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You Can't Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source
Reader gbulmash sends us to his essay on the fallacy of those who would abolish copyright. The argument is that without copyright granting an author the right to set licensing terms for his/her work, the GPL could not be enforced. The essay concludes that if you support the GPL or any open source license (other than public domain), your fight should be not about how to abolish copyright, but how to reform copyright.
...it would be possible to have commented disassemblies of everything that a computer can run openly available. That would be a lot better than the situation we have right now in SOME cases (by far not all of course - but please note you could still publish sourcecode in a more high-level language if you felt like it ;)) when there are only legally encumbered BLOBs available for crucial components of a system like, for example, graphics or network drivers, which you may execute, but not touch in any other way (in the US at least, that is).
Summa summarum, I think it's better to live in a world with copyright in place.
I just - like many other fellow advocates of Free Software - would wish for more people to publish their works under more permissive and freedom-granting licenses: to have art, culture, knowledge and wisdom spread for the greater good, and not just immediate, monetary profit in the first place.
Bottom line is: supporting Free Software and/or the GNU GPL does not automagically make you speak out against copyright per se at all.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Who are these amazing people that want to abolish copyright?
Funny, I've never heard anyone say BSD wasn't open source.
"How can I get people to read my blog... I know, I'll pick an extreme opinion that few people actually hold, combine it with a more popular but unrelated opinion, and write a long argument to shoot the whole thing down as self-contradictory."
Yes, mod me down -1 cynical.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
It's a fundamentally good idea; people who create something have exclusive rights to sell it. Where things go wrong is when people decide to meddle with it, like continuously extending the period that it applies. Something like a 5 year limit would be appropriate in today's fast paced world. Just think; who here wants to buy a DVD or CD that is over 5 years old? Not unless it was originally issued in some other format, right? Don't confuse copyright with the fallacy of "intellectual property". Intellectual Property is a collection of laws (copyright, patents, trademarks, etc.) which should never be grouped together, because each is different and for a different purpose.
We only need GPL because of copyright. When it's all gone, all will be well. Trust me on this one. The only thing to be concerned about is plagiarism. Everything else is fluff. No matter who "takes" the code, they can't stop you from using it also. And without copyright restrictions you are free to build on the works of others and everybody will be given the opportunity to do just that. There is so much superior tech(Alpha chip!) being locked down and kept off the streets because of copyright. This must end now. Jeeze, this is so redundant. I've said this so many times, and many others have also, with much more eloquence than I can muster with my seventh grade writing skills.
What?
His argument is putting up a straw man that doesn't really represent what RMS and FSF think, and then knocking it down.
The FSF stance is that good software comes with source code and with a particular set of rights which should be yours regardless of whether copyright can be used to enforce those rights or not. Perhaps it would be some other sort of law, or perhaps an ethical norm.
But IMO it would make about 100 times more sense to argue about software patents at the moment, because they are by far the worse evil.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
That's the whole point of the GPL. It's there to simulate the "no copyright" world within the existing copyright system. Go read some Stallman.
For the purpose of software only, what about limiting copyright for a period of no more than seven years? Allow a company to milk the product for all it is worth, then allow the intellectual property to be public domain. Maybe seven years is too short. Perhaps ten years is better.
How many of us use Windows 98 anymore still? How many think it should become public domain next year?
Because of that, pure binary data that has no meaning for a human being should have no copyright protection, only creations that a human can understand. No copyrights for binary executable files or data that has been copy protected or encrypted in any form, only for source code or data such as video or music that is published in a format that is open and unencumbered by any form of copy protection or secrecy.
Otherwise, how can the creation ever come into the public domain? How will one be able to read those DVDs when (and if!!!) their copyright ever expires? What's the point of granting a copyright for something that has never been published, such as the source code of commercial software?
If you use copy protection in any form, either by encryption or by a trade secret, then you are able to protect your own intellectual property, you don't need the protection that the state grants you in the form of patents and copyrights.
The FSF and OSS movements were NEVER about abolishing copyright. They were about abolishing vendor-lockin and proprietary messes [re: file formats for instance].
GPL was always a copyright license, in fact, ALL licenses are copyright driven. The only terms which are not is the public domain which cannot, by definition, have a copyright applied to it.
Anyone who thinks OSS is about abolishing copyright doesn't know what they are talking about.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
is that I can't buy a certain book published in 1900, because nobody's printing it anymore. But I can't legally copy it from the library or download it from Google books, because the author died in 1956, and therefore it won't fall into the public domain before 2026. That's the problem with copyright, not its existence.
