Our stake is all the home and small business computers that we own and the free use we make of our computers.
Today, many people have a personal computer at home. Usually this computer is connected to the Internet, and is used to send and receive mail, to surf the Web, to listen to music, to find information, to do many things, and even, sometimes, to play movies.
Today your home computer, the computer that you bought and paid for, is under your control. Today no one is watching you when you use it. No publisher, no secret police, no operating system company. If you bought and paid for your computer, then in the privacy of your home you may do all these things:
1. You may buy a copy of a movie recorded on DVD. You may watch this movie
whenever you please. You may make copies of this movie, some of which
may be exact copies, others of which may be variant copies.
2. You may buy a copy of music recorded on CD or DVD. You may play this
music whenever you please. You may make copies of this music, some of
which may be exact copies, others of which may be variant copies.
3. You may sample and fuse and intermix many different strands of movie and
music and text. You may play what you have made at private parties in
your house.
4. You may have a personal web page whose content you create using your
computer. You may manage your website using whatever tools you please.
5. You may install an operating system different from the one the computer
came with. This operating system might be one you downloaded off the
net. You may use this operating system to connect to the Net, and you
may freely send your work to others on the Net, as they can send their
stuff to you. If the system is a GNU/Linux or free BSD system, you may
look at all the source code of this operating system. If you can
program, you may modify the operating system by rewriting parts of it,
or adding to it, or removing parts of it. If you choose, you may share
your work with others by placing copies of your code on a website, or by
emailing copies to other people. In turn, other people may modify your
work. Groups of programmers and users may freely work together to
improve certain programs, or to learn about computers, or even just to
make art.
6. Without asking permission of anyone, you may modify the hardware of your
computer, and you may sell the resulting modified computer.
Note: Today part of the legal infrastructure for DRM is already in place. In 1998 A law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed by the Congress of the United States and signed into law. The DMCA makes illegal some acts falling under 1 through 6 above. But so far, in practice, the great majority of people in the world today may do everything in 1 to 6 without fear of suits at law nor fear of criminal prosecution. A few people and companies have been sued or prosecuted under the DMCA for doing things that before passage of the DMCA were not only reasonable to do, but legal as well. For what full enforcement of DMCA would do see the note
http://www.panix.com/~jays/why.the.dmca.must.be. re pealed
Here is our position as stakeholders today:
Today, once we have bought a computer, we are the full owners of that computer. We may freely use it in the privacy of our house to do many things, some listed above. We may also freely use the Net to send our works privately to others, and also to openly publish our works. We may use our computers and we may use the Net for our own personal objectives, and for our business purposes. And businesses may use their computers and the Net for their partly public and partly private purposes.
DRM is theft.
The first question we must answer is "What is DRM?". DRM is the legal, contractual, economic, hardware, and software infrastructure designed and intended by a loose alliance of cartels and monopolies to take away your right to own and privately use a computer. No full DRM exists in the world today, though pieces of DRM have been successfully enacted into law and tiny bits of DRM hardware and software have been placed in some home movie playing and recording devices. Every single piece of DRM is meant to help attain the objective of the anti-ownership alliance: to get control of every personal computer in the world.
In a world under DRM, what becomes of the six freedoms we today enjoy?
1. You may still buy a copy of a movie recorded on DVD. But there will be
far fewer movies available on DVD. You may not watch this movie
whenever you please, at least not without paying a fee every time you
watch. The movie may expire and you may have to buy another copy. You
may not make any copies of this movie.
2. You may still buy a copy of music recorded on CD or DVD. But there will
be far less music available on CD or DVD. You may not play this
music whenever you please, at least not without paying a fee every time
you listen. The music may expire and you may have to buy another copy.
You may not make any copies of this music.
3. You may not sample and fuse and intermix many different strands of movie
and music and text. Since you will not be able to make mixes, you will
not be able to play mixes at private parties in your house.
4. You must get a license to have a personal web page whose content you
create using your computer. You must get a special license to create
music or movies. You may not manage your website using what tools you
please, but are required to use only tools you have a license for.
5. You may not install an operating system different from the one the
computer came with. Installing a different operating system is a
felony. No operating system is freely available on the Net. You may
use only the operating system that came installed on the computer to
connect to the Net. Use of any other operating system to connect to the
Net is a felony. Possession of a GNU/Linux or free BSD system is a
felony. All operating systems must be licensed by a joint
government-cartel-monopoly licensing body. You may not look at the
source code of any licensed operating system. You may not modify the
operating system in any way. You are not allowed to distribute by any
means any unlicensed program.
6. Modification of the hardware of any personal computer is a felony,
unless you do so as an employee of a cartel member or monopoly member of
the DRM alliance. Distribution of modified hardware is an even more
serious offense under DRM law.
Further, under DRM, every computer sold is required to contain special hardware and software which:
1. spies on every keystroke
2. reports to the DRM alliance activities which the DRM alliance might not like
3. enables the DRM alliance to take direct control of your computer,
whether you want to hand your computer over or no.
DRM is theft. And it is theft on a grand scale. About one billion personal computers have been sold over the past twenty years. The DRM alliance proposes to take the next billion computers, and the billions after that, away from us.
The EFF is COMPLETELY inadequate for doing this, and has proven so time and time again....Let the EFF do what the EFF does, which is defending cases and being laywers.
And let the PEOPLE do the PEOPLE's business, which is passing laws.
We need a Tammany Hall like operation
First, the courts can not be depended upon to uphold the constitution.
Secondly, the bulk of the common law and case law uses language which disadvantages the property rights of individuals in regard to copyright, and considers fair use ONLY as a defense against copyright violation. A statute which reverses this language will affect every court case by giving new language to work with.
This is really not as bad news as it might seems, and it gives those of us
main stream advocates a chance to expose just how radical the position of the MPAA is.
What we need to do is capitilize on this opportunity and expose the radical enemies of the
public for the political radicals that they are. In addition, the MPAA is showing us exactly
how to take the steps necessary to defend our fourth amemndment rights under the US Constitution
in regard to digital media and privately owned digital devices.
NY Fairuse is willing, with the help of it's sister organization, NYLXS, and with broad
co-operation, it begin in Manhattan in May to gather together a broad coalition of IT
Industry members, Librarians, Educators, Free Software Advocates, musicians, artisits, actors,
and Internet Information Providers the Digital Property Protection Discussion Group.
The purpose of forming this group is to draft and pass legislation which protects
individuals 4th amendment rights with regard to their digital devices and media.
