I see what you're saying here, but the simple fact is we shouldn't all half to suffer restrictions because they want to force a particular paradigm. The success of Linux proves that the software industry would be fine without copyrights. And infact your delmia points out part of the problem, if a DVD contained an educational movie than the value of society making millions of copys would far outweigh the incentive to the creator, who would likely become famous in himself if he was good. However in a copyright society, entertainment that contains no educational value is hoisted on high, while real value information is burried in the hype.
Well, we nailed the RIAA with technologies like napster, now it's time to nail the MPAA. Since these people are so enthuiastic about choking off the public domin and all the new technologies in p2p, and destroying the right to copy, we should have no qualms about practicing mass civil disobedience of copyright laws to hit them where it hurts, dry up their revenue, and get on with the information age.
I'm supprised people took this as offtopic. Is there anyone here who believes that this problem isn't going to go away untill we hit them in the pocketbook? What do we think this technology implies anyhow?
The problem with Lessing is that he doesn't understand that the problem *is* copyrights. And when you let people believe that they have the right to extract value by limiting the copying practices of others, then what we have today is bound to folow as those who own them will try to secure those "rights"
Oh how it reminds me of the people in the past who didn't want to believe that the problem was marxisim, but rather how it was implemented. Or the people who didn't want to believe that the problem was slavery, but how the plantation masters treated them. If only people would understand that the root of all these problems we're having is the belief system that copyright monopolies are somehow like property rights. That restricting what people can copy freely is some kind of basic right rather than the act of copying itself. Nothing he does will change the fact that the right to copy is a basic moral human right that will sure outlast any government that opposes it.
Well, we nailed the RIAA with technologies like napster, now it's time to nail the MPAA. Since these people are so enthuiastic about choking off the public domin and all the new technologies in p2p, and destroying the right to copy, we should have no qualms about practicing mass civil disobedience of copyright laws to hit them where it hurts, dry up their revenue, and get on with the information age.
...The debate over what is 'okay' to copy (grama's recipe for cookies, GPL software, shareware) and what is 'not okay' (copyrighted music, proprietary software) is still raging.
The debate might not be over for you, or the RIAA, but it doesn't change the fact that copying things is a letitimate and moral right.
No. You cannot have it both ways-- if China is so wreckless with their citizen's lives, then it is doubtful they will ever have 'control' over 'trillions' in IP. Conversely, if China ever does figure out schemes to tax/issue/control intelectual property within it's state, then those same institutions would force a certain level of transparency that would prevent human rights abuses. Granted, pirates, grafters, and extortionists are taken out and shot as examples once in a while-- but you have to put that in context: these guys were ususally stealing state property.
Ahem, you cant have it both ways. IP is a form of controll, not a form of free markets. It will do nothing to enhance transparency.
... So, you're saying that it is reckless of the USA to demand IP controls on American IP-- just because China's "culture" likes to copy things? Since when? Is there a thousands-year tradition of copying things in China? Bullshit. The USG can demand whatever it wants from foreign companies handling US assets-- if those countries don't want to play by the rules coming from Washington, then the US can either 1) scream and not trade anymore, 2) complain to the WTO, 3) Impose sanctions, 4) send the gunboats.
Just because the US calls something a property right, does not mean that it is. By your logic, Canada wasn't playing by the 'rules' when it let people 'steal' slaves 'owned' by American plantation masters and set them free in Canadian territory. Bullshit. PS copying things is a 1000 year tradition in China
Aah, yes-- the Freedom to Copy. Where is that written down again? The US Constitution? The UN Charter? Or just RMS' bathroom wall? grow up. The freedom to copy is spurious at best (see above reference to the debate still raging).
Ahh, and there is the source of the problem. Rights don't come about because some important person wrote them down, or because a government says they're a right. People have rights, written down or not, and they often codify them into law and organize into government to secure those rights, but people still have rights either way, and the right to copy is one of those.
