[pp.int.general] Purpose of copyright

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/8/23 Richard M. Stallman <rms at gnu.org>:

> Traditional statements of the purpose of copyright have not generally
> mentioned the interests of _publishers_ as a goal.  It is rather the
> _authors_ whose interests they cite.

Greetings RMS, I think I'm not the only one to be much happy to meet
you on this list!

Wording is important, but the (often merely conscious) intentions and
ideologies behind the words are equally important. For example, I
often refer to the French 1789 Declaration of Human Rights, which
officially aimed to defend freedom but whose primary goal was actually
to defend *proprietary* freedoms, such as the "sacred and unviolable
right of property" (art. #17)...

> People do often say that the goal is a balance between the interests
> of authors and those of readers.  But I think that this idea of
> "balance" elevates the authors too much: they do not deserve to be
> given the same importance as the readers.  For more explanation, see
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html.

I don't know if Rick will agree on this, but I have the feeling this
paper could have been writing by one of us "Pirates". As I told you
recently, we are a young movement, with many different people, many
different ideas and backgrounds; some of us (and I for one) agree with
most of the GNU political/ethical model. In other words, I just hope
this discussion is the beginning of a beautiful friendship :-)

2008/8/23 Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet) <rick at piratpartiet.se>:

> Copyright does not exist to strike a balance between publishers and
> consumers. Copyright does not exist to strike a balance between two
> groups at all. There is only ONE legitimate interest in copyright
> legislation: the public and its access to culture.

Greetings Rick,

That is why we should distinct the *words* used in copyright
statements (if you listen to any CEO of any industry, they will tell
you they are the best defenders of democracy and freedom, for crying
out loud) and the actual *ideology* behind it. As RMS said, the very
fact that today they use to mix "readers" with "consumers" is harmful
_per_se_.

> In establishing themselves as a legitimate interest in copyright
> legislation, the copyright lobby perverts the legislation process
> irreparably. We cannot and should not play that game. While our outward
> facing rhetoric may talk about proper balancing, we must understand this
> internally.

Maybe we should be more clear on what we use to call the "copyright
lobby". They stand for the *real* copyright as much as we stand for
*real* piracy, that means absolutely not. What they're referring to as
copyright is the unbalanced, unethical, purely economic vision you
were talking about, not what the copyright "should" be according to
the wording in legal texts. Likewise, we are no "pirates" in the
hurting-and-killing sense of the word, all we did was take the biased
wording used against citizens and turn it against the Lobby.

> The purpose of copyright is very clearly worded in the US Constitution:
> It is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. This is
> the best example I have of a clearly laid-out purpose.

(Funny, I just wrote about the French constitution before seeing this
part. But then again, there's what they said in the Constitution and
what they were genuinely interested in.)

> Moreover, while I'm posting to the list, I must ask what the purpose of
> the manifesto currently driven by Carlos is. I know that there was
> originally a manifesto intended as a common platform for the European
> Parliament election; its purpose was first and foremost to gain press
> around running for parliament as a common movement. Faced with a lack of
> progress on this list, we created such a document at the Uppsala
> conference, a conference which Spain declined sending delegates to. The
> Uppsala Declaration fulfilled all the stated goals, including getting
> the desired press.

I feel like I should take part of the blame for this, since neither
were we French pirates at Uppsala, neither did we take part in
contributing to the Manifesto :-(
I think we'll talk more about that with Carlos, but I have to say that
both the 2006 declaration and the Uppsala declaration are important
basis to work on, and that elaborating longer, more developed
documents does not necessarily means forgetting the previous one --
that is, when you personally have enough time to work with the group
anyway, which is unfortunately not really true for us at the moment.

Cheers,
Valentin