting people like you. What an irony for you to bring him into this.

That's incorrect, and shows you don't know the content of the GPL or its history. Under your scenario, everything becomes public domain. But PD already exists, so the GPL is superfluous by your argument.

No it is not, at present, as it prevents attempts to "sell" the resulting binary code without disclosing its source. That problem simply does not exist in absence of copyright as no profit can be made on such compiled code. So while distribution of binary data would be possible, the lack of any economic incentives to do so, coupled with no prohibitions on reverse engineering, would tilt the playing field towards openness and cooperation.

The GPL was conceived as a reaction to a printer manufacturer who closed the source of their driver, when RMS wanted to be able to fix bugs himself and couldn't. RMS's idea in setting up the GPL was that items produced under the GPL could *not* be hidden.

See above.

Unless you fancy setting up a new law that you *must* release to the world all information you ever create, then your argument fails here. I could take PD software, modify it slightly, and sell it as my o

Re:What bunk!

[Rinikusu]

From a purely physical standpoint, a miner *might* have the edge. Having been a working musician at one point, I can honestly say that road life can take its toll on your health and sanity. I've worked all manners of physical labor jobs, as well as so-called "intellectual" jobs. The physical labor jobs are just that: they're physical. They wear your body down. However, just about anyone CAN perform physical labor, at varying degrees of success. Not everyone can do something that requires the skillsets of a musician.

Why should a musician only be allowed 20 years? Why not 21 years? Why not 19? Why not 2 or 3 or 50 or even 100? What kind of objective criteria makes 20 years acceptable but the other choices unacceptable? Who makes that decision based upon what?

Most physicists, btw, are paid for their intellectal works in the form of a salary. I don't know many salaried musicians (none, actually). There are physicists/engineers out there who forego salaries and invent their own crap and then try and sell/market it. In some ways its very similar to the artist's dilemna.

And, last I checked, my internet connection was not free, so distributing my music actually costs me money. If we're going to assign "fairness" a dollar value of the cost of distribution or the cost of materials, think about the economies of scale many clothing manufacturers see by outsourcing production to cut-rate third-world manufacturers and yet their prices remain ever vigilantly high. Just because it costs them $3 doesn't mean they should have to sell it for $10. Etc etc.

Re:What bunk!

[Foofoobar]

Whatever you say Jesus.

Re:What bunk!

[Grab]

Not at all, the music itself would be free to share. Only the actual live performance would not.

That would work today. It wouldn't have worked 100 years ago, because the only method of non-artist-present dissemination was to release the score. And they wouldn't do that, because that would limit their income from performing said score. Also note that this could never work for books (unless we're supposed to go and listen to Arthur C Clarke read his books aloud to us, a more tedious fate than which I really can't imagine).

That is why we will never have access to works of Plato, Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven and so many others, right?

Shakespeare, we're lucky to have a lot of his works. Many (especially his poems) have been taken from a single copy found stashed in someone's library/attic. A classic example of my point. Ditto most composers - all of them were happy to perform (for money), but they weren't as happy about dishing out the score to all and sundry. As a result, there's an awful lot of composers for whom we have very little material, even though they were world-famous at the time - their work died with them. Paganini is a particularly good example.

That of course assumes (what a surprise!), that you have any right whatsoever to "profit"

Now we're getting down to it. That and...

Art and "profit" are about as compatible as science and witchcraft are. The purpose of the first is as wide as possible, unencumbered dissemination of ideas and emotional states and the other requires restrictions to access so that a monetary gain can be made.

That's a nice bald statement. So an artist should have no expectation of making a living from his/her art.

Note that I don't say a "right". No-one has a right to expect to make a living doing what they like best. If you're lucky, it happens - if not, then not. But if you have the talent, then you certainly *do* have the *right* to attempt to use that talent to your own best advantage. And one best advantage would be using your art to make a living, so you don't have to piss your life away doing some shitty dead-end job when you could be working on improving your artistic skills. It'd be nice for the universe to say "hey, you've got mega musical skills, so let's give you what you need to stay alive". But it don't work like that...

Mozart, for instance. Sure, Mozart was obsessed by music, and was vastly talented. So what did he do? Answer: he used that talent to get himself patronage (!), get performances sold out, and buy himself a flash lifestyle with the money he made. The fact that he used his artistic talent as a tool for getting himself a dissolute lifestyle is neither here nor there when it comes to his artistic quality. Come the 60s and 70s, you couldn't move for doped-up rockers going the same way.

I've never said that art and profit are in any way linked. The quality of art is not in any way related to the price you pay for it, or the amount an artist earns. But when your artistic talents are significant, it isn't unreasonable to try and use those talents to make a living. This doesn't mean that you've got a *right* to expect a decent living, but it means you've got a *right* to attempt to do so. It sounds like this is where we differ.

If you believe that it's more important for an artist to release their work to the world than to make enough money to live on, then I suspect you're one of the following:

1) not an artist in any way;
2) a part-time artist doing other work to support your art;
3) a full-time artist who's lucked into one of the *hugely* rare patronage schemes (and yes, that is mostly luck);
4) a full-time artist who's made enough money that you can say money isn't an issue;
5) a full-time artist born into a rich family, so money isn't an issue;
6) a full-time artist supported by a partner who brings in money to support you;
7) a full-time artist with severe cash-flow problems who can't afford enough for adeq

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

That would work today.

That is precisely why patronage is a much more effective and mature system today. The information technology and our societal structure helps more and more with each technological advance, allowing a large number of small scale patrons to contribute directly to their favourite atists, as opposed to breaking down more and more as it is the case with copyright.

It wouldn't have worked 100 years ago, because the only method of non-artist-present dissemination was to release the score. And they wouldn't do that, because that would limit their income from performing said score.

They did that anyway, because no artist could perform in 4 places at once and there were far more patrons then artists. Besides they did not get paid per performance in most cases but per score (which removed the incentive to keep it secret), and most were on permanent salary paid by their patrons, which was independent on their score "output". Please do get your facts straight.

Also note that this could never work for books (unless we're supposed to go and listen to Arthur C Clarke read his books aloud to us, a more tedious fate than which I really can't imagine).

Book printing is a service. Once the work was commisioned by a foundation and has immediately become public, any publisher could print it. The publishers would compete on the quality of print, price, format etc., that is on the quality of transmission which is what a book really is. The books of today are a relic, and electronic formats will soon replace them completely, pushing book makers to niche "nostalgy" markets for people who find that archaic format pleasureable. For which they will be willing to pay a premium independent of the contents of the book.

Shakespeare, we're lucky to have a lot of his works. Many (especially his poems) have been taken from a single copy found stashed in someone's library/attic. A classic example of my point. Ditto most composers - all of them were happy to perform (for money), but they weren't as happy about dishing out the score to all and sundry. As a result, there's an awful lot of composers for whom we have very little material, even though they were world-famous at the time - their work died with them. Paganini is a particularly good example.

That is a limitation of the ancient technology, not of the patronage system itself. Quilted pens dipped in ink at every word are at fault here, not patronage. And it gets worse further we go back in time. Today we would have a digital recording of the first performance and the dissemination begins from there.

So an artist should have no expectation of making a living from his/her art.

Precisely. Art is not a form of commerce. It is not a form of employment. There is no such thing as "art industry" (one of the greatest oxymorons ever). Art results from an intrinsic desire to share things of profound importance with others. Most artists are amateurs and do what they do because it gives them satisfaction. Only a crook would think of art as a "profit opportunity". Note that this does not mean poverty for the artist because the quality of his work can bring wide-scale recognition which in turn attracts patrons and fans. And that is how an artist can make a living. But the money and art are not directly related in any way! They are on completely different planes of existence, just like information is.

And one best advantage would be using your art to make a living, so you don't have to piss your life away doing some shitty dead-end job when you could be working on improving your artistic skills. It'd be nice for the universe to say "hey, you've got mega musical skills, so let's give you what you need to stay alive". But it don't work like that... Mozart, for instance. Sure, Mozart was obsessed by music, and was vastly talented. So what did he do? Answer: he used that talent to get himself patronage (!), get performances sold out, an

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're stupid. The foodmaker is compensated for his food (by welfare or an NGO) even if the baby gets it free. Are you proposing a tax to make all music free?

Re:What bunk!

[Chandon Seldon]

You do, of course, realize that there's no global "give babies free food on taxpayer dollars" program - right?

Re:What bunk!

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears you are unable to follow an argument. Post again when you have reading comprehension above a third grade level.

Re:What bunk!

[Grab]

That is precisely why patronage is a much more effective and mature system today.

The problem is, I don't believe that. Talk to any shareware author and ask them how much they get back. I don't mean that they should be *guaranteed* anything back, but of 100 downloads I'd expect at least a couple to think it's worth keeping it installed. Shareware authors generally get much less subscriptions than that.

I agree with you, the technology does now exist. What I don't agree with is that this technological "solution" would make anything better, bcos no events to date have indicated that would happen.

there were far more patrons then artists.

You clearly don't know how widespread musical ability (and other forms of artistic expression) is! Unless you consider a "patron" to be "anyone who attends a performance".

I do what I do because it amuses me and because my contribution brings me a feeling of being helpful to the society at large.

The word in this case is not "amateur". It's "dillettante".

FWIW, I'm also a coder. I code because I couldn't *not* code. I have a job writing embedded software (if you've driven a Ford, you might be using my code), and I do stuff in my free time too. Similarly I play guitar and sing, not because it amuses me but because I can't *not* play. My coding is a lot better than my guitar playing, incidentally. ;-) Hence I'm only an amateur guitarist and a professional software engineer. But I'm by no means a dillettante at guitar - I work damn hard at it. It's not bcos it "amuses" me, it's bcos I couldn't *not* do it.

Should I want to become a full-timer at it and get hired by OSDN or some other foundation, or a corporate sponsor, I would have to treat my art far more seriously then I do. But I do not see a barrier, other then quality of my work, which would prevent me from accomplishing that

This is precisely my point. If you're serious at your art, you know the "part-time artist" syndrome. You want to put more time in, but you can't, bcos you have to earn money *somehow*. That means a day-job. If you're sufficiently talented (and/or have put in sufficient work) that your art will allow you to make a living (from performance or whatever), then you can drop the day-job. You then have an extra 8 hours a day to work at your art.

That's the really big difference between amateurs and professionals - the time you put in on that skill-set. There certainly is a large element of native ability (I'll never be able to shred like Steve Vai!) but there's also a huge element of time served. If you're reasonably talented, the only thing separating you as an amateur from similarly reasonably-talented professionals is the time the professionals can devote to practise.

90% perspiration and 10% inspiration is definitely the case. It might look at face value like you're just noodling to get that perfect riff, but what's not visible is 15 years of playing and umpteen hours a week practising to be able to noodle and find the riff. More often than not, I can get the right design first time in my code (barring typos) - but that's not random inspiration, it's 20 years of coding experience. And it's the 20 years of coding experience (the "art industry", to use your term) that lets me produce high-grade works of software art today.

Or more likely, you see multi millionaire "artists"

You misunderstand my meaning of making a living. Recognition and million-dollar contracts are *not* what I'm after. What I *do* want though is the opportunity to make a living off my art, such that I can spend my days doing nothing but my chosen art. I've been lucky enough to do something approximately like that with my software; I'm starting to consider trying to do the same with the music. Note the word "living" - not "riches", not "wild extravagance", but "living". I don't consider it unreasonable to attempt that.

The money paid by patrons (or audience or whoever) does n

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The problem is, I don't believe that. Talk to any shareware author and ask them how much they get back

Yes indeed, ask Carmack and ID software about the millions of pure profit they made off the original Doom (which was one of the prime examples of shareware). No distribution costs, no advertising, the customers did all for them. It was one of most profitable games ever and launched ID Games as a prime-time software company (who then promptly forgot its origins and proceeded to play by the rules dictated by hollywood - the result: steady decline into mediocracy ever since).

I don't mean that they should be *guaranteed* anything back, but of 100 downloads I'd expect at least a couple to think it's worth keeping it installed. Shareware authors generally get much less subscriptions than that.

Shareware authors make money, but it is not millions unless they can do something as innovative as Doom was. WinZip makers and others successfully live off shareware. Which is precisely the desired state of affairs. Unless you are producing something unique and/or very useful, don't expect to make a living off of it. It will at best be a supplemental income. Same applies to art. Unless you are really good, or show exceptional promise (in which case you will get sponsored by someone), as the saying goes: "... don't quit your day job". As it should be.

You clearly don't know how widespread musical ability (and other forms of artistic expression) is! Unless you consider a "patron" to be "anyone who attends a performance".

I think you are trying to have the cake and eat it to. I responded to your assertion that the top artists, like Mozart, were rare and had no incentive to share their work. I provided a counterpoint involving a large number of patrons seeking these top author's work. Now you are saying that your original premise was completely false and art is in fact is a common thing and not so rare and valuable after all. Which is it?

The word in this case is not "amateur". It's "dillettante".

I am as much of a "dilettante" as you are an infant. I have 25+ years experience coding in more languages then I care to remember, in more environments then I care to remember, from mainframes with punchcards, to single-chip microcontroller embedded systems. The fact that I enjoy sharing my rather considerable experience in the field for free with others, does not make me an amateur. When I say that I would have to get more serious about my "art" to get hired by OSDL (which is not something I desire, btw) I mean the GPL code exlusively as I now rarely code for a living, having long since moved onto consulting work.

What I *do* want though is the opportunity to make a living off my art, such that I can spend my days doing nothing but my chosen art. I've been lucky enough to do something approximately like that with my software; I'm starting to consider trying to do the same with the music. Note the word "living" - not "riches", not "wild extravagance", but "living". I don't consider it unreasonable to attempt that.

Then the traditional music studios and the copyright based publishing system are your mortal enemies. They are not interested in anything which cannot be mass marketed, flogged endlessly via a homogenuous ClearChannel network of drone radiostations and which will not yeld at least a $100 million return. Otherwise you will be publishing at your own expense, with the added bonus of all your work belonging to the studio, should you somehow get successful. Your best bet is to set up your own site and start promoting youself on indie music sites and take direct PayPal donations and make custom, hand signed or what not CDs for people. You can also do some demeaning stuff like offer to perform modified versions of songs for people and record them for their special occasions and what not for a more significant fee. That is ... patronage, a small-time artist's best friend.

But the amount of time avai

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I forgot this from my previous post.

Unless you consider a "patron" to be "anyone who attends a performance".

Yes I do. Anyone who pays at the gate to get into a performance is a patron of arts in general, and that of the art of the performer in question in particular.

Re:What bunk!

[JulesLt]

>>Which would be difficult to then pass onto a 3rd person, without writing it out yourself, unlike a digital copy
>Oration? Story telling?
Fine for more plot-centred stories and epic poetry, but rather missing the point of a lot of literature. I rather doubt you or I have the skill to recall a Dickens or Austen novel from memory, or even a Carver or Borges short in any more than it's outline.

>This is not a "technolibertarian" stance (and in fact I could be more accurately described as a "socialist" then a libertarian). It is merely a scientific stance.

>That is if you are going to claim that Witches are the foremost crime problem and then proceed to set up laws, complete with regulations of how to go about burning them on the stake, we would be in the same realm where the copyright debate is.

>The premise of copyright contradicts both science and logic (and that is in addition to violating free-market principles and contribution-reward schemes of capitalism).

>So unless you consider logic and science both dispensable and superfluous in the face of greed, the debate is not about technology uses but about fundamental principles governing the society.

> The technology aspect, which confuses you so badly, is merely a catalyst which exposed deep faults within the law and the whole present approach to this problem.

My understanding is that copyright law was introduced to protect authors from exploitation by unscrupulous publishers. I would say that the misrepresentation of the intention of copyright law by it's critics, falls into the same trap as those who are by your language, finding Witches everywhere. The RIAA and major labels form a useful equivalent bogeyman, and rallying point. It would be a much harder battle to fight, if the target was artists who had self-funded their own recordings and books - although of course, such artists are equally your target, given that they mistakenly believe they have a right to compensation for their costs and work, or that they 'own' anything they can sell.

I am also not at all confused by technology vs fundamental principles. The law is rarely about fundamental principles - particularly at the level of civil rather than criminal law, it is frequently about balancing the positive and negative impacts of technology on society. I would agree that the current situation exposes a crisis in the law, I'd also agree that the current approach is flawed (particularly the criminalisation of an essentially civil offence, and the tendency to extend rights for corporate owners of copyright, when the evidence suggests that society would benefit from a shorter period). I would also argue that the same QUESTION - what is the best mechanism for compensating artists, and those involved in artistic production - existed in the past. Copyright, despite it's contradiction of fundamental scientific and logical principles, which would have been understood at the time ('How can one own an abstract idea') was proposed as an answer to that question. I still don't believe anyone has put forward a viable alternative.

I'm not quite sure about violation of free-market principles. As far as I'm concerned they state that if there is no way of making a significant margin on production (i.e. generally speaking, in a situation of over-production) then the market will correct itself - either people move into profit making markets, consolidate (reduce costs / increase margins) or fail. On an individual level, it implies that if someone can't make money from a book, they will have to work doing something else to pay the rent. If the capitalist forces behind publishing companies can't make money out of books - they will take their capital into copper mining. The closest thing I can think of to 'zero cost for additional copies' is the broadcast radio and TV model - all the cost is before broadcast, but there is no additional cost for each additional customer. You should consider very carefully how conducive this has been to art vs commerce.

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

It would be a much harder battle to fight, if the target was artists who had self-funded their own recordings and books - although of course, such artists are equally your target, given that they mistakenly believe they have a right to compensation for their costs and work, or that they 'own' anything they can sell.

No they are not, the copyright system is. You are doing what most people who did not examine the details do, that is conflating two separate issues by assuming that an attack on the copyright system must constitute an attack on livelyhood of individual artists. There are however alternative schemes to that of copyright, one of them being patronage, which do not have the same vastly negative social and technological implications as copyright does. So please leave the poor, suffering, starving artists out of this, as they were never a part of the equation, other then in the minds of misguided politicians of old.

I still don't believe anyone has put forward a viable alternative.

Patronage was (successfully being responsible for immense amount of art, still filling all of the major museums of the planet and endless private collections) and still is a viable alternative. It simply fails to bring sufficient profits for the middlemen and distributors of knowledge and, in the long term, fails to deliver totalitarian controls over humanity's ability to communicate and learn to various corporate and governmental stakeholders. That is why any discussion on the subject in any public forum must start with insinuations of "Thieves! Pirates!" followed by "Why wont someone think of poor starving artists!" followed by painting the copyright in the most divine light possible, or by trying to present its illogical gory nature as "par for the course" in law, as "law does not adhere to logic". Sort of like what you just engaged into.

I'm not quite sure about violation of free-market principles. As far as I'm concerned they state that if there is no way of making a significant margin on production (i.e. generally speaking, in a situation of over-production) then the market will correct itself - either people move into profit making markets, consolidate (reduce costs / increase margins) or fail. On an individual level, it implies that if someone can't make money from a book, they will have to work doing something else to pay the rent. If the capitalist forces behind publishing companies can't make money out of books - they will take their capital into copper mining. The closest thing I can think of to 'zero cost for additional copies' is the broadcast radio and TV model - all the cost is before broadcast, but there is no additional cost for each additional customer. You should consider very carefully how conducive this has been to art vs commerce.

You missed the point entirely. The violation occurs because a "trade" is being conducted in a "property" which cannot fulfill the required characteristics of something capable of being "traded". That is wholly separate from "profitability" of information, or art in particular. Art is not business, it is not commerce, and it has nothing to do with marketplace. You are making an egregious assumption that everything in life must obey the principles of the free market. Art exists outside of Capitalism and is not governed by the rules of that economic system, just as information in general is not.

I've often seen repeated the idea that musicians could make more income from playing live ...

Artists making more income then presently has never been a point of any of this. The only issues that concern me are that the knowledge of humanity and its ability to freely communicate does not become a victim of totalitarian DRM-empowered entities, and that a fair and logical system for promotion of art exists. That is all.

the only real issue is that public patronage introduces the notion of gatekeepers, and of course an army of people wh

Re:What bunk!

[JulesLt]

>No they are not, the copyright system is. You are doing what most people who did not examine the details do, that is conflating two separate issues by assuming that an attack on the copyright system must >constitute an attack on livelyhood of individual artists. There are however alternative schemes to that of copyright, one of them being patronage, which do not have the same vastly negative social and >technological implications as copyright does. So please leave the poor, suffering, starving artists out of this, as they were never a part of the equation, other then in the minds of misguided politicians of old.

In your reply to both myself and Grab you have used the word 'greed' - this is equally emotive as 'poor starving artists' as you so patronisingly twisted my argument. Nor have I mistaken the two issues - I simply disagree that patronage will form an effective replacement for copyright as a system of compensation for artists.

>Patronage was (successfully being responsible for immense amount of art, still filling all of the major museums of the planet and endless private collections) and still is a viable alternative. It simply fails to bring >sufficient profits for the middlemen and distributors of knowledge and, in the long term, fails to deliver totalitarian controls over humanity's ability to communicate and learn to various corporate and governmental >stakeholders. That is why any discussion on the subject in any public forum must start with insinuations of "Thieves! Pirates!" followed by "Why wont someone think of poor starving artists!" followed by painting >the copyright in the most divine light possible, or by trying to present its illogical gory nature as "par for the course" in law, as "law does not adhere to logic". Sort of like what you just engaged into.

Patronage has indeed filled museums across the planet, but you seem to be neglecting the point that they are largely filled with physical artworks that can be owned, and have certainly brought vast profits for the middlemen and distributors.

I thank you kindly for summarising my argument, but unfortunately that wasn't it. What I was pointing out was that if you were to cut out the middlemen (a situation that has become increasingly possible throughout the last century) you are left with an argument directly with artists. I'm sure from your posts that you would have no problem in telling them that they are wrong, fundamentally, although of course it's not them, but the system that needs to go.

>Art is not business, it is not commerce, and it has nothing to do with marketplace. You are making an egregious assumption that everything in life must obey the principles of the free market. Art exists outside of >Capitalism and is not governed by the rules of that economic system, just as information in general is not.
Actually, if you step back a message it was YOU who brought up the laws of free market economics - I certainly don't believe life should obey the principles of the free market. However, while Art (with a lovely capital A) may live outside Capitalism (and will certainly outlive it) - artists unfortunately have to live within it. At the end of the day, people have to eat. There's also the matter of art with a low A.

>Artists making more income then presently has never been a point of any of this. The only issues that concern me are that the knowledge of humanity and its ability to freely communicate does not become a ?>victim of totalitarian DRM-empowered entities, and that a fair and logical system for promotion of art exists. That is all.
Excuse the word 'more'. That should have read 'replacement'. I still regard it as a deluded argument. And believe it or not, I share the same aims. I don't want to see either a DRM restricted world, or one where we pay a flat-fee and monitoring software reports what we listen to (art as popularity contest). I just don't think patronage will work. On the other hand, I'm rather cheered by the fact that the current UK No.1 album is

Re:What bunk!

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I'm sure from your posts that you would have no problem in telling them that they are wrong, fundamentally, although of course it's not them, but the system that needs to go.

I indeed would not. There is simply no helping it. They have been misled into believing a lie and I can prove that it is so. Now, again, that only means that a different solution has to be found and implemented, not that they are somehow banished into permanent poverty and that no artist can make a living ever again, just because a looney legal construct they relied upon so far has been toppled.

At the end of the day, people have to eat.

Which is why we are discussing ways to provide artists with income

No, but it is perfectly possible for two cases to result in contradictory verdicts. Equally the law often proposes contradictory 'rights' with no indication as to which has precedence until established in court.

Such conflicts are resolved as soon as a lawsuit occurs which is focing a choice, and then one of these rights has to be either curbed or dropped. Logic simply must prevail in the end, or we may as well give up on the whole thing.

I did not reply in depth to much of your post because I realized the that much of your arguments flow from the following:

I simply disagree that patronage will form an effective replacement for copyright as a system of compensation for artists.

I'm rather cheered by the fact that the current UK No.1 album is available for commercial download on good old plain MP3 - even after much of it had been freely available. I guess you could call that 'voluntary contribution' in action.

In summary - I prefer the idea of direct contribution over patronage.

I think we have some mis-understanding here as to what "patronage" means. My definiton encompassed things such as admission fees and direct donations to artists by individuals, such as PayPal in addition to institutionalised foundations, large scale patrons and corporate funding. Each small PayPal contributor is in fact a small-time "art patron". The difference is that there would not be any involvment of an overreaching and illogical law which governs the use of the resulting information a.k.a. Art.

are they different?

[ummit]

If it's true (as RMS says in the interview) that the various Creative Commons licenses are "more different than similar", and if they differ on issues you care about, then yes, I would have to agree with Stallman that they need to be discussed separately, that you can't make a blanket statement saying either "I support CC licenses" or "I reject CC licenses". If some Creative Commons licenses are worth using and others aren't, it would be best to stop talking about them collectively as "Creative Commons licenses" and instead discuss them under their own names.

Re:are they different?

[pahoran]

Yes, but Stallman doesn't want to discuss them separately. He rejects them ALL. A bit more of the lazy thinking mentioned above, I think.

Re:are they different?

[Otter]

To my astonishment, I somewhat agree with Stallman. There are multiple Creative Commons licenses, they're fairly different and people use the term "Creative Commons" to refer only to the most permissive ones. (Look through the stories here, and see how often things are described as "under a Creative Commons license", as though that's meaningful.)

It seems to me that this issue isn't really Creative Commons' fault and could be best handled by enforcing clarity. Stallman, who loves to enforce similar "clarity" about existing words which he has personally redefined to mean only what he says they do, certainly ought to get that. I imagine his hostility is really because their range of licenses includes things that are too restrictive for his taste.

Re:are they different?

[nath_de]

I think the biggest problem are the NC variants. Those accomplish nothing positive.

Re:are they different?

[halr9000]

Well RMS is certainly free (as in speech) not to use them. That CC has multiple, more flexible licensing than say, GPL, is not our problem, its his. I'm a believer that the owner of the thing can do with the thing as they please, and if they want to restrict its license, it is within their right. Accordingly, the OSS crowed will tend to avoid the thing, and if the owner doesn't like it, they can choose to change the license to something the community likes better--if they so choose, or they can tell the community to screw off. Business decisions are not necessarily controlled by geek perception.

I'm a big fan of CC. I personally like the CC-BY license and use it for my own creations.

Re:are they different?

[crazyjimmy]

I thought the entire point of the CC licenses was to give people a choice past "All Rights Reserved". The way the law reads currently, I inherently hold exclusive copyrights to all my works, regardless of whether or not I put a (c) on the site. However, using a CC-license, I can not only choose, but show exactly what I'm ok and not ok with people doing. That's a lot of freedom, and it still allows me to protect what little work is mine.

I do not believe that writing and code are all that similar, and I do not support the concept that the laws for each should be identical.

With code, so much of what you're doing is following the rules of the language. These rules are exact, and tend to have problems when they're disobeyed (I.E. Windows). You'll end up breaking the reality of the machine when you use improper code. That being said, sharing your code allows for people to catch errors you missed, as well as add things that will make the code run better. I think it's terrible to see good code rot because people won't share.

However, with writing, there are no rules.

You can say there are rules of grammar, and I can point to a dozen different poems or pieces of writing that violate those rules. In fact, any rule you come up with about writing exists only because some people thought it should, not because it won't work if you don't. Reality (even the implied reality of a good novel) will not be harmed by improper word usage. Not unduly, any way.

That being said, when the code works, the program runs, and the inner workings of the code become irrelevant except as a reference. I believe (and this is just my opinion) that the code is only half of what makes a program work. The other half is presentation, craft, and usability (I think they're interchangable). If you have a graphics program, it can be using marvelous code, but it still also needs to be a usable graphics program, with a working interface and useful manuals and all that jazz. The code alone (again, in my humble opinion)does not a program make.

When the writing works, it must do so without hiding. The words are their own reward. They don't run anything. It's not like someone can change two lines and make a more stable code. It is only what it is. (A notable exception to this is Dr.Suess, comic books, and other illustrated pieces, which rely as well on the art and layout to work, but that's a different rant). A good book must exist independent of it's cover.

And unfortunately, this need to exist independent of all other influences is what makes a novel that much easier to steal. And I don't mean steal in the Intellectual Property sense, where you download a book to read off the net. I mean steal like you open that book with a text editor and replace the author's name with your own. That kind of theft eliminates the author, and removes the ability for any kind of credit. Sometimes this is done out of fun, and that's one thing, but other times people do it and then make money off it. One of the biggest places where this kind of theft occurs is in the poetry world, which is doubly sad since poetry pays so little.

I believe in sharing my work openly, but I'm not going to force anyone to give up their rights to protection. So I gladly use and support CC-licencing. Which allows me to say: Hey, read this. If you like it, share it, but please don't sell it or claim it as your own.

To quote the site:
"a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules."

--Joe

Re:are they different?

[Artemis3]

Its easy: He is probably against CC with "Noncommercial" and/or "No Derivative Works" which clearly go beyond the Free Software definition.

However, compared to a world of "All rights reserved"; i'd rather have the strictiest of CC applied to all the content. It is however, the choice of the author to pick the elements of CC he/she see fits.

The CC license that equals the (viral) GPL, would be the one with "Share Alike" (Can't use the "No Derivative Works"). Without "Share Alike" and "Noncommercial", CC becomes a freebsd style license which also fits the Free Software definition.

All CC licenses must have "Attribution" (give credit to the author); this could cause the ad issue.

Re:are they different?

[xC0000005]

>I do not believe that writing and code are all that similar

I disagree, as someone who loves to both code and write.
Writing really is very much like programming, but it is for an interpreter.

> with writing there are no rules

There are basic constructs to writing beyond grammar, and basic writing rules that generally control how how interpreters of a given class, (say, western english speakers of average education) will be affected. Poetry, in this case, is like badly written code - it may do beautiful things, or crash and burn horribly. It depends on the interpreter, time of day, phase of the mooon, etc. What works for one interpreter fails miserably for another.

>not like someone can change two lines and make a more stable code.

In fact, it's often possible to change two WORDS and make more coherent, or more effective "code". Turn of phrase is so heavily dependent on word choice, and an incoherent paragraph can be made lucid with minor edits. Sometimes.

I like the CC as well, just think that writing and programming really are similar.

Re:are they different?

[trimsyndicate]

Beyond this, is why are they different? I've done some music on ccmixter (the CC music remixing site), and right now I'm confused as hell about what all the licenses mean and what can and can't be combined etc. I mean, there is a "sampling" license, that allows you to sample an audio work, and a "by-attribution" license that also allows you to sample the audio work. The only difference I can tell is that with the "attribution" license you have to give credit to where you got the sample. Why not just build that into every license? I mean, part of the point of a site like ccmixter is to leave a trail telling what samples are from where. Why have a distinction? Especially a distinction that makes the licenses mutually exclusive?

Then you have the whole "commercial" versus "non-commercial" and "share-alike" versus whatever. Again, what's the point of having a sample available for anyone to do anything with (including make commercial works) if you have to release your end product under the same license? I mean, doesn't that defeat the purpose of allowing something to be used in commercial works? It couldn't truly be commercial if you have to be released back under the same license (free to be used), right?

Don't get me wrong, I really do like Creative Commons as a whole, it's just that I feel like we are right back where we started: consulting lawyers to figure out which samples can be used in what songs, when it sure seems like that was part of what CC was trying to get away from in the first place!

Re:are they different?

