"Constitution gives the power to secure exclusive rights to Congress"
Yes, power to secure the exclusive rights that authors were born* with.
"Congress gives those rights to authors via the Copyright Act."
No, Congress did very little in the way of securing the exclusive rights that authors were born with. Instead, it simply re-enacted the Statute of Anne, i.e. enacted copyright that suspended the people's liberty and right to copy in order to grant a per-work reproduction monopoly for the benefit of the press.
All men are born equal. If you corrupt the language to exclude blacks, Jews, alleged paedophiles, suspected terrorists, and other pariahs from mankind then you can treat them worse than animals. A similar corruption exists today in corrupting the language to term copyright as an exclusive right in order that it appears to have constitutional sanction.
Money may not be the root of all evil, but it's having a damn good try.
You should really worry that corporations have been legally elevated to have (at least) the same status and rights as human beings (whatever you think 'rights' means these days).
* 'born' is a clue - authors are human beings, not corporations.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Small communities versus the entire world
One of the biggest disincentives to giving one's sources credit is the legal peril of copyright itself. If one credits one's sources one effectively incriminates oneself for any future claims of infringement by respective copyright holders.
So, post copyright-abolition people are once again proud to copy, proud to credit their sources without fear that their fundamentally innocent act of cultural exchange will enable a corporation's psychopathic lawyers to bankrupt them.
Mellencamp was absolutely right in the passages Mike quoted. All published works, all mankind's culture belongs to every individual who experiences it.
The problem is, some wicked cabal in 1710 persuaded a Queen to deny this, to enact a law that said culture could be excluded from the public (then a decade or so, now a century or so). Three centuries later we are realising why this law must be abolished, why it corrupts even the likes of Mellencamp into hypocrisy.
This is simply an aspect of the fundamental difference between the natural right to truth and the unnatural privilege of copyright (that suspends the people's natural right to copy).
Plagiarism is to present another's work as one's own.
There's nothing morally wrong in copying another's work (it's only a commercial privilege that requires permission), the wrong is in falsehood, in the deceit of misrepresentation or misattribution, which can be implicit, e.g. through context.
Even when copyright is abolished there will still need to be law that enables cases of plagiarism to be arbitrated and remedied.
It's not that one must credit one's sources per se, but that one should not claim (even implicitly) that another's work is one's own. Whether one credits one's sources is a reputational issue (for publisher and source), deceit is a different matter.
Karl, you risk confusing 'use in a commercial' with 'commercial use'.
You should be aware that even without copyright there is a moral right against an artist or their work being misrepresented, e.g. as falsely endorsing a product/religion/political party, etc.
Many artists would rightly be concerned at themselves or their work being misrepresented in adverts, so this is a poor example with which to focus on the economic meaning of commercial use (that NC excludes).
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RMS and copyright restrictions
David,
The moral right for the author to identify themselves as the author of their work is rather different from the copyright enforced obligation for licensees to attribute authorship in their otherwise infringing use of CC-NC works.
As I said, Lawrence Lessig got it wrong in framing attribution as an obligation to be compelled by the copyright holder (via CC license), instead of implicit/explicit misattribution as an impairment of truth external to copyright.
As we both acknowledge, many jurisdictions recognise this in terms of moral rights (independently of legally granted economic rights aka commercial privileges).
Legally granted rights can be transferred, assigned, and waived. Natural rights cannot - they are inalienable, though they need not be exercised.
However copyright is treated (privilege, right, social contract, etc.), the fact remains that it is a privilege - a legislatively granted right (one should disregard obscure jurisdictions that pretend it to be a natural right - as even some in England once claimed it to be).
I doubt you'll have much success achieving copyright's alienation of an individual's right to copy via contract. Such liberty, being inalienable, can only be derogated through legislation - not contract. You'll find copyright jealously reserves such power to itself.
Karl, you seem to have an inverted idea of exploitation.
Record labels exploit artists through copyright by DENYING everyone the liberty to produce copies (including the artist), in order to enjoy the monopoly - being the only source of copies (to charge monopoly prices). Once signed, the artist cannot sell their own work - that is exploitation.
Labels do not exploit artists by having the liberty to produce copies of their work.
Exploitation is about getting people to work for nothing in return, or for far less than the free market value of their labour. Have you wondered why so many artists are considered lottery winners if they receive even 1% of the revenue the label obtains through sale of copies? Most artists see nothing (any advance is 'looked after' for them).
