Slashdot Mirror
Stallman Crashes Talk, Fights 'War On Sharing'
schliz writes "Free software activist Richard Stallman has called for the end of the 'war on sharing' at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane, Australia. He criticized surveillance, censorship, restrictive data formats, and software-as-a-service in a keynote presentation, and asserted that digital society had to be 'free' in order to be a benefit, and not an attack. Earlier in the conference, Stallman had briefly interrupted a European Patent Office presentation with a placard that said: 'Don't get caught in software patent thickets.' He told journalists that the Patent Office was 'here to campaign in favor of software patents in Australia,' arguing that 'there's no problem that requires a solution with anything like software patents.'"
I'd prefer Stallman's outspoken extremism vs the quiet extremism that corporations would place us under if no one spoke up.
As someone who was suffering with 21st century tools until I found Emacs, I do wonder which parts you would change. I use Emacs 7-10 hours every working day. The latest version (23) does have antialiased fonts, so what are the other hangups you speak of? And it's worth using for org-mode alone.
Amazingly enough, the article describing Stallman's well-reasoned arguments for the need for free software, free sharing of information, and non-proprietary formats is helpfully on a page written in ASP.
I am officially gone from
Nice work ... there should me more people like him :)
Look at these people, like Richard Stallman, who want our economy to die! We must have software patents! And an ACTA equivalent, and a DMCA equivalent, and secret police, and blah blah blah.
Censorship, DRM, and surveillance are all very dangerous and annoying things that only hurt the average person. It's hardly going to affect the pirates and will likely only affect 'normal' people, robbing them of some of their rights in the process. These corporations must be stopped, that much is clear.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Bonkers are the people who see what's going on around them, and say and do nothing.
when jesus overturned the money-changer's tables. Jesus? is that you?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Ugh. People like you make me sick! The DMCA protects authors and their intellectual property that is in an infinite supply, and the ACTA, if it passes (hopefully it will), will accomplish this goal further and eliminate those evil pirates who dare steal profit that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist made more money!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Even worse than software patents, there is a new UN resolution going around that would give world governments more control over the internet. This is even worse, IMO, than software patents, which "only" threaten to drive software innovation to a virtual standstill: allowing governments to control the flow of information on the Internet could well destroy it, and the newfound freedom of expression and access to information we are currently taking for granted.
There are so many new threats to freedom on so many new fronts it's hard to even define what they all are, let alone what can be done about them.
You mean like the bugs crawling in my arm? Should I alarm all those who are unfortunately around me? Or maybe just hold up a crudely scrawled sign with the words, "I got bugs in me arm, I do! Aye, yer best cut of all arms!".
Calling RMS bonkers is like calling Bin Laden "Armed and dangerous". Not quite the right level.
Shouting, running, making a fool out of himself. I think if only he would do the sort of things he does without calling a ruckus, then people might take him more seriously.
I admire the sort of things he's doing, but the way he does them is troublesome. He shouldn't for example be blocking access to an Apple store despite their terribly non-free products. Nobody likes an asshole and would tend to ignore it. Now, if he were to stand outside, offering leaflets on why Apple is wrong, but disguising it as something like "Bad Computer Practises", or "Why Software Freedom is Important" instead of "Apple is crap! Don't buy from them!" which no one will pay attention to, I think he'd get a lot further.
Good luck, rms.
He secured his place in history a long time ago and is STILL at it, and most impressive, still relevant.
Try Jedit. It was built with the same philosophy.
The thing I like the most about it, is that I didn't had to learn a new language to script it (like elisp), it can be scripted with beanshell, which is pretty much like java, you just don't have to declare the type of everything (but it accepts vanilla Java too).
It can record macros in Beanshell while clicking around, you can assign them to custom buttons, to custom hotkeys, it has a nice plugin api as well (but you can do everything in beanshell macro too, but plugins make them faster and easier to manage).
It has syntax support for a lot languges. (For some it has function list and additional goodies too. But syntax files are dead-easy to write.)
It has a nice XML plugin too, which will offer auto-complete according to DTD.
