On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Samuel Klein <[email protected]> wrote: > They don't want to control your right to read, they want to uphold an > author's right to prohibit certain types of reuse. I hope the > demonstrators, as well as both sides of the debate, grok the > distinction.
The particular control being protested against here prevents the book being read using text-to-speech. So even if it was true that some forms of control of texts do not affect reading, this one definitely does. > Considering how deeply many free software orgs have delved into > various ways to modify and prohibit certain types of reuse, If they did so then their software would not qualify as free. > there is a > lot in common between Free Software legal mavens and the people > thinking about how to let author license text but not audio > digitizations of their work. Both groups must consider copyright law as a factor in achieving their desired outcome but free software does so in order to protect the freedom to use software rather than to remove the freedom to read. Protecting and attacking freedom are not the same thing. > I think both parties, in this case, have fallen into a pit built into > our notions of 'copy' and 'derivative' The publishers wish to protect their ability to prevent people from reading (!), the public wish to protect free use and free speech. These are very different ends despite being phrased in the legal language of the state. > and our acceptance of viral > licensing. Copyleft is not viral, nothing can catch a copyleft license through mere proximity. - Rob. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