A lot of people can see how the institutions that try to impose software and copying restrictions choke off freedom in the USA, but those economic forces and pressures will eventually reach China when they come into the information age too.
China's government will not be so restrained, and it could easially lead to a brutal or even genocidal crackdown when it comes to billions of people and trillions of dollars in intellectual property controlls. For the USA to insist that China impose strong intellectual property controlls inspite of it's culture to the contrary is outright reckless and irresponsible. The freedom to copy is one of the last glimmers of freedom in an otherwise militant police state. IMHO we are setting ourselves up to swallow some bitter Chineese medicine.
However draining their revenue is one of their biggest lies, we should not believe that sharing actually causes the harm they'd like us to believe it causes.
I was thinking more of revenues that come from stock options and financing that couldn't be justified to investors unless they have a monopoly on distribution. Even so, I still think that they're a tiny number of artists that wouldn't make out so good (eg Madona) - if the system was fair.
Another problem with this approach is the harm it creates for a good cause. By purposefully going against the law you are helping the large copyright holders win by making their argument for them. Violating copyright can be a criminal act in the US and prison is unpleasant. Lawrence Lessig addressed this point directly on/. not too long ago [slashdot.org].
I saw that, and I think Lessing is wrong. Look, if we encouraged going arround destroying property or buildings etc... I could see his point. But this is copying were talking about here, it is no more wrong of immoral than refusing to go to the back of the bus. If anything is immoral, it is deriving value by restricting the copying practices of others.
Finally, I'm glad you mentioned things like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - I like these movies too, and I appreciate having them in my life - but the simple fact is that if they went away our cost of living would still be the same, our cost of groceries would still be too, our quality of life would likely be filled with other just as meaningfll forms of entertainment. You can't say the same about the DMCA - it could have a drastic effect on every technology applied to our everyday lives, in a way that is costfull and very inconvenient.
We're so used to being bombarded with hype and crap - that sometimes we just think that's the way it is in a free market system. Bull, it is because copyrights unnaturally skew it that way at the expense of more meaningfull research and knowledge. But a free market system is not about markets, or business, but freedom. When you have the right freedoms than economic strength will come naturally. In fact, you can see this with Linux - how the commercial world fought it all they way, but market forces overwhelmed them and are forcing their hands anyhow.
Anyone renember studying the older debates between anti-slave and free slave supporters, or more recently the debate between communisim and capitalisim. It wasn't long before each side was avoiding debates, or getting into worthless squabbles. It's just a fact of life, sometimes only action can resolve problems.
With both issues, people would cry out, if we could only get along! If we could only communicate! but the problem was not commnication, it was that one side is trying to gain benefit at the expense of others by force or coercion.
The same is true here. There is no equivalancy relationship here. There is no misunderstanding between civilized individuals. There is simply a raw conflict of interest and no amount of debate is going to change that. We should not be debating with them, but within ourselves - what are we going to do about them? How can we break, beat, or contain them?
Im convinced that the only way to do that is by insisting on civil-disobedience of copyright laws whenever possible. It is only then, when we drain them of their revenue stream and power that we will win - otherwise we will just be feeding and strengthening the beast intent on killing us.
...The reason paper money has value is that the government says it has value.
That is wrong, it is not about endorcement - but coercion. The reason why gold has value is because it was a limited resource, and the reason money has value is because it is backed up by the coercive force of government - eg if got a mansion via barter and trade of goods and services, the government would require me to convert it to a cash value and pay a large amount of taxes, which it will not accept in any other currency. That creates an artificial demand for dollars, which give it a market value.
Value happens inspite of central authority, not because of it. You don't need a central authority to have value - if I gave you a 4000$ equiv block of palladium, would you turn it away because no central authority would accept it as tender?
I don't see any reason to assume we couldn't have a digital equivalent.
