# LANGUAGE translation of https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. # This file is distributed under the same license as the original article. # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR. # #, fuzzy msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: copyright-and-globalization.html\n" "POT-Creation-Date: 2021-10-14 13:25+0000\n" "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n" "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n" "Language: \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" #. type: Content of: <title> msgid "" "Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks - GNU Project - " "Free Software Foundation" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><h2> msgid "Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "The following is an edited transcript from a speech given at <abbr " "title=\"Massachusetts Institute of Technology\">MIT</abbr> in the " "Communications Forum on Thursday, April 19, 2001." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>DAVID THORBURN, moderator</b>: Our speaker today, Richard Stallman, is a " "legendary figure in the computing world, and my experience in trying to find " "a respondent to share the podium with him was instructive. One " "distinguished MIT professor told me that Stallman needs to be understood as " "a charismatic figure in a biblical parable—a kind of Old Testament " "anecdote-lesson. “Imagine,” he said, “a Moses or a " "Jeremiah—better a Jeremiah.” And I said, “Well, that's " "very admirable. That sounds wonderful. It confirms my sense of the kind of " "contribution he has made to the world. Then why are you reluctant to share " "the podium with him?” His answer: “Like Jeremiah or Moses, he " "would simply overwhelm me. I won't appear on the same panel him, but if you " "asked me to name five people alive in the world who have truly helped us " "all, Richard Stallman would be one of them.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>RICHARD STALLMAN</b>: I should [begin by explaining why I have refused to " "allow this Forum to be web cast], in case it wasn't clear fully what the " "issue is: The software they use for web broadcasting requires the user to " "download certain software in order to receive the broadcast. That software " "is not free software. It's available at zero price but only as an " "executable, which is a mysterious bunch of numbers." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "What it does is secret. You can't study it; you can't change it; and you " "certainly can't publish it in your own modified version. And those are " "among the freedoms that are essential in the definition of “free " "software.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So if I am to be an honest advocate for free software, I can hardly go " "around giving speeches, then put pressure on people to use nonfree " "software. I'd be undermining my own cause. And if I don't show that I take " "my principles seriously, I can't expect anybody else to take them seriously." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "However, this speech is not about free software. After I'd been working on " "the free software movement for several years and people started using some " "of the pieces of the GNU operating system, I began getting invited to give " "speeches [at which] … people started asking me: “Well, how do " "the ideas about freedom for software users generalize to other kinds of " "things?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And, of course, people asked silly questions like, “Well, should " "hardware be free?” “Should this microphone be free?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Well, what does that mean? Should you be free to copy it and change it? " "Well, as for changing it, if you buy the microphone, nobody is going to stop " "you from changing it. And as for copying it, nobody has a microphone " "copier. Outside of <cite>Star Trek</cite>, those things don't exist. Maybe " "some day there'll be nanotechnological analyzers and assemblers, and it " "really will be possible to copy a physical object, and then these issues of " "whether you're free to do that will start being really important. We'll see " "agribusiness companies trying to stop people from copying food, and that " "will become a major political issue, if that technological capability will " "ever exist. I don't know if it will; it's just speculation at this point." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But for other kinds of information, you can raise the issue because any kind " "of information that can be stored on a computer, conceivably, can be copied " "and modified. So the ethical issues of free software, the issues of a " "user's right to copy and modify software, are the same as such questions for " "other kinds of published information. Now I'm not talking about private " "information, say, personal information, which is never meant to be available " "to the public at all. I'm talking about the rights you should have if you " "get copies of published things where there's no attempt to keep them secret." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "In order to explain my ideas on the subject, I'd like to review the history " "of the distribution of information and of copyright. In the ancient world, " "books were written by hand with a pen, and anybody who knew how to read and " "write could copy a book about as efficiently as anybody else. Now somebody " "who did it all day would probably learn to be somewhat better at it, but " "there was not a tremendous difference. And because the copies were made one " "at a time, there was no great economy of scale. Making ten copies took ten " "times as long as making one copy. There was also nothing forcing " "centralization; a book could be copied anywhere." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now because of this technology, because it didn't force copies to be " "identical, there wasn't in the ancient world the same total divide between " "copying a book and writing a book. There are things in between that made " "sense. They did understand the idea of an author. They knew, say, that " "this play was written by Sophocles but in between writing a book and copying " "a book, there were other useful things you could do. For instance, you " "could copy a part of a book, then write some new words, copy some more and " "write some new words and on and on. This was called “writing a " "commentary”—that was a common thing to do—and these " "commentaries were appreciated." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "You could also copy a passage out of one book, then write some other words, " "and copy a passage from another book and write some more and so on, and this " "was making a compendium. Compendia were also very useful. There are works " "that are lost but parts of them survived when they were quoted into other " "books that got to be more popular than the original. Maybe they copied the " "most interesting parts, and so people made a lot of copies of these, but " "they didn't bother copying the original because it wasn't interesting " "enough." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now as far as I can tell, there was no such thing as copyright in the " "ancient world. Anyone who wanted to copy a book could copy the book. Later " "on, the printing press was developed and books started to be copied on the " "printing press. Now the printing press was not just a quantitative " "improvement in the ease of copying. It affected different kinds of copying " "unevenly because it introduced an inherent economy of scale. It was a lot " "of work to set the type and much less work to make many identical copies of " "the page. So the result was that copying books tended to become a " "centralized, mass-production activity. Copies of any given book would " "probably be made in only a few places." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It also meant that ordinary readers couldn't copy books efficiently. Only " "if you had a printing press could you do that. So it was an industrial " "activity." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now for the first few centuries of printing, printed books did not totally " "replace hand-copying. Hand-copied books were still made, sometimes by rich " "people and sometimes by poor people. The rich people did this to get an " "especially beautiful copy that would show how rich they were, and poor " "people did it because maybe they didn't have enough money to buy a printed " "copy but they had the time to copy a book by hand. As the song says, " "“Time ain't money when all you got is time.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So hand-copying was still done to some extent. I think it was in the 1800s " "that printing actually got to be cheap enough that even poor people could " "afford printed books if they were literate." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now copyright was developed along with the use of the printing press and " "given the technology of the printing press, it had the effect of an " "industrial regulation. It didn't restrict what readers could do; it " "restricted what publishers and authors could do. Copyright in England was " "initially a form of censorship. You had to get government permission to " "publish the book. But the idea has changed. By the time of the " "U.S. Constitution, people came to a different idea of the purpose of " "copyright, and I think that that idea was accepted in England as well." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "For the U.S. Constitution it was proposed that authors should be entitled to " "a copyright, a monopoly on copying their books. This proposal was " "rejected. Instead, a crucially different proposal was adopted which is " "that, for the sake of promoting progress, Congress could optionally " "establish a copyright system that would create these monopolies. So the " "monopolies, according to the U.S. Constitution, do not exist for the sake of " "those who own them; they exist for the sake of promoting the progress of " "science. The monopolies are handed out to authors as a way of modifying " "their behavior to get them to do something that serves the public." