Re: [Fsfe-uk] Young Greens moving on FS

[Chris Croughton]

On Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 12:10:40AM -0500, Mark Preston wrote:

> Yes Gnu GPL free software is copyrighted, or copylefted, at present. 
> This can be regarded as just a workaround because the laws relating to 
> copyright aren't likely to disappear anytime soon. A lot of people who 
> support the use of free software would also like to see copyright laws 
> abolished, especially in relation to files distributed over the internet.

Certainly, in the same way that many of them would like to see all laws
abolished.  And everyone live in peace and harmony of their own free
will.  Unfortunately, "utopia is not an option".  And then there are
those who "support free software" because it's "free as in beer", and
don't want to pay for anything else either...

What most creative people I know (musicians, artists and authors as well
as programmers) would like to see with copyright is for it to be reined
back to a sensible state, not abolished.  Few people really want to say
"no one has any rights over what they produce", what some vocal ones
want to say is "I want rights over what /you/ produce" (most of those
involved in warez and music copying -- and in misusing DRM in the other
direction -- are not themselves creative, so they are in no danger of
having their own IP misused, they just want to misuse that of others).

And if someone creative does really want to relinquish all rights to
their own work, they are free to do so.  They can donate their work to
the Public Domain, or they can use some of the very permissive licences
if they still want their names associated with the work (like the Zlib
licence, which basically says only "don't misrepresent who did it", and
the claim in some books that "the author asserts their right to be
identified as the author of this work").

Copyright and patents are not evil per se.  The original purpose of both
was both benign and beneficial.  The problem with both is that they have
become distorted beyond all sanity (copyright extending for 70 years --
over 2 generations -- beyond the death of the creator is ridiculous;
allowing patents on things which are 'discoveries', like algorithms and
DNA sequences, is obscene).  I think most people -- apart from what The
Register calls the 'pigopolists', RIAA and Disney for instance -- would
be happy with copyright being reined back to 50 years from creation of
the work and patents restricted to physical inventions and for (say) 5
years (the rate of invention being much faster now).

Chris C