Slashdot Mirror
Do Away with Copyrights?
GroundBounce writes "Fortune.com has an opinion article in which Stuart Allsop proposes, among other things, completely elimniating government protection for intellectual property. In support of his argument, he points to cases (including Linux) where people have made money on unprotected IP, and the fact that copying can't really be prevented anyway. He also proposes removing copyright protection from Windows98 and Office as a way of dealing with the MS monopoly. "
He's right, though: trying to prevent copying in an era where copying is sooo easy for everyone to do is pretty futile. I mean, I don't need a printing press to distribute my opinions anymore (I only need slashdot... heh heh).
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Interesting article. It's almost bang on with the end goal of the FSF: software (and IP) should have no owners.
We know that abolishing copyright is the proper choice for freedom.. what we don't know yet is if its the proper choice for economics. There never are easy choices in that regard. A physical property-driven society has led us to great advances in the standard of living among the industrial nations - should that right be extended to intellectual property, for the economic benefit of all?
In past, it was justifiable.. is it now?
Will "piracy" go UP when copyright is abolished, or will it stay the same & people continue to buy stuff because "it's the right thing"?
Will we figure a way to charge for copies when necessary?
What restrictions are reasonable on modification (of music, for instance)?
There are plenty of problems to be resolved, and I'm still very skeptical about how it would work for stuff like books & music, but... only with argument & debate will we find out if it'll work.
I'm sitting on the fence, with my foot somewhat on the "no it won't work" side, for now, but that might change.
-Stu
You're a bit mixed up, I'm afraid, over the GIF issue. Unisys was being idiotic over a patent they held on the LZW compression algorithm, which is used in compressing GIF images. They were not being idiotic over a copyright.
Copyrights are Good Things, when used correctly (an example: the GPL). It's patents which are causing all the trouble. Here's why:
Let's say Unisys had copyrights on their code for the LZW compression algorithm. I could write my own code for LZW if I wished, and release it. I have violated no laws by doing so, because copyrights only cover one specific set of code.
However, Unisys has a patent on the underlying algorithm. This means that I cannot write any code for LZW compression at all, because they have patented the idea (which I didn't think was supposed to be legal). Even if every single line of my code is different from the code Unisys uses, I have still violated their patent. Is that right? I don't think so.
- Without trademark protection, anyone can call anything they want to "Linux", whether or not Linus agrees.
- Microsoft has a trademark on "Excel" for spreadsheets, however, they do not own any legal protections over the idea of a computerized spreadsheet. Which means that I can develop the most wonderful spreadsheet, etc. etc., but I can't name it "Excel".
- Without trademark law, if Microsoft originally released "Microsoft Navigator vX.X (Internet Explorer)as a crappy browser, then any other browser named Navigator would suffer because of the named association, and the original company would have no legal recourse to recover damages to their software's reputation.
Alsop makes the point that Other software makers have been reluctant to create an alternate version of Windows primarily because of the threat of having Microsoft sue them. Smart people: Microsoft would have an excellent case if anyone tried to copy Windows or Office. What mindless tripe. I can't copy and sell Windows because I don't own the software or the copyrighted license to sell it. Companies haven't tried to duplicate Windows because of many other things, such as the high risk of creating an incompatible code base, etc.Instead, what I or anyone else can do is write programs/os/ etc. with all of the same functionality as Windows. Such as Linux + your GUI of choice + application software. The secondary authors just can't call their creation "Windows" or "Office for Windows" -- not that they'd want to, by the way.
Finally, there is an issue completely neglected in this article which I would like to present [as a relatively unknown but copyrighted author]. Without copyright law, I could invest years in developing a novel, theatrical play, screenplay, etc. -- and the moment my work was produced --anyone-- could then reproduce, distort, etc. my work.
Money issues aside, my "voice" is my own, and I deserve the right to keep what I say free of distortions. Just like Linus deserves the right (he holds the trademark) to say what is and isn't Linux.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The difference between a copyright and a deed is actually critical. Why?
A deed represents something tangible and scarce (that is, not in infinite supply). It does not represent any effort at all. It represents a thing. And this is good; it established the owner of that land.
A copyright represents, essentially, thought. How can someone own a thought? The paper it's printed on, yes. Or perhaps the media. But the thought itself? That cannot be owned. For that matter, it cannot really be given away, for the giver loses nothing in the giving (indeed, it can be said that an idea is worthless unless shared, for only when shared can it be acted upon).
Now, I don't think copyrights are in and of themselves bad things, but they're being horribly misused in the case of software (and don't even get me started on the idea of patents for software). But that's for another debate.