I think it has everything that emacs has*, but uses the usual user interface coventions (ctrl-insert, ctrl-shift etc. )
* I guess emacs has some esoteric plugins that Jedit not; I'm speaking here about the core application
bought about the creation of the middle class, modern democracy, and the death of the feudal system and the aristocracy
it took awhile. the feudal system and the aristocracy in their time were just no brainer common sense, and the idea of challenging them was either something to be laughed at or you must be crazy to believe they could ever end or to doubt their validity
the internet means the death of the entire concept of intellectual property
it will take awhile. in our time some people just take the idea of intellectual property as just no brainer common sense, and the idea of challenging it is either something to be laughed at or you must be crazy to believe it could ever end or to doubt its validity
in today's age, stallman is but a distant voice in the wilderness, but he's actually 100% correct, just way ahead of his time, too far ahead, to gain any traction
the simple truth is that intellectual property is a completely flawed concept. it made sense before the internet when media had to be physically printed and physically distributed. much as the feudal system made sense when only a few could afford book knowledge
all that intellectual property has going for it now is legal and cultural inertia. it is of course completely philosophically untenable when media can be shared at zero cost at great distances with millions instantaneously. it will take time, but intellectual property is going down the tubes. the intartubes
let us work hard to hasten its demise
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I recall when I went through a rather lengthy discussion with the UK government about software patents, and the state of the law. It became very clear that regarding patent law, the UK government and the UK patent office is very heavily influenced by advisors who are, almost to a man, commercial patent lawyers. The remaining industry spokesmen are from big business.
It doesn't take a huge amount of understanding or research to see that SME innovation has more or less been destroyed by the existing patent processes. Entry into big success is done through innovation still - but not so much via the patent route. I would contend that companies like Facebook was successful, NOT because of whatever patents they may have held, (or bought), but because they were able to identify a market demand and react to it faster or more successfully than existing big industry was able.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
Not everyone is less rude in real life than they are on the internet.
I just don't think he can effectively get his message across to Corporate/IT decision makers/leaders. Nor is the average computer user able to really recieve it. What do they "benefit" from his ideals.
For example, this quote in reference to 'Software as a Service'
"You absolutely can't study it, and you absolutely can't change it, and you're even further away from having control over your computing."
Corporations, don't particularly care about studying, and the idea of not having control over their computing will sound like a good idea.
Average User, doesn't want to study, change, and how much 'control' do they really want to have.
While I tend to "mostly" agree with him, I just don't think 99% of audience particularly understands or cares. Maybe if he had a better way of explaining benefits to his ideals that would appeal to a larger audience. Unfortunately, he tends to be at the other end of the spectrum (GNU-Linux).
Awesome!
Copying other people's stuff and giving it away isn't "sharing."
If you want to share, create your own work and give it away for free.
In the past (and present) this is precisely what Richard Stallman did with GNU. He wanted software to be free. Instead of bootlegging copies of Windows (or MS-DOS) he created his OWN stuff and gave it away for free. Now Linux is a force to be reckoned with. If he had simply pirated other peoples' work, this innovation would have never happened.
Given the number of corporate shills who show up at F/OSS conventions peddling things like, "'you people' need to get over software patents" or "sometimes you just can't just hand the source over to the client, its just good for business" or "I'm not calling you people communist -or even traitors, but you have to wonder about someone who doesn't genuinely care about the shareholder's position", I have no problem with Stallman shitting in their yard. Good for him.
The headline says "crashes".
The article says "interrupted", but gives no details.
The article has two pictures (#18 and #19).
#19 looks like Stallman posing after the event for the benefit of the camera.
#18 is probably the interruption.
All you can see from the picture is that Stallman (and friend) stood at the front of a conference room holding poster-board signs.
It looks like Stallman has a sheaf of papers in his hand, so maybe he said something.
No, not like the bugs on your arm because those bugs don't exist.
Company X spends $1B developing a new idea, be it a physical widget or an algorithm. Said company sells widgets or software licenses at $A to recoup the invested money (first) and then to make a profit. Company Y sees the widget or software and can cheaply reverse engineer it, skipping 70% of the development costs. Company Y can sell their product at 0.4*$A and still make profit. Company X only gets $0.2B revenue for the item, and is out $0.8B.
How would we prevent this situation without IP? If the above happens, no one will want to invest in research, because they'd lose money, even if they "invented" the next IPod.
Maybe if all research funding came from the public, then all development successes (and failures) would be public knowledge.
apologies: i meant intellectual property in regards to only one kind of intellectual property: media
anything that is consumed as electronic bits: books, music, movies, should be completely devoid of any intellectual property conventions
but information that is not consumed electronically, that is, information that describes the creation of real world technologies: yes, that should continue to enjoy intellectual property law protections, because it concerns real world effort and expense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
see this post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1796976&cid=33675310
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I would tell the corporate world that free software is good for the economy, and good for their business.
