[Gllug] Uh oh, ministers consider "anti file-sharing laws"

[David Damerell]

On Thursday, 1 Nov 2007, John Hearns wrote:
>Given that GLLUG concerns itself with discussions of Free Software,
>we should not that the GNU Copyleft is also a Copyright.
>And the powers of Copyright are used to defend the rights of the authors
>of GPL software.

That's true, and Martin Brooks has already used it to set up the false
dichotomy that either you must think "copyright good" and hence
support the structure of copyright on non-free software or else think
"copyright bad" and be opposed to the GPL.

However, it is a false dichotomy, and a fairly obvious one; you don't
have to have read much of Stallman's output to see that the GPL is an
attempt to use the system we have - copyright - to create the effect
of the different system he desires.

I think artificial scarcity is bad, and if at all possible society
should aim to provide an incentive for creative works that does not
rely on artificial scarcity. Hence non-free software copyrights are
generally bad - part of a system of artifical scarcity; the GPL is
good, being aimed to create the effect of a system without artificial
scarcity.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Gloucesterday, October.
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