I don't think it can be totally anonymous, at least for transactions that involve a physical exchange of goods. For those transactions, all you would want is anonimity from 3rd parties like the government.
For other transactions, you would probably want just enough of a leash to prevent fraud.
IMHO the problems I've heard of for both ebay and paypal only highlight the need for a better digital cash system.
What we need is something that is trustworthy, anonymous (private from the prying eyes of 3rd parties), indenpendent of a government monetary authority or any centralized authority, easy to send and transfer electronicly, and with general predictability and liquidity in value.
for anonymity I was thinking there might be some kind of a scheme where you could reveal the identity of the selling party if you were willing to sacrifice the value of the digital cash they gave you.
Also, perhaps there's some type of a need, like computing cycles, storage, or some type of computing service that would have market value that could be actuated by this form of digital cash.
There are many better forms of passive disobedience that get much more results
how about evading taxes, ignoring copyrights, blowing off patents, using tax havens and other forms of
hiding assets,
get your perscriptions on the black market, or from other countries that make illegal generics
keep your kids in home school or private school and out of the system
use lots of trade and barter whenever possible and never report it to anyone else, and buy anything like guns, pharmacuticals, that you can on the black market.
can you help smuggle or house an illegal aliean? can you help supply guns to families in 3rd world countries that are having their freedom taken away?
You need to understand that others are trying to controll your life, and unless you are willing to take actions that destroy their power over you, you will be a slave.
Perhaps this is the problem, you are too willing to protest and make noise, but not willing enough to assert that controll that is rightfully yours.
I hate the DMCA, and a lot of the stuff that large corporations are pulling, BUT Democracy is not an end in itself, but a tool for protecting individual liberties. Like any tool it can be abused as well as beneficial. All too often people have justified taking away massive amounts of other peoples hard earned money bcause it is accepted by a majority vote. It is only natural that people (esp rich people) would try to defend themselves, and that money would eventually become an important part of the process. And now that it has - it is being abused, forcing us to the only other option - civil disobedience.
Just protecting deomcracy will not work, society will not let it work because democracy can also be unjust in the form of mob rule, which like gang-rape can be the worst type of injustice.
You half to protect freedom, especially the freedom to own your property and earnings without excessive taxation, but also the freedom to copy things without being criminalized, both of these are freedoms that must exist inspite of the mob.
We have a tool to: Technology. And it's time to use it to protect our liquid assets, and our rights to copy without being criminalized. With technology, we have a median of exchanging value and information even if 99.99% of the population wants to beat us into oblivion for it. The sooner we use this tool, the better it will be for everyone.
I can't believe how many half crazed lunatics I've herd saying that if you don't like the law - vote and write your congressman. What a crock (thank God Rosa Parks didn't listen to that crap). Finally there is someone suggesting a workable solution, civil disobedience. This hits them right where it counts and gets straight to the core issue - it is wrong to derive value by restricting the copying practices of others.
I can't believe how many people actually try to treat copyrights like some kind of enlightened incentive property right. What a bunch of garbage - what if I came along and said "There is no incentive to grow cotton without slave properties, c'mon - don't you care about the farmers? If you free them, you're a dirty little thief!
I can't tell you how many times people told me that linux was a "toy" oppeating system not fit for commercial use and would never replace more serious UNIX solutions like SCO. That Linux might be OK for a non critical print server, but other than that SCO was it and would always rule. Well, well, well - if I'm not hearing the same thing from Sun today?
there is a good argument for encouraging a two party system, imagine a scenario like this....
liberal #1 party has 16% of voter support liberal #2 party has 16% of voter support conservative #3 party has 16% of voter support conservative #4 party has 16% of voter support neo nazi party #5 has 17% voter support neo nazi party #6 has 17% of voter support
The neo nazi's win even if you have runnoffs, even though most the people hate them.