You should also ask why so many software engineers publish their software under a copyleft license and do not feel exploited by Microsoft consequently able to sell copies of their work for any amount they like.
If you would use CC-NC to suspend others' liberty to exchange their labour in a free market (to reserve that suspension for exploitation by a traditional publisher), then frankly, you shouldn't complain if you end up exploited by the publisher you eventually sell your copyright to (if they'd pay you anything for it, being devalued by your market saturation of free copies). If you prohibit anyone from using your work unless they do so unpaid, then you will see zero custom from those who might otherwise like to use your work in earning their own living.
Artists deserve to be able to exchange their labour for money, so it's really perverse that so many pay lip service to this principle with themselves in mind, but disagree in practice through their act of denying this liberty to others by using the CC-NC license.
If I print Nina Paley's cartoons on postcards and sell them, how am I exploiting her? If she'd used CC-NC I wouldn't use them, but because she doesn't and my postcards sell like hotcakes I'll be inclined to commission Nina to produce more cartoons for my cards.
You're absolutely right, when self-publishing is so cheap (and you're no longer biased by copyright to impede others' ability to reproduce your work), publishing source and intermediate working can add to your portfolio and increase the depth of your audience.
Unfortunately, there are some misguided souls who believe that it is not copyright indoctrination, but artists themselves who are anal retentive and reluctant to release source. They feel that artists should be legally compelled to provide their source to any published work, that this can be sequestered if it is not provided on request.
So we have to be careful to avoid using the 'freedom to' in the sense of 'power to'. Some may like the artist to publish their source, but they have no right to it. Claiming one should have the freedom to it does not warrant being given the power to seize it. The usual and ethical means of obtaining something from someone is to offer them something of equal value in exchange, e.g. money.
"but reforming current copyright laws is something we can all get behind"
You can wish it, but that doesn't make it so. Even Lawrence Lessig recognised the growth of the copyright abolitionist movement (as early as a few years ago).
When you recognise that slavery is inherently wrong, you give up campaigning for reforms to provide slaves with better working conditions, nutrition, shelter, healthcare, retirement, etc. Just abolish it. There is no such thing as a good reason to suspend a man's liberty - however wealthy some may get through its exploitation.
All people have the same rights, to be protected as equals - artists are no different from members of their audience.
A copyleft license neutralises copyright - restores back to the people their rights (to copy, etc.) that copyright suspends - as far as is possible.
Then there are the abdicatory licenses that declaw copyright, but don't go much further, e.g. attempt to require derivatives to be similarly licensed.
Any other copyright license modulates the threat of copyright, e.g. "I will only sue your ass off if I find you making any money in your infringement of my privilege".
In the case of CC-NC this is mostly an empty threat as few self-publishing artists have the litigation budget to detect and prosecute infringers - they're faced with finding a publisher (or Righthaven type troll) to whom they sell their copyright for them to so exploit.
The issue of CC-NC is nothing to do with reforming copyright. It's about helping self-publishing artists understand that it is counter-productive (cuts off their nose to spite their face). If they prohibit commercial use of their work they deny themselves greater exposure and the commission of those who would use their work commercially, e.g. "If I can't sell my labour that involves your published work then I won't use it, I'll sing someone else's song - and I'll pay them to write more songs, not you".
All commerce is exchange. All cultural intercourse is exchange. If you deny the public the liberty to exchange your published work as a cultural work, then you exclude your work and yourself from mankind's culture, or at best exhibit it in a sterile 'Do not touch' museum of the anal retentive.
David, Attribution is not a right, but a condition of CC licenses. Of course, if one prefers to term copyright a 'right' (legally granted) instead of the privilege that it is then one may well confuse attribution as a 'right reserved' in the context of 'not all rights reserved'.
The right to truth is natural - not legally granted - and so needs no reservation. It is not granted, but recognised and protected.
Anonymity/pseudonymity is a matter of the right to privacy, not truth. If someone physically conceals their identity then they have a right to exclude others from it, from violating of their veil of privacy to discover it. Disclosure of identity is also not a prerequisite to enjoy one's right to liberty.
As to integrity this is a matter of truth - whether the work presented as that of the author's is truly the author's work, or a true likeness, e.g. not corrupted, bowdlerised, significantly degraded or changed in meaning, etc.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Principled Libertarian IP Opposition
If you're going to use a CC license then the CC-SA one is the most libertarian - restores more liberty suspended by copyright than the others. Even so, it's not as libertarian or as copyleft as the GPL.