There are plenty of vendors out there who have built products on top of Linux, Apache, etc.
If Linux, Apache, etc. were not available for free, these vendors either would not have been able to launch their products, or would have paid huge licensing fees for crap like the Microsoft web server, driving up their prices.
If it weren't for these kinds of public software projects, everything would be more expensive, from consumer electronics to enterprise appliances.
Was I the only one who hoped that his katana would be involved?
because what you are saying is completely unenforceable
the future is the death of content producers. and by that i mean old school distributors. artists will produce directly, with financial outlays coming from passion. if it ignites in popularity, ancillary revenues: personalized content, concert gigs, cinema houses: these will provide a return on investment. and this does not mean we are forced to watch amateur youtube videos in the future. one of the most most expensive, and most profitable movie, ever made, avatar, made it all in cinema houses. this is a non-internet, controlled environment where you have to buy a ticket. this is never going away because no one enjoys watching movies by yourself in your basement. nothing is threatened except the dvd market. and why do we need constraints on our freedoms for the sake of propping up a dying media format and a dying business model?
there is no guarantee that an investment in the production of movies, music, or books will result in a financial return. nor should there ever be. most artists were starving, are starving, and will forever more starve. they make art out of passion, and that's all you ever need, and that's all that ever matters, and that's much more powerful than intellectual property law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For example, in my mind, a government that locks non-violent human beings in cages for engaging in recreational drug use is incredibly extremist. The reason the majority doesn't see it that way is because they've spent their entire lives knowing nothing but the status quo, and therefore can't imagine it being any different.
if you can't afford a book, you can't afford to learn. and you can't afford a book if the only ones around are scribbled by monks. and so, a dummy, who can't read and knows nothing, you go work the fields, like your serf parents before you
fact: the printing press created the middle class as we know it today. the existence of a large middle class supports the notion of a democracy being an effect political possibility
the cities have always had craftsmen and tradesmen, since before roman and even egyptian times. but they were always tiny sectors, not the vast middle class we know today. that one of those tradesmen, gutenberg, invented the printing press, thereby resulting in the explosion of the middle class: this is solid historical fact
but thank you for cherry picking small fragments of reality to support a conception of history which is patently false. pfffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, I was hoping to see his katana as well.
How much "interest" does the janitor cleaning Microsoft's floors really have?
That depends on how much of his pay the janitor has squirreled away to buy MSFT stock.
Let Human Rights be for humans.
Humans own companies' stock, and these humans benefit when the company benefits. Humans work for companies, such as the inventors listed on every patent assigned to Microsoft.
If you're not a dirty criminal, what have you got to lose?
Some people are indeed deemed dirty criminals by their country's standards, but in many cases, this is because they live in a country whose legislators are even dirtier criminals by international standards for encroaching on UN-recognized human rights. In the case of the article, the legislators may have failed to strike a constructive balance between article 19 (free speech) and article 28 (copyright clause).
If you want to share, create your own work and give it away for free.
There are two problems with it. A single company or an oligopoly might have imprimatur power over works in a given medium. (This is the case for video games played on TVs.) Or the incumbent publishers might claim that your work is not in fact original but instead copied in part from a mainstream work. (See for example Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, Tetris v. BioSocia, and SCO v. IBM.)
What income are they depriving the creator of? Is it potential profit?
It is the potential profit that the U.S. people through their representatives in Congress have theoretically agreed to grant. (I say "theoretically" because the beneficiaries of this grant happen to control the news media, which in turn control the selection of representatives.)
child labor laws became an issue in the 1800s. i'm talking about what happened at least 300 years before that. and i'm skipping steps?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It'd be nice if the various foo-modes' syntax highlighting updated immediately. I get a little bit of anxiety everytime I open a quote, since if I don't close it immediately, the whole subsequent buffer will stay pink for up to 10 seconds after I close it. I am guessing this is an intrinsic limitation in the hooking backend of emacs; either that, or every foo-mode was based on the crappy C-mode, and inherited its mistakes.
Also it'd be great if the line-number-mode didn't crap itself upon opening a file larger than O(10K) lines. This really baffles me, because M-x count-lines still works and M-x goto-line still works. The only thing is that the line indicator at the status bar says "L??". This problem has persisted for years.
I'd also be grateful if the configuration interface were smoothed out a bit. It took an hour for me to learn how to change the typeface for various modes, and I still don't totally get it. This has gotten a lot better recently, but it's still a little weird, to the beginner, to have to jump through so many hoops just to change the font. It could be presented much more cleanly.