[melikamp]

True true. Stallman is not saying that CC is bad; he is saying that he can no longer endorse CC, because "CC" is an umbrella term and some of their licenses restrict the four freedoms. As far as I understand, Stallman is not against people licensing their works under a plain share alike.

He is the mouthpiece for the FS movement, and he chooses the words very carefully. And plugs the GPL, of course. None of this is controversial if you were following what he was saying all along.

The Solution

[toupsie]

Call it the GNU\Creative Commons License. Problem solved.

Re:The Solution

[kusanagi374]

Yes, and we should call that "the GCC License"... oh wait a sec

Re:The Solution

[nihkee]

Must...resist...backslash...in...normal...text...

Dude, you're been too much with your beloved Windows.

Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[coupland]

"As for the music factories--a.k.a. the major record companies--what they want is power. They will never accept P2P sharing as long as it remains a way to escape from their power. For their abuses against the people, they deserve to be abolished, and that should be everyone's goal. "

Hee-hee, he's so cute when he's going all nazi. Don't use the words "producers," "content," or "intellectual property." MP3s are evil. CDs with DRM aren't really CDs, they're "fake CDs" and they're "the face of the enemy." I swear, if he doesn't stop gritting his teeth at the universe he's gonna wear them down to the nub...

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[McGiraf]

I'm not sure it'll be ok.
RMS always seem crazy at first, but then you wait a few years and realise he was right. It's scares me.

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[null etc.]

I swear, if he doesn't stop gritting his teeth at the universe he's gonna wear them down to the nub...

RMS has long since lost his teeth... now he has a bloody mash of gums that have become infected by a strain of parasite-induced dementia, which causes him to label any form of content control as fundamentally oppressive to the human rights of freedom.

I recently overheard him stating that once his crusade against DRM is victorious, he's gonna bear his fleet of space warships against ARM (analog rights management.) First on his list is the Surgeon General warning on packs of cigarettes...

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[stinerman]

Stallman seems to be a hardcore deontologist. In his mind, things are wrong are always wrong, regardless of the consequences of the actions. So when he goes off the proverbial deep end with his rhetoric about MP3s and fake CDs, you must understand how he views them -- as wholly wrong even if they don't really involve much real harm to an end user.

I'm a deontologist as well, but not as hard-core as he is. I rip all my music to FLAC or Vorbis, but I'm not about to take all my mp3s and convert them because they're "evil". I prefer F/OSS software to closed source, but if the closed source counterpart is judged to be better or offers some functionality not otherwise available, I'll still use it.

RMS wants closed source code abolished. I want people to know there is a choice. RMS wants DRMed CDs abolished. I want people to know they exist and the possible consequences of using such CDs.

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[kfg]

Reading your post before reading the article left me ill prepared for the reasoned and cogent arguments Stallman actually put forth in the interview.

But you're so cute when you missuse the term "nazi", applying it to someone who wants to relax governement controls of people's behavior, so you've got that going for you.

KFG

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[hpa]

Actually, Philips, who is the owner of the CD trademarks, have explicitly forbidden their use in conjunction with CDs with broken ECC, which is how the DRM works.

It doesn't just prevent copies, it also makes sure your "CD" is toast as soon as it get a minor scratch.

Re:Shhhh, shhhh.... It'll be okay...

[coupland]

Intellectually I think Stallman always makes some interesting points that people should integrate into their mental framework -- even if it's just to think "uhm, yeah, he's wrong." But as you say, his iconoclastic ideologies are just way off the deep end. He's got to come to grips with the fact that his opinions are subjective and that people who disagree with him aren't evil and unethical. (Thx for the wiki link, BTW, it puts a word to exactly what I was thinking.)

Your web site

[McGiraf]

I must congratulate you on you web site, it is the best one I ever saw!

Re:Your web site

[byolinux]

I'm suing him. He's hacked into my computer and made a carbon copy of all my files. Is this the kind of thing Slashdot has become?!

Re:Your web site

[Rude Turnip]

Yeah, but his taste in barnyard animal pr0n is superb! Oh, wait...

Is RMS relevant?

[zerocool^]

I think it's time we just start ignoring RMS. Once the national media noticed him about 5-6 years ago, his ego has tipped the scales. He's so far off the deep end that I for one don't want to be associated with his ideas.

It's like we're all saying "Open source is a good thing", and he's now picking up that banner, saying "Unless it's completely open and completely free in every possible sense of the word, it's wrong". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying "Open source is a good thing".

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[morcego]

Answer: No.

I think it's time we just start ignoring RMS.

Long past, if you ask me.

RMS has outlived his usefulness to the FOSS movement. He is, I might add, an obstacle, which can very easily make people move AWAY from FOSS.

RMS, we are all greateful for what you have done in the past, but please shut up.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[byolinux]

All he's saying is that software should have freedom. What kind of freedoms does your 'Open Source' statement afford us? If I can only see the code, then it's worthless. If I can't run the program, modify it, and redistribute it, with or without my changes, then what's the point?

Please give an example of your 'Open Source' license.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[azagthoth]

It's like we're all saying "Open source is a good thing", and he's now picking up that banner, saying "Unless it's completely open and completely free in every possible sense of the word, it's wrong" That's the same thing he's been saying since the beginning. Remember that the OSS movement came from his FSF. I'm not saying he's right, only that your statement is not based on facts.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Medievalist]

I think it's time we just start ignoring RMS.

Uh... OK, you first.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Root Mean Squared is a very important concept.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[lorien420]

Mod this up.

The original is way off base. The Free Software Movement has always been about freedom. By RMS' account, the Linux community was the first one that differentiated itself and didn't want to give back.

Open source is a different idea; it's a development model that is often used with free software in order to encourage collaboration. Having the code available to you is just one of the freedoms necessary for something to be free software.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, RMS' position is irrelevant for most purposes; it's too highly specialized toward social engineering to be relevant in normal life or business.

For a work or a licence to be endorsable by RMS is analogous to a software component being cleared for use in an airliner or a spacecraft. It's a fine thing to aspire to but very rarely necessary.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Deliveranc3]

Stallman, I'm not a huge open source advocate but I can understand what Stallman is saying and it goes something like this.

Open source is good for hobbiests but to get government or corperate sponsorship that can make it's potential a reality it needs to differentiate itself from closed source software.

Stallman is trying to push open source software as a means towards redefining how our society values intellectual property.

Now people are payed hundreds maybe thousands of dollars for ideas which serve everyone and we consider these ideas bought and paid for, but realistically these ideas are worth far far more than can be paid for by the current system.

By destroying the closed software industry Stallman hopes to create massive government and business spending on open source projects... End result a more efficient system without boundaries and much higher spending due to combining resources.... Sounds pretty close to the goal of most open source advocates.

Yes he's willing to break some eggs to make an omellete but if it was impossible to patent or copywrite software do you really think they'd stop making it?

It seems clear that software will continue being produced and so this gamble will pay off.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have you been? RMS ideas have never changed. Not once. He's always been about "open and free in every sense of the word", period. He was that way long before the "national media" took notice of him and my bet is that he will be that way until the day he dies.

For all of you people wanting to negate him to the "fringe" or "off the deep end" I would remind you that his ideas may be far over to one side of the scale but he has accomplished many, many things. Without his "fanatical" devotion to the idea of open and free software Linux as we know it today would not exist.

What I find most amusing is that his ideas are not all that new. He champions the old ways of doing things where ideas and science and artistic vision were freely shared. The fact that some of you are so interred with the way things are done now that you simply cannot see merit in the ideas of RMS or his like is just sad. Somewhere George Orwell is smiling.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[gnuLNX]

"If I can't run the program, modify it, and redistribute it, with or without my changes, then what's the point?"

Take a good look at the second word in that sentence. I. Why should you have the right to redistribute a work that someone else made? Here's an answer for you. You don't have, and shouldn't have unless the author explicitly gives you that right. You disagree. Fine I have every right to take your car out tonight. I mean who do you think you are locking your car up. Just because you worked hard to paint it, pay for it, or whatever, sure as hell deosn't give you the right to lock me out of it.

See this is the problem. OSS kicks ass. It kicks ass because we GIVE each other the right to use, modify, and redistribute the code. There is no God given right that allows you to lay claim to the works of others...nor should there be. If they give you that right cool, but remember they are not evil because they choose not to.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[dingbatdr]

Maybe he is not relevant to you but I use his software every work day of my life and he has made doing the kind of software I do much easier. I develop very complex scientific software tools (google chombo). The gnu software development environment rocks for me. Maybe it does not work for you but for some of us, without FSF, our work lives would be much more difficult.

Furthermore, I admire a man that stands by his principles. Life is struggle. Choose your battles and fight them. I have very little respect people who think that someone who actually stands up for what he believes is some kind of obstacle to "the movement". Without Stallman and people like him, there would not be much of a movement to obstruct.

As to his ego, if he is proud of his accomplishments, he has every right to be.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

See this is the problem. OSS kicks ass. It kicks ass because we GIVE each other the right to use, modify, and redistribute the code. There is no God given right that allows you to lay claim to the works of others...nor should there be. If they give you that right cool, but remember they are not evil because they choose not to.

Perhaps the post most deserving of mod points I've seen in a while.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[loucura!]

How much hobbier than your peers do you have to be that you're the hobbiest of them all?

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[zerocool^]

What software?

If you look at his personal list of accomplishments to software, they are pretty scarce. He didn't write a lot of the stuff that GNU et. al. has put out. In fact, one of the only things I know he wrote was a program which basically did:

for (i=1, i<255, i++)
print asciicode[i];
end;

He hasn't contributed much. Thanks for the GPL V2, but please go away.

~W

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[d34thm0nk3y]

There is no God given right that allows you to lay claim to the works of others...nor should there be.

Conversely, there is no god given right to protect your works either. Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[syousef]

"Unless it's completely open and completely free in every possible sense of the word, it's wrong"

He's always said this, and he's always had an ego (even though as best as I can tell his hacking days are somewhat behind him, impressive as his contributions were). He's also always been a lot left of center. I met the man once, and he did not impress me. In my eyes, his social skills left a lot to be desired.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Conversely, there is no god given right to protect your works either. Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

While that is true, methods besides copyright have been around for as long as humans. Its just that in todays society its frawned upon to just whack people over the head with a club if they take your shit.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[faragon]

Short answer: RMS *is* relevant.

Long answer:

Richard Stallman's discourse is fairly homogeneus, and logical from his own basis. I personally endorse his arguments, but it is legitimate to disagree totally or partially, of course. RMS and FSF, in my opinion, have a clear target: create a global knowledge source, without any kind of barriers, being the knowlegde generated from that basis universal and involving free access. That is a quite convincing argument.

By the way, that kind of knowledge lobby have strong "enemies", i.e., the counter lobby counterpart, the big copyright holders. see that movement as some kind of Damocles' Sword. These other lobbies will push to the limit to achieve/protect his "properties".

RMS is someone like David, and the industry, something like Goliat. Go ahead, Richard!

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

sure there is. Don't tell anybody. The world's better off with great ideas temporarily locked behind legal protection than when they're permanently locked in a mortuary.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[byolinux]

Classic mistake of the record industry.

If you take my code and do something with it - I still have my copy of the code. If you take my car (if I had one) then I don't have a car anymore, and that's a big difference.

My point is that, when the original poster says 'Open Source is a good thing' - I'd like to know how that differs from Richard Stallman believing in software freedom.

Either you support software freedom, or you support software hoarding, it seems to me. If you value the freedom software gives you, won't you want your software to be free? I certainly do.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no God given right that allows you to lay claim to the works of others...nor should there be."

And this is where you are wrong...

The right to stop other's from copying & etc. your published works is not a God given right but a government given right.

In fact, he has a God given and government removed right to copy your published work. You do however have the God given right to not publish your work. You have the right to treat it as a trade secret and to only give it out under contract, etc.

Take your thinking a bit further and see if you believe you do not have the right to retell a joke you heard last night.

Also, think of the wrongness of requiring fixation for copyright to take effect in your worldview.

"You disagree. Fine I have every right to take your car out tonight."

Are you mixing physical and non-physical things here out of ignorance or to be perverse?

A Nony Mouse

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Bogtha]

It's like we're all saying "Open source is a good thing", and he's now picking up that banner

Not a chance. He's been the Free Software movements loudest proponent since long before "open source" became popular. In fact, he takes great pains to point out that he has nothing to do with open source, which does not entirely share his philosophy.

If anybody could be construed as moving the emphasis away from its original purpose, it's open-source supporters trying to tone down Stallman's philosophy into a form that focuses on the pragmatic benefits for selfish businesses instead of the original form that was focused on individuals' rights.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[hawkeesk8]

It is very important in society to have people like RMS. He balances out the people on the other extreme of the issue who think that everything including water and air should be under private ownership for the express purpose of making a profit. If it wasn't for him there would be precious little in the software industry that is in the public domain.

Most of us have chosen that the healthy balance between socialist and capitalist in the context of software lies somewhere in the middle. But without the debate that he sparks, that balance would slowly drift in a direction where all code would be patented by Big Software and if you wished to code you would have to become a cubicle dwelling peon at Big Software's "campus" in the exburbs.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[the phantom]

Either you support software freedom, or you support software hoarding, it seems to me. If you value the freedom software gives you, won't you want your software to be free? I certainly do.

Yes, because the world is black and white. Either the software is completely free, or it is completelly hidden. There is no possible middle ground. It is impossible to state, for instance, that once should be able to read the source (like reading a book), but that one should not be able to redistribute it (make a photocopy and give it to someone else). It may not be useful, but if someone wants to give up all, some, or none of their rights under copyright law, that is their perogative. If you don't like it, you should lobby congress to change the laws.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[westlake]

Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

only if you define "recent" as "200 years ago."

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[BobNET]

Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

only if you define "recent" as "200 years ago."

The Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the British think 100 miles is a long drive...

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this "only recently" comment that I hear so often.

Copyright law is relatively recent because historically the creation of a work was its own protection.

Try copying the mona lisa using only paints. Now try it with a color copier.

Are you willing to say the mona lisa has no value because copyright law is a new construct? Shit, civil rights law is relatively new in the US... doesn't mean it doesn't have merit.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[ClamIAm]

RMS is like Jesus: for a while, people agreed with him. Then, when they realized their own interpretation of his teachings was different from what was actually being taught, they crucified him.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Mr2001]

Why should you have the right to redistribute a work that someone else made? [...] Fine I have every right to take your car out tonight. I mean who do you think you are locking your car up. Just because you worked hard to paint it, pay for it, or whatever, sure as hell deosn't give you the right to lock me out of it.

Two words: own and deprive. The fact that I own the car means that I have the right not to be deprived of it.

A car needs an owner, because it can only be in one place at a time. If I'm driving my car to Seattle, you can't drive it to Chicago simultaneously. If you want to use it, that will mean limiting what I can do with it - depriving me of it. (Even if you use it while I'm on vacation and fill the tank back up, you'll put wear on the car, shortening its useful life.)

Somehow, we as a society have to decide who can use it, and the way we've chosen to do that is by declaring one person the owner. Ownership isn't directly related to the work you put into getting or making something: if you receive a gift or an inheritance, it still becomes your property, equal to the house you saved up to buy and the sculpture in your studio.

A program doesn't need an owner. I can have a copy of your program on my hard drive, and any changes I make to it will only affect my copy. I can make more copies, delete them, or post them on my web site, and it won't affect what you can do with that program. You can recompile it, copy it, or post it on your web site just as easily as you ever could; nothing I do with my copy of the program can deprive you of yours. With no need for ownership, there's no ethical reason for either of us to be given any exclusive claim over the use of it, since that claim would come at everyone else's expense.

The common objection here is, "But it's harder for me to sell copies of the program if someone else is giving it away for free!"

If that's what you're thinking, then consider this. How many professions are there where you'd expect it to be illegal for others to compete with you?

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[lasindi]

Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

Only because easy copying is a fairly recent technological construct. I assume by "fairly recent" you are talking about "in the last several centuries."

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[gnuLNX]

"If that's what you're thinking, then consider this. How many professions are there where you'd expect it to be illegal for others to compete with you?"

Of course it is not illegal to compete with me. By all means write your own code to do the same thing as mine and lets compete. Do note that I am of course speaking hypothetically. When I release code under the GPL I am in no way deluding myself into believing that I will run a business selling said GPL software.

Now lets turn your statment around. How many other professions is it legal to take a customers product and sell it. If company A does not give away the source code or restricts your ability use the source code then you do not have the right to take what they have worked to produce and sell it. Think about that for a minute. What if you spent several man years, and thousands of dollars to release a product, lets say a scientific software product were "users" could benefit from having the source. Now what if someone else comes along repackages your code and sells it for 1/2 what your are selling it for? Is that fair to you...the creator and spender of monies on the original product. What if your familly depended upon the income from the business you were starting to survive? What if you are indebt to start the business?

My point is that creators of a product should have the right to choose how, or if, the allow others to use that product...with certain limitiation of course. The ulitmate goal of copyright law is to promote innovation. Sure we do some innovation in the OSS world, but somethings require large teams, several rounds of design stages, and significant amounts of money to produce. Those things should be afforded certain protections.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Bob Uhl]

OSS kicks ass. It kicks ass because we GIVE each other the right to use, modify, and redistribute the code. There is no God given right that allows you to lay claim to the works of others...nor should there be. If they give you that right cool, but remember they are not evil because they choose not to.

And that's why Stallman prefers the term free software. He believes that it is evil to prevent the users of one's software from fixing it (remember, his whole project was spurred by a buggy proprietary printer driver), and from giving those fixes to others. I happen to agree with him: software should be free (as in freedom); users should be free. I don't see the world in black-and-white terms, though, so I tend not to talk about evil or good but about worse and better.

The Open Source movement argues that free software is technically better; the Free Software movement argues that free software is morally better. The former may be incidentally true, but not necessarily so--the latter is necessarily true.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[FurryFeet]

Conversely, there is no god given right to protect your works either. Copyright is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

Conversely, there is no god given right for niggers to vote. Civil rights are an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

Conversely, there is no god given right for children to attend school. Child protection is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

Conversely, there is no god given right to job benefits. Labor law is an entirely legal (and fairly recent) construct.

See how easy it is kids? I can spew flawed analogies all day!

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Mr2001]

How many other professions is it legal to take a customers product and sell it. If company A does not give away the source code or restricts your ability use the source code then you do not have the right to take what they have worked to produce and sell it.

The only ethical obligation to get permission before you take something is when you're taking it away from someone. If you're merely taking a copy, you have every right to do so.

What if you spent several man years, and thousands of dollars to release a product, lets say a scientific software product were "users" could benefit from having the source. Now what if someone else comes along repackages your code and sells it for 1/2 what your are selling it for?

Man, if that happened, I'd sure feel dumb for spending all that time and money on a scheme that anyone could undercut so easily. Why would I do all that work for free, just hoping to get paid later? If I'd been smarter, I would've waited until someone paid me, or at least signed an agreement to pay, before I started working on it in the first place.

Is that fair to you...the creator and spender of monies on the original product.

It's as fair as the tide washing away a sand castle that I spent hours making on the beach. Just because you put effort into something doesn't mean you get to keep control over it for the rest of your life.

What if your familly depended upon the income from the business you were starting to survive? What if you are indebt to start the business?

Then you've made some bad choices.

What if you invest your life savings in lottery tickets - does that mean you deserve to win the lottery, just because if you don't, you will have lost your life savings? Of course not. You knew the rules before you got in. And if you decide to bet your family's well-being and financial stability on being able to sell thousands of copies of a file, when you know that everyone in the world can copy it for free and there's nothing you can really do to stop it (or even detect that it has happened), then you're making a big mistake.

My point is that creators of a product should have the right to choose how, or if, the allow others to use that product...with certain limitiation of course.

I cannot agree. Putting work into the production of something isn't what gives you ownership over it - if it were, then gifts and inheritance could be taken away at a whim, since you didn't work for them, and you'd be able to claim ownership of things like sand castles and graffiti. The purpose of ownership is to sort out who can use the type of property that can only be in one place at a time. Not everything needs an owner, and the things that don't need owners shouldn't have them, because giving that exclusive control to one person needlessly restricts everyone else's freedom (and in this case, that means freedom of speech).

Sure we do some innovation in the OSS world, but somethings require large teams, several rounds of design stages, and significant amounts of money to produce. Those things should be afforded certain protections.

Those things can be funded and developed without copyright. Think about it: your barber doesn't need control over the haircut he gives you once you leave his shop. Your mechanic doesn't need control over the fixes he makes to your car. You go in to the shop, explain what service you want performed, agree to pay for it, and then they perform the service.

That model works just as well when the service is writing a program instead of replacing a fan belt. If the project is big enough, you may need to collect a lot of money before you can start, but the internet makes it easy to collect a little money from a lot of people. If presidential candidates can collect millions of dollars from individual contributions, so can programmers, musicians, and filmmakers.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[gnuLNX]

"Why would I do all that work for free, just hoping to get paid later?"

It's called being an entreprenuer...pretty much the whole world as you know it exsits because people have done this. It is what drives innovation.

"If I'd been smarter, I would've waited until someone paid me, or at least signed an agreement to pay, before I started working on it in the first place."

So basically you think all innovation should be done at the corporate level. Meaning that if a company with money hasn't come up with the idea then it isn't worth doing? Sorry I can't agree with you on this. I can agree that software patents should be done away with, and that DRM is bad. However I can't accept that you have a right to a copy of what every other person in the world has. What is the incentive to do anything? I will simply wait until you do it and then I will copy it. Does AMD have the right to copy Intels processor designs?

Look at a hypothetical future where real objects can be copied with a material printer. So does everyone in the world have a right to everything that exsists simple because it can be copied? Before you say yes at least reflect on what that would do to the world.

I am not saying the current system is right...far from it actually. What I am saying is that there should be an incentive for innovation. A monetary incentive. I guess from your perspective software innovators are stupid because they create something that can be copied.

"What if you invest your life savings in lottery tickets - does that mean you deserve to win the lottery, just because if you don't, you will have lost your life savings?"

no it simple means you are a fool with out any kind of understanding of basic probability.

"Those things can be funded and developed without copyright. Think about it: your barber doesn't need control over the haircut he gives you once you leave his shop. Your mechanic doesn't need control over the fixes he makes to your car. You go in to the shop, explain what service you want performed, agree to pay for it, and then they perform the service."

You are correct. They also don't innovate. Take note of the fact that all the automakers do maintain control of what they do. I think the real difference between you and I is that you are ok programming what other people tell you they want. I want to program something new....somthing I want, something that I thing other people will want. I also want to get paid to do what I like to do...innovate.

"If presidential candidates can collect millions of dollars from individual contributions, so can programmers, musicians, and filmmakers."

I personally don't want to wage a compain everytime I have an new idea.

"Putting work into the production of something isn't what gives you ownership over it - if it were, then gifts and inheritance could be taken away at a whim, since you didn't work for them, and you'd be able to claim ownership of things like sand castles and graffiti."

You are right. Everyday you go to work and put forth alot of effort...you probably own non-of-it, but your boss owns it all. Sand castles and graffiti or a poor example.

"(and in this case, that means freedom of speech)."

I have no idea how this relates to free speech. It relates to having an incentive to innovate.

Re:Is RMS relevant?

[Mr2001]

So basically you think all innovation should be done at the corporate level. Meaning that if a company with money hasn't come up with the idea then it isn't worth doing? Sorry I can't agree with you on this.

Huh. You come up with an idea that isn't in any of my posts, attack it, and then tell me you don't agree with it.

Look at a hypothetical future where real objects can be copied with a material printer. So does everyone in the world have a right to everything that exsists simple because it can be copied? Before you say yes at least reflect on what that would do to the world.

A right to everything that exists? Not necessarily.. there are legitimate reasons to keep everyone from having, say, nuclear weapons, or their neighbors' credit cards.

But for the most part, yes - a world where physical objects could be copied freely and unintrusively would be a world where no one would go hungry for lack of food, no one would die from hypothermia or heat stroke for lack of a proper home or heating system or clothing, no one would die from disease for lack of vaccines or medicine, no one would have to fund terrorists to keep their cars running, and so on. To deny people the use of such technology would be unspeakably cruel, IMO.

There would still be demand for innovation, but innovators would have to be compensated for actually innovating, not just selling copies of something they invented in the past.

I want to program something new....somthing I want, something that I thing other people will want. I also want to get paid to do what I like to do...innovate.

Then what's stopping you? Come up with an idea, but instead of doing all the work up front for free, find some people who also want to see that idea realized and are willing to pay you to develop it. If no one is, then you know there's no market for your idea, and you can either go through with writing the program (without the expectation that you'll make money from it) or move on to something more people are willing to pay for. On the other hand, if you do find customers, you'll be guaranteed payment before you write a single line of code.

I personally don't want to wage a compain everytime I have an new idea.

Well, it'd be nice if we could all get people to invest in our projects without lifting a finger, but I don't think that's realistic. If you want someone to give you money, you have to find him somehow.

I have no idea how this relates to free speech. It relates to having an incentive to innovate.

Copyright is inseparable from free speech issues. If I can't send you a certain sequence of numbers because someone else has dibs on it, that's an obvious restriction on my speech.. and unlike the universally-accepted restriction on shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, the only purpose this restriction serves is to put a buck in someone's pocket.

I sort of agree

[Omnifarious]

IMHO, if you're going to have some sort of umbrella for licenses to be put under, it should mean something. Near as I can tell, Creative Commons has no real criteria for deciding whether or not a license is acceptable.

If I read that a license is OSI approved, I know exactly what that means, and what sorts of things I can expect to be able to do and what I can expect to not be able to do.

If I hear that a license is a creative commons license, it tells me nothing. For all I know, it might be "You're allowed to distribute this only if you feel strongly that you have green skin.". They have license that discriminate based on what country you're a citizen of, so I don't see why they won't pick other weird things in the future.

If they want to be taken seriously, they will publish clear criteria for the acceptability of a license.

Re:I sort of agree

[Mr. Underbridge]

Well, you should be reading the license anyway before you either 1) publish content, or 2) reproduce content. At that point, you shouldn't be assuming anything about the license from the fact that it's CC anyway.

Re:I sort of agree

[williamhb]

IMHO, if you're going to have some sort of umbrella for licenses to be put under, it should mean something. Near as I can tell, Creative Commons has no real criteria for deciding whether or not a license is acceptable.

Creative Commons is a license labelling scheme. As such, of course seeing "ZippyProduct is licensed under Creative Commons" is not a meaningful description of a license - any more than hearing that "Packs of Sainsbury's cheddar have a nutritional information panel" tells you what their fat content is. You have to at least look at the label!!

On the other hand, this also means that Stallman's comment that he can't endorse Creative Commons because some of their license marks are restrictive is equivalent to saying he can't endorse UK standard nutritional information panels on food packaging because they make it possible to put a clear label of the fat content on products that are high in fat.

Re:I sort of agree

[Omnifarious]

Why have Creative Commons at all then? We have a scheme for figuring out what a license is that's called "reading the license". It seems to me that it's utterly useless to come up with some random label for the license when that label has no meaning other than "Hey, you can read the license to figure out what the license means!"

Re:I sort of agree

[williamhb]

Why have Creative Commons at all then? We have a scheme for figuring out what a license is that's called "reading the license". It seems to me that it's utterly useless to come up with some random label for the license when that label has no meaning other than "Hey, you can read the license to figure out what the license means!"

You could also work out the approximate calorie content of foodstuffs by examining the ingredients list (assuming they give you the percentage as well as the order), looking them up in a pocket compendium, whipping out your calculator, and totting them up. But people tend to find it easier just to look at the nice clear label of it on a nutritional information panel. Similarly, people tend to find it easier to look at a clear label for license permissions than to read a long document written for lawyers.

Re:I sort of agree

[Omnifarious]

But, Creative Commons is not such a label. It is a label that says "The text of the license is filed under such and such name at the Creative Commons website." I don't find that very useful. I'd much rather the label itself meant something, like the label 'sugar free' does.

News Flash!

[Bacon Bits]

RMS thinks his license is better than everyone else's.

In other news, water is still wet, Microsoft is still a monopoly, and people dislike paying taxes.

Re:News Flash!

[artsrc]

Based on the article you are incorrect. RMS thinks his license is worse for some purposes:

"The GNU GPL is written primarily for software, but it can be used for any kind of work. However, its requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels"

Emphasis mine.

Re:News Flash!

[Bacon Bits]

If that was honestly your impression of reading the entire article, I pity your reading comprehension.

If, on the other hand, you wish to pick nits in order to defend RMS from an obvious joke, bravo.

Re:News Flash!

[tepples]

RMS wrote: The GNU GPL ... requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels

Obviously RMS is trying to pitch his own GNU Free Documentation License here ;-)

My take?

[heinousjay]

I stopped listening to him sometime around the GNU/Linux debacle. He doesn't really provide much value to anyone who doesn't want to be hard left.

Don't get me wrong, the man did some great things in bringing forth the Free Software movement, but now it seems like his goal is to destroy everything that doesn't fit his ideals, and that's just as dangerous as what he opposes.

Re:My take?

[bblazer]

I have to totally agree. I think that the zealousness of RMS is turning off a lot of people that could be an asset to the OS cause. I, for one, am getting sick of his "my way or the highway" attitude. He is not the only one with an opinion.

Re:My take?

[sydb]

Hard left? Your view of politics is very simplistic. What's leftist about the abolition of laws which restrict the operation of the free market?

Re:My take?

[crc32]

...abolition of laws which restrict the operation of the free market
By this, I assume you mean intellectual property? Ummm... the free market is the exchange of value for value - but propertization is what allows that exchange to occur. Sharing in this way can only work in a backdrop of trading, and RMS's views, whether or not he likes it, need IP to function. That he is trying to do away with IP is a testament to his self-destructive nature.

Re:My take?

[John Nowak]

Property is fundamental to the "free" market. Nothing about getting rid of copyright in any way is "right-leaning" or capitalist or anything else.

Re:My take?

[heinousjay]

I'm sorry, are you seriously trying to say that Stallman isn't a leftist? Have you ever read or heard a word from the man?

I never would have guessed

[0racle]

He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works.

You mean he's pushing his own ideas as better then someone elses? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!

Stallman slipping?

[tbo]

Several years ago, I heard Stallman speak at a lecture at my university. He was clearly very smart, and very driven by ideological goals. On top of all that, there was also a hint of that indefinable quality shared by most crazy people. Something about him was not quite right--I got a sense that his grasp on reality was slipping a bit. Maybe this is necessary for a person to make the kind of sacrifices he has, but it's a dangerous balance.

From reading the recent draft of the GPL v3, and the article attached to this story, I get a sense that he's slipped further. For instance, when he spoke at my university, he recognized that the best way to achieve your goals is to have limited, realistic goals, and focus on those. When people asked him about copyright on music or movies, he diplomatically dodged the question and said it was a separate issue from his Free Software philosophy, and he didn't want to address it. In the interview linked in TFA, he outright attacks copyright for these things. The GPL v3's attack on DRM is similar. Stallman has sacrificed the clarity and readibility of the GPL v2 in order to attack patents and DRM.

Now, maybe you agree with Stallman about copyright for music, etc. Even so, you should recognize that that puts you farther outside the mainstream, and it's much harder to change the mainstream when you're 1,000 miles away. If a bunch of Americans write letters to Congress demanding that copyright be abolished*, they will be ignored. If they ask that copyright law take a step back towards the original constitutional idea of limited (in time and power) protection to promote progress in science and the useful arts, that may actually get somewhere. It is vitally important that we sound reasonable.

