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Yavor Doganov |
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www/philosophy rms-on-radio-nz.html |
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<p>Saturday 3 October 2009 / approx. 9.05 am NZST</p>
<p>Radio New Zealand National / Saturdays with Kim Hill<br />
-Interview between Kim Hill (presenter) and Richard M Stallman<br />
-Transcript by Jim Cheetham address@hidden with permission from Radio New
-Zealand.<br />
-</p>
+Interview between Kim Hill (presenter) and Richard M Stallman</p>
+<p>Transcript by Jim
+Cheetham <a href="mailto:address@hidden";><address@hidden></a>
+with permission from Radio New Zealand.</p>
<h3>Interesting sections</h3>
-<p>
-[00:00] Introduction<br />
-[00:40] Surveillance<br />
-[00:19] Terrorism and 9/11<br />
-[04:30] Barack Obama<br />
-[06:23] Airline Security<br />
-[08:02] Digital Surveillance<br />
-[10:26] Systematic Surveillance<br />
-[12:20] Taxi surveillance<br />
-[14:25] Matters of Principle - cellphones<br />
-[15:33] Free Software and Freedom<br />
-[17:24] Free Trade treaties<br />
-[20:08] Cars, microwaves and planes<br />
-[21:05] Copying books<br />
-[25:31] E-books & supporting artists<br />
-[28:42] Micropayments<br />
-[30:47] A simplistic political philosophy?<br />
-[32:51] Income<br />
-[33:48] Digital handcuffs — Amazon Kindle<br />
-[36:13] Buying books<br />
-[37:16] Social networking<br />
-[38:08] The ACTA<br />
-</p>
+<ul>
+<li>[00:00] Introduction</li>
+<li>[00:40] Surveillance</li>
+<li>[00:19] Terrorism and 9/11</li>
+<li>[04:30] Barack Obama</li>
+<li>[06:23] Airline Security</li>
+<li>[08:02] Digital Surveillance</li>
+<li>[10:26] Systematic Surveillance</li>
+<li>[12:20] Taxi surveillance</li>
+<li>[14:25] Matters of Principle — cellphones</li>
+<li>[15:33] Free Software and Freedom</li>
+<li>[17:24] Free Trade treaties</li>
+<li>[20:08] Cars, microwaves and planes</li>
+<li>[21:05] Copying books</li>
+<li>[25:31] E-books & supporting artists</li>
+<li>[28:42] Micropayments</li>
+<li>[30:47] A simplistic political philosophy?</li>
+<li>[32:51] Income</li>
+<li>[33:48] Digital handcuffs — Amazon Kindle</li>
+<li>[36:13] Buying books</li>
+<li>[37:16] Social networking</li>
+<li>[38:08] The
+<acronym title="Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement">ACTA</acronym></li>
+</ul>
<dl>
<dt>[00:00]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>We spoke to Richard Stallman a while ago last year about his campaign for
-Free Software. He's a hero, of course, of the movement; launched the Free
-Software Foundation, campaigns against software patents and extensions of
-copyright laws. His battle is, as he told us last year, against what he calls
-extreme capitalism. His GNU operating system with Linux was the first Free
-operating system that could run on a PC. Richard Stallman says "it's all about
-freedom", a cause which goes beyond software; and we could talk about the
-others he's identified, surveillance and censorship, because he joins me now,
-hello.</dd>
+<dd>We spoke to Richard Stallman a while ago last year about his
+campaign for Free Software. He's a hero, of course, of the movement;
+launched the Free Software Foundation, campaigns against software
+patents and extensions of copyright laws. His battle is, as he told
+us last year, against what he calls extreme capitalism. His GNU
+operating system with Linux was the first Free operating system that
+could run on a PC. Richard Stallman says <q>it's all about
+freedom</q>, a cause which goes beyond software; and we could talk
+about the others he's identified, surveillance and censorship, because
+he joins me now, hello.</dd>
<dt>[00:40]<br />
RMS</dt>
<dd>Hello</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Let us talk about surveillance and censorship. I've been looking at your
-personal website and you're talking about fingerprinting of air travellers, for
-example, which is something you're very hot about.</dd>
+<dd>Let us talk about surveillance and censorship. I've been looking
+at your personal website and you're talking about fingerprinting of
+air travelers, for example, which is something you're very hot
+about.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Yes, I urge people to refuse to go to the US where they would be
mistreated that way.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Why is that mistreatment, do you think?
+<dd>Why is that mistreatment, do you think?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Because it's too much information to collect about people who aren't
-criminals. And by the way for the same reason I will not ever go to Japan again
-unless they changed that policy, which makes me sad, but one must …</dd>
+<dd>Because it's too much information to collect about people who
+aren't criminals. And by the way for the same reason I will not ever
+go to Japan again unless they changed that policy, which makes me sad,
+but one must …</dd>
<dt>[01:19]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>It's not justifiable in order to make sure that terrorists aren't getting
-on the plane?</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>There's no need. Basically terrorism, and by the way we don't really know
-who was behind the September 11th attacks in the US, we don't know whether it
-was a bunch of Muslim fanatics, or it was a bunch of Christian fanatics and the
-White House. We do know that Bush corrupted and sabotaged the investigation
-when he was unable to prevent it from happening.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>So, are you an advocate of the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11?</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I can't say … first of all I think it's unfair — we know that
the
-attack was a conspiracy. All the theories are conspiracies.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Well, all right, the conspiracy theory for example, that has the Bush
-administration staging the 9/11 attack in order to justify …</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I don't know. The only way there could ever be proof of that is with a
-real investigation, but when you have a government not allowing a real
-investigation of a horrible crime then you've got to suspect that they're
-hiding something. Now I can't know for certain what they're hiding, but I want
-a real investigation to be carried out with the power to subpoena anyone
-possibly concerned, including Bush, and make those people testify under oath
-and show them no deference that everyone else wouldn't get.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Putting 9/11 aside then because we haven't got time here to go into the
-various theories about what could possibly have caused 9/11, there is
-undoubtedly a thing called terrorism.</dd>
+<dd>It's not justifiable in order to make sure that terrorists aren't
+getting on the plane?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yes, but it's a minor problem. More people died in the US in September
-2001 from car accidents than from a terorist attack, and that continues month
-after month, but we don't have a Global War on Accidents, so basically
-politicians used a real danger, but not the world's biggest danger, as an
-excuse for what they want to do, which is … and remember that these
-governments are much more dangerous, it's quite clear that Bush's invasion of
-Iraq was far more destructive than anything non state-sponsored terrorists have
-been able to do — that's assuming that those terrorists in September
2001 were
-not state-sponsored, which we don't know — but the point is, what Bush
did by
-invading Iraq, using those attacks as an excuse, was tremendously worse and we
-must remember than governments gone amok can do far more damage than anybody
-not state-sponsored. After all, governments have a lot more men under arms and
-they don't have to hide the fact that they have men under arms, so they're in a
-much bigger position to do damage, so we must be concerned about letting them
-have too much power. A world in which the police can easily do whatever they'd
-like to do is a world in which the police are a threat.</dd>
+<dd>There's no need. Basically terrorism, and by the way we don't
+really know who was behind the September 11th attacks in the US, we
+don't know whether it was a bunch of Muslim fanatics, or it was a
+bunch of Christian fanatics and the White House. We do know that Bush
+corrupted and sabotaged the investigation when he was unable to
+prevent it from happening.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>So, are you an advocate of the conspiracy theories surrounding
+9/11?</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>I can't say … first of all I think it's unfair — we
+know that the attack was a conspiracy. All the theories are
+conspiracies.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>Well, all right, the conspiracy theory for example, that has the
+Bush administration staging the 9/11 attack in order to justify
+…</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>I don't know. The only way there could ever be proof of that is
+with a real investigation, but when you have a government not allowing
+a real investigation of a horrible crime then you've got to suspect
+that they're hiding something. Now I can't know for certain what
+they're hiding, but I want a real investigation to be carried out with
+the power to subpoena anyone possibly concerned, including Bush, and
+make those people testify under oath and show them no deference that
+everyone else wouldn't get.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>Putting 9/11 aside then because we haven't got time here to go
+into the various theories about what could possibly have caused 9/11,
+there is undoubtedly a thing called terrorism.</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>Yes, but it's a minor problem. More people died in the US in
+September 2001 from car accidents than from a terrorist attack, and
+that continues month after month, but we don't have a Global War on
+Accidents, so basically politicians used a real danger, but not the
+world's biggest danger, as an excuse for what they want to do, which
+is … and remember that these governments are much more
+dangerous, it's quite clear that Bush's invasion of Iraq was far more
+destructive than anything non state-sponsored terrorists have been
+able to do — that's assuming that those terrorists in September
+2001 were not state-sponsored, which we don't know — but the
+point is, what Bush did by invading Iraq, using those attacks as an
+excuse, was tremendously worse and we must remember than governments
+gone amok can do far more damage than anybody not state-sponsored.