The simple fact is that p2p is not just about music, but who controlls information - and what we can do with it. Like it or not, all the major conflicts in the world are about information, what people know, and what that leads people to believe, and how they react. P2P is not about music, but about controll - and if this issue can not be resolved in the USA, one of the most powerfull and free contries in the world (inspite of all its problems) then it has a snowballs chance in hell of being resolved anywhere for a long time. There are litterally trillions at stake, and billions of lives will be influenced by how this battle plays out.
The USA is suffering a lot of pressure as it enters the information age, and has really cracked down hard in many unjust ways - you can be rest assured that this evil will be magnified 100 fold when this "title wave" hit countries that don't have a strong foundation of liberties. We owe it to these people to solve these problems now, before they really get out of hand. If we can not help ourselves as hell breaks out here, then we will certainly not be able to help them when it comes their way too.
When people "freeload" on information - this is not a burden on societies resources, and that people think of information like they would of pyhsical property is half the problem. Linux and it's developers are doing fine without this "protection", and I would be very happy if all of society adopted this alternative.
The copyright form of protection is a farce, it is like the plantation masters of the 1850's saying they had no incentive to grow cotton without laws that protect their slave properties. But it is not a form of protection, it is a form of controll over others.
The alternative is to let all information be free. If getting rid of copyrights causes someone to loose controll over say 100K worth of "intellectual property" in return for free use of billions of dollars worth of other "intellectual properties" then only a fool would consider it a loss.
For someone like me who hates copyrights, that's a hard thing to say - but the simple fact is this. The problem isn't the term of copyrights, but our very belief that it's allright gain benefit by restricting the copying practices of others to begin with. Copyright monopolies are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until they are cut off at the root. The DMCA, infinite extensions, sentences worse than murders get, are only a symptom - not the cause.
The cause of all these problems is our own moral failure to see copyrights not as some type of incentive or property rights, but as the evil form of controll that they are. It reminds me of indentured servitude - it started out as short term, un-inheritable, for all races, and usually offered land at the end of the term. But unfortunately it set the seeds for a system of slavery that became unbearable and ripped the USA apart, now I see the same with "intellectual properties" - if we don't cut it off at the root, it will just come back to destroy us in another form.
The simple fact is that we keep trying to attack the branches and not the vine at the root. Civil disobedience of copyrights is the only way to go. It is easy to do, impossible to enforce, at attacks them at the core. They're core is a lot more vulnerable than ours is, and even if we just counter some of their cheezy guilt trips about stealing food from the mouths of artists, that alone could have a huge difference.
Copyrights are not a free market property right, but a bullshit government granted monopoly that cause all sorts of incompatabilities, and stagnate innovation. In fact most big corporations are not free market at all, but feed off of similar government regulations, special treatment, and bullshit. (including the federal reserve, he didn't say that but I put it in for him)
In the copyright area, Linux gets arround this by being free and transparent, but that makes it a threat to the other people who make a living by fscking the ignorant when it comes to software. However, most people don't have the intellectual or personal balls to say that copyrights are bullshit - so instead they all bicker over stupid things (eg Lessing)
If they should be able to run code at our computers, they increase the security risk, since viruses may exploit these programs.
That's why this will only encourage more defiance of copyrights - because the chances of any one of us having our security breached is much less if we all insist and expect each other to not support them. I think copyrights are old-world, and the sooner we get rid of them, the better.
Any nice libertarian knows that just because the government calls something a right - does not mean that it is. You are assuming that copyrights are some type of free market property right, and the GPL bypasses it. I am assuming that copyrights are not a genuine property right at all, and the GPL minimizes the dammage caused by trying to pretend that it is.
The notion that copyrights are free market is bullshit, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
Democracy as a means, not an END
on
Future of Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I would like to remind you that democracy is a means of protecting individual liberties, not an end in itself. It is a tool, and like any tool it can be abused. We could always vote away our freedom of speech, we could always vote in a "hitler" - but just because we voted it does not make it just or acceptable.
