[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Edison Carter]

>
> What is Copyright? You don't really seem to be coming across as
> knowledgeable of such.

> It started with "The Statute of Anne", and I strongly suggest everyone
> on the list look that up on Wikipedia. It dates back to the early days
> of the printing press, and the legislation to ensure publishers could
> make money if they bought presses. Oh, and the authors of books getting
> paid.

I resent the suggestion that I am ignorant of copyright. I understand
perfectly well the origins of copyright from even BEFORE the Statue of
Anne. It began as a favour by the king to a guild of publishing
censors who became known as The London Company of Stationers, a gift
of a monopoly in return for a way to censor publications that spoke
out against the crown. The farce of 'copyright to reward authors' that
became the Statute of Anne was proposed by the London Company of
Stationers because 125 years later the crown no longer saw the need
for censorship and the stationers needed some other excuse why they
should keep their monopoly. The authors got a pittance for their
copyright, the publishers took the lion's share of those monopoly
profits, and little has changed for three hundred years since 1710
other than that the music, movie and software industries joined in on
the scam.

In the absence of copyright, publishing would be in the same position
as any other process that requires expensive machinery and raw
materials and produces something; EG socks. We don't need any special
law or monopoly to make sure that sock manufacturers can make a profit
after buying the necessary machinery and raw materials to mass-produce
socks. And home knitting is not killing the sock industry! And the
writers and artists might even be better off.


I understand perfectly why Free software is important. I've been using
Free software myself for 12+ years (slackware, redhat, bsd, debian,
ubuntu). And I think I understandmot of the opinions on Free software
vs. Proprietary and DRM vs. 'proprietary' formats vs. 'open'
standards.  I'm just wondering what the general Pirate Party position
is, and the reasoning behind it. Do we even all agree on one position?

> While most leery of joining any club that would have me as a member, I
> think I "get" the Pirate Party far more than you do. Free software is
> about being in total control of the general-purpose computing device in
> front of you. Reasonable copyright laws are about companies being taken
> away from this fairytale idea that they can offer a movie, "For you to
> own" on VHS or DVD, and then expect you to pay for it, at the same
> quality, another four or five times. Extend the copyright terms, shove
> it on a Blu-Ray disc, and sue the customer if they've put a copy on
> youtube from a 20+ year-old VHS tape? Yeah, right.

This "reply" doesn't really answer any of what I asked, and given your
condescending attitude I think this club may be better of without you
as a member.