+After all, governments have a lot more men under arms and they don't
+have to hide the fact that they have men under arms, so they're in a
+much bigger position to do damage, so we must be concerned about
+letting them have too much power. A world in which the police can
+easily do whatever they'd like to do is a world in which the police
+are a threat.</dd>
<dt>[04:30]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>Last time we spoke, and we were talking about the issue of Free Software,
-but specifically in relation to that you doubted that President Bush's
-successor, who we now know is Barack Obama, would be pretty much any different
-from Bush.</dd>
+<dd>Last time we spoke, and we were talking about the issue of Free
+Software, but specifically in relation to that you doubted that
+President Bush's successor, who we now know is Barack Obama, would be
+pretty much any different from Bush.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>He's a little different, but I have to say he's small change. On human
-rights issues he's not very different. He's still in favour of keeping people
-in prison, without charges, indefinitely, and you can't get much worse than
-that in terms of human rights.</dd>
+<dd>He's a little different, but I have to say he's small change. On
+human rights issues he's not very different. He's still in favor of
+keeping people in prison, without charges, indefinitely, and you can't
+get much worse than that in terms of human rights.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Well except he's addressing Guantanamo Bay.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well that's just one of the places where it's done, it's done also in
-Bagram in Afghanistan, and I really don't see why it would be better to move
-those people to Bagram. What has to be done is charge them or release them.
-They're entitled to that.</dd>
+<dd>Well that's just one of the places where it's done, it's done also
+in Bagram in Afghanistan, and I really don't see why it would be
+better to move those people to Bagram. What has to be done is charge
+them or release them. They're entitled to that.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Yeah, they may be entitled to that but he's also democraticaly elected
-President who …</dd>
+<dd>Yeah, they may be entitled to that but he's also democratically
+elected President who …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>That doesn't mean he's entitled to violate human rights.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>No, but would the American people be in favour of the release of those
…</dd>
+<dd>No, but would the American people be in favor of the release of
+those …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>I don't know.</dd>
@@ -171,160 +184,173 @@
<dd>I know you're …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I don't think I can excuse massive violations of human rights by saying
-that the public is maddened and supports it. Especially, why are they so
-maddened? Because of a constant propaganda campaign telling you "Be terrified
-of terrorists", "throw away your human rights and everyone else's because
-you're so scared of these terrorists". It's disproportionate, we have to keep
-these dangers in their proportion, there isn't a campaign saying "be terrified
-of getting in a car" but maybe there ought to be.</dd>
+<dd>I don't think I can excuse massive violations of human rights by
+saying that the public is maddened and supports it. Especially, why
+are they so maddened? Because of a constant propaganda campaign
+telling you <q>Be terrified of terrorists</q>, <q>throw away your
+human rights and everyone else's because you're so scared of these
+terrorists</q>. It's disproportionate, we have to keep these dangers
+in their proportion, there isn't a campaign saying <q>be terrified of
+getting in a car</q> but maybe there ought to be.</dd>
<dt>[06:23]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>Most airline security, getting back to the fingerprinting issue, you've
-said is just for show.</dd>
+<dd>Most airline security, getting back to the fingerprinting issue,
+you've said is just for show.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>A lot of it is, not all of it is, I'm very glad that they have reinforced
-the cabin doors so that hijackers can't get at the pilots, OK, that's a
-sensible measure.</dd>
+<dd>A lot of it is, not all of it is, I'm very glad that they have
+reinforced the cabin doors so that hijackers can't get at the pilots,
+OK, that's a sensible measure.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>But are you? I would have thought that you would have said "why would they
-spend money reinforcing the cabin doors because hijackers are a minor
issue".</dd>
+<dd>But are you? I would have thought that you would have said <q>why
+would they spend money reinforcing the cabin doors because hijackers
+are a minor issue</q>.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>I'm not against spending a little bit of money.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>You're saying that that issue isn't an infringement of human rights.</dd>
+<dd>You're saying that that issue isn't an infringement of human
+rights.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>OK, and I don't mind spending some money for safety, I even make some
-compromises you know on issues of rights, I'm not saying police shouldn't be
-able to get a search warrant, but they should have to go to a Judge, to present
-probable cause, to keep them in check because police are very dangerous when
-they run amok, as people discovered a few months ago in London, when the police
-did run amok, and they killed somebody who was trying to walk home past a
-protest, and he couldn't get home because the police were just deliberately
-blocking the streets, and then they hit him. And then they lied about it too,
-which they typically do. Whenever the police attack someone they lie about him,
-they lie about what they did, and they lie about what he was doing, to make it
-sound that they were justified in mistreating him in the first place, it's
-standard practice, they're like an armed gang.</dd>
+<dd>OK, and I don't mind spending some money for safety, I even make
+some compromises you know on issues of rights, I'm not saying police
+shouldn't be able to get a search warrant, but they should have to go
+to a Judge, to present probable cause, to keep them in check because
+police are very dangerous when they run amok, as people discovered a
+few months ago in London, when the police did run amok, and they
+killed somebody who was trying to walk home past a protest, and he
+couldn't get home because the police were just deliberately blocking
+the streets, and then they hit him. And then they lied about it too,
+which they typically do. Whenever the police attack someone they lie
+about him, they lie about what they did, and they lie about what he
+was doing, to make it sound that they were justified in mistreating
+him in the first place, it's standard practice, they're like an armed
+gang.</dd>
<dt>[08:02]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>If you don't agree with surveillance, is there any way that you would
-accept that it might be quite a handy thing, CCTV …</dd>
+<dd>If you don't agree with surveillance, is there any way that you
+would accept that it might be quite a handy thing, CCTV …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Wait a second, your view of surveillance is oversimplifying things, what
-I see happening with computers is they make possible a form of total
-surveillance which wasn't feasible in the past, even governments like Romania
-under CeauÅescu, or East Germany with the Stasi, they did a lot of
surveillance
-but it took a lot of people working on it and even then it was limited what
-they could actually watch and record because it was so hard. Now, we're
-entering a kind of surveillance society that has never been seen before
…</dd>
+<dd>Wait a second, your view of surveillance is oversimplifying
+things, what I see happening with computers is they make possible a
+form of total surveillance which wasn't feasible in the past, even
+governments like Romania under CeauÅescu, or East Germany with the
+Stasi, they did a lot of surveillance but it took a lot of people
+working on it and even then it was limited what they could actually
+watch and record because it was so hard. Now, we're entering a kind
+of surveillance society that has never been seen before …</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>You're talking about digital surveillance.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yes, but as people do more things using digital technology it becomes
-easy to keep a record of everything everyone has done, things that weren't done
-in the past and still aren't done with other media, there's no record of who
-sends a letter to who for all letters, it just isn't done. But there are
-records in many countries of who sends an email to whom and those records can
-be saved for years and we don't know that they'll ever be disposed of.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>If you think that governments are not to be trusted, which is a legitimate
-position of course, and if you think that the police are not to be trusted,
-again a legitimate position, why can't you feel happier about digital
-surveillance and CCTV surveillance given that it may well give the people more
-protection.</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Oh, I'm all in favour of the right to make and record videos, such as
-when you're on the street or when you're watching a protest or whatever, I'm
-concerned about systematic surveillance.</dd>
+<dd>Yes, but as people do more things using digital technology it
+becomes easy to keep a record of everything everyone has done, things
+that weren't done in the past and still aren't done with other media,