The legislation to be drafted will accomplsih the following main stream objectives which
all reasonable people can expect:
All copyrights to individual scores, writings, and recordings will be returned to the
original artist after a period of 10 years.
No technology can be deployed which spies on, wiretaps or descloses privately owned information
which is stored on digital devices by any government agency or private 3rd party without the
issuance of a publically pronounced annd disclosed warrant l limited to a specific criminal
investigation.
All copyright cases must prove, prior to a judgement of guilt, proof that the actions in question
did not infringe on Fair Use, and the individuals rights under the 4th and 1st ammendment of the Bill
of rights US Constition.
Ownership of all physical media and devices to read such media, is the sole property of the purchaser
of the media, without an expressely negotiated and signed contract between both the copyright holder
and the purchaser.
No technological software or hardware method can be deployed in a digital product available for normal
retail sale which inhibits in any way the full enjoyment of the property by the purchasers, regardless of
any agreement between the designer of the hardware or software products. Such agreements are null, and
not contractable.
Copyright is an exception to Fair Use as it limited the ability for individuals to enjoy their private
property and express themselves with the use of such copyrighted materials. Fair Use is a doctrin to be
based on the 4th and 1st amendments of the Constitutions.
Individuals have the right to express themselves to others about the means, mechanism and workings of
all digital devices, including but not limited to discussion on how to make fair use of media, how to
improve such devices, or to reverse engineer all such devices and the allgorithims which are used to
help them display, copy or run media.
We need to get as many big guns on this as possible and then relentlessly campaign, actively working to
elect supporters and unelect opposition. In fact, we should look to defeat, not just the proposed spyware
legistlation, but also defeat Senator Hollings
WE CAN force him from office, because he's a radical.
The problem in getting Federal procurement and local procurement are different and need to be looked at separately. But the big trouble in getting either procurement is essentially the same. Very few members of the Free Software Community is either prepared, interested or capable of placing Free Software into Government with the kind of labor that such an effort requires. And the result is that Free Software users are suffering badly at the hands of proprietary software companies willing to invest in the effort to gain these important contract.
In the case of the Federal Government, the Website http://www.fedbizops.gov/ is an archiac maze of half understandable requests for bids, which require a decent project manager to target and follow up on. It might take 2 people nearly full time to navigate this sites IT requests and to follow these up. Is it possible for Free Software groups to actually work through this process? Why yes. But it's a lot of work, and it must be initially done without pay. LUGS would need to organize to hammer on this. And that's the rub, Free Software users are essentially lazy unless a project stimulates them.
In addition, Free Software leadership seems to be uninterested in the economic interests of Free Software users. They seem to believe that if anything other than 'Freedom' is motivation to work with software that it undermines the movement. I hope that someone can begin the process of showing the FSF, and other groups that you must look after the economic interests of Free Software users if you are to protect and guarantee the 'Freedom' that Free Software is to guarantee. If people are to be enabled and Free to use Free Software, then they MUST have REASONABLE choices and opportunity to opt for using Free Software, and that means the WORK MUST BE DONE, and the economic benefits must be properly doled out to supporters in the trenches of the Free Software movement.
With NYLXS in New York, we are desperately trying to address these issues, and in fact, the paper, "The Path from Here" is written to largely address this issue and rally the troops. Let's all hope that we NYLXS and tohers succeed in their efforts, and that Free Software can become truly unshackled and the economic engine it's founders envisioned
At the New York Linux Scene (NYLXS) we made the primary mission of the group one of broad based education based on teaching how Free Software empowers individuals. In my view, the key to teaching about GNU systems, Linux and other Free Software platforms, is by conducting lessons in a fashion which emphasises how a Free Software platforms practically serve the end user by enabling them and encouraging broarder skill developement and usage. Many practicle examples are available which clearly show how use of Free Software enables the budding MS certified admin or regular Windows desktop user how using Free Software enables, while use of the proprietary ensnarls the user and cripples the ability of the user in accomplishing the important day to day missions so important to their personal lives and businesses.
A short history of the continual upgrade elevator of systems with proprietary software, and the litter of useless "hot technologies" from Fox Pro to Java Applets reinforce the absolute need for real professionals to focus on technologies which can not only withstand the test of time, but can have the freedom to be extended rationally and to evolve into a reusable body knowable over decades rather than months.
We do everything we can to emphasis the enabling capability of Free Software, and our whole program is designed to teach empowerment through digital systems, the kind of empowerment ONLY possible when the systems that you use respect the political freedoms needed to guarantee the freedom to innovate. This freedom to innovate is only possible through extenssive use and training in Free Software systems. And this is where you have to focus.
In order to drive home this point, you need to make them feel empowered through the use of Free Software. They must be encouraged to become involved and to take pocession of their systems. For this reason, we require our Linux 1 class to learn to install their own computers, to set up networks, experiement and make choices. Each student buys a machine, which in the end they fully own, software and hardware. Once they feel the power of real ownership of their systems, they become extreamly enthusiatic about Free Software and naturally develope into advocates for use of Free Software in their work and living environment.
In the end, the key to teaching this group of students is no different than teaching grade school students math. You have to focus on your mission to empower the student, and to develope their confidence to be a creative participants in their own futures, in this case, through these marvelous devices which we call digital computers.
The stark differnce between systems designed to ensnarl and exploit, as opposed to free software systems which are designed to empower, is best taught through hands on participation where they come to feel a sense of private pocession of their systems.
The extent to which technology is used as a means to infringe on our constitutional rights has only been growing. This leads us to consider these as constitutional issues.
It seems that in the 1930's, the threat of using digital technology to infringe on people's rights, and to squash competition was so clear with the works of Huksly and Well's, and yet today, we are so used to being infringed upon, that when Congress suggests a law which would allow Corperations to control the communications which private computer systems can conduct, that we just yawn.
Of course Fair Use is embedded into the constituion, how else can it be adequately explained. Copyright MUST be an exception to Fair Use.
The recent article on Overclockers, also featured on Slashdot, on Saturday
April 6th, 2002, is a well thought out representation of the case that copying
is not a constitutional right. While the case is presented nicely, and with
sound logic, it has a number of fatal flaws within it which causes the author
to draw the wrong conclusion. Since this article is gaining decent notoriety,
we at New Yorkers Fair Use (http://wwwnyfairuse.org) felt it necessary to fix
the mistakes within this article and to present the correct opposing legal and
human rights premise for the correct analysis of not only copyright law, but
also basic civil rights at this of the dawning digital age.