One could also covenant to the public that no copyright arising in one's work will ever be used by the holder against any individual for acts that they are naturally at liberty to do - nor will the copyright ever be assigned to anyone not so covenanting.
I suspect we should soon start migrating to this Hippocratic oath rather than relying upon fairly ephemeral licenses being attached to published works (especially as Czechoslovakia is showing how they may be undermined). It would be interesting to see a law deny an author their natural right to identify themselves as the author of their work, and the right to declare that they will not sue people for enjoying liberties otherwise suspended by copyright.
The privilege of excluding others from making copies is nothing to do with the right to truth (against its malicious impairment). Certainly, copyright enables grossly disproportionate legal threats to be made against those making untruthful copies or claims concerning them, but that doesn't put the protection of truth within copyright's ambit.
RMS has simply failed to recognise truth (already well recognised in some jurisdictions as moral rights or droits moraux) and has instead created a spurious and ill defined trichotomy of intellectual works.
Thus even after copyright's abolition, people still need redress against cases of plagiarism/misattribution, misrepresentation, compromises of artistic integrity, etc.
Even Lawrence Lessig gets it wrong in framing attribution as an obligation to be compelled by the copyright holder (via CC license), instead of implicit/explicit misattribution as an impairment of truth external to copyright.
I have a problem with 'trade secret' if it means suspending the individual's natural right and liberty to communicate.
We're not exactly talking about someone publishing something that maliciously endangers someone's life are we?
Trade secret is about being able to punish someone for disclosing a corporation's secret design or recipe simply because it 'endangers' future profits. We're not even talking about physical harm to a living being, but fiscal 'harm' to a legislatively created entity.
Anyone calling themselves a libertarian who believes the individual's freedom of speech should take second place to an immortal corporation's profits has lost sight of the meaning of liberty.
As to 'leverage', this is surely just a euphemism for the power obtained through privilege. It's the Boromir argument - "We should not destroy the instrument of injustice, but use it for good". Copyleft is a good attempt at enabling an author to undo the privilege that has been granted to them, but it is a tragic fallacy to conclude that the privileges should be retained on the statute books in order that the good of undoing them can be continued.
XI. THOU SHALT MARVEL AT ALL MY CREATION AND IN MY LIKENESS THOU TOO SHALT CREATE – THY DESIGN SHALL BE JOINED TO MINE AND ALL UPON EARTH THAT IS MADE IN ITS FORM SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THY WILL, FOR AS LONG AS THEE SHALL LIVE.
XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.
Licenses are really for those superstitious folk who still believe in the power of 18th century privileges ('attached strings'), and in the case of the GPL they did work, but then that may be because programmers are trained to adhere to rules.
For culture in general, licenses are more a means of the publisher expressing their litigious intentions, from some to none.
People who have 'grown up' as you put it are today termed 'pirates'. And I'm not talking about the copyright reformists who've hijacked the term, i.e. the so called 'Pirate parties'.
Actually, to frame things in terms of 'freedoms' is an ethical foundation rather lacking in solidity. This applies to RMS's 'four freedoms' (see Flawed Freedoms), and by simply re-targeting them to culture in general Benjamin Mako Hill reveals their flimsy foundations still further (but hey, at least it's an attempt at principle - something Creative Commons egregiously evaded).
The 'freedoms' should be properly recognised as the liberties suspended by copyright and patent, but are also confused with the epiphenomena of those privileges, e.g. keeping source code secret.
You might like the freedom to read my diary (in my drawer), but you have no (natural) right to read it.
You might like the freedom to produce and distribute further copies of my published memoirs (having purchased a copy), and you have every (natural) right to, but an 18th century statute suspended this right to copy from you (to grant as a privilege for the Stationers' Company).
It is thus important to distinguish between having liberty restored and utilising a privilege to obtain unnatural powers many covet.
Using a copyright license to restore to the public their natural liberty to make copies is GOOD.
Using a copyright license to prohibit people from exchanging their labour in a free market (if it involves the licensed work) is BAD.
Keeping source secret is incentivised by copyright. It's properly remedied by abolishing copyright to remove that incentive. Without copyright and its incentive there is then no motive to grant people the unnatural power to sequester source code. Unfortunately, it's worryingly easy for people to translate 'freedom to' into 'power to'. Just as 'Power/privilege to prevent you making copies' has been translated into 'right to prevent you making copies'.