Stallman has lost his sense of perspective and his grasp on reality. I think it's possible that he is now harmful to the Free Software movement, and the community needs to think about how to deal with this problem. If the community asked him to step down, would he?

* I know Stallman didn't outright call for the abolition of copyright. Still, the changes he wants (the freedom for anyone to distribute any published work) amount to nearly the same thing.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[jandrese]

Stallman came out to speak at MITRE a couple of years back. It was right after the paper MITRE published that basically said "yeah, you can use open source software on government probjects, the risks are managable and the cost savings can be great".

So he's in a room with a bunch of mostly older computer engineers in the goverment sector. The first part of his speech goes alright, but then he starts driving off into crazytown. By the end of the speech, he's put on a robe and halo(!!!) and is talking about everyone embracing his ideals. Mind you, this is to a bunch of men mostly wearing suits in a corporate setting. I've never felt so embarrassed to be an open source advocate.

I really appreciate what RMS is trying to do, especially since from his prospective the world is going crazy with the proliferation of DRM technologies and restrictions on what you can and can't do with stuff you own, but nobody is going to take him seriously if he tries to compare himself with Jesus. RMS is his own worst enemy.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though I'm admirer of RMS's work and open source in general, I find this thought intriguing.

For some reason, I'm reminded of Stalin, Mao or even Hitler in this instance. Is someone who so outwardly espouses freedom, sharing and other utopian concepts harboring a dark side?

That's wierd, Stallman/Stalin. Or maybe that should be GNU/Stalin.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[sydb]

If the community asked him to step down, would he?

Community: "Please Mr Stallman, stop being yourself."

In other words, step down from what? He does what he does because he is on a mission. People on a mission follow the mission, not the "community".

Re:Stallman slipping?

[GigsVT]

That's who RMS is.

If you wanted someone in a stuffed shirt that business people could relate to, you should have invited Bruce Perens instead.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[casio282]

> * I know Stallman didn't outright call for the abolition of copyright. Still, the changes he wants (the freedom for anyone to distribute any published work) amount to nearly the same thing.

The power of the GPL is completely predicated on the power of copyright. Without copyright, there can be no GPL. RMS's goal isn't to achieve "the freedom for anyone to distribute any published work," but rather to achieve a world in which published works are themselves free -- free to be built upon and creatively refigured, and free to contribute to the common good. To quote Eben Moglen, the goal is to create "a commons, to which anyone may add but from which no one may subtract." Hell yes, it's ideological. To me, that's a good thing.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[McGiraf]

No, Stallman is not slipping, reality is.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Damek]

outside the mainstream

Oh, how I hate this meme. Without making comment on RMS' opinions, is there no difference between "morally right" and "mainstream"? There should be.

Heaven forbid if anyone's ethics are "outside the mainstream" when the mainstream is wrong... Wouldn't want to be different from everyone else.

And that's why I hate it. It doesn't appeal to any logic or reason, only to people's desire to be like everybody else.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Hurga]

Now, maybe you agree with Stallman about copyright for music, etc. Even so, you should recognize that that puts you farther outside the mainstream, and it's much harder to change the mainstream when you're 1,000 miles away.

How far away from the mainstram had he been when he first brought the GPL to life? Did we achieve something?

Hanno

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Tadhg]

"driven by ideological goals"

If you define wanting to defend the ability of people to freely share as "ideological", then sure. But he is driven by extremely strong principles that he's unwilling to compromise on, as distinct from his being driven by slavish adherence to some doctrine, which is the suggestion that clearly comes through in your post.

I have never met Stallman and so cannot comment on the assertion that he's somehow like a crazy person. But this is irrelevant in any case. His ideas are relevant. Frankly, I couldn't care less whether or not Stallman is as crazy as Hunter S. Thompson on a binge or is the epitome of 'normal'--his arguments are either sound or not.

His views on copyright are clearly consistent with his views on software. While the addition of anti-DRM principles to the GPL 3 is debatable and perhaps ill-advised, it's also clear that patents and DRM could be used to circumvent the intent of the GPL while legally following it, and Stallman is attempting to address this.

Whether or not the views on any of this are 'mainstream' is also fairly irrelevant, and further is rather difficult to prove. The 'mainstream' appears simply uninterested in the subject, rather than actively supporting the status quo or the move towards ever-greater restrictions. Stallman would definitely support the move back towards the original constitutional limited copyrights, so I'm not sure why you contrast this view with his view. Yes, he wants the freedom for anyone to share any published work, and yes, this may effectively mean 'distribution', but it's certainly not easy to find a reasonable balance between the original conception of copyright, the technological advances that have radically altered the landscape, and the fact that limiting distribution effectively means limiting sharing (and handing all kinds of power to the big copyright holders). Stallman's ideas in reaction to those tensions are consistent with his views, and that they are perceived as 'radical' indicates how ridiculous the status quo is and the degree to which the parties with vested interests in strong anti-sharing mesaures have managed to control discourse on the subject.

Stallman may in fact be wrong about DRM and the GPL (although I'm not convinced of this) and wrong in his push for absolute right of distribution of copyrighted works (I'm not convinced of this either), but in neither area has he abandoned or altered his principles, nor is either argument inconsistent with his previous expressions of those principles. Accordingly, I have no idea where your claims that he's "lost his sense of perspective and his grasp on reality" are coming from--unless you have always disagreed with the principles he's espoused and are using ad hominem attacks to make them seem untenable due to the fact that they're promoted by 'a crazy person'.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

He does what he does because he is on a mission. People on a mission follow the mission, not the "community".

So were the Blues Brothers, and look how *that* turned out.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[jupahajo]

I say it is vitally important that SOME people challenge the current reality, even if it sounds unreasonable. In effect you are saying that basically the situation is right, if we are not to suggest any big changes to it? I think we have to acknowledge that real change is only possible if we challenge the current consensus that is wrong. Without communism there wouldn't be 8 hour work days, pensions or public health care. Without Richard Stallman there wouldn't be OS operating systems as we know it today. It all started with his GNU. He maybe a bit crazy, but that's why he's needed. If you start paying too much heed to the main stream then you stop being a force for change. YOU be the middle man if you feel one is necessary. Let Richard preach, he has earned that right. When his ideas go too far beyond reason people will stop listening. I suspect many already have.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Deliveranc3]

"it's much harder to change the mainstream when you're 1,000 miles away."

But most of the youth I've spoken to who are in the music or software industries are planning on seeing the end of copywrite law. What seems like youthful idealism now, if pursued, could be the political reality of the future.

Companies who rely less on proprietary standards and IP are starting up all around and offering an alternative for new startups, it's pretty clear that entire cities states and countries are moving towards open standards and it's going to change the landscape.

Stallman probably sees that open source software will inevitably take over, software development is accellerating but approaching a point where there is significantly less return (Operating systems and internet browsers are prime examples), the newest technologies have been embraced by open source, bittorrent, IpV6, CSS, etc. and anything new that comes out will have open source competition, while this competition remains donations for open source development from companies will stagnate but the companies who develop closed source will suffer. Stallman is trying to make the transition to open source faster to keep this battle short.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[mikers]

I disagree with some of your points:

If the community asked him to step down, would he?

Step down from what? The FSF? He created it, he runs it, and it is his baby. Yes, thats right, you have him to thank for GNU. All the versions.

Even so, you should recognize that that puts you farther outside the mainstream, and it's much harder to change the mainstream when you're 1,000 miles away.

And the alternative? Mediocrity? Let me ask you this... Who is pushing back from the other side? Sony, BMG.. The big music and movie studios. What do they want? They want file sharing outlawed, and every grandmother and 12 year old who shares behind bars. Is that outside of mainstream? Who is pushing back against their crap drm and p2p illegalization? Certainly not yourself, or even the mainstream. Have you forgotten about Disney and Senator Orin Hatch? What about the DMCA, or the son of the DMCA (being rewritten again for the 10th time likely).

Give these corporate monsters an inch and they will take a mile. Sorry, but we need our own crazies to balance and fight back the FUD, spin and lobbying that comes out of Sony, BMG, et al.

The GPL was meant to turn copyright on its ear, and this perhaps does go slightly beyond abusing copyright for open source purposes, but based on what I have seen emerging from the RIAA and MPAA, I don't think it is unreasonable.

Sorry, but there is nothing good about DRM, and I don't like how you would give in and give up to DRM and those who are pushing it.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Reality Master 101]

But most of the youth I've spoken to who are in the music or software industries are planning on seeing the end of copywrite law. What seems like youthful idealism now, if pursued, could be the political reality of the future.

The problem is that "most youth" in this case are motivated by greed -- they want to download software and music without paying.

This attitude tends to change once they get out in the real world and create something of value, and (gasp!) actually want to profit from their labors.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[jandrese]

Heh, I wish I was in charge of that. I only went down to see that trainwreck in progress. Albout half of the people left the room as he slowly veered off into crazytown.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind you, this is to a bunch of men mostly wearing suits in a corporate setting. I've never felt so embarrassed to be an open source advocate.

heaven forfend that anyone subvert the established norms of a bunch of mostly men wearing suits.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[jedrek]

Please, please, please tell me that you have a photo.

PLEASE!

Re:Stallman slipping?

[cweber]

Give the parent some points!
This is the most sane and reasonable view of Stallman's position and actions I've seen so far. I was going to post something similar, but this is much better. Thanks Tadgh! I completely agree.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[syousef]

Stallman's problems are many, but that he's not mainstream isn't the main problem. (That he comes across as a nutter however is a problem, and is probably due to a lack of social skills common to many a "geek"). I think we should be calling for a total abolition of copyright, but here's why...

We should be finding ways to allow people MORE freedom (while still compensating software creators, artists and the like). Stallman's taken a draconian approach that actually means that there are less places you can use the software that most people have written. He's like the anti-terror legislator that talks about freedom while whittling away all of our freedoms supposedly for the common good. He's destroying the very freedom he claims to cherish.

Ideally once a piece of software is written it should be usuable by anyone who wishes to use it. Anything that gets in the way of that. DRM, software licenses etc. is bad. It means you either have to get the permission of an author who might not wish to give it, (or will only give it if financially compensated to an amount that makes your whole project no longer economically feasible), or if other Intellectual Property laws allow you can write your own from scratch IF you have the expertise. What all of this leads to is duplication of effort, inefficiency and people not having access to software that's out there.

What we need to do is find a way to compensate artists, software authors and inventors WITHOUT limiting distribution (in the case of software, both binary and source distribution should not be limited). I don't believe the author/artist should have control of their work once it's released, but they should have a right to the FRUITS of their labour - ie. if there's money being made, they should get some of it. This is quite a huge challenge technically, and a fundamental principle that no one in the mainstream is even attempting to address. However, if we could do it, we'd live in a world where source code is available for you to examine and modify, new cures and treatments aren't held to ransom by the inventing company, music distribution cartels can't come after you etc. etc. I think it's possible though, so why isn't there anyone persuing it? Simple there's more money to be made this way by the greedy, and those who can manipulate the system.

Too bad too.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[hyperizer]

Scroll about two-thirds of the way through this page.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[s20451]

I don't believe the author/artist should have control of their work once it's released, but they should have a right to the FRUITS of their labour - ie. if there's money being made, they should get some of it.

They tried that once, if I recall correctly it didn't work out so well.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Stormy Dragon]

I keep expecting to open /. someday and find out that RMS has started issuing fatwahs against infidel open source projects that are using non-GNU licenses.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[tbo]

Step down from what? The FSF? He created it, he runs it, and it is his baby.

Yes, but it's time for him to move on. The best thing he could do for the Free Software movement is to step down. If he's a reasonable person with his ego under control, he'll realize that. Right now, he's become a caricature and his mere presence in any sort of official role hurts the movement. See the other post (sibling to yours, I believe) which describes the time he put on a robe and halo during a lecture to businessmen.

And the alternative? Mediocrity? Let me ask you this... Who is pushing back from the other side?

There are two ways to accomplish change: incrementally, or via revolution. Given that copyright never, ever registers in the top ten list of things voters care about, the chance of a revolution at the polls is almost zero. The odds of slashdotters leaving their basements, grabbing their pitchforks, and storming the RIAA are even smaller. Stallman doesn't get this, but the only option left to us is incremental change, and that requires pushing at the edge of the mainstream.

Being the most reasonable person in a public debate is often the way to victory. With the RIAA suing grandmothers, this shouldn't be hard, but Stallman is blowing it for us.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[mrraven]

That "indefinable" quality is called genius, which is the trait of rigorously pushing an idea as far as it can possibly go whether on not that is the popular or safe thing to do. It's the genius of a Martin Luther King, Ghandi, to follow the logical implications of an idea to it's maximum logically consistent extent.

I would be the first to say that most people are not strong enough to live under those terms. For example I run OS X because it's much easier to use day to day than (gnu)/Linux, even though I also believe RMS is right about the morality of free software. I.e. I make an immoral choice because it's easier and more functional for me to do so. It is often the case that going with the flow is easier than making the moral choice. Who wanted to make waves in the south in the 40s? RMS's free software crusade may not be issue of the same magnitude as civil rights, but it's the same type of choices that we face.

Even if we cannot always live up to the ideals that are pioneered by geniuses it is important that they exist to show us what we ought to strive towards and what life looks like when we don't make compromises for the sake of expediency.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, maybe you agree with Stallman about copyright for music, etc. Even so, you should recognize that that puts you farther outside the mainstream

Are you sure about that? The average person these days is quite happy to download music illegally as long as they don't get caught. It sounds to me like the mainstream is closer to Stallman than the law.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[syousef]

You're being deliberately inflamatory, and a wise ass to boot. What's more you're making assumptions and you know what they say that does to you and me.

They tried something totally different once, and bolloxed it up.

If you look at communism it said both the fruits and the work is no longer controlled by the individual, but rather by an all powerful state.

There are several problems with this, most notably:
1) An all powerful state becomes corrupt.
2) By taking away the fruits of someone's labour, you take away their incentive to do the work in the first place.

I'm not proposing that the state has any say or that the work becomes the property of the state. Rather I'm proposing some other system of redress if someone (or a company) believes their work has been used without their being compensated. Instead of everyone suing each other to stop each other using things that they've built, how about suing for a part of the financial gain the company got out of their product (or their loss that resulted from the other person/company making it available another way). However once something has been made public willfully there shouldn't be any way to stop someone else from using it.

Now you need someone to arbitrate the disputes. Perhaps the courts as now, perhaps some other system not encumbered in 400 years of antiquated process. Regardless, this should not be a single central organisation with absolute power, or you will get corruption.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[heinousjay]

I see it more like a commons, which everyone must support, and from which no one may profit.

Good luck forcing me to be a socialist.

Re:Stallman slipping?

[FurryFeet]

That's not Jesus, that's St. IGNUcius of the Church of eMacs. I saw that routine in person, and it' hilarious, and clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek. I'm not an RMS apologist by any means, but I'd submit that maybe those engineers are the ones with a 10 foot pole firmly embedded in their anatomy.

Stallman's an idiot

[brownja]

If ever there was a case of
"the perfect being the enemy of the good"
He embodies it.

Re:Stallman's an idiot

[PerlDudeXL]

Stallman is an ideologist.
Lessig is a jurist/lawyer with real-world/practicable ideas.

Dammit people

[jayhawk88]

Someone forgot to give Stallman his medication this week. Who's turn is it?

Re:Dammit people

[Ninjy]

I vote we all give him his medication. In the same week. ;)

Re:Dammit people

[stubear]

I think we should all give him his medication in another place.

Re:Dammit people

[fikx]

due to the time of year, the dried frog pills are hard to come by. We ran out. Don't worry, more have come in, so we should be good for while.

yeah, blah blah

[delong]

Just one more sign Stallman is a big fat idiot.

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Stallman only sees things one of two ways: his way, or no way. No thanks, Dick.

Re:yeah, blah blah

[Orrin Bloquy]

I can't really envision the words "Stallman" and "bathwater" together in a meaningful context.

Re:yeah, blah blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and your idol GW bush is any better?

Maybe if you had more than 2 iq points to rub together you would understand what he was saying.

Replace everything where you started frothing at the mouth with "corperations trying to lock up things"

and you will understand.

Re:yeah, blah blah

[delong]

Re:yeah, blah blah
(Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @01:47PM (#14661632)

This joker (thanks for the abuse of mod points, asshat) is why Slashdot will never be more than a sandbox for the emotionally challenged.

He just won't support the brand.

[PCM2]

What Stallman is saying sounds, as usual, intellectually consistent. Because some licenses that are called Creative Commons licenses include restrictions that Stallman does not support, Stallman will not endorse the Creative Commons brand. In other words, he will not automatically give you a pat on the back just because you use a Creative Commons license; he wants to know what the terms of the license are first.

Sounds fine to me. I've never been a big supporter of Creative Commons for much the same reason. All Creative Commons seems to be, to me, is a collection of license that someone has paid a lawyer to draft up and then donated that work to the public. You can pick and choose between the licenses and their clauses. It's a generous donation and it's very handy.

Then again, I've never seen how Creative Commons amounts to the "social movement" that people make it out to be. Stallman, whether you agree with him or not, seems devoutly intent on shaking up the foundations of the modern concept of intellectual property. By comparison, Creative Commons licenses seem like little more than tools for helping people navigate the status quo.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[byolinux]

Completely. You've got the point.

CC as a brand includes some very non-free licenses toward what you can and cannot do with Creative Content. If you have a piece of content that is CC-BY-SA (Attribution/ShareAlike) licensed, you have a freedom that is truly free, maybe add an NC if you'd like to know who's doing what commercially with your content... but anything beyond that isn't really free.

I can see a reason for putting ND on some content, such as a speech, but it's still non-free. RMS wouldn't support non-free licenses... I don't see why this is a surprise at all.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent post is right on the money. Why isn't this marked +5 insightful while any cheap shot at Stallman is?

The main point is that the term "Creative Commons Licence" says nothing about rights granted or witheld. The licences are so different amongst themselves that you have to be more specific in order to discuss preference. Ergo, Stallman refuses to give prima facia endorsement to a blurry concept.

Oh, and before people start ranting about the FSF and Richard Stallman, they should remember/learn who is on the board of the FSF:

* Geoffrey Knauth, Senior Software Engineer at SFA, Inc.
* Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University
* Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University
* Henri Poole, Founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm
* Richard M. Stallman, Founder of FSF and the GNU Project and author of the GNU GPL
* Gerald J. Sussman, Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Please recall that FSF!=RMS and vice versa.

It seems as if whatever RMS says is automatically ridiculed on slashdot! If one needs to argue, one should should criticise the idea, not the man. And read about straw man arguments before you post!

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Valdrax]

In other words, he will not automatically give you a pat on the back just because you use a Creative Commons license; he wants to know what the terms of the license are first.

No. Reread the article. If you use a Creative Commons license that might meet his standards, he still won't endorse it because the Creative Common "brand" allows licenses that he doesn't like. Instead, he thinks you should use his particular license (the GPL) for everything.

I'd respect him more (or have less disrespect for him) if he'd criticise the particular licenses he didn't like and give some praise for the ones he did like, but instead he says effectively, "Forget it. It's not worth the trouble. Use my license instead." Instead he takes the ideological "with us or against us" stance.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[slavemowgli]

It's revolution vs. evolution. RMS stands (and pushes) for a revolution of the status quo; CC stands and pushes for an evolution. It remains to be seen which will be more effective, but generally speaking, I'd place my bet on evolution.

Also, the following is not true:

In other words, he will not automatically give you a pat on the back just because you use a Creative Commons license; he wants to know what the terms of the license are first.

Actually, his logic seems to be more along the lines "CC has licenses I have philosophical objections to; therefore, I reject all of CC; therefore, I reject every use of *any* CC license, no matter whether I have philosophical objections to that specific license or not". In other words, RMS doesn't approve of the fact that I license my photos on Flickr under a CC license, even without knowing which it is and whether I restrict any kind of freedom at all. For someone advocating freedom, that's a surprisingly uptight position when you think about it.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[FhnuZoag]

Go read the article yourself. He's refusing to endorse CC licenses because:

It would be self-delusion to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons licenses, because people lump them together; they will misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket endorsement of all. I therefore find myself constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

This seems to me an entirely realistic and reasonable statement.

Really, I think what RMS is trying to do here is to force CC to more strongly emphasise the differences between their licenses, and perhaps introduce a separate branding for the blatantly non-free licenses. He should be applauded and encouraged on this point.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Arandir]

By comparison, Creative Commons licenses seem like little more than tools for helping people navigate the status quo.

The status quo is that you may not copy creative works and give them to your friends. Every license in the CC suite allows you to do that. Every one. That is not the status quo.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Yojimbo-San]

If you use a Creative Commons license that might meet his standards, he still won't endorse it because the Creative Common "brand" allows licenses that he doesn't like.

I don't like the GFDL - therefore I must not endorse the GPL, because the GNU "brand" allows licensing that is restrictive?

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Bogtha]

No. Reread the article. If you use a Creative Commons license that might meet his standards, he still won't endorse it because the Creative Common "brand" allows licenses that he doesn't like.

No, PCM2's summation was correct, you are misconstruing what he is saying. He says:

I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable. It would be self-delusion to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons licenses, because people lump them together; they will misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket endorsement of all. I therefore find myself constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

Believe it or not, he is quite pragmatic. He knows that some people will read "Stallman gives the Creative Commons the OK!" and think that the next CC license they see will be RMS-kosher.

If you read closely, he's not condemning all the licenses - he just feels he can't endorse any of them. He thinks that because the Creative Commons is a brand, it's not possible for him to meaningfully pick and choose the bits he likes without it being misunderstood.

To be honest, I thought he made it quite clear that he feels like he is unable to endorse individual licenses, and not because he doesn't want to. That's why he said "I therefore find myself constrained..." and not "I choose not to...".

If one of the better CC licenses were published without the CC branding, I'm sure he'd accept it. This isn't about avoiding non-GNU licenses, this is about him not wanting to be perceived as endorsing non-Free licenses.

Think back to when you last saw a Creative Commons-licensed work. Do you remember which Creative Commons license it was, or merely the brand? That's the kind of "lumping together" that makes it impossible for somebody like Stallman to endorse individual licenses.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[artsrc]

You say:

Instead, he thinks you should use his particular license (the GPL) for everything.

Stallman says:

The GNU GPL is written primarily for software, but it can be used for any kind of work. However, its requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[PCM2]

The status quo is that you may not copy creative works and give them to your friends. Every license in the CC suite allows you to do that. Every one.

I am by no means an expert of Creative Commons licenses, but Stallman does not feel that is the case. He cites two that he feels do not give you that freedom.

That is not the status quo.

That's up to interpretation. The way I see it, Creative Commons doesn't give you anything that intellectual property law doesn't give you already. If I published a novel, I could include a license on the front page that lets people copy it. Creative Commons didn't invent that right. It only drafted the language that non-lawyers could safely use to present such a license.

The same is true of the GPL. It absolutely relies on copyright law to give it its power. Without copyright law, it would be meaningless, because there would be no way to enforce any of its terms.

What makes Stallman different, however, is his staunch and intractable stance. He has clearly thought his views through and states them plainly given any opportunity. He has a mission. He does not waver, nor even like to be perceived as wavering.

Creative Commons, by definition, wavers. Its various licenses offer a veritable smorgasbord of compromises. It presents no clear agenda for particpants. Instead it merely offers what I described: tools for navigating the status quo. It provides legal language for contracts that extend freedoms for copyrighted works, aimed at creators who may not themselves understand the finer points of copyright law. That's laudable, but nowhere near as revolutionary as Stallman's goals (again, whether you agree with those goals or not).

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[HiThere]

IF you don't like the GFDL, THEN you shouldn't indorse something offered under "a GNU license". This say NOTHING about endorsing something offered under the GPL. If it's offered under "a GNU license" you don't know which one. If it's offered under the GPL, then you do.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, and presuming that this was an honest misunderstanding ... but I *am* a bit dubious.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Anonymous Coward]

humor

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use a Creative Commons license that might meet his standards, he still won't endorse it because the Creative Common "brand" allows licenses that he doesn't like.

So, it's like railing against you feeding your kid "Happy Baby(tm) Chicken and Strained Carrot" because the Happy Baby(tm) brand also includes "Happy Baby(tm) Broken Glass and Nails"?

I'd suggest that whether or not this is a right or good attitude is up to the individual. The same as it's up to the individual to choose whether or not to buy Exxon fuels, store-brand Venezuelan tuna, or Nike running shoes.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[BobNET]

* Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University

Guess who the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons is?

* Richard M. Stallman, Founder of FSF and the GNU Project and author of the GNU GPL
...
Please recall that FSF!=RMS and vice versa.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[anthony_dipierro]

The GNU GPL is written primarily for software, but it can be used for any kind of work. However, its requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels

Which I find an incredibly odd thing to say, because the GFDL, which was created by the FSF for manuals, is even more inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book. Of course, maybe I'm just confused as to what requirements of the GPL he's talking about.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[anthony_dipierro]

The status quo is that you may not copy creative works and give them to your friends. Every license in the CC suite allows you to do that. Every one.

Not the Sampling License and Developing Nations License, which are mentioned in the interview.

"Sampling: People can take and transform pieces of your work for any purpose other than advertising, which is prohibited. Copying and distribution of the entire work is also prohibited."

"Developing Nations. You may exercise the above freedoms in developing nations only."

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Brandybuck]

I'm talking about the standard CC licenses. I have no idea what licenses you're talking about. Look at this page: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/, every license there allows you to make a copy and give it to your friend. Every one. I can't find a "Developing Nations" license anywhere.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Brandybuck]

I am by no means an expert of Creative Commons licenses, but Stallman does not feel that is the case.

Every license on the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ page allows you to make a copy and give it to your friend. They don't meet the Free Software definition, because some don't allow derivation or commercial use, but everyone one allows you to make a copy and give it to your friend.

That's up to interpretation. The way I see it, Creative Commons doesn't give you anything that intellectual property law doesn't give you already. If I published a novel, I could include a license on the front page that lets people copy it.

Well duh! That's not the point.

The point is that when you buy a music CD, the status quo (as in 99% of the CDs for sale) do not have a license that allows you to make a copy and give it to your friend. Ditto for 99% of the books in a bookstore. The CC licenses are unabashedly rejecting the status quo.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[ajs]

You are giving RMS quite a bit too much credit, here. You are trying to read a rational thought process into his words that just isn't there (and has not been for decades).

He's blowing off the entire Creative Commons license suite because he feels that it would be too confusing to say, "I think CC-BY-SA-2.5 is a pretty good free software license"?! Stallman is smarter than that and so are we. The question is: are we smart enough to realize that he's just blowing smoke and telling us to play in his sandbox?

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[anthony_dipierro]

I can't find a "Developing Nations" license anywhere.

Try using a search engine.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[Anonymous Coward]

He may be talking about the need to provide the source of your document. Let's say you wrote a book using Latex, Docbook or any other text processor, and publish that book. If you use the GPL, then you must provide a way for the user to get the source for your book, which may be inconvenient, and is obviously unnecessary when what matters is the text.

Re:He just won't support the brand.

[anthony_dipierro]

The GFDL has a similar clause though, saying that you have to provide a machine readable "transparent" copy of the text. "If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material."

He is a nut job

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, GPL is not my OSS license of choice. BSD and Apache are better and don't have the 4th grade attitude of "you must be nice, or else I'm gonna tell the teacher on you." BS. RMS needs to grow up.

Ignore him and he'll go away.

[afeinberg]

Ok, first off, I'll acknoledge that we owe Mr. Stallman a great debt for his early advocacy of Free Software, the GNU Tools, FSF, GPL, etc. However, at this point he reminds me of an ostrich burying his head in the sand.

Seriously, folks. Why do we keep listening to him if it's obvious all he has to say is the same thing he's been saying for 20 some odd years, and no matter how much progress we make towards what were once his goals, he says "not good enough" and alienates more people.

Some are worth using

[truthsearch]

Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?

Absolutely! The organization as a whole is trying to better society. I read many of Lawrence Lessig's articles and agree with just about everything he says. His goal is to provide options. A full range of options. Pick the ones that suit your needs and ignore the rest.

After all, isn't that what we do with our Linux systems? We pick the distro and packages we want and ignore the rest. If you don't like OpenOffice it doesn't mean you shouldn't use Linux! Just don't use the parts you don't like!

I don't think this concerns him.

[Spy der Mann]

Stallman belongs to the software-should-be-free area.
Creative Commons is for literature and other arts, way beyond his scope.

Besides, he said that he disagrees, not that he's going to do something about it, right? So, why should we worry about what he said?

Re:I don't think this concerns him.

[sydb]

Quick, everyone in their pigeon holes, Spiderman has spoken!

Personal appearance?

[Chemisor]

I can't help but wonder if people would take Stallman a bit more seriously if he shaved and got a haircut. His appearance might then sufficiently approach the norm to prevent the immediate impression most people would receive upon seeing him: namely that he's an overaged hippie out of his time, out of his place, and out of his mind.

Re:Personal appearance?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

At the very least, a shower would not hurt his chances at all.

Re:Personal appearance?

[Hairy1]

Get real. We all know his appearance is somewhat to be desired, but thats a rather shallow analysis of a person. it is his ideas which are important. Judge him on those. Hardly anyone will meet him in real life, but those his software touches is in the millions. Just to be clear, I'm not a Stallman fanboy; I think his non support of Open Source is childish, and actually hurts his objectives.

I think if I had to wrie a school report it would say "Good problem solver, but doesn't play well with others".

Re:Personal appearance?

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of person who cannot evaluate Stallman's arguments on their own worth is not likely to be swayed by reason in the first place, especially towards a position that is far from the mainstream. Stallman likely would not want to use his personal appearance to appeal to such people, even if he could.

Re:Personal appearance?

[Spit]

People with opinions like yours are what's wrong with this world.

Re:Personal appearance?

[Anonymous Coward]

His appearance might then sufficiently approach the norm to prevent the immediate impression most people would receive upon seeing him: namely that he's an overaged hippie out of his time, out of his place, and out of his mind.

And this impression would be wrong how?

Re:Personal appearance?

[s20451]

I've got news for you: the world is the way it is, not the way we think it should be. If you want to be convincing -- you have to look convincing and act convincing. That may include getting a haircut and wearing a suit.

At the very least there is no penalty for dressing well, in the same way that there is a penalty for having poor personal hygiene and dress standards. It doesn't matter that the penalty is irrational -- it undoubtedly exists.

I don't understand why allegedly smart people can't figure this out, and instead have to bemoan the unjust world which forces them to wear a tie. These private acts of lame, whiny rebellion are being thoroughly ignored by the rest of the world.

My take is people can do what they want

[winkydink]

If I write something, I get to pick the license. If Stallman doesn't like it, I'll sleep just fine at night and will have no problems looking at myself in the mirror.

Re:My take is people can do what they want

[m50d]

That's fine, but he has just the same right to promote it or not. And he's telling you that he won't just because it's CC. And you may want to know this, since people listen to him.

Re:My take is people can do what they want

[Anonymous Coward]

But then the people who disagree with your license will violate it freely because, of course, you have no rights over your own creations and the fact that they are basically accepting a contract by buying/using/etc your work is irrelevant. You must license all your work and creations to give them everything because Information Wants To Be Free! Even if it's a song or story that is nothing more than an expression of your feelings and identity. It is wrong to limit them!

They are allowed to be as unethical and dishonorable as they want, violate the contracts they've accepted, break their commitments, steal, lie, be abusive, violate licenses and such because uhm... they read slashdot?