Recently, the Free Software group, NYLXS (http://www.nylxs.com) and New
Yorkers for Fair Use joined together and made a special lobbying trip to
Washington DC for the purposes of educating the New York City Congressional
delegation, and specifically, Congressman Anthony Weiner, who sits on the
Intellectual Property sub-committee in the House Judicial committee, about the
increasing dangers to Fair Use and private property being presented by
Congress in the interest of the music, publishing and movie industry. The
issues outlined in both the Overclockrs article and by Laws like the DMCA, or
the proposed SCSS bill coming out of Senator Hollings Chair in the U.S. Senate
are the same ones that the NYLXS group tried to present to the Congressman.
And these points are remunerated here for the benefit of the wider community
so that they are better informed about your individual rights under the
Constitution and statutory law with regards to your property and security in
your home.
In the article at Overclockers it was stated:
Fair use is never mentioned in the Constitution (not even mentioned in
any copyright law until 1976). Rather, it originated in the courts during the
nineteenth century as a means by which producers of intellectual property
could make limited use of the work of others (and allow somewhat freer use for
nonprofit educational purposes).
While the initial observation is correct, the conclusion
about Fair Use not being based within the constitution is just not correct.
Many individual activities which we engage in daily are not explicitly
mentioned within the body of the US Constitution and yet have full protection
under the Constitution since they are implied by the specific articles within
that sacred document. The Constitution does not specifically say that you can
sleep in your bed, but of course you can. It doesn't explicitly give you the
right to change your tire, but of course this activity is guaranteed to you.
Specifically, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution deals with the issues
of property rights and general personal security. It says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall
not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Like many of the Bill of Rights and the other amendments and
clauses of the U.S. Constitution, this paragraph gives broad rights as
individuals in an attempt to guarantee individual freedom. They guarantee
your ability to participate fully in the larger society without fear of
reprisal and repression. It would not have been reasonable for the founding
fathers to have tried to enumerate every individual activity, both at that
time, in the late 18th Century, and for the the future. This is especially
true since a broad general legal and human rights principle was fully capable
of being presented, and indeed needed to be clearly stated within the
definition of a limited representative government. Such was the mission the
U.S. Constitutional Committee and what it was mandated to draft at that time.
Since the early adoption of the Constitution, it has always
been the job of the U.S. Courts, and the Supreme Court specifically, to handle
individual applications of events to the law. Simply put, this is what courts
do. The application of Constitutional Law to the case of personal copying is
just one more application. Indeed, I can find no other conclusion but that
individual personal copying can be anything but Constitutionally protected.
In order to understand this, let's look at the history of
Fair Use as a Doctrine. The article on Overclockers said that the history of
Copyright begins 19th Century. This is just wrong, and contributes to the
authors misunderstanding. Fair Use is a doctrine which begins prior to the
adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The time line published at
http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html can be helpful in understanding
the issues of both copyright and fair use in our legal environment. Fair Use
was first introduced as a doctrine simultaneously with the introduction of the
first copyright laws in England with the Statute of Anne by British Parliament
in the year 1710. When that quaint statute defined limits to booksellers and
publishers with regard to price gauging, of all things, and demanded that
public copies of all protected works remain with several important libraries
and universities it began to define Fair Use. In addition, the Statute of
Anne expanded the publics investment of intellectual assets, in defiance of
common law at that time, by the formation of the "Public Domain"
after 28 years of protection for any work, and assuring the import of foreign
works in Greek or Latin would not be prevented by the statute.
The Statute of Anne was aimed for the technological problems
of it's day, when the cost of printing was very expensive and Booksellers and
Printers were often one of the same In addition, the statute from the very
beginning was tied to the economic impact of copying, and it clearly subjected
the individual to limitations on the sale of registered works, as opposed to a
broader prevention of routine copying, or quoting.
In American Copyright Law, much debate was given to the need
to create exclusive monopolies for works and inventions, and it was assumed
that without an explicit exception for such a monopoly, that Congress would
not have the power in infringe on either Free Speech or Individual Property
Rights. After much debate, the monopoly clause was added into the U.S.
Constitution, and then the Bill of Rights was added. Since that time, lots of
debate has taken place in the courts as to the nature and the legal premise
for The Fair Use Doctrine. Up until recently, courts have come to view Fair
Use as a doctrine based on Copyright Law. There has been a body of law which
holds that Fair Use emulates from the 1st and 4th amendment, but practical
cases have not made it essential to fair use doctrine. Instead, fair use has
been viewed by the courts mostly as part of general copyright law. Upon
copying something, if you get sued, then you can respond to the law suit with
a charge of fair use. However, just as the Statute of Anne was aimed to
address the technological issues of it's day, and was inadequate to address
the growing technological changes as technology evolved, the same is true
about a large segment of the current copyright case law. Yesterday the courts
had the luxury of ignoring the practical questions of the individual property
rights and the limitations of those rights by copyright claims, because
practically speaking, they didn't exist. Even the copy machine didn't make it
practicle for wholesale printing of books, and neither did the VCR make it
practical for wholesale copying of videos. Today things are different.
The original assumptions for monopoly control of human
intellectual works and the inherent infringement to the security of private
property in the home need to be revisited because digitalization of
communications has made it possible to intrude on the home and businesses at
every turn. Almost as soon as the phone became prevalent, Congress was called
upon to pass wiretapping laws. In this case, the communications taking place
actually traveled through a privately owned infrastructure, and so wiretapping
by the phone company had to be addressed legislatively. But the government
could never spy on you without a warrant. In the case of the individual
purchase and acquisition of a disk and a communication device such as a
general purpose PC, the ownership of these items is clearly the individual and
has full protection under the 4th amendment.
A large body of both state and federal law deals with the
very nature of a sale. Money is exchanged for goods. It's fundamentally
simple and there are limits to that which any contact can be forced upon the
buyer under common conditions without the expressed existence of a written
contract which restricts the private enjoyment of the use of that property.
As my property I can paint my walls pink, I can read to my children, I can
cook my dinner and I have a right to copy my property to my property. If your
not finding the constitutional right to copy, there it is in plain view. If I
want to play my DVD on my blender, nobody, not the RIAA, not the MPAA, not
even Pat Schoeder, has the right to stop me, or to prevent me from making
copies of it on tape or making any other copies.
Lastly, it's important to understand that technology has
raised the issue of the Constitutional components of the Fair Use Doctrine.