Democracy is simply about people who have rights that exist above government who organize in the form of government to secure thir rights (which is also a right). If people wish to secure their rights in other ways too, that is their option - and in fact a duty if the current way isn't good enough.
I'm getting sick and tired of vendors like AOL and Microsoft writing to and constantly "upgrading" my harddrive without having any way of checking or approving what's going on. Now I can set it up so that my Linux box is constantly watching my Microsoft box and other softqware I use.
Slashdot Mirror
I see what you're saying here, but the simple fact is we shouldn't all half to suffer restrictions because they want to force a particular paradigm. The success of Linux proves that the software industry would be fine without copyrights. And infact your delmia points out part of the problem, if a DVD contained an educational movie than the value of society making millions of copys would far outweigh the incentive to the creator, who would likely become famous in himself if he was good. However in a copyright society, entertainment that contains no educational value is hoisted on high, while real value information is burried in the hype.
Well, we nailed the RIAA with technologies like napster, now it's time to nail the MPAA. Since these people are so enthuiastic about choking off the public domin and all the new technologies in p2p, and destroying the right to copy, we should have no qualms about practicing mass civil disobedience of copyright laws to hit them where it hurts, dry up their revenue, and get on with the information age.
I'm supprised people took this as offtopic. Is there anyone here who believes that this problem isn't going to go away untill we hit them in the pocketbook? What do we think this technology implies anyhow?
The problem with Lessing is that he doesn't understand that the problem *is* copyrights. And when you let people believe that they have the right to extract value by limiting the copying practices of others, then what we have today is bound to folow as those who own them will try to secure those "rights"
Oh how it reminds me of the people in the past who didn't want to believe that the problem was marxisim, but rather how it was implemented. Or the people who didn't want to believe that the problem was slavery, but how the plantation masters treated them. If only people would understand that the root of all these problems we're having is the belief system that copyright monopolies are somehow like property rights. That restricting what people can copy freely is some kind of basic right rather than the act of copying itself. Nothing he does will change the fact that the right to copy is a basic moral human right that will sure outlast any government that opposes it.
Well, we nailed the RIAA with technologies like napster, now it's time to nail the MPAA. Since these people are so enthuiastic about choking off the public domin and all the new technologies in p2p, and destroying the right to copy, we should have no qualms about practicing mass civil disobedience of copyright laws to hit them where it hurts, dry up their revenue, and get on with the information age.
The debate might not be over for you, or the RIAA, but it doesn't change the fact that copying things is a letitimate and moral right.
No. You cannot have it both ways-- if China is so wreckless with their citizen's lives, then it is doubtful they will ever have 'control' over 'trillions' in IP. Conversely, if China ever does figure out schemes to tax/issue/control intelectual property within it's state, then those same institutions would force a certain level of transparency that would prevent human rights abuses. Granted, pirates, grafters, and extortionists are taken out and shot as examples once in a while-- but you have to put that in context: these guys were ususally stealing state property.
Ahem, you cant have it both ways. IP is a form of controll, not a form of free markets. It will do nothing to enhance transparency.
Just because the US calls something a property right, does not mean that it is. By your logic, Canada wasn't playing by the 'rules' when it let people 'steal' slaves 'owned' by American plantation masters and set them free in Canadian territory. Bullshit. PS copying things is a 1000 year tradition in China
Aah, yes-- the Freedom to Copy. Where is that written down again? The US Constitution? The UN Charter? Or just RMS' bathroom wall? grow up. The freedom to copy is spurious at best (see above reference to the debate still raging).
Ahh, and there is the source of the problem. Rights don't come about because some important person wrote them down, or because a government says they're a right. People have rights, written down or not, and they often codify them into law and organize into government to secure those rights, but people still have rights either way, and the right to copy is one of those.
A lot of people can see how the institutions that try to impose software and copying restrictions choke off freedom in the USA, but those economic forces and pressures will eventually reach China when they come into the information age too.