What an extremist

[MikeRT]

Stallman is the Pat Robertson of the open source movement. Millions of reasonable people, shouted down in the public by a loud-mouthed, wild-eyed zealot who has gone off the deep end and provides fodders for their enemies. Like Robertson, he lives off his glory days accomplishments, while continuing to have an eery sway over many of the new generation who are in fact much better than him. Thank you for writing Emacs, GCC, etc., but the new generation has come along and really moved that work forward and then some, and let's not forget the fact that Apache, Mozilla and others exist independently of his work.

Thank you for your contributions, but you're not relevant anymore to the degree you aspire to be. IMO, the real voice of reason on this issue is Linus Torvalds with his "we are not crusaders" mentality that is more libertarian than left-liberal.

Re:What an extremist

[LordKazan]

I just undid my moderations in this thread to reply to your post

"that is more libertarian than left-liberal."

Anyone who uses the term "left-liberal" makes themself look like an idiot. Linus is no Libertarian (Big-L - as in the neoliberals/anarcho-capitalists who pretend to be libertarians) and RMS is no "left-liberal" as you attempt to stereotype it.

Linus is a smart man and Stallman has gone off the deep end. Keep your political name calling out of it.

Re:What an extremist

[Anonymous Coward]

you're the extremist.

And just because he isn't a libertarian doesn't mean he's an idiot. Libertarians are people who took a lot of philosophy classes as undergrads and still think they can derive a good world view from first premises. Other people, who might have taken more science than philosophy, try to use a more scientific/engineering method to build their world view (whatever works, ask questions later), and end up liberal.

Smoke and Mirrors

[coolgeek]

This is part of a carefully planned PR campaign to distract people from the "real" issue confronting the FSF right now -- it's most visible advocate, Linus Torvalds, has removed his endorsement from GPL 3.

GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[landley]

I read the draft and found a section that would prevent busybox from using GPLv3. (It's the second coming of the BSD advertising clause: each busybox binary would have to contain GPL boilerplate text in the binary itself, and we're trying for small binary size on embedded systems. In GPL2, the advertising clause was optional. In GPL3 it isn't. That's a fatal flaw for us.)

I tried to comment through their web page, but it doesn't work with Konqueror. I sent a comment via their email system, but it was bounced by their robot. (The subject text, "Concerns about gpl3 and busybox", doesn't appear in the GPL draft document, this has not been seen by a human nor will it ever be. Try jumping through the hoop again.)

It was about this time I decided I really don't care enough about placating Stallman. Sticking with v2 is just fine with me, and his opinion about creative commons is irrelevant as well. At this point, I consider Stallman irrelevant, and GPLv3 just another incompatible license fragmenting the open source userbase.

A pity, really...

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the draft and found a section that would prevent busybox from using GPLv3. (It's the second coming of the BSD advertising clause: each busybox binary would have to contain GPL boilerplate text in the binary itself, and we're trying for small binary size on embedded systems. In GPL2, the advertising clause was optional. In GPL3 it isn't. That's a fatal flaw for us.)

Can you clarify? If you mean the section about displaying the copyright notice, firstly: the same exception as GPL2 appears AFAIK and secondly, there no requirement for it to be inside the binary itself, you could load the notice from disk if you wanted to.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[Jerf]

I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on Slashdot.

If you still like the GPL v3, but don't like that clause, strike it. You can do this without controversy if you have full control of the code, or can get all contributors to sign off on it. (I'm assuming that with GPL v2, you left the "optional upgrade" clause in, or you have full control. Otherwise it's not an issue, as a license change would require consent from all contributors, at which point you can do anything you want.)

It ought to still be compatible with the GPL v3, which you might want to mention in your license, because even though you don't require the text in the binary, you're not violating your license by adding it. I'd add a clause that the user can optionally upgrade to the full GPL v3 as it might make it easier for them in the future to merge licenses.

You can release with whatever license you like.

Up to you, of course.

Personally, I've used the LGPL on something I wanted to use the LGPL, but since it was a Javascript library, I added a clause to clarify what I mean, since the LGPL is rather tightly bound to the idea of libraries that have to be compiled and "linked" to other compiled binaries, which doesn't apply to JS.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[HardCase]

It's just my opinion, but I suspect that GPLv3 will not be used by many software packages at all. GPLv2 is a license. GPLv3 is a rant.

-h-

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[Stradenko]

The text of GPLv3 is not licensed for modification, sorry.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[Anonymous Coward]

How does someone GET Busybox? Download? Put the GPL on the website/download separately. From a package? Package with the GPL.

If the issue is having to include GPL text in any and all binaries (I can't see where), then raise this with RMS/Moglen and not on /.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[thebluesgnr]

That's correct, but nobody's saying anything about modification of the GPL. You don't have to modify the GPL to add a special clause to the license of your program.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[thebluesgnr]

The GPL v3 may be considered a rant for those who stand up for "open source" software but it's perfectly aligned with the ideals of the FSF, the same ideals since the GNU Manifesto.

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[Anonymous Coward]

That same section appears in GPLv2, and if you could read through to the end you'll see it applies only to programs which _already_ display the copyright blabla. You simply may not remove it unless you're the copyright holder. So it's not a problem you've to worry about, though I don't think it really adds anything to the GPL. Except for advertisement for the first generation GNU software...

Re:GPLv3 probably won't be used in BusyBox.

[HiThere]

That said, the busybox objection was quite reasonable.
1) The objection was reasonable
2) He tried to comment
3) He couldn't make his way past their filters.

I hope he is moderated up to 5 insightful/informative, so the drafters of the GPL3 may see it.

I don't know of ANY good way of constructing filters so that you can get all the messages you need to get without drowning in spam and other garbage. It's a real problem. But the reported attempt doesn't sound like a phenomenally acceptable filter.

Pope Stallman Rejects Another Herasy

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

My take is the same it's always been: Stallman's view of open source is that of a rigid, impractical ideologue far more concerened with being ideologically pure than in getting things done, that his "My Way or the Highway" attitude hurts the open source movement far more than it helps it, and that there's a reason extremist open source zelotry is called "Stallmanism."

There are many times when "Screw you guys, I'm going home" is a valid response, but Stallman has done it so many times, about so many Open Source projects that don't adhere to Pope Stallman's ex cathedra Encyclical on The True and Only GPL that it's lost all meaning. Yeah, RMS, we've figured out nothing that you haven't personally blessed is pure and holy enough for you. Next question.

Perhaps his most impressive feat is making Eric Raymond look reasonable by comparison...

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:Pope Stallman Rejects Another Herasy

[Chandon Seldon]

You know what his opinion is. You know he has principles. Why are you suprised by his statements and actions? He's being perfectly reasonable and consistant not letting his freedom be restricted and always pointing out when others are letting themselves become less free.

Would you be suprised if an NRA member repeatedly didn't want to compromise on gun ownership restrictions? "How about we just take away your handguns?" "No." "How about that semi-automatic rifle with a bannana clip." "Still no."

How about a vegatarian? "Will you eat beef?" "No." "How about pork?" "No." "If you won't eat chicken, that's just unreasonable?" "Uh... no."

How about if I came over your house and tried to get you to give me your stuff. "Can I have your TV?" "No." "How about your stereo?" "No." "Your computer?" "No." "Why won't you compromise?"

Re:Pope Stallman Rejects Another Herasy

[ClamIAm]

First, mind the fact that Stallman prefers the term Free Software.

Second, you must realize that the ideals of GNU and the FSF have brought us things like GCC, the many GNU utilities and programs, and literally thousands of other software packages (including the Linux kernel). What has the "Open Source" camp brought us? Token gestures of support from a few corporate overlords. I think the debate over who has "gotten more done" has already been settled.

there's a reason extremist open source zelotry is called "Stallmanism."

I have never heard this used by anyone. The fact that you try and pass it off as fact only furthers the proof that you are, in fact, astroturfing baseless FUD.

It's a real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The CC licenses are not upfront about what terms they contain and their names are deceptive. For example the sampling+ license might as well be a completely commercial 'no rights' license, since all it permits would be allowed by fair use anyways.

This has clearly caused confusion, for example the freesounds project claims to be making freely available sound samples... A good goal indeed, but they have chosen the sampling+ license, thus making their samples not free at all. (This is not only been noticed by RMS, I found this discussion: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/11/msg00 287.html)

Sampling+ isn't the first example of this... For example CC created a CC-wiki license which allows website operators to take attribution from creators. It's not bad if you're upfront about it, but they werent... WORSE, they went and snuck these terms into CC-BY-SA-2.1 without comment or even updating the 'human readable' version of the license.

Re:It's a real problem

[anthony_dipierro]

For example the sampling+ license might as well be a completely commercial 'no rights' license, since all it permits would be allowed by fair use anyways.

Fair use isn't available throughout the entire world, and not everyone is an expert in US copyright law anyway. Taking the guesswork out of licensing of online works is pretty much the entire reason Creative Commons was started, and the Samping License does accomplish that.

Creative Commons is not the FSF for content. There really isn't one yet.

GPL is not right for everything

[samuel4242]

I like the GPL and use it for software, but it's just not right for things like text. For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:

I love the Creative Commons. I think the Creative Commons is great as a whole, because some of its licenses are not unacceptable. In fact, I want Larry Lessig to have my baby. Wait that's not feasible.
(Changes in bold .)
What's right for software is not right for matters of opinion or fact. The distinction between sources and binaries don't matter here and actually confuse the right decisions. Nor is there any reason to believe that someone would get anything out of the ability to revise and extend anyone else's words. Okay, it might make sense for a collaborative manual, but I think there are many cases where the right leads to the trouble we're seeing with the clever editors of the Wikipedia.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[Elwood P Dowd]

Are you saying that your insertions into RMS's text should be prohibited by law and you should be prosecuted for above comment?

Of course you can write that. What is your problem?

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

I like the GPL and use it for software, but it's just not right for things like text. For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:

And from the /. article summary: "He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works." RMS would never recommend that, there exists the GNU Free Documentation License for documents, and this is most likely what RMS would recommend.

And in fact, actually reading the article gives you this RMS quote: "However, [the GPL's] requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels." I too believe Stallman is misguided in this particular instance, but don't put words in his mouth, he has a hard enough time getting his foot in there.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[m50d]

(Changes in bold .)

And that's the key thing. Or did you not notice the clause in the GPL where it says "All modified files must carry prominent notices stating you changed them"? If you want a GPL-style license, and many people do, the so-called Design Science License (basically GPL with the software-specific parts removed) is a perfect way to do so, better I feel than using a CC attribution-sharealike which seems to currently be standard practice.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[d34thm0nk3y]

Nor is there any reason to believe that someone would get anything out of the ability to revise and extend anyone else's words.

Dude, Disney built it's entire empire doing just that. They extended many stories that were in the public domain.

And then they used that money to make sure there would be no more public domain but that is another rant.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[deblau]

You've hit precisely on the problem: the idea/expression dichotomy. Software is functional and task-driven, and there are only so many fundamentally different ways of expressing, in a given language, a function to accomplish a specific task. Functional protections for "processes" belong to the patent system. Artistic works, in general, don't set out to be functional, so copyright captures their expressive qualities ("fixed in any tangible medium of expression").

From this point of view, software is a sort of bastard hybrid, having both functional and expressive qualities. Which is why you can get both patent and copyright protection for it. I see the GPL as an attempt by RMS to 'do the right thing' with respect to software copyright. I don't see the applicability to other forms of expression.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[Bogtha]

For instance, I can use my GPL-given right to revise and extend Richard Stallman's text to read:

From the GPLv2, section 2a:

You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

So you could modify Stallman's words to say something like that, but you'd be legally obliged to tell people that it wasn't what was originally written.

Re:GPL is not right for everything

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing trademark/slander/libel laws with copyright, so your example is essentially meaningless.

If you attribute a fake quote to a real person, and you intend to trick the audience into believing it's an actual quote, you're breaking laws unrelated to copyright.

If you pretend to be representing a real company or business entity, but you're not them, you're violating their trademark as well as committing an act of fraud.

Bah! What FUD! Here is what Stallman ALSO says:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial. "

So while Stallman does decline to endorse Creative Commons as a whole because he doesn't like some of their licenses, he clearly states that some of them are free licenses, and thus just fine. If you want to CC your work, and also stay in Stallman's good graces, you have no problem doing so. This /. submission is FUD designed to stir up anti-Stallman rhetoric.

Twisted Mentality

[Reality Master 101]

I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.

I wonder if he would agree with, "I no longer endorse Free Software. I cannot endorse Free Software as a shole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable."

Of course, he would never say that, because he would say, "well, any license I disagree with is by definition not Free Software". Well, if the issue is confusion as he claims, there are lots of licenses that people think of as "free" that he would think really aren't. So by his own reasoning, if there is any confusion by people, then one should immediately throw out all babies with all bathwater.

Creative licensing should be a broad church

[e6003]

Given that CC tries to create analogous licenses for non-software to those that already exist for software (sharealike == GPL, attribution required == BSD) I would say RMS is entitled to his opinion but I respectfully disagree. We know RMS disapproves of the BSD license and prefers the GPL, on account of maintaining the freedom of the software - fine, his opinion given freely. He doesn't seem to explicitly say so, but does he disapprove of the CC attribution license? His problem seems to be one of terms and definitions - not all CC licenses are free it's true, but this sounds more like a small marketing problem for the folks behind CC, rather like the perennial "open source" v. "free software" debate (neither term truly captures the meaning of GPL-like licenses). He does note that the GPL is unsuited, in his opinion, to a book or printed work and I'm struggling to see how it can be applied to other artistic works: do any other class of works (baking recipes being the only example I can think of right now, or maybe the exact colour combinations and brush techniques used in a painting?) have the distinction between human-readable/machine unreadable and human unreadable/machine readable representations of the same work? The GPL is all about ensuring software stays human readable, which is fine, but this isn't the problem with other types of creative work - the problem there is how to legally maintain one's right to a monopoly on the distribution of the work as a whole whilst also allowing others to use substantial portions to build their own works. Let people choose the license they want, is my opinion.

Stallman and change

[sphealey]

After the DMCA was passed, the Sonny Bono Act upheld, and the The SCO Group lawsuit was filed, I realized that I had been wrong in my opinion of RMS, and that what had appeared to me to be fanaticism was in fact a very clear appreciate of reality. Progress depends on unreasonable men and all that.

However, that is not to say that a fanatic who has had a clear and correct vision cannot later go over a cliff, and in the last year or so that does seem to me where RMS is headed.

sph

GPL??

[WWWWolf]

Uh... I've heard a lot of people saying "Don't use GPL for artistic works". The terminology already makes my head hurt. What exactly is the "source code" for an image file? A PNG file, or an .xcf.gz file, perhaps? Is compressing a PNG image to JPEG analogous to compilation of source code, so I'd have to distribute a corresponding PNG file with each JPEG file - or perhaps is it considered making a derivative work, good heavens? Do I need to add a prominent notice of my change if I gamma-correct someone's GPLed photograph?

Okay, those aren't realistic headaches, but if we start really nitpicking on the details, those might be some very important points in discussions.

Re:GPL??

[Chandon Seldon]

The preferred form for editing an image would be the native editor format that preserves layers. When distributing a GPLed image, I'd guess that you should probably include a changelog that notes any changes made and by who.

It would probably be more convienent to just put images in the public domain, but a GPLed image would work fine.

Sounds like...

[TedTschopp]

Baby + Bathwater = Splash + Cry....

Re:Sounds like...

[Chandon Seldon]

Dollar + Full Port-a-john = I don't want that dollar.

Creative Commons Problems

[GigsVT]

Funny I was just discussing this with a coworker today.

I agree completely with RMS. The Creative Commons licenses are not something that should be lumped together.

They also have several legal problems. Because there are 10 different possibilities for CC license combinations, it's difficult to determine whether all 10 are enforcable or not. The process for vetting even one license is hard enough, much less 10 distinct licenses.

The other is the "no commercial use" licenses. I think these would work fine for a work where the ownership is tightly controlled, but for a collaborative work where no one can authorize license changes, it raises an enforcability question.

If you were to sue someone for infringement, you'd generally sue them for the monetary damages caused by their misuse of your work. If it's impossible for anyone to commercially exploit the work, there's no way there could be any damages. You therefore really have nothing to sue for, and no way to enforce.

For tightly held works, you can claim that you have the ability to license the work under another license if you desire, and therefore there is a commercial potential, and a potential for monetary damages. For works with tainted ownership (say 100 contributers, some dead, many with no contact information), it would be hard to argue that anyone anywhere could ever commercially exploit the project, and there's no basis for claiming damages.

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[Tankko]

>>If you were to sue someone for infringement, you'd generally sue them for the monetary damages caused by their misuse of your work. If it's impossible for anyone to commercially exploit the work, there's no way there could be any damages. You therefore really have nothing to sue for, and no way to enforce.

Ouch. Clearly you never went to law school. I, on the other hand, have watch several TV shows where people went to Law School.

But, joking aside, I have worked in several companies that dealt with IP issues all day and your statement is not completely true.

Damages to your work isn't just about money, it's also about the loss of "good will" for your IP. Just because you don't make any money off of my CC license thingy, doesn't mean that you can't destroy it's value in ways beyond just $'s.

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[GigsVT]

What ways?

Suppose SPICE was released under CC non-commercial. What possible action could a few of the holders of part of the the IP bring against Cadence for making what would then be an infringing work in Cadence pspice?

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[DaveV1.0]

Missing the point, you are.

Company president Ashwin Navin told ZDNet yesterday: "We're sensitive to people calling their software BitTorrent to achieve a certain level of popularity in order to distribute spyware and adware."

  Or did you miss that article a few items back.

How about if someone adds spyware to Linux, source code and all, and the distributes it as Shmoelinux?

Better yet: You make a program and release it as open source. As it is just as it becomes popular, BlackhatBob takes the source and adds spyware and a backdoor, and releases it into the wild, claiming to be you. Who does the blame fall on? What happens to your reputation, your program, and your future programs?

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[GigsVT]

Well what if there isn't an association?

I know if I were going to steal some free stuff and sell it in violation of its license I'd rename it first. In that case what would be the action based on?

Here's a case where there was an association, and yet the copyright holder was effectively prevented from legal action due to a noncommercial clause: Medievia MUD

Short version:
Medievia started out as a diku/merc clone. Diku/merc license forbids commercial exploitation. Vryce, the owner, starts accepting "donations" in exchange for special items not available in-game otherwise. Diku/Merc people get pissed off, so he claims in the next release that he has written all the diku/merc code out of the codebase, and removes the diku/merc copyright notice. The claim looks pretty bogus, many dikusims remain. In any case, it's probably not possible to "revise the derivativness out of a derivative work"

The noncommercial clause effectively limits them from suing for damages due to lost income, since it would be impossible to show any lost potential income. He hasn't damaged the diku/merc name by associating it with anything bad either. If anything people would be impressed that such a big and successful MUD could be created from the codebase.

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[DaveV1.0]

You are not paying attention. We are not talking about selling. We are talking about reputation.

You do not even address my example. I will clarify it for you.

Person "A" creates a program and makes the source available to the public. "A" is hoping to use the program and future programs to earn money by providing support and upgrades, as points to add to his resume', as a possible jumping off point for a his own business. Person "B" takes source code and modifies it so it is spyware and provides a backdoor and begins to distribute said software as person "A". A few months down the road, the changes are discovered. All fingers point back to person "A". The program's popularity goes to zero. No one will use any software created by "A" and "A" can not use the software on his resume' for obvious reasons.

Person "A" has now lost income from support and upgrades, suffered damage to his reputation, and been prevented from using his works to benefit himself.

Later, evidence surfaces that "B" was the person that put out the compromised version of the program.

Does "A" have a case against "B"?

I say yes. "A" has suffered a loss of reputation and possibly a loss of income. Not to mention emotional distress, etc.

Rememer, on can sue for slander and libel.

Re:Creative Commons Problems

[GigsVT]

We are talking about the impact of "non-commercial use only" clauses on potential damages.

"A" is hoping to use the program and future programs to earn money

Well, too bad, he can't unless the work is tightly held. He put a non-commercial use clause in there, and unless he owns 100% of the IP he can't dual license it under something that would allow him to do that without getting a release from every person that contributed any bit of the code.

That's what this discussion is about, the way that non-commercial clauses might impact the primary copyright holders right to sue in the future.

Not to mention emotional distress, etc.

Emotional Distress?! The only time that's even plausible is if there is physical injury or illness.

Rememer, on can sue for slander and libel.

Lacking a registration of trademark, "A" would have little protection against people putting his name on things he wouldn't want them to. Trademark law has little to do with the situation we are talking about here. If he wanted to rely on trademark suits he could have just used the BSD license or something less restrictive.

Uh.. yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Stallman is one to talk. Isn't his GFDL the one that was actually rejected as a free license by multiple accredation groups?

I totally agree.

[Elwood P Dowd]

There isn't a current Creative Commons license that fits my needs. I would like one with all the qualities of the GPL that I like, but none suffice.

ShareAlike-1.0 worked, but now it's somewhat defunct. Flickr doesn't have it, for example. There's no current attribution-less license. They said that was due to lack of demand, based on lack of web-hits to their no-attrib licenses. What the fuck ever? They apparently have no interest in which licenses are most functional for encouraging a "creative commons". Nothing with a recent CC license can be used in GPL projects, because you'd have to require attribution, which is a restriction in excess of the GPL.

And they've got these sampling licenses that are so convoluted and restrictive that it can hardly be considered a contribution to public culture. To my reading, the sampling license says, "We'll allow what should already be considered fair use. Ok, some of what should be considered fair use."

I no longer endorse RMS

[wastedbrains]

Since I dont agree with every opinion of RMS, while i do agree with some of them, I have decided that I can no longer endorse RMS. People tend to lump many of his opinions together, some of which are unacceptable, I can't respect any of his opinions anymore.
Seriously this is crap this guy has gone a bit over the top on many things and doesnt seem to have any idea of balance. I think many things about CC is great and it has already help a lot of interesting works to be produced that otherwise could not have been legally allowed.

Re:I no longer endorse RMS

[Chandon Seldon]

RMS has a set of personal ethics. "Balance" involves "Compromise". If RMS went for balance, he'd have compromised ethics - not a good result.

If I was against eating people it would be perfectly reasonable for me to refuse to eat anyone, even if I were living in a culture where that was normal. Even though it might be rude to refuse, it would still be reasonable for me to ask what was being served before accepting a dinner invitation.

Blanket dismissal?

[ursabear]

I like the GPL as well. In addition, I rather like most of the Creative Commons licenses. The CC licenses grant different levels of licensure that makes (in my opinion) more creative works available to a broader section of the world (business, personal, for-profit, etc.).

One example that comes to mind is the license that allows free use, but not re-sale. Yet another offers unfettered use, but attribution is required. The list goes on. This type of flexibility is much more conducive to the sharing of things like media.

I don't think that dismissal of all CC licenses (when one disagrees with only a portion of them) is appropriate.

Creative Commons Info

Egos are starting to show

[slashname3]

Stallman ends by saying: 'I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.

Just whip them out on the table and get the ruler. Let's settle this once and for all and find out who's is longer.

Not helping the cause

[kponto]

I agree with him on so many points, but goddamn it, every time he opens his mouth I have this overwhelming urge to go buy a rootkit CD.

Baby, Bathwater, Who Needs 'em?

[elmegil]

The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all.

Anyone who is surprised at such a dogmatic, hard line response from RMS hasn't been paying attention.

Not all DRM is bad

[chill]

I helped convert an automotive electronics manufacturing facility from using paper CAD drawings and documentation to all electronic. DRM was needed to not only ensure that computers/people on the manufacturing line could not view -- accidentally or deliberately -- non-production documents. We needed an iron clad way of making sure that the document being shown accurately reflected the product being produced at that time. DRM was one aspect of the solution because it allowed us to manage which user accounts and which terminals were able to view which drawings and when. Absolutely critical for making sure everyone is on the same revision of the product.

Corporate documents such as engineering drawings, notes and descriptions are NOT public material. They are private, limited distribution material that need to be controlled. "Document control" is an aspect of ISO-9000 series evaluation and certification. When those documents are electronic, control means DRM.

This is not wrong, RMS is just lumping all DRM together and that is a mistake.

  -Charles

Re:Not all DRM is bad

[Chandon Seldon]

Uhh... I really fail to see how you need a cryptographic assurance that your restrictions can't be bypassed even if the user takes apart their machine. I pretty sure that version numbering documents and then having the document reader support automatic network document updates would have been more than enough.

Re:Not all DRM is bad

[chill]

I once thought as you do, then I was confronted with the twin demons of convenience and laziness.

Engineers frequently wanted to pull up development (non-production) documents on terminals on the manufacturing floor. They would often wander off after doing so and a line worker would wander in, see the drawing, notice it matched what they were producing (widget A) but not know it was an engineering rev and then screw up 200 parts before it was caught futher down the line at inspection.

There are a dozen other "oh, shit -- who in their right mind would do THAT?!" moments that I discovered and were related to incorrect documentation.

Large manufacturing facilities have tons of very specific regulations on how to control documents. They all stem from some stupid incident because "common sense" isn't very common. If you ever work with a manufacturer that produces items to MIL spec, or RS-9000 (automotive quality), you will see what I mean.

And...DRM isn't just hardware-based cryptographic assurance. It is more of a general restriction of content usage.

However, there are those that DO need that type of control. Prior to implementing the system I did, my team had the opportunity to see a similar implementation at a local defense contractor (Orlando, FL) and talk with their implementation team. We only had limited access, but even with that limitation we were impressed with how tight their documentation was controlled (and how much of a PITA is was to actually use).

Think of DRM as one attempt at dealing with the "so hard to make something foolproof because fools are so ingenious" problem.

  -Charles

Re:Not all DRM is bad

[Chandon Seldon]

DRM might be convinenient, but you haven't convinced me that hardware DRM is nessisary for your application.

You can implement a software-only DRM system that will accomplish everything that you want as long as the users don't reinstall the OS to bypass it. Such a system would work perfectly well with GPL v3 code.

Re:Not all DRM is bad

[chill]

I was making an argument for DRM in general, not hardware specific. You are correct that it could be implemented in software only. Hardware is for very secure, extreme conditions.

- Charles

Re:Not all DRM is bad

[Chandon Seldon]

The trick is that when DRM is implemented in software for use within a single organisation it doesn't conflict with the GPL v3 at all.

Bizarre Read. Nothing unexpected, really.

[digital photo]

Reading the article and seeing the responses to the questions was very much like listening to the senate hearings. Ie, very clear answers when the question is aligned with the agenda or beliefs of the person being interviewed/questioned, but very bluntly vague when not in line.

What gets me is that RMS notes that people, in general, lump all of the CC licenses as one entity. He notes that they need to be addressed seperately.

Having said that, RMS is lucid in his responses. I think what gets peoples' goats about RMS is that he is basically unwavering and uncompromising when it comes to his ideals. This has and always will be the case.

My only wish from the article would have been RMS clarifying what portions of the CC Licensing system he considers to be acceptable and what parts he doesn't. Wholesale dismissal of the CC licenses is like getting a paper back with a big fat "F/0" and a note at the bottom saying "Do better next time", without any indication on the paper of what was wrong. (Bad experience with some college professors.

Why gets me is why people keep feeling surprised or shocked when RMS restates his ideals and views: free as in freedom, complete freedom, no restrictions. Yes, it's a hard left. Yes, it's idealistic. Yes, it would cripple companies and businesses that depend on the restriction of information-based goods(music, movies,etc).

But he does have a point. 100 years from now, how will we access DRM'd content that should have gone public domain? How will we read ebooks that can't be readliy converted to other formats? Same with encrypted and locked music, movies, etc?

Personally, he sounds alot like a cross between a hippie, priest, and lawyer, no offense meant to the hippie, priest, or lawyer. But just because he sounds like that, doesn't mean he isn't onto something. It's just not very palatable.

Re:Bizarre Read. Nothing unexpected, really.

[ebrandsberg]

Very good point on the age of DRM. If the law still states that after X years, a work is to become public domain, then how does DRM expire itself and unencumber the work that had been purchased? If exactly ONE copy of a work is created, and it is created with DRM, by implications, if the DRM does not automatically remove itself after that time, then it is not complying with the law. Correct? This should be a key point to preventing DRM, because no content is "owned" by the producers forever, and therefore they MUST provide means to remove the limitations even if they themselves are not around any more to provide the secret codes.

Not quite as bonkers as quoted - yet.

[cruachan]

If you look at the article he actually says some of the CC licences are unacceptable and the he himself finds himself "constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely". That's not quite as meglamanically delusional as quoted as he obviously can still, to some degree, distinguish between speaking for himself and as self-appointed representative of society. However one is left with the strong impression he's well down the road to prancing around in a wig and declaring "L'etat, c'est moi".

grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

you're not relevant anymore to the degree you aspire to be.

What's the point of this attack? "Thanks, shut up" ??

I may not agree with what he says, but I want to hear what he has to say (especially given his past contributions).

The man has a point

[Hairy1]

If it were anyone else they could be safely ignored, but RMS brought us the GPL, and it was through his uncomprimising commitment to his vision that we have the movement of Open Source today. Yes people - Open Source, he is one of the fathers of Open Source even if he has disowned his own child. The point is that the man is uncomprimising to the point of being irrational.

But is he - in this instance - being irrational? Well, the creative commons typically used by Flickr, is simply a means of easily defining the rights you are providing. It can mean a number of things, and I think he has a point - that its confusing; you have to read the rights for every bit of work, rather than being able to trust that a creative commons mark means you have certain rights.

I still wouldn't use the GPL for writing or music because the GPL has clauses specifically aimed at software. There is no "source code" for music, and no obligation to distribute the score of the music along with the audio recordings for example. However, the creative commons is a diluted concept if you don't gauranttee certain rights to people, and they have to dig to see what their rights actually are.

Stallmans problem isn't one of intellect as such, but rather poor communication. He communicates in a uncomprimising and arrogant way; his way or the highway; and is unwilling to be part of a bigger team that he has no direct control over. That is why Open Source came about - we escaped the limits of Stallmans retoric.

Stallman still doesn't get Open Source I think - The Hurd being an example more of Cathedral style than Bazzar style development. Open Source has overtaken him for a reason, and that reason is a positive feedback cycle generated by a community of willing participants.

The big difference between open source and free software is the uncomprimising ideological dogma of Stallman. Free Software was about the Stallmans dictatorship; his word was law in that universe. Open Source on the other hand starts with the principles of Free Software, but does not insist the developers have the same ideological passions as Stallman.

That said, Open Source has not diluted the principle (as the Creative Commoms may have) by retaining a clear statement about what is and is not Open Source.

Re:The man has a point

[Chandon Seldon]

Music frequently does have source code as described in the GPL, especially modern music. In the GPL, "source code" is the "preferred form for editing the work". So for music, that would include the score and all the pre-composition samples such as each separate voice track and each instrument track.

Even though source code is less generally useful for music than for software because of music's nature as a purely artistic work (you don't generally need to "fix bugs" or "add features" with music, nor is it functional in the same way software is), that doesn't mean that the world wouldn't be a better place if music source code was generally available for those who wanted it. The GPL ends up being a perfectly valid music license.

Similar concepts apply for books and movies, although Stallman explicitly mentions that it might be inconvienent to be forced to distribute source code with published books.

Re:The man has a point

[dasil003]

Another point is that Stallman thrives in the current climate of erosion of rights. We need Stallman because he is the polar opposite of companies which want to patent the ocean, sky and mountains, and copyright the english language, and trademark everything they ever do and charge recurring fees just to open your eyes in the morning. These companies have been eroding the public domain for years with little opposition. After all, who's interest is the public domain?