Clearly, we must now see that unless we are willing to be spied on, and
infringed upon in a most basic way, and to dispense with our rights under the
4th Amendment, then we need to return to the Constitutional assumption that
Fair Use is the embodiment of basic human rights, including the 1st and 4th
Amendments, upon which the basic principles of a free society and free
government can not dispense with in order to assure it's survival. Copyright
is a limited government monopoly granted to entities. They are nothing more
than a limited exception to the Bill of Rights permitted to Congress for the
public good. They can not be allowed to be extended beyond their traditional
restriction of the granting a monopoly of commerce in certain intellectual
works and artifacts.
I'm so sick of this sort of backwards thinking. Because users don't understand their windows file system, it cost billion of dollars a year answering tech support calls for lost icons.
Users are not too stupid to understand the basics of the bash command line AND use drag and drop. But they are too stupid to learn JUST drag and drop and effectively use their computers...regardless of the OS.
What University is this. This sounds similar to vital books. It's outragous. The University has a digital copy of something and RESTRICTs the educational process artificially, throwing stumbling blocks in from of students.
This is one of the most short sited replies I've ever seen.
The history of European Copyright summerarly rejected in the US because it was viewed universally as an abuse used by European Monarch and the Church to give out special favors or impose censorship. The sheet music copyright issues which occured in Europe AFTER the American Revolution demostrated everything wrong with European copyright. The copyright neither encorauged publication or guaraneteed libert.
It was strictly treated as an abused priveledge to be extended to the advantages of despot rulers.
The result was gas house gang riots, beating and abuses.
It wasn't until the break with European tradition that American Copyright Law realized the political implications, where are ENORMOUS.
In a word, American Copyright has NO BASIS in European Common Law and was an intentional break from the abuses inherent in it.
Just for the record, Eupean Copyright STILL SUCKS
Ruben
http://www.nyfairuse.org
||According to the letter of the law, distributing a
tool (and, according to Kaplan, linking to a distributor) is illegal, although writing your own tool is not.||
That was basically what Bender said, who is a Law professor at NYU who was interviewed in the Village Voice. The letter of the law is unconstitutional because the restriction of access can not be cleaved from the copyright restrictions of an item. Any license which restricts the access to a copyrighted material illegally restricts the purchaser of their inalianable constitutional rights by illegally extending copyright.
In other words the Jugde is saying that Fair Use is different from legal non-infringing uses. The Lawyer should have said, - no - Fair Use IS ALL non-infringing uses, and small quotes of text from the press is only one example of that protection which happens to be handled in case law. The presumtion of the Constitution is that, as property, all rights not expressly given to the copyright holder remains the inalianalbe rights of the public. And Congress can not extend those rights without a Constitutional Amedment.
Fair Use - is the key too all our political freedoms. The word copyright should not be used. The word Monopoly should replace it.
The Judge asked for examples of violation of Fair Use and the Panel could not come up with an answer to satisfy the Judge.
If the Judge can't protect the property rights of of ordinary citizens, then a fundemental education on Fair USe needs to be undertaken by the Computer Community. I MUST be able to play a DVD on a common kitchen blender if I want to, and be able to publish the information permitting me to do so. Anything less is a breach of my basic constitutional rights.
Linux would not be able to be leagal created today because of the obstruction of Fair Use and Spyware.
They bneed to look no further than Students being FORCED to buy all their books on DVD at NYU to see the obvious far use implications.
The arguement is very simple and the EFF et al have screwed it up.
Copyright is a balance between users property rights and freedom of speech rights, and the limited franchise given by the government to individual creaters. No License can leagally further restrict the owner of a media without violating our civil rights. You can no more agree to such a license then sell yourself into slavery. It just can't be done. The DMCA is uncontitutional because it prevents access of the owner to the information contained on HIS/HER Media. They Own the media and have a constitutional right to sue it in any way they see fit, short of an actually copyright violation.
Congress can not pass a law limited these basic rights any more than it can pass a law to prevent the free press. The secure use of our property within our homes, and the freedom to speak about reverse engineering is our inalianable rights.
You are leagally protected to sell anything you OWN - INCLUDING Software. It's called the right of second sale and NOTHING in a Copyright License can inhibit it.
And I really don't apreciate you putting out misinformation like this. It feeds on itself.
The reason you can't sell it is because MS makes sure every computer has a copy preinstalled - preventing a second sales market.
>>
Re:Only Americans are stupid enough to use PHP.
on
Announcing PHP-GTK
·
· Score: 1
Right
Which is why you should never use PHP. It scales like crap, is fundementally flawed in it's data typing, lacks serious modularity or OO-design.
You waste more time debugging it than anything else, and it's error messaging system is useless.
Use PHP - and spend weeks fixing what would take moments in Perl..
We really deserve everything we get. How many people sit in here whining about the violations
of our rights under the guise of Copyright Protection, and then do NOTHING to influence Congress on the issue.
We now have DMCA protected books critical to Dental Education which can be aquired only under a limited license for 180 days at a time. Our basic ability of read infomration is under attack by the printed publishers, using the DMCA as it's stick. We have Pat Schroeder telling us Libraries are a communist plot.... and narly a voice is heard from informed Open Sourced people.
Where is the Open Source Lobby on capital hill?
http://www.nyfairuse.org
The reason why a town can't afford a public library is because the town is being ripped off by publishers who are exploiting the public of the cultural heritage it requires for survival.
Schools and Libraries are a necessity, and profits for publishers are optional.
One copy of every book in print should be made by the Library of Congress, and copies digitally issued to any public library in the country, for free. This is what should be done in exchange of the copyright license, to assure public access.
No they aren't. Writers create these works and publishes try to exploit them for profit. Writer create works which then become part of our shared culture. Writers are given a limited license to the material which is owned by everyone, in exchange for their partipation in society. Publishers create nothing, but try to exploit our culture for their own profit.
Readers are human beings who participate in our society by reading. Reading is a fundemental right of a free citizen. A free society depends on citizens ability to read freely, regardless of their economic condition. And a free society has a responsibility to make it's shared culture freely available for review and education.
Selling a book is no different then selling anything else. If it can be done at a profit, fine. If not - they go out of business. Since books as easly copied today, their is no need to purchase them at all and only one orginal copy is needed, that copy that the auther makes available.
BTW - Knowledge is NOT copyrightable
Not only do people have a right to use their native culture without cost, it's their god given right.
Slashdot Mirror
We are the stakeholders.
. re pealed
Our stake is all the home and small business computers that we own and the
free use we make of our computers.