The ethical foundations of cultural liberty go deeper than a simple enumeration of four freedoms one aspires to.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The conundrum
If you're worried about taking something away from artists you should learn from the experts - record labels.
The sale of copies has become a dead end. Fortunately, the sale of art direct to fans is beginning to see a resurgence.
If you wove a basket and sold it for $10, would you require a share of the profits if the purchaser then resold it for $50?
It's nice to be granted a monopoly so only you can keep on selling copies of your work. Some people can only sell their work once.
On the post: John Mellencamp: Takes From Others, But Refuses To Give Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, power to secure the exclusive rights that authors were born* with.
"Congress gives those rights to authors via the Copyright Act."
No, Congress did very little in the way of securing the exclusive rights that authors were born with. Instead, it simply re-enacted the Statute of Anne, i.e. enacted copyright that suspended the people's liberty and right to copy in order to grant a per-work reproduction monopoly for the benefit of the press.
All men are born equal. If you corrupt the language to exclude blacks, Jews, alleged paedophiles, suspected terrorists, and other pariahs from mankind then you can treat them worse than animals. A similar corruption exists today in corrupting the language to term copyright as an exclusive right in order that it appears to have constitutional sanction.
Money may not be the root of all evil, but it's having a damn good try.
You should really worry that corporations have been legally elevated to have (at least) the same status and rights as human beings (whatever you think 'rights' means these days).
* 'born' is a clue - authors are human beings, not corporations.
On the post: How Social Mores Can Deal With 'Unfair' Copying, Even In Absence Of Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Small communities versus the entire world
So, post copyright-abolition people are once again proud to copy, proud to credit their sources without fear that their fundamentally innocent act of cultural exchange will enable a corporation's psychopathic lawyers to bankrupt them.
On the post: John Mellencamp: Takes From Others, But Refuses To Give Back
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Anyway, I thought people were born with rights. Since when were they handed out like candy?
On the post: John Mellencamp: Takes From Others, But Refuses To Give Back
Re: What a crok.. !!! --- refuses to give back ??
The problem is, some wicked cabal in 1710 persuaded a Queen to deny this, to enact a law that said culture could be excluded from the public (then a decade or so, now a century or so). Three centuries later we are realising why this law must be abolished, why it corrupts even the likes of Mellencamp into hypocrisy.
On the post: How Social Mores Can Deal With 'Unfair' Copying, Even In Absence Of Copyright
Plagiarism vs Copying
Plagiarism is to present another's work as one's own.
There's nothing morally wrong in copying another's work (it's only a commercial privilege that requires permission), the wrong is in falsehood, in the deceit of misrepresentation or misattribution, which can be implicit, e.g. through context.
Even when copyright is abolished there will still need to be law that enables cases of plagiarism to be arbitrated and remedied.
It's not that one must credit one's sources per se, but that one should not claim (even implicitly) that another's work is one's own. Whether one credits one's sources is a reputational issue (for publisher and source), deceit is a different matter.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
Re: Re: Re: Re:
You should be aware that even without copyright there is a moral right against an artist or their work being misrepresented, e.g. as falsely endorsing a product/religion/political party, etc.
Many artists would rightly be concerned at themselves or their work being misrepresented in adverts, so this is a poor example with which to focus on the economic meaning of commercial use (that NC excludes).
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RMS and copyright restrictions
The moral right for the author to identify themselves as the author of their work is rather different from the copyright enforced obligation for licensees to attribute authorship in their otherwise infringing use of CC-NC works.
As I said, Lawrence Lessig got it wrong in framing attribution as an obligation to be compelled by the copyright holder (via CC license), instead of implicit/explicit misattribution as an impairment of truth external to copyright.
As we both acknowledge, many jurisdictions recognise this in terms of moral rights (independently of legally granted economic rights aka commercial privileges).
Legally granted rights can be transferred, assigned, and waived. Natural rights cannot - they are inalienable, though they need not be exercised.
However copyright is treated (privilege, right, social contract, etc.), the fact remains that it is a privilege - a legislatively granted right (one should disregard obscure jurisdictions that pretend it to be a natural right - as even some in England once claimed it to be).
I doubt you'll have much success achieving copyright's alienation of an individual's right to copy via contract. Such liberty, being inalienable, can only be derogated through legislation - not contract. You'll find copyright jealously reserves such power to itself.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
Re: Re: Re: The conundrum
Record labels exploit artists through copyright by DENYING everyone the liberty to produce copies (including the artist), in order to enjoy the monopoly - being the only source of copies (to charge monopoly prices). Once signed, the artist cannot sell their own work - that is exploitation.