+there's no record of who sends a letter to who for all letters, it
+just isn't done. But there are records in many countries of who sends
+an email to whom and those records can be saved for years and we don't
+know that they'll ever be disposed of.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>If you think that governments are not to be trusted, which is a
+legitimate position of course, and if you think that the police are
+not to be trusted, again a legitimate position, why can't you feel
+happier about digital surveillance and CCTV surveillance given that it
+may well give the people more protection.</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>Oh, I'm all in favor of the right to make and record videos, such
+as when you're on the street or when you're watching a protest or
+whatever, I'm concerned about systematic surveillance.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>What is that, systematic surveillance?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well suppose the police set up a camera that always watches the street,
-and connects it to a face recognition program and make a database of everyone
-who passes, that's systematic surveillance. Now if you walk down the street and
-maybe you see somebody you know and you recognise him, that's not systematic
-surveillance, that's a whole bunch of people knowing something, there's nothing
-wrong with that, that's just what life is.</dd>
+<dd>Well suppose the police set up a camera that always watches the
+street, and connects it to a face recognition program and make a
+database of everyone who passes, that's systematic surveillance. Now
+if you walk down the street and maybe you see somebody you know and
+you recognize him, that's not systematic surveillance, that's a whole
+bunch of people knowing something, there's nothing wrong with that,
+that's just what life is.</dd>
<dt>[10:26]<br />
KH</dt>
<dd>What makes systematic surveillance more sinister to you?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Because we know that there's a tendancy for many different governments to
-treat dissenters as terrorists, and investigate them using laws that were set
-up supposedly to help them prevent terrorism. We know also that they tend to
-sabotage political activities, and this is dangerous.</dd>
+<dd>Because we know that there's a tendency for many different
+governments to treat dissenters as terrorists, and investigate them
+using laws that were set up supposedly to help them prevent terrorism.
+We know also that they tend to sabotage political activities, and this
+is dangerous.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>What's wrong with being investigated?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well, it depends if the government's investigating you because you're a
-political dissident, there are a lot of things they could do to harrass you.
-One thing I remember was in England, a busload of protestors, they were on they
-way to a protest, the police stopped their bus and drove them away from the
-protest, and they cited a law that had been passed to supposedly prevent
-terrorism. Well this is sabotaging political activity. And then another thing
-that happens I know in England, is people have been prosecuted for copies of
-texts that they have, you know reading is sometimes illegal, it's really
-dangerous. What we see is a global tendancy for governments to bring out the
-worst side of themselves with terrorism as the excuse, so we must be on guard
-against that, that's potentially a much bigger danger than the terrorists it's
-supposed to protect us from. I don't have to say that they don't exist, or that
-they're no danger at all.</dd>
+<dd>Well, it depends if the government's investigating you because
+you're a political dissident, there are a lot of things they could do
+to harass you. One thing I remember was in England, a busload of
+protesters, they were on they way to a protest, the police stopped
+their bus and drove them away from the protest, and they cited a law
+that had been passed to supposedly prevent terrorism. Well this is
+sabotaging political activity. And then another thing that happens I
+know in England, is people have been prosecuted for copies of texts
+that they have, you know reading is sometimes illegal, it's really
+dangerous. What we see is a global tendency for governments to bring
+out the worst side of themselves with terrorism as the excuse, so we
+must be on guard against that, that's potentially a much bigger danger
+than the terrorists it's supposed to protect us from. I don't have to
+say that they don't exist, or that they're no danger at all.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>No, the difficulty is being on guard against the danger that you've cited,
-without giving quarter to …</dd>
+<dd>No, the difficulty is being on guard against the danger that
+you've cited, without giving quarter to …</dd>
<dt>[12:20]<br />
RMS</dt>
-<dd>Ah, no I don't see it's any problem at all. Police have lots of things
-they can do to investigate people and it's more all the time and whenever
-there's a specific reason to suspect particular people they can basically get
-permission to search whatever. So OK, that's necessary, but beyond that we've
-got to be careful not to go, and the digital surveillance society goes far
-beyond that, there's a tendancy to keep records of everything, check
-everything. In New York City for instance a taxi driver told me he had been
-required to install a camera which transmits by radio people's faces to the
-police where they run face recognition over it. I don't think that should be
-allowed. I don't mind if they have a system that records people's faces and
-keeps it for a week in case somebody attacks the taxi driver, that's not going
-to do anything to us if we don't attack taxi drivers. We can make use of
-surveillance technology in ways that don't threaten people's rights but we've
-got to make sure we use them in those ways.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>How come you can justify people being treated as if they're going to
-attack taxi drivers …</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>But you see there the point is, those are not looked at unless there's a
-crime to investigate and then they get erased if it's done right, but the way
-it's actually being done in New York City is they're sent to the police, and
-the police keep track of who goes where, and that's what scares me. Having all
-the information about what you do available to the police for years in the past
-whenever they want to look. Well part of what I do about this is I don't buy
-things with credit cards unless it's something where they demand to know who I
-am anyway, I don't use a credit card or any digital method, I use cash, and
-that way Big Brother's not making a database of every place I've been, that I
-bought anything in, what I bought.</dd>
+<dd>Ah, no I don't see it's any problem at all. Police have lots of
+things they can do to investigate people and it's more all the time
+and whenever there's a specific reason to suspect particular people
+they can basically get permission to search whatever. So OK, that's
+necessary, but beyond that we've got to be careful not to go, and the
+digital surveillance society goes far beyond that, there's a tendency
+to keep records of everything, check everything. In New York City for
+instance a taxi driver told me he had been required to install a
+camera which transmits by radio people's faces to the police where
+they run face recognition over it. I don't think that should be
+allowed. I don't mind if they have a system that records people's
+faces and keeps it for a week in case somebody attacks the taxi
+driver, that's not going to do anything to us if we don't attack taxi
+drivers. We can make use of surveillance technology in ways that
+don't threaten people's rights but we've got to make sure we use them
+in those ways.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>How come you can justify people being treated as if they're going
+to attack taxi drivers …</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>But you see there the point is, those are not looked at unless
+there's a crime to investigate and then they get erased if it's done
+right, but the way it's actually being done in New York City is
+they're sent to the police, and the police keep track of who goes
+where, and that's what scares me. Having all the information about
+what you do available to the police for years in the past whenever
+they want to look. Well part of what I do about this is I don't buy
+things with credit cards unless it's something where they demand to
+know who I am anyway, I don't use a credit card or any digital method,
+I use cash, and that way Big Brother's not making a database of every
+place I've been, that I bought anything in, what I bought.</dd>
<dt>[14:25]<br />
KH</dt>
@@ -334,53 +360,56 @@
<dd>As a matter of principle. It's not an issue of convenience.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>You don't do quite alot of things actually.</dd>
+<dd>You don't do quite a lot of things actually.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yeah, I don't carry a cellphone because I really don't want to be telling
-Big Brother where I am all the time, every place I go.</dd>
+<dd>Yeah, I don't carry a cellphone because I really don't want to be
+telling Big Brother where I am all the time, every place I go.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Is that why?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yes, that's why. Well now there's another reason. Today, cellphones are
-powerful computers and there's no way to run one without proprietary
software.</dd>
+<dd>Yes, that's why. Well now there's another reason. Today,
+cellphones are powerful computers and there's no way to run one