Today, many people have a personal computer at home. Usually this computer
is connected to the Internet, and is used to send and receive mail, to surf
the Web, to listen to music, to find information, to do many things, and
even, sometimes, to play movies.
Today your home computer, the computer that you bought and paid for, is
under your control. Today no one is watching you when you use it. No
publisher, no secret police, no operating system company. If you bought
and paid for your computer, then in the privacy of your home you may do all
these things:
1. You may buy a copy of a movie recorded on DVD. You may watch this movie
whenever you please. You may make copies of this movie, some of which
may be exact copies, others of which may be variant copies.
2. You may buy a copy of music recorded on CD or DVD. You may play this
music whenever you please. You may make copies of this music, some of
which may be exact copies, others of which may be variant copies.
3. You may sample and fuse and intermix many different strands of movie and
music and text. You may play what you have made at private parties in
your house.
4. You may have a personal web page whose content you create using your
computer. You may manage your website using whatever tools you please.
5. You may install an operating system different from the one the computer
came with. This operating system might be one you downloaded off the
net. You may use this operating system to connect to the Net, and you
may freely send your work to others on the Net, as they can send their
stuff to you. If the system is a GNU/Linux or free BSD system, you may
look at all the source code of this operating system. If you can
program, you may modify the operating system by rewriting parts of it,
or adding to it, or removing parts of it. If you choose, you may share
your work with others by placing copies of your code on a website, or by
emailing copies to other people. In turn, other people may modify your
work. Groups of programmers and users may freely work together to
improve certain programs, or to learn about computers, or even just to
make art.
6. Without asking permission of anyone, you may modify the hardware of your
computer, and you may sell the resulting modified computer.
Note: Today part of the legal infrastructure for DRM is already in place.
In 1998 A law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed by the
Congress of the United States and signed into law. The DMCA makes illegal
some acts falling under 1 through 6 above. But so far, in practice, the
great majority of people in the world today may do everything in 1 to 6
without fear of suits at law nor fear of criminal prosecution. A few
people and companies have been sued or prosecuted under the DMCA for doing
things that before passage of the DMCA were not only reasonable to do, but
legal as well. For what full enforcement of DMCA would do see the note
http://www.panix.com/~jays/why.the.dmca.must.be
Here is our position as stakeholders today:
Today, once we have bought a computer, we are the full owners of that
computer. We may freely use it in the privacy of our house to do many
things, some listed above. We may also freely use the Net to send our
works privately to others, and also to openly publish our works. We may
use our computers and we may use the Net for our own personal objectives,
and for our business purposes. And businesses may use their computers and
the Net for their partly public and partly private purposes.
DRM is theft.
The first question we must answer is "What is DRM?". DRM is the legal,
contractual, economic, hardware, and software infrastructure designed and
intended by a loose alliance of cartels and monopolies to take away your
right to own and privately use a computer. No full DRM exists in the world
today, though pieces of DRM have been successfully enacted into law and
tiny bits of DRM hardware and software have been placed in some home movie
playing and recording devices. Every single piece of DRM is meant to help
attain the objective of the anti-ownership alliance: to get control of
every personal computer in the world.
In a world under DRM, what becomes of the six freedoms we today enjoy?
1. You may still buy a copy of a movie recorded on DVD. But there will be
far fewer movies available on DVD. You may not watch this movie
whenever you please, at least not without paying a fee every time you
watch. The movie may expire and you may have to buy another copy. You
may not make any copies of this movie.
2. You may still buy a copy of music recorded on CD or DVD. But there will
be far less music available on CD or DVD. You may not play this
music whenever you please, at least not without paying a fee every time
you listen. The music may expire and you may have to buy another copy.
You may not make any copies of this music.
3. You may not sample and fuse and intermix many different strands of movie
and music and text. Since you will not be able to make mixes, you will
not be able to play mixes at private parties in your house.
4. You must get a license to have a personal web page whose content you
create using your computer. You must get a special license to create
music or movies. You may not manage your website using what tools you
please, but are required to use only tools you have a license for.
5. You may not install an operating system different from the one the
computer came with. Installing a different operating system is a
felony. No operating system is freely available on the Net. You may
use only the operating system that came installed on the computer to
connect to the Net. Use of any other operating system to connect to the
Net is a felony. Possession of a GNU/Linux or free BSD system is a
felony. All operating systems must be licensed by a joint
government-cartel-monopoly licensing body. You may not look at the
source code of any licensed operating system. You may not modify the
operating system in any way. You are not allowed to distribute by any
means any unlicensed program.
6. Modification of the hardware of any personal computer is a felony,
unless you do so as an employee of a cartel member or monopoly member of
the DRM alliance. Distribution of modified hardware is an even more
serious offense under DRM law.
Further, under DRM, every computer sold is required to contain special
hardware and software which:
1. spies on every keystroke
2. reports to the DRM alliance activities which the DRM alliance might not like
3. enables the DRM alliance to take direct control of your computer,
whether you want to hand your computer over or no.
DRM is theft. And it is theft on a grand scale. About one billion
personal computers have been sold over the past twenty years. The DRM
alliance proposes to take the next billion computers, and the billions after
that, away from us.
And let the PEOPLE do the PEOPLE's business, which is passing laws. We need a Tammany Hall like operation
That's a good question.
The reason for this istwo fold:
First, the courts can not be depended upon to uphold
the constitution.
Secondly, the bulk of the common law and case law uses language which disadvantages the property rights of
individuals in regard to copyright, and considers fair use
ONLY as a defense against copyright violation. A statute
which reverses this language will affect every court case
by giving new language to work with.
Ruben
What we need to do is capitilize on this opportunity and expose the radical enemies of the public for the political radicals that they are. In addition, the MPAA is showing us exactly how to take the steps necessary to defend our fourth amemndment rights under the US Constitution in regard to digital media and privately owned digital devices.
NY Fairuse is willing, with the help of it's sister organization, NYLXS, and with broad co-operation, it begin in Manhattan in May to gather together a broad coalition of IT Industry members, Librarians, Educators, Free Software Advocates, musicians, artisits, actors, and Internet Information Providers the Digital Property Protection Discussion Group.
The purpose of forming this group is to draft and pass legislation which protects individuals 4th amendment rights with regard to their digital devices and media.
The legislation to be drafted will accomplsih the following main stream objectives which all reasonable people can expect:
All copyrights to individual scores, writings, and recordings will be returned to the original artist after a period of 10 years.