Labels do not exploit artists by having the liberty to produce copies of their work.
Exploitation is about getting people to work for nothing in return, or for far less than the free market value of their labour. Have you wondered why so many artists are considered lottery winners if they receive even 1% of the revenue the label obtains through sale of copies? Most artists see nothing (any advance is 'looked after' for them).
You should also ask why so many software engineers publish their software under a copyleft license and do not feel exploited by Microsoft consequently able to sell copies of their work for any amount they like.
If you would use CC-NC to suspend others' liberty to exchange their labour in a free market (to reserve that suspension for exploitation by a traditional publisher), then frankly, you shouldn't complain if you end up exploited by the publisher you eventually sell your copyright to (if they'd pay you anything for it, being devalued by your market saturation of free copies). If you prohibit anyone from using your work unless they do so unpaid, then you will see zero custom from those who might otherwise like to use your work in earning their own living.
Artists deserve to be able to exchange their labour for money, so it's really perverse that so many pay lip service to this principle with themselves in mind, but disagree in practice through their act of denying this liberty to others by using the CC-NC license.
If I print Nina Paley's cartoons on postcards and sell them, how am I exploiting her? If she'd used CC-NC I wouldn't use them, but because she doesn't and my postcards sell like hotcakes I'll be inclined to commission Nina to produce more cartoons for my cards.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: free culture
Unfortunately, there are some misguided souls who believe that it is not copyright indoctrination, but artists themselves who are anal retentive and reluctant to release source. They feel that artists should be legally compelled to provide their source to any published work, that this can be sequestered if it is not provided on request.
So we have to be careful to avoid using the 'freedom to' in the sense of 'power to'. Some may like the artist to publish their source, but they have no right to it. Claiming one should have the freedom to it does not warrant being given the power to seize it. The usual and ethical means of obtaining something from someone is to offer them something of equal value in exchange, e.g. money.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
Re: Re: CC-NC is invidious
You can wish it, but that doesn't make it so. Even Lawrence Lessig recognised the growth of the copyright abolitionist movement (as early as a few years ago).
There are a few abolitionists that comment on TechDirt - myself among them. Even the article's author, Nina Paley herself is one. There are a few more abolitionists commenting on her previous article: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles.
When you recognise that slavery is inherently wrong, you give up campaigning for reforms to provide slaves with better working conditions, nutrition, shelter, healthcare, retirement, etc. Just abolish it. There is no such thing as a good reason to suspend a man's liberty - however wealthy some may get through its exploitation.
See the article by Leonhard Dobusch: Reflections on Abolitionism: Copyright and Beyond.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
Re: The conundrum
All people have the same rights, to be protected as equals - artists are no different from members of their audience.
A copyleft license neutralises copyright - restores back to the people their rights (to copy, etc.) that copyright suspends - as far as is possible.
Then there are the abdicatory licenses that declaw copyright, but don't go much further, e.g. attempt to require derivatives to be similarly licensed.
Any other copyright license modulates the threat of copyright, e.g. "I will only sue your ass off if I find you making any money in your infringement of my privilege".
In the case of CC-NC this is mostly an empty threat as few self-publishing artists have the litigation budget to detect and prosecute infringers - they're faced with finding a publisher (or Righthaven type troll) to whom they sell their copyright for them to so exploit.
The issue of CC-NC is nothing to do with reforming copyright. It's about helping self-publishing artists understand that it is counter-productive (cuts off their nose to spite their face). If they prohibit commercial use of their work they deny themselves greater exposure and the commission of those who would use their work commercially, e.g. "If I can't sell my labour that involves your published work then I won't use it, I'll sing someone else's song - and I'll pay them to write more songs, not you".
All commerce is exchange. All cultural intercourse is exchange. If you deny the public the liberty to exchange your published work as a cultural work, then you exclude your work and yourself from mankind's culture, or at best exhibit it in a sterile 'Do not touch' museum of the anal retentive.
On the post: Are Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses A Bad Idea? Nina Paley & Cory Doctorow Debate...
CC-NC is invidious
Also see Rob Myers post: http://robmyers.org/weblog/2008/02/24/noncommercial-sharealike-is-not-copyleft/
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: Re: Re: RMS and copyright restrictions
The right to truth is natural - not legally granted - and so needs no reservation. It is not granted, but recognised and protected.
