Re: [libreplanet-discuss] suggestion/help. GPL enforcement.

[Aaron Wolf]

On 06/05/2016 11:35 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> 
> 
> On 05/06/16 20:46, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> On 06/05/2016 11:23 AM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
>>>
>>> If copyright law didn't exist, then developers would not be able to use
>>> the GPL to place copyleft conditions on derivative works
>>>
>>
>> (preface: I acknowledge this wording as slightly snarky)
>>
>> Repeat after me: "We can abolish copyright law if we just also mandate
>> source release for published works and prohibit DRM"
>>
> 
> From a practical perspective, thought, I suspect that an outcome
> combining all the things in that sentence is extremely unlikely any time
> soon and so using copyright law to serve a useful purpose is the way to
> go for many people
> 

Sorry, but I don't see any sense in that view. There's no reasonable way
to say that you have a *practical* perspective on the concept of
copyright abolition. There's no practical reality where we're seeing the
end of copyright law in the immediate future. Once you even engage in
that topic, you've moved to discussing purely hypothetical concepts.

If we were actually seeing serious discussion by legislators about
copyright abolition, then the most practical way to talk about it is:
"currently, we use copyright law to protect freedoms via copyleft, so we
oppose the abolition of copyright law unless combined with other
protections for software freedom such as mandatory source release for
published works and prohibition of DRM." Since 100% of what we're
talking about here is rhetoric only, I fail to see how there's anything
to gain or any practical reason to ignore the fact that alternative
legal protections for software freedom would be needed. Simply stopping
at "we need copyright" has no practical benefit and is rhetorically
inaccurate and simplistic.