Also, it's worth noting that anti-aliasing sat around half-finished for nearly a decade. Another bug they recently fixed was an immediate hard crash, if you resized a frame past the edge of window.
So yeah, for something three decades old and up to version 23(!), emacs has a shocking number of gotchas. That it's still the best editor in existence is a testament to its basic design goals and philosophy, but man it could sure use some brushing up...
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
it would still make the same money
your argument depends on the completely false belief that someone who would watch avatar for free at home would pay to watch it. not the same population fo people
additionally i don't know what you mean by "re-re-release it in other digital houses at discount rates"
we are talking about media consumed for free. if you own a cinema house, and charge for media product, you are playing by a completely different set of rules, and intellectual property law is the least of your obligations. plus, you can shut down rogue cinema houses. you can't shut down the internet. intellectual property law is still enforceable in meat space, just not cyberspace
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't you worry about it, son. Google, FaceBook, VZW, Comcast, Microsoft and many, many, many more providers have their very own army of lawyers looking into that right now.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
mod +9, couldn't have said it better myself xoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Am not! And if I find you I will make you eat your head from your asshole. Try me.
none of those things you mention would have resulted in the middle class, since by themselves they explain nothing. the crucial essential occurrence to create the middle class is this: you need a way to make knowledge transfer cheap and easy. that is only made possible by a technological disruption: the cheap mass produced book
every other historical event you describe is merely a footnote, a dramatic backdrop. none of the phenomenon you mention were the crucial component of the rise of the modern middle class, only the printing press is. if any of the events you mentioned had not happened, the middle class would still have been born. meanwhile, if the printing press had not happened, but everything else you mentioned still happened exactly the same way, then there would be no middle class. so you have a lot of orthogonal and tangential history in your objections, but you have nothing absolutely essential to the creation of the modern middle class
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The latest version (23) does have antialiased fonts
For me under Ubuntu the anti-aliased fonts render extremely slow, i.e. so slow that scrolling becomes close to unusable when the CPU happens to be busy, say when you are compiling in the background. Not sure if there is something wrong with the font I use, the setup or whatever, but it is kind of bothersome that in 2010 a text editor fails at rendering text.
Anyway, that bug aside, Emacs really could need a rewrite. Emacs did have had a lot of good ideas back when it was written some decades ago and many of those still hold up, but in other areas it just shows its age far to clearly (everything "GUI" is a joke, no real multithreading, no good Intellisense alternative, bad defaults everywhere, ASCII art where real graphics should be used, etc.).
additionally i don't know what you mean by "re-re-release it in other digital houses at discount rates"
The basic question is this:
If movie theaters had had the option of buying and showing inexpensive, high-quality bootleg copies of "Avatar" instead of getting the movie through the normal channels, wouldn't that have impacted the movie's profits?
Under current laws this can't work because the theaters in question would pretty likely get nailed to the wall by lawsuits. But if "video piracy" were fully legitimized, the theaters could show whatever they like...
So I think there is a pretty good argument that removing the "intellectual property" protections would prevent people from making profitable massive-budget blockbuster films... Any single target that large would become victim to "piracy".
My personal theory about how something like this would play out is that it would result in diversification of our culture. Huge film budgets would cease to be profitable, so films would be made on more modest budgets - and the number of films would increase. Smaller studios would then have greater access to theaters. I don't know if this is really how it would play out, but it seems like an interesting possibility to me.
Bow-ties are cool.
the protestant reformation was made possible by the printing press
the reformation was not orthogonal to the printing press, the reformation was fueled by the printing press. mass produced bibles meant mass speculation as to religious conviction, rather than being spoonfed the religious scripture from the only one guy in the room who could actually read. therefore, any effects of the reformation that you can say points to the creation of the middle class is yet another effect of the printing press, ultimately
therefore, i will move in direction contradiction to what you are saying and widen my thesis by saying that only the middle class, but protestantism as well was made possible by the printing press
the printing press is absolutely crucial. every objection you raise is tangential, background spectacle
anything else you need help with today?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
cyberspace is not meatspace
anything in the real world can, and should be controlled
anything in cyberspace cannot, and should not
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1796976&cid=33675310
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Our enemies withing the FSF are behind the Reichstag Firewall!
That's all well and good, if we were talking about applications -- we're not. We're talking about emacs, which is an operating system.
