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Doctorow On Copyright Reform & Culture
super-papa sends us to Locus Magazine for an article by Cory Doctorow discussing the conflicts between copyright law and modern culture, and arguing against the perception that copying media is still unusual. Quoting:
"Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement. There's a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture."
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Richard Stallman announces he would prefer that firms release all their code under the GPL or one of its variants.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
To pretend that you do not copy is to adopt the twisted hypocrisy of the Victorians who swore that they never, ever masturbated.
He's earned that cape.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Bacteria in the body produce a minute amount of alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract.. The closest thing to downloading a torrent would be the filling in my tooth demodulating a local AM radio station. Win-win.
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