[sclug] Cheap'n'nasty Tesco Linux machines

[Dickon Hood]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 01:40:47 +0000, mail at europa.demon.co.uk wrote:

: As a "rodney" (please retract that if we are to continue any discussion) I 
: understand "licensing" perfectly well, I simply consider it morally and 
: ethically wrong, and I can inform you that copyright is not required for Free 
: Software, it is merely a mechanism (the "copyright hack" to turn it into 
: copyleft) which we use under the current legal system that recognises 
: copyright to enable Free Software in the society we live in today.

That software -- or, as you've stated *anything* copyrightable --
television programme, film, book, or recording, was not produced for
nothing: it takes resources to produce all of these things.

Is it not morally and ethically right to allow the entity which spent
those resources some mechanism to recover those costs?  Surely it isn't
ethical to deny a writer or a filmmaker the fruits of their labour?

There wouldn't be much left of the entertainment industries left if not.

-- 
Dickon Hood

Due to digital rights management, my .sig is temporarily unavailable.
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  We apologise for the
inconvenience in the meantime.

No virus was found in this outgoing message as I didn't bother looking.