No technology can be deployed which spies on, wiretaps or descloses privately owned information which is stored on digital devices by any government agency or private 3rd party without the issuance of a publically pronounced annd disclosed warrant l limited to a specific criminal investigation.
All copyright cases must prove, prior to a judgement of guilt, proof that the actions in question did not infringe on Fair Use, and the individuals rights under the 4th and 1st ammendment of the Bill of rights US Constition.
Ownership of all physical media and devices to read such media, is the sole property of the purchaser of the media, without an expressely negotiated and signed contract between both the copyright holder and the purchaser.
No technological software or hardware method can be deployed in a digital product available for normal retail sale which inhibits in any way the full enjoyment of the property by the purchasers, regardless of any agreement between the designer of the hardware or software products. Such agreements are null, and not contractable.
Copyright is an exception to Fair Use as it limited the ability for individuals to enjoy their private property and express themselves with the use of such copyrighted materials. Fair Use is a doctrin to be based on the 4th and 1st amendments of the Constitutions.
Individuals have the right to express themselves to others about the means, mechanism and workings of all digital devices, including but not limited to discussion on how to make fair use of media, how to improve such devices, or to reverse engineer all such devices and the allgorithims which are used to help them display, copy or run media.
We need to get as many big guns on this as possible and then relentlessly campaign, actively working to elect supporters and unelect opposition. In fact, we should look to defeat, not just the proposed spyware legistlation, but also defeat Senator Hollings
WE CAN force him from office, because he's a radical.
Ruben
In the case of the Federal Government, the Website http://www.fedbizops.gov/ is an archiac maze of half understandable requests for bids, which require a decent project manager to target and follow up on. It might take 2 people nearly full time to navigate this sites IT requests and to follow these up. Is it possible for Free Software groups to actually work through this process? Why yes. But it's a lot of work, and it must be initially done without pay. LUGS would need to organize to hammer on this. And that's the rub, Free Software users are essentially lazy unless a project stimulates them.
In addition, Free Software leadership seems to be uninterested in the economic interests of Free Software users. They seem to believe that if anything other than 'Freedom' is motivation to work with software that it undermines the movement. I hope that someone can begin the process of showing the FSF, and other groups that you must look after the economic interests of Free Software users if you are to protect and guarantee the 'Freedom' that Free Software is to guarantee. If people are to be enabled and Free to use Free Software, then they MUST have REASONABLE choices and opportunity to opt for using Free Software, and that means the WORK MUST BE DONE, and the economic benefits must be properly doled out to supporters in the trenches of the Free Software movement.
With NYLXS in New York, we are desperately trying to address these issues, and in fact, the paper, "The Path from Here" is written to largely address this issue and rally the troops. Let's all hope that we NYLXS and tohers succeed in their efforts, and that Free Software can become truly unshackled and the economic engine it's founders envisioned
Ruben
A short history of the continual upgrade elevator of systems with proprietary software, and the litter of useless "hot technologies" from Fox Pro to Java Applets reinforce the absolute need for real professionals to focus on technologies which can not only withstand the test of time, but can have the freedom to be extended rationally and to evolve into a reusable body knowable over decades rather than months.
We do everything we can to emphasis the enabling capability of Free Software, and our whole program is designed to teach empowerment through digital systems, the kind of empowerment ONLY possible when the systems that you use respect the political freedoms needed to guarantee the freedom to innovate. This freedom to innovate is only possible through extenssive use and training in Free Software systems. And this is where you have to focus.
In order to drive home this point, you need to make them feel empowered through the use of Free Software. They must be encouraged to become involved and to take pocession of their systems. For this reason, we require our Linux 1 class to learn to install their own computers, to set up networks, experiement and make choices. Each student buys a machine, which in the end they fully own, software and hardware. Once they feel the power of real ownership of their systems, they become extreamly enthusiatic about Free Software and naturally develope into advocates for use of Free Software in their work and living environment.
In the end, the key to teaching this group of students is no different than teaching grade school students math. You have to focus on your mission to empower the student, and to develope their confidence to be a creative participants in their own futures, in this case, through these marvelous devices which we call digital computers. The stark differnce between systems designed to ensnarl and exploit, as opposed to free software systems which are designed to empower, is best taught through hands on participation where they come to feel a sense of private pocession of their systems.
Ruben
The extent to which technology is used as a means to infringe on our constitutional rights has only been growing. This leads us to consider these as constitutional issues.
It seems that in the 1930's, the threat of using digital technology to infringe on people's rights, and to squash competition was so clear with the works of Huksly and Well's, and yet today, we are so used to being infringed upon, that when Congress suggests a law which would allow Corperations to control the communications which private computer systems can conduct, that we just yawn.
Of course Fair Use is embedded into the constituion, how else can it be adequately explained. Copyright MUST be an exception to Fair Use.
Fair Use is your rights under the 4th Amendment.
Rebuttal of Editorial on www.overclockers.com by New Yorkers for Fair Use:
by Ruben Safir
Founder of NY Fairuse and President of NYLXS
http://www.nyfairuse.org
http://www.nylxs.com
The recent article on Overclockers, also featured on Slashdot, on Saturday April 6th, 2002, is a well thought out representation of the case that copying is not a constitutional right. While the case is presented nicely, and with sound logic, it has a number of fatal flaws within it which causes the author to draw the wrong conclusion. Since this article is gaining decent notoriety, we at New Yorkers Fair Use (http://wwwnyfairuse.org) felt it necessary to fix the mistakes within this article and to present the correct opposing legal and human rights premise for the correct analysis of not only copyright law, but also basic civil rights at this of the dawning digital age.
Recently, the Free Software group, NYLXS (http://www.nylxs.com) and New Yorkers for Fair Use joined together and made a special lobbying trip to Washington DC for the purposes of educating the New York City Congressional delegation, and specifically, Congressman Anthony Weiner, who sits on the Intellectual Property sub-committee in the House Judicial committee, about the increasing dangers to Fair Use and private property being presented by Congress in the interest of the music, publishing and movie industry. The issues outlined in both the Overclockrs article and by Laws like the DMCA, or the proposed SCSS bill coming out of Senator Hollings Chair in the U.S. Senate are the same ones that the NYLXS group tried to present to the Congressman. And these points are remunerated here for the benefit of the wider community so that they are better informed about your individual rights under the Constitution and statutory law with regards to your property and security in your home.