Well the answer is Stallman. Of course we don't want a Stallman world where you can't control anything you create. The incentive to create would certainly decrease, and everything would become more and more derivative as spending time creating something original would be wasted as soon as someone with better marketing came along and stole it.

But there's no danger of that. If we ever got close to an even balance Stallman's popularity would decrease. He would be like some fanatics saying that the next Patriot Act needs to give the government more powers and more secrecy. Radicals never really gain control (we hope), but they create the rhetoric necessary for the reasonable middle ground to hear both sides and make an informed decision. We could always hope for a figurehead like Stallman to be more reasonable, but Stallman got where he is specifically because of his ideology. Had he just released Emacs et al BSD style no one would know his name except maybe the close devotees to his projects.

Re:The man has a point

[Bogtha]

If it were anyone else they could be safely ignored

Safely ignoring Stallman is why we ended up with the BitKeeper/Linux debacle. He said that it was a bad idea when Linus first switched, that its users would be at the whim of the software company. Lo and behold, fast forward a few years, and you see licenses getting revoked because the software company doesn't like the way somebody is acting.

Remember that whole SCO lawsuit? The FSF have policies in place where you and your employers sign off on contributions to GNU projects, giving a paper trail that can prove who authorised what.

A lot of the time, Stallman comes off as sounding like an extremist. But give it some time, and he's often proven right. He's got well thought out principles and he sticks to them. If you catch yourself thinking he's a nut, it's probably a good idea to consider why you think so - not that you must always agree with him of course, but it could help you avoid future problems.

Re:The man has a point

[Hairy1]

The Bitkeeper business has to be understood in context of history. Yes, Stallman may have been saying that Bitkeeper should not be used, but was he presenting an alternative? Linus at the time was facing a huge problem; Linus didn't scale, and he was dropping contributions on the floor. The people closest to Linus pushed for Bitkeeper as a way for Linus to cope with the huge numbers of patches coming in. Basically it was a coup - either he fixed the problem or, with respect Alan Cox and Co would fork Linux.

Re:The man has a point

[anthony_dipierro]

Similar concepts apply for books and movies, although Stallman explicitly mentions that it might be inconvienent to be forced to distribute source code with published books.

Actually, he doesn't *explicitly* say that's what he's talking about, and in fact I don't think that is (but frankly I can't figure out what he was talking about). Anyway, the GPL doesn't require that you distribute the source code with the book. Instead you can "Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange." Might not work very well for music which you broadcast over a radio station, though!

Re:The man has a point

[Chandon Seldon]

Can you send text streams with digital radio broadcasts?

Re:The man has a point

[Bogtha]

Yes, Stallman may have been saying that Bitkeeper should not be used, but was he presenting an alternative?

That's the false dichotomy that was presented at the time, and it made no sense back then either. There were plenty of source-control systems available, that were good enough for every other open-source developer on the planet. It was never a choice between Bitkeeper and nothing.

Take a look at what eventually happened - Linus went off and wrote his own. If he had listened to Stallman and done that in the first place, git would be far more mature than it is now.

Re:The man has a point

[anthony_dipierro]

Sure, you can send anything with digital radio broadcasts, but I was talking about plain old AM/FM.

The proper question is...

[joshmathis]

Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?

The proper question is, "Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if one ideological blowhard says they aren't?"

Or even, "Is anything worth using, even if someone else doesn't like that particular thing?"

The answer to both is "yes". If a certain license fits your creative purpose and moral stand, then, by all means, use it.

Minor Nitpick

[Shadow Of The Sun]

The iTunes Music Store distributes AAC files, not MP3s.

However, I didn't think that AAC was encumbered by patents. Apparently, it is.

Let them eat cake!

[MikeFM]

Without free expression of information all you're managing to do is slow down the rate at which humans, as a species, can create and grow. Anything that stops that sharing without causing more to be shared as a result is a bad concept. The premise of copyright seems to be that by keeping people from sharing we encourage new creation. That is a rather foolish idea that stems from people being used to material goods for which there is a limited supply. Ideas, and the expression of ideas, don't work that way. Rather than running out as they are used they generate more as they are used. If you've ran out of ideas it probably means your dead.

Now the real problem with doing away with copyrights is that while ideas don't run out they can become a dillute asset. People are still greedy, selfish, and shortsighted as a whole and just because they use your ideas or expression of those ideas doesn't mean they will have the foresight to keep you alive, healthy, and happy so that you can keep cranking out the ideas they need and want. They aren't going to seek you out to give you money. On the other hand my experience is that just because they can have your ideas for free doesn't mean they won't pay you money for those ideas if you make it clear that they need too.

What I think Mr. Stallman needs to do if he doesn't want to be shrugged off by most of us that make our living from our ideas is to create a structure by which we can make our ideas available for free but still get money in return. I use the GPL for my work. For doing so he should provide direction for my work, find a market for my work, sell my work, and give me a fair share of the profits from my work. He needs to work with others to create the sort of production company - sort of a record label for free flowing information. He has the connections to set up such an entity where most of us don't. I believe in his concept of free flowing information, perhaps more than he himself does, so let him make it practical for me to follow those beliefs. The vast majority of people out there will buy a product even if it's available for free which is the main reason piracy doesn't put companies like Microsoft out of business. People want the ease of picking something up off a shelf and they want the sensation of going somewhere and buying a shiny box. If prices are kept reasonable and the product easily purchased, in retail outlets, it will be bought rather than taken as a free download.

Say if I write an edutainment program and make it available under the GPL. Why does the FSF not help me with testing, collecting feedback, packaging, and distribtion. They could keep half the money from the sales for financing the program, and other FSF programs, and divide the other half among the programmers of the project. They could even go so far as to take a tithe out of each sale for the programmers of the programming tools used in the development of the project and making sure the developers of those tools got the money. RMS has done a lot for everyone with the creation of the GPL and the many free software projects he's been involved in but if he wants to see his creation really succeed he needs to make it financially viable for us that don't have the resources or disposition to become our own companies - the vast majority of creative types.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[Chandon Seldon]

The street performer model works great for many artistic works. As an example, imagine if J.K. Roweling had released the first Harry Potter book at no charge (with paper copies for the cost of printing) with a note that said "Once I've collected $50,000 in donations I'll release the next book". Depending on how quickly she got the $100,000 she could figure out what the appropriate amount to ask for for book 3 would be.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[MikeFM]

I've tried it. It doesn't work that well. I've had thousands of people send me thank you notes. I can count the number of people that've made donations on my fingers and none of those were from the period I tried that carrot method. It might have worked for Harry Potter but not as well as having a publishing company has worked for her. I downloaded a couple of the HP books before buying them but I still bought them (expensive editions too.. not paperback) because I just wanted a nice printed copy. Having the books available for free have hardly seemed to dent the profits from the series. We crave packaging and something to show off.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[novus ordo]

"What I think Mr. Stallman needs to do if he doesn't want to be shrugged off by most of us that make our living from our ideas is to create a structure by which we can make our ideas available for free but still get money in return. I use the GPL for my work. For doing so he should provide direction for my work, find a market for my work, sell my work, and give me a fair share of the profits from my work."

I'm not RMS, but perhaps I can share some useful ideas. First of all lets discuss the 'structure' of free software. Perhaps it will be easiest to start from proprietary software since that is what most of us are familiar with. The model is: you code the software, [intermediaries] , you sell it as a product to a customer, and profit! Before the Internet, the intermediaries were the only link between you and the customer. You have to get your software on to discs, then into a package and on WalMart shelves. This model has become dated with the Internet, as the Warez distribution model has shown in practice. Here your market is the Internet and your distribution costs are $0 (well not quite but close). But you don't see major publishers distributing through p2p and passing the savings on to you. Here we come to a big problem. Proprietary software has the notion that software is a product. While people hold on to this belief, they fail to note that in a computer, there exists this magical world where nothing is tangible and can be copied, created, and destroyed at will. The closest to this in real world you may find between your ears.

With free software, the notion of product is replaced with service. You(or somebody else) offer the software for free, but if somebody wants to do something else with it--expand it, use it in novel ways, you offer them your expertise. If your expertise is to manage this software, then do that. If it is to code then code for godsake! That is where you make your money.

Now there is a problem here also. How the hell do you find who needs your expertise?? I've had luck by knowing people through old deadend jobs that heard about some media stuff I was tinkering with and they wanted something similar. You may stumble on someone through a side project or just by applying to the right job. It is a great freedom though. There are countless numbers of projects out there that somebody wants to use in a way they can't right now. You pick what you want to do and do it for godsake!

Re:Let them eat cake!

[Kadin2048]

We crave packaging and something to show off.

If this is true -- which I agree with you, I think it is -- then why bother going after people for trading electronic bits online? People really want that "clothy box," as someone famous I can't remember right now once put it, not a big txt or rtf or pdf file.

I'm pretty sure that JK Rowling could have given out all the text to all the HP novels on the internet from day one, and probably still would have made a fortune selling actual paper copies of it.

I don't know how this translates to other media, though; I don't think people care very much whether their satellite television comes from a 'real' DirectTV dish, or a pirate one they bought in Chinatown for $75; there's no packaging that's equivalent to a book anymore that you can easily control the manufacture and distribution of.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[MikeFM]

None of that erases the simple facts that A) most developers don't want to be bothered with the business end of things, B) most consumers want to be able to buy a physical product even if it's just a box with a CD inside, and C) opensource isn't going to become the defacto method of software (and any kind of IP) development unless someone fixes things for A and B to get what they want.

I'm a very big fan of opensource stlye licensing and do think it can be profitable but I recognize the fact that for such a system to thrive there needs to be a company that takes care of what authors and customers need and helps to bring those points of interest together. Software might be a service but that doesn't mean the developers want to deal with customers or that customers don't want to buy something they can hold in their hand and show as an asset.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[MikeFM]

The problem with tv is that it is already coming to us without any real packaging so we have little incentive to pay for an official version. The closest you get is the on screen interface and remote and for the most part that is crappy anyway so a pirate network might actually give you better packaging. That is almost to the point of being legitimate competition. Sat and cable companies pay virtually nothing for the programing they resale. A friend that worked in cable told me that they paid about $.50/mo per subscriber for each major block of channels the subscriber had. So all those HBO channels you pay $5-$15/mo for (depending who you get them from) costs them less than a dollar. That'd seem to make them a service company but when's the last time you got good service from a sat or cable company? I have Dish right now and their service sucks and their on screen interface is horrible.

Subscriber services are already harder to pirate than static forms of IP due to their service nature. If they are having massive pirate issues then it's probably their fault. Improve their service, lower prices, or add packaging if they want to keep subscribers.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[Chandon Seldon]

Trademark law exists.

Note that I explicitly mentioned that cheap paper copies should be sold. To continue further, expensive collector edition hardcovers should be sold as well. If I have any understanding of how customers minds work, people will happily pay $25 or so for a "Official Hardcover Collector's Edition" of a good novel - and they'd buy it over a $15 hardcover that can't use the author's title and cover art due to trademark law a good chunk of the time.

It's true that books would be somewhat less profitable with no copyrights, but A.) the fact is that most authors don't make a living off of writing anyway and B.) a bestseller would still net the author hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.

Re:Let them eat cake!

[MikeFM]

My own behavior is if it's a crappy book I'd just buy the cheap copy, or more likely get it from the library, but if it's a book or author I like I'll go out and buy the most expensive copy I can lay hands on. I have all the HP books in hardback and will think about buying the really fancy collectors edition when the series is done, most of Terry Brooks books in hardback, most of Neil Stephensons and Orson Scott Card books in hardback, etc. I like their books and want to own good copies of them. Some I've bought multiple copies as my original copies get worn out or lost. I could download the text for free, check the book out for free, or buy the cheaper paperback versions but that isn't what I do. I hardly think I'm much different from most people.

I do the same with movies. I own thousands of movies and many of them in both the cheap edition and a collectors edition. I could download them for free, or borrow them from the library, but I buy them because I enjoy owning them. I'm only willing to buy them after I can do as I wish with them though so I only bought DVDs after the encryption was broke. I will do the same with HD-DVDs. They are actually lossing money by encrypting them where as they wouldn't lose money from me if they were unencrypted and available online for free.

People want a physical object to signify their purchases and they especially like collectables. It's like a baseball card. You could get the information for free but you collect them anyway.

Wrong?

[LainTouko]

So as many posts have pointed out, he's crazy, he's an idiot, etc. But if this is the case, then why does nobody ever point out where he's wrong? Where are the errors in logic or fact? Anyone?

you, too

[idlake]

Now maybe in a reality-free zone where everybody works for the common good and nobody takes more than his* fair share, that would be a reasonable thing to pass off as a fact. But Stallman's "facts" are impractial in the real world.

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection. The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.

So, the ideologues trying to push unproven ideas on the rest of us are people like you, people who make strained arguments that somehow society needs to bear the costs and complexities of IP law.

Go prove your case before you whine about Stallman.

Re:you, too

[HardCase]

The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.

You can say that with a straight face? Great works have been produced for millennia because the economic systems that were in place prior to the early 19th century precluded the need for copyright protection. Things changed with the industrial revolution. C'mon, this is basic history.

-h-

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection.

Sure they have.

And yet, we have developed more knowledge of science and engineering in the past few years than in the few centuries before them. Somehow, despite most people working within the framework of copyright, or advances in technology and communications still allow ideas to be shared and progress to be made. More people's art reaches more people in the audience today than at any time in human history, and the cost of the art is a few $CURRENCY_UNITS to the common man, and not a significant investment to commission a work by someone in the upper classes. Those nations that have strong copyright and patent laws have developed far beyond those that make at most a token effort, while the latter commonly derive a significant part of their economic value from a black market in trading the former's work, rather than creating work of a similar calibre on their own.

Really, this whole "IP doesn't do any good" idea is tired. Give it up already. Anyone who wasn't completely brainwashed by Slashbot groupthink and the preachings of delusional evangelists like RMS could see that IP has brought many benefits in recent years. Sure, the system isn't perfect. Sure, it's widely abused (by both sides) in certain areas. But on balance, it's still a huge net plus, and no-one (including RMS) has yet produced even a plausible alternative worth trying. Get back to us when you've got an idea that can pay the rent for everyone who currently develops useful or entertaining works, not just a tiny number of people who are in a highly visible vanguard working on highly visible projects with a wide market and with little competition in the consultancy/training/customisation market.

Re:you, too

[sammy baby]

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection.

And you can see the result! People trading copies of the Sistine Chapel all over the streets of Milan! Bootleg recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos leaked far and wide before Bach's official release date!

(The reason we didn't need COPYRIGHT LAW for so long was that it was so damn hard to COPY THINGS. Duh.)

Re:you, too

[dwandy]

Great works have been produced for millennia because the economic systems that were in place prior to the early 19th century precluded the need for copyright protection. Things changed with the industrial revolution. C'mon, this is basic history.

Care to expand/continue that thought?
I'm no history major, so I'd be interested in some details...

Re:you, too

[Jerrry]

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection. The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.

And many of those producers of art, etc., lived life as paupers unless they could find a rich patron to support them because they certainly didn't make much of a living from their work.

Re:you, too

[HardCase]

Care to expand/continue that thought?
I'm no history major, so I'd be interested in some details...

Me neither. There some excellent examples to be seen right here in this thread.

-h-

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

"And yet, we have developed more knowledge of science and engineering in the past few years than in the few centuries before them."

Bullshit.

"More people's art reaches more people in the audience today than at any time in human history..."

Bullshit. That's has to do with electroic distribution, not IP restrictions.

"...while the latter commonly derive a significant part of their economic value from a black market in trading the former's work..."

Laugable, near-racist bullshit. Care to prove, or give the lightest pretence of support, for these wild contentions? What you call 'art' most, including the distributors, would term 'product'. We're awash in government protected trash pretending to significance. The purpose of copyright to 'advance the arts' shows obvious signs of failing with every trip to a book, music, or video store. Beyond that, to imply far east nations (because who else could you mean) derive a significant portion of their economies from stolen IP is beyond ridiculous. No nation does, including the US, and pirated materials for the most part remain in their respective domestic markets. Finally, have you at all considered that if more art, science and technology is being created today it's due to increasing population and not IP? That's basic sociology and not an economic/religious belief.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

(The reason we didn't need COPYRIGHT LAW for so long was that it was so damn hard to COPY THINGS. Duh.)

Incorrect. Printing was the primary means of copying, and many famous musical pieces and literary works were indeed widely copied and distributed.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

And yet, we have developed more knowledge of science and engineering in the past few years than in the few centuries before them. Somehow, despite most people working within the framework of copyright, or advances in technology and communications still allow ideas to be shared and progress to be made.

Neither scientific advances nor engineering advances are protected by copyrights, so your argument is spurious.

And, in any case, we are talking about music here, not science or engineering. Having copyrights for the latest Britney Spears song is not going to advance science or engineering.

Those nations that have strong copyright and patent laws have developed far beyond those that make at most a token effort, while the latter commonly derive a significant part of their economic value from a black market in trading the former's work, rather than creating work of a similar calibre on their own.

There is a correlation, but you are getting cause and effect wrong. The US was infamous for ignoring copyright and patent laws during its best years. The US computer industry became strong before patents and mostly before copyrights on computer software became a factor.

So, economically successful nations have strong patent and copyright laws, but they have them because economically successful nations also have powerful industry lobbies that use patents and copyrights to exclude competition. And you only need to look at the UK to see what the long term consequences of that are.

Re:you, too

[Tim C]

Copyright laws were introduced shortly after the invention of the printing press; but thanks for proving his point for him.

Re:you, too

[novus ordo]

IMO patents only make inventors lazy. Being the first on the market is HUGE and the only incentive you should need.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

Copyright laws were introduced shortly after the invention of the printing press; but thanks for proving his point for him.

That's a snappy retort, which, however, oversimplifies the history of copyrights and their enforcement to the point of absurdity.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

So, economically successful nations have strong patent and copyright laws, but they have them because economically successful nations also have powerful industry lobbies that use patents and copyrights to exclude competition. And you only need to look at the UK to see what the long term consequences of that are.

I live in a UK city where small, innovative IT companies are a major part of the local economy, employing a significant proportion of the local population, including me. Many depend on copyright protection to get a fair reward for their work, rather than seeing it gobbled up by the big boys; between my friends' experiences and my own, I've now seen that protection used in practice in several cases that might otherwise have sunk the development company. I'm afraid you're not really trying your argument on the right person.

Re:you, too

[drzhivago]

There was no printing press before Gutenberg. Copying books was extremely time consuming prior to that, and even after the printing press I'm sure it was still tedious for some time. Wholescale copying was not feasible prior to this invention.

Re:you, too

[sammy baby]

(The reason we didn't need COPYRIGHT LAW for so long was that it was so damn hard to COPY THINGS. Duh.)

Incorrect. Printing was the primary means of copying, and many famous musical pieces and literary works were indeed widely copied and distributed.

Which is why today, Vivendi Universal and Sony crack down mercilessly on bootleg sheet-music providers.

Re:you, too

[westlake]

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection.

There are other forms of protection:

You are directly employed by the church or state.

You work under the protection of a patron, a pope, a king, or a merchant prince, who is known to be dangerous to cross.

You are yourself part of the economic and political elite.

You belong to a guild or other trade assciation which controls entry into your profession and can impose its own rigorous internal discipline.

You can go to court and assert your property rights under the common law.

_____ What copyright adds is protection for those of lower and middle class origins who want to maintain their intellectual and financial independence. Copyright belongs to the democratic era which marks the emergence of writers like Dickens and Twain.

Re:you, too

[poopdeville]

Neither scientific advances nor engineering advances are protected by copyrights, so your argument is spurious.

And, in any case, we are talking about music here, not science or engineering. Having copyrights for the latest Britney Spears song is not going to advance science or engineering.

But having a fair but strong copyright system to ensure that the academic publishing industry remains viable is going to advance science and engineering. As it has for the last 200 years.

I'm not going to state my position on copyright. But I will say that I think academic publishers have it right (except for a few obnoxious exceptions). Academic journals are expensive, but publishers tend to give very good deals to libraries for the expressed purpose of disseminating the information therein. There's no '500 seat license' or any silliness like that. And they actually respect 'fair use'.

I suspect this is because the writers and editors of most academic journals love the field in which they work. Editors tend to donate their time, though some get a small stipend. Peer reviewers donate their time for their anonymous approval. Writers publish or perish. The distributor only has a minimal role -- there is no gigantic middleman.

Re:you, too

[cyclop]

But people copied books in ancient times (even Cicero or Seneca mentioned it, IIRC). And guess what? copies are just what led us actually know the culture of these lost centuries.

What would you do in year 3000 A.C. of a DRMed CD-ROM of which all keys have been lost?

Re:you, too

[dustmite]

Those nations that have strong copyright and patent laws have developed far beyond those that make at most a token effort

Uh, could you perhaps control for the several billion other variables defining the differences between countries before jumping to such ridiculously specious conclusions on causation?

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw it in the quantum decryptor in my flying car? And just what year is 3000 A.C.? 3000 years after the first annonymous coward?

Re:you, too

[Zangief]

Bullshit.

Would we have the Illiad if the Greeks had copyrights?

What about the bible? mythological stories? classical theatre plays?

Ok, let's talk about "physical objects".

What if someone had a patent on columns? Chapels? Would your precious, uncopiable Sistine Chapel even existed? Maybe the Church would have waited until the patents had expired, but, by the time that happened, probably Michelangelo would be dead.

The greatest works of art were created in times no copyright existed. Today, Hollywood push movies that are remakes of old hits, or book adaptations. They can't create anything new.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

But I will say that I think academic publishers have it right (except for a few obnoxious exceptions). Academic journals are expensive, but publishers tend to give very good deals to libraries for the expressed purpose of disseminating the information therein. There's no '500 seat license' or any silliness like that. And they actually respect 'fair use'.

You must be kidding. First of all, academic publishers do essentially no work for the money they get paid anymore: all the editing and reviewing is unpaid volunteer labor, and even the typesetting has become trivial. Second, the enormous cost of academic journals is a huge problem for university libraries. Third, "500 seat licenses" is exactly what academic publishers are moving to with their on-line distributions.

The degree to which publishers give "discounts" is simply to do differential pricing to extract the maximum amount of information from every university library they can.

I suspect this is because the writers and editors of most academic journals love the field in which they work.

No, it's because they don't have a choice. If you want to rise in academics, you must write, publish, and become an editor at a prestigious journal, and those journals milk their brand name for every dollar they can.

Fortunately, academics are increasingly flaunting copyrights and putting their papers on the web. And academic journals can't really do much about it because if they start heavy-handed enforcement, people are going to publish elsewhere. So, we can cross our fingers and hope that the folly of the current system of academic publishers will slowly but surely come to an end.

Re:you, too

[poopdeville]

Journals are extremely inexpensive considering that a subscription for a library only costs about twice as much as a personal subscription. That is a great deal, especially when you consider that other publishing fields charge five-times-plus for their "library copies." Ask someone at a BlockBuster how much replacing a lost movie costs them -- it's usually in the hundreds of dollars for a movie you can buy for $12 some place else specifically because they come with distribution rights.

Academics usually become academics because they love the field in which they work.

Academics are not "flaunting" copyrights when they publish their articles on the web. They're embracing them. Journals are not usually given exclusive distribution rights. Indeed, if that were so, they wouldn't accept papers that have been pre-printed in the ArXiv.

Journal publishers can't compete with the ArXiv in the online distribution arena, and will never abandon paper distribution.

Re:you, too

[westlake]

What about the bible? mythological stories? classical theatre plays?

Tyndale was burned at the stake for producing an unauthorized translation of the Bible.

Classical Greek drama was staged both as an "Olympic" styled competition and a central part of an annual religious festival. The ground rules were plain enough.

What if someone had a patent on columns? Chapels?

Wien only the state, the church, and the merchant prince are building and likely are embodied in a single family of limitless wealth, power, pride and vindictiveness, that isn't going to be a problem.

The greatest works of art were created in times no copyright existed

Greater than Dickens and Twain and Conrad in the novel, a genre that is in a very real sense a creation of the copyright era?

Re:you, too

[feijai]

Would we have the Illiad if the Greeks had copyrights? What about the bible? mythological stories? classical theatre plays?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Oh, you didn't mean that, did you. You meant "the lack of Copyrights didn't stop the Illiad from being made". To which my response is: how many Greek sagas were made at that time? How many novels are made now? Even normalizing by population size, we have a far greater production of creative work now than the Greeks did back then. Because unlike back then, where Homer needed a patron to eat, our authors can actually derive income from their handiwork. Thanks to copyrights.

Now to more of your mangled logic:

What if someone had a patent on columns? Chapels? Would your precious, uncopiable Sistine Chapel even existed? Maybe the Church would have waited until the patents had expired, but, by the time that happened, probably Michelangelo would be dead.

I think what you're trying to say is: "If there was a patent on columns, the Sistine chapel may never have been made", e.g., Patents Are Bad.

This betrays an almost incompetent lack of understanding of the history of patents, and why they exist. Patents freed us from trade guilds. A quick refresher for you: for thousands of years, specific trades had secrets which they refused to share with anyone except each other. The masons, the artists, the jugglers. This created a priesthood of knowledge which prevented people from learning about how things work and improving on them. Trade guilds very much existed in the Renaissance. And they have always, nearly universally, been evil. Trade guilds were part of many historically unfortunate things (serfdom society, the hierarchical control via the Catholic Church, denying literacy to anyone but the clergy, etc.) which held back the advancement of society.

Today only a few trade guilds exist: the most famous remaining guild is probably magicians. The rest have gone the way of history largely thanks to the patent system.

In summary: if there were a patent system in the Renaissance, in addition to other modern societal mechanisms, we might have had a lot more Leonardos than the single patron-fed one.

Re:you, too

[Thomas Miconi]

Neither scientific advances nor engineering advances are protected by copyrights,

WTF ? Your own original post mentioned patents, which only apply to science and technology !

And you only need to look at the UK to see what the long term consequences of that are.

Yeah, I guess having the most successful economy among countries of comparable size must be really tough for them. Or maybe you're referring to them having produced more interesting music (both learned and popular) than any other European country over the last fscking century ? I mean, the Stones, the Beatles, Benjamin Britten, Radiohead, yeah, perfect proof that copyright kills creativity and all that.

I can't believe the crap we have to deal with here on Slashdot. Hell, we're the techies, we're supposed to be analytical and rational and all that ! But as soon as you say "copyright" all of a sudden everyone goes into crackpot mode and starts spouting some nonsense that would make the "fake moon landing" crowd proud.

Thomas-

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Being the first on the market is HUGE and the only incentive you should need.

Only if you have both the great idea and the infrastructure to take advantage of it immediately. If you have only the former, patents are how you get the latter while still getting due credit for your contribution.

Re:you, too

[vux984]

(The reason we didn't need COPYRIGHT LAW for so long was that it was so damn hard to COPY THINGS. Duh.)

Lucky you weren't around for the dawn of email.. you'd probably have criminalized it for cutting into USPS profits.

(The reason we didn't need the POSTAL-SERVICE-PROTECTION-PATRIOT-FREEDOM law for so long was that it was so damn hard to deliver all your mail by yourself. Duh!)

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Uh, could you perhaps look up the meaning of the words "causation" and "conclusion" before criticising? I stated no conclusion, and was merely noting a strong correlation as part of a wider argument.

Re:you, too

[anthony_dipierro]

There was no printing press before Gutenberg. Copying books was extremely time consuming prior to that, and even after the printing press I'm sure it was still tedious for some time. Wholescale copying was not feasible prior to this invention.

None of which proves that copyright has any social or economic merit at all.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Bootleg recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos leaked far and wide before Bach's official release date!

You are trying to be funny, but geez, indeed opera and other popular music of the day were blatantly "copied" centuries ago. What played in imperial opera house one day, was replayed in common folks places pretty soon (and yes, possibly even before, thanks to rehearsals, musical scores leaking). It was no rocket science to do that back then, either. And pretty much all literature of any worth was constantly being copied (by monks etc, before guthenberg).

While difference to digital copying does exists, copyright as a concept dates back to 19th century; and back then copying things wasn't much easier than it had been for thousands of years.

Re:you, too

[anthony_dipierro]

And many of those producers of art, etc., lived life as paupers unless they could find a rich patron to support them because they certainly didn't make much of a living from their work.

And nowadays there aren't many producers of art, etc. who live life as paupers unless they can find a rich megacorp to support them because they certainly don't make much of a living from their work?

Is the term "starving artist" really older than the concept of copyright?

Re:you, too

[dustmite]

Oh, riiiight, as if you weren't extremely heavily implying a causation. Now you try to get off on a 'technicality' that you didn't explicitly state it. Whatever. We both know you were implying it, and that the purpose was to impress upon the audience a causal relationship.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

Academics are not "flaunting" copyrights when they publish their articles on the web. They're embracing them. Journals are not usually given exclusive distribution rights.

You haven't published a lot yet, have you.

Journals are extremely inexpensive considering that a subscription for a library only costs about twice as much as a personal subscription.

That's not the point. The point is that even the personal subscriptions are way too expensive.

Re:you, too

[novus ordo]

If you can afford a patent...

Re:you, too

[poopdeville]

You haven't published a lot yet, have you.

Implicit argument from authority. Can you say logical fallacy? If you really want to prove this point, come up with some statistics showing that you're right, preferably through a randomized selection process of journals. As it stands, your claim that journals demand exclusive distribution rights is laughable due to contrary evidence. That's not the point. The point is that even the personal subscriptions are way too expensive.

Not really. The journal market is very small. A journal can hope for 20,000 institutional subscriptions if they're very successful. This is very low volume, which drives up the cost of publishing. Many journals also use archival quality paper and good ink. And they do this four to twelve times a year. Moreover, the personal subscription market is much smaller. Most people interested in state-of-the-art research in a field are going to have access to library copies of journals.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

At the top of my head and although these are "copyright era" authors I belive they all outrank Dickens, Twain and Conrad (YMMV). Shakespeare's plays are only available to us because of bootleg prints, he was also a plagiarist.
Brood published Kafka against his specific wishes. Care to put history right?
Tolstoj gave up the copyrights to his work.

Re:you, too

[idlake]

Implicit argument from authority. Can you say logical fallacy?

An argument from authority isn't a logical fallacy.

If you really want to prove this point, come up with some statistics showing that you're right,

I disagree with your premise that it requires "statistics". A major example is sufficient: look at the IEEE copyright assignment form (search on Google). IEEE is the major publisher for technology, engineering, and CS content.

contrary evidence [arxiv.org]

I have put stuff into Arxiv, in clear violation of IEEE copyright policy. So, the existence of Arxiv fails to be evidence for your contention that people do not need to assign copyright and that people do not flaunt copyright assignments.

Not really. The journal market is very small. A journal can hope for 20,000 institutional subscriptions if they're very successful. This is very low volume, which drives up the cost of publishing. Many journals also use archival quality paper and good ink.

Then on-line publication of journals should be nearly free, but it isn't. In fact, it often costs the same as paper publishing, or can't be separated from a paper subscription.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, this is basic history.

Then perhaps you'd like to provide some hard evidence to support your assertions? The fact that you provide no arguments to back up your claim leads me to believe that you have never studied the subject seriously, and are instead relying on popular opinion masquerading as "basic history."

I know I'm unlikely to sway your opinion through clever arguments, so I challenge you to find some concrete support for a causal link between copyright or patents and technological, scientific or creative achievement. If you cannot, perhaps you will be willing to concede the parent's point, which is merely that such a link is unproven.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What you choose to read into my posts is up to you, but please don't ask me to defend something I never wrote.