China's government will not be so restrained, and it could easially lead to a brutal or even genocidal crackdown when it comes to billions of people and trillions of dollars in intellectual property controlls. For the USA to insist that China impose strong intellectual property controlls inspite of it's culture to the contrary is outright reckless and irresponsible. The freedom to copy is one of the last glimmers of freedom in an otherwise militant police state. IMHO we are setting ourselves up to swallow some bitter Chineese medicine.
However draining their revenue is one of their biggest lies, we should not believe that sharing actually causes the harm they'd like us to believe it causes.
I was thinking more of revenues that come from stock options and financing that couldn't be justified to investors unless they have a monopoly on distribution. Even so, I still think that they're a tiny number of artists that wouldn't make out so good (eg Madona) - if the system was fair.
Another problem with this approach is the harm it creates for a good cause. By purposefully going against the law you are helping the large copyright holders win by making their argument for them. Violating copyright can be a criminal act in the US and prison is unpleasant. Lawrence Lessig addressed this point directly on
I saw that, and I think Lessing is wrong. Look, if we encouraged going arround destroying property or buildings etc
Finally, I'm glad you mentioned things like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - I like these movies too, and I appreciate having them in my life - but the simple fact is that if they went away our cost of living would still be the same, our cost of groceries would still be too, our quality of life would likely be filled with other just as meaningfll forms of entertainment. You can't say the same about the DMCA - it could have a drastic effect on every technology applied to our everyday lives, in a way that is costfull and very inconvenient.
We're so used to being bombarded with hype and crap - that sometimes we just think that's the way it is in a free market system. Bull, it is because copyrights unnaturally skew it that way at the expense of more meaningfull research and knowledge. But a free market system is not about markets, or business, but freedom. When you have the right freedoms than economic strength will come naturally. In fact, you can see this with Linux - how the commercial world fought it all they way, but market forces overwhelmed them and are forcing their hands anyhow.
Anyone renember studying the older debates between anti-slave and free slave supporters, or more recently the debate between communisim and capitalisim. It wasn't long before each side was avoiding debates, or getting into worthless squabbles. It's just a fact of life, sometimes only action can resolve problems.
With both issues, people would cry out, if we could only get along! If we could only communicate! but the problem was not commnication, it was that one side is trying to gain benefit at the expense of others by force or coercion.
The same is true here. There is no equivalancy relationship here. There is no misunderstanding between civilized individuals. There is simply a raw conflict of interest and no amount of debate is going to change that. We should not be debating with them, but within ourselves - what are we going to do about them? How can we break, beat, or contain them?
Im convinced that the only way to do that is by insisting on civil-disobedience of copyright laws whenever possible. It is only then, when we drain them of their revenue stream and power that we will win - otherwise we will just be feeding and strengthening the beast intent on killing us.
That is wrong, it is not about endorcement - but coercion. The reason why gold has value is because it was a limited resource, and the reason money has value is because it is backed up by the coercive force of government - eg if got a mansion via barter and trade of goods and services, the government would require me to convert it to a cash value and pay a large amount of taxes, which it will not accept in any other currency. That creates an artificial demand for dollars, which give it a market value.
Value happens inspite of central authority, not because of it. You don't need a central authority to have value - if I gave you a 4000$ equiv block of palladium, would you turn it away because no central authority would accept it as tender?
I don't see any reason to assume we couldn't have a digital equivalent.
I don't think it can be totally anonymous, at least for transactions that involve a physical exchange of goods. For those transactions, all you would want is anonimity from 3rd parties like the government.
For other transactions, you would probably want just enough of a leash to prevent fraud.
IMHO the problems I've heard of for both ebay and paypal only highlight the need for a better digital cash system.
What we need is something that is trustworthy, anonymous (private from the prying eyes of 3rd parties), indenpendent of a government monetary authority or any centralized authority, easy to send and transfer electronicly, and with general predictability and liquidity in value.
for anonymity I was thinking there might be some kind of a scheme where you could reveal the identity of the selling party if you were willing to sacrifice the value of the digital cash they gave you.