Anonymity/pseudonymity is a matter of the right to privacy, not truth. If someone physically conceals their identity then they have a right to exclude others from it, from violating of their veil of privacy to discover it. Disclosure of identity is also not a prerequisite to enjoy one's right to liberty.
As to integrity this is a matter of truth - whether the work presented as that of the author's is truly the author's work, or a true likeness, e.g. not corrupted, bowdlerised, significantly degraded or changed in meaning, etc.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: Re: Re: Principled Libertarian IP Opposition
One could also covenant to the public that no copyright arising in one's work will ever be used by the holder against any individual for acts that they are naturally at liberty to do - nor will the copyright ever be assigned to anyone not so covenanting.
I suspect we should soon start migrating to this Hippocratic oath rather than relying upon fairly ephemeral licenses being attached to published works (especially as Czechoslovakia is showing how they may be undermined). It would be interesting to see a law deny an author their natural right to identify themselves as the author of their work, and the right to declare that they will not sue people for enjoying liberties otherwise suspended by copyright.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: RMS and copyright restrictions
The privilege of excluding others from making copies is nothing to do with the right to truth (against its malicious impairment). Certainly, copyright enables grossly disproportionate legal threats to be made against those making untruthful copies or claims concerning them, but that doesn't put the protection of truth within copyright's ambit.
RMS has simply failed to recognise truth (already well recognised in some jurisdictions as moral rights or droits moraux) and has instead created a spurious and ill defined trichotomy of intellectual works.
Thus even after copyright's abolition, people still need redress against cases of plagiarism/misattribution, misrepresentation, compromises of artistic integrity, etc.
Even Lawrence Lessig gets it wrong in framing attribution as an obligation to be compelled by the copyright holder (via CC license), instead of implicit/explicit misattribution as an impairment of truth external to copyright.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Re: Principled Libertarian IP Opposition
We're not exactly talking about someone publishing something that maliciously endangers someone's life are we?
Trade secret is about being able to punish someone for disclosing a corporation's secret design or recipe simply because it 'endangers' future profits. We're not even talking about physical harm to a living being, but fiscal 'harm' to a legislatively created entity.
Anyone calling themselves a libertarian who believes the individual's freedom of speech should take second place to an immortal corporation's profits has lost sight of the meaning of liberty.
As to 'leverage', this is surely just a euphemism for the power obtained through privilege. It's the Boromir argument - "We should not destroy the instrument of injustice, but use it for good". Copyleft is a good attempt at enabling an author to undo the privilege that has been granted to them, but it is a tragic fallacy to conclude that the privileges should be retained on the statute books in order that the good of undoing them can be continued.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Missing commandments
XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.
(From Commandments on Creation and Copying)
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re:
For culture in general, licenses are more a means of the publisher expressing their litigious intentions, from some to none.
People who have 'grown up' as you put it are today termed 'pirates'. And I'm not talking about the copyright reformists who've hijacked the term, i.e. the so called 'Pirate parties'.
On the post: Even 'Free' Culture Supporters Sometimes Have Difficulty Living Up To Their Own Principles
Re: Alternative Four Freedoms
The 'freedoms' should be properly recognised as the liberties suspended by copyright and patent, but are also confused with the epiphenomena of those privileges, e.g. keeping source code secret.
You might like the freedom to read my diary (in my drawer), but you have no (natural) right to read it.
You might like the freedom to produce and distribute further copies of my published memoirs (having purchased a copy), and you have every (natural) right to, but an 18th century statute suspended this right to copy from you (to grant as a privilege for the Stationers' Company).
It is thus important to distinguish between having liberty restored and utilising a privilege to obtain unnatural powers many covet.
Using a copyright license to restore to the public their natural liberty to make copies is GOOD.
Using a copyright license to prohibit people from exchanging their labour in a free market (if it involves the licensed work) is BAD.
Keeping source secret is incentivised by copyright. It's properly remedied by abolishing copyright to remove that incentive. Without copyright and its incentive there is then no motive to grant people the unnatural power to sequester source code. Unfortunately, it's worryingly easy for people to translate 'freedom to' into 'power to'. Just as 'Power/privilege to prevent you making copies' has been translated into 'right to prevent you making copies'.
The ethical foundations of cultural liberty go deeper than a simple enumeration of four freedoms one aspires to.
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