Sheesh.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You won't find profit as the reason for US copyrights. You won't find the point of copyright being "to guarantee profit" ANYWHERE.
But persisting in stating this lie is a common tactic for the leeches.
Someone who posts to /. with bugs crawling over them would probably be nuts and therefore wouldn't NEED bugs on their arm.
But me, I just assume that people are rational, maybe YOUR world has rational people who will post to people "bugs crawling all over me, but I must finish reading slashdot" whilst probably wearing underpants on their head...
Not knowing the fellow yourself, you'd think he'd rather post here than brush off bugs crawling on his arm?
I think you impugn the gentleman...
Living in Europe, I think most European Taxpayers would dearly love to know what the fuck the European Patent Office is doing making presentations at a computer conference on the other side of the world.
cyberspace is not meatspace
anything in the real world can, and should be controlled
anything in cyberspace cannot, and should not
Regardless of how I feel about that issue, the point of my post was to clarify someone else's point, which you seemed to be having trouble understanding.
But personally I think that your distinction is a little silly. "cyberspace" vs. "meatspace"? What's the difference?
Basically, what is patented or copyrighted in any case is an idea. It's not the new type of electric motor that gets patented, it's the idea for how it works. But information, once known, can be passed freely. Protecting ideas on the basis of who came up with them is entirely an artificial construct. This doesn't really speak to whether that's a good thing (water and sewer systems, for instance, are also "artificial constructs", with benefits and, I expect, disadvantages...) - just that the distinction between "cyberspace ideas" and "meatspace ideas" is meaningless. It's all just ideas.
Bow-ties are cool.
See subject line above, and realize that 3/4 of this world is filled with useless hucksters/thieves that live off of others work (RIAA &/or MPAA being PRIME EXAMPLES THEREOF) &/or creativity/abilities etc./et al. If you could get even 1/2 of that "kind" off their asses to actually learn to do something that's useful instead (of what they do now/how they make their living now)? The world would be a FAR BETTER PLACE! Unfortunately, again, see subject-line. Makes me sick/ill sometimes, and ashamed to be a human being. I do agree that others ought to be paid for their work, albeit, ONLY if they themselves did the actual work producing the good or service being provided however... not just "buying something for a buck and selling it for 10 (and paying the actual producer of said good or service .005% of the actual price sold).
I'd prefer Stallman's outspoken extremism vs the quiet extremism that corporations would place us under if no one spoke up.
I prefer neither of them. Stallman is as much of an extremist as the people and companies that he's fighting. I don't want a world without copyright of any kind OR draconian copyright laws. I want reasonable protection for content providers as well as reasonable fair use laws. I will not accept that my only recourse is to take Stallman's revolutionary position, or the position of companies that tell me I don't own the software or music that I buy.
The whole "digital rights" scene increasingly reminds me of the Spanish Civil War, where people were pressed to pick a side. But the sides were Fascists vs. Communists. I don't want to pick either side, thank you very much. They both suck.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
i can give you the design of an internal combustion engine. to put this this design to some use requires real world involvement of time energy and resources. the idea has no value to you until i instantiate it as a real product. this is intellectual property that should still be controlled because it involves real world investments of material and energy
meanwhile i can give you copy of the movie avatar. the simple pattern of bits that make up the movie rquires no real world involvement, the bits can be enjoyed in and of themselves on a computer monitor. this is a different kind of "intellectual property" because the idea itself is also the product
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
meanwhile i can give you copy of the movie avatar. the simple pattern of bits that make up the movie rquires no real world involvement, the bits can be enjoyed in and of themselves on a computer monitor. this is a different kind of "intellectual property" because the idea itself is also the product
Suppose it weren't an actual copy of the film "Avatar" - let's say it was just the script.
Now, as people seem to be very fond of pointing out - there's not a lot to it. Basic premise, rehashed story, Mulan/Ferngully/yada yada. What makes the movie is its presentation... The quality of the graphics and how well they're animated, the voice, sound, and music work, and so on. All of these things together represent a tremendous amount of "real world" work, and it's that real world work that's made this "simple" pattern of bits valuable. That sequence of bits could have been pounded out on the keyboard by monkeys, by random chance - but the point is, it wasn't.
There are other ways the same story could be presented - a talented storyteller could make it into a good campfire story, people could perform it onstage, it could be a musical - whatever - but the point is that in any case, that basic idea isn't good for much without all that work that goes into the presentation.