If you reread the post to which I was originally replying, you'll find that the terms there have the same problem:

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection. The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.

Where are the controls in this argument? There might be some significant differences like, I don't know, the fact that copying is now almost free and almost instantaneous.

I was simply presenting an opposing viewpoint at a similar level of rigour. Neither post was a strict, logically proven argument, nor could either have been so: as you point out yourself, we can never be 100% sure of the difference made by IP laws without a control group. However, while correlation does not imply causation, it's the best indicator we've got in the absence of anything that does. So, while the original poster was correct in that the benefits are indeed "at best unproven" in a strict, logical sense, it's equally unproven that we could develop as many works of comparable quality without the IP framework, and what evidence we do have is heavily against it.

Re:you, too

[Anonymous Coward]

But, unfortunately, even creating intellectual stuff takes work. One point of copyright is to allow those who want it, to be able to make a living creating intellectual stuff, not as a hobby. The current abuse of IP laws/(c) is, obviously, an abuse, though. (And that's what should be fought against, not plainly against *IP*.)

Re:you, too

[ynohoo]

Copyright came about as a result of the Gutenberg press. Prior to copyright, you wrote a book and made a deal with a printer to produce & distribute it for a cut of the profits. If another printer decided to copy your book and print it, keeping all the profit for himself, you had no legal recourse against him. Copyright enabled you to sue him for the income he had deprived you of.

Without that protection, you had less incentive to write another book, thereby depriving society of your creative output. Even today, creative people would like to make a living, or even get rich from their work. When you make their work available to anybody trawling the internet for "free stuff", you are depriving them of potential income. In the days before the Internet this was less of a problem, as the amount of sharing going on would likely be restricted to your circle of friends.

You cannot make that decision for the creator. The free program I am giving away in my sig is free because I am happy to give away a tool I made to make my own job easier.Even if I had decided to sell it, the limited (and crowded) market and cost of licensing the development environment it was created in means it probably would not have made economic sense. Instead I happy that it makes a couple of thousand COBOL programmers job less painful, But that is my decision to make as the author, not yours as the (potential) consumer.

Re:you, too

[poopdeville]

An argument from authority isn't a logical fallacy.

Actually, argument from authority is a logical fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority. I can probably find a non-wikipedia link for you if you'd like, but their article balances the strict lack of logical validity with practical considerations involving discourse. Your argument was fallacious on both counts.

I disagree with your premise that it requires "statistics". A major example is sufficient: look at the IEEE copyright assignment form (search on Google). IEEE is the major publisher for technology, engineering, and CS content.

Statistics are useful. I can find an example of a major journal that doesn't ask for exclusive distribution rights as well. And if this is all we're going on, we're in a stalemate again. The Nature Publishing Group, for instance, does not.

Regarding the IEEE and ArXiv -- that's interesting. Is the IEEE aware that you've done this? If so, have they said anything about it? Are they aware that much of what they publish is on there?

Re:you, too

[anthony_dipierro]

Without that protection [copyright], you had less incentive to write another book, thereby depriving society of your creative output.

You may indeed have less incentive. Then again, you might have more, if your intent is more focussed on delivering your book to as many people as possible. But not everyone is unwilling to write a book in the absense of copyright law. In fact, even with the option of copyright law, many books are written which explicitly disclaim copyright.

Even today, creative people would like to make a living, or even get rich from their work.

I'd like to make a living and/or get rich sitting at home in my underwear posting on Slashdot. Doesn't mean the government should help me do that.

You cannot make that decision for the creator. [....] But that is my decision to make as the author, not yours as the (potential) consumer.

In the eyes of the law, at least in most jurisdictions, you are correct. But my comments really didn't have anything to do with the law.

More of the same

[Jay Maynard]

This is more typical Stallmanite extremism. With RMS, it's either his way or the highway, and he wraps himself in the flag of freedom to demonize those who disagree with him.

Fortunately, the majority of the computing world recognizes him for the blowhard he is.

Changed my own attitude

[petrus4]

I know what a foaming-at-the-mouth "RMS is the antichrist" troll I used to be here on Slashdot, but I've lately come to realise the error of my ways, for two reasons:-

a) It makes me look like a fool, and
b) There is now absolutely no need for me to do it anyway. With the amount of crazed diatribes he's been releasing lately, he's doing a far better job himself of convincing everyone of what a generally undesirable human being he is than I ever could. His fame for his prior contributions has served as the rope, and over the past 2-3 years he's done an absolutely smashing job of using it to hang himself. He's now on the fast track to complete irrelevance.

How true the mathematical proverb is. Every problem does, indeed, have its own solution.

"Content Producers"...

[advocate_one]

those who provide the filler for the mandatory gaps between the advertisments and/or infomercials...

Stallman is unreasonable...

[MaestroSartori]

...but that's his choice.

So he refuses to endorse Creative Commons, and publically states this, hoping for... what? All of the people whose needs are met by CC licenses to jump over to GPL? I don't get it, really.

As a technical aside, how would the GPL map to creative works in practice anyway? If I use Photoshop to produce an amusing image and release the image under the GPL, would I need to give the PSD file to anyone who asked?

I suspect I'm missing something. But so is Stallman - different people find different levels of "openness" to be acceptable. Welcome to the real world, isn't it fun? :)

Re:Stallman is unreasonable...

[spitzak]

For your own image you could do anything you want.

However I could imagine some sort of GPL image that includes a PSD file, and if you then edit it in photoshop to a new version and want to send your result to anybody, you have to include your modified PSD file.

Though this runs into problems with what the "commonly used format for working" is. You could very well never write a PSD file while using PhotoShop, just saving your new result as a jpeg file, and quitting. This means no PSD file is available to represent your changes. But somebody else who wanted to further modify your image could very well start with the jpeg file and may not think anything is wrong. Others may say that the lossy compression threw away too much of the original PSD file. It is hard to say whether just the image fulfills the GPL requirements.

misinformation

[Liquorman]

Disclaimer - I know that this is not exactly on the nose for most of this discussion... however, I note two very basic pieces of misinformation spoken by RMS.

FTA: In any case, iTunes distributes only music. As far as I know, the only way you can get a non-digitally-restricted version of a movie is through a P2P network.

A further problem with iTunes is that it distributes MP3 format. We need to move away from the use of that format, because it is patented. The free software that used to exist for MP3 encoding has been driven underground by threats of lawsuits.

To the best of my knowledge, iTunes does not distribute only music. And the music is does distribute is not in MP3 format.

In my mind, his higher order points - that p2p is the only way to get non-DRM films and that iTunes uses a patented, proprietary music encoding - are certainly undercut by his lack of fundamental facts regarding the examples he uses making his point.

IS this NOT the Internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Internet. Who cares about licenses, it's the wild west!

The Wookie has spoken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time the Wookie speaks /. is enthralled.

Seems like RMS cares more about media than softwar

[guysmilee]

Seems like RMS cares more about media than software these days. I can see how he thinks users should share there private keys if they are making things like music cd's under gpl ... i assume thats how he came up with the idiotic idea ... thank goodness linus is paying attention ... this could have really been a disaster for our favorite kernel.

And in other news....

[digitaldc]

In other news, water is still wet, Microsoft is still a monopoly, and people dislike paying taxes.

Umm...I hate to disagree with you but water has been found to be quite dry, Microsoft may be losing its stronghold, and some people actually like paying taxes. ;)

Re:And in other news....

[Bacon Bits]

I'm using "wet" as per the most common usage per the standard English dictionary. If you have to, you may in fact look it up to see that water is, in fact, wet. For that matter, I'm using the standard English dictionary for the most common usage of "water".

Standard Oil -- the company that inspired anti-trust legislation -- had a 64% market share at it's peak. Microsoft would have to lose something on the order of 20-30% of their market share of desktop PC OSs and Office apps, and 15-20% of the browser market in order to approach that level of competitive monopoly.

And while you may, in fact, have found someone who claims to enjoy paying taxes, that means very little. I can find people who enjoy much less desireable things. Nevermind that the article actually means the person enjoys the benefits of taxation, rather than actually being required to pay money to tax collectors.

Unix Illeterate PUNK

[alexborges]

We would NEVER call it FOO\BAR.

Now FOO/BAR and we may be getting somewhere.

Re:Unix Illeterate PUNK

[alexborges]

Then again, it might be better to be Unix illiterate than english-chalenged.

Hehe.

Let the market decide

[ianc7]

If some or all of the CC licenses are flawed then eventually folks will stop supporting them and they will die off. The same goes for all of the other variously "free" licenses as well.

Yeah...

[eno2001]

I used to be an RMS hate-ah until I noticed how he's always been right looking back. I still don't get why people get their panties in a bunch over profiteering. It's one thing to "produce" "content" or make a product or provide a service and sell it for reasonable amounts. It's another to be greedy and overvalue your work. For example, I saw this one guy who did some work in a Windows domain to resolve some naming issues. The company he did the consulting for was charged $250 an hour for his time. But since I know how to do exactly what he did, I'd say he overvalued his work. Reconfiguring users, groups and file sharing permisions in an AD domain is not a rocket scientist. It's drudgery, sure... but it's not worth $250 an hour. At best, maybe $15 an hour. He spent four days working on it and put in four hour days. So he made off with $4000 to do that work and the company paid gladly! In my opinion, they were scammed. They would have been far better off just hiring their own IT guy at $60,000 a year to handle those issues as they occur. Who cares if he spends the rest of his time playing World of Warcraft? Even if he only does the same kind of work the consultant did 15 times in a year (typical for most Windows admins), they would break even. Now THAT's some business sense you can use!

The same thing with music. The crap that the music industry and the RIAA controlled music machine produces might be popular, but that doesn't mean it has value. In truth, the songs you hear vomiting out of your radios and CD players daily might be worth about $.10 a pop. Paying $.50 per track to download is massive profit for the music industry. But they want more! THey can't get enough money! And that's what's wrong. These fuckers need to be taught a lesson. Back in the 80s I used to be able to buy a new record for $7.00. The record would have an average of 10-12 songs on it. That worked out to about $.58 per track which was robbery back then. If I was to release my work for public consumption and charged just $1.00 per album, I guarantee I'd be well within my rights. But if I did it expecting $20 an album, that would be ridiculous. That's what the RIAA controlled music machine is doing. STOP THEM NOW!!!

So in conclusion I have to say the problem is when people believe they are entitled to more money than they deserve for their work. Oh and another thing... it's all the fault of the middle man. Analyze every facet of our society and look for the middle man. You'll notice something. He doesn't actually do anything useful but typically gets paid a lot more than the people who do the real work. Think about the CEO who was just a venture capitalist and put some money into a project to bring it to fruition. Yes, he took a risk and maybe the product worked out. Yes, he deserves something in return. However, these guys usualy go nuts and keep 90% of the money for themselves then give the actual inventor/creator a pittance. If Linus Torvalds had turned to VCs for getting Linux out there, you can bet it never would have worked out as it did now. There's be some bloated fat idiot talking about the profits of his company and their bold venture into the Unix-like OS business. Linus would either be dead or fired or making the wage of a janitor somewhere in that company.

So in conclusion let me say that this all proves that there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole of humanity and I call for a complete code audit of the species' DNA. Somewhere along the line something wrong got injected and it resulted in the fucked up world we have now where money is king and the poor are shit upon. Destroy all capitalist dogs!!!! Down with commies!!! Eliminate the anarchists!!! Deneuter the Dadaist!!!! Spay the white supremacists!!!!, Trepan the Moonies!!!! and overall... don't forget the sperm whale!!

AC says RMS Bashfest Unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

You interesting, informative, funny yap dogs are overrated.

Look at what he said.

"I no longer endorse Creative Commons."

Big deal. It's his right to endorse, unendorse, or ignore any fucking thing he wants.

Your sphincter-clenching collective opinion--that this constitutes some kind of evidence of psychosis--says way more about you than it does about him.

RMS is becoming Crazy Cat Man

[C0C0C0]

Seriously. His True-Believer schtick is now officially old. Creative Commons is a perfectly customizable and easily decoded system, and I applaud its creators. Stallman's attempt to force the entire F/OS world to walk to the beat of his little tin drum is going to end up driving everyone to more practical solutions. Who needs him?

What's the difference?

[Hosiah]

RMS hates everything! I still use his software and like his free software philosophy and will even be reviewing the HURD/GNU live CD tommorrow. Anybody using Open Source at all, be it from OpenSolaris, Linux, or BSD, would have to agree that he's the source of some damn fine software. But he gets loonier every year. He doesn't seem to get that the saying "That Government governs best which governs least." applies to renegade free-love commune governments as well. He's getting as bad as Theo and ESR.

Man, you should check out the lone pure GNU distro: made with Debian co-operation, but the tension is thick even there...and Debian should be one of RMS's best friends!

My take

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your take?

My take has been - and always will be - that Richard Stallman is a fucking hippie and the worst spokesperson to advocate open source.

Thanks, Richard, for giving us Open Source. It's time for you to do something else now, because you're dead weight and preventing open source from being further adopted with your nazi-like attitude towards every other license.

Stallman is pretty blind

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman is an anarchist; his views are pretty blind. He's one of those people who will tell you all software should be free, and piracy is not stealing. You can't even try to call him a communist, because he's WAY farther out than that.

Stallman likes the GPL not because it protects your work, but because it protects your ability to force others to give their work away for free if they make the slightest mistake in using your work with theirs.

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[mpapet]

What you fail to see is a near-term future where the good intentions of the GPL are exploited and morphed into something that closely resembles non-free software.

Let me give you an example:
In the past, a national standard for labeling products "organic" was passed. It was a pretty strict definition and it got the FDA to codify organic.

Recently, nearly all of the growth in the food industry has come from "organic" products. So the non-organic industry starts modifying the rules and regulations so they can compete. Here's a very nice summary:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/05/22/MNGMT6QD0H1.DTL

The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted. If RMS is not out there as an idealogical enforcer, then OSS becomes meaningless as soon as clever people exploit it some more.

If you don't agree with me on that point, I think it is easy to agree with this statement: Every cause needs a controversial figure to generate "buzz."

Err...

[kiwimate]

Human beings have produced great art, science, and engineering for millennia in the absence of copyright protection. The assertion that copyrights and patents have any social or economic merit at all is at best unproven.

1. What HardCase said down below.
2. Yes, but usually (at least for the past several hundred years) because they had patronage from royalty or a member of the elite classes. Patronage implied strong social and economic incentives.

Re:Err...

[idlake]

Your argument doesn't work. For example, Microsoft didn't get big through patronage, and they didn't have the benefit of patent or significant copyright protection when they started out. Neither did Disney (in fact, Disney has built their company by copying and recycling other people's ideas). And as someone who creates new inventions and writes a lot, I can tell you personally: patents and copyrights do not reward me for my work in any way.

As for patronage, it still exists and it is far more generous than it has ever been. It's called public research funding. And it works. Almost everything you use on the Internet was funded that way, directly or indirectly.

Re:Err...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

And as someone who creates new inventions and writes a lot, I can tell you personally: patents and copyrights do not reward me for my work in any way.

There are only two possibilities to explain this: either your work has little or no value to anyone (in which case why should you be rewarded for doing it, either by private means or through any sort of public funding?) or your work is valuable (in which case your legal/distribution/support people aren't very good).

As for patronage, it still exists and it is far more generous than it has ever been. It's called public research funding. And it works.

Of course it does. That's why so many PhD places in scientific fields are funded by industrial grants, and indeed why so much leading edge research in, say, IT, comes out of the R&D labs of major corporations rather than universities.

Almost everything you use on the Internet was funded that way, directly or indirectly.

Of course it was. That's why most of the useful and/or entertaining web sites I visit carry ads and/or offer subscription options. The only major web site I visit frequently that isn't funded this way is the BBC News site, and I effectively pay for that through my TV licence money, too.

Remember, there is no such thing as public money. There is only money the government takes from its population through taxes, and redistributes as it sees fit with or without the population's support. Doing this on the scale necessary to support every artist in the country would be entirely impractical.

Re:Err...

[idlake]

That's why so many PhD places in scientific fields are funded by industrial grants

Ph.D.'s in scientific fields have become increasingly funded through industrial grants because companies are scared that they can't get graduates otherwise.

and indeed why so much leading edge research in, say, IT, comes out of the R&D labs of major corporations rather than universities.

Actually, there hasn't been a lot of "leading edge research" in IT at all, and what has been there has mostly come out of universities.

Of course it was. That's why most of the useful and/or entertaining web sites I visit carry ads and/or offer subscription options.

As I was saying, the technologies that those sites are based on has been largely developed with public funding.

Remember, there is no such thing as public money. There is only money the government takes from its population through taxes, and redistributes as it sees fit with or without the population's support.

Yes, that is the primary purpose of government: to fund public goods. And arts and scientific research are textbook examples of public goods. Trying to privatize them is a relatively recent phenomenon and has been largely (and predictably) a failure.

Re:Err...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Actually, there hasn't been a lot of "leading edge research" in IT at all, and what has been there has mostly come out of universities.

Nice try. Given that I work in an office full of highly educated people developing new mathematical algorithms for a commercial product, I hope you won't mind if I don't believe you.

If you want more generic examples, look at something universal like programming languages. The majority of the successful ones are developed outside of academia, and funded by industry bodies.

As I was saying, the technologies that those sites are based on has been largely developed with public funding.

Actually, that's not what you said. What you did say was:

Almost everything you use on the Internet was funded that way, directly or indirectly.

Now, given that we're talking about works here, what is the more relevant example: your narrow view where only a tiny number of well-established infrastructure programs count, or my wider view where all the new content I see every day counts?

Yes, that is the primary purpose of government: to fund public goods. And arts and scientific research are textbook examples of public goods.

Remember that when your taxes go up 10% to pay for a million pop clone wannabes and trashy novellists who can't write for ****.

Trying to privatize them is a relatively recent phenomenon and has been largely (and predictably) a failure.

Ah, so you don't believe in artificial scarcity through copyright, but you want to do away with any sort of free market and trust the government to run everything? Now that is a bizarre position to take...

Proof is simple

[poptones]

Linux exists today largely as a response to microsoft. Microsoft makes its living selling copyrighted and protected - "sealed" boxes of software. Many develop open source code as a reaction against this. If microsoft did not have its monopoly on windows, anyone could copy and redistribute it and there would be substantially less incentive to contribute to or to use linux.

Because windows is proprietary, an entirely new operating system continues to grow in popularity and function. A competitor exists in the market largely due to the protections afforded windows under copyright. This is exactly the intent of copyright as spelled out in section 8 of the US constitution.

Re:Proof is simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux exists today largely as a response to Minix. Further, I don't think most people who use Linux do so because Windows isn't without cost, since almost all new computers come with Windows pre-installed, and let's face it, the segment of home-builders with qualms about piracy is somewhat limited. They do it because Windows isn't good enough. There are a number of tasks at which Linux beats Windows hands-down, and for people whose primary computer uses involves those tasks, it's an easy decision.

Re:Proof is simple

[madirish99]

You may want to take another read of the history books. Linux, if anything, was created in response to MINIX. When Torvalds had the idea to combine the GNU tools with his newly designed kernel, a movement was born. This community has evolved over the years and has made Linux what it is today.

It wasn't created as a response to Microsoft, it evolved into a damn good OS, built and maintained by people who believe in keeping it free, and allowing it to evolve. Oh, and free doesn't just mean without cost, it means free to modify and redistribute.

Life changes

[snowwrestler]

Your argument makes no sense because it assumes some sort of constant static backdrop to history. It's like saying "humans lived for thousands of years without pollution laws so why do we need them now?"

Times change. The parent is 100% right that there is an obvious difference between handing a friend a book to read for the afternoon, and handing them a perfect copy of a book to take home and keep. Saying there is no difference just makes you look like an incompetent or a liar, neither of which does much to support any other argument you're likely to make.

And please don't make the mistake of thinking that I must be some pro-DRM, pro-IP plant. I think there are a lot of good reasons to oppose DRM and the dramatic expansion of IP law that is now being pushed by industry associations. I just think it's not helpful to call a rake a spade and expect to win people's minds.

Yes.

[Jugalator]

Are some Creative Commons licenses worth using, even if others aren't?

Yes, I think so.

You pick the kind of license you prefer, and what suits your work.

And that was the point with different kinds of CC licenses.

People are losing the point

[marcosdumay]

The Creative Commons never wanted to be a free umbrella. Their goal is to create a standard for licenses. Artistic work used to have a big number of hard to understand licenses, so the CC people created a small set of them that is suitable to almost everybody, and made it available.

So RMS hit it exactly on the head. When you read that something is published on a CC license, you know nothing about your rights. But after you read the license name, you know exactly what it says (so all of you who put works under CC, please tell me the license name). That said, CC was very sucessfull on that, because its licenses cover almost all needs, from the most free work to the most resticted one. But FSF can not recomend you to use CC licenses on general, because, on general, they aren't free.

As usual, people bashing RMS don't know what they are talking about. As the interviewer: "There must be some basic misunderstanding here. If a work is released under the GPL, then the GPL's terms apply to it. How could it possibly be otherwise?". Great answer :).

Re:People are losing the point

[sabat]

RMS seems to want everything to be free (as in freedom -- which is a great idea) *and* beer (which is unrealistic). Maybe I misunderstand him, but that can be his only actual problem with CC. And what I don't understand is: if you have a problem with the CC, and you are a well-known person who has some influence, why not work *with* the CC people and at least try to address the perceived problems -- rather than just dismiss the whole thing wholesale?

Offtopic:

You should never neeed to use a firewall on a computer with only one network interface!

Sure you should. You may believe that only the services you want to be running on the box are actually the only ones, but the extra protection of a firewall will help ensure that.

Re:People are losing the point

[marcosdumay]

"why not work *with* the CC people and at least try to address the perceived problems -- rather than just dismiss the whole thing wholesale?"

Because they have completely different goals. He didn't say that CC are wholesale, just that he can't advise people to use it (on a generic way).

Alternative Reality [What if... [Re:Stallman]]

[j.leidner]

Several years ago, I heard Stallman speak at a lecture at my university. He was clearly very smart, and very driven by ideological goals.

Yea, and if you think about it, the only reason why he is like that is that Xerox refused to give the poor guy the sources for the driver of their laser printer when he wanted to fix a bug.

If Microsoft had known what would happen as a result, they might have acquired Xerox and given give him the source code, and RMS would have gone back to his cubicle.

Then we wouldn't be asked to spell Linux with a capital 'G' today... ;-)

He can say whatever he wants

[famazza]

And everybody else has the right to disagree.

That's his opinion, and doesn't mean that it's FSF official opinion, neither the whole comunity opinio.

Of course it is important, but it's just his opinion.

Re:He can say whatever he wants

[Ekarderif]

It was Hitler's opinion that Jews were evil.

Re:He can say whatever he wants

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, you couldn't wait to break Godwin's, could you?

He had every right to that opinion. Where he went wrong was killing millions of the Jews. If he'd just stayed with his opinion, then we probably wouldn't see him as the epitomy of all evil.

Let the creator decide

[pcause]

Stallman is just too religious and full of himself. He can not see and understand other points of view. Different people have different goals and desires, and we should let the creators of content, ANY content, decide the terms and conditions that they choose to use. After all, it is the authors who have put in the work, it is their property and they should get to choose, especially if they are giving away their work for FREE.

Imagine that I built a boat but I could only give it away after seeking permission of someone I didn't know and subject to restrictions that they decided were "good for me"! We'd all be signing up for the revolution.

Re:Let the creator decide

[ratboy666]

And here's a counter.

Mr. Stallman has been ranting for 25 years. A long time. Pushing the GNU message.

He has predicted doom and gloom for 25 years.

The sorry and sad part? Even though the GNU GPL 2 has been widely accepted, the "doom and gloom" has come to pass. As predicted. DMCA, Copyright Extensions, DRM.

25 years of Stallman activism -- can you use a new XBOX for anything interesting? 25 years of Stallman activism -- you can be brought up on charges for taking apart a toner cartridge. 25 years of Stallman activism -- are component HD actually useful for HD?

Maybe Stallman hasn't been strident enough?

Ratboy

Re:Let the creator decide

[CurbyKirby]

Maybe Stallman hasn't been strident enough?

Or maybe he needs to switch tactics. If you're losing an argument do you speak louder, or do you approach the topic from another perspective? Which of those two is more likely to convince your opponent?

Stallman tried for 25 years and failed. He's unwilling to change, so let's give Lessig's ideas a shot.

Re:Let the creator decide

[IceAgeComing]

If you're losing an argument do you speak louder, or do you approach the topic from another perspective? Which of those two is more likely to convince your opponent?

Yes, but then you get labeled a "waffler", don't you? Sorry to bring up the US presidential elections again, but it suggests an important point.

Really, issues should always take center stage, rather than then messengers. Then "waffling" has no negative connotation; you've simply discovered and begun advocating a different and hopefully better idea.

Re:Let the creator decide

[pcause]

The part of the argument and world view that others share have been accepted. What Stallman has a problem with is that *everyone* doesn't share his world view, his license ideas and the like. Don't mistake an ideologue for a prophet!

Inflammatory Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

"He suggests instead using the GPL for creative works"

This is misleading at best, if you would actually read TFA you would see that he does not recommend the GPL for anything but software.

quote: "The GNU GPL is written primarily for software, but it can be used for any kind of work. However, its requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don't recommend using it for manuals, or for novels."

So what he says it works but it's not recommended because the GPL is not suited for that.

The summary contains a lot more statements that misinterpret things or put them out of context making it more inflammatory, for example, assuming that rms somehow rejects all CC licenses, he merely states that he cannot give blanket endorsement to CC because it publishes licenses he considers unacceptable (mostly the hardly used ones: developing countries license etc.). I highly recommend reading TFA, it's a lot more moderate than one would expect from the summary.

More RMS Bluster and Silliness

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS with a ridculously fanatical baby and the bathwater strategy? Say it isn't so. What is the world coming to when such a reasonable troll has gone so far?

FSF software

[dingbatdr]

Honestly, I don't know which of these is by Stallman and which is by others at
FSF but for starters: emacs, gcc, g++, g77, gdb, all of which are nicely integrated
if you know how to use them.

Re:FSF software

[zerocool^]

That's what I'm saying. He didn't write any of those. With the possible exception of portions of the earliest versions of emacs.

Re:FSF software

[Pentagram]

You're wrong. He did write the original versions of gcc and gdb, and Emacs among many other things. The original Emacs was ground breaking, not trivial as you allege. Whatever else you may think of him, RMS's code contributions are huge.

His biography is pretty good. See also his Wikipedia entry.

How much did you pay for that kool-aid you drank?

[Excelsior]

You seem to be forgetting a lot of our history.

For tens of thousands of years, man spread creative works through word-of-mouth. I create a story, tell it to everyone in my cave, and they tell it to the people in the next cave and so on. I create a song, sing it to everyone in my cave, and they sing it to people in the next cave, and so on. It cost nothing to distribute, and so nothing was charged for it. This is what makes a culture.

Only in the last ~3000 years have we had recorded word, and only for the last hundred years have we invented audio and video recording technology. Printing books and recording audio was expensive. Distributing the works were expensive. And so, industries were built around this.

Recently, digital media and global networks have eliminated or greatly reduced both expenses. But the industries that formed want to continue to live on, whether necessary or not. They would like us to believe that creativity will not occur without a payment system around every single copy and every single use of every single copy. They would like you and I to be stupid enough to accept paying the same amount as they charged when the costs to record and distribute were much, much higher. They would like us to rent our culture from them.

They would like us to forget tens of thousands of years of history.

I LOVE THIS RANT!

[ratboy666]

And all I can say is: Thanks, Preach on BROTHER!

Amen.

Ratboy

Re:I LOVE THIS RANT!

[eno2001]

Have you been digging through my files? I used to post on Usenet as the "Rat's Ass" with my definitive moniker "Givin' it to ya Rat Style". And many of my posts were even more incoherent. (It's amazing what boredom + Jose Cuervo + Usenet will get you!). So.... Ratboy. Meet the Rat's Ass.

Re:I LOVE THIS RANT!

[ratboy666]

I am called "Ratboy" because I "suffer" from Aspergers. Great concentration and focus, and a tendency to "go down ratholes" and obsess with problems.

The "666" is from my Unix background (SUN Staff Engineer). Of course, it means "universal read and write access".

I like "Rat's Ass". But then, I like rats (I find them cute and cuddly, smart as rodents go).

Welcome to my "fan" list!

Ratboy

From an artists view...

[mrbarkeeper]

Here is the deal: Art is different from software. Art comes (in most cases) from an individual who has a very strong vision of how he sees his work. Very few artists are comfortably with the idea that anyone can take their works and do with it whatever he or she wants.

The CC licenses let the artists chose how they want to release it. Most are fine with "Take it, pass it along but don't make money from it" and some even allow you to change it. But some want to keep their creation it its integrity so that you can experience it the way the artist envisioned it.

One could argue that even open source software can benefit from this view. Firefox started as a very closed project with a few people who controlled everything and thus it came out as a very strong product. On the closed source side of the fence, just look at Microsoft with Bill Gates vs. Apple with Steve Jobs. Yes, Steve Jobs can be a pain to work with because he wants total control over every aspect of the product down to the packaging, but only because he has this strong vision of how one should experience an Apple product.

I like the way Bitstream released the Vera font family. It is open source but once you change anything you have to release it under a different name so that wherever you use or see "Vera" you get what Bitstream created.

P.S.: I know my /. karma is very bad but maybe a mod could pick this post up? Just this time and then I'll continue posting lousy jokes.

RMS's position is harmful, for once!

[jurgen]

RMS's position is harmful to his cause, maybe for the first time in his history of Free Software advocacy.

I haven't even read other comments yet as I'm writing this, but I'm sure that most other commenters would agree with the first part of that sentence, but rather fewer with the second. ;-)

Everybody knows that RMS's public posititions on Free Software tend to be uncompromising to say the least... and while I personally have often thought a more compromising position might be more productive especially in the short term, for his stated long-term goal of making /all/ software (or at least all software most people ever want or need) Free (with a capital F), his rigid philosophical stance was needed to counter-act the inevitably creeping process of cooption and re-commercialization by the "Industry". Thus if one accepts that his goals are desireable or at least valid, one can't really say that his rigidity was ever harmful to these goals... at worst it represented an opinion /someone/ needed to hold to maintain progress in the right direction.

However, in this case I believe he is wrong. I order to achieve RMS's goals of ubiquitous Free software, one has to address the underlying economic assumptions made by society. The problem is that the dominant "neoclassical" view of economics is also very rigid and exclusive... it holds that its idealized "Free Market" is the best and only way to conduct economic congress, and Free Softare does not fit. This economic view is held by essentially all those in power or in control of the economic resources in our global civilization, and successfully sold to the mass of humans that compose this civilization.

What needs to happen before Free Software and many other urgently needed economic alternatives can fully succeed is that the noeclassical market's grip on the global economy needs to losen. For this to happen it is important to first show that viable alternatives exist, and can be to the benefit of our civilzation! That the rigid view of the Free Market is wrong and that we /can/ do better.

The Creative Commons has done the remarkable job of helping all alternatives to succeed better without much more of a philosophical position than to say "alternatives are needed and exist". This is to the benefit of the whole spectrum of opinion and a detriment only to the dominant exclusivist one which needs to be toppled.