In the article at Overclockers it was stated:
Fair use is never mentioned in the Constitution (not even mentioned in any copyright law until 1976). Rather, it originated in the courts during the nineteenth century as a means by which producers of intellectual property could make limited use of the work of others (and allow somewhat freer use for nonprofit educational purposes).
While the initial observation is correct, the conclusion about Fair Use not being based within the constitution is just not correct. Many individual activities which we engage in daily are not explicitly mentioned within the body of the US Constitution and yet have full protection under the Constitution since they are implied by the specific articles within that sacred document. The Constitution does not specifically say that you can sleep in your bed, but of course you can. It doesn't explicitly give you the right to change your tire, but of course this activity is guaranteed to you. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution deals with the issues of property rights and general personal security. It says: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Like many of the Bill of Rights and the other amendments and clauses of the U.S. Constitution, this paragraph gives broad rights as individuals in an attempt to guarantee individual freedom. They guarantee your ability to participate fully in the larger society without fear of reprisal and repression. It would not have been reasonable for the founding fathers to have tried to enumerate every individual activity, both at that time, in the late 18th Century, and for the the future. This is especially true since a broad general legal and human rights principle was fully capable of being presented, and indeed needed to be clearly stated within the definition of a limited representative government. Such was the mission the U.S. Constitutional Committee and what it was mandated to draft at that time. Since the early adoption of the Constitution, it has always been the job of the U.S. Courts, and the Supreme Court specifically, to handle individual applications of events to the law. Simply put, this is what courts do. The application of Constitutional Law to the case of personal copying is just one more application. Indeed, I can find no other conclusion but that individual personal copying can be anything but Constitutionally protected. In order to understand this, let's look at the history of Fair Use as a Doctrine. The article on Overclockers said that the history of Copyright begins 19th Century. This is just wrong, and contributes to the authors misunderstanding. Fair Use is a doctrine which begins prior to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The time line published at http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html can be helpful in understanding the issues of both copyright and fair use in our legal environment. Fair Use was first introduced as a doctrine simultaneously with the introduction of the first copyright laws in England with the Statute of Anne by British Parliament in the year 1710. When that quaint statute defined limits to booksellers and publishers with regard to price gauging, of all things, and demanded that public copies of all protected works remain with several important libraries and universities it began to define Fair Use. In addition, the Statute of Anne expanded the publics investment of intellectual assets, in defiance of common law at that time, by the formation of the "Public Domain" after 28 years of protection for any work, and assuring the import of foreign works in Greek or Latin would not be prevented by the statute. The Statute of Anne was aimed for the technological problems of it's day, when the cost of printing was very expensive and Booksellers and Printers were often one of the same In addition, the statute from the very beginning was tied to the economic impact of copying, and it clearly subjected the individual to limitations on the sale of registered works, as opposed to a broader prevention of routine copying, or quoting. In American Copyright Law, much debate was given to the need to create exclusive monopolies for works and inventions, and it was assumed that without an explicit exception for such a monopoly, that Congress would not have the power in infringe on either Free Speech or Individual Property Rights. After much debate, the monopoly clause was added into the U.S. Constitution, and then the Bill of Rights was added. Since that time, lots of debate has taken place in the courts as to the nature and the legal premise for The Fair Use Doctrine. Up until recently, courts have come to view Fair Use as a doctrine based on Copyright Law. There has been a body of law which holds that Fair Use emulates from the 1st and 4th amendment, but practical cases have not made it essential to fair use doctrine. Instead, fair use has been viewed by the courts mostly as part of general copyright law. Upon copying something, if you get sued, then you can respond to the law suit with a charge of fair use. However, just as the Statute of Anne was aimed to address the technological issues of it's day, and was inadequate to address the growing technological changes as technology evolved, the same is true about a large segment of the current copyright case law. Yesterday the courts had the luxury of ignoring the practical questions of the individual property rights and the limitations of those rights by copyright claims, because practically speaking, they didn't exist. Even the copy machine didn't make it practicle for wholesale printing of books, and neither did the VCR make it practical for wholesale copying of videos. Today things are different. The original assumptions for monopoly control of human intellectual works and the inherent infringement to the security of private property in the home need to be revisited because digitalization of communications has made it possible to intrude on the home and businesses at every turn. Almost as soon as the phone became prevalent, Congress was called upon to pass wiretapping laws. In this case, the communications taking place actually traveled through a privately owned infrastructure, and so wiretapping by the phone company had to be addressed legislatively. But the government could never spy on you without a warrant. In the case of the individual purchase and acquisition of a disk and a communication device such as a general purpose PC, the ownership of these items is clearly the individual and has full protection under the 4th amendment. A large body of both state and federal law deals with the very nature of a sale. Money is exchanged for goods. It's fundamentally simple and there are limits to that which any contact can be forced upon the buyer under common conditions without the expressed existence of a written contract which restricts the private enjoyment of the use of that property. As my property I can paint my walls pink, I can read to my children, I can cook my dinner and I have a right to copy my property to my property. If your not finding the constitutional right to copy, there it is in plain view. If I want to play my DVD on my blender, nobody, not the RIAA, not the MPAA, not even Pat Schoeder, has the right to stop me, or to prevent me from making copies of it on tape or making any other copies. Lastly, it's important to understand that technology has raised the issue of the Constitutional components of the Fair Use Doctrine. Clearly, we must now see that unless we are willing to be spied on, and infringed upon in a most basic way, and to dispense with our rights under the 4th Amendment, then we need to return to the Constitutional assumption that Fair Use is the embodiment of basic human rights, including the 1st and 4th Amendments, upon which the basic principles of a free society and free government can not dispense with in order to assure it's survival. Copyright is a limited government monopoly granted to entities. They are nothing more than a limited exception to the Bill of Rights permitted to Congress for the public good. They can not be allowed to be extended beyond their traditional restriction of the granting a monopoly of commerce in certain intellectual works and artifacts.I'm so sick of this sort of backwards thinking. Because users don't understand their windows file system, it cost billion of dollars a year answering tech support calls for lost icons.
Users are not too stupid to understand the basics of the bash command line AND use drag and drop. But they are too stupid to learn JUST drag and drop and effectively use their computers...regardless of the OS.
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/wtc
and see
http://www.brooklynonline.com
What University is this. This sounds similar to vital books. It's outragous. The University has a digital copy of something and RESTRICTs the educational process artificially, throwing stumbling blocks in from of students.
You need to go to a DIFFERENT university.
It's a moral imperitive.
See New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org
That's COMPLETELY not right.
