Stallman Says Pirate Party Hurts Free Software

bonch writes "Richard Stallman has written an article on the GNU Web site describing the effect the Swedish Pirate Party's platform would have on the free software movement. While he supports general changes to copyright law, he makes a point that many anti-copyright proponents don't realize — the GPL itself is a copyright license that relies on copyright law to protect access to source code. According to Stallman, the Pirate Party's proposal of a five-year limit on copyright would remove the freedom users have to gain access to source code by eventually allowing its inclusion in proprietary products. Stallman suggests requiring proprietary software to also release its code within five years to even the balance of power."

Comments

subject

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, merely reducing copyright to 40 years from creation would be a MASSIVE step in the right direction.

Release later?

[Tubal-Cain]

Stallman suggests requiring proprietary software to also release its code within five years to even the balance of power.

Why not require the source code to be submitted with the copyright registration?

Re:Either you agree with copyrights or you don't

[Enderandrew]

I rarely agree with RMS these days (as I discuss in a post below) but I don't agree with typical piracy either. I've done it, but as I get older, I want to pay for products.

I see the game companies I loved as a kid all go out of business, each citing piracy as a primary reason their PC game sales dropped. Other companies just shifted to console development, where piracy is more difficult. If you don't pay to support a product, don't expect that product to exist forever. I also believe a creator deserves the right to be financially rewarded for their creations. Being able to just take that creation for free isn't a right.

I still download a few albums illegally, but if I like them, I usually buy them afterward. Certain artists, I just buy the albums directly.

The only "piracy" I outright support is on two issues.

1 - Preservation of abandonware. If no one is selling a product for 5 years, you should be able to distribute it for preservation. You can not charge to distribute another person's product. If the creator re-releases the product, you can no longer distribute it again for 5 years.

2 - The DCMA says I can't legally circumvent copyright protection, but sadly copyright protection often interferes with software working correctly. I use no-cd/no-dvd patches on every game I own, and try to strip DRM from all software that I can, because I want the software to work correctly.

He's nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman was at my university for a lecture a few months ago. Halfway through he starts lambasting our IT department, most of whom are in the audience, for requiring users to authenticate before gaining network access. The school has a policy specifically *banning* tracking usage or anything invasive. They only require that users provide a username/password before getting network access, and he tears them a new one.

The IT department, BTW, is moving *away* from proprietary (specifically Microsoft) products. Right as the IT department is moving *to* open source, one of FOSS's biggest names decides to publicly hate on them.

Re:Either you agree with copyrights or you don't

[Enderandrew]

So companies like Looking Glass Studios and Origin didn't understand their market well enough?

Every RPG enthusiast I know has played Planescape: Torment. Yet none of them purchased it. The game was deemed a commercial failure, and I'm not sure we'll ever see another game like it, despite the fact that Penny Arcade called it simply the greatest PC game of all time, and most RPG lovers call it their favorite.

It might be an excuse used by management to cover a bad product in some cases, but piracy does affect game sales to an extent.

And when you don't pay to support products, you can't bitch when those products disappear.