+without proprietary software.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>I thought that would be your main reason.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Actually there is one you can get, although they're not producing it
-anymore, it didn't work all that well, it's Mark One. So that's another issue,
-but that didn't exist, that issue wasn't there when cellphones first came out,
-people didn't install programs in them, they were just fixed appliances, but
-they have always raised the issue that they're constantly saying where you are,
-and I just don't want to participate in a system like that, I think people
-shouldn't. It would be very convenient for me to have a cellphone, I'm not one
-of those people who would, who says "I resent the fact that people can call
-me", it's convenient when people can call me, but I'm not going to do it that
-way.</dd>
+<dd>Actually there is one you can get, although they're not producing
+it anymore, it didn't work all that well, it's Mark One. So that's
+another issue, but that didn't exist, that issue wasn't there when
+cellphones first came out, people didn't install programs in them,
+they were just fixed appliances, but they have always raised the issue
+that they're constantly saying where you are, and I just don't want to
+participate in a system like that, I think people shouldn't. It would
+be very convenient for me to have a cellphone, I'm not one of those
+people who would, who says <q>I resent the fact that people can call
+me</q>, it's convenient when people can call me, but I'm not going to
+do it that way.</dd>
<dt>[15:33]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>It's interesting that your battle for Free Software and the issues of
-freedom that you identify intersect. They didn't start out being the same
— or
-did they?</dd>
+<dd>It's interesting that your battle for Free Software and the issues
+of freedom that you identify intersect. They didn't start out being
+the same — or did they?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well they didn't start out being the same. Pervasive digital surveillance
-wasn't a big problem twenty-seven years ago.</dd>
+<dd>Well they didn't start out being the same. Pervasive digital
+surveillance wasn't a big problem twenty-seven years ago.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>But the people who were in charge were still the people who were in
-charge, the people who you identified as the people you didn't want to see
…</dd>
+<dd>But the people who were in charge were still the people who were
+in charge, the people who you identified as the people you didn't want
+to see …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well actually they're not the same people. Proprietary software's mostly
-controlled by various private entities that are developers, maybe Apple,
-Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Amazon, they're all distributing proprietary
-software.</dd>
+<dd>Well actually they're not the same people. Proprietary software's
+mostly controlled by various private entities that are developers,
+maybe Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Amazon, they're all
+distributing proprietary software.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>I would have thought you'd identify them all as forces of extreme
@@ -388,70 +417,77 @@
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Well I'm sorry, when I say extreme capitalism I'm talking about a
-philosophy, and that philosophy says "the market should control everything,
-everything should be for sale, and business should be allowed to dominate
-politics and get the laws it wants", which is very different from mere
-capitalism, which says "within a socirty which we set up to protect peoples
-rights and so on, there are lots of things that people shold be free to do, and
-make businesses to do them, as they wish". That difference is why today's form
-of capitalism is running wild and why we see free exploitation treaties which
-basically undermine democracy and turn it in to a sham.</dd>
+philosophy, and that philosophy says <q>the market should control
+everything, everything should be for sale, and business should be
+allowed to dominate politics and get the laws it wants</q>, which is
+very different from mere capitalism, which says <q>within a society
+which we set up to protect peoples rights and so on, there are lots of
+things that people should be free to do, and make businesses to do
+them, as they wish</q>. That difference is why today's form of
+capitalism is running wild and why we see free exploitation treaties
+which basically undermine democracy and turn it in to a sham.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>What are you talking about there?</dd>
<dt>[17:24]<br />
RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well, the so-called Free Trade treaties, which I don't like to call that,
-they're designed to transfer power from our governments to companies. They all
-do this in one way, which is they let companies threaten to move to another
-country, or move their operations; and so any time the people are demanding
-that a government protect the environment, or the public health, or the general
-standard of living, or anything else that's more important than just who's
-going to buy and sell what, companies can say "we're against this, and if you
-do this we'll just move our operations elsewhere" and the politicians now have
-a wonderful excuse for why they're not going to do it. Of course it was they
-who decided to adopt that treaty in the first place which they shouldn't have
-done. But then a lot of these treaties go beyond that, and they explicitly deny
-democracy. Now the US had a law that said it wouldn't sell tuna — you
weren't
-allowed to sell tuna in the US if it had been caught in a way that endangered
+<dd>Well, the so-called Free Trade treaties, which I don't like to
+call that, they're designed to transfer power from our governments to
+companies. They all do this in one way, which is they let companies
+threaten to move to another country, or move their operations; and so
+any time the people are demanding that a government protect the
+environment, or the public health, or the general standard of living,
+or anything else that's more important than just who's going to buy
+and sell what, companies can say <q>we're against this, and if you do
+this we'll just move our operations elsewhere</q> and the politicians
+now have a wonderful excuse for why they're not going to do it. Of
+course it was they who decided to adopt that treaty in the first place
+which they shouldn't have done. But then a lot of these treaties go
+beyond that, and they explicitly deny democracy. Now the US had a law
+that said it wouldn't sell tuna — you weren't allowed to sell
+tuna in the US if it had been caught in a way that endangered
dolphins. Well that law had to be scrapped because of the World Trade
-Organisation, that's just one example.</dd>
+Organization, that's just one example.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Because it was regarded as a trade barrier.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Exactly. Then NAFTA, which is between the US, Canada and Mexico, allows
-companies to sue the government if they believe some law reduces their profits;
-effectively saying the highest value in society is how much money a company can
-make, and anything that gets in the way of that, we owe them.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Of course, we're in favour of Free Trade here, Richard, because we rely on
-it …</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well I'm not in favour of free trade beyond a certain point. The people
-who are in favour of Free Trade say that it can make everyone more prosperous
-and that's true up to a point, and that point is where it starts subverting
-democracy. But the point of these treaties is precisely to stretch free trade
-to the point where it does subvert democracy. And you can see business
-think-tanks reporting how they expect in a few decades governments will have
-much less control over what goes on in the world and business will have more
-control. What they're predicting is essentially that these treaties will march
+<dd>Exactly. Then NAFTA, which is between the US, Canada and Mexico,
+allows companies to sue the government if they believe some law
+reduces their profits; effectively saying the highest value in society
+is how much money a company can make, and anything that gets in the
+way of that, we owe them.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>Of course, we're in favor of Free Trade here, Richard, because we
+rely on it …</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>Well I'm not in favor of free trade beyond a certain point. The
+people who are in favor of Free Trade say that it can make everyone
+more prosperous and that's true up to a point, and that point is where
+it starts subverting democracy. But the point of these treaties is
+precisely to stretch free trade to the point where it does subvert
+democracy. And you can see business think-tanks reporting how they
+expect in a few decades governments will have much less control over
+what goes on in the world and business will have more control. What
+they're predicting is essentially that these treaties will march
on.</dd>
<dt>[20:08]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>One of the other things you don't do, is you don't drive a car, is that
-right?</dd>
+<dd>One of the other things you don't do, is you don't drive a car, is
+that right?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>No, that's not true, I don't own a car. I do have a driver's license.</dd>
+<dd>No, that's not true, I don't own a car. I do have a driver's
+license.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>OK, one of the other things you don't do is you don't own a car.</dd>
+<dd>OK, one of the other things you don't do is you don't own a