In other words, it isn't the idea that's the product, it's the product that's the product. The only difference is how convenient it is to replicate the product.
Put it the other way: ripping off someone else's motor design requires a bit of effort, expertise, and money. Not as much as making a new motor design, but enough to fit your argument that this is a fundamentally "real world" thing. So why should that idea then get extra protection that other ideas don't? What's the justification?
Bow-ties are cool.
http://xkcd.com/774/
Good stuff, Maynard.
And I copy all your homework, examinations, and lab work. Do you care that you grade is now no better than mine? How about if the whole class copied you? Let's we all, save for one who did his own work, copied you, and you got 90% right. Now the whole class got this, so that's average, and the one who did his own work, didn't allow the cheat to copy, is the only one with the excel mark. You go on to flip burgers, with all those who copied you, and I, who didn't allow the cheats, rose to the stardom I have.
It's true !!
It'd be nice if the various foo-modes' syntax highlighting updated immediately. I get a little bit of anxiety everytime I open a quote, since if I don't close it immediately, the whole subsequent buffer will stay pink for up to 10 seconds after I close it.
I don't do any real coding, but I do use Notepad++ when editing my HTML files; if you type the opening tag, the entire rest of the document is colorcoded that way until you get to typing the closing tag. That sounds kinda like that.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Just so you know, it's really 0.23. They just dropped the zero because they decided they're not going to do a redesign, ever.
:)
23 minor versions then.
This really only makes it worse.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I'm not sure that you understand Stallman's position at all if you think he is talking about the viability of free software.
He has consistently presented a case that it is unethical to distribute non-free software.
Since many people place pragmatic considerations over ideals, it is a message that will take more than just a couple of decades to become widely accepted. The politically sane prefer to reflect whatever their focus groups tell them to.
the internet means that distribution is instantaneous, to anywhere, for zero $
if you spent $1 billion making a movie, you will recoup it in live cinema, advertising, product tie ins, etc. what you will not do is attempt to put tollgates on the internet that will be routed around anyways. not because i say so out of some "information wants to be free man" bullshit, but because the tollbooths you seek to build are simply impossible to enforce. in toher words, i am not describing an alternative ideology to you, i am describing simple reality that pre-internet culture and laws that have to do with policing now defunct distribution media need to catch up to
artists don't need distributors anymore. they can self produce and self distribute, gain fame that aways, and fame can be turned into profit, if not pursued for its own sake
books and music require very little production value
movies require high production value, but, much like music, a healthy income can still be derived in real world venues. remember avatar?
the whole point is, i don't care how much you spend making that movie. you can not put toll booths on the internet to recoup those expenses. not because i say so, but because that is impossible. not that people aren't trying, but they would rather destroy free speech itself and impose the incorporation of our culture on us and destroy all that is good about the internet in order to try to make a buck on a medium which works best when it is simply not controlled
no, instead, old school distributors and the laws governing them will simply die. this is better for society. you recoup, like avatar did, in real world venues, or you use free media on the internet to build name recogition and fame that can be cashed in via ancillary means later
adapt to the new reality, or die
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's funny to get modded that high up for a reply on an offtopic comment. Wouldnt that qualify me as offtopic too?
That's a good point, but it's hardly worth arguing that proprietary software is unethical if it is the only viable model. Since I don't think Stallman is arguing that people should do without software, I think we can take it as an implicit assumption that free software can ultimately meet peoples' needs.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
the internet CHANGES THE ECONOMIC REALITY
where before something had to be produced and packaged, now a teenager in johannesburg can send 10,000 copies of a movie around the world in zero time and zero cost. this means every teenager is now the power of bertelsmann, time warner, etc circa 1985 x1,000
in other words, the rules those guys played under in a pre-internet universe simply do not apply anymore. the rules are simply unenforceable
people are not deciding anything: new technology changes the economic truth of media distribution, and you must adapt to it. because there is no putting the genie back in the bottle
you keep interpreting what i say as if we have a choice. i am telling you you have no choice. you can't stand in front of a lake and try to sell bottle water
"The "new reality" is decided by people."
no, absolutely wrong
take another disruptive technology: the gun. do people decide that warfare will forever be knights in armor with swords? or do the guys with the gun simply win more battles, no matter what some asshole decrees somewhere about knights and swords? the TECHNOLOGY decides, beyond anyone's control
this really is the truth. deal with it. there is no interpretation, there is merely acceptance of a new reality, or, if you choose, a rejection of it: you have simply chosen irrelevancy to the new reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it