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So the goal is more written and published books which other people can then " "read. And this is believed to contribute to increased literary activity, " "increased writing about science and other fields, and society then learns " "through this. That's the purpose to be served. The creation of private " "monopolies was a means to an end only, and the end is a public end." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now copyright in the age of the printing press was fairly painless because " "it was an industrial regulation. It restricted only the activities of " "publishers and authors. Well, in some strict sense, the poor people who " "copied books by hand may have been infringing copyright, too. But nobody " "ever tried to enforce copyright against them because it was understood as an " "industrial regulation." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Copyright in the age of the printing press was also easy to enforce because " "it had to be enforced only where there was a publisher, and publishers, by " "their nature, make themselves known. If you're trying to sell books, you've " "got to tell people where to come to buy them. You don't have to go into " "everybody's house to enforce copyright." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And, finally, copyright may have been a beneficial system in that context. " "Copyright in the U.S. is considered by legal scholars as a trade, a bargain " "between the public and authors. The public trades away some of its natural " "rights to make copies, and in exchange gets the benefit of more books' being " "written and published." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now, is this an advantageous trade? Well, when the general public can't make " "copies because they can only be efficiently made on printing " "presses—and most people don't own printing presses—the result is " "that the general public is trading away a freedom it is unable to exercise, " "a freedom that is of no practical value. So if you have something that is a " "byproduct of your life and it's useless and you have the opportunity to " "exchange it for something else of any value, you're gaining. So that's why " "copyright may have been an advantageous trade for the public in that time." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But the context is changing, and that has to change our ethical evaluation " "of copyright. Now the basic principles of ethics are not changed by " "advances in technology; they're too fundamental to be touched by such " "contingencies. But our decision about any specific question is a matter of " "the consequences of the alternatives available, and the consequences of a " "given choice may change when the context changes. That is what is happening " "in the area of copyright law because the age of the printing press is coming " "to an end, giving way gradually to the age of the computer networks." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Computer networks and digital information technology are bringing us back to " "a world more like the ancient world where anyone who can read and use the " "information can also copy it and can make copies about as easily as anyone " "else could make them. They are perfect copies and they're just as good as " "the copies anyone else could make. So the centralization and economy of " "scale introduced by the printing press and similar technologies is going " "away." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And this changing context changes the way copyright law works. You see, " "copyright law no longer acts as an industrial regulation; it is now a " "Draconian restriction on a general public. It used to be a restriction on " "publishers for the sake of authors. Now, for practical purposes, it's a " "restriction on a public for the sake of publishers. Copyright used to be " "fairly painless and uncontroversial. It didn't restrict the general " "public. Now that's not true. If you have a computer, the publishers " "consider restricting you to be their highest priority. Copyright was easy " "to enforce because it was a restriction only on publishers who were easy to " "find and what they published was easy to see. Now the copyright is a " "restriction on each and everyone of you. To enforce it requires " "surveillance—an intrusion—and harsh punishments, and we are " "seeing these being enacted into law in the U.S. and other countries." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And copyright used to be, arguably, an advantageous trade for the public to " "make because the public was trading away freedoms it couldn't exercise. " "Well, now it can exercise these freedoms. What do you do if you have been " "producing a byproduct which was of no use to you and you were in the habit " "of trading it away and then, all of a sudden, you discover a use for it? You " "can actually consume it, use it. What do you do? You don't trade at all; " "you keep some. And that's what the public would naturally want to do." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "That's what the public does whenever it's given a chance to voice its " "preference; it keeps some of this freedom and exercises it. Napster is a " "big example of that, the public deciding to exercise the freedom to copy " "instead of giving it up. So the natural thing for us to do to make " "copyright law fit today's circumstances is to reduce the amount of copyright " "power that copyright owners get, to reduce the amount of restriction that " "they place on the public and to increase the freedom that the public " "retains." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But this is not what the publishers want to do. What they want to do is " "exactly the opposite. They wish to increase copyright powers to the point " "where they can remain firmly in control of all use of information. This has " "led to laws that have given an unprecedented increase in the powers of " "copyright. Freedoms that the public used to have in the age of the printing " "press are being taken away." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "For instance, let's look at e-books. There's a tremendous amount of hype " "about e-books; you can hardly avoid it. I took a flight in Brazil and in " "the in-flight magazine, there was an article saying that maybe it would take " "10 or 20 years before we all switched to e-books. Clearly, this kind of " "campaign comes from somebody paying for it. Now why are they doing that? I " "think I know. The reason is that e-books are the opportunity to take away " "some of the residual freedoms that readers of printed books have always had " "and still have—the freedom, for instance, to lend a book to your " "friend or borrow it from the public library or sell a copy to a used " "bookstore or buy a copy anonymously, without putting a record in the " "database of who bought that particular book. And maybe even the right to " "read it twice." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "These are freedoms that the publishers would like to take away, but they " "can't do this for printed books because that would be too obvious a " "power-grab and would raise an outcry. So they have found an indirect " "strategy: First, they obtain the legislation to take away these freedoms for " "e-books when there are no e-books; so there's no controversy. There are no " "pre-existing users of e-books who are accustomed to their freedoms and will " "defend them. That they obtained with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act " "in 1998. Then they introduce e-books and gradually get everybody to switch " "from printed books to e-books and eventually the result is, readers have " "lost these freedoms without ever having an instant when those freedoms were " "being taken away and when they might have fought back to retain them." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "We see at the same time efforts to take away people's freedom in using other " "kinds of published works. For instance, movies that are on DVDs are " "published in an encrypted format that used to be secret—it was meant " "to be secret—and the only way the movie companies would tell you the " "format, so that you could make a DVD player, was if you signed a contract to " "build certain restrictions into the player, with the result that the public " "would be stopped even from fully exercising their legal rights. Then a few " "clever programmers in Europe figured out the format of DVDs and they wrote a " "free software package that would read a DVD. This made it possible to use " "free software on top of the GNU+Linux operating system to watch the DVD that " "you had bought, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. You ought to " "be able to do that with free software." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But the movie companies objected and they went to court. You see, the movie " "companies used to make a lot of films where there was a mad scientist and " "somebody was saying, “But, Doctor, there are some things Man was not " "meant to know.” They must have watched their own films too much " "because they came to believe that the format of DVDs is something that Man " "was not meant to know. And they obtained a ruling for total censorship of " "the software for playing DVDs. Even making a link to a site where this " "information is legally available outside the U.S. has been prohibited. An " "appeal has been made against this ruling. I signed a friend-of-the-court " "brief in that appeal, I'm proud to say, although I'm playing a fairly small " "role in that particular battle." