"Clark, Nicholas" <[email protected]> writes: >In reply, I want to point to this from Richard Stallman >(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html) in which he points >out that Software Freedom as we know it depends on copyright being >more or less the way it is now, and that, for example, the Swedish >Pirate Party's platform of shortening the copyright term to five years >would result in less, not more freedom as applied to software (there's >probably an analogous Free Culture situation, but I can't think of >it). While weaker copyright laws are ideal, adjusting them to permit >the amount of freedom available currently with respect to software >would require - as Stallman suggests - additional new laws. That, as >I broadly understand it, is inconsistent with libertarianism.
Yes, libertarians might have a problem with such a solution. However (as you seem to imply) the GPL's twist on copyright is just one possible mechanism to require certain kinds of sharing. It isn't the only mechanism we could imagine, though. One could as easily have a separate law -- unrelated to copyright -- to do the same thing as the GPL. This is discussed more, as part of a larger article, here: http://questioncopyright.org/copyright_and_open_source#copyleft-without-copyright It's probably a faux pas to quote myself, but whatever :-) ! Here goes: | ... to say that the GPL depends on copyright is like saying that | reading depends on scribes. It may be true for a period of time, | but it's certainly not built into the nature of things, and it's not | an argument for supporting scribes after something better comes | along. Later, we might even use the same word, "scribes", to refer | to the new, better thing, but that doesn't mean it's the same as the | old thing. (Compare what the word "printer" means today versus what | it meant in the seventeenth century.) Best, -Karl >From: [email protected] >[[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kevin Driscoll >[[email protected]] >Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 4:15 PM >To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular >Subject: [FC-discuss] Libertarian critique of "intellectual property" > >My classmate just passed along an article that critiques IP from a >strictly Libertarian point-of-view. Some of it will be elementary to >folks on this list but it also provides some provocative / useful >links to another literature that may be less familiar. > >To long to copy paste so here's a link: >http://mises.org/daily/5025/The-Fight-against-Intellectual-Property > >Curious to know what you think. > >Kevin >_______________________________________________ >Discuss mailing list >[email protected] >http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss > > >_______________________________________________ >Discuss mailing list >[email protected] >http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