Yes, it does (very slightly) weaken the Free Software Movement's "GPL Brand", which derives some strength from it's position as the opposit extreme of the dominant one by labeling the all alternatives generically (all are "CC license with X provisions"). But this harm is minimal because the CC and the FSF operate in on different types of information, and aside from occasionally saying "just use the GPL", RMS has not really made any effort to address the clearly at least somewhat different needs of non-software media. In any case, any dilution of the FSF's position would come fairly and as part of a democratizing process.

So, surely RMS must admit that the overall benefit of the CC's well executed efforts massively outweighs any harm it does to his own cause.

: Jürgen Botz

Re:RMS's position is harmful, for once!

[jonaskoelker]

I'm not RMS, so I can't be sure exactly what he thinks, but I figure he would admit that there are some (to him) acceptable CC licenses.

My argument is the following: I asked him in email why he wouldn't recommend using "debian, main only" (which means you'll only get to see DSFG-free, which for all practical purposes is equivalent to being FSF/RMS-free, software). His reply was that it was too difficult to recommend "debian, main only"--that is, it would be too difficult to stress the `main only' part strongly enough that everyone would get it; the consequence would be that someone was thinking he was recommending "debian, period" (that is, debian main PLUS non-free software). In his response to my mail, he did say, though, that using "debian, MAIN ONLY(!!)" (did you see the big bold upper-case letters and exclamation marks?) was an acceptable thing to do.

So, this looks (to me) much like a case of the same thing: parts of CC is clearly (well, maybe not clearly, but at leat it is) acceptable to him, while some of it is not. In order to avoid being misunderstood, he chooses to uniformly not recommend CC.

Whether or not that's a smart decision is a totally different discussion. But I'll say one thing about this: there exists some really (and I mean totally, really unbelievably, mind-boggingly) stupid people in his country.

<input type=hidden value="Take for instance those who believe that president Bush really cares about terrorism" />

PS: don't make wordplays about the FSF and/or RMS not being in your software (as in, FSF/RMS-free).

Re:RMS's position is harmful, for once!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, surely RMS must admit

OK, let's attack this on two fronts. You go tell RMS what he must admit, and I'll sit on the beach drinking rum. Solidarity!

I have to disagree with RS here

[MarkWatson]

I greatly respect RS, but I disagree with him here for a simple reason: the CC website makes it easy and convenient for people to pick a license that they are happy with for stuff that they produce.

Isn't this the point? People who produce stuff should get to pick a license that they are happy with. I release most of the code on my web site under the GPL (although I will usually give "LGPL waivers" if people ask). I use one of the CC licenses for my free web books and the childrens' story that my wife wrote.

Freedom is getting to choose your own license for stuff that you produce.

As an aside: many years ago, I was way out of line, and flamed the authors of the CLisp system for using the GPL - my reasons were selfish: at the time I thought that a portable Common Lisp system with a "business friendly" license would make it easier to sell the use of Common Lisp. Well, there are now several good Common Lisp systems available with BSD style licenses and CL is still a hard sell! I am still embarassed about this, and it has been probably 6 or 7 years.

Re:I have to disagree with RS here

[Scallawag]

Why not use a regular copyright?

Your concerns are not unique to Busybox

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not the only person who has made a comment on this and there's no reason to think that this is how the final version of the license will stand. That's the whole purpose of the commenting process.

But the same is true today!

[Cadallin]

The Intellectual property laws, as a system don't do any better at providing for the creative individuals, than the patronage system. At BEST what they do is match it. So how does your argument make sense?

Similarly I've argued with people over the morality of downloading music, consistently the the argument pops up: "But wouldn't you want to be paid for your works?" And then they ignore the protest that the artists aren't paid under the current system. They still live overwhelmingly either in poverty, or working at another job to support their art, barring the very few rock stars that manage to support themselves. (In what way are the Beatles, Mick Jagger, etc, different from Mozart, or Bach? At least in terms of their ability to support themselves on their art?)

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[petrus4]

The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted. If RMS is not out there as an idealogical enforcer, then OSS becomes meaningless as soon as clever people exploit it some more.

This would be true if Stallman was the only proponent of the definition of open source. (i.e., editable source with binaries) He isn't.

Try going here sometime and looking through all of the licenses which Stallman not only had no part in authoring, but which he also would actually say are not "GPL compatible."

Linux not only is now sufficiently well known, but is also sufficiently profitable that FOSS is entirely capable of surviving on its' own. The other thing you're not taking into account is that virtually all of the threats to its' continued existence originate in the US. The US itself is welcome to become as draconian as it wants; thanks to the unceasing efforts of George W. Bush, the country is becoming less relevant to the rest of the planet by the day, and hence, US domestic law soon won't be something that the rest of the planet needs to care about either. Thus, even if FOSS vanished from the US, it will not from the rest of the world any time soon.

Stallman does harm to Linux's forward progress because of the image he conveys; that of an aging, "neurologically diverse", (to use the politically correct term) Marxist hippie who refuses to deal even marginally with anybody who has views differing from his own. This is not an image or a person that most businesses or individuals wish to be in any way associated with, and for good reason.

Stallman was a lot more relevant back when FOSS was still the exclusive domain of individuals like him; they're the type of people you'll see almost exclusively if you hire a DVD of the documentary "Trekkies," sometime. Because these days however, Linux and other FOSS projects are increasingly becoming the domain of more normal people, and because FOSS's long term survival depends on it becoming as widely adopted as possible, Stallman is no longer an appropriate figurehead for it. It makes sense that geeks and hippies would want a fellow hippie as a leader, (if they want one at all, that is) as such would be someone that they could relate to. Mainstream individuals however want someone mainstream to deal with, and whatever other word you might want to apply to Stallman, "mainstream" certainly is not one that could be.

Times change, and what is useful during one period in history does not necessarily remain useful in another. There indeed was a time when Stallman was valuable, necessary, and relevant...but that time has fairly long since passed.

Copyright and Business

[Hairy1]

Say you spend six months writing a book, as I have, and you have this book published. Would you want some other publisher coming along and copying your book and selling it for $10 less than your publisher and pocketing the profit, not giving you a dime?

There is a huge gulf of a difference between people willingly licensing their work so that it is free, and the abolishment of copyright which would remove the ability of a author to control the rights over their own works. This is an ideological difference - the difference between giving people the option of giving away their work for the public good and taking it.

The Shareware industry proved that expecting people to pay for things - software - they can obtain for free is a fools paradise. Open source works only because there is no expectation for payment and many people can colaborate. The "use" value of the software exceeds "sale" value, and the use value is sufficient that spending real time and money on it is worthwhile. The GPL makes it possible to license work such that your competitor won't take the work you do and resell it unfairly.

What I see as irrational is the belief that just because data can be moved at virtually no cost that the value of creating that data is thus zero. Stallman's persona came out of a feeling of loss; that the cooperative society he grew up in was corrupted by selfish closing of a public resource. However, most software is developed by companies in a closed fashion that is never part of a open community - they are not taking advantage of a open resource. Forcing them to be open is just as unjust as taking open resources closed.

The real ethic for me is freedom of the individual to control their own expression, if they wish to release to the public, or to profit from their work.

Re:Copyright and Business

[Chandon Seldon]

That's the thing. The value of creating the data is non-zero, but the marginal cost of copies once the data exists is near zero.

It's just like expenses in business, once money has been spent it doesn't matter to future profit calculations for a project. What this means is that you can only get expected to pay for information creating work as you do it or before you do it, not afterwards. Once the information exists and has been publically distributed the genie's out of the bottle - you don't have the leverage to make people pay you.

Once again, slashdot article summary misleads:

[FhnuZoag]

Read the damn article please.

It would be self-delusion to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons licenses, because people lump them together; they will misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket endorsement of all. I therefore find myself constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

It's a personal matter of what he thinks his actions will be interpreted as.

That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[argoff]

In a way, history is repeating itself.

During the 1850's there were all these groups that wanted to work out a friendly solution so that the slave states could get along with the free states. Rules to be nicer to slaves, shorter slave terms, more clearly defined boundaries, and so on and so on. Well they didn't get it, it was an all or nothing game. The very nature of the beast was coercive and restrictive in a way that could not survive the industrial revolution.

Well today, there are people who want a "compromise" with the copyright system. A shorter term here, a nicer enforcement there, more controll to the original author here, and so on and so on. What these people don't understand that the very nature of beast centers arround coercing how people can use and manipulate information at their disposal - the anti thesis of the information age. The only kind of copyright that can survive the information age, is one that can not be enforced.

Instead of crying about that, or clinging to old ways, what people need to do is learn how to make money from content services and not from content controll.

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[Omnifarious]

That's a really interesting and useful analogy. Thanks!

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[corbettw]

So we've got one guy making wild pronouncements and attacking anyone who disagrees with him, and another trying to use the legal system to slowly, and subtly, change a perceived wrong. I guess that means RMS is John Brown and Lessig is Lincoln. And we all know how they both ended up.

(For those who don't know, Brown was a abolitionist terrorist who tried to start a slave uprising in the south just prior to the Civil War. He and most of his followers were executed for their actions during the raid on the armory at Harper's Ferry. Lincoln, of course, was the 16th US President, and is now so well respected his image is engraved upon Mt Rushmore and the five dollar bill, and he has his own memorial in Washington, DC.)

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[Rick BigNail]

"What these people don't understand that the very nature of beast centers arround coercing how people can use and manipulate information at their disposal - the anti thesis of the information age."

And what people like you don't understand is that it is entirely right to demand that people get compensated for work they do and when you copy their creative output you are acting immorally.

Slavery is bad partly because work that they produced is not owned by them. So what you are proposing is make artists, writers and software developers your slave.

You guys are greedy.

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[argoff]

And what people like you don't understand is that it is entirely right to demand that people get compensated for work they do and when you copy their creative output you are acting immorally.

Read the constitution. That's not what copyrights exist for. And nobody is owed compensation for labor - that is so knee-jerk. Maybe I work my fingers to the bone building a mud statue in your front yard without you permission. Maybe I even build it in my front yard. Nobody owes me anything, no matter how hard I worked on it. If it was that important to me, then I should have secured a payment for service beforehand.

Slavery is bad partly because work that they produced is not owned by them. So what you are proposing is make artists, writers and software developers your slave.

That is also knee-jerk. I'm not forcing anyone to produce something for me. They are not my slave. If they didn't get paid, they should consider that as the punishment they get for trying to controll content and not offering their skills as a service.

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[argoff]

Well, when all was said and done - we all know how slavery ended up too. Eventually, even those who wanted a compromise had no choice but to murder the slavery system. It remains to be seen wether Lessig will follow that route, or end up following the destiny of the cooperationalist party.

(the cooperationalist party was a political movement in the 1840s that tried to force a compromise between the slave states and the free states that would keep the plantation system in tact ... they failed)

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice that you call Brown a "terrorist," when as far as I know he never attacked innocent civilians. Are you suggesting that a man who dies for a cause is automatically a failure? I suggest you read the Wikipedia article on Brown -- you might have to re-think your opinion of the man.

As for Lincoln, he is indeed well-respected, but that says little of the man's personal integrity or worth. Many of Lincoln's actions could be considered tyrannical, and his Emancipation Proclamation was likely made for political reasons rather than because of personal convictions:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. -Lincoln-Douglas debates at Charleston

Funny how that quote never gets mentioned, isn't it?

Re:That's because RMS "gets it", Lessig doesn't

[Rick BigNail]

So you are comparing songs, novels, paintings with mud statue in your garden?

And not everybody come from America.

No one force you to use those arts -- that's slavery. If you use those arts, you are morally required to pay for it, legality not withstanding.

POWER, IP and CHURCH

[Anonymous Coward]

CORPORATIONS WANT POWER. WHAT IS DIGITAL MEDIA ? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST ? zero, nada. THESE COPS BEHAVE JUST AS THE CHURCH, THEY WANT TO SAY WHAT YOU CAN OR CANNOT. hardware is different ... much more physical in a sense,

Re:POWER, IP and CHURCH

[Ingolfke]

CORPORATIONS WANT POWER. WHAT IS DIGITAL MEDIA ? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST ? zero, nada. THESE COPS BEHAVE JUST AS THE CHURCH, THEY WANT TO SAY WHAT YOU CAN OR CANNOT. hardware is different ... much more physical in a sense,

Hey everybody it's RMS... or a crazy old man who hasn't been given his medicine this week.

GFDL

[at2000]

Dear RMS,

GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 (GFDL) is non-free [1]. Should we discredit all GNU licenses as a whole?

[1] http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[mpapet]

Try going here [opensource.org] sometime and looking through all of the licenses which Stallman not only had no part in authoring, but which he also would actually say are not "GPL compatible."

This is exactly the kind of confusion that will weaken the definition of OSS without an RMS enforcing the ideal. "Surviving on it's own" generates additional confusion.

Your comments regarding the U.S. are a perfect example of how OSS can be distorted into something else, contrary to the original intention. You aren't giving RMS enough credit for understanding and reinforcing the psychology.

Is that actually true?

[FhnuZoag]

Has there actually been cases of brands being stolen in this way? Everyone seems to talk about it as though it were inevitable, but it seems plausible that even if copyright laws allowed a rival company to steal it's franchise, actual fans would always prefer the original makers, and view the copy as an entirely separate work. While they can steal ideas, they can't steal people. A rival company may try to do the Simpsons without Groening, but it will flop, over and over.

I posit that such a nightmare scenario is entirely illusionary, especially for franchises that are worth protecting.

Re:Is that actually true?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it seems plausible that it might work as you describe. In my opinion, though it won't. The general public doesn't do research. If they are on the broker site and see that there is a Simpsons movie gathering funds, they will likely contribute regardless. Now what happens when the production company forces out Groening? Movie rights for books would be out the window, also. Write a good book, you better have a production company ready to go or likely see someone else produce it. It isn't illusionary, and you can't protect franchise when it is in the public domain. Consider the amount of Star Wars based short films that exist. There would be even more if they could make money off them. Which could lead to burn out on the brand ruining the creators ability to make money off the ideas he created.

Re:Is that actually true?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the top of my head: Shakespeare stole a bunch of stuff (Hamlet, King Lear etc), and all his plays has survived in bootleg copies only. Faust has been re-told a bunch of times (Marlowe, Goethe etc). The story of King Arthur was retold by authors for centuries until it became the story as we now know it (Mallory). Nabokov has recently been hit by accusations of plagiarising Lolita but I haven't really checked into that as I so wish for it to be true (I enjoy the thougt of him laughing from beyond his grave). For more semi-recent movie theft see Sergio Leone who stole quite blatantly from Kurosawa. All this is pure copyright infringement (ok, so Kurosawa is now credited but he wasn't at the time of release).

Re:Is that actually true?

[lasindi]

Has there actually been cases of brands being stolen in this way? Everyone seems to talk about it as though it were inevitable, but it seems plausible that even if copyright laws allowed a rival company to steal it's franchise, actual fans would always prefer the original makers, and view the copy as an entirely separate work.

It never happens that brands are "stolen" because it's illegal (because of trademark). On the other hand, since I know nothing about TV shows, let's go to software and look at the case of Firefox. Do you prefer Netscape over Firefox because you "always prefer the original makers," or do you prefer Firefox because you prefer the better browser? Whatever your answer is, the majority prefers Firefox, and I suspect a lot of the non-nerds who use Firefox have no idea it comes originally from the Netscape source code.

Re:Is that actually true?

[exegesis clique]

I'm not sure of your position one way or the other but you make a very valid point supporting the proposition.

We're always worried about the guy who created a "franchise". I'm not, if he was capable of making a sucessful show then he should be able to make another. If however someone comes along and takes his idea, but makes it better, why not? We as a culture are certainly better for it. Just as I'm better for Firefox. It's too bad for Netscape, certainly, but they could not, or were unwilling, to keep up with technology.

I think the only risk is that authors *must* cater to the masses. But then, that would only be the case for projects which required large sums of money to produce. Even then, neccessity is the mother of invention, whos to say what kind of inovations would arise when people want to do expensive things more economically.

Once there is a system in place where we can vote with our money more DIRECTLY, I think such a system will be not only possible but much better for all of us.

Re:Is that actually true?

[p7]

Netscape (AOL) open sourced the Mozilla engine and provided some funds the startup of the Mozilla Foundation. So the Mozilla Foundation is the legitimate maintainer of the Mozilla code. Try this hypothetical scenario on for size. A small developer designs a 99.999% accurate spam blocker. They are not making much in the way of sales due to the fact they are a new software development company. A well known developer of one of the leading email suites finds it and integrates it into their product, with no mention of the original developer. The controversy comes out and you know what happened. Do you happily use the new project knowing that, while it is better since it is integrated into your email client, the original developer is getting no compensation (recognition or financial) for their work?

Re:Is that actually true?

[SydShamino]

The year after Rudyard Kipling's estate's copyright expired on The Jungle Book, Disney released a animated film based on his story.

Clearly they were developing the story in anticipation of the exipiration of the copyright. (This is fine - it is the fact that Disney has taken from the public commons but not given back that is the problem.)

To paraphrase...

[soupdevil]

What he said before sounded crazy, but he turned out to be right, but what he says now sounds crazy.

RMS needs to get his head out of software

[Arandir]

RMS needs to get his head out of software. Way back at the beginning of the Free Software movement, he said that his idea should be applied to software only, and not to other copyrightable materials. Now it appears that he has changed his mind and wants people to use a software-specific license on non-software products.

CC licenses are not meant for software.

A novel that is released under a CC NonCommercial or NonDeriv license might not meet the definition of Free Software, but who the fsck cares? It ain't *software*! Ditto for videos, music, websites, etc. Hell, not even his own GFDL documentatoin meets the Free Software definition!

Dont give them ideas!

[Duhavid]

Or do you want to buy air!

Who cares?

[tomcres]

rms has proven himself again and again to be an extremist fanatic. The only thing separating him from `Usama bin Ladin is his cause.

I no longer endorse babies

[Nato_Uno]

I cannot endorse babies on the whole, because I find some of the properties of their bathwater to be unacceptable. Therefore I choose not to endorse babies at all.

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official -- Netcraft confirms: FSF is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered FSF community when IDC confirmed that the FSF's mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all computer users. Coming on the heels of a recent announcement from Linus Torvalds, which plainly states that the Linux kernel will NOT be moving to GPLv3, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The FSF is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by founder Richard Stallman's hairstyle and rambling GNU/Everything Communist anti-developers'-rights "I'm-right-and-you're-stupid" commentary.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the FSF's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the FSF faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the FSF because the FSF is dying. Things are looking very bad for the FSF. As many of us are already aware, the FSF continues to lose mindshare. In a recent poll on Slashdot, 97% of computer users preferred Microsoft to the FSF in terms of both ideals and the quality of their flagship products.

The GNU operating system is the most endangered of all the FSF's projects, having lost 93% of its core developers. Unable to convince users to use GNU's own "Hurd" kernel, the FSF has made several desperate attempts to capture mindshare by riding Linux's coattails. The aforementioned sudden (although not unexpected) denouncement of the GPLv3 by Linus Torvalds only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt, the FSF is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

FSF founder RMS states that there are almost 7000 remaining GNU users. How many of those use Emacs? Let's see. Consider the bell-shaped curve of an IQ distribution graph. At best, Emacs users universally score two standard deviations below the mean, which means that they make up approximately 2% of any given sample. Therefore, there are 140 Emacs users left in the world. A recent article showed that GCC usage is declining among truly free operating systems in favor of ICC or even SDCC. There's GNU and Emacs, what else does the FSF produce aside from hot air?

Due to the troubles of the GNU operating system, abysmal adoption rates and so on, the GNU folks gave up on improving their code and instead began to concentrate on marketing their beta-quality OS. Theirs is just another unfinished open source project with a poorly designed interface and a lot of ideological baggage. It's no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to Microsoft.

All major surveys show that the FSF has steadily declined in mindshare. The FSF is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the FSF is to survive at all it will be among juvenile political dilettante dabblers. The FSF continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. People just don't want to hear their message anymore. For all practical purposes, the FSF is dead.

Fact: The FSF is dying

Copyright does not imply Ownership.

[soupdevil]

Just the right to make copies. Big difference.

This just in!

[kuzb]

Ford has announced that it can no longer endorse BMW Cars. Ford suggests you buy Ford cars instead!

More pointless grandstanding

[JasonEngel]

RMS is a dink who feeds off attention garnered from pseudo-news posted at online geek hideouts. Just squeeze him for a little hot air, it doesn't matter which end it comes out of, it still stinks.

modern patronage

[idlake]

Things changed with the industrial revolution. C'mon, this is basic history.

Yes, things changed with the industrial revolution: patronage has become democratized in the form of not-for-profit institutions and public funding for research and the arts. Almost all the important science, medical research, engineering, and art is funded that way, even today.

Thanks

[trollable]

It was time to state it officialy: most CC licenses are simply not free. There is nothing wrong, they have their use *today* and every one can choose the license he prefers. However, that doesn't change the fact that they are not free. And it is often problematic: just take the NC clause. It is totaly ambiguous. OTOH, the "Art Libre" licence has no such problem. It is great to see that many artists share their work (look at the success of Jamendo). But it is also important someone reminds us that these pieces of art are not free, that they can't be reused, mixed or modified. Drinking is fine but not enough.

Luddite

[srussia]

It seems that the only people sticking up for copyright, patents and other forms of government-enforced monopolies on the exploitation of "works" are those whose living is threatened by the prospect of abolishing "IP rights". Their stance is not a principled one. It is at best a false utilitarian one and at worst, just selfish money-grubbing.

This is pure Luddism. They may as well adopt "General Ludd's Triumph" as their anthem:

The guilty may fear, but no vengeance he aims
At the honest man's life or Estate
His wrath is entirely confined to P2P networks
And to those that old prices abate

Obligatory comic reference

[GSwarthout]

Everybody loves Eric Raymond http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/

That's not DRM

[spitzak]

You are describing normal permission controls for documents. That is not DRM. I'm quite certain somebody viewing your documents could take a screen shot, or save the image as a new file, or actually make the car from the wrong diagrams. What they can't do is accidentally (or on purpose) overwrite the correct information with the wrong one in your central database, or somehow convince somebody else that a certain drawing is the correct one. That is permissions/capabilities that have been around for 40 years.

Confusing DRM with normal permissions is one of the many ways of confusing the issue so that people don't realize what it is. Getting rid of DRM has nothing to do with letting anybody who wants to see all documents.

Re:That's not DRM

[chill]

I'm quite certain somebody viewing your documents could take a screen shot, or save the image as a new file, or actually make the car from the wrong diagrams.

Actually, screen capture was disabled and no unauthorized (i.e.- absolutely required to do the job) software was allowed on line terminals. No, people could not save anything as a new file from these terminals. Users without engineering rights could even OPEN development drawings, much less save them anywhere.

Normal permissions are only part of it. Document control includes "publishing" the documents, accounting for all "out of spec" documents, signing out actual printed copies, random audits on what documents were available on the floor, sign-off for the documents from both engineering as well as document control person, external audit where auditors tried to get users to show them the wrong documents, etc.

Every document available had a chain of certificates that recorded when it was valid, who validated it and for what use it was valid. When one simple mistake can compound to thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes of costs on a high-speed production line, you get very serious about your documentation and procedures.

  -Charles

Re:That's not DRM

[spitzak]

Yes but I still claim that is protections/capabilities, not DRM. The reason no unauthorized software was allowed and print-screen was disabled on the machines is because you don't really have DRM, and thus adding such software would make it trivial to get around some of the restrictions.

DRM is an attempt to make these things work even if the end user is allowed to completely replace the machine with something of their own. I'm certain the best your system can do is prevent them from seeing the diagrams at all. That is not DRM. DRM would make it so the person's replacement machine can see the diagrams but still cannot print them.

Anything done on the central server (such as not allowing "publishing" of a document) is not DRM. If some sinister agents broke in and replaced the central server with their own machine, I'm quite certain they would then be able to "publish" things if they wanted to. It is far more practical for you to just put a lock on your central server room than to try to implement an actual working DRM.

Re:That's not DRM

[chill]

What we ended up with was Adobe PDF files that were signed with certificates. The Adobe reader disallows printing, saving, modification and you need a valid password/cert to open the file. Take the file and move it to another PC and it still won't print and you can't open it without the right certificate and password.

As far as printscreen goes, you're confusing DRM with perfection. DRM simply has to restrict the rights and it is embedded as part of the data content, but isn't necessarily 100% foolproof.

  -Charles

Re:That's not DRM

[spitzak]

Yes, Adobe PDF files with restrictions *are* DRM. I was misled by your original description, I'm still certain that the inability to "publish" a document is not DRM. But not allowing print, or save-without-signature, in a program that otherwise could do these functions is a form of DRM. Using Adobe's software is an easy way to get such restrictions assumming a non-hostile environment (and since you were mostly talking about people making mistakes, this sounds like what you are trying to do).

Re:That's not DRM

[chill]

Sorry about the confusion. 90% of what we did was to prevent mistakes, the other 10% was to prevent trade secret theft. There is a lot of headhunting that goes on in the industrial sector and I had to deal with two specific instances of where we hired an employee from a competitor (line worker) and they were really a mole. That person would start trying to e-mail drawings and documents to their old employer after a month or so.

DRM with certificate revocation lists helped a great deal on this one. Camera phones were another issue altogether...

  -Charles

You bet!

[Just Some Guy]

I respect RMS because he's nearly always right. Yes, he's loud. Yes, he's obnoxious. Neither of those change the fact that almost everything he warns us about turns out to be true. That alone is why I listen to what he has to say even if I don't always like the way he delivers the message. Sooner or later his predictions are almost guaranteed to happen, so you might as well hear him out and start preparing.

Even if you don't agree with RMS, surely you can agree that he keeps the issue of Free-versus-Open in the spotlight, and that a discussion of their relative merits is a good thing. It's OK - if unlikely - to really analyze what it is he's saying and come to different conclusions. Ignore him at your own peril, though.

RMS' zealotry

[starX]

RMS is a zealot, plain and simple. He wouldn't have been as successful as he has been if he wasn't; remembering we're talking about a man who spends his time passionately extolling the virtues of giving things away in a society that prides itself on its free market traditions. Zealots do not compromise, which leaves the more moderately minded with the feeling that, every now and again, they cross the line.

Creative commons is all about choosing which way is best for you to give away your work. RMS' position is that, unless you're willing to surrender all of yor rights, you are part of the problem. I am afraid I must disagree. As someone who works in the arts, I'm afraid that I have no ability to make a living by providing technical support for my product, and as I am a long cry from being an acknowledged master in the field, I have little chance of deriving an income from teaching others the practice of my art form. That being said, surrendering some of my rights might actually help me gain exposure and profit from what I do.

Let us not forget that the concept of patents and copyrights is good; it enables those who create to profit from their work, and continue to create, which benefits society. We have gone overboard, IMHO, and intellectual property law reform is something that we are sorely in need of.

Semantic mumbojumbo

[0xABADC0DA]

Here "I" is clearly shorthand for "one", which sounds artificial in casual use:

"If one can't run the program, modify it, and redistribute it, with or without one's changes, then what's the point?"

It's not valid to purposely misconstrue his point and then argue against that. Instead of picking on pronouns, why not answer his question? If you are going to contribute something what's the point in letting other people take it for themselves? It can't even be pure altruism unless one is also naive (ie bsd ;-P), in the sense that once one knows that one's good intentions will turn out badly then they aren't good intentions anymore.

See OSS kicks ass because we RESTRICT each other from co-opting each others contributions (and thus preventing others from running / modifying / redistributing them).

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[Suppafly]

The same idea applies 1-to-1 to OSS. Tivo's software is one example of how the OSS ideal was distorted.

What do you mean by that?

C.C. sucks because it causes confusion

[sweetnjguy29]

I was recently designing a website for a business and needed a drawing of a car. I did a search, and tried to find some "open-source" or "public-use" or "public domain" artwork. Inevitably, the drawings were licenced under Creative Commons with restrictions on commercial use. I was fortunate enough to check the license first. Otherwise, I would have thought it was free to use, since it was misleadingly called "public domain".

So, instead of using "free" artwork, I had to use "pay" artwork. It wasn't the result I wanted.

CC as social movement

[yoz]

Then again, I've never seen how Creative Commons amounts to the "social movement" that people make it out to be.

The fact that you've heard of CC at all shows that it's having some effect as a movement.

What the CC movement is ultimately about is showing people that there's more to protecting your work than simply slapping a big © symbol on it. What if you demand attribution, but don't care about duplication? Copyright is not a binary thing. CC firstly educates that there are different options for different uses. It shows that if people start using CC, there's much more usable content out there for people to share and build on. And by creating and sharing the licences and making them easy to apply, it removes the largest stumbling block in the way of people who want to share their stuff while still exerting some control.

Creating the licences is pointless if nobody uses them. You have to get out there and show people how and why. CC's rapidly accelerating acceptance is evidence that they're doing a decent job of it.

Hmmm

[jav1231]

My take? If RMS dislikes it there must be something: pleasurable, refreshing, useful, or downright RIGHT about it. Outside his loathing for closed source monopolies, most of what he says is left-field....two fields over.

who mods this crap up?

[geekee]

"We could put a huge glass bubble over a country, bottle all the air and force people to buy it. That would undoubtedly employ a lot of people, even increase the GDP, but for any sane definition of wealth, one would have to be truly warped to claim that would benefit the wealth of the society, or the economy, as a whole. And as an aside, in comparison with countries where the citizens were not forced to pay for bottled air, workers would cost more, with predictable effects..."

Right, because information is like air. You just breath it in. No work is required to create air or information. The analogy is so flawed as not only to be useless, but actually is very misleading.

Re:who mods this crap up?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Right, because information is like air. You just breath it in. No work is required to create air or information. The analogy is so flawed as not only to be useless, but actually is very misleading.

Actually it is very much so. All information, in accordance with the Shannon's information theory can be represented in numerical form. That is all information, no matter of what kind, is essentially one of the many of infinite number of integer numbers. It exists always, independent of the universe. All that the creative process does is to select one of these numbers as "relevant" to our current state of society and that of our minds. That process of "search" or "selection" can indeed be time and labour consuming as there is an infinite number of such numbers. However, like the parent poster indicated, the numbers themselves are not a scarce resource. Furthermore, the same information can be (and in fact continuously is) discovered (i.e. the applicable numbers selected) by all people all the time independently. It happens when we learn to walk, read, count etc. It can happen by empirical discovery or by transmission from others or combination of both. The point remains, that information is a unique thing, which does behave much like air when viewed from the perspective the parent poster presented.

RMS needs to get his facts straight

[GWBasic]

I stopped reading the article when he started making arguments based on statements that were factually incorrect. He claims that Napster and Rhapsody do not allow the subscriber to burn CDs, which is not true. In addition, RMS claims that ITunes uses MP3. This also is not true, it uses AAC.

While the mistakes might seem trivial, he uses the incorrect statements to make deroggatory remarks about all three services. Specifically, he is not okay with Napster and Rhapsody because he thinks that they do not allow the user to burn CDs, and he is mistakenly concerned that ITunes uses the "patented" "MP3" format.

Britney Spears?

[tolkienfan]

"Having copyrights for the latest Britney Spears song is not going to advance science or engineering."

It won't even advance the musical arts, for that matter.

Time to start sharing GPLed Code

[geekee]

"If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong. "

Since the GPL contract is only valid because of copyright rules, I guess RMS just admitted the GPL is wrong and we can now share GPLed code any way we choose, including releasing binaries without source code.

speaking of...