+car.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Yeah, well that's to save money. I live in a city.</dd>
@@ -460,25 +496,27 @@
<dd>No philosophy.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>No, I don't think it's wrong to own a car, it's good if we all drove
-somewhat less.</dd>
+<dd>No, I don't think it's wrong to own a car, it's good if we all
+drove somewhat less.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>I though that it was because of the proprietary software in cars.</dd>
+<dd>I though that it was because of the proprietary software in
+cars.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Now that's an interesting issue. I have appliances, I have a microwave
-oven which might have some proprietary software in it.</dd>
+<dd>Now that's an interesting issue. I have appliances, I have a
+microwave oven which might have some proprietary software in it.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>And you fly in planes.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yeah. Well I don't own a plane though. I don't boycott everybody who uses
-proprietary software. If a company uses proprietary software I say that's too
-bad for them, but I'm not going to punish them by boycotting them, what I will
-try to do is explain to them why they deserve to have control over their
-computing rather than letting somebody else control their computing.</dd>
+<dd>Yeah. Well I don't own a plane though. I don't boycott everybody
+who uses proprietary software. If a company uses proprietary software
+I say that's too bad for them, but I'm not going to punish them by
+boycotting them, what I will try to do is explain to them why they
+deserve to have control over their computing rather than letting
+somebody else control their computing.</dd>
<dt>[21:05]<br />
KH</dt>
@@ -486,16 +524,18 @@
Conference with regard to copyright and community?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well, I'm going to explain why copyright law today is an injustice,
-because it forbids sharing, and sharing is absolutely essential. People must be
-free to share, so the New Zealand Copyright Law that was adopted about a year
-ago, and only one of several unjust things in it was temporarily withdrawn,
-that went in the wrong direction, but it was already too restrictive, people
-must be free to non-commercially share exact copies of any published work.</dd>
+<dd>Well, I'm going to explain why copyright law today is an
+injustice, because it forbids sharing, and sharing is absolutely
+essential. People must be free to share, so the New Zealand Copyright
+Law that was adopted about a year ago, and only one of several unjust
+things in it was temporarily withdrawn, that went in the wrong
+direction, but it was already too restrictive, people must be free to
+non-commercially share exact copies of any published work.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>So just let me … how would this work, for a moment? I write a book,
I
-spend, you know, five years of my life writing a book.</dd>
+<dd>So just let me … how would this work, for a moment? I
+write a book, I spend, you know, five years of my life writing a
+book.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Well who knows, maybe you do it in a month.</dd>
@@ -504,19 +544,21 @@
<dd>Maybe I don't do it in a month.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>The point is, you do it by choice. People wrote books before there was
-copyright. I think you're going about this backwards. It's your choice whether
-to spend time writing, and the main reason most writers spend their time
-writing is because they have something they say they want to write and they
-hope people will appreciate it. It's only a few who get enough money that it
-starts to corrupt their spirit.</dd>
+<dd>The point is, you do it by choice. People wrote books before
+there was copyright. I think you're going about this backwards. It's
+your choice whether to spend time writing, and the main reason most
+writers spend their time writing is because they have something they
+say they want to write and they hope people will appreciate it. It's
+only a few who get enough money that it starts to corrupt their
+spirit.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Don't most societies want to, and they don't do it fantastically
-efficiently, but to some extent they try to encourage people to write.</dd>
+efficiently, but to some extent they try to encourage people to
+write.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Oh, I'm all in favour of encouraging people to write.</dd>
+<dd>Oh, I'm all in favor of encouraging people to write.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Now how would you encourage people to write?</dd>
@@ -524,53 +566,58 @@
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Well first of all remember that I'm not talking about abolishing
copyright on artistic works, I'm saying that people must be free to
-non-commercially share them. Commercial use would still be covered by copyright
-as it is now.</dd>
+non-commercially share them. Commercial use would still be covered by
+copyright as it is now.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>If I can print off a whole book and pass it on, and they pass it on, pass
-it on, pass it on, pass it on, as an author I'm not going to sell many.</dd>
+<dd>If I can print off a whole book and pass it on, and they pass it
+on, pass it on, pass it on, pass it on, as an author I'm not going to
+sell many.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well that may be so, or may not be. I've seen people claim that it's only
-works that are bestsellers that are likely to sell less, because remember if
-you're not a big hit and people pass along copies what they're doing is getting
-you more fans. If you're not a bestseller then what you mainly want
-commercially is exposure, and this is a way you'll get more exposure, and
-without having to pay for it either, and without having to give control to a
-company that would take most of the profits anyway.</dd>
+<dd>Well that may be so, or may not be. I've seen people claim that
+it's only works that are bestsellers that are likely to sell less,
+because remember if you're not a big hit and people pass along copies
+what they're doing is getting you more fans. If you're not a
+bestseller then what you mainly want commercially is exposure, and
+this is a way you'll get more exposure, and without having to pay for
+it either, and without having to give control to a company that would
+take most of the profits anyway.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>So hang on, the only reason an author would want exposure would be to
-increase the sales of their next book.</dd>
+<dd>So hang on, the only reason an author would want exposure would be
+to increase the sales of their next book.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Oh no, no no no no no. Only the ones who've been morally corrupted and
-are no longer yearning to be read and appreciated, that's what they start out
-wanting, and a few, only a few get rich, and then those few who get rich, when
-people are paid to do something that they originally did from pleasure or a
-yearning, they tend to start wanting the money more, and the thing that they
-used to yearn to do, they want less.</dd>
+<dd>Oh no, no no no no no. Only the ones who've been morally
+corrupted and are no longer yearning to be read and appreciated,
+that's what they start out wanting, and a few, only a few get rich,
+and then those few who get rich, when people are paid to do something
+that they originally did from pleasure or a yearning, they tend to
+start wanting the money more, and the thing that they used to yearn to
+do, they want less.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>So if being read and appreciated is what authors want …</dd>
+<dd>So if being read and appreciated is what authors want
+…</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well they start out wanting. Those who have got rich, some of them want
-to be rich.</dd>
+<dd>Well they start out wanting. Those who have got rich, some of
+them want to be rich.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Well we'll forget about those because you're implying they write bad books
-as a consequence.</dd>
+<dd>Well we'll forget about those because you're implying they write
+bad books as a consequence.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>No I'm not saying that they're all bad, I'm not making a simple
-generalisation like that, I say that their feelings have been corrupted, that
-doesn't necessarily mean their books are bad, I enjoy some of them. The point
-is that that's not a typical author.</dd>
+generalization like that, I say that their feelings have been
+corrupted, that doesn't necessarily mean their books are bad, I enjoy
+some of them. The point is that that's not a typical author.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>But a typical author you seem to be condemning to even more penury.</dd>
+<dd>But a typical author you seem to be condemning to even more
+penury.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Oh no I'm not, you're mistaken.</dd>
@@ -579,9 +626,10 @@
<dd>If they cannot sell the book …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>You're mistaken, you're making a projection which people who know more
-about this disagree. Cory Doctorow who has been a bestselling author puts all
-his works on the net and he doesn't even think he sells less.</dd>
+<dd>You're mistaken, you're making a projection which people who know
+more about this disagree. Cory Doctorow who has been a bestselling
+author puts all his works on the net and he doesn't even think he
+sells less.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>So people still go out and buy the hard copy from the shop?</dd>
@@ -590,34 +638,37 @@