I've kept up with this issue for years, and I can't think of anyone who wants to abolish copyright outright.
Ensure Fair Use? Sure.
Restrict copyright to a reasonable 20 or 30 years (even though 5 years would probably be sufficient for most purposes)? Sure.
Abolish it entirely? Well, it probably wouldn't hurt as much as some people think it would, but it wouldn't be especially useful either, as long as Fair Use is allowed and it expires after a reasonable 20 or 30 years.
The GPL is in place because without it, somebody would take some open source code, make a derivative work of it, copyright the derivative work, and charging for it or place other tight restrictions of it. For example, look what Apple did with BSD.
Without copyright, somebody could make and distribute derivative works of open source code, but they wouldn't be able to copyright the derivative work or impose restrictions on its distribution or modification.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
However there are other forms of open source software too, many of which do not rely on copyright in any shape or form.
Ultimately, open source software is a philosophy and changing the legal tools will not change too much. The GPL is also just a tool and even if the GPL was to be ruled invalid (or was invalidated by the removal of copyright laws) not much would change. When the Shroud of Turin was shown to be fake the nuns didn't commit mass suicide; similarly open source software will continue, with or without copyright, GPL or whatever icons.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
As everybody has already commented, this article is based on fundamentally flawed logic on so many levels that it is difficult to enumerate, so I'll stick to some important points.- for-a copyright law getting abolished. So you see, I actually support and not support the same thing at the same time, and I have not disappeared in a puff of logic.
1) You can oppose copyright and support open-source at the same time. In fact, if you do oppose copyright, you're only viable strategy IS to support open-source, while copyright is THE LAW and stuff.
2) You can also support a concept while knowing that it is unimplementable. You can find several examples in History books.
3) "members of the anti-copyright crowd cite the GPL (GNU Public License) as an alternative to copyright" is not an example of irony but of a practical stop-gap solution.
4) The "look at what happens if the GPL is unenforceable." is a bizarre glimpse into a strange world that conveniently ignores a bunch of nasty truths, all in all pretty well debunked on other comments, although I find it most revealing that the "world without GPL", does have DRM! The "dreamworld" turns out to be more like a "strawworld" .
My personal opinion is that copyright has a place, and therefore should not be abolished, in a *perfect world*. However, due to the fact that the world is what it is, I would be perfectly happy with that bloated-and-abused-out-of-proportion-sorry-excuse
*puff*
Most people aren't trying to desperately abolish copyright. Copyright as it stands must be removed and replaced with, say, the original intent for copyright, which is a reasonably short (20 years?) monopoly on an intellectual property to allow and encourage people to think up new ideas, and be assured of a degree of income from that.
Copyright should never persist beyond 20 years since date of copyright, even if the creator dies during this period (for the purpose of the estate of the copyright holder, I am thinking of the children after all).
Just think of everything that has been devised 20 years ago and earlier. A lot of rich content could be in the public domain. Imagine the innovation that could take place with people creating derivative works!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Even more secretive than "you cannot touch it, reverse-engineer it, and if you ever see it you're NDA'd to hell"? :-)
I don't think you can be more protective of source code than they are today.
Ah, because everyone knows that disassemblers are amazing at discovering the intent of deliberately obfuscated code (it will be obfuscated by the compiler, to prevent reverse-engineering). Who needs comments anyway? This is why the r300 and nouveau projects are so far along.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
...the anti-rain crowd cite the umbrella as an alternative to getting wet, without any sense of the ironic fact that umbrellas can't exist without rain. They're proposing a solution while simultaneously complaining about the weather. While using an umbrella is less restrictive than staying indoors, it must be held at the proper angle in order to offer any protection. It is a way to keep dry. But without rain, umbrellas would never be opened.
As the parent article points out. GPL is about restricting what people can do with software. ``Oh, but only the bad people that want to bad things'' is a Richard Stallman whine. Do you want it free? Then let it be free. That means without restrictions. Without the restrictions that I want. Without the restrictions that you want. Without the restriction that Richard Stallman has blessed.
Freedom is more free than restriction. How difficult is that?!?!
Freedom also works. When you make something free, someone will do something with it that you will not like. Others will do things that are great. Trust freedom. Let your software be free using Public Domain and don't buy into the bulsh*t mealy mouthedness that is the GPL.
As the parent article points out. GPL is about restricting what people can do with software.
