Mr. Stalman says "I also believe that the freedom to share software and other published information is also a natural right." He presumeably thinks that modifying ("improving") them is included, not just sharing. Whether that is so or not, he is failing to distinguish between facts about the universe ("information") and creative works. What can Mr. Stallman say to an artist who feels that when someone takes their work and changes it or plays with it their creation is perverted and destroyed? What happens to the expressive and emotional value of art when others are free to do whatever they want with it? Art is meant to be experienced within a context - outdoor sculpture is created with its eventual location in mind, and films are created for a movie theater's acoustics and screen.
Take, for a modern-day example, "remixing" music. An artist (or sometimes a collection of artists: singers, musicians, songwriters, producers, whatever) creates a song. In its original form, it is presumeably exactly as they wish it to be. It likely holds significant personal expressive value, just the way it is and only the way it is. Then, someone comes along, decides they happen to like some aspect of the song, but would rather mix it around and create something different that is built off the other artist's foundation. There are several ways this could be viewed by the original creator. In some cases, he/she may be honored that their expression was appreciated by others and gets pleasure from its use (I use the word "pleasure" here very particularly, as it appeals directly to Mr. Stalman's apparent utilitarian views about the greater good above all). But some artists would feel that this utterly destroys the value of their creation. It is akin to culling selected words and phrases from a speech someone gives to create your own speech with a totally different purpose and meaning. (For example, selectively quoting someone to give the impression that they are advocating something they are not.) If I know that someone is going to pervert the meaning of my words and I will have no recourse - or, if we go by Mr. Stallman's views, that society will view that as perfectly fine - I will not open my mouth in the first place, and the musician will not play.
One may argue that that's just too bad. That someone with such a narrow mind wanting to monopolize their own creations is not helping society as they could, is not contributing to the greater good. I think that's a despicable view point. Demanding that people subvert all their own wishes to that of the greater society is, as Mr. Stallman is so fond of using to vilify a viewpoint, exactly what they did in the Soviet Union.
It was not "made public voluntarily." Copyrighted intellectual property is only public in the sense that anyone can pay to get it, not that anyone is automatically entitled to it.
It is not the music industry or groups like Metallica that are approaching this issue from the wrong direction. It is all the people who wish to manipulate an ideological position (of debateable value anyway) for their own ends. The writer of this short article kept mentioning the freedom to transmit "information." What exactly does that mean? Miriam-Webster says information is "knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction." Does that sound like it includes music? Does that sound like it includes someone's creative work that they wish to have exclusive control over? NO. "Information" means facts about the universe that no one can have any claim to - laws of science, for example. It is impossible to say that anyone owns the circumference of the Earth. Personal expression, on the other hand, is not something inherent to the universe that anyone can discover. It is one's own, and our society has decided to respect that through mechanisms like copyright law.
The whole point here is that the suit by Metallica is not about freedom of information. It is about enforcement of a legal right that our society has created. It is not up to a bunch of selfish cheap Internet users to ignore that. This is not a case of government oppression (like in, say, China) were illegal activity is the only way for people to enjoy intellectual freedom and according to most political thought the activity would be justified. This is about the rule of law. If you don't like having to pay for people's works of personal expression, go lobby Congress to change the laws. Until it does, stop the blatant copyright infringement. How would you feel if someone decided that laws against robbery were wrong, and came knocking on your door with a gun in his hand? Shouldn't all property be free?
It is most definitely true that newspapers are pathetic as a source for (inter)national "breaking news". I also agree very much with the assertion that their depth of reporting on many issues is incredibly shallow. There is an important reason for this, though. Most newspapers (the exceptions being the big ol' dinosaurs like the New York Times) do not have correspondents all over the country and the world looking for news. Stories from outside the local area are simply picked up from wire services like Reuters or the Associated Press. Stories about local issues are entirely done on their own. This is where newspapers still have great value.
What many young people fail to realize is that these local issues are the ones that most effect their quality of life. What's going on with the school board, the city council, or the state water commissioner is going to determine far more about your daily existence than much of what happens in D.C. or London or Beijing (this is, of course, why the American public thought the whole Monica thing was ridiculous...the President diddling an intern didn't effect their lives one bit). For this reason, newspapers provide an invaluable source for news that really does matter, even though it's less glamorous than a plane crash or an ethnic conflict. You just won't find that news anywhere else at this point.