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The U.S. government intervened directly on the other side. This is not " "surprising when you consider why the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was " "passed in the first place. The reason is the campaign finance system that " "we have in the U.S., which is essentially legalized bribery where the " "candidates are bought by business before they even get elected. And, of " "course, they know who their master is—they know whom they're working " "for—and they pass the laws to give business more power." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "What will happen with that particular battle, we don't know. But meanwhile " "Australia has passed a similar law and Europe is almost finished adopting " "one; so the plan is to leave no place on earth where this information can be " "made available to people. But the U.S. remains the world leader in trying " "to stop the public from distributing information that's been published." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The U.S. though is not the first country to make a priority of this. The " "Soviet Union treated it as very important. There this unauthorized copying " "and redistribution was known as <i>samizdat</i> and to stamp it out, they " "developed a series of methods: First, guards watching every piece of copying " "equipment to check what people were copying to prevent forbidden copying. " "Second, harsh punishments for anyone caught doing forbidden copying. You " "could be sent to Siberia. Third, soliciting informers, asking everyone to " "rat on their neighbors and co-workers to the information police. Fourth, " "collective responsibility—You! You're going to watch that group! If I " "catch any of them doing forbidden copying, you are going to prison. So " "watch them hard. And, fifth, propaganda, starting in childhood to convince " "everyone that only a horrible enemy of the people would ever do this " "forbidden copying." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The U.S. is using all of these measures now. First, guards watching copying " "equipment. Well, in copy stores, they have human guards to check what you " "copy. But human guards to watch what you copy in your computer would be too " "expensive; human labor is too expensive. So they have robot guards. That's " "the purpose of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This software goes in " "your computer; it's the only way you can access certain data and it stops " "you from copying." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "There's a plan now to introduce this software into every hard disk, so that " "there could be files on your hard disk that you can't even access except by " "getting permission from some network server to access the file. And to " "bypass this software or even tell other people how to bypass it is a crime." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Second, harsh punishments. A few years ago, if you made copies of something " "and handed them out to your friends just to be helpful, this was not a " "crime; it had never been a crime in the U.S. Then they made it a felony, so " "you could be put in prisons for years for sharing with your neighbor." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Third, informers. Well, you may have seen the ads on TV, the ads in the " "Boston subways asking people to rat on their co-workers to the information " "police, which officially is called the Software Publishers Association." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And fourth, collective responsibility. In the U.S., this has been done by " "conscripting Internet service providers, making them legally responsible for " "everything their customers post. The only way they can avoid always being " "held responsible is if they have an invariable procedure to disconnect or " "remove the information within two weeks after a complaint. Just a few days " "ago, I heard that a clever protest site criticizing City Bank for some of " "its nasty policies was disconnected in this way. Nowadays, you don't even " "get your day in court; your site just gets unplugged." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "And, finally, propaganda, starting in childhood. That's what the word " "“pirate” is used for. If you'll think back a few years, the " "term “pirate” was formerly applied to publishers that didn't pay " "the author. But now it's been turned completely around. It's now applied " "to members of the public who escape from the control of the publisher. It's " "being used to convince people that only a nasty enemy of the people would " "ever do this forbidden copying. It says that “sharing with your " "neighbor is the moral equivalent of attacking a ship.” I hope that you " "don't agree with that and if you don't, I hope you will refuse to use the " "word in that way." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So the publishers are purchasing laws to give themselves more power. In " "addition, they're also extending the length of time the copyright lasts. " "The U.S. Constitution says that copyright must last for a limited time, but " "the publishers want copyright to last forever. However, getting a " "constitutional amendment would be rather difficult, so they found an easier " "way that achieves the same result. Every 20 years they retroactively extend " "copyright by 20 years. So the result is, at any given time, copyright " "nominally lasts for a certain period and any given copyright will nominally " "expire some day. But that expiration will never be reached because every " "copyright will be extended by 20 years every 20 years; thus no work will " "ever go into the public domain again. This has been called “perpetual " "copyright on the installment plan.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The law in 1998 that extended copyright by 20 years is known as the " "“Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act” because one of the main " "sponsors of this law was Disney. Disney realized that the copyright on " "Mickey Mouse was going to expire, and they don't want that to ever happen " "because they make a lot of money from that copyright." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now the original title of this talk was supposed to be “Copyright and " "Globalization.” If you look at globalization, what you see is that " "it's carried out by a number of policies which are done in the name of " "economic efficiency or so-called free-trade treaties, which really are " "designed to give business power over laws and policies. They're not really " "about free trade. They're about a transfer of power: removing the power to " "decide laws from the citizens of any country who might conceivably consider " "their own interests and giving that power to businesses who will not " "consider the interests of those citizens." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Democracy is the problem in their view, and these treaties are designed to " "put an end to the problem. For instance, <abbr title=\"North American Free " "Trade Agreement\">NAFTA</abbr> actually contains provisions, I believe, " "allowing companies to sue another government to get rid of a law that they " "believe is interfering with their profits in the other country. So foreign " "companies have more power than citizens of the country." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "There are attempts being made to extend this beyond NAFTA. For instance, " "this is one of the goals of the so-called free trade area of the Americas, " "to extend this principle to all the countries in South America and the " "Caribbean as well, and the multilateral agreement on investment was intended " "to spread it to the whole world." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "One thing we've seen in the '90s is that these treaties begin to impose " "copyright throughout the world, and in more powerful and restrictive ways. " "These treaties are not free-trade treaties. They're actually " "corporate-controlled trade treaties being used to give corporations control " "over world trade, in order to eliminate free trade." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "When the U.S. was a developing country in the 1800s, the U.S. did not " "recognize foreign copyrights. This was a decision made carefully, and it " "was an intelligent decision. It was acknowledged that for the U.S. to " "recognize foreign copyrights would just be disadvantageous, that it would " "suck money out and wouldn't do much good." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The same logic would apply today to developing countries but the U.S. has " "sufficient power to force them to go against their interests. Actually, " "it's a mistake to speak of the interests of countries in this context. In " "fact, I'm sure that most of you have heard about the fallacy of trying to " "judge the public interest by adding up everybody's wealth. If working " "Americans lost $1 billion and Bill Gates gained $2 billion, would Americans " "generally be better off? Would this be good for America? Or if you look only " "at the total, it looks like it's good. However, this example really shows " "that the total is the wrong way to judge because Bill Gates really doesn't " "need another $2 billion, but the loss of the $1 billion by other people who " "don't have as much to start with might be painful." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Well, in a discussion about any of these trade treaties, when you hear " "people talk about the interests of this country or that country, what " "they're doing, within each country, is adding up everybody's income. The " "rich people and the poor people are being added up. So it's actually an " "excuse to apply that same fallacy to get you to ignore the effect on the " "distribution of wealth within the country and whether the treaty is going to " "make that more uneven, as it has done in the U.S." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So it's really not the U.S. interest that is being served by enforcing " "copyright around the world. It's the interests of certain business owners, " "many of whom are in the U.S. and some of whom are in other countries. It " "doesn't, in any sense, serve the public interest." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But what would make sense to do? If we believe in the goal of copyright " "stated, for instance in the U.S. Constitution, the goal of promoting " "progress, what would be intelligent policies to use in the age of the " "computer network? Clearly, instead of increasing copyright powers, we have " "to pull them back so as to give the general public a certain domain of " "freedom where they can make use of the benefits of digital technology, make " "use of their computer networks. But how far should that go? That's an " "interesting question because I don't think we should necessarily abolish " "copyright totally." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The idea of trading some freedoms for more progress might still be an " "advantageous trade at a certain level, even if traditional copyright gives " "up too much freedom. But in order to think about this intelligently, the " "first thing we have to recognize is, there's no reason to make it totally " "uniform. There's no reason to insist on making the same deal for all kinds " "of work." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "In fact, that already isn't the case because there are a lot of exceptions " "for music. Music is treated very differently under copyright law. But the " "arbitrary insistence on uniformity is used by the publishers in a certain " "clever way. They pick some peculiar special case and they make an argument " "that, in that special case, it would be advantageous to have this much " "copyright. And then they say that for uniformity's sake, there has to be " "this much copyright for everything. So, of course, they pick the special " "case where they can make the strongest argument, even if it's a rather rare " "special case and not really very important overall." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But maybe we should have that much copyright for that particular special " "case. We don't have to pay the same price for everything we buy. A " "thousand dollars for a new car might be a very good deal. A thousand " "dollars for a container of milk is a horrible deal. You wouldn't pay the " "special price for everything you buy in other areas of life. Why do it " "here?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So we need to look at different kinds of works, and I'd like to propose a " "way of doing this." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "This includes recipes, computer programs, manuals and textbooks, reference " "works like dictionaries and encyclopedias. For all these functional works, " "I believe that the issues are basically the same as they are for software " "and the same conclusions apply. People should have the freedom even to " "publish a modified version because it's very useful to modify functional " "works. People's needs are not all the same. If I wrote this work to do the " "job I think needs doing, your idea as a job you want to do may be somewhat " "different. So you want to modify this work to do what's good for you." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "At that point, there may be other people who have similar needs to yours, " "and your modified version might be good for them. Everybody who cooks knows " "this and has known this for hundreds of years. It's normal to make copies " "of recipes and hand them out to other people, and it's also normal to change " "a recipe. If you change the recipe and cook it for your friends and they " "like eating it, they might ask you, “Could I have the recipe?” " "Then maybe you'll write down your version and give them copies. That is " "exactly the same thing that we much later started doing in the free-software " "community." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So that's one class of work. The second class of work is works whose " "purpose is to say what certain people think. Talking about those people is " "their purpose. This includes, say, memoirs, essays of opinion, scientific " "papers, offers to buy and sell, catalogues of goods for sale. The whole " "point of those works is that they tell you what somebody thinks or what " "somebody saw or what somebody believes. To modify them is to misrepresent " "the authors; so modifying these works is not a socially useful activity. " "And so verbatim copying is the only thing that people really need to be " "allowed to do." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The next question is: Should people have the right to do commercial verbatim " "copying? Or is noncommercial enough? You see, these are two different " "activities we can distinguish, so that we can consider the questions " "separately—the right to do noncommercial verbatim copying and the " "right to do commercial verbatim copying. Well, it might be a good " "compromise policy to have copyright cover commercial verbatim copying but " "allow everyone the right to do noncommercial verbatim copying. This way, " "the copyright on the commercial verbatim copying, as well as on all modified " "versions—only the author could approve a modified version—would " "still provide the same revenue stream that it provides now to fund the " "writing of these works, to whatever extent it does." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "By allowing the noncommercial verbatim copying, it means the copyright no " "longer has to intrude into everybody's home. It becomes an industrial " "regulation again, easy to enforce and painless, no longer requiring " "draconian punishments and informers for the sake of its enforcement. So we " "get most of the benefit—and avoid most of the horror—of the " "current system." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The third category of works is aesthetic or entertaining works, where the " "most important thing is just the sensation of looking at the work. Now for " "these works, the issue of modification is a very difficult one because on " "the one hand, there is the idea that these works reflect the vision of an " "artist and to change them is to mess up that vision. On the other hand, you " "have the fact that there is the folk process, where a sequence of people " "modifying a work can sometimes produce a result that is extremely rich. " "Even when you have artists' producing the works, borrowing from previous " "works is often very useful. Some of Shakespeare's plays used a story that " "was taken from some other play. If today's copyright laws had been in " "effect back then, those plays would have been illegal." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So it's a hard question what we should do about publishing modified versions " "of an aesthetic or an artistic work, and we might have to look for further " "subdivisions of the category in order to solve this problem. For example, " "maybe computer game scenarios should be treated one way; maybe everybody " "should be free to publish modified versions of them. But perhaps a novel " "should be treated differently; perhaps for that, commercial publication " "should require an arrangement with the original author." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now if commercial publication of these aesthetic works is covered by " "copyright, that will give most of the revenue stream that exists today to " "support the authors and musicians, to the limited extent that the present " "system supports them, because it does a very bad job. So that might be a " "reasonable compromise, just as in the case of the works which represent " "certain people." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "If we look ahead to the time when the age of the computer networks will have " "fully begun, when we're past this transitional stage, we can envision " "another way for the authors to get money for their work. Imagine that we " "have a digital cash system that enables you to get money for your work." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Imagine that we have a digital cash system that enables you to send somebody " "else money through the Internet; this can be done in various ways using " "encryption, for instance. And imagine that verbatim copying of all these " "aesthetic works is permitted. But they're written in such a way that when " "you are playing one or reading one or watching one, a box appears on the " "side of your screen that says, “Click here to send a dollar to the " "author,” or the musician or whatever. And it just sits there; it " "doesn't get in your way; it's on the side. It doesn't interfere with you, " "but it's there, reminding you that it's a good thing to support the writers " "and the musicians." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So if you love the work that you're reading or listening to, eventually " "you're going to say, “Why shouldn't I give these people a dollar? It's " "only a dollar. What's that? I won't even miss it.” And people will " "start sending a dollar. The good thing about this is that it makes copying " "the ally of the authors and musicians. When somebody e-mails a friend a " "copy, that friend might send a dollar, too. If you really love it, you " "might send a dollar more than once and that dollar is more than they're " "going to get today if you buy the book or buy the CD because they get a tiny " "fraction of the sale. The same publishers that are demanding total power " "over the public in the name of the authors and musicians are giving those " "authors and musicians the shaft all the time." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I recommend you read Courtney Love's article in <cite>Salon</cite> magazine, " "an article about pirates that plan to use musicians' work without paying " "them. These pirates are the record companies that pay musicians 4% of the " "sales figures, on the average. Of course, the very successful musicians " "have more clout. They get more than 4% of their large sales figures, which " "means that the great run of musicians who have a record contract get less " "than 4% of their small sales figures." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Here's the way it works: The record company spends money on publicity and " "they consider this expenditure as an advance to the musicians, although the " "musicians never see it. So nominally when you buy a CD, a certain fraction " "of that money is going to the musicians, but really it isn't. Really, it's " "going to pay back the publicity expenses, and only if the musicians are very " "successful do they ever see any of that money." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The musicians, of course, sign their record contracts because they hope " "they're going to be one of those few who strike it rich. So essentially a " "rolling lottery is being offered to the musicians to tempt them. Although " "they're good at music, they may not be good at careful, logical reasoning to " "see through this trap. So they sign and then probably all they get is " "publicity. Well, why don't we give them publicity in a different way, not " "through a system that's based on restricting the public and a system of the " "industrial complex that saddles us with lousy music that's easy to sell. " "Instead, why not make the listener's natural impulse to share the music they " "love the ally of the musicians? If we have this box that appears in the " "player as a way to send a dollar to the musicians, then the computer " "networks could be the mechanism for giving the musicians this publicity, the " "same publicity which is all they get from record contracts now." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "We have to recognize that the existing copyright system does a lousy job of " "supporting musicians, just as lousy as world trade does of raising living " "standards in the Philippines and China. You have these enterprise zones " "where everyone works in a sweatshop and all of the products are made in " "sweatshops. I knew that globalization was a very inefficient way of raising " "living standards of people overseas. Say, an American is getting paid $20 " "an hour to make something and you give that job to a Mexican who is getting " "paid maybe six dollars a day, what has happened here is that you've taken a " "large amount of money away from an American worker, given a tiny fraction, " "like a few percents, to a Mexican worker and given back the rest to the " "company. So if your goal is to raise the living standards of Mexican " "workers, this is a lousy way to do it." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It's interesting to see how the same phenomenon is going on in the copyright " "industry, the same general idea. In the name of these workers who certainly " "deserve something, you propose measures that give them a tiny bit and really " "mainly prop up the power of corporations to control our lives." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "If you're trying to replace a very good system, you have to work very hard " "to come up with a better alternative. If you know that the present system " "is lousy, it's not so hard to find a better alternative; the standard of " "comparison today is very low. We must always remember that when we consider " "issues of copyright policy." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So I think I've said most of what I want to say. I'd like to mention that " "tomorrow is Phone-In Sick Day in Canada. Tomorrow is the beginning of a " "summit to finish negotiating the free trade area of the Americas to try to " "extend corporate power throughout additional countries, and a big protest is " "being planned for Quebec. We've seen extreme methods being used to smash " "this protest. A lot of Americans are being blocked from entering Canada " "through the border that they're supposed to be allowed to enter through at " "any time." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "On the flimsiest of excuses, a wall has been built around the center of " "Quebec to be used as a fortress to keep protesters out. We've seen a large " "number of different dirty tricks used against public protest against these " "treaties. So whatever democracy remains to us after government powers have " "been taken away from democratically elected governors and given to " "businesses and to unelected international bodies, whatever is left after " "that may not survive the suppression of public protest against it." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I've dedicated 17 years of my life to working on free software and allied " "issues. I didn't do this because I think it's the most important political " "issue in the world. I did it because it was the area where I saw I had to " "use my skills to do a lot of good. But what's happened is that the general " "issues of politics have evolved, and the biggest political issue in the " "world today is resisting the tendency to give business power over the public " "and governments. I see free software and the allied questions for other " "kinds of information that I've been discussing today as one part of that " "major issue. So I've indirectly found myself working on that issue. I hope " "I contribute something to the effort." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<b>RESPONSE</b>:" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>THORBURN</b>: We'll turn to the audience for questions and comments in a " "moment. But let me offer a brief general response. It seems to me that the " "strongest and most important practical guidance that Stallman offers us has " "two key elements. One is the recognition that old assumptions about " "copyright, old usages of copyright are inappropriate; they are challenged or " "undermined by the advent of the computer and computer networks. That may be " "obvious, but it is essential." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Second is the recognition that the digital era requires us to reconsider how " "we distinguish and weigh forms of intellectual and creative labor. Stallman " "is surely right that certain kinds of intellectual enterprises justify more " "copyright protection than others. Trying to identify systematically these " "different kinds or levels of copyright protection seems to me a valuable way " "to engage with the problems for intellectual work posed by the advent of the " "computer." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "But I think I detect another theme that lies beneath what Stallman has been " "saying and that isn't really directly about computers at all, but more " "broadly about questions of democratic authority and the power that " "government and corporations increasingly exercise over our lives. This " "populist and anti-corporate side to Stallman's discourse is nourishing but " "also reductive, potentially simplifying. And it is also perhaps overly " "idealistic. For example, how would a novelist or a poet or a songwriter or " "a musician or the author of an academic textbook survive in this brave new " "world where people are encouraged but not required to pay authors. In other " "words, it seems to me, the gap between existing practice and the visionary " "possibilities Stallman speculates about is still immensely wide." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So I'll conclude by asking if Stallman would like to expand a bit on certain " "aspects of his talk and, specifically, whether he has further thoughts about " "the way in which what we'll call “traditional creators” would be " "protected under his copyright system." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: First of all, I have to point out that we shouldn't use the " "term “protection” to describe what copyright does. Copyright " "restricts people. The term “protection” is a propaganda term of " "the copyright-owning businesses. The term “protection“ means " "stopping something from being somehow destroyed. Well, I don't think a song " "is destroyed if there are more copies of it being played more. I don't " "think that a novel is destroyed if more people are reading copies of it, " "either. So I won't use that word. I think it leads people to identify with " "the wrong party." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Also, it's a very bad idea to think about intellectual property for two " "reasons: First, it prejudges the most fundamental question in the area which " "is: How should these things be treated and should they be treated as a kind " "of property? To use the term “intellectual property” to describe " "the area is to presuppose the answer is “yes,” that that's the " "way to treat things, not some other way." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Second, it encourages over-generalization. Intellectual property is a " "catch-all for several different legal systems with independent origins such " "as, copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and some other things as " "well. They are almost completely different; they have nothing in common. " "But people who hear the term “intellectual property” are led to " "a false picture where they imagine that there's a general principle of " "intellectual property that was applied to specific areas, so they assume " "that these various areas of the law are similar. This leads not only to " "confused thinking about what is right to do, it leads people to fail to " "understand what the law actually says because they suppose that the " "copyright law and patent law and trademark law are similar, when, in fact, " "they are totally different." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So if you want to encourage careful thinking and clear understanding of what " "the law says, avoid the term “intellectual property.” Talk about " "copyrights. Or talk about patents. Or talk about trademarks or whichever " "subject you want to talk about. But don't talk about intellectual " "property. Opinion about intellectual property almost has to be a foolish " "one. I don't have an opinion about intellectual property. I have opinions " "about copyrights and patents and trademarks, and they're different. I came " "to them through different thought processes because those systems of law are " "totally different." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "Anyway, I made that digression, but it's terribly important." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So let me now get to the point. Of course, we can't see now how well it " "would work, whether it would work to ask people to pay money voluntarily to " "the authors and musicians they love. One thing that's obvious is that how " "well such a system would work is proportional to the number of people who " "are participating in the network, and that number, we know, is going to " "increase by an order of magnitude over a number of years. If we tried it " "today, it might fail, and that wouldn't prove anything because with ten " "times as many people participating, it might work." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "The other thing is, we do not have this digital cash payment system; so we " "can't really try it today. You could try to do something a little bit like " "it. There are services you can sign up for where you can pay money to " "someone—things like PayPal. But before you can pay anyone through " "PayPal, you have to go through a lot of rigmarole and give them personal " "information about you, and they collect records of whom you pay. Can you " "trust them not to misuse that?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So the dollar might not discourage you, but the trouble it takes to pay " "might discourage you. The whole idea of this is that it should be as easy " "as falling off a log to pay when you get the urge, so that there's nothing " "to discourage you except the actual amount of money. And if that's small " "enough, why should it discourage you. We know, though, that fans can really " "love musicians, and we know that encouraging fans to copy and redistribute " "the music has been done by some bands that were, and are, quite successful " "like the “Grateful Dead.” They didn't have any trouble making a " "living from their music because they encouraged fans to tape it and copy the " "tapes. They didn't even lose their record sales." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "We are gradually moving from the age of the printing press to the age of the " "computer network, but it's not happening in a day. People are still buying " "lots of records, and that will probably continue for many years—maybe " "forever. As long as that continues, simply having copyrights that still " "apply to commercial sales of records ought to do about as good a job of " "supporting musicians as it does today. Of course, that's not very good, " "but, at least, it won't get any worse." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<b>DISCUSSION</b>:" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: [A comment and question about free downloading and about " "Stephen King's attempt to market one of his novels serially over the web.]" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Yes, it's interesting to know what he did and what " "happened. When I first heard about that, I was elated. I thought, maybe he " "was taking a step towards a world that is not based on trying to maintain an " "iron grip on the public. Then I saw that he had actually written to ask " "people to pay. To explain what he did, he was publishing a novel as a " "serial, by installments, and he said, “If I get enough money, I'll " "release more.” But the request he wrote was hardly a request. It " "brow-beat the reader. It said, “If you don't pay, then you're evil. " "And if there are too many of you who are evil, then I'm just going to stop " "writing this.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Well, clearly, that's not the way to make the public feel like sending you " "money. You've got to make them love you, not fear you." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>SPEAKER</b>: The details were that he required a certain " "percentage—I don't know the exact percentage, around 90% sounds " "correct—of people to send a certain amount of money, which, I believe, " "was a dollar or two dollars, or somewhere in that order of magnitude. You " "had to type in your name and your e-mail address and some other information " "to get to download it and if that percentage of people was not reached after " "the first chapter, he said that he would not release another chapter. It " "was very antagonistic to the public downloading it." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: Isn't the scheme where there's no copyright but people are " "asked to make voluntary donations open to abuse by people plagiarizing?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: No. That's not what I proposed. Remember, I'm proposing " "that there should be copyright covering commercial distribution and " "permitting only verbatim redistribution noncommercially. So anyone who " "modified it to put in a pointer to his website, instead of a pointer to the " "real author's website, would still be infringing the copyright and could be " "sued exactly as he could be sued today." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: I see. So you're still imagining a world in which there is " "copyright?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Yes. As I've said, for those kinds of works. I'm not " "saying that everything should be permitted. I'm proposing to reduce " "copyright powers, not abolish them." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>THORBURN</b>: I guess one question that occurred to me while you were " "speaking, Richard, and, again, now when you're responding here to this " "question is why you don't consider the ways in which the computer, itself, " "eliminates the middle men completely—in the way that Stephen King " "refused to do—and might establish a personal relationship." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, they can and, in fact, this voluntary donation is " "one." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>THORBURN</b>: You think of that as not involving going through a " "publisher at all?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Absolutely not. I hope it won't, you see, because the " "publishers exploit the authors terribly. When you ask the publishers' " "representatives about this, they say, “Well, yes, if an author or if a " "band doesn't want to go through us, they shouldn't be legally required to go " "through us.” But, in fact, they're doing their utmost to set it up so " "that will not be feasible. For instance, they're proposing restricted " "copying media formats and in order to publish in these formats, you'll have " "to go through the big publishers because they won't tell anyone else how to " "do it. So they're hoping for a world where the players will play these " "formats, and in order to get anything that you can play on those players, " "it'll have to come through the publishers." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So, in fact, while there's no law against an author or a musician publishing " "directly, it won't be feasible. There's also the lure of maybe hitting it " "rich. They say, “We'll publicize you and maybe you'll hit it as rich " "as the Beatles.” Take your pick of some very successful group and, of " "course, only a tiny fraction of musicians are going to have that happen. " "But they may be drawn by that into signing contracts that will lock them " "down forever." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Publishers tend to be very bad at respecting their contracts with authors. " "For instance, book contracts typically have said that if a book goes out of " "print, the rights revert to the author, and publishers have generally not " "been very good about living up to that clause. They often have to be " "forced. Well, what they're starting to do now is use electronic publication " "as an excuse to say that it's never going out of print; so they never have " "to give the rights back. Their idea is, when the author has no clout, get " "him to sign up and from then on, he has no power; it's only the publisher " "that has the power." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: Would it be good to have free licenses for various kinds of " "works that protect for every user the freedom to copy them in whatever is " "the appropriate way for that kind of work?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, people are working on this. But for non-functional " "works, one thing doesn't substitute for another. Let's look at a functional " "kind of work, say, a word processor. Well, if somebody makes a free word " "processor, you can use that; you don't need the nonfree word processors. " "But I wouldn't say that one free song substitutes for all the nonfree songs " "or that a one free novel substitutes for all the nonfree novels. For those " "kinds of works, it's different. So what I think we simply have to do is to " "recognize that these laws do not deserve to be respected. It's not wrong to " "share with your neighbor, and if anyone tries to tell you that you cannot " "share with your neighbor, you should not listen to him." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: With regard to the functional works, how do you, in your " "own thinking, balance out the need for abolishing the copyright with the " "need for economic incentives in order to have these functional works " "developed?