<dd>Yes they do.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Even though people can pass his book from hand to hand willy-nilly.</dd>
+<dd>Even though people can pass his book from hand to hand
+willy-nilly.</dd>
<dt>[25:31]<br />
RMS</dt>
-<dd>They can do that anyway you know with printed books, that's the motive
-for e-books. E-books are designed to stop you from doing things like lending
-the book to your friend or selling it to a used bookstore and borrowing it from
-a public library. They're designed to turn public libraries into retail
-outlets. And the reason they do this is they want to establish a pay-per-read
-universe. They're following the twisted logic that says the most important
-thing is how much money people pay and everybody who reads had a debt, now owes
-money and he has to be made to pay. I think this is entirely twisted and I'm
-against it, because the freedom to share must be respected. But I have other
-proposals for ways to support artists. And remember the current system mostly
-supports corporations, so I don't think it works very well. And it makes a few
-authors quite rich, and those get treated with great deference by the
-corporations, and the rest basically get ground into the dust. My proposals
—
-I have two, and another that combines them — one proposal is support
artists
-using taxes, it could either be a specific tax on Internet connectivity or
-general funds, it wouldn't be a tremendous amount of money by comparison with
-other government expenditures, and then you divide this among artists by
-measuring their popularity, but you don't divide it in linear proportion, 'cos
-if you did that a large portion of this money would go to making superstars
-richer and it's not needed, what I propose is take the cube root of the
-popularity.</dd>
+<dd>They can do that anyway you know with printed books, that's the
+motive for e-books. E-books are designed to stop you from doing
+things like lending the book to your friend or selling it to a used
+bookstore and borrowing it from a public library. They're designed to
+turn public libraries into retail outlets. And the reason they do
+this is they want to establish a pay-per-read universe. They're
+following the twisted logic that says the most important thing is how
+much money people pay and everybody who reads had a debt, now owes
+money and he has to be made to pay. I think this is entirely twisted
+and I'm against it, because the freedom to share must be respected.
+But I have other proposals for ways to support artists. And remember
+the current system mostly supports corporations, so I don't think it
+works very well. And it makes a few authors quite rich, and those get
+treated with great deference by the corporations, and the rest
+basically get ground into the dust. My proposals — I have two,
+and another that combines them — one proposal is support artists
+using taxes, it could either be a specific tax on Internet
+connectivity or general funds, it wouldn't be a tremendous amount of
+money by comparison with other government expenditures, and then you
+divide this among artists by measuring their popularity, but you don't
+divide it in linear proportion, 'cos if you did that a large portion
+of this money would go to making superstars richer and it's not
+needed, what I propose is take the cube root of the popularity.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>How do you asess their popularity?</dd>
+<dd>How do you assess their popularity?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>You could do it with polling.</dd>
@@ -626,23 +677,25 @@
<dd>How polling? Internet polling?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>All sorts of polling, there's public opinion polling and anything, use a
-sample, the point is you don't ask everybody, nobody's required to participate.
-But you use a sample, and you use that to measure popularity.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>I'm just holding that thought, popularity. You're equating popularity with
-merit?</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>No I'm not, but I'm saying you don't want bureaucrats to be deciding who
-gets these funds. So this is one way, you could do it by polling, after all the
-current system bases it on popularity to some extent. Take the cube root, so if
-A is a thousand times as popular as B, A will get ten times as much money as B,
-so this way it's the counterpart to a progressive income tax. So this way, yes
-if you're tremendously successful you do get more, but you don't get
-tremendously more, and most of the money goes to support a large number of
-artists of mid-range popularity.</dd>
+<dd>All sorts of polling, there's public opinion polling and anything,
+use a sample, the point is you don't ask everybody, nobody's required
+to participate. But you use a sample, and you use that to measure
+popularity.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>I'm just holding that thought, popularity. You're equating
+popularity with merit?</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>No I'm not, but I'm saying you don't want bureaucrats to be
+deciding who gets these funds. So this is one way, you could do it by
+polling, after all the current system bases it on popularity to some
+extent. Take the cube root, so if A is a thousand times as popular as
+B, A will get ten times as much money as B, so this way it's the
+counterpart to a progressive income tax. So this way, yes if you're
+tremendously successful you do get more, but you don't get
+tremendously more, and most of the money goes to support a large
+number of artists of mid-range popularity.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>And tell me again, where does the money come from?</dd>
@@ -654,27 +707,29 @@
<dd>General taxes.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Could be general taxes, or a specific special tax. Either way is OK.</dd>
+<dd>Could be general taxes, or a specific special tax. Either way is
+OK.</dd>
<dt>[28:42]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>Why don't you just ask people, if you're basing it on popularity, why
-don't you just ask people just to send in the money?</dd>
+<dd>Why don't you just ask people, if you're basing it on popularity,
+why don't you just ask people just to send in the money?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well that's my other proposal. If every player had a button to send a
-dollar I think people would do it often, after all the main reason we don't do
-it is how much trouble it is. It's not that you or I would miss a dollar, I
-often would be glad to send a dollar to some artists, but how am I going to do
-it? I need to use a credit card and identify myself and I need to find where to
-send it to them and that's a lot of work. Well, this button, which I hope would
-be implemented in an anonymous way, would take away all the work, it would be
-totally painless to send a dollar, and then I think a lot of people would do
+<dd>Well that's my other proposal. If every player had a button to
+send a dollar I think people would do it often, after all the main
+reason we don't do it is how much trouble it is. It's not that you or
+I would miss a dollar, I often would be glad to send a dollar to some
+artists, but how am I going to do it? I need to use a credit card and
+identify myself and I need to find where to send it to them and that's
+a lot of work. Well, this button, which I hope would be implemented
+in an anonymous way, would take away all the work, it would be totally
+painless to send a dollar, and then I think a lot of people would do
it.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>What about getting rid of taxes entirely, and giving us all the power to
-direct …</dd>
+<dd>What about getting rid of taxes entirely, and giving us all the
+power to direct …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>I'm not against taxes.</dd>
@@ -683,66 +738,71 @@
<dd>I'm not suggesting you are, but I'm asking you why not?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Because we need to make sure that rich people pay their fair share, which
-is a bigger share than what poor people have to pay, to keep society going. We
-need a welfare state, at least at our current level of technology and the way
-society works, we need a welfare state, and the rich shouldn't be exempt from
-funding it.</dd>
+<dd>Because we need to make sure that rich people pay their fair
+share, which is a bigger share than what poor people have to pay, to
+keep society going. We need a welfare state, at least at our current
+level of technology and the way society works, we need a welfare
+state, and the rich shouldn't be exempt from funding it.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Does it not matter that your popularity contest for artists may let the
-rich completely off the hook?</dd>
+<dd>Does it not matter that your popularity contest for artists may
+let the rich completely off the hook?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well, I'm not sure it matters. Supporting artists is desireable but it's
-not a matter of life and death in the same way that giving poor people food and
-shelter and medical care is, whether they're artists or not.</dd>
+<dd>Well, I'm not sure it matters. Supporting artists is desirable
+but it's not a matter of life and death in the same way that giving
+poor people food and shelter and medical care is, whether they're
+artists or not.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>I don't know, I think that if you look at society it's made up of all
-sorts of things that are contingent on one another for the health of the
-society.</dd>
+<dd>I don't know, I think that if you look at society it's made up of
+all sorts of things that are contingent on one another for the health
+of the society.</dd>
<dt>[30:47]<br />
RMS</dt>
-<dd>Yes, but I don't want to have one answer for every question in society.
