Verily I say unto thee, that Chris Ahlstrom spake thusly:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, cc belched out this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> It's nice to say that news/music/movies/ software/etc. should be
>> provided for free, but it costs money to create and supply that
>> content in the first place.
The issue is not costs, but licensing. I have no problem paying for
someone's labour and expenses, but I resent being subjugated by the
terms of restrictive licensing that dictates what I may do with the
results of that labour, including my right to share it with others.
When I pay for something, I expect to own it, and as such, have the
right to do anything I want with it. But "licensing" is not a sale,
because that which is being paid for is not "property", it's access
rights to something which should not be restricted, the utilisation
of our perceptions and memory. Licensing is an assertion of *power*
over others' *minds*, and as such, is profoundly immoral.
The fact that those who peddle these licenses can't contrive a more
ethical means of deriving an income from their labour, isn't really
my problem. Business is an opportunity, not a right.
> Software is just a copy
Yes, and to compound the issue, not only are we expected to pay for
the "right" to utilise our own memory and perceptions of "licensed"
works, but in fact we are expected to pay for that right every time
a new copy of that work is made. As I've mentioned before - this is
analogous to being paid in perpetuity for just a single day's work,
purely because you left your photograph sitting on your (otherwise)
unoccupied desk.
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which
| the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf
| denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty.
| Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of
| the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today
| among human creatures." ~ Abraham Lincoln
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
23:09:36 up 9 days, 1:30, 4 users, load average: 0.24, 0.15, 0.12
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