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, what we see is, first of all, that this economic " "incentive is a lot less necessary than people have been supposing. Look at " "the free software movement where we have over 100,000 part-time volunteers " "developing free software. We also see that there are other ways to raise " "money for this which are not based on stopping the public from copying and " "modifying these works." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "That's the interesting lesson of the free software movement. Aside from the " "fact that it gives you a way you can use a computer and keep your freedom to " "share and cooperate with other people, it also shows us that this negative " "assumption that people would never do these things unless they are given " "special powers to force people to pay them is simply wrong. A lot of people " "will do these things. Then if you look at, say, the writing of monographs " "which serve as textbooks in many fields of science except for the ones that " "are very basic, the authors are not making money out of that." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "We now have a free encyclopedia project which is, in fact, a commercial-free " "encyclopedia project, and it's making progress. We had a project for a GNU " "encyclopedia but we merged it into the commercial project when they adopted " "our license. In January, they switched to the GNU Free Documentation " "License for all the articles in their encyclopedia. So we said, " "“Well, let's join forces with them and urge people to contribute to " "them.” It's called “Nupedia,” and you can find a link to " "it, if you look at http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia. So here we've extended " "the community development of a free base of useful knowledge from software " "to encyclopedia. I'm pretty confident now that in all these areas of " "functional work, we don't need that economic incentive to the point where we " "have to mess up the use of these works." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "<b>THORBURN</b>: Well, what about the other two categories?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: For the other two classes of work, I don't know. I don't " "know whether people will write some day novels without worrying about " "whether they make money from it. In a post-scarcity society, I guess they " "would. Maybe what we need to do in order to reach the post-scarcity society " "is to get rid of the corporate control over the economy and the laws. So, " "in effect, it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem, you know. Which do we do " "first? How do we get the world where people don't have to desperately get " "money except by removing the control by business? And how can we remove the " "control by business except—Anyway, I don't know, but that's why I'm " "trying to propose first a compromise copyright system and, second, the " "voluntary payment supported by a compromise copyright system as a way to " "provide a revenue stream to the people who write those works." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: How would you really expect to implement this compromise " "copyright system under the chokehold of corporate interests on American " "politicians due to their campaign-finance system?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: It beats me. I wish I knew. It's a terribly hard " "problem. If I knew how to solve that problem, I would solve it and nothing " "in the world could make me prouder." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>:. How do you fight the corporate control? Because when you " "look at these sums of money going into corporate lobbying in the court case, " "it is tremendous. I think the DECS case that you're talking about is " "costing something like a million-and-a-half dollars on the defense side. " "Lord knows what it's costing on the corporate side. Do you have any idea " "how to deal with these huge sums of money?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: I have a suggestion. If I were to suggest totally " "boycotting movies, I think people would ignore that suggestion. They might " "consider it too radical. So I would like to make a slightly different " "suggestion which comes to almost the same thing in the end, and that is, " "don't go to a movie unless you have some substantial reason to think it's " "good. Now this will lead in practice to almost the same result as a total " "boycott of Hollywood movies. In extension, it's almost the same but, in " "intention, it's very different. Now I've noticed that many people go to " "movies for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they think the " "movies are good. So if you change that, if you only go to a movie when you " "have some substantial reason to think it's good, you'll take away a lot of " "their money." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>THORBURN</b>: One way to understand all of this discourse today, I think, " "is to recognize that whenever radical, potentially transforming technologies " "appear in society, there's a struggle over who controls them. We today are " "repeating what has happened in the past. So from this angle, there may not " "be a reason for despair, or even pessimism, about what may occur in the " "longer run. But, in the shorter term, struggles over the control of text " "and images, over all forms of information are likely to be painful and " "extensive." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "For example, as a teacher of media, my access to images has been restricted " "in recent years in a way that had never been in place before. If I write an " "essay in which I want to use still images, even from films, they are much " "harder to get permission to use, and the prices charged to use those still " "images are much higher—even when I make arguments about intellectual " "inquiry and the legal category of “fair use.” So I think, in " "this moment of extended transformation, the longer-term prospects may, in " "fact, not be as disturbing as what's happening in the shorter term. But in " "any case, we need to understand the whole of our contemporary experience as " "a renewed version of a struggle over the control of technological resources " "that is a recurring principle of Western society." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "It's also essential to understand that the history of older technologies is " "itself a complicated matter. The impact of the printing press in Spain, for " "example, is radically different from its impact in England or in France." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: One of the things that bothers me when I hear discussions " "of copyright is that often they start off with, “We want a 180-degree " "change. We want to do away with any sorts of control.” It seems to me " "that part of what lay under the three categories that were suggested is an " "acknowledgement that there is some wisdom to copyright. Some of the critics " "of the way copyright is going now believe that, in fact, it ought to be " "backed up and function much more like patent and trademarks in terms of its " "duration. I wonder if our speaker would comment on that as a strategy." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: I agree that shortening the time span of copyright is a " "good idea. There is absolutely no need in terms of encouraging publication " "for a possibility of copyrights' lasting as much as 150 years, which, in " "some cases, it can under present law. Now the companies were saying that a " "75-year copyright on a work made for hire was not long enough to make " "possible the production of their works. I'd like to challenge those " "companies to present projected balance sheets for 75 years from now to back " "up that contention. What they really wanted was just to be able to extend " "the copyrights on the old works, so that they can continue restricting the " "use of them. But how you can encourage greater production of works in the " "1920s by extending copyright today escapes me, unless they have a time " "machine somewhere. Of course, in one of their movies, they had a time " "machine. So maybe that's what affected their thinking." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: Have you given thought to extending the concept of " "“fair use,” and are there any nuances there that you might care " "to lay out for us?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, the idea of giving everyone permission for " "noncommercial verbatim copying of two kinds of works, certainly, may be " "thought of as extending what fair use is. It's bigger than what's fair use " "currently. If your idea is that the public trades away certain freedoms to " "get more progress, then you can draw the line at various, different places. " "Which freedoms does the public trade away and which freedoms does the public " "keep?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: To extend the conversation for just a moment, in certain " "entertainment fields, we have the concept of a public presentation. So, for " "example, copyright does not prevent us from singing Christmas carols " "seasonally but it prevents the public performance. And I'm wondering if it " "might be useful to think about instead of expanding fair use to unlimited, " "noncommercial, verbatim copying, to something less than that but more than " "the present concept of fair use." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: I used to think that that might be enough, and then Napster " "convinced me otherwise because Napster is used by its users for " "noncommercial, verbatim redistribution. The Napster server, itself, is a " "commercial activity but the people who are actually putting things up are " "doing so noncommercially, and they could have done so on their websites just " "as easily. The tremendous excitement about, interest in, and use of Napster " "shows that that's very useful. So I'm convinced now that people should have " "the right to publicly noncommercially, redistributed, verbatim copies of " "everything." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: One analogy that was recently suggested to me for the whole " "Napster question was the analogy of the public library. I suppose some of " "you who have heard the Napster arguments have heard this analogy. I'm " "wondering if you would comment on it. The defenders of people who say " "Napster should continue and there shouldn't be restrictions on it sometimes " "say something like this: “When folks go into the public library and " "borrow a book, they're not paying for it, and it can be borrowed dozens of " "times, hundreds of times, without any additional payment. Why is Napster " "any different?”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, it's not exactly the same. But it should be pointed " "out that the publishers want to transform public libraries into pay-per-use, " "retail outlets. So they're against public libraries." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: Can these ideas about copyright suggest any ideas for " "certain issues about patent law such as making cheap, generic drugs for use " "in Africa?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: No, there's absolutely no similarity. The issues of " "patents are totally different from the issues of copyrights. The idea that " "they have something to do with each other is one of the unfortunate " "consequences of using the term “intellectual property” and " "encouraging people to try to lump these issues together because, as you've " "heard, I've been talking about issues in which the price of a copy is not " "the crucial thing. But what's the crucial issue about making AIDS drugs for " "Africa? It's the price, nothing but the price." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Now the issue I've been talking about arises because digital information " "technology gives every user the ability to make copies. Well, there's " "nothing giving us all the ability to make copies of medicines. I don't have " "the ability to copy some medicine that I've got. In fact, nobody does; " "that's not how they're made. Those medicines can only be made in expensive " "factories and they are made in expensive centralized factories, whether " "they're generic drugs or imported from the U.S. Either way, they're going " "to be made in a small number of factories, and the issues are simply how " "much do they cost and are they available at a price that people in Africa " "can afford." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So that's a tremendously important issue, but it's a totally different " "issue. There's just one area where an issue arises with patents that is " "actually similar to these issues of freedom to copy, and that is in the area " "of agriculture. Because there are certain patented things that can be " "copies, more or less—namely, living things. They copy themselves when " "they reproduce. It's not necessarily exact copying; they re-shuffle the " "genes. But the fact is, farmers for millennia have been making use of this " "capacity of the living things they grow to copy themselves. Farming is, " "basically, copying the things that you grew and you keep copying them every " "year. When plant and animal varieties get patented, when genes are patented " "and used in them, the result is that farmers are being prohibited from doing " "this." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "There is a farmer in Canada who had a patented variety growing on his field " "and he said, “I didn't do that deliberately. The pollen blew, and the " "wind in those genes got into my stock of plants.” And he was told that " "that doesn't matter; he has to destroy them anyway. It was an extreme " "example of how much government can side with a monopolist." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "So I believe that, following the same principles that I apply to copying " "things on your computer, farmers should have an unquestioned right to save " "their seeds and breed their livestock. Maybe you could have patents " "covering seed companies, but they shouldn't cover farmers." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: There's more to making a model successful than just the " "licensing. Can you speak to that?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Absolutely. Well, you know, I don't know the answers. But " "part of what I believe is crucial for developing free, functional " "information is idealism. People have to recognize that it's important for " "this information to be free, that when the information is free, you can make " "full use of it. When it's restricted, you can't. You have to recognize " "that the nonfree information is an attempt to divide them and keep them " "helpless and keep them down. Then they can get the idea, “Let's work " "together to produce the information we want to use, so that it's not under " "the control of some powerful person who can dictate to us what we can " "do.”" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "This tremendously boosts it. But I don't know how much it will work in " "various different areas, but I think that in the area of education, when " "you're looking for textbooks, I think I see a way it can be done. There are " "a lot of teachers in the world, teachers who are not at prestigious " "universities—maybe they're in high-school; maybe they're in " "college—where they don't write and publish a lot of things and there's " "not a tremendous demand for them. But a lot of them are smart. A lot of " "them know their subjects well and they could write textbooks about lots of " "subjects and share them with the world and receive a tremendous amount of " "appreciation from the people who will have learned from them." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: That's what I proposed. But the funny thing is, I do know " "the history of education. That's what I do—educational, electronic " "media projects. I couldn't find an example. Do you know of one?" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: No, I don't. I started proposing this free encyclopedia " "and learning resource a couple of years ago, and I thought it would probably " "take a decade to get things rolling. Now we already have an encyclopedia " "that is rolling. So things are going faster than I hoped. I think what's " "needed is for a few people to start writing some free textbooks. Write one " "about whatever is your favorite subject or write a fraction of one. Write a " "few chapters of one and challenge other people to write the rest." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: Actually what I was looking for is something even more than " "that. What's important in your kind of structure is somebody that creates " "an infrastructure to which everybody else can contribute. There isn't a K " "through 12 infrastructure out there in any place for a contribution for " "materials." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "I can get information from lots of places but it's not released under free " "licenses, so I can't use it to make a free textbook." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Actually, copyright doesn't cover the facts. It only " "covers the way it's written. So you can learn a field from anywhere and " "then write a textbook, and you can make that textbook free, if you want." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>QUESTION</b>: But I can't write by myself all the textbooks that a " "student needs going through school." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "<b>STALLMAN</b>: Well, it's true. And I didn't write a whole, free " "operating system, either. I wrote some pieces and invited other people to " "join me by writing other pieces. So I set an example. I said, “I'm " "going in this direction. Join me and we'll get there.” And enough " "people joined in that we got there. So if you think in terms of, how am I " "going to get this whole gigantic job done, it can be daunting. So the point " "is, don't look at it that way. Think in terms of taking a step and " "realizing that after you've taken a step, other people will take more steps " "and, together, it will get the job done eventually." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "" "Assuming that humanity doesn't wipe itself out, the work we do today to " "produce the free educational infrastructure, the free learning resource for " "the world, that will be useful for as long as humanity exists. If it takes " "20 years to get it done, so what? So don't think in terms of the size of the " "whole job. Think in terms of the piece that you're going to do. That will " "show people it can be done, and so others will do other pieces." msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "This speech is published in <a " "href=\"https://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/\"><cite>Free " "Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard " "M. Stallman</cite></a>." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't have notes. #. type: Content of: <div> msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S NOTES*" msgstr "" #. type: Content of: <div><div><p> msgid "" "Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a " "href=\"mailto:gnu@gnu.org\"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a " "href=\"/contact/\">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and " "other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a " "href=\"mailto:webmasters@gnu.org\"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>." msgstr "" #. TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, #. replace it with the translation of these two: # #. We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality #. translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. #. 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TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't want credits. #. type: Content of: <div><div> msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S CREDITS*" msgstr "" #. timestamp start #. type: Content of: <div><p> msgid "Updated:" msgstr ""