... TO ENCOURGAUGE publications....as OPPOSED to protect the PROPERTY of the AUTHER.
Go back and read the Federalist Papers idiot!!
You miss represent the American Position on Copyright and screw over American protections of Liberty at the same time.
American explicitly and purposefully REJECTED The Queens Anne legal basis for Copyright...in PLAIN ENGLISH in the Constitution....
The English can STILL read English....is that right.
They CAN READ the part about
Ruben
http://www.nyfairuse.org
In terms of Copyright, American DID turn a tool of censorship and privledge into a tool for Democracy.
This is one of the most short sited replies I've ever seen. The history of European Copyright summerarly rejected in the US because it was viewed universally as an abuse used by European Monarch and the Church to give out special favors or impose censorship. The sheet music copyright issues which occured in Europe AFTER the American Revolution demostrated everything wrong with European copyright. The copyright neither encorauged publication or guaraneteed libert. It was strictly treated as an abused priveledge to be extended to the advantages of despot rulers. The result was gas house gang riots, beating and abuses. It wasn't until the break with European tradition that American Copyright Law realized the political implications, where are ENORMOUS. In a word, American Copyright has NO BASIS in European Common Law and was an intentional break from the abuses inherent in it. Just for the record, Eupean Copyright STILL SUCKS Ruben http://www.nyfairuse.org
It's not the business of Corperations to make regulartory decisions. Thta's the roll of goverment.
http://www.nyfairuse.org
||According to the letter of the law, distributing a
tool (and, according to Kaplan, linking to a distributor) is illegal, although writing your own tool is not.||
That was basically what Bender said, who is a Law professor at NYU who was interviewed in the Village Voice. The letter of the law is unconstitutional because the restriction of access can not be cleaved from the copyright restrictions of an item. Any license which restricts the access to a copyrighted material illegally restricts the purchaser of their inalianable constitutional rights by illegally extending copyright.
In other words the Jugde is saying that Fair Use is different from legal non-infringing uses. The Lawyer should have said, - no - Fair Use IS ALL non-infringing uses, and small quotes of text from the press is only one example of that protection which happens to be handled in case law. The presumtion of the Constitution is that, as property, all rights not expressly given to the copyright holder remains the inalianalbe rights of the public. And Congress can not extend those rights without a Constitutional Amedment.
Fair Use - is the key too all our political freedoms. The word copyright should not be used. The word Monopoly should replace it.
or Copyright Monopoly
http://www.nyfairuse.org
NY Dental School no long has text books.
Your next.
Ruben
The Judge asked for examples of violation of Fair Use and the Panel could not come up with an answer to satisfy the Judge.
If the Judge can't protect the property rights of of ordinary citizens, then a fundemental education on Fair USe needs to be undertaken by the Computer Community. I MUST be able to play a DVD on a common kitchen blender if I want to, and be able to publish the information permitting me to do so. Anything less is a breach of my basic constitutional rights.
Linux would not be able to be leagal created today because of the obstruction of Fair Use and Spyware.
They bneed to look no further than Students being FORCED to buy all their books on DVD at NYU to see the obvious far use implications.
The arguement is very simple and the EFF et al have screwed it up.
Copyright is a balance between users property rights and freedom of speech rights, and the limited franchise given by the government to individual creaters. No License can leagally further restrict the owner of a media without violating our civil rights. You can no more agree to such a license then sell yourself into slavery. It just can't be done. The DMCA is uncontitutional because it prevents access of the owner to the information contained on HIS/HER Media. They Own the media and have a constitutional right to sue it in any way they see fit, short of an actually copyright violation.
Congress can not pass a law limited these basic rights any more than it can pass a law to prevent the free press. The secure use of our property within our homes, and the freedom to speak about reverse engineering is our inalianable rights.
END of Discussion.
http://www.nyfairuse.org
That is completely Not True -
You are leagally protected to sell anything you OWN - INCLUDING Software. It's called the right of second sale and NOTHING in a Copyright License can inhibit it.
And I really don't apreciate you putting out misinformation like this. It feeds on itself.
The reason you can't sell it is because MS makes sure every computer has a copy preinstalled - preventing a second sales market.
>>
Right
Which is why you should never use PHP. It scales like crap, is fundementally flawed in it's data typing, lacks serious modularity or OO-design.
You waste more time debugging it than anything else, and it's error messaging system is useless.
Use PHP - and spend weeks fixing what would take moments in Perl..
If you can say this then you don't know Perl...
let alone Obect Oriented programmer.
Tell me great guru of Bullshit.... how do you do multiple inheritance with PHP - let alone simple references.
Ruben
PHP is barely capable of web scripting. Just because you can mount GTK on it, doesn't make it Perl, or Python.
As a programming language, it sucks just a little bit less than quick basic.
Man - what those dumbo PHP programers can do if they ever learned to program...
Ruben
We really deserve everything we get. How many people sit in here whining about the violations of our rights under the guise of Copyright Protection, and then do NOTHING to influence Congress on the issue. We now have DMCA protected books critical to Dental Education which can be aquired only under a limited license for 180 days at a time. Our basic ability of read infomration is under attack by the printed publishers, using the DMCA as it's stick. We have Pat Schroeder telling us Libraries are a communist plot.... and narly a voice is heard from informed Open Sourced people. Where is the Open Source Lobby on capital hill? http://www.nyfairuse.org
The reason why a town can't afford a public library is because the town is being ripped off by publishers who are exploiting the public of the cultural heritage it requires for survival.
Schools and Libraries are a necessity, and profits for publishers are optional.
One copy of every book in print should be made by the Library of Congress, and copies digitally issued to any public library in the country, for free. This is what should be done in exchange of the copyright license, to assure public access.
Ruben
No they aren't. Writers create these works and publishes try to exploit them for profit. Writer create works which then become part of our shared culture. Writers are given a limited license to the material which is owned by everyone, in exchange for their partipation in society. Publishers create nothing, but try to exploit our culture for their own profit.
Readers are human beings who participate in our society by reading. Reading is a fundemental right of a free citizen. A free society depends on citizens ability to read freely, regardless of their economic condition. And a free society has a responsibility to make it's shared culture freely available for review and education.
Selling a book is no different then selling anything else. If it can be done at a profit, fine. If not - they go out of business. Since books as easly copied today, their is no need to purchase them at all and only one orginal copy is needed, that copy that the auther makes available.
BTW - Knowledge is NOT copyrightable
Not only do people have a right to use their native culture without cost, it's their god given right.
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