Really? A large part of the GPL is restricting how <B>closed source</B> applications can use GPL'd content. Abolishing copyright law would mean that those restrictions are superfluous and so a large part of what the GPL restricts would no longer exist. While the other restrictions would also have to go, you don't have to be for the entire GPL to be for the GPL.
28 years plus a 28 year extension, and you actually have to file for a copyright and put copyright notices on the work.
If this law were still in place everything before 1951 would be in the public domain. Imagine a world where you could download
all your old 1930s and 40s films online. In the year 2016 if the 1909 copyright act were still in place, everyone could be trading tv series
from the 1950s.
The fact that most people dont realized between 1790 and 1976 only 1 extension had been granted from 14 to 28 years.
The question the copyright lawyers of 1976-2006 have to explain is how all these extensions encouraged the promotion of
arts and sciences. How does it encourage the creation of new works to grant extensions to estates and corporations?
The classical example is "You write a song and someone performed it and makes millions off of your work." Copyrights are what make that illegal, and what make the GPL and other "copyleft" schemes possible.
That's a load of bull. And the argument doesn't nor ever did wash. That's like saying if I fix a guy's car and he sells it for a million bucks, I should get a piece of that action. That's a no-go. I've been through all this before, and now it's just boring repetition. Check way back in my history for any clarification to the statement that I make right here, *You are wrong*. I have stated why many times. If you don't want to accept it, fine, but I know that you're wrong. Copyright and patent still fall under the generic heading of IP just like Christianity and Buddhism fall under the heading of religion. Amazingly similar concepts by the way. And that is the way I will continue to treat it. The simple fact is that without copyright nobody can legally close the source and keep me from it. I am free to do with my copy as I please, and I will enforce that right any way I can. And If you think that I use my ten year MMX only for slashdotting, well, that's just another error on your part. It also happens to run my local network experimental web/ftp/MySQL server. I use it to simulate how fast things work on dial up. My "real" work is on a P-III frankenstein(fronkensteen) soon to bump up to P-IV I picked out of the garbage, so I guess I am getting my money's worth.
PATENTS let you screw over everyone who didn't think of it first.
Copyright does the same. Many famous song writers got burned by some obscure copyright holder to a similar tune. The second guy who comes up with the same melody, quite independently from the first is SOL. Screw that. Unacceptable. Please don't try to tell me the same thing doesn't happen in software, or anywhere else affected by these insane laws.
You managed to post to slashdot despite using an x86 machine, didn't you?
Yeah, and I also walk instead of driving a car. So, I don't understand the statement. I simply use what's available. If I could post with a pencil and paper, I probably would. I'm just saying that IP law is limiting our choices, and that's not right. Never has been. It's too bad you can't draw an accurate picture of life without the absurd concept of IP, but there it is waiting for us to take the plunge, but I guess "you're just chicken, McFly". Scared the water might feel a little chilly at first. Okay, you go your way. I'll go mine. I will continue my work of getting rid of this abomination. Negative moderation be damned.
Oh, and thanks for the link, now I have some good reading to do.
What?
So, he is arguing against a position that I've never heard anyone holding.
These members of the anti-copyright crowd cite the GPL (GNU Public License) as an alternative to copyright without any sense of the ironic fact that the GPL can't exist without copyright.
Starting with RMS himself, most people *either* say copyrigth is fine -- GPL is our prefered copyrigth-notice OR they say: copyrigth is fundamentally a bad idea, but aslong as we've got it, we've got no choice but to make the best of it, GPL is our attempt at this.
The biggest group I know are somewhere in between; They accept copyrigth, but consider life+100 years completely ridicolous. Copyrigths on software should probably expire in a decade. My prefered state of affairs would be no DMCA or similar law, 5 year copyrigth on software, and as much of that software as possible under the GPL. (yeah, this would mean you could take 6-year-old GPL-software and put it in a closed product. Fine with me !)
It's sorta like the MANY people who say that software-patents are BAD, but aslong as we do have them, it migth be worthwhile to gather up an Open Source defencive patent-pool.
Who *are* these people he argues against ? Do they even exist ?I can't help wondering where does the "wealth" comes from and where does it go,... and (like calories) how much do I need, how much do I want, and is there a "zone" where a sense of need and sense of want balance relatively comfortably,... and how elastic is that zone?
and, is wealth still wealth if comfort, health, happiness, and... are ?
when we pay attention, is there a tax?
[ i cannot seek argument for heat,... without seeking discussion for light - i cannot imagine anyone in the conversation being terribly different from me,... or i from them,... blame it on a weak imagination ]