Also, perhaps there's some type of a need, like computing cycles, storage, or some type of computing service that would have market value that could be actuated by this form of digital cash.
any thoughts?
There are many better forms of passive disobedience that get much more results
how about evading taxes,
ignoring copyrights,
blowing off patents,
using tax havens and other forms of
hiding assets,
get your perscriptions on the black market,
or from other countries that make illegal generics
keep your kids in home school or private school and out of the system
use lots of trade and barter whenever possible and never report it to anyone else, and buy anything like guns, pharmacuticals, that you can on the black market.
can you help smuggle or house an illegal aliean?
can you help supply guns to families in 3rd world countries that are having their freedom taken away?
You need to understand that others are trying to controll your life, and unless you are willing to take actions that destroy their power over you, you will be a slave.
Perhaps this is the problem, you are too willing to protest and make noise, but not willing enough to assert that controll that is rightfully yours.
I hate the DMCA, and a lot of the stuff that large corporations are pulling, BUT Democracy is not an end in itself, but a tool for protecting individual liberties. Like any tool it can be abused as well as beneficial. All too often people have justified taking away massive amounts of other peoples hard earned money bcause it is accepted by a majority vote. It is only natural that people (esp rich people) would try to defend themselves, and that money would eventually become an important part of the process. And now that it has - it is being abused, forcing us to the only other option - civil disobedience.
Just protecting deomcracy will not work, society will not let it work because democracy can also be unjust in the form of mob rule, which like gang-rape can be the worst type of injustice.
You half to protect freedom, especially the freedom to own your property and earnings without excessive taxation, but also the freedom to copy things without being criminalized, both of these are freedoms that must exist inspite of the mob.
We have a tool to: Technology. And it's time to use it to protect our liquid assets, and our rights to copy without being criminalized. With technology, we have a median of exchanging value and information even if 99.99% of the population wants to beat us into oblivion for it. The sooner we use this tool, the better it will be for everyone.
I can't believe how many half crazed lunatics I've herd saying that if you don't like the law - vote and write your congressman. What a crock (thank God Rosa Parks didn't listen to that crap). Finally there is someone suggesting a workable solution, civil disobedience. This hits them right where it counts and gets straight to the core issue - it is wrong to derive value by restricting the copying practices of others.
I can't believe how many people actually try to treat copyrights like some kind of enlightened incentive property right. What a bunch of garbage - what if I came along and said "There is no incentive to grow cotton without slave properties, c'mon - don't you care about the farmers? If you free them, you're a dirty little thief!
I can't tell you how many times people told me that linux was a "toy" oppeating system not fit for commercial use and would never replace more serious UNIX solutions like SCO. That Linux might be OK for a non critical print server, but other than that SCO was it and would always rule. Well, well, well - if I'm not hearing the same thing from Sun today?
there is a good argument for encouraging a two party system, imagine a scenario like this
liberal #1 party has 16% of voter support
liberal #2 party has 16% of voter support
conservative #3 party has 16% of voter support
conservative #4 party has 16% of voter support
neo nazi party #5 has 17% voter support
neo nazi party #6 has 17% of voter support
The neo nazi's win even if you have runnoffs, even though most the people hate them.
BTW, I'm libertarian.
The simple fact is that p2p is not just about music, but who controlls information - and what we can do with it. Like it or not, all the major conflicts in the world are about information, what people know, and what that leads people to believe, and how they react. P2P is not about music, but about controll - and if this issue can not be resolved in the USA, one of the most powerfull and free contries in the world (inspite of all its problems) then it has a snowballs chance in hell of being resolved anywhere for a long time. There are litterally trillions at stake, and billions of lives will be influenced by how this battle plays out.
