From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262247AbTEATgx (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2003 15:36:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262251AbTEATgx (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2003 15:36:53 -0400 Received: from mail.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.131]:12208 "EHLO shell.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262247AbTEATgu (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 May 2003 15:36:50 -0400 From: "David Schwartz" To: "Jamie Lokier" Cc: "Robert White" , Subject: RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!] Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 12:49:09 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20030501090309.GA17578@mail.jlokier.co.uk> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > David Schwartz wrote: > > All of these right conflicts are resolved by property > > rights. Yes, you can > > keep and bear arms on your property, but you can't let a bullet > > fly onto the > > circle K. Yes, you can smoke in your house or someplace under > > your control, > > but I can designate my house smoke free if I want to. > Free market capitalism _appears_ to tend towards a structure where the > bulk of property becomes owned by a few owners, and the majority of > owners own very little property. > > So it's appropriate for rights to be distributed like that too? > > For example, suppose you own _all_ the land I can travel to. Then my > right to not be shot by you is not protected at all. I do not think > that is an appropriate resolution of rights. While this is an interesting defect in my analogy, it's not relevant to copyright because here we're talking solely about property wholly created. So the alternative to my owning all the land you could travel to would be that land not existing. > > The author's right to profit from his creation is about as > > absolute a > > property right as you can imagine. > For some kinds of profit, I agree. For other kinds of profit (read: > coercion over others), I disagree. As I made clear, your right to profit to the idea is the same type of right as your right to do what you want with your bat. It doesn't include taking it onto my property to break my windows. > And if there are two authors who independently create something > similar? The rights do not resolve so long as both authors demand > that the other does not profit. The only resolution is when both > authors view cooperation as a satisfactory kind of profit. Since we're talking copyright here and not patent, two independent developers would both have equal right to authorize the use or distribution of the idea. > I truly do not believe I have that "absolute property right", much as > I would like it. If I write a program or create a new kind of > technical device, I would like to profit from that. But I do not > think I would be allowed to, as I would be pursued into oblivion by > more powerful entities than I. You have the right to walk the streets at night with hundred dollar bills danglnig out of your pockets and nobody has the right to steal the money from you. That doing so is stupid and will likely make you the victim of a crime doesn't change your right one iota. Heer we see a difference between rights that are both legal and moral and what you can practically achieve. Yes, it's a defect in our legal system that wealthy powerful people can manipulate it with extreme effectiveness. Yes, it's a defect in our legislative system that companies like Disney can exert enormous control over what laws are passed. But these aren't really copyright issues in principle. > But then, I truly believe it is conceptually impossible to create > something which has no connection with what has come before. So I > would not claim it as absolutely mine anyway, unless I had an agenda > to fulfull... This is just equivocation on the "it". Legally, the "it" you own is not any particular word or 'diff' output, it's the original creative effort that you added. If I translate Hamlet into Polish, there is no physical way to isolate my contribution from Shakespeare's, but that doesn't mean we don't understand that there is creative effort that you added and that the total work contains your creative effort and Shakespeare's. This may be confusing for people not familiar with intellectual property law. But trust me (or do some research or talk to an intellectual property lawyer), it creates no legal problems or problems of principle whatsoever. Your copyright rights to what you produce in no way affects what anyone can do with, or what you can do to, anything that came before you. DS