This does bring up other issues. For example, local TV stations provide local news, and this is an issue that newspapers must deal with. However, newspapers have the advantage in this case because they can provide much more information about a story than a 3-minute TV segment.
Finally, no other technology gives the mobility and convenience of a newspaper. I can not sit down for lunch somewhere, pull my laptop out of my briefcase, and expect to read the day's news without either using expensive equipment or downloading it all earlier (which would negate any advantage over a paper, wouldn't it?). Not to mention that a month's subscription to a newspaper costs about the same as internet access, and a computer isn't required. For lots of people it's much more feasible.
The inherent problem with trying to moderate in any way what happens in an online forum is that it is impossible to keep people out without using the same measures required in the physical world: positive identification through photos or fingerprints or something else that is not easily manipulated or exchanged. Bouncers can patrol a bar effectively because when someone causes a problem they are identified by a whole host of physical characteristics and can then be prevented from returning. One can not dial up to a different ISP and sign up for a new free account with a different name to get back into a bar.
In my opinion, there is no way to maintain the integrity of an online forum. Without a fundamental change in how the Internet works, it will remain that way. It is not possible to positively identify someone, and without that ability anyone can do whatever they want any time. Assuming the action is legal, there can be no penalty - not even exclusion.
This is the reason that the only people in positions of power (real power, not l33t haxors) who take the Internet seriously are ones who seek to make money off it or who are simply using it as an additional means of getting information out. It is by no means the best medium for intelligent discussion by intelligent people. Typing, even with a variety of colors, fonts, sizes, and smilies (please note the sarcasm), is not a replacement for speech and gesture from an identifiable person. People who wish to put forth ideas and comments are taken seriously only when they stand up and take credit for them. As long as people using Internet forums can avoid doing so, all these problems will continue and the Internet will remain, for purposes of serious discussion, a joke.
As a final buttress to my argument: does anyone really think that the lousy AOL chatrooms so many net-heads make fun of are any different than, say, the comment threads here on Slashdot? It's all online, and it's all the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Stalman says "I also believe that the freedom to share software and other published information is also a natural right." He presumeably thinks that modifying ("improving") them is included, not just sharing. Whether that is so or not, he is failing to distinguish between facts about the universe ("information") and creative works. What can Mr. Stallman say to an artist who feels that when someone takes their work and changes it or plays with it their creation is perverted and destroyed? What happens to the expressive and emotional value of art when others are free to do whatever they want with it? Art is meant to be experienced within a context - outdoor sculpture is created with its eventual location in mind, and films are created for a movie theater's acoustics and screen.
Take, for a modern-day example, "remixing" music. An artist (or sometimes a collection of artists: singers, musicians, songwriters, producers, whatever) creates a song. In its original form, it is presumeably exactly as they wish it to be. It likely holds significant personal expressive value, just the way it is and only the way it is. Then, someone comes along, decides they happen to like some aspect of the song, but would rather mix it around and create something different that is built off the other artist's foundation. There are several ways this could be viewed by the original creator. In some cases, he/she may be honored that their expression was appreciated by others and gets pleasure from its use (I use the word "pleasure" here very particularly, as it appeals directly to Mr. Stalman's apparent utilitarian views about the greater good above all). But some artists would feel that this utterly destroys the value of their creation. It is akin to culling selected words and phrases from a speech someone gives to create your own speech with a totally different purpose and meaning. (For example, selectively quoting someone to give the impression that they are advocating something they are not.) If I know that someone is going to pervert the meaning of my words and I will have no recourse - or, if we go by Mr. Stallman's views, that society will view that as perfectly fine - I will not open my mouth in the first place, and the musician will not play.
One may argue that that's just too bad. That someone with such a narrow mind wanting to monopolize their own creations is not helping society as they could, is not contributing to the greater good. I think that's a despicable view point. Demanding that people subvert all their own wishes to that of the greater society is, as Mr. Stallman is so fond of using to vilify a viewpoint, exactly what they did in the Soviet Union.
It was not "made public voluntarily." Copyrighted intellectual property is only public in the sense that anyone can pay to get it, not that anyone is automatically entitled to it.