The USA is suffering a lot of pressure as it enters the information age, and has really cracked down hard in many unjust ways - you can be rest assured that this evil will be magnified 100 fold when this "title wave" hit countries that don't have a strong foundation of liberties. We owe it to these people to solve these problems now, before they really get out of hand. If we can not help ourselves as hell breaks out here, then we will certainly not be able to help them when it comes their way too.
When people "freeload" on information - this is not a burden on societies resources, and that people think of information like they would of pyhsical property is half the problem. Linux and it's developers are doing fine without this "protection", and I would be very happy if all of society adopted this alternative.
The copyright form of protection is a farce, it is like the plantation masters of the 1850's saying they had no incentive to grow cotton without laws that protect their slave properties. But it is not a form of protection, it is a form of controll over others.
The alternative is to let all information be free. If getting rid of copyrights causes someone to loose controll over say 100K worth of "intellectual property" in return for free use of billions of dollars worth of other "intellectual properties" then only a fool would consider it a loss.
For someone like me who hates copyrights, that's a hard thing to say - but the simple fact is this. The problem isn't the term of copyrights, but our very belief that it's allright gain benefit by restricting the copying practices of others to begin with. Copyright monopolies are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until they are cut off at the root. The DMCA, infinite extensions, sentences worse than murders get, are only a symptom - not the cause.
The cause of all these problems is our own moral failure to see copyrights not as some type of incentive or property rights, but as the evil form of controll that they are. It reminds me of indentured servitude - it started out as short term, un-inheritable, for all races, and usually offered land at the end of the term. But unfortunately it set the seeds for a system of slavery that became unbearable and ripped the USA apart, now I see the same with "intellectual properties" - if we don't cut it off at the root, it will just come back to destroy us in another form.
The simple fact is that we keep trying to attack the branches and not the vine at the root. Civil disobedience of copyrights is the only way to go. It is easy to do, impossible to enforce, at attacks them at the core. They're core is a lot more vulnerable than ours is, and even if we just counter some of their cheezy guilt trips about stealing food from the mouths of artists, that alone could have a huge difference.
Copyrights are not a free market property right, but a bullshit government granted monopoly that cause all sorts of incompatabilities, and stagnate innovation. In fact most big corporations are not free market at all, but feed off of similar government regulations, special treatment, and bullshit. (including the federal reserve, he didn't say that but I put it in for him)
In the copyright area, Linux gets arround this by being free and transparent, but that makes it a threat to the other people who make a living by fscking the ignorant when it comes to software. However, most people don't have the intellectual or personal balls to say that copyrights are bullshit - so instead they all bicker over stupid things (eg Lessing)
If they should be able to run code at our computers, they increase the security risk, since viruses may exploit these programs.
That's why this will only encourage more defiance of copyrights - because the chances of any one of us having our security breached is much less if we all insist and expect each other to not support them. I think copyrights are old-world, and the sooner we get rid of them, the better.
Any nice libertarian knows that just because the government calls something a right - does not mean that it is. You are assuming that copyrights are some type of free market property right, and the GPL bypasses it. I am assuming that copyrights are not a genuine property right at all, and the GPL minimizes the dammage caused by trying to pretend that it is.
The notion that copyrights are free market is bullshit, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
I would like to remind you that democracy is a means of protecting individual liberties, not an end in itself. It is a tool, and like any tool it can be abused. We could always vote away our freedom of speech, we could always vote in a "hitler" - but just because we voted it does not make it just or acceptable.
Democracy is simply about people who have rights that exist above government who organize in the form of government to secure thir rights (which is also a right). If people wish to secure their rights in other ways too, that is their option - and in fact a duty if the current way isn't good enough.
I'm getting sick and tired of vendors like AOL and Microsoft writing to and constantly "upgrading" my harddrive without having any way of checking or approving what's going on. Now I can set it up so that my Linux box is constantly watching my Microsoft box and other softqware I use.