-I'm not a proponent of a very simpistic political philosophy, and I hope that
-that's visible. There are such people.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Yes, I'm sure there are. No, God no, I would never ever accuse you of
-being an advocate of a simplistic political philosophy :-)</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd><p>There are people who are totally opposed to copyright and criticise me
-for not going far enough, but what I say is that works whose use is to do
-practical jobs, these works must be Free in the sense of the Four Freedoms that
-define Free Software. You've got to be free to republish them, to modify them,
-publish your modified versions, because this is what the users of the works
-need in their lives. But of couse there are lots of works that don't, that
-contribute to society in other ways, they're not functional practical works.
-</p>
-<p>Art for instance, the contribution of an artistic work is in the impact it
-makes on your mind, not in whatever practical job you might figure out how to
-do with it sometime. And then there are works that state people's opinions and
-thoughts and what they've seen, which is a different way that works can
-contribute to society, and I have different recommendations for these. But the
-freedom to non-commercially share, that must be respected, and that's why the
-new New Zealand Copyright Law and the old one were both unjust, and the purpose
-of the new one is, specifically the punishing people by disconnecting them from
-the Internet, the purpose of that is to stop people from sharing, and it's
-wrong to stop people from sharing, so even if they work out a different way of
-achieving this unjust goal, the goal is what's wrong, not only the nasty
-methods that are, because only draconian methods can stop people from sharing.
+<dd>Yes, but I don't want to have one answer for every question in
+society. I'm not a proponent of a very simplistic political
+philosophy, and I hope that that's visible. There are such
+people.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>Yes, I'm sure there are. No, God no, I would never ever accuse
+you of being an advocate of a simplistic political philosophy :-)</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd><p>There are people who are totally opposed to copyright and
+criticize me for not going far enough, but what I say is that works
+whose use is to do practical jobs, these works must be Free in the
+sense of the Four Freedoms that define Free Software. You've got to
+be free to republish them, to modify them, publish your modified
+versions, because this is what the users of the works need in their
+lives. But of course there are lots of works that don't, that
+contribute to society in other ways, they're not functional practical
+works.</p>
+<p>Art for instance, the contribution of an artistic work is in the
+impact it makes on your mind, not in whatever practical job you might
+figure out how to do with it sometime. And then there are works that
+state people's opinions and thoughts and what they've seen, which is a
+different way that works can contribute to society, and I have
+different recommendations for these. But the freedom to
+non-commercially share, that must be respected, and that's why the new
+New Zealand Copyright Law and the old one were both unjust, and the
+purpose of the new one is, specifically the punishing people by
+disconnecting them from the Internet, the purpose of that is to stop
+people from sharing, and it's wrong to stop people from sharing, so
+even if they work out a different way of achieving this unjust goal,
+the goal is what's wrong, not only the nasty methods that are, because
+only draconian methods can stop people from sharing.
</p></dd>
<dt>[32:51]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>How do you mke your income, if you don't mind me asking?</dd>
+<dd>How do you make your income, if you don't mind me asking?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>From speeches; not all my speeches, a lot of them I give unpaid, and a
-lot of them I get paid.</dd>
+<dd>From speeches; not all my speeches, a lot of them I give unpaid,
+and a lot of them I get paid.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>And that's how you make your income?</dd>
@@ -751,16 +811,17 @@
<dd>Yes. I don't spend a lot of money.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>And you wouldn't consider that being paid for something you should share
-happily? It's a donation.</dd>
+<dd>And you wouldn't consider that being paid for something you should
+share happily? It's a donation.</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I'd generally try to avoid having any admission charges. Once in a while
-I do agree to give a speech at a conference where they're charged people to
-register but often I will ask them to let the public in to my speech. So, in
-general I try to have it open to the public without charge because I want as
-many people as possible to come because I'm working for a cause, after all, and
-I want to do as much good as I can for this cause.</dd>
+<dd>I'd generally try to avoid having any admission charges. Once in
+a while I do agree to give a speech at a conference where they're
+charged people to register but often I will ask them to let the public
+in to my speech. So, in general I try to have it open to the public
+without charge because I want as many people as possible to come
+because I'm working for a cause, after all, and I want to do as much
+good as I can for this cause.</dd>
<dt>[33:48]<br />
KH</dt>
@@ -768,119 +829,128 @@
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>You know, gradually we are. But of course we still have a lot of
-opposition, we still have a lot to fight. You know, there's something else in
-the New Zealand Copyright Law that was dopted a year ago, which is unjust, and
-it prohibits in some cases the distribution of Free Software that can break
-digital handcuffs. More and more products are designed with digital handcuffs,
-that is features to stop the user from doing things. So nowadays when I hear
-about a new product or a new service my first thought is "what's malicious in
-that?", "how is it designed to restrict what you can do?". And these products
-are very malicious, for instance there is the Amazon Kindle, it's an e-book
-reader, and they call it the Kindle to express what it's designed to do to our
-books.</dd>
-
-<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>That's not true :-)
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>But it does express what it will do with our books. The point is this
-product does surveillance, it forces the user to identify herself to buy a
-book, and Amazon has a list, knows exactly what everybody has bought. Then it
-is also designed to restrict the user, to stop people from sharing, from
-lending books to their friends, from selling them to a used bookstore, and
-various things that with printed books we can lawfully do. Even worse, it has
-a back door, that is Amazon can send commands remotely and do things to you, we
-found out about this a few months ago.</dd>
+opposition, we still have a lot to fight. You know, there's something
+else in the New Zealand Copyright Law that was adopted a year ago,
+which is unjust, and it prohibits in some cases the distribution of
+Free Software that can break digital handcuffs. More and more
+products are designed with digital handcuffs, that is features to stop
+the user from doing things. So nowadays when I hear about a new
+product or a new service my first thought is <q>what's malicious in
+that?</q>, <q>how is it designed to restrict what you can do?</q>.