It is not the music industry or groups like Metallica that are approaching this issue from the wrong direction. It is all the people who wish to manipulate an ideological position (of debateable value anyway) for their own ends. The writer of this short article kept mentioning the freedom to transmit "information." What exactly does that mean? Miriam-Webster says information is "knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction." Does that sound like it includes music? Does that sound like it includes someone's creative work that they wish to have exclusive control over? NO. "Information" means facts about the universe that no one can have any claim to - laws of science, for example. It is impossible to say that anyone owns the circumference of the Earth. Personal expression, on the other hand, is not something inherent to the universe that anyone can discover. It is one's own, and our society has decided to respect that through mechanisms like copyright law.
The whole point here is that the suit by Metallica is not about freedom of information. It is about enforcement of a legal right that our society has created. It is not up to a bunch of selfish cheap Internet users to ignore that. This is not a case of government oppression (like in, say, China) were illegal activity is the only way for people to enjoy intellectual freedom and according to most political thought the activity would be justified. This is about the rule of law. If you don't like having to pay for people's works of personal expression, go lobby Congress to change the laws. Until it does, stop the blatant copyright infringement. How would you feel if someone decided that laws against robbery were wrong, and came knocking on your door with a gun in his hand? Shouldn't all property be free?
It is most definitely true that newspapers are pathetic as a source for (inter)national "breaking news". I also agree very much with the assertion that their depth of reporting on many issues is incredibly shallow. There is an important reason for this, though. Most newspapers (the exceptions being the big ol' dinosaurs like the New York Times) do not have correspondents all over the country and the world looking for news. Stories from outside the local area are simply picked up from wire services like Reuters or the Associated Press. Stories about local issues are entirely done on their own. This is where newspapers still have great value.
What many young people fail to realize is that these local issues are the ones that most effect their quality of life. What's going on with the school board, the city council, or the state water commissioner is going to determine far more about your daily existence than much of what happens in D.C. or London or Beijing (this is, of course, why the American public thought the whole Monica thing was ridiculous...the President diddling an intern didn't effect their lives one bit). For this reason, newspapers provide an invaluable source for news that really does matter, even though it's less glamorous than a plane crash or an ethnic conflict. You just won't find that news anywhere else at this point.
This does bring up other issues. For example, local TV stations provide local news, and this is an issue that newspapers must deal with. However, newspapers have the advantage in this case because they can provide much more information about a story than a 3-minute TV segment.
Finally, no other technology gives the mobility and convenience of a newspaper. I can not sit down for lunch somewhere, pull my laptop out of my briefcase, and expect to read the day's news without either using expensive equipment or downloading it all earlier (which would negate any advantage over a paper, wouldn't it?). Not to mention that a month's subscription to a newspaper costs about the same as internet access, and a computer isn't required. For lots of people it's much more feasible.
The inherent problem with trying to moderate in any way what happens in an online forum is that it is impossible to keep people out without using the same measures required in the physical world: positive identification through photos or fingerprints or something else that is not easily manipulated or exchanged. Bouncers can patrol a bar effectively because when someone causes a problem they are identified by a whole host of physical characteristics and can then be prevented from returning. One can not dial up to a different ISP and sign up for a new free account with a different name to get back into a bar.
In my opinion, there is no way to maintain the integrity of an online forum. Without a fundamental change in how the Internet works, it will remain that way. It is not possible to positively identify someone, and without that ability anyone can do whatever they want any time. Assuming the action is legal, there can be no penalty - not even exclusion.
This is the reason that the only people in positions of power (real power, not l33t haxors) who take the Internet seriously are ones who seek to make money off it or who are simply using it as an additional means of getting information out. It is by no means the best medium for intelligent discussion by intelligent people. Typing, even with a variety of colors, fonts, sizes, and smilies (please note the sarcasm), is not a replacement for speech and gesture from an identifiable person. People who wish to put forth ideas and comments are taken seriously only when they stand up and take credit for them. As long as people using Internet forums can avoid doing so, all these problems will continue and the Internet will remain, for purposes of serious discussion, a joke.
As a final buttress to my argument: does anyone really think that the lousy AOL chatrooms so many net-heads make fun of are any different than, say, the comment threads here on Slashdot? It's all online, and it's all the same.