Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Update on freeyourstuff.cc (content/user liberation)

[Alexander Berntsen]

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On 11/05/16 11:20, Tyler Romeo wrote:
> The free software movement is concerned with end-user freedoms for
>  *software*, hence the name of the movement. To be specific,
> quoting from [0], "Freedom means having control over your own life.
> If you use a program to carry out activities in your life, your
> freedom depends on your having control over the program."
Yes, that is a myopic flaw in this whole free software movement thing.

> That said, the free culture movement, and its associated
> principles, are substantially separate from the free software
> movement. An individual can fully believe in the rights of an
> end-user to have control over the software that affects their life,
> while still believing that artists and creators should have control
> over how others use their artistic creations (to a given extent).
> Artwork is not code, and does not exert a control over your
> everyday processes.
> 
> That said, I wholly agree with al3xu5. While I do believe in some 
> aspects of the free culture movement, specifically that copyright
> is too restrictive in its current form and the viewers should have
> some rights, I do not believe that viewers should be able to
> commercially derive and re-use any non-software copyrighted work
> they receive a copy of. The original purpose of copyright was to
> protect the commercial interests of artists, and I believe *some*
> form of that protection is still appropriate.
You are using language in which artists are deities, and have some
inherent "rights" that need "protection". I don't subscribe to that
world view, nor do I agree that freedoms for our cultural heritage
isn't as important as free software (although you personally go even
further and say that copy"right" should "protect" the "commercial
interests" of artists).

For what it's worth, your whole notion of how artists should be
prevented from reusing things is unreasonable nonsense. What if
someone had patented a C note and said that "I recorded this note
first, so you cannot include it in your music"? That's essentially
what's happening in the computer industry at the moment, but luckily
music pre-dates patents. (To take an example of a bigger work that's
just a plain retelling of something that already existed -- look to
about half of everything that Disney ever made. They are constantly
lobbying to ensure nobody else can benefit from the same stories they
benefited from, all in the name of their "intellectual property
rights" as "creators".) And what happens when someone *does* say "I
recorded this chord progression first, so you cannot use it in your
music", like The Hollies told Radiohead (for a song that The Hollies
ironically were just covering)? Nothing. The Radiohead song is still a
treasured hit.

It's 2016. Good luck making something (in *any* artistic field) that's
not derivative. Information wants to be free. Culture does too.
- -- 
Alexander
alexander@plaimi.net
https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander
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