[poptones]

While we're all re-reading, you might want to take another look at what *I* said. I did not say linux was *created* as a responseto windows. What I said (repeatedly) is that it has reached the popularity it has today in large part because of a public response to windows. If you doubt this, you haven't been reading /. very long... or ANY of the various linux support fora. anti-MS zealotry seems to be part and parcel of the linux landscape. It ain't universal, but that's only because it is now shrinking a bit. In the early days it was much more universal dogma, and that is what drove the initial developments to make linux a good enough solution to appeal to those of lesser zeal.

Re:speaking of...

[madirish99]

Ok, you didnt say *created*. But Linux has gained in popluarity on it's own merits, not as a public response to Microsoft/Windows.

I base this opinion on my own knowledge and experiences, and I don't need to read /. to have a grasp on this subject. The anti-MS zealotry that you mention is the product of a minority of Linux/open source users and certainly does not reflect the majority. Open source users certainly believe thier product is superior, and promote it as such. I dont think, however, that you can say that anti-Ms zealotry is part and parcel of the Linux landscape. This is a myth, perpetuated by the un-informed, and the ignorant.

Re:speaking of...

[poptones]

But Linux has gained in popluarity on it's own merits, not as a public response to Microsoft/Windows.

It had little merit before it reached a critical mass of development contributions. before that it was a kernel and a collection of moslty unevolved gnu programs. And from where did that gnu community come? RMS and his ilk were begat from *another* reaction to even *more* copyrighted and closed source programs.

I base this opinion on my own knowledge and experiences

IOW, your proof is your assertion and your anecdotes and has nothing to do with historical evidence outside the chair which now contains you.

This is a myth, perpetuated by the un-informed, and the ignorant.

said the man without a mirror...

mod down please

[geekee]

"Neither scientific advances nor engineering advances are protected by copyrights, so your argument is spurious.

And, in any case, we are talking about music here, not science or engineering. Having copyrights for the latest Britney Spears song is not going to advance science or engineering."

Straw man arguement. These advances are protected by patents.

"There is a correlation, but you are getting cause and effect wrong. The US was infamous for ignoring copyright and patent laws during its best years. The US computer industry became strong before patents and mostly before copyrights on computer software became a factor."

One anecdotal example does not prove you case.

Re:mod down please

[idlake]

Straw man arguement. These advances are protected by patents.

No, scientific advances are not protected by patents, and neither are many engineering advances.

One anecdotal example does not prove you case.

The US computer industry isn't "anecdotal", it's a well-understood, widely studied, and hugely important part of the economy. Given that such a big part of the US economy managed to become so important and dominant so quickly without patents, the ball is in your court to prove your case.

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[petrus4]

This is exactly the kind of confusion that will weaken the definition of OSS without an RMS enforcing the ideal.

We have Linus. We have ESR. More importantly, though, we have (spare the thought!) *ourselves.*

You might need an external ideological father figure telling you how to think. I don't. I understand how important and necessary the ability to view/modify source code is.

It's precisely the fact that I have my own brain that causes me to disagree with RMS as vehemently as I do on certain points. Some people are more content to be followers; I understand that. I however am not one of them.

Not quite

[petrus4]

Why gets me is why people keep feeling surprised or shocked when RMS restates his ideals and views: free as in freedom, complete freedom, no restrictions.

The point however is that he is NOT about complete freedom at all, despite what he claims. The BSD license is complete freedom. The GPL dictates what happens downstream.

If he were honest, Stallman would admit that he values genuine freedom about as much as the rest of us value bird flu. He wants to be the leader of a religion. He wants credit for things which do not belong to him, and he wants legions of the adoring faithful who capitulate unquestioningly to his decrees.

Real freedom is a threat to Stallman. If you're really free, you're free to do something other than what he thinks you should do...and he doesn't want that at all.

Neo-classical economics agrees with Stallman

[2901]

In Neo-classical economics the economically efficient
price is the marginal cost of production. The GPL
lets you sell GPL software, but prevents you from
unbundling the various rights. Once you have sold it
the purchaser can make copies and sell those without
paying you royalties. This competition drives the price
down to the marginal cost of production. Often this is
effectively zero.

The GPL has the effect of arranging for the price of software
to be that recommended by neo-classical economics as
efficient.

Slightly OT: RMS as a person

[Qbertino]

At the last Blender conference I had the opportunity to speak to two well respected large contributers to the open source world. Both had independently of one another met RMS at occasions. One being a symposium on open source with high representatives of the EU in Amsterdam.
They each told some stories about their experiences in dealing with RMS and went into details only as far as it wouldn't be discusting (at one occasion talking about RMS we were having dinner).

The bottom line is:
By second hand hearsay of what RMS is like and by firsthand judgement of hearning the stories I can only say that RMS would generally be classified as medium-type mentally ill. At least. His social skills are non-existant, his conversation capabilites are deeply flawed (yelling and throwing around chairs in the back room when a EU representative wouldn't let herself be interupted by him in a public discussion is just one example) and his table manners are over the top excess gross (here's where we - the listeners - where spared of too many details).

That been said, I'd like to quote Noam Chomsky in RMSes favour, like one of the people did who met him in person: "If your not outraged, your not paying attention."

RMS gave us the GPL (which I apprechiate) and Emacs (which I could do without) - but I really don't want to deal with him in RL after learning about the details of his general attitude. Everyone I know that met RMS agrees with me on that.
It would be best for all if he'd take a timeout and have others fight for OSS.

Correction on Napster

[geekee]

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that Rhapsody and Napster are shackled by DRM. People should not do business with them.

iTunes is a peculiar case: it allows you to burn the music onto a genuine audio CD. Therefore, it is DIM (Digital Inconvenience Management) rather than DRM, and I think that makes iTunes ethically acceptable--in this respect, at least. "

Actually Napster Light allows you to burn to CDs for $0.99/track, just like Apple.

RMS is right - there must be only one CC

[fehlfarbe]

the future: the industry will be more powerfull as we can imagine now, small robots will do our jobs, a few of us will be rich (incredible rich!) but we will pay per use while reading a e-book. i would not share my work with the industry - i will share my work you - with the community! I like the new version of the GPL, and i like to have only on CC license: the *noncommercial* CC license

Yes it is actually true and fairly common

[snowwrestler]

Any story out of copyright is fair game for repurposing and reinterpretation. The company of Disney was built on such practices...Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, etc all "rip off" public domain stories and characters. As a result to much of the American public, these are "Disney stories" not "Brothers Grimm" stories.

This is why it is especially ironic that Disney is one of the primary drivers behind the continual re-extending of the copyright limits, to protect Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. If they pass into the public domain, anyone could make a Donald Duck t-shirt, TV show, or movie.

Just look at how many movies are based on Shakespeare plays or other classics. No, they did not have to pay royalties to use those stories and characters.

Re:How much did you pay for that kool-aid you dran

[HardCase]

So what is your point? That when we were cavemen there was no copyright? OK, I'll give you that. You're also telling me that the cost per copy of a creative work has come down over the past 3000 years? That seems reasonable, too. You're saying that the "industry" charges too much for a copy of some digital media? That's a matter of opinion, but if you're asserting that, I'll accept it.

So, what exactly, is the historical bit that has slipped my mind? It's not that from the end of the middle ages until the beginning of the 19th century almost all creative works were commissioned and paid for by wealthy and powerful patrons who controlled access to those works. It's not that the artists didn't do what they did only for the love of it. It's not that the US Constitution authorized the enforcement of copyrights to allow a limited monopoly on the performance and/or distribution of a creative work to allow the creator to benefit from its creation and encourage others to take advantage of the same protection.

I haven't forgotten history. It seems to me that your beef is that you think that we're being charged too much money for digital media because you don't think that it costs that much to produce. Maybe so - I don't know what the per-unit cost was of the last CD that I purchased, but, to be honest, I really enjoyed the CD, so I felt that I got my money's worth.

But to say that we are renting our culture from the "industries" is to ignore the fact that our culture didn't just pop up because a bunch of people altruistically decided to create it. In fact, our current culture (if you can call it that) is much more egalitarian than what has come before - access to creative works is available on a scale that is unprecedented in our history.

It's no kool-aid - compare your library of books and music to that of your grandparents'. Go back a few generations more and see just what the state of access to creative works was.

-h-

Nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

You should've gone with Nazi. They make excellent historical reference virtually in any context. Just need to find an angle.

Intellegence in one field...

[DeadMilkman]

does not prohibit ignorance in others.

Yes folks, I'm prepared to Destroy my Karma today!

itunes = MP3? (ha!)

itunes only = music? (ha!)

Ogg Superior Quality? ...yeah if your a fanboy. Not that its bad, but come on.

P2P = people have the right to share published works? (ha!)

Just because he likes the GPL (and I do too) doesn't mean we should ignore other licenses. After all he wouldn't like it if we ignored the GPL.

writers + musicians = fairytale land of liberal art
(and this coming from a bleeding heart capital L liberal)

Somehow got the idea that if he maintained freedom to change the program via the GPL that it could prevent it being corrupted into an instrument for implementing DRM. In fact I could EASILY see a program coded that was completely open that restricted access to other programs/data. An example of this would be the DRM project for OGG. It could be 100% open yet still bring DRM to OGG.

There are too many CC licenses

[doom]

This is one of the first things I noticed about the "Creative Commons" licenses: there are too many of them. If you do a websearch on "Creative Commons" you have no idea what kind of controls are on the materials that are going to turn up. You need to look pretty closely (or use an alternate method of searching for the materials).

Also, some of the licenses seem superficially reasonable, but actually have a lot of problems, e.g. a lot of people slap a "non-commercially use only" restriction on their stuff without thinking about it very much.

(Notably the GPL is not a non-commercial license. RMS is not noted for his love of the profit motive. If it made any sense at all to use a non-commercial license, don't you think RMS would've done it?)

(OT) Stealth modding?

[tbo]

My comment (parent post) was modded up to 5 for a little while, then some chicken RMS fanboys gave it a few "overrated" mods to bring it down. I don't care about my karma--it's in the stratosphere anyway--but I noticed this peculiar slashdot bug (?). Here's the moderation history for my comment

Moderation +2
    30% Informative
    30% Overrated
    20% Insightful

Now, 30% + 30% + 20% != 100%. My first guess was that I got a total of 5 mods: 2 informatives, 2 overrateds, and 1 insightful, which, with my +1 Karma bonus, brings me to the current score of 3. The thing is, then it should be 40% / 40% / 20%. Is this just a math bug, or is there some sort of weird secret moderation going on that doesn't show up in the moderation report?

Note to mods: I intentionally did not use my karma bonus on this post, because it's sort of off-topic.

Re:(OT) Stealth modding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to say you have more than a "hint of that indefinable quality shared by most crazy people". If you think you're so much smarter about what RMS's positions should be than he should, why isn't TBO (assuming they're your initials) as well known an acronym in the intellectual property domain as his are. I'm always amused at how back-seat drivers get all excited about issues they seem to know almost nothing about.

It almost sounds as if...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you disapprove of abolitionist terrorists and slave uprisings.

RMS's Ego Trumps His Ethics... Again

[Anonymous Coward]

The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all.

I feel the same way. I don't agree with every last nutball opinion that comes out of RMS's mouth, so I now feel compelled to reject all of his views.

Not really. But what a loon.

Stallman has clearly expressed in the past that non-software works like art and the written word don't "require" the same type of "freedom" that software does. While publishing a software title the traditional way is downright unethical (he says), publishing a book the traditional way is just fine (also ethical: documentation manuals with GFDL 'invariant sections' that demand that all copies include unmodified political screeds). So if I choose to use a -more- lenient license than traditional publishing, like ANY (even the most limited) CC licenses, giving MORE rights to the reader - that should also be perfectly ethical. But somehow, it ain't.

Why? Because ego trumps ethics when you're RMS. Here's a guy who has defined his whole existence through a poorly thought-out armchair moral philosophy about software that wouldn't withstand five minutes scrutiny in a 101 class. But it drives him crazy (well, crazier) that the open content and free culture folks don't bow their heads toward his licenses like the software people do. So his ethical stand morphs, somehow now keeping traditional publishing ethical but making the unquestionably freer and more open CC licenses unethical. It's an amazing contortion job. I'd call it self-deception if I thought the guy were self-aware enough to realize what he was doing.

Honestly, I think RMS is a genius. Copyleft - brilliant idea. I've had my hands in Free Software for nearly two decades and I still believe that, no matter what you call them, liberal licenses and open development systems are incredibly powerful, liberating tools. Many of his concepts are important and right-on, in the broad strokes if not always in every little detail.

But he's also something of a kook, and he's certainly no moral compass for the masses. Can we stop pretending that every half-baked utterance that squeaks out of this guy's beard-hole is important? Some of it is great stuff, but a lot of his blather is just chest-beating or pointlessly insisting that every shade of gray has to be very definitively labeled as either black or white. I hate to play this card, but sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade: this probably has something to do with his autism. I have a relative with a spectrum disorder and the symptoms are eerily similar.

Eccentrics are great, they contribute lots of great things to society, I love 'em - but eventually you gotta come to the conclusions that at least half of what they say is nuts. There's no reason for every goofball comment the guy makes should be a tech headline. Can't we get over this already?

My take on RMS

[Debian Cabbit]

The crux of his argument is that, since he disagrees with some of the CC licenses, and people tend to lump them all together, he feels compelled to reject them all. What's your take?

My take? He's a raving lunatic... but I didn't need this article to tell me that. :)

What difference does it make?

[leereyno]

I'm not sure why RMS is still considered to be such an opinion leader. The man clearly suffers from an extreme case of Asperger's syndrome. As a result he does not know how to be diplomatic, does not know how and when to choose his battles, and in short does not understand how to relate to the public and effectively influence public opinion.

RMS has a talent for being extremely annoying. He can be 100% right about something, but because his strategy for presenting his case is to be gratingly obnoxious, the end result is opposition from others where there would otherwise be agreement.

The only people who seem to actually relate to his human relations skills are others who are similarly addled with Asperger's, and they make up a VERY small percentage of the overall population.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter whether RMS approves of a particular license or not. He isn't the one who makes the decision about what sort of a license should be used to distribute something under. It is the content creators (whether that content be text, media, or code) that make that decision. RMS's opinion matters about as much as mine does.

Now if you want some examples of people who ARE good at working a crowd, both ESR and Linus Torvalds seem to have a knack for it. Linus can be very forceful, but manages to do so without sounding whiny. ESR manages to be more eloquent than RMS and more sociable. That is not to say that the opinion of either matters more than that of RMS, at least when it comes to the use of licenses by 3rd parties. I'm only pointing them out as examples of opinion leaders within the open source community who manage to make their points without leave a bad taste in the readers mouth. I like RMS, I know he is a very brilliant programmer, but he desperately needs a press agent or other PR person to help him with the area where he is lacking, social skills.

Lee

A filmmaker's perspective

[robyannetta]

I'm a filmmaker who's released all my work under a Creative Commons licence. Why? I like the flexibility to control my work. Standard copyright is a blanket set of rules that protects the lawyers, not the artist.

If RMS dosen't like CC, then he dosen't have to use them. CC does nothing more than compliments traditional copyright.

It seems that the majority of people who do not agree with CC either can not or refuse to understand the above sentence.

I'd answer that, but my chains are too tight...

[Infonaut]

and I can't type very well right now. I'll do my best, anyway. The Disney chain boss has left for five minutes, so I may have time to bang out a quick response.

Instead of crying about that, or clinging to old ways, what people need to do is learn how to make money from content services and not from content controll.

Nice idea. Let me know when your company goes public. In the mean time, ponder the notion that it takes a long time for human systems to change, and that usually an awful lot of experimentation is required before the solution that history regards as "obvious" manifests itself. While giving everything away seems obvious to you, if you ran a three-person company, or a three-hundred person company, or a three-thousand person company, would you bet the company and the livelihood of your employees on your deeply held conviction?

The Creative Commons approach is anything but clinging to old ways. It's a means of providing more collaboration, more free exchange of culture, and more options. It provides freedom of choice, a way out of the old one-size-fits-all model of traditional copyright. Like the GPL, it does so within the existing copyright regime.

Sure, it's not as black and white an approach as the GPL. It makes it tougher to determine who should be flying X-Wings and who belongs in a TIE Fighter, but it works in the real world. It is showing people that they can control the level of copyright protection of their works. I won't be at all surprised when more and more content businesses see the light and start voluntarily restricting their control over content. In the mean time, all content creators are not malevolent, drool-fanged monsters trying to steal our precious bodily fluids. Sure, the RIAA are scaly reptiles, but most content creators of them are just honest people trying to make a buck, and in my opinion, bashing them over the head with wildly inflated historical analogies doesn't do anything to advance the dialogue.

Slavery? Come on.

Re:I'd answer that, but my chains are too tight...

[argoff]

... but it works in the real world. It is showing people that they can control the level of copyright protection of their works...

But it doesn't work in the real world. That's why we are where we are today. Even in cases where the licenses are reasonable, things will grow out of controll for the exact same reasons that copyrights grew out of controll. Permitting the controll of content incentivizes behavior that is expansionary and unproductive and creative commons does nothing to change this.

Slavery? Come on.

Woah, where are you getting off at? Compairing dying systems in the industrial revolution and the information age is not the same as saying slavery=copyright.

Capitalism and copyright

[Infonaut]

The sheer mass of Bill Gates's and Steve Jobs's wealth shows how effectivce that strategy has been- and also shows the magnitude of the detriment to ordinary consumers who should probably still have a couple of those billions of dollars in their own pockets.

You seem to be saying that the amassing of capital, which is at the core of capitalism, is fundamentally destructive. Are you saying that in addition to abolishing copyright, we should somehow move away from our economic system, which allows large companies to amass capital? I'm not sure how Gates' wealth is of detriment to ordinary consumers, but I'd love to see some emperical evidence that demonstrates how we'd all be better off if Apple and Microsoft hadn't been so successful. I wonder: would there be a computer in every home? Would we all be hooked up to the 'Net. Somehow I doubt it. I don't agree with the specific actions giant software companies take, but I find it hard to believe that they are intrinsically evil.

The point of copyrights and patents is to strike a balance- to allow a time-limited monopoly to derive monetary gain.

OK, I'm with you there.

The defense of "intellectual property" ultimately hurts everyone.

Don't you really mean "the unreasonable extension of intellectual property ultimately hurts everyone," or do you really think that the balance you mentioned need no longer be sought, and we should go completely the other way, throwing out the balancing scales altogether?

CC by-sa

[tepples]

That CC has multiple, more flexible licensing than say, GPL, is not our problem, its his.

In fact, CC has a license (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike, or CC by-sa for short) that corresponds closely to the role of the GNU GPL, except without a requirement to disclose the "source" (GPL) or "transparent" (GFDL) form of a work.

Copyright is recent even to creationists

[tepples]

only if you define "recent" as "200 years ago."

Copyright, conceived since the Statute of Anne as a temporary sublicensable exclusive right granted to the authors of works in order to promote authorship, is roughly 300 years old. Even creationists' biblical estimate of a 6,000-year-old earth makes copyright look recent.

Stallman dislikes it - so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this news? The guy is way out there. Kinda like a typical student who never left school, and lives in his own world. So he does not like Creative Commons. Well, that's HIS problem! It suits me just fine.

"ND sucks. NC sucks. BY or BY-SA is free."

[tepples]

I'd respect him more (or have less disrespect for him) if he'd criticise the particular licenses he didn't like and give some praise for the ones he did like

Here's what I'm pretty sure he'd say: "ND sucks. NC sucks. BY or BY-SA is free." Roughly, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-by) corresponds to the zlib license, the BSD license, the X11 license, and similar all-permissive license. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License fills the role of the copyleft licenses, although you'll want to dual license under GPL if you're writing a programming book so that your code examples remain useful.

MSFT +1.73...

[Americano]

This is a huge problem I see with the F/OSS "movement" in general. There's so much bullshit quibbling, infighting, and general friction. As it grows, it runs the very real risk of self-destructing under it's own weight, because of big egos, lack of a cohesive vision, and any fundamental agreement on aims & goals.

Has anybody stopped to think that Microsoft, and other proprietary ("Evil! Evil!") software companies out there are laughing all the way to the bank while RMS bitches about obscure licensing terms? Does anybody in F/OSS aside from the people writing the code realize that maybe 5% of the people who actually use the software really care about whether it uses a CC, GPL, LGPL, or whatever license?

F/OSS professes to want to provide the world with a viable alternative to the Microsofts. A noble endeavor to free society from the tyranny and oppression of Non-free software! You're not going to do that with a fucking license. You're going to do that by writing, and distributing, software that's good. Software that works , and works better than any other alternative. Software that presents a compelling vision of computing to the rest of the world. You can only license code after it's written... it's the quality of the code that will determine whether or not anybody wants to copy the code in the first place. Apache anyone? Perl? Python? Ant? There are plenty of other open-source projects out there that are de facto standards over any analogous Microsoft product in that market segment, simply because they're fundamentally better, or they fill a niche that Microsoft didn't think to try and fill.

What RMS is doing is stupid, and counter-productive. Focus on what *you* do, do it well, and release it with a license you agree with. Who cares if Microsoft keeps writing proprietary software, if you're not using it, affected by it, or supporting a style of software development you disagree with? If I want to spend $100 bucks a year buying new versions of Microsoft Money, well, it's my money, isn't it? If you have a free alternative that does the same or better job than MS Money, then tell me about it. Show it to me. But until then, why do you give a flying fornication what I choose to use? This is what I just don't get.

You say you want to provide a choice, and then you pitch a fit when people choose to do something you don't agree with? Hmm... maybe you should have told us it was a rhetorical question, then.

Re:MSFT +1.73...

[AlXtreme]

F/OSS professes to want to provide the world with a viable alternative to the Microsofts

Who gave you that idea? Licenses are very much why F/OSS has been able to prosper as much as it has, especially RMS's GPL.

I think RMS has a point on this one, the zillions of CC-licenses are counter-productive, complicated and don't (all) ensure freedom. This should have been the purpose of the CC, and it turned out bad.

Oh, and the one who modded you insightful should get a clue.

Re:MSFT +1.73...

[Americano]

Who gave you that idea? Licenses are very much why F/OSS has been able to prosper as much as it has, especially RMS's GPL.
I never denied that the licenses are an important means to the end of producing free software. But the licenses are NOT the end in and of themselves. The problem is, the zealotry of people like RMS is counterproductive. Do your own thing... stop worrying about what other people are doing. If you disagree with Creative Commons, here's a solution: simply don't use it!

the zillions of CC-licenses are counter-productive...

Whether or not they're counter-productive depends on what your aim is, doesn't it?

You cannot espouse "freedom and choice" as a principle, and then turn around and blast people for making the "wrong" choice, if you wish to maintain a shred of integrity or credibility. If it's fundamentally about choice, then it's fundamentally about the right to make a BAD choice if you so desire.

Oh, and FWIW, I was modded "Interesting", not "Insightful".

GPLed Images?

[Tellalian]

How does the GPL apply to "creative works" like images? If you GPL an image and then use it as art in a program, does that make the whole program GPL or just the image? I've always thought the GPL was mainly applicable to source code.

Who Need Creative Commons?

[Scallawag]

Using a regular copyright is pretty simple. Creative Commons seems to make someone widely misunderstood even more complicated.

Ignore principled people at your peril.

[jotaeleemeese]

It is pricipled people that help to set the agenda. Stallman, with all his failings (that very often amount to how inflexible he is regarding his principles. Well, duh!), has been a pretty consistent presence in the IT world.

His opinions don't change according to how the wind blows (which can't ba said of many companies that jumed into the OSS bandwagon) and has been instrumental to the advance of the idea of open free software.

Why should we ignore somebody with such a good tracked record?

Not really trying to troll, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...why does anyone still listen to this crackpot? He's been averse to anything that doesn't look and feel exactly like his baby, the GPL, for years. At some point, you begin to realize he's not really doing it to support the community or to uphold some altruistic standard - but to promote his own prideful ideals and generate debate that hinders rather than helps the community to progress.

What we need is to embrace our own diversity - not fight amongst ourselves over some license that not everyone can agree on(it looks like a holy war to me, since just like the GPL, not everyone can agree on religion, either).

Re:Ignore RMS At Your Peril

[Bob Uhl]

Try going here sometime and looking through all of the licenses which Stallman not only had no part in authoring, but which he also would actually say are not "GPL compatible."

It's not that he says that they're incompatible; it's that they are actually illegal to use in conjunction with GPLed code. If you look at the FSF licenses page, you'll see that there are several free software licenses which are not GPL-compatible: they're free, but due to certain provisions they cannot be legally mixed.

Can't be sold??

[dosboss]

Information cannot be sold, it lacks the fundamental characteristics for it to be so.

What? How about this for a fundamental characteristic: I have the information, you don't. You either want or need that information. As long as you cannot derive that information for yourself or from another source, I can either not give you the information, give you the information, or I can sell you the information and profit. In case you didn't realise, humanity is in the buisness of survival, individual survival is paramount to us all (except for people who really, really need to see a psyciatrist). The ultimate raison d'être relies upon each of us knowing what keeps us alive - our technology skills for earning a living for most of us here. My employer knows he cannot get the information I hold in my head without paying me, information that keeps his buisness running, and thus keeps him alive. Paychecks come in handy for keeping me alive - how about you? You can't even live off the land anymore without having information about crops, hunting, seasons, shelter construction, water purification, etc. Who's going to tell you that stuff for free anymore (not counting family relations that actually still have that knowledge)? So you get the information from someone selling it. Whether you pay for it in dollars or deer skins, it'll cost you.

The above information just cost you your lunch money. Now shutup and gimme your luch money, kid!

Re:Can't be sold??

[rahard]

You may be right that you may have information that I need from you. Thus, I'll "buy" it from you. But, if I buy it from you, you still have a copy of the information. WTF. I have just BOUGHT that information from you. You have to give it to me and ERASE it from your memory. Can you erase that information from your memory? What's the guarantee that you have erased it?

Assuming I have bought the information from you, I can give it to other for free, right? It's up to me to provide the information (eg. the weather of a region, crops, hunting, etc.) to others. If one starts doing that, then the information is available for public. Nobody will "buy" the information from you. (Well, perhaps there will be people who will still "buy" it from you.)

Information is a different kind of "property." Perhaps, it is not even a property.

Re:Can't be sold??

[IgnoramusMaximus]

As long as you cannot derive that information for yourself or from another source,

Which I always can (given enough labour) as all information in the universe is equivalent, in accordance with information theory, to a series of integer numbers. Granted, most of the time the odds are overwhelmingly against me but the history (and everyday life) is peppered with examples of just such independent discovery. In essence what you have is a specific, selected number, and I always do have a chance of discovering that value on my own.

I can either not give you the information, give you the information, or I can sell you the information and profit.

That is you are talking about transmitting it to me (a process involving copying, encoding, decoding and other processing). Note that information can have a number of states, which are relative to an observer, like being "known" and "unkown". But that information exists always, regardless of its relative state to me or you, independently of the universe, as it is fully abstract. So what it is that you are "selling" me is a service of transmitting the information to me (i.e. revealing it to me). But once the transmission occured, I am now naturally capable of re-transmitting it further in a myriad of forms. Also you do still posess the "original" set. A sale, in a mercantile or capitalist system, would require scarcity and uniqueness of that information, i.e. you would have to no longer retain it as there would be only one unique copy available which would have to change hands. But because information exists outside of us, in an abstract, immutable realm of numbers, this does not happen. Even if you erase it from your mind, it will still exist, merely de-coupled from any physical medium.

In case you didn't realise, humanity is in the buisness of survival, individual survival is paramount to us all (except for people who really, really need to see a psyciatrist). The ultimate raison d'être relies upon each of us knowing what keeps us alive - our technology skills for earning a living for most of us here.

Completely irrelevant. The current societal stupidity (i.e. causing a massive overpoplulation leading to "survival race") has no impact whatsoever on the properties of information. Should the whole human race disappear tommorow, the rules governing information would still be the same and unaffected.

My employer knows he cannot get the information I hold in my head without paying me, information that keeps his buisness running, and thus keeps him alive.

He is paying you for your labour, efficiency and quality of which is affected by your knowledge. Neither him nor you own that knowledge. You for example have acquired it from the society at large, all the way from the likes of Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians. You use an alphabet invented in Rome and numerals invented by long-gone Arab mathemeticians. Have you paid anyone for that?

Paychecks come in handy for keeping me alive - how about you?

Again, irrelevant. The fact that you managed to make yourself dependant on the operation of an elaborate scam is not my fault, nor my concern.

You can't even live off the land anymore without having information about crops, hunting, seasons, shelter construction, water purification, etc

Vast majority of which was discovered somewhere around 2000BC. Yet I sense a desire on your part to charge someone for it.

Who's going to tell you that stuff for free anymore (not counting family relations that actually still have that knowledge)?

To avoid having greedmongers locking up the body of knowledge of humanity is precisely the point of abolishing copyright and other perverted "intellectual property" ideas, as these are the very tools which those who wish to control and lock away all our ancestral knowledge are depending on. You are arguing against your own premise.

So you get the information from someone selling it. Whether

Rambling about CC.

[David Rolfe]

Well, the creative commons typically used by Flickr, is simply a means of easily defining the rights you are providing. It can mean a number of things, and I think he has a point - that its confusing; you have to read the rights for every bit of work, rather than being able to trust that a creative commons mark means you have certain rights.

A CC license means you can always copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In addition you may have other conditional freedoms not granted by traditional copyright (or the code-centric licenses).

I guess I see what you mean about having "to read the rights for every bit of work", but you have to admit that Creative Commons streamlines this to the point that it's nearly idiot proof. I think it's disingenuous to say it's confusing. Click on the "CC button" (the link to the license) for any page covered with a CC license and you'll get something this: Creative Commons- By Attribution (CC-BY for short). Thanks to the Commons Deeds, the only time you'd ever need to delve into the legalese of the actual license are the same times you'd grab a lawyer for any other 'open' license (i.e., you are about to include GPL code in a closed, commercial product; you are about to publish a music compilation of other people's works).

I think Lessig is right for the same reason I think the Framers were right. Copyright does serve a purpose as long as time-limited monopolies promote science and the useful arts. The constitution gives no other reason for State granted monopolies. That's the trade-off -- a bigger commons in exchance for short/fixed-term monopolies.

That said, Open Source has not diluted the principle (as the Creative Commoms may have) by retaining a clear statement about what is and is not Open Source.

If the principle is constitutional copyright, Creative Commons has not diluted it. Copyleft by contrast stands completely counter to these goals (as a reaction to copyright, rather than a refinement). In this respect, it doesn't matter what RMS says about CC, because the arenas are completely seperate (I can't think of anyone using CC for code, just like no one is using GPL for music/film). http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5771. The needs of Free Software and Open Source software (software freedom and code freedom) are just plain different from other forms of Free Art (creative freedeom). If code were an art that existed in a vacuum, in that there were times you didn't want to make derivatives, forks, plugins, extensions, libraries or enhancements, etc. only then would CC even be relevant (code is a very utilitarian art -- I've never written a program just to look at it, or read it). One size fits all is almost always wrong, isn't it?

In closing, Copyleft is very necessary as long as copyright exists; Creative Commons is also very necessary until copyright is reformed world-wide.

Sorry for the rambling post. :-)

I cannot endorse GPL software!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Richard Stallman is a dick, I cannot endorse the Free Software Foundation, or any software licensed under the GPL or LGPL. I assume that all people are dummer than am I, and that they are incapable of understanding the complexity of the issue. They must therefore be told, in black-and-white terms, what to do. So, do NOT use GPL or LGPL software, and do not give any money to the Free Software Foundation.

Yours,
Richard Head