+And these products are very malicious, for instance there is the
+Amazon Kindle, it's an e-book reader, and they call it the Kindle to
+express what it's designed to do to our books.</dd>
+
+<dt>KH</dt>
+<dd>That's not true :-)</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>But it does express what it will do with our books. The point is
+this product does surveillance, it forces the user to identify herself
+to buy a book, and Amazon has a list, knows exactly what everybody has
+bought. Then it is also designed to restrict the user, to stop people
+from sharing, from lending books to their friends, from selling them
+to a used bookstore, and various things that with printed books we can
+lawfully do. Even worse, it has a back door, that is Amazon can send
+commands remotely and do things to you, we found out about this a few
+months ago.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Do what to you?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>Well Amazon sent a command to all the Kindles, ordering them to erase all
-copies of a particular book, namely "1984" by George Orwell. Somebody said that
-they had burned up the year's supply of irony by choosing that book. So now we
-know Amazon can remotely erase your books. Now Amazon, after doing this,
-promised it would never do that again, but our freedom to keep a book for as
-long as we want, and read it as many times as we want, should not be dependant
-on any company's goodwill.</dd>
+<dd>Well Amazon sent a command to all the Kindles, ordering them to
+erase all copies of a particular book, namely <cite>1984</cite> by
+George Orwell. Somebody said that they had burned up the year's
+supply of irony by choosing that book. So now we know Amazon can
+remotely erase your books. Now Amazon, after doing this, promised it
+would never do that again, but our freedom to keep a book for as long
+as we want, and read it as many times as we want, should not be
+dependent on any company's goodwill.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>Where do you get your books from?</dd>
<dt>[36:13]<br />
RMS</dt>
-<dd>I buy books from bookstores, yes I go to a store and I say "I want that
-one".</dd>
+<dd>I buy books from bookstores, yes I go to a store and I say <q>I
+want that one</q>.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>And you hand money over for it? Even though you think that that's not
-particularly a good system?</dd>
+<dd>And you hand money over for it? Even though you think that that's
+not particularly a good system?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
<dd>Well I didn't say that's a bad system.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>Well aren't you handing money over to the corporates rather than the
-author?</dd>
+<dd>Well aren't you handing money over to the corporates rather than
+the author?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>To a large extent yes, but I'm not going to refuse to buy just because of
-that, with books actually typically some of the authors do get some money. With
-academic textbooks they generally don't.</dd>
+<dd>To a large extent yes, but I'm not going to refuse to buy just
+because of that, with books actually typically some of the authors do
+get some money. With academic textbooks they generally don't.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>As a matter of interest we've been talking about freedoms, surveillance
-and digital monitoring, does the extraordinary rise of social networking
…</dd>
+<dd>As a matter of interest we've been talking about freedoms,
+surveillance and digital monitoring, does the extraordinary rise of
+social networking …</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I buy CDs of music as well even though in that case I know the musicians
-are not going to get paid, so I'd rather send them some money.</dd>
+<dd>I buy CDs of music as well even though in that case I know the
+musicians are not going to get paid, so I'd rather send them some
+money.</dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
<dd>OK. And do you?</dd>
<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>I wish I could, I don't have a way, so I try to convince people to set up
-the system to make it easy.</dd>
+<dd>I wish I could, I don't have a way, so I try to convince people to
+set up the system to make it easy.</dd>
<dt>[37:16]<br />
KH</dt>
-<dd>I'm sure they're sending us their addresses as you speak. Very briefly,
-the rise of social networking, is that a concern in terms of privacy for
you?</dd>
-
-<dt>RMS</dt>
-<dd>It is, and I don't use those sites, it's more because I don't have time,
-I'm busy doing other things. I don't think social network sites are necessarily
-bad but they lead people into foolish activities. So I think an ethical social
-network site should warn people, and every time you connect to it it should
-warn you, "anything you post here might get known to the public no matter how
-you set up settings about supposed privacy. So if you don't want it published,
-you shouldn't say it here."
+<dd>I'm sure they're sending us their addresses as you speak. Very
+briefly, the rise of social networking, is that a concern in terms of
+privacy for you?</dd>
+
+<dt>RMS</dt>
+<dd>It is, and I don't use those sites, it's more because I don't have
+time, I'm busy doing other things. I don't think social network sites
+are necessarily bad but they lead people into foolish activities. So
+I think an ethical social network site should warn people, and every
+time you connect to it it should warn you, <q>anything you post here
+might get known to the public no matter how you set up settings about
+supposed privacy. So if you don't want it published, you shouldn't
+say it here.</q></dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>That's a nice warning. Thank you, it's very nice to talk to you Richard
-Stallman.</dd>
+<dd>That's a nice warning. Thank you, it's very nice to talk to you
+Richard Stallman.</dd>
<dt>[38:08]<br />
RMS</dt>
<dd>We didn't even mention ACTA, the secret treaty that New Zealand is
-negotiating to restrict its citizens, and they won't; they tell publishers
-what's in the text that they're working on, but they won't tell the public. So
-the point is that the; many governments, including of course the US are
-conspiring in secret to impose new restrictions on us relating to copyright and
-part of their latest propaganda is they call sharing quote "counterfeiting"
-unquote. But the point is that this treaty will have provisions to restrict the
-public, we think, but they won't tell us. This is called Policy Laundering,
-this general practice; instead of democratically considering a law, which means
-the public gets to know what's being considered, gets to talk to the
-legislators, sees how they voted and so on, in secret they negotiate a treaty
-and then they come back and they say "we can't change the treaty and we
-obviously can't refuse it, so we're all now, we've just arranged for our
-country to be stuck with this law."</dd>
+negotiating to restrict its citizens, and they won't; they tell
+publishers what's in the text that they're working on, but they won't
+tell the public. So the point is that the; many governments,
+including of course the US are conspiring in secret to impose new
+restrictions on us relating to copyright and part of their latest
+propaganda is they call sharing <q>counterfeiting</q>. But the point
+is that this treaty will have provisions to restrict the public, we
+think, but they won't tell us. This is called Policy Laundering, this
+general practice; instead of democratically considering a law, which
+means the public gets to know what's being considered, gets to talk to
+the legislators, sees how they voted and so on, in secret they
+negotiate a treaty and then they come back and they say <q>we can't
+change the treaty and we obviously can't refuse it, so we're all now,
+we've just arranged for our country to be stuck with this
+law.</q></dd>
<dt>KH</dt>
-<dd>And we may well look at that law in a couple or three weeks time.</dd>
-
+<dd>And we may well look at that law in a couple or three weeks
+time.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
@@ -915,7 +985,7 @@
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2009/12/09 22:23:54 $
+$Date: